114 réponses à ce sujet

[Aelis Eine]

The main thing to know about domains is that most domains are useless unless the module says they've been modified to not be useless.

As a general rule of thumb, take Trickery Domain and take either:
- Magic (if Caster Cleric)
- War (if Dex or Monk Melee Cleric)
- Strength (if Strength Cleric)
- or Travel (if module does not give Haste items)

[MagicalMaster]

[quote]Elhanan wrote...

And they are called Saving Throws for a reason. Planning a build on the assumption of failure does not seem reasoned to me.[/quote]
A level 5 Fighter with 14 wisdom has 3 Will save.  Let's say you picked up Spellcraft to get another +1 Saving Throws for 4 Will Save.  An enemy level 3 cleric casting Hold Person with 16 Wisdom and Spell Focus: Enchantment will have a DC of 18 -- meaning you're going to fail on a 13 or less, which is 65% of the time.  That's with 14 Wisdom fighting a level 3 enemy WITHOUT greater spell focus and fairly low casting score.

So yes, you should effectively assume you're going to fail -- I've only seen one module (counting both campaign modules and PWs) where an emphasis was placed on Will saving throws for Fighter types -- and that was only in high epic levels assuming you had tons of saving throw feats.

[quote]Aelis Eine wrote...

I'm serious here. You really will make a better fighter with a Cleric.[/quote]
Generally true but a fighter is still perfectly fine -- Fighters don't seriously fall behind other classes until at least the early teens.  And a level 40 fighter is considerably stronger than most people give it credit for.  I'm not saying it's not weak compared to multi-classed builds but it's not as awful as people think (unless we're assuming everyone is playing a Sorcerer/Paladin/Monk, Fighter/WM/Rogue, or other similar power builds).  So if he wants to learn a pure fighter to start, that's all right.  It's definitely a lot simpler than a cleric and doesn't require knowing how to manage combat buffs.

[quote]Aelis Eine wrote...

On the other hand, you get Summon Badger.[/quote]
Note that summons eat 20% of your XP which is generally a bad thing in campaigns.

[quote]Aelis Eine wrote...

The way NWN works is you are either immune to something or you will die to it. Many module designers throw hordes of the same mob at you that use some kind of gimmick like Basilisks with Stone Gaze to fish for a 1 roll and then expects you watch paint dry as the mob tries to kill you while you are paralyzed for 40 minutes. That's why I am a huge proponent of immunities and pro-active defenses like Blind/Silence/Knockdown, which Clerics have in bucketloads.[/quote]
Sad but true.

[quote]Aelis Eine wrote...

And the thing is, a Cleric is not going to fight very differently from a Fighter. Once you get your buffs running...[/quote]
So after you spend nearly a full minute buffing and need to watch buff durations both long and short term and need to manage a spellbook they're basically the same

[quote]Aelis Eine wrote...

Fighters don't even make very good tanks - they don't get any AC or mitigation buffs exclusive to them. Expertise and Epic Damage Reduction are available to every class. So Wizard/Pale Masters are higher DPS when tanking, while Dwarven Defender/Pale Masters with low level Bard or Wizard offer better mitigation.[/quote]
Fighters are quite good tanks until the mid to late teens.  They just begin to get really outscaled and gain no key class features once you close in on epic levels and push past into them.

[quote]Elhanan wrote...

Personally, not much into Clerical spell duration being a cornerstone of a build. With Dispels and the like, I prefer a more permanent foundation. [/quote]
As mentioned, you can easily have 5+ "back-up" spells for the main buffs that make you better than a fighter at higher levels.  It's not an issue.

[quote]henesua wrote...

This build might be combat inferior for a pure fighter in the OC, but given that PWs were mentioned there are most likely other factors involved than the pure numbers in combat for Elhanan's making such a choice.[/quote]
SoU was what the OP mentioned and I don't recall Elhanan making an RP arguments here.  Nor does the game support making an effective fighter with 14 int/14 wis/14 cha -- that's just not how the mechanics work.

[quote]henesua wrote...

Granted the OP is discussing the original campaign. So I don't mean this as any criticism of you, MM. It is clear to me that you are talking about vanilla NWN. BUT one must keep in mind that there are so many ways to customize the game that there is no such thing as an optimized build across all environments.[/quote]
I'm definitely talking about at least every single campaign module and PW I've seen with one possible exception.  And even in that exception I'm not even sure going past 8 wis is really needed.

[quote]Westan Willows wrote...

Right now I am learning Fighter. I'll learn Cleric later. That Domain stuff overloads me. [/quote]
As  mentioned, you can basically ignore domains and be perfectly fine -- but you generally want Trickery and one other domain.

[quote]Aelis Eine wrote...

As a general rule of thumb, take Trickery Domain and take either:
- Magic (if Caster Cleric)
- War (if Dex or Monk Melee Cleric)
- Strength (if Strength Cleric)
- or Travel (if module does not give Haste items)[/quote]
Plant for Barkskin is another choice -- frees up amulet slot.  Generally Travel or War is better but Plant isn't bad.

Modifié par MagicalMaster, 21 décembre 2013 - 03:38 .

[Elhanan]

MagicalMaster wrote...

A level 5 Fighter with 14 wisdom has 3 Will save.  Let's say you picked up Spellcraft to get another +1 Saving Throws for 4 Will Save.  An enemy level 3 cleric casting Hold Person with 16 Wisdom and Spell Focus: Enchantment will have a DC of 18 -- meaning you're going to fail on a 13 or less, which is 65% of the time.  That's with 14 Wisdom fighting a level 3 enemy WITHOUT greater spell focus and fairly low casting score.

So yes, you should effectively assume you're going to fail -- I've only seen one module (counting both campaign modules and PWs) where an emphasis was placed on Will saving throws for Fighter types -- and that was only in high epic levels assuming you had tons of saving throw feats.


As mentioned, you can easily have 5+ "back-up" spells for the main buffs that make you better than a fighter at higher levels.  It's not an issue.


SoU was what the OP mentioned and I don't recall Elhanan making an RP arguments here.  Nor does the game support making an effective fighter with 14 int/14 wis/14 cha -- that's just not how the mechanics work.

I'm definitely talking about at least every single campaign module and PW I've seen with one possible exception.  And even in that exception I'm not even sure going past 8 wis is really needed.

Dwarves get another +2 vs Spells. And Iron Will worked very well on a low lvl (non-Epic) PW, so SoU should be fine, too.

Cleric has to re-cast, where a Ftr gets to attack again.

And yet, here I am with several effective Ftr builds designed just like that. Perhaps they are not up to PvP, but they do fine elsewhere.

Guess our experiences differ.

[Shadooow]

Elhanan wrote...

Dwarves get another +2 vs Spells. And Iron Will worked very well on a low lvl (non-Epic) PW, so SoU should be fine, too.

Cleric has to re-cast, where a Ftr gets to attack again.

And yet, here I am with several effective Ftr builds designed just like that. Perhaps they are not up to PvP, but they do fine elsewhere.

Guess our experiences differ.

if you only play SP modules, you could in most modules play anything you want even the craft master (worse build for nwn ever) because these modules are usually designed not to be very difficult and to be completeable with even pure fighters. Not to mention that you can always change difficulty settings if you find some battle too hard and try it again.

Also, most SP modules are designed for lvls 1-20 where the class power differences aren't that big, so you can play pure fighter without problems, in lvl 20 environment it is actually not that bad choice due to the ammount of feats.

But in Persistent Worlds, you would soon discover the all these weaknesses in yor build that MM points because PWs are usually balanced for strongest characters, no matter if its RP or Action style of game, on the contrary Action modules usually have easier monsters and leveling but then you gonna fail in pvp or whatever is the module focus.

So thats it, I agree with all that MM wrote, your build sucks, putting wis is total waste, you just don't know it because you play modules where you can't notice the difference. So the question is whether you really want to know how to build better or play your style in which case I don't understand what you expect from this topic.

[MagicalMaster]

Elhanan wrote...

Dwarves get another +2 vs Spells. And Iron Will worked very well on a low lvl (non-Epic) PW, so SoU should be fine, too.

Okay, so a 14 wisdom Dwarf with Iron Will against a VERY weak enemy caster will STILL fail the throw 45% of the time.  That's an enemy half your level with terrible stats!  Now imagine a fear aura of a Dragon or something.

Elhanan wrote...

Cleric has to re-cast, where a Ftr gets to attack again.

Spending 10% of the time re-casting to be 50% more effective the rest of the time is significantly better.

Elhanan wrote...

And yet, here I am with several effective Ftr builds designed just like that. Perhaps they are not up to PvP, but they do fine elsewhere.

I haven't mentioned PvP yet.

[MagicalMaster]

ShaDoOoW wrote...

So the question is whether you really want to know how to build better or play your style in which case I don't understand what you expect from this topic.

To be fair, he didn't start the topic.  But yeah, he's giving bad advice to others -- not out of malice as far as I can tell, simply due to not understanding game mechanics as well.

[Rolo Kipp]

<intrigued...>

Skeaver (pure fighter) is my first-in character for new environments. He is always a strength build and plays an aggressive style. He also dies a lot, but he's great fun to relax with and gives me lots of time to explore a new mod.

Head to head against Cestus Dei (fighter cleric), my second oldest character (after Rolo), particularly around lvl 20, Cestus *owns* Skeaver, whether Cestus is the PC or the NPC, so I concur in general with MM & Shad. Skeaver is still very fun to run :-)

Interestingly, I've never taken Trickery (it is anethema to Cestus), but almost always go with Strength & War. What is the "must-have" from Trickery?

Note: RP is embedded in my play, regardless of build or character. I'd literally die rather than build ignoring my character's back-story. That said, I have improved my builds considerably reading threads like this. I still consider Webshaman's Melee Mage one of the most inspired adaptations of mechanics into gameplay I've ever read :-)

<...in spite of himself>

[Elhanan]

ShaDoOoW wrote...

if you only play SP modules, you could in most modules play anything you want even the craft master (worse build for nwn ever) because these modules are usually designed not to be very difficult and to be completeable with even pure fighters. Not to mention that you can always change difficulty settings if you find some battle too hard and try it again.

Also, most SP modules are designed for lvls 1-20 where the class power differences aren't that big, so you can play pure fighter without problems, in lvl 20 environment it is actually not that bad choice due to the ammount of feats.

But in Persistent Worlds, you would soon discover the all these weaknesses in yor build that MM points because PWs are usually balanced for strongest characters, no matter if its RP or Action style of game, on the contrary Action modules usually have easier monsters and leveling but then you gonna fail in pvp or whatever is the module focus.

So thats it, I agree with all that MM wrote, your build sucks, putting wis is total waste, you just don't know it because you play modules where you can't notice the difference. So the question is whether you really want to know how to build better or play your style in which case I don't understand what you expect from this topic.

Should not assume. Played a ton of mods, 5 yrs in a on-line Campaign, and have spent several yrs on various PW's.
Would you like that crow to go?

Modifié par Elhanan, 21 décembre 2013 - 05:42 .

[Elhanan]

MagicalMaster wrote...

Okay, so a 14 wisdom Dwarf with Iron Will against a VERY weak enemy caster will STILL fail the throw 45% of the time.  That's an enemy half your level with terrible stats!  Now imagine a fear aura of a Dragon or something.

Spending 10% of the time re-casting to be 50% more effective the rest of the time is significantly better.

I haven't mentioned PvP yet.

And Luck of Heroes; remember.

Prefer to have gas remain in the tank rather than have to stop for several refills.

Did not have to, but it was certainly headed that way from someone.

[MagicalMaster]

Rolo Kipp wrote...

What is the "must-have" from Trickery?

Improved Invisibility.  50% less damage taken from physical attacks, 25% less taken if the attacker has Blind Fight.

Elhanan wrote...

Should not assume. Played a ton of mods, 5 yrs in a on-line Campaign, and have spent several yrs on various PW's. Would you like that crow to go?

Peraps you could name some of these PWs and mods where you found yourself making the important Will saves as a fighter and drinking a Clarity Potion, getting an immunity item, or getting a spell cast on you wasn't a far better option?

Elhanan wrote...

And Luck of Heroes; remember.

Now we're "only" failing it 40% of the time WITH a dwarf with 14 wisdon AND Iron Will AND Luck of Heroes AND Spellcraft versus a enemy half your level with bad stats!  How does that sound good to you?

Elhanan wrote...

Prefer to have gas remain in the tank rather than have to stop for several refills.

What does this even mean?  You basically saying "In a race over a distance of 100 miles, I'd rather pick a car that can only go 40 MPH that doesn't need to refuel instead of a car that goes 60 MPH but has to spend 5 minutes every hour refueling?"

Guess which car is going to win the race every time?

Elhanan wrote...

Did not have to, but it was certainly headed that way from someone.

From who?  Not from ShaDoOoW.  And being a level 40 fighter facing a level 40 sorcerer is only PvP is a human is controlling both characters -- plenty of times where you have to fight "PC characters" controlled by the AI.

Modifié par MagicalMaster, 21 décembre 2013 - 06:02 .

[Rolo Kipp]

<backing...>

Ahhh...
Neither Skeaver nor Cestus ever stealth, which won't change. I'll just have to keep taking punishment ;-)

My other three main characters all spend *most* of their time skulking about, but have their own means for it.

Still, I might play with Trickery next time I have the opportunity. Thanks.

<...into the shadows again>

Modifié par Rolo Kipp, 21 décembre 2013 - 06:16 .

[MagicalMaster]

The invisibility part of it doesn't matter -- it's the "concealment." You're not using it to sneak anywhere and it still works against enemies with True Seeing. It's an incredible spell.

[Westan Willows]

I am not going to put 6 ability points into Wis. A potion of Clarity stops the mine spells. I gave up Lore for Tumble. I am not going to spend skill points for spellcraft. I am hitting for more damage and taking less damage so I am using less potions of heal. I take less damage because my opponent goes DOWN quicker.

[Elhanan]

MagicalMaster wrote...

Peraps you could name some of these PWs and mods where you found yourself making the important Will saves as a fighter and drinking a Clarity Potion, getting an immunity item, or getting a spell cast on you wasn't a far better option?

Now we're "only" failing it 40% of the time WITH a dwarf with 14 wisdon AND Iron Will AND Luck of Heroes AND Spellcraft versus a enemy half your level with bad stats!  How does that sound good to you?

What does this even mean?  You basically saying "In a race over a distance of 100 miles, I'd rather pick a car that can only go 40 MPH that doesn't need to refuel instead of a car that goes 60 MPH but has to spend 5 minutes every hour refueling?"

Guess which car is going to win the race every time?

From who?  Not from ShaDoOoW.  And being a level 40 fighter facing a level 40 sorcerer is only PvP is a human is controlling both characters -- plenty of times where you have to fight "PC characters" controlled by the AI.

I could, but I won't. And I must have missed the post where I said that trying to boost WILL was better than immunity. Words taste so much better when self fed.

It doesn't, as I usually am satisfied with LoH at start. IW comes later in the build right before meeting straw men.

Hare; meet tortoise.

Done here; thanks for playing.

[Aelis Eine]

MagicalMaster wrote...

Generally true but a fighter is still perfectly fine -- Fighters don't seriously fall behind other classes until at least the early teens.  And a level 40 fighter is considerably stronger than most people give it credit for.  I'm not saying it's not weak compared to multi-classed builds but it's not as awful as people think (unless we're assuming everyone is playing a Sorcerer/Paladin/Monk, Fighter/WM/Rogue, or other similar power builds).  So if he wants to learn a pure fighter to start, that's all right.  It's definitely a lot simpler than a cleric and doesn't require knowing how to manage combat buffs.

Once upon a time, as a random thought exercise, I tried to make a high level Fighter work. The conclusion I arrived at was to burn so many feats out of necessity that only a Fighter would be able to pull it off.

Something with the following:

1. Full two weapon tree (Ambi+2WF+I2WF)
2. Full Kukri specialization (WF+EWF+WS+EWS+Imp Crit)
3. Imp Expertise
4. Imp KD
5. Full archery and Longbow feats (Point Blank+Rapid+WF+EWF+WS+ES+Imp Crit)

Can even throw in Alertness and Iron Will in for good measure to take Harper Scout for +2 Dex, a Tumble dump and access to stealth skills. Hotkey Kukri/Kukri, Longbow and Kukri/Shield and switch fighting styles depending on what the situation demands. It's not a bad character, but still lags behind specialized Tanks/Melee or Ranged DPS. With 10 levels of Shadowdancer and Epic Dodge, it might work as a real tank though.

Note that summons eat 20% of your XP which is generally a bad thing in campaigns.

The HP pool at level 1 is too low to risk fighting alone. I'd rather lose the 20% to have a badger bite the dust for me when the Half-Orc Barbarian enemy crits on his Greataxe, until my HP pool is enough to stand it, i.e. around 30-40HP at level 3-4.

So after you spend nearly a full minute buffing and need to watch buff durations both long and short term and need to manage a spellbook they're basically the same

I consider buff maintenance as part of a melee character's core gameplay in NWN. Even without the Cleric's spellbook a melee character typically dips into Rogue for UMD or hoards a bunch of spell cast items like Scabbard of Blessing and Potion of Aid to increase performance at the very least.

Fighters are quite good tanks until the mid to late teens.  They just begin to get really outscaled and gain no key class features once you close in on epic levels and push past into them.

Why do you say that? There's like, two mitigation feats available to Fighters pre-epic: Expertise and Improved Expertise. If you're talking about tanking, what's stopping the Barbarian or Monk or Dwarven Defender, or even a Cleric or Paladin with Divine Shield from taking Improved Expertise and adding that to their own unique class features, which actually offer damage mitigation?

Suppose I balance a boss to do a melee damage burst on a DD or Barbarian tank in Improved Expertise at the start of their low HP phase. That burst is designed to burn the tank down in 6 seconds, requiring very serious powerheals from the Cleric. A Fighter that tries to tank that may very well go splat and cause a wipe.

The unique thing a Fighter gets is Weapon Spec, and NWN has far more damage dealing feats than defensive feats, so based on that I would say a Fighter leans more towards DPS.

Plant for Barkskin is another choice -- frees up amulet slot.  Generally Travel or War is better but Plant isn't bad.

Left that out because I usually just slap an AC amulet on to save myself one buff.

Westan Willows wrote...

Right now I am learning Fighter. I'll learn Cleric later. That Domain stuff overloads me.

If you're really intent on being a Fighter, at least plan a multiclass into Dwarven Defender or Weapon Master. That way you get class features that help you fight better. As a Dwarven Defender you get scaling, always-on damage reduction. It will reach a point where weak enemies can hit you and you won't even take damage. You also become immune to Sneak Attacks. As a Weapon Master you gain more accuracy with your hits, you will crit a lot more often and you will crit very hard. If you want to be a straight up fighter, both classes are very very worth looking into, depending on the direction you want to take.

Otherwise, by Fighter 10 or so you run out of good feats to take and find yourself staring at a long list of unattractive options. You really don't want to reach a point where you have to decide between Improved Initiative, Dirty Fighting or Improved Parry for your feat (Hint: They're all awful).

Elhanan wrote...

Should not assume. Played a ton of mods, 5 yrs in a on-line Campaign, and have spent several yrs on various PW's. Would you like that crow to go?

I remember seeing Elhanan's username on Dawn of Nordock many years back, and he's been on the forums since the days of Cinnabar Din. Now, Dawn of Nordock is based on Nordock, so it's one of the easier PWs. I personally haven't seen him on some of the more hardcore, powergamey servers.

Side note: That's fair enough really. A lot of those servers left me with a very bad aftertaste. They're usually very poorly designed, i.e. focusing too much on power creep and bigger numbers, with very little focus on tactics. This boss with 100AC and 70 saves across the board couldn't survive your blade? Try the next boss with 110AC and 75 saves! And the bosses are all the same - nothing but autoattackers with DM Fast movement speed, except with different skins and sometimes on hit effects like casting Ice Storm on you every time you hit them or something. And yes, this even happens on low magic RP servers.

That's a big reason why I left NWN to get my hardcore powergamey DPS-parsing, dungeon-running fix, I only play NWN for the RP nowadays. But that's something for another thread. 

Modifié par Aelis Eine, 21 décembre 2013 - 01:48 .

[MagicalMaster]

Aelis Eine wrote...

Once upon a time, as a random thought exercise, I tried to make a high level Fighter work.

You're overthinking it.  Keep it to one melee weapon focus and grab a bunch of feats pre-epic -- can get a ton of combat feats (everything from Imp Expertise to Imp Disarm to Imp Knockdown to Great Cleave) and pick up all of the saving throw feats if you want.

In epic,, grab Great Str VII, EWF, EWS, AS, EP, OC, DC, and Epic Toughness IV.

Ta-da.  You have a fighter with more combat abilities/saves/HP than a WM at the cost of a lot of offense.  Is it weaker than a Fighter/WM?  Yes.  Is it still decent?  Yes.

Aelis Eine wrote...

The HP pool at level 1 is too low to risk fighting alone. I'd rather lose the 20% to have a badger bite the dust for me when the Half-Orc Barbarian enemy crits on his Greataxe, until my HP pool is enough to stand it, i.e. around 30-40HP at level 3-4.

If you're facing Half Orc Barbarians who can do that at level one, the module is seriously screwed up balance wise.  You don't send a PC against a copy-cat opponent at level one where it comes down to RNG.

Aelis Eine wrote...

I consider buff maintenance as part of a melee character's core gameplay in NWN. Even without the Cleric's spellbook a melee character typically dips into Rogue for UMD or hoards a bunch of spell cast items like Scabbard of Blessing and Potion of Aid to increase performance at the very least.

No, most players actually don't chug Bull's Strength/Bless/Aid potions -- even though doing so would be a large performance increase.  It's a difficult thing to realize how un-optimally most people play games.  They just get whatever stats they can on gear, drink healing potions when needed, and MAYBE use Clarity potions for mind affecting stuff.  They don't even consider constantly using buff potions (which, incidentally, are pretty stupid in my humble opinion).

Aelis Eine wrote...

Why do you say that? There's like, two mitigation feats available to Fighters pre-epic: Expertise and Improved Expertise. If you're talking about tanking, what's stopping the Barbarian or Monk or Dwarven Defender, or even a Cleric or Paladin with Divine Shield from taking Improved Expertise and adding that to their own unique class features, which actually offer damage mitigation?

High AC with Full Plate (and likely Tower Shield) along with high HP.  A level 15 Barbarian shrugs off two damage per hit and has like 10% more HP, but he also lacks a ton of combat feats (human barbarian might have WF, Imp Crit, Exp, Imp Exp, Blind Fight, Toughness, Heavy Armor Proficiency while a fighter could have those along with PA/Cleave/Great Cleave/Imp KD/Imp Disarm/Called Shot/Mobility/Spring Attack/saving throw feats/etc).

Likewise, a Dwarven Defender is basically identical to the fighter except they shrug off 3 points of damage per hit and are Sneak Immune.

Etc.

Essentially, non of the other class features have started scaling enough for them to be significantly better than a fighter and dex bonuses aren't high enough to give dex characters more AC.

Aelis Eine wrote...

Suppose I balance a boss to do a melee damage burst on a DD or Barbarian tank in Improved Expertise at the start of their low HP phase. That burst is designed to burn the tank down in 6 seconds, requiring very serious powerheals from the Cleric. A Fighter that tries to tank that may very well go splat and cause a wipe.

If a DD or Barbarian tank can survive that at level 15, so can a fighter.  We're not talking about epic builds right now, let alone level 40 builds.

Aelis Eine wrote...

Left that out because I usually just slap an AC amulet on to save myself one buff.

Sure, but I've seen places which are super low magic and only have like +2 Amulets or places which have really powerful amulets without AC.  Environment dependent, but can be very useful.

Aelis Eine wrote...

Otherwise, by Fighter 10 or so you run out of good feats to take and find yourself staring at a long list of unattractive options. You really don't want to reach a point where you have to decide between Improved Initiative, Dirty Fighting or Improved Parry for your feat (Hint: They're all awful).

Even a level 20 fighter doesn't reach that point -- and I know that for sure because I usually test stuff with a level 40 fighter as a "baseline" for things.

Aelis Eine wrote...

That's a big reason why I left NWN to get my hardcore powergamey DPS-parsing, dungeon-running fix, I only play NWN for the RP nowadays. But that's something for another thread. 

Did you ever try Siege of the Heavens like I suggested?

[Westan Willows]

Seth is lv6 now and he loves Potions of Clarity. He has at lease +14 SR and still fails to resit spells. I see it in the combat log all the tine.

[Shadooow]

Re: Plant domain, it is also very usefull in high magic environment (at least in such where aren't higher than +7ac amulets anyway) because in such environments, haste is common (so you dont need travel), dodge is often stacked around 20 especially in party with bard (so magic isn't that usefull) and there are often amulets with more interesting properties such as regeneration, reduction etc.

not to mention that creeping doom is worthy all alone

[Westan Willows]

My fighter has a Will save of 3. His Wis is 08 and I have no will items equip. He has Luck of Heroes
and is Dwarf. I am not sure why he has will of 3 instead of 1

[henesua]

ShaDoOoW wrote...

Re: Plant domain, it is also very usefull in high magic environment (at least in such where aren't higher than +7ac amulets anyway) because in such environments, haste is common (so you dont need travel), dodge is often stacked around 20 especially in party with bard (so magic isn't that usefull) and there are often amulets with more interesting properties such as regeneration, reduction etc.

not to mention that creeping doom is worthy all alone

I like the plant domain but felt it was inappropriate for a cleric. I left in Creeping Doom  and remade the domain around "Vermin" with the Turning Ability afecting Vermin. So far its just 2. Contagion 3. Infestation of Maggots. 7. Creeping Doom. Still a work in progress, but the goal is to make the domains more interesting for more diverse clerics. It kills me that people love to play clerics for their power, and yet in the same breath rightly complain about how boring their over all design is - which has come up a few times in this thread.

Modifié par henesua, 21 décembre 2013 - 10:52 .

[Aelis Eine]

MagicalMaster wrote...

You're overthinking it.  Keep it to one melee weapon focus and grab a bunch of feats pre-epic -- can get a ton of combat feats (everything from Imp Expertise to Imp Disarm to Imp Knockdown to Great Cleave) and pick up all of the saving throw feats if you want.

Imp Disarm is nice if it works, but in many places it doesn't, or if it does, KD works just as well. I know one PW where there were KD immune mobs that were disarmable, but even on that mod, those mobs were so rare that it wasn't even worth taking just for them.

The saving throw feats... as I said immunity > saves and it's a better idea to stock up Clarity and Death Ward pots and pro-actively sneak up and KD casters or LOS kite them.

Great Cleave... can't really argue with Dev Crit but I2WF-Kukri-Finesse takes the same amount of feats.

As for Toughness... AC > HP. When you have d10 base HP it's a better idea to raise mitigation.

If you're facing Half Orc Barbarians who can do that at level one, the module is seriously screwed up balance wise.  You don't send a PC against a copy-cat opponent at level one where it comes down to RNG.

The Bioware OC did that! Level 3 fighting that one Half-Orc in some house. Was the first of a string of bad experiences.

No, most players actually don't chug Bull's Strength/Bless/Aid potions -- even though doing so would be a large performance increase.  It's a difficult thing to realize how un-optimally most people play games.  They just get whatever stats they can on gear, drink healing potions when needed, and MAYBE use Clarity potions for mind affecting stuff.  They don't even consider constantly using buff potions (which, incidentally, are pretty stupid in my humble opinion).

Then that's not really learning how to play the class is it? And a Cleric would be a more representative experience of playing an effective melee character in NWN.

From a design standpoint, the buff potions are stupid, but I've come to understand D&D is designed from the ground up to be very reliant on magic, even as a non-magic class. In DDO, cast spell items are affectionately called "clickys", and the melee characters tend to hoard entire hotbars of item swaps for clickys to the point of ridiculousness, like Hotkey 1: Equip Haste Cloak. Hotkey 2: Cast Haste on Cloak. Hotkey 3: Re-equip resist cloak of choice, rinse and repeat for Bless, Aid, Divine Power etc etc. Even in a book by Salvatore a Fighter is described as lobbing Fireballs from an amulet.

If you want to fix that, the game world has to spin the a different way, and casters need to stop getting self-cast only steroids that boost melee stats.

High AC with Full Plate (and likely Tower Shield) along with high HP.  A level 15 Barbarian shrugs off two damage per hit and has like 10% more HP, but he also lacks a ton of combat feats (human barbarian might have WF, Imp Crit, Exp, Imp Exp, Blind Fight, Toughness, Heavy Armor Proficiency while a fighter could have those along with PA/Cleave/Great Cleave/Imp KD/Imp Disarm/Called Shot/Mobility/Spring Attack/saving throw feats/etc).\\

Likewise, a Dwarven Defender is basically identical to the fighter except they shrug off 3 points of damage per hit and are Sneak Immune.

Etc.

Essentially, non of the other class features have started scaling enough for them to be significantly better than a fighter and dex bonuses aren't high enough to give dex characters more AC.

If a DD or Barbarian tank can survive that at level 15, so can a fighter.  We're not talking about epic builds right now, let alone level 40 builds.

Barbarian X/Fighter 1 can have Exp, Imp Exp and Heavy Armor, and that's all the tanking feats he needs.

Invis and Will saves can be handled by a Mage or Cleric casting the relevant immunity spell or pot, and he gets a naturally higher Reflex anyway. If a boss can be KDed or Disarmed or Call Shotted then it doesn't need to be tanked, you can just get a WM to go in and perma-KD it and it will do 0 damage for the whole fight.

Mitigating 3 damage per hit, or 2 damage with a 10% higher HP pool at level 15 is pretty significant though. What does the average mob have at level 15? 18 Strength and a +3 Longsword for an average hit of 11.5? The Barbarian is going to last 33% longer and the DD 35% longer. I'd say that's high enough to make a difference at level 15.

Even a level 20 fighter doesn't reach that point -- and I know that for sure because I usually test stuff with a level 40 fighter as a "baseline" for things.

I know, but the point is that you run out of stuff to take that has as big an impact as say, crit immunity and scaling AC with no cap, or 26/- DR, or +2 Crit range +1 Crit mod and so on.

Did you ever try Siege of the Heavens like I suggested?

It's not a PW

henesua wrote...
I like the plant domain but felt it was inappropriate for a cleric. I left in Creeping Doom  and remade the domain around "Vermin" with the Turning Ability afecting Vermin. So far its just 2. Contagion 3. Infestation of Maggots. 7. Creeping Doom. Still a work in progress, but the goal is to make the domains more interesting for more diverse clerics. It kills me that people love to play clerics for their power, and yet in the same breath rightly complain about how boring their over all design is - which has come up a few times in this thread.

Can't say I've seen anyone complaining about how boring Clerics are to play in this thread.

I have to say though, Clerics in 3E are like Ryu in Street Fighter. For one, you can't really have a party without a Cleric, unless you pick his similar but not as effective counterpart, Ken (aka Druid).

For another, it's a balanced class with options that make it effective at any range, in any role, be it melee or ranged damage, physical or magic damage, instant death, tanking, control, support or of course, healing.

For a third, because of that, and because the Cleric has a near-monopoly on one part of the RPG trinity - healing, you can't possibly make Clerics weak without changing how the game fundamentally works. It's like how Ryu is always an above average character in every iteration of Street Fighter because of how central fireballs are to that game.

So they have to be boring. The interesting stuff can go to the other classes, but the Cleric is so chock-full of fundamentals that it doesn't really have room to take anything else without stealing the thunder from another class.

Case in point: I'm going to take a swipe at MM here and say in his Fire Mountain mod, he nerfed a lot of the mage debuffs, but he kept all the Cleric buffs in place and even buffed some of them, like Undeath's Eternal Foe.

Traditionally, a mage is better support because of the debuffs, but when Bigby 5 is nerfed to -4, Negative Energy Burst doesn't drain strength and the Ray debuffs haven't been fixed to be solely Ranged Touch Attack, they can't really do a lot of debuffing. By design, debuffs should be stronger than buffs because debuffs expire when the target dies, while buffs can carry over to the next fight. So when you look at how much of a difference each class makes with regard to making enemies easier to fight, Cleric in MM's mod goes from being above average, to winning the support crown by a longshot, but it came at the Sorc/Wiz's and Bard's expense.

Modifié par Aelis Eine, 22 décembre 2013 - 02:15 .

[Shadooow]

If you're facing Half Orc Barbarians who can do that at level one, the module is seriously screwed up balance wise. You don't send a PC against a copy-cat opponent at level one where it comes down to RNG.

The Bioware OC did that! Level 3 fighting that one Half-Orc in some house. Was the first of a string of bad experiences.

but,
1) there are very strong henchmans, daelan can merely solo him, grimgnaw is also great tank
2) it is a quest boss iirc

btw good point with debuffs!

[Aelis Eine]

ShaDoOoW wrote...

but,
1) there are very strong henchmans, daelan can merely solo him, grimgnaw is also great tank
2) it is a quest boss iirc

btw good point with debuffs!

My point was that it exists That was my very first time through more than 10 years ago. Back then I didn't know that the Bioware description for the parry Bard was a lie.

[Westan Willows]

Why does Seth have a will of 3. see my previous post
btw he is lv 9

Modifié par Westan Willows, 22 décembre 2013 - 05:14 .

[Squatting Monk]

Your saves increase with level. Check out the chart on the wiki's article about the fighter.

At level 9, you have a +3 bonus to will saves. Add +1 for Luck of Heroes and -1 for the ability modifer for 8 WIS, and you have a net will save of +3.

Modifié par Squatting Monk, 22 décembre 2013 - 05:17 .