Powerhouse builds

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Okay, so i'm thinking of making a few powerhouse builds to play NWN through, paticularly these:

one that's good at melee with swords and the ability to wear most if not all high-end armors.
Second, a ranged fighter, bow/crossbow, some kind of ranger comes to mind here.
and lastly a magic type, wizard/sorcerer or bard.

I want to do with these as i did with my monk, make them tough as can be.
I had a evil half-orc monk (-2 cha and int, +2 str) and kept the CHA at 6. this allowed me to get 16 STR, 14 DEX, 15 CON, 14 WIS, and 10 INT.
Even though i had the low intelligence, i only needed points in persuade to make up for my CHA, some points in heal to be able to use healing kits effectively, and a few in dicipline to counter knockdown/called shot/ect.
for feats i got improved critical and weapon focus for unarmed strike, dodge, toughness, improved critical, and some others.

I thought it was a neat build, worked like a charm too, but i really decided that for a fighter class, i wanted to use those plate mails, and be able to wield these neat swords, preferrably two!
And of course, after that i would want to make a ranged character, who could lay death on enemies before even being touched, and a spellcaster that could call the fires of hell to pour down from the skies!

So, i'm asking you here, for the three aforementioned builds, what would be the best setup, that is viable all the way to SoU ?
Multiclassing is fine, as long as the main point of the build stays.

 

Have you had a look at the Epic Builds page on Bioware's NWN site? It's got a few decent builds. For your purposes I recommend the Undead Lord and another Bard/Cleric/RDD build there, which I forgot the name for.

OTOH, Bard 15/Cleric 15/RDD 10 gets you Devastating Critical, about 30 STR end game, lvl 8 cleric buffs, lvl 6 bard spells, almost 60-70 damage per hit, non critical, end game AC of approximately 50-60 without magical items etc etc etc. You can just go into God mode...its quicker!

Now, if you want something that is not so laughably cheesy, yet powerful...try a lvl 40 Wizard!

 

Paladin/CoT/Weaponmaster if you can get it right.
Fighter/Weapomnaster/Dwarven Defender... hard to get it wrong

Not like plain Fighter/Weaponmaster can't do it. and you won't really get past level 27 in HotU, so...

Arcane archers are only for elves with arcane spellcaster levels, so the best option for ranged ownage would be either a spellarrow (so to say) or perhaps a plain Fighter/Ranger. Might add Rogue Levels if you feel like it. Or whatever matching PrC strikes your fancy.

Bah, Epic Wizard. I guess. Hehe.

Hint: Epic Wizard with rogue levels could give you some nice abilities above those of a normal Epic Wizard for a relatively small cost.

 

Try a Sorcerer 1 / Paladin X / RDD 10. Very easy to start of HotU with it. There's also the option of a Bard 1 / Fighter X / RDD 10 (different mainly for alignment restriction reasons), but I like to get the Paladin's Charisma bonus to saves.

If you're deciding between the two: If you go Pal/Sor/RDD, you have to be lawful good, but at least you can use wands and cast mage spells from scrolls (armor check applies, however). If you go Ftr/Bard/RDD, you can be any non-lawful alignment you want, and I don't believe Bard spells are subject to an armor check penalty. Could be wrong though. However, you can also use all the bard-specific items in the game. (I still prefer the Paladin route, myself).

It makes HotU almost too easy. Imagine a Paladin with around 24 Strength, 18 Charisma and a fire breath weapon, ALL LEGAL. Very fun.

 

I'm in chapter 2 with the arcane archer now, though i've skipped the feat that gives +2 to will saves.

she is doing pretty good, but i'm probably going to switch to either one of the magic/melee builds you've adviced, because the ranged fighting does get a bit boring for me personally.

i can reccomend the build though, if you have grimmie tag along, instruct your familiar to fight to the death and carry a few monster summoning wands as soon as you can get them (i got them in act 2 myself) then you have a nice meatwall stalling the enemies, and you can pick off most monsters with only a few shots.

 

Using the PRC-Pack, the possibilities for strong characters are legion.

A simple Wizard/Bonded Summoner can wipe out whole hordes of enemies just by buffing the elemental (Share Spells) and leaning back to watch the carnage.

A Necromancer/Red Wizard is equally efficient. I played one through HotU. Remember the Bebilith? Just relying on the Red Wizards Spell Power ability, the poor beast was toast with just one 'Wail of the Banshee'. Later, I made him a Lich.

With the new version of the PRC-Pack, there comes a load of new necromancy spells from 'Libris Mortis'. So, necromancers are much more fun now. The only drawback is that they not have implemented 'Spectral Hand' yet.

 

Keep in mind that whatever build you make you'll probably only hit about lvl 28 in a straight solo-run through NWN OC and then Hotu.

for a melee class:
FighterXX/Bard 1/Red dragon disc 10 is a power-house for sure. RDD gives you fire immunity (big advantage), good stat boosts and of course, a mini-dragon breath. I like using greatswords myself, less issues busting through stoneskins on caster classes. Combine it with knockdown and you just smoosh a caster fast. With the right items and feats, this build is powerful enough it just makes HotU a boring tour of click and kill without need for any downtime or buffing at all.

The items in HotU get ridiculously overpowered at the end. I think I ended up with 10-20 resistance to EVERY damage type, 14 HP regen per round, 40 armor, a terribly huge strength and nearly 500 health (all before any kind of buff, and you can buff nearly everything with UMD if you wanted to). Mephi went down without a single potion being used and I was at maybe 1/3 health.

 

@Krypto: What you said might hold good for a casual build which the OP would play through the OC and HoTU campaign...however, if he wanted his build to have a degree of survivability, I reckon the Bard 1/RDD 10/Fighter X is not going to be sufficiently versatile to survive...especially by itself...I would highly recommend that he multiclass with a caster class...for instance 13-15 lvls of cleric in that build would be great, going for CoT and FTR levels instead of RDD...Clerics are able to get their stats up sky high anyway.

Besides...its not as cheesy!

 

I played a Human Fighter (6)/Champ of Torm(6)/Weaponmaster(x) and wielded a Scythe. I started with these stats:

Str 15; Dex 13; Con 16; Int 13; Wis 8; Cha 10

Every 4 levels I consistently added +1 STR. And distributed skill points in discipline, lore, and Tumble for AC. The point of this build is to achieve damaging critical hits (x5 for scythe after achieving WM7) but more importantly maximising your to hit. So with the right weapon, all enemies become easy to hit targets. I made sure in epic levels I picked every strength feat and any feat which improved my ability to hit enemies. Plus with 6 levels of COT at least you get an additional +3 to saving throws. I still managed to pick up all the good non epic feats like Dodge, Mobility, WFocus, Wspecilisation, Toughness, Improve Critical, Spring Attack, Expertise, Whirlwind Attack, Weapon Prof Exotic.

 

Rangers never did much for me. You can make a better archer with a vanilla Fighter thanks to all the feats they get. If you want to try something different, maybe try a Halfling slinger or axe thrower Fighter/Rogue.

The thing with archers is you want to do lots of damage. There's basically three ways to do this: Arcane Archer, Rogue for sneak attack damage (as long as you're reasonably close to the enemy) or Ranger with Bane of Enemies. Bane only comes in the Epic levels, so you'll be doing pretty poor damage with ranged weapons until you get that Epic feat.

 

@DR: I think that bard spells are subject to spell failure while in armour. Singing OTOH, isn't.

 

Halfling Ranger(21)Rogue(19)

6 STR 20 DEx 12 INt whatever you have left wis and charisma

Throwing axes and shield

Bane of enemies feat, Epic dodge


Elf
Monk(9)Bard(3)Arcane Archer(28)
8 STr 18 DEx 8 con 12 int 18 Wisdom 8 charisma
PUt all points into wisdom

Zen Archery Feat, CAlled shot, ETC

Super speed, Crit 90's, hit an average of 50 some, have insane monk speed, CAn't get flat footed because all your stats are in wisdom, 75+ Attack bonus, 90 some ARmor Class, Epic discipline, Dumped Tumble, 80 some Spot skill... What more could you ask for?


Halfling archer dood
Rogue(33)Fighter(6)Shadowdancer(1)

20 starting dex, at least 12 int for skills

Improved sneak X

Pretty straightforward... Get 15 rogue pre epic and spend your epic feats on IMproved sneak, When you take fighter dump discipline and take epic weapon specialization.... YOu'll sneak 110+ with a bow.

If you want less cheese, Don't take Shadowdancer but 3 monk instead for monk speed and Corner Sneaking.

 

My favorite is 29sorc/10pm/1pal Still good amount of spells, immune to crits, and bonus to saves and disc. but then agian I mainly pvp online with builds like that, havn't really tried it single player Can get auto still spell III as well and wear full plate, I like it anyway

 

Kinda topic related. I pondered on making a new post, but it seemed rather pointless. It's power build related after all, heh.

I've been rumbling along with a Fighter 6/Rogue 3/Weapon Master 7.
I've got all the obvious feats with the WM, and the rogue levels are there so I can handle traps and locks myself. (Throughout the early parts of HotU I've come to realize that he can bash and shrug of anything anyways, so they were rather pointless, but nevermind that.)

What I was wondering was, would I recieve any more advantages besides more Ki strikes from continued leveling with the WM, or should I rather focus on the Fighter levels to get boatloads of feats? I've never played into Epic levels before, so I don't know how feat progression continues up there.

While I'm at it, would it be any point to leveling as the rogue to get some of it's free feats since I've already foolishly got some, or should I pretend I never even leveled as it?

 

I have just finished the game again with a fighter x / weaponsmaster 7 specialising is bastard swords. I really is not worth going past 7 levels in weapons master as the Ki feat is next to useless. You will be scoring criticals so often that you do not need the added damage of a normal strike. I would just stick with the fighter.

 

The only advantage to continuing to level as a WM is the additional +1 AB that you get every five levels. As HotU doesn't have super-high AC, this isn't a problem. Epic levelling continues in pretty much the same way as pre-epic, except classes having extra bonus feats. Your fighter will still have an extra one every 2 levels.

The number of enemies who are sneak-attack immune (Note: they will also be Critical immune) rises considerably in HotU, so more Rogue levels aren't advisable. I'd only take another one near the end of the game if you were to skill dump into Tumble to increase your AC.

I'd advise more Fighter levels. You'd likely get more benefit from a bunch more feats than from a negated sneak attack or a couple more Ki attacks.

 

Hmm.. It seems I must disagree after continued leveling as the fighter after all.

The bonus feats are selected out from a pool of fighter-feats, and I've already selected all the good, and semi-good ones. Leveling as a fighter to get Improved Power Attack and Blind Fight and all the other IMHO fairly useless feats don't really catch my fancy. I could of course specialize in another weapon, bow or crossbow come to mind, but it's not very Weapon Master-ish, is it?

Leveling as the rogue however will atleast give me the fancy-pants rogue free-feats. Uncanny dodge, sneak attacks, Evasion, aaannd.. That's all I can remember at the moment.
Unless the two classes give different bonuses on the actual fighting skills? Increased HP is an obvious one, but I'm already past 400 after finding those +10 constitution boots, so I'm set there!

By now I *really* wish I didn't pick those rogue levels way back in early SoU. Chunking in a bit of wizard in there could get quite fun, It'd even allow me to get that little pixie familiar, or even Knock for the locks, but nay.

Ahwell, gives me a reason to play it through again! Whereas the OC have no replay value, HotU has it in abundance if you ask me! (Although the final encounter was a bit less epic than I had imagined)

 

You really have to plan fighter builds well. Take the Fighter-only feats when you get the bonus and for regular feats choose the non-Fighter stuff.

 

To add a disclaimer: When I advised adding Fighter levels, I wasn't really advocating playing as a Fighter. I simply felt thet'd be most appropriate for that build (after all, what use is Evasion is you have rubbish Reflex saves?).

I personally never play straight fighters as I find them rather boring when all you do is click and slash.

 

And gulp the odd potion of Heal. ^^"

Ahwell, I kinda like the good old "carve a path" tactic! Point -> click -> Dead. Repeat.
I'd imagine playing a wizard class would get rather annoying in HotU? There's so few places to rest, and the wizards live and breathe on theire frequent rests. The fighter works as long as his pouch is fully laden with potions.

Had loads of fun importing him into the OC, running around in the Prison district, giggling as I aroused all the hundreds (?) of prisoners to attack me all at once, attack one of them, and watch the ensuing carnage in amusement as Great Cleave works it's magic


Anyways, I'm leading the topic on a merry off-topic chase. Forgive me