Newbie questions (again)

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1. What is ECL penalty?
2. What's the difference between deflection bonus and AC bonus?
3. Why can my rogue evade fireball spells, but not some other firebased spells (can't give example right now, don't remember)? Is it because fireball does area based damage, and other spells are directed straight towards one person?
4. What does it mean when armor has dex penalty?
5. A monk is supposed to fight with bare hands. He does bludgeon damage right? So against enemies immune to bludgeon, he's pretty useless right?
6. Is it considered cheating to use a monk decoy and just blast fireballs, or is it just a very boring way to play this game?
7. more coming up...

 

3. Why can my rogue evade fireball spells, but not some other firebased spells (can't give example right now, don't remember)? Is it because fireball does area based damage, and other spells are directed straight towards one person?

I think you're right here, certainly spells like "Flame Arrow" are directed at targets. Though if they pass through creatures (including party members) on their way to the target, they will all have to a saving throw or receive damage.

That's why I like magic missle and chromatic orb so much, you can target the enemy and not have to worry about damaging your own party. This has sometimes made using spells like "burning hands", "Azzarnoch's sorcher", "Lighting strike" etc. redundant when I've had to have tanks in front protecting my mages from melee attack.

cheers
E.I.

 

Agree to that. In a "standard" party (the way I see it), spellcaster remain behind the melee fighters. Really hard to make use of spells that also damages allies.

Anyways, I keep spitting questions: I don't really understand the difference between ambi dex and 2 weapon fighting. Are both needed for 2 weapon fighting without penalties? I think I had both, I still got penalty for my left hand when wielding two weapons. I can't get a hold of it.

 

1> Some races are stronger than others. Spell resistance, elemental resistance, innate spells and other such effects make a good amount of difference to how useful a charecter can be. In order to balance things out a race is given an ECL penalty whereby it requires more XP to gain higher levels.

2> AC can be gained from different sources and is classified into 5 parts: armour, sheild, deflection, dexterity and generic.

3> Some spells like fireball have a reflex save for half damage. Rouges and Monks have an Evasion ability. If they make that save then instead of taking 1/2 damage they take no damage. Check the spell description if it offers any such save.

4> Can you give an example? I've heard of Max Dex Bonus, but not this. Perhaps it is cursed?

5> Yes thats true. Use an Axe in such cases.

6> Its boring if used extensively. But a valid strategy none-the-less.

 

Two-Weapon Fighting Penalties

A melee fighter may choose to wield two weapons in combat, one in each hand. Although this provides a great boost in offensive prowess, it means the character cannot make use a shield and suffers defensively. Also, using two weapons effectively requires great training, and a character without the right feats is more of a liability than a benefit. The effects of feats on two weapon fighting is detailed below.

Circumstances/Primary Hand/Off Hand

Normal Penalties -6 -10
Off-hand weapon is light -4 -8
Ambidexterity feat -6 -6
Two-Weapon Fighting feat -4 -8
Off-hand weapon is light + Ambidexterity feat -4 -4
Off-hand weapon is light + Two-Weapon Fighting feat -2 -6
Ambidexteiry and Two-Weapon Fighting feat -4 -4
Off-hand weapon is light + Ambidexterity feat + Two-Weapon Fighting feat -2 -2

 

Just to qualify what Vassago wrote:

The penalties listed affect your attack rolls only.
Damage rolls dont take any penalties. You may however be hitting only very rarely.

Pick any couple of swords and start waving them around and you get attack roll penalties of 6 to your right hand weapon and 10 to your left hand weapon.

Using a small blade in your left hand,
getting the two weapon fighting feat,
each improves your attack roll by 2.

Ambidexterity means that attack rolls for both hands are calculated in the same way.

As you can see, no matter what you do, you will always carry some penalty on your attack rolls.

Honestly Dual-weilding makes little sence.
At lower levels you dont want the penalties to your attack rolls.
At higher levels you are still constrained to a maximum 5 attacks per round.

 

The problem is that they don't have itwf such as neverwinter nights has. With that feat, dual wielding could actually be useful as you would get two attacks with your offhand maximum instead of just one. As it stands, one attack with generally low damage(if the weapon is light) or horrible attack bonus(if medium) is just not worth it.

 

The real drawbacks that speaks against dual-wielding is that you lose the enhanced STR bonus that two-handed weapons receive (all melee characters should have good STR), one-handed weapons have lower base damage than two-handed weapons and there's the 5 attacks per round cap.

Early on, hitting enemies is the major problem, so getting minuses to hit is to be avoided at all costs. Especially if you haven't taken the feats for dual-wielding yet - you might consider Power Attack/Cleave more important first. Granted, if you play with Ranger and only use Light armor, you get the feats for free, but the minus to hit is still a thing to avoid.

I'd say the best time for dual-wielding is between levels 11 and 15. Going from 3 attacks per round to 4 (I'm talking about warriors here) is a good tradeoff since you have good BAB, weapons with to hit bonuses and the various buff spells from party's cleric by then. However, if you like to use Haste as well (you should, honestly) you're already at the attack rate cap, so your progression pretty much ends here if you dual-wield.

 

Another good thing about dualing is that you get abilities from equiping both weapons. I make sure that each party member uses a unique weapon, ie. one person uses small blades while someone else may use large swords. So if aquire two small blades that have good benefits, I don't have to decide which one to use. Obviously for the most part one is better than the other. However, sometimes you have a weapon that has a special ability that you want and don't want to give it up even for extra damage. Well, if you're dualing, you don't have to because you can equip both swords and maintain the best of both worlds.

My Rogue 1/Ranger 1/Wizard 3 is having no problems dualing short swords (one standard, one Masterwork). And he has held his own against the goblins in Targos.

 

@ Shrikant

Sorry, I meant max dex bonus for the armor. I would guess it means how much you may gain from high dex when using the armor, and with say +5 max dex bonus, the AC will improve with the armor + 5 (in case the dex allows for +5 or more). Is this correct? Thus, a rogue with 20 dex should really have some armor with a lot of dex bonus?

 

Yes thats true.
It is the maximum bonus to AC from Dexterity that you can take advantage of while wearing that particular piece of armour.

Heavier types of armour can give you a max. Dex. bonus of 0 to +2.
Leather armour generally allows you around +5 max. Dex. bonus. Even +6.

 

Also, Rogues wearing heavy armor will not be able to use their rogue abilities (Search, hide, pickpocket, etc.)

 

It isn't considered cheating to use a Monk as a Fireball decoy. One of the loading screen tips directly advises the use of high-level Rogues with Improved Evasion as decoys. Heck, my Paladin/Wizard used himself as a Fireball decoy before he got Sunfire. Paladins always make good Fireball decoys.

For example, if you have Cleave or Great Cleave with your tank, you can use him as a Fireball decoy when he gets surrounded and he will finish off the enemies in no time with extra hits granted by the Cleave or Great Cleave feat. I've done that on purpose...

 

I got a question. With the five attacks per round cap, does cleave and greater cleave even work since they add more attacks? If possible, I'd like an explanation instead of a yes or a no answer.

 

I'm not aware of any cap to the number of attacks per round. I think I've been able to deliver more than five. Cleave and Great Cleave are probably scripted. A communicate appears that the feat Cleave or Great Cleave grants you an additional attack at this and that bonus.

 

I've seen that too, but I haven't seen anything that would indicate that its of any real use. I didn't notice any significant change in number of attacks and damage dealt by comparing characters with these feats versus one that doesn't have 'em nor by close observation of what the enemy is doing. Thus, I've been so far forced to conclude that it's useless once a character's BAB gets better...

 

Great Cleave seems quite useless, but Cleave isn't so. Great Cleave is useful when you have to finish off a mass of weak attackers. Again, those aren't really supposed to do you much harm, anyway. Still, in such cases as Nearing Death enemies after a Fireball centred on a warrior character, it makes sense. That they are low on HP doesn't mean they can't hit you. And it can hurt if there's a large number of them.

 

But that begs the question "Does it exceed the 5 attacks per round cap?" And referring back to my earlier question, if there is a cap, then these feats are practically useless once a character reaches an "acceptable" BAB.

 

Great Cleave ranks fairly low on the list of feats to get. If you have a high level fighter you eventually run out of feats to take so end up taking Great Cleave but I must admit I have never noticed any difference in the amount of 'cleaving' that has taken place.

 

I believe with Cleave you get to reroll your attack to get to another critter. Its not so much adding an attack but continuing an attack. Which is why Greater Cleave is supposed to allow you to go through a group of monsters as if they were so much mush.