Max. Melee Damage build

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[I originally posted this over at the NWN boards at Bioware.com, but decided to post it here as well...can't hurt.]

I'm working on a build at the moment, which focuses on buffing itself to get as much melee damage as possible with a decent AB...

At the moment, I'm working with a Brd/Clc/Ftr - 16/16/8.

This lets me maximise my BAB pre-epic (8 Bard, 8 Cleric 4 Fighter) and gets me Weapon Specialization - Great Sword.

Is the Bard/Cleric/Fighter the best build there is to get consistently high melee damage?

I assumed Greatsword, EWS, Improved Power Attack, Cleric buffs, Bard buffs and Bard Song would be the best way to get high melee damage. Is there any other build out there that can do better?

Mind you, I want a build that is CONSISTENT with its melee damage, and does the same amount of damage to different enemies/creatures before factoring in resistances, vulnerabilities, alignments, creature types etc...so this means that Ranger's Bane of Enemies is out, as is Smite Evil/Good.

Divine Might would be in I guess, but I'm not too good with CHA based Cleric & Paladin builds...

So, what's the best there is when it comes to dishin out the pain??

[Post 2 with some additional information.]

Hi, well, this isn't for any server in particular. I was just thinking to myself the other day what the most damage I could do in melee was, and I looked at the Epic Builds page and the Damage Adept build...but its ridiculous!! The build I felt was nowhere near as comfortable to play as most of the other outlandish builds I've seen, and to add to that, ALL its damage is from Smite Evil! That's RIDICULOUS!! What you going to do when you're fighting a good or neutral NPC??

So yeah, I decided then, to see if I could do better and come up with a build that can do MORE damage than that build on a NON-critical hit. Criticals are random and not guaranteed on every hit, therefore they will not be allowed. As you can see, the restrictions on certain aspects are because of consistency of damage irrespective of who you are fighting with.

As far as the BoE damage a Ranger gets is concerned, its not allowed, because its not a PvP build and its not possible to get BoE for every single monster/NPC there is in the game. If you can, well fine...you can include BoE, but not otherwise!

Besides, I consider so many levels devoted only to Ranger a waste, as apart from Favored Enemy damage, Ranger doesn't bring anything to the table damagewise, unlike a Fighter (EWS), Bard (song, Warcry), Cleric (weapon buffs) etc...

Is it a better option to go RDD rather than Fighter 6?? With RDD, I have to waste 10 lvls to get +8 to str...that's plus 6 to dmg with a greatsword. With 6 lvls of Fighter, I get EWS and 1 or 2 bonus feats for free...I can definitely pick up Improved Power Attack for free this way. Its not valuable enough to waste a regular feat on it pre-epic and DEFINITELY not post epic.

The problem I see with a Cleric/Fighter/Weaponmaster build is that against Undead or Crit-immune enemies, he's nowhere near as powerful. Besides, even with keen Kukris, Improved Crit. and Weaponmaster Critical enhancements, you only ever roll on a 10-20. If you were to hit on a 9, then what? You don't do full damage!! Its not "assured" as such...hence, criticals are not allowed to factor in for damage.

EVERY hit has to do the same range of damage!! This is the reason Critical hits, Smite Evil/Good etc have been disqualified.

So...I hope that is sufficient additional information...hit me with what you got guys!

[Sorry bout the long post...]

 

You've complete left out sneak attack builds. Do they not fall into the category of "consistent" since some enemies are immune to sneaks?

I once made a Half-Orc monk/assassin/blackguard that was Strength-based. She did insane damage at level 40. I think I averaged something like 780 damage per round. Of course she had no AC or defense to speak of. The point was to sneak up on a foe and kill them in a single round before they ever had a chance to get a hit in. Great for PvP, not so great versus a room full of dragons.

 

Probably the highest damage ever you could get from a Paladin/Fighter/WM combo, especially in case of critical hits or smiting or both.

 

Yeah...but that is going to be a completely unviable build for a large majority of enemies in the game, probably because of limited smites per day, critical immunity, sneak immunity etc, which is why I have clearly eliiminated these factors from consideration. Not every enemy in the game is evil, and not every enemy is able to be hit by criticals and sneak attacks.

@Sir Fink: Yes, I have left out Sneak Attack builds because they don't count. Sneak Attack is not the same as one on one melee damage. Plus a LARGE number of creatures/NPCs are immune to them. Therefore, no Sneak Attacks either.

 

Can you provide a link to the discussion at the NWN forums? I always like a good melee build, and a build that does excellent damage under all circumstances sounds very much like something I'd enjoy playing.

 

A charisma pure paladin smiter with Dev crit, a scimitar, and maxed out improved smite abilitiy will crit for well over 800 damage, with only +4 items.

A charisma paladin/CoT smiter with Dev crit, SCYTHE, and maxed out improved smite ability will crit for 1400 damage with only +4 items.

A str build, dual wielding rogue(36)fighter(4) with keen kukris and Dev Crit will dev/sneak 130 damage + easily with only +4 items.

You guys should play on the Bastions of War server under Arena, great server with at least 22 people on at all times, and the best builds fight ther (including mine ^^) The thing with the builds that do max melee damage is that they have TERRIBLE AB, and by Terrible i mean anything less than 60, because people get huge AC and AB with their builds as well as doing 1337 damage from doom.

 

Bastions of War was where I made the above-mentioned Half-Orc monk. Strength-based and blunt (fists) did great damage against sneak and crit immune enemies, but obviously not nearly as much as your average flimsy elf. BoW does have a few dragon and Risen Lord shifters to contend with. At least it did back in the day when I played there.

 

@JiggaJay: Mate, your build does all its damage through certain special feats/abilities/conditions...ALL OF WHICH I have stated are NOT ALLOWED under this particular condition.

@Sir Fink: Sorry this is so late, but I haven't logged on in a couple of days...ANYWAY...here's the link.

http://nwn.bioware.com/guilds_registry/viewtopic.html?forum=13422&topic=249063&gid=8061

Mind you, you have to be registered with the Bioware forums to be able to read this.

 

I think it's perfectly legitamate to consider critical hits. You just have to figure in the percentage of times that they'll happen.

 

It's not legitimate to consider critical hits if someone specifically asks what the best build is for doing damage, excluding critical hits......

 

BTW, the Bastions of War PVP server has it's own forum (www.bastionsofwar.com I think). It's loaded with threads like this. Those guys really get into the nitty-gritty of epic character builds.

 

LIke me ^^


Dood, the scimitar crit builds will crit on a 12-20. tahts like... 40% ish. When you attack, anything above a 12 on your roll is a critical. Thats basically every time. add 7 weaponmaster levels and you are critting on 10-20.


More builds.... (with crits, roffffllll)

DEx Barbarian(30)/Weaponmaster(7)/monk(3)

(alignment conflict i know)

Go pure dex (and good starting wisdom) on barbarian and take 7 weaponmaster in rapier, with improved crit feat and weaponmaster levels you'll crit on a roll of 10-20, take 3 levels of monk (or 6 for free improved knockdown) for t3h speed and the wisdom AC.

Barb uncanny dodge + high AB + dex build + monk wisdom AC bonus + critting on a 10-20 with a keen rapier + barbarian rage + terrifying rage = High AB high AC pwnage ^^


Or to own everyone make a bigby spamming mage

 

@Jiggajay: What you going to do when you fight a Palemaster? Get my point? Crits are banned for a reason...

 

Thats when you run like hell!

 

Here is my recommendation
4 Fighter Levels
1 Sorcerer Level
10 RDD Levels for the +8 Str
Continue to level up between a Fighter and RDD. This should provide you with the ultimate damaging character.

The fighter class gives you the following feats, weapon focus, epic weapon focus, weapon specialization, the Epic Str feat and Epic weapon specialization.

If you take 3 levels as a sorcerer you would also have access to Bull's Str to further increase your Str score.

Add all of these + to Str, + to hit, and + to damage should provide you with a heavy hitter.

For this heavy damaging character I would take a Half-Orc to start with a Str of 20 instead of 18, I would raise Cha and Int to 8 and use the rest of the points as needed. Doing this will optimize the damage since you would have a higher str score. Of course you may need to raise Cha to 10/11 to become a Sorcerer.

Good luck with the build.

Another good build is start off with a monk build and level up as a figther to gain weapon sepcialization, etc....

Don't forget the Monks fist do quite a bit of damage.

 

But wouldn't your build miss out on the massive damage you would get from buffing?? 15 lvls of Cleric guarantees you:

+5 (Divine Favor)
+5 (GMW)
+2 (Battletide)
+1 (Prayer)
1d6+10 (IIRC...Darkfire)

Not to mention Divine Power and other uber cleric buffs...

A buffed STR based Cleric/Monk/Bard might work!

 

Good thread, i really like the idea of not being dependant on critical/sneak/smite damage.

A thing with Darkfire... it's a clerical version, at cleric lvl15 you'll get d6+7 fire damage. +1/2 caster levels.

RDD is pretty much out of the question. 10 levels for +6 to damage and +4 to hit. It's not shabby, but 10 levels are a lot.


Bard 14 (max dmg and to hit from bard song) fighter 6 (EWS) and cleric 20 (d6+10 fire dmg)

for now... now off to read bioware's thread

 

I while back i was trying to make a weapon collector .
Fighter/Bard/RDD - and eventualy reach 40 STR.
Why waste feats to specialyse on a few puny weapon when you can gain STR ? Depend on certain types on damage, sneak attacks or critical hits. Carry all the magical weapons and use the right one one for the ocasion effectively.

However you cannot use the bonus epic fighter feats to gain STR so i fear natural 40 STR (without buffs,items) is impossible to reach and so i abandoned the project...

 

I made a half orc Bard/RDD/CoT wielding a scythe or dual wielding katanas... Not bad thanks to the fantastic critical damage of the scythe. I took this character almost all the way through the OC before he got any CoT levels. I started HotU with him.
Real fun so far.

But for a build which would not rely on critical hits and sneak attacks I'm not sure this would be the most effective.

 

This is a very interesting topic. I thought about this and looked through all the class and buffs they provide (minus special case damages) and here is what I recommend for the ultimate damage build.

Character Level: 1
Race: Human
Class: Monk
Class Level: 1
Stats: Str 16, Dex 16, Con 8, Int 8, Wis 10, Cha 8
Feats: Monk Feats, Luck of Heroes, and dodge or another feat of your choice

Character Level: 16
Class: Monk
Class Level: 16
Stats: Str 20, Dex 16, Con 8, Int 8, Wis 16, Cha 8
Feats: Monk Feats, Luck of Heroes, Dodge, Weapon Focus, Circle Kick, Power Attack, Improve Power Attack, and Improve Critical

Character Level: 30
Class: Monk / Cleric
Class Level: 16 / 14
Stats: Str 27, Dex 16, Con 8, Int 8, Wis 16, Cha 8
Feats: Monk Feats, Luck of Heroes, Dodge, Weapon Focus, Circle Kick, Power Attack, Improve Power Attack, Improve Critical, Mobility, Great Strength x 4

Character Level 40
Class: Monk / Cleric / Fighter
Class Level: 16 / 14 / 10
Stats: Str 34, Dex 16, Con 8, Int 8, Wis 16, Cha 8
Feats: Monk Feats, Luck of Heroes, Dodge, Weapon Focus, Circle Kick, Power Attack, Improve Power Attack, Improve Critical, Mobility, Great Strength x 7, Weapon Specialization, Epic Prowess, Epic Weapon Specialization, Epic Weapon Focus and if Great Strength can be taken with the last fighter bonus feat that that is the feat to get…

Damage per a hit = 1d20 (fist) + 2 (Weapon Specialization) + 4 (Epic Weapon Specialization) + 12 (natural Str damage without any item) + any buff from cleric spells

edit Note: This character without any items can hit as a +3 weapon and does a average of 28 damage per a hit without any buff spells.

Let me know what you think. I may have one too many feats but than again I did one feat every three levels and added the fighter levels at the end with their bonus feats.

I thought about switching the cleric class for a bard for the +3 damage from a bard song but that wasn’t enough to validate it as a good selection vs. the cleric buffing spells.