This undead dwarf is practically untouchable by any standard means, laughing off even the most powerful of blows in his true form. Even his magical defenses are great, as he laughs in the face of the most terrifying of death spells and smirks at the most powerful mental assaults. His diety guards him from a vast cornucopia of spells beyond that, and only the strongest magical attacks stand the slightest chance. This dwarf makes so-called “dwarven walls” look like dandelions. He truly is a Juggernaut.
(After I made this build I noticed a few that were similar, but I consider this particular build superior, or at least different, by a good margin, or else I wouldn’t bother to post it.)
Race: Dwarf Alignment: LN Starting Stats (Ending Stats) [Shifted Stats] STR 14 [21] DEX 14 (20) CON 17 (21) [19] WIS 14 INT 12 CHA 6 [8]
Final stats (Shifted means Risen Lord): Shifted HP: 668 [7*8 (druid) + 11*8 (shifter) + 22*12 (dwd) + 40 (toughness) + 160 (con)+ [1]60? (risen lord shape)] Now, this HP is actually lower than what I got. I’m guessing that Risen Lord gives more than 60 hp when you shift, but the information I have says 60. When I shifted my un-rerolled test character, his hp jumped from 547 to 707, or 160.) 21 AC Naked. 34 AC Naked, Shifted. 38 AC Naked, Shifted, Defensive Stance. (It’s important to note that dex bonuses travel over to the shape’s AC, even when wearing a full plate. Whether this will be true in the next patch or not is hard to say. The plate’s base AC doesn’t carry over, so I would assume that the dex bonus will always be there.) With a mundane scythe, Shifted AB: +41/+36/+31/+26, dmg: 2-8 + 7 (19-20 x4) With Defensive Stance, Shifted AB: +42/+37/+32/+27, dmg: 2-8 + 9 (19-20 x4)
Saves: Regular (Shifted) Fortitude: 31 (30) [+8 against spells] Reflex: 28 (28) [+8 against spells, with improved evasion] Will: 29 (29) [+8 against spells] Spell Resistance Shifted: 20 Damage Resistance: 24/- Damage Resistance Shifted: 24/- and 15/+5 (not sure if they stack or not), plus 50% immunity to pierce/slash. Immunities: Critical, Death Magic, Disease, Negative Level, Ability Decrease, Mind Spells, Paralysis, Poison, Sneak Attack.
Pros: Solid HP, can soak 3 Max IGMS without any Con bonus. Moderate AC. AB comparable to most melee characters, though a few points low. Nice saves. Ridiculous physical resistance, with 24/- and 50% immunity to both pierce and slash. Pesky archers = pesky mosquitos. And with immunity to both critical and sneak attack... you’ll be tanking all freaking day against the vast majority of melee fighters. Tons of immunities. Items meld with Risen Lord form, at least in theory... (Can you say prismatic immunities?) Vampiric scythe +2. Get feats Cleave, Whirlwind Attack with Risen Lord shape.
Cons: AB is low enough to cause problems against some. Str boosting items can help alleviate this problem somewhat. Damage output is pretty low, although the x4 criticals help. Undead weaknesses. Can be somewhat tough to level until about 27 at which point you get your shape.
As a final note, you may want to consider dropping either Epic Reflexes or Epic Will, or both, in favor of Epic Energy Resistance feats, in order to fend better against enchanted melee attacks. Only do this if you don’t have access to decent elemental resist items. Fire is probably the most common, with spells like darkfire and flame weapon.
Edited By Kail Pendragon on 10/10/07 13:25
Just a few links to some very similar builds. You can see what they did for ideas.
Click Here
Click Here
Click Here
The last one is almost identical for levels.
I was just reading that, although it isn't properly implemented, your DR is supposed to help with piercing through lesser DR. I have no idea if this is true, but if it is, and if the next patch fixes it, this build will be able to ignore any DR less than 24/-, or in other words every single build with less than 22 DwD, drastically increasing damage output against said builds. I thought that was pretty freakin' nifty.
yrtsns,
Why not try taking Construct Shape? The name, Juggernaut, would be great with Construct Shape since they are basically Juggernaut in different circumstances.
For example, Demonflesh Golem, they get 30/+3 damage reduction.... that is the highest of all shapes that you can take with shifter build... however, combined with dwarven defender... it should stack and be higher than normal.
Anuis
Quote: Posted 08/21/04 18:04:27 (GMT) -- Anuis Why not try taking Construct Shape? The name, Juggernaut, would be great with Construct Shape since they are basically Juggernaut in different circumstances.
For example, Demonflesh Golem, they get 30/+3 damage reduction.... that is the highest of all shapes that you can take with shifter build... however, combined with dwarven defender... it should stack and be higher than normal.
I build for PvP, and I build primarily for versatility. Yes, I could stack an extra 30/+3 with Demonflesh Golem, which in theory would give me HUGE DR of 52/+3 against slashing and piercing, but for PvP you have to assume a +4 weapon, meaning I would be dropped back down to the original 24/-. Now, I wasn't sure if DR stacked or not, but the fact that it does makes the Risen Lord shape even more of a Juggernaut shape, because it offers 15/+5, meaning that anyone with less than a +5 weapon (which, excluding goofy high magic servers with +20 weapons, means quite a few people, because +4 is usually the maximum without spells/abilities. So I effectively have 78/+5 Physical Resistance against Piercing/Slashing, which I consider _much_ better than 52/+3. Against a bludgeoning weapon, I have 39/+5 with Risen Lord, 54/+3 with Demonflesh Golem. So, there will be certain situations in which Demonflesh can take more damage, but, in PvP at least, they will be few and far between. (and chances are extremely high that 39 damage resistance + critical immunity will be all you need) Also, the Demonflesh Golem is going to have (I think) less AB and smaller criticals (and maybe less damage output?), and most importantly, isn't going to have immunity to criticals, which enhances DR drastically. It will also be missing out on the cornucopia of Risen Lord immunities, the +5 weapon with +2 vampiric, and probably a few other things I'm forgetting. That said, I heart Risen Lord. _________________ Have I mentioned I hate IGMS?
Also, I forgot: Risen Lord melds armor/items/weapon. Golems only do... armor I believe. _________________ Have I mentioned I hate IGMS?
Golems do armor as well, but not weapons.
I just thought I'd mention that I made a couple minor mistakes with the damage resistance calculations for demonflesh golem above. Very minor mistakes that didn't really make any difference, but I figured I'd still correct myself. I said 52/+3 against piercing/slashing, when what I should've said was 54/+3 against piercing/slashing/bludgeoning. Not really sure where the 52 came from... pretty random... and obviously I was in the habit of saying piercing/slashing because of Risen Lord.
Edited By yrtsns on 08/21/04 20:48
Quote: Posted 08/21/04 20:46:33 (GMT) -- yrtsns
I just thought I'd mention that I made a couple minor mistakes with the damage resistance calculations for demonflesh golem above. Very minor mistakes that didn't really make any difference, but I figured I'd still correct myself. I said 52/+3 against piercing/slashing, when what I should've said was 54/+3 against piercing/slashing/bludgeoning. Not really sure where the 52 came from... pretty random... and obviously I was in the habit of saying piercing/slashing because of Risen Lord.
Risen Lord has DR only against piercing/slashing, whereas Demonflesh Golem has DR against piercing/slashing/bludgeoning. Demonflesh has more resistance against more weapon damage types than Risen Lord does.
If the shifter had ability to shift into Magical Golem. Well... use your imagination.
Anuis
Quote: Posted 08/21/04 21:10:45 (GMT) -- Anuis Risen Lord has DR only against piercing/slashing, whereas Demonflesh Golem has DR against piercing/slashing/bludgeoning. Demonflesh has more resistance against more weapon damage types than Risen Lord does.
Risen Lord has double DR against piercing/slashing, but its 15/+5 still counts against bludgeoning, so like I said above, you get 39/+5 against bludgeoning as opposed to 54/+3 against bludgeoning. Yes, it's less, but not against +4 weapons, and against +5 weapons it will be exactly the same.
Also one thing I didn't mention.. taking construct shape requires what, 27 wisdom? I'd lose tons of feats, and it would become very hard, if not impossible to get Damage Reduction III on that character. I'd need to be able to pump con to 21 and wis to 27. _________________ Have I mentioned I hate IGMS?
Edited By yrtsns on 08/21/04 21:19
Quote: Posted 08/21/04 21:14:22 (GMT) -- yrtsns
Risen Lord has double DR against piercing/slashing, but its 15/+5 still counts against bludgeoning, so like I said above, you get 39/+5 against bludgeoning as opposed to 54/+3 against bludgeoning. Yes, it's less, but not against +4 weapons, and against +5 weapons it will be exactly the same.
You do realize that you are adding the Defenders damage resist to the rizen lords? You do realize they don't stack right? They are two different types of reduction (DD is x/- type and RL is x/+5 type)DR always takes the best option versus the attack. Your damage resist versus anything that is not using slash/pierce is going to be 24 as that will always be the best DR on this build. Against slashing and piercing opponents you will get just the 50/-.
Quote: Anuis: ...however, combined with dwarven defender... it should stack and be higher than normal....
Quote: Posted 08/22/04 13:16:48 (GMT) -- Emrill You do realize that you are adding the Defenders damage resist to the rizen lords? You do realize they don't stack right? They are two different types of reduction (DD is x/- type and RL is x/+5 type)DR always takes the best option versus the attack. Your damage resist versus anything that is not using slash/pierce is going to be 24 as that will always be the best DR on this build. Against slashing and piercing opponents you will get just the 50/-.
I didn't think they stacked originally, but Anuis gave me that impression. Doesn't change my arguments about the build. _________________ Have I mentioned I hate IGMS?
Edited By yrtsns on 08/22/04 17:14
Quote: Posted 08/22/04 17:12:51 (GMT) -- yrtsns
Quote: Anuis: ...however, combined with dwarven defender... it should stack and be higher than normal....
Quote: Posted 08/22/04 13:16:48 (GMT) -- Emrill You do realize that you are adding the Defenders damage resist to the rizen lords? You do realize they don't stack right? They are two different types of reduction (DD is x/- type and RL is x/+5 type)DR always takes the best option versus the attack. Your damage resist versus anything that is not using slash/pierce is going to be 24 as that will always be the best DR on this build. Against slashing and piercing opponents you will get just the 50/-.
I didn't think they stacked originally, but Anuis gave me that impression. Doesn't change my arguments about the build.
Well, I thought they did. Maybe not the different type of DR, but same type would stack I assume. IE; 15/+5 + 10/+ = 15/+5 because the first one is better because of +5. ANd 15/+5 + 5/+5 = 20/+5. Please correct me if I am not correct because I don't want to make builds based on this assumption.
Anuis
My reply had an error. You will only get 15/+3 or 24/- DR and 50% immunity to slash and pierce. don't get me wrong. This is a nice build as I pointed out earlier many people have similar ones already.
Quote: I was just reading that, although it isn't properly implemented, your DR is supposed to help with piercing through lesser DR. I have no idea if this is true, but if it is, and if the next patch fixes it, this build will be able to ignore any DR less than 24/-, or in other words every single build with less than 22 DwD, drastically increasing damage output against said builds. I thought that was pretty freakin' nifty.
DR piercing is working as intended.
x/- DR won't let you pierce anything. It's not supposed to.
x/+y DR, however, DOES let you pierce DR of +y or lower as long as you use natural attacks (unarmed forms). So the 5/+20 DR on the manticore lets you pierce ANY DR that isn't x/-. Even epic warding... then again, why you'd be fighting a mage as a manticore is beyond me.
Also, be careful how you add DR. If you have x/- DR and x/+y DR, don't add them. They apply seperately.
You don't have double DR against pierce/slash weapons either. Let's say someone lands a hit for 50 on you and you have 25/- DR for the sake of argument. That 50 first gets cut in half to 25, and then the rest is soaked up by your DR. Seems like you have double the DR... in this case, you could say you do. Now let's say you get hit for 100 (what's hitting you for this without a critical scares me, but hey), first it gets cut in half to 50, 25 of which is soaked. You take 25 damage. You soaked up 75 of it, not 50. So in this case you have more along the lines of 75/- DR. Since this number will change depending on the damage done, it's best to just say you have 50% slash/pierce resist with 25/- DR.
Anyway, enough rambling... _________________ "Intelligence is knowing a tomato is a fruit; Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad."
Quote: Posted 08/22/04 19:45:07 (GMT) -- MA Sword DR piercing is working as intended. x/+y DR, however, DOES let you pierce DR of +y or lower as long as you use natural attacks (unarmed forms).
Quote: You don't have double DR against pierce/slash weapons either. Let's say someone lands a hit for 50 on you and you have 25/- DR for the sake of argument. That 50 first gets cut in half to 25, and then the rest is soaked up by your DR. Seems like you have double the DR... in this case, you could say you do. Now let's say you get hit for 100 (what's hitting you for this without a critical scares me, but hey), first it gets cut in half to 50, 25 of which is soaked. You take 25 damage. You soaked up 75 of it, not 50. So in this case you have more along the lines of 75/- DR. Since this number will change depending on the damage done, it's best to just say you have 50% slash/pierce resist with 25/- DR.
To the first one: Nice, thanks. Too bad that doesn't help the risen lord who, while he has 15/+5, has a +5 weapon anyways. The second one: Good point, and this one does help the risen lord/DD. Yay. _________________ Have I mentioned I hate IGMS?
I was reading this post as Im strugling to finish my Risen Lord on a server im playing but, I noticed the arguement over damage and reduction is flawed.
In Risen shape if attacked by someone wielding a say +4 Longsword (slashing weapon) and SOMEHOW magically hitting for the before mentioned 100pts of damage then the actual working out would be 100damage less 50% (risen shape) 50left less 24 DwD reduction+epic damage reduction =26left and then it would also take off the 15 for +5 weapons so total damage taken would now be = 11 out of the initial 100. A very tough cookie to put down, what makes all the difference I find is to try getting enough damage resistance items or feats as the more powerful worlds will have weapons with Fire,Cold,electric,acid,negative and postive energy and maybe even sonic
Quote: Posted 08/22/04 19:45 (GMT) -- MA Sword
Quote: I was just reading that, although it isn't properly implemented, your DR is supposed to help with piercing through lesser DR. I have no idea if this is true, but if it is, and if the next patch fixes it, this build will be able to ignore any DR less than 24/-, or in other words every single build with less than 22 DwD, drastically increasing damage output against said builds. I thought that was pretty freakin' nifty.
DR piercing is working as intended.
x/- DR won't let you pierce anything. It's not supposed to.
x/+y DR, however, DOES let you pierce DR of +y or lower as long as you use natural attacks (unarmed forms). So the 5/+20 DR on the manticore lets you pierce ANY DR that isn't x/-. Even epic warding... then again, why you'd be fighting a mage as a manticore is beyond me.
I'm pretty sure that isn't actually implemented. It's in the PnP rules, but I've never seen it take action in NWN. _________________ CATS!
I was reading this post as Im strugling to finish my Risen Lord on a server im playing but, I noticed the arguement over damage and reduction is flawed.
In Risen shape if attacked by someone wielding a say +4 Longsword (slashing weapon) and SOMEHOW magically hitting for the before mentioned 100pts of damage then the actual working out would be 100damage less 50% (risen shape) 50left less 24 DwD reduction+epic damage reduction =26left and then it would also take off the 15 for +5 weapons so total damage taken would now be = 11 out of the initial 100. A very tough cookie to put down, what makes all the difference I find is to try getting enough damage resistance items or feats as the more powerful worlds will have weapons with Fire,Cold,electric,acid,negative and postive energy and maybe even sonic
Nope.DwD damage reduction does not stack with RL damage reduction (damage reduction do not stack apart DWD with Barb with EDR). Since the DwD+EDR DR is higher only that gets applied.
Now, if you were wearing a Greater Swordsman/Archer/Brawler's Belt that would stack too (because it's damage resistance).
Specifically, Immunity is applied first, than Resistance, than Reduction (only the one granting the highest protection, i.e. soaking up the most damage). _________________ Heavy metal Or no metal at all Whimps and posers Leave the hall!
It should also be noted that innate damage resistance (like that granted by the Epic Energy Resistance feats) stacks with damage resistance from items, but damage resistance from multiple items does not stack.
The DI/DR/DR thing is one of the most confusing implementations in NWN, in my opinion. Why do you need so many different ways of reducing the amount of damage you take, all implemented independently?
It should also be noted that innate damage resistance (like that granted by the Epic Energy Resistance feats) stacks with damage resistance from items, but damage resistance from multiple items does not stack.
The DI/DR/DR thing is one of the most confusing implementations in NWN, in my opinion. Why do you need so many different ways of reducing the amount of damage you take, all implemented independently?
Because they were trying to reconcile the PnP rules with the demands of video gaming. In PnP, you have DR x/y, which totals up with other DR to reduce certain amounts of physical damage, and you have Energy Resistance x, but the implementation is very poor on a whole scale.
Topic necromancy...
So, is yrstns' prediction of DR in Risen Lord, wrong? That DwD DR won't stack with RL DR?
Kail already explained it above, I wonder what's the confusion about.
Damage Reduction never stacks, the sole exception is Dwarven Defender's natural DR stacking with Barbarian's natural DR and Epic Damage Reduction, other than that, the one that resists the most amount of damage is the one that works (after taking into account the magical enhancement, if it breaches the highest resisting one then the next one kicks in). So Risen Lord's 15/+3 DR will never stack with another DR, no matter where it comes from.
The Risen Lord has, however, Damage Immunity slashing and piercing 50%, which does stack with Damage Reduction. Damage Immunity is always applied before Damage Reduction, so yes, it works like it was posted:
Quote: You don't have double DR against pierce/slash weapons either. Let's say someone lands a hit for 50 on you and you have 25/- DR for the sake of argument. That 50 first gets cut in half to 25, and then the rest is soaked up by your DR. Seems like you have double the DR... in this case, you could say you do. Now let's say you get hit for 100 (what's hitting you for this without a critical scares me, but hey), first it gets cut in half to 50, 25 of which is soaked. You take 25 damage. You soaked up 75 of it, not 50. So in this case you have more along the lines of 75/- DR. Since this number will change depending on the damage done, it's best to just say you have 50% slash/pierce resist with 25/- DR.
The main problem I think is you're writing DR all the time, because it can mean Damage Reduction, which won't stack with itself, or Damage Resistance which will stack with Damage Reduction. _________________ "My name is Thaxll'ssyllia, but you simians may refer to me merely as "Sir", if you prefer a less... syllable intensive workout."
Edwin Odesseiron - Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn
Edited By Thaxll'ssyllia on 07/11/08 04:41
So, the Damage Reduction doesn't stack. ::chicken nods::
With this in mind, can this build still be called The Juggernaut?
Edited By Aazuma on 07/11/08 12:09
Sure, why not, you can call anything whatever you want, he got the name first and that's all it takes. The Damage Immunity + Reduction still makes you resist a lot. _________________ Those who say money does not give happiness are just jealous of those who have money.
Risen Lord has DR only against piercing/slashing, whereas Demonflesh Golem has DR against piercing/slashing/bludgeoning. Demonflesh has more resistance against more weapon damage types than Risen Lord does.