Had a lot of good feedback on my first build idea, and I'd like to thank Xeroyne for his input. Here goes!
Race: Halfling
Starting Stats: Str - 8 Dex - 20 Con - 10 Int - 14 Wis - 8 Cha - 12
Ending Stats: Str - 8 Dex - 34 Con - 10 Int - 14 Wis - 8 Cha - 13
1) Fighter - Wep Proficiency: Exotic, Wep Focus: Kukri 2) Fighter - Dodge 3) Fighter - Expertise 4) Fighter - DEX +1, Mobility 5) Fighter - 6) Fighter - Wep Finess, Wep Specialisation: Kukri 7) Fighter - Fighter - DEX +1, Spring Attack 9) Fighter - Whirlwhind Attack 10) Fighter - Improved Critical: Kukri 11) Fighter - 12) Fighter - DEX +1, Blind Fight, Toughness 13) Fighter - 14) Fighter - Knockdown (also make sure at this point you have the required 4 Intimidate for WM) 15) WM - Wep of Choice - Kukri, Improved Knockdown* 16) WM - DEX +1 17) WM - 18) WM - Great Fortitude* 19) WM - 20) WM - DEX +1 21) WM - Great Dexterity I 22) Bard - 23) Bard - 24) Bard - DEX +1, Great Dexterity II 25) Bard - 26) Bard - 27) Bard - Epic Weapon Focus: Kukri 28) Bard - DEX +1 29) Bard - 30) Bard - Curse Song 31) Bard - 32) Bard - DEX +1 33) Bard - Great Dexterity III 34) Bard - 35) Bard - 36) Bard - 37) Fighter - 38) Fighter - Armor Skin 39) Fighter - Great Dexterity V 40) Bard - CHA +1
I added my last point to Charisma, simply because it opens up the Bards level 3 spells, which can be useful!
By the end, you should distribute your skill points into Maxing Tumble, UMD, Discipline at your final Bard level at 40, aswell as taking 25 Perform for maximum Bard Song. This leaves you 45 skill points, which could possibly offer you maximised Taunt, or you could take the route of Hide/Move Silently, it's upto you.
Wielding a Mundane Kukri, your attack bonus is: +46/+41/+36/+31 (x3)
And with a naked AC of 32.
Your AB may seem low, but Bard song will add to that, aswell as Curse Song causing problems for whoever you are fighting.
* Indicates feats that can be swapped out for one of your choice.
Any more input would be appreciated!
Edited By Cinnabar Din on 02/27/08 20:40
Lower your starting dex to 18, increase your starting char to 16 and put all stat increases into dexterity.
I have a few recommendations with this one.
You don't have the Epic Weapon Specialization feat, which is pretty handy if you're weilding Kukris.
I suggest taking the Epic Weapon Focus at level 21, and then a Fighter level at 24 for the Epic Weapon Specialization.
Also, Fighter feats are generally more useful in the Epic levels, so taking fighter levels on 24, 27, 30, 33, 36 and 39 would be a good idea. So long as you take 9 fighter and 7 weapon master levels before 20th, you'll get the 4 attacks per round.
The best Fighter/Bard/WM combination I came up with was 20 levels of Bard, 13 Fighter and 7 Weapon master. If Kukri is your focus, taking more than 7 levels of WM doesn't benefit you a great deal.
You only need 4 fighter levels before 20 to get your 4 atts/rd. The extra are for build choice. Taking more than 7 wm lvls is nice because you get attack bonus bonuses! at 10 and 15, and those NEVER hurt, unless you are at the recieving end of the kuks!
It is interesting to make a halfling ftr/bard, but i cannot imagine trying to play this char through with xp penalties. Its just me, but you could get about the same from 16 rogue lvls and no penalty. To me that would make this an epic build (a large part of what i consider to be "expertness" is having a reason for taking the classes, and 16 bard lvls instead of rogue, to me im not sure is worth it. 7d6 backstab dam vs 16 bard song... for having to take about 20% more time every lvl? Im wondering what the damage is? d4-1 *3 on a crit range 13-20?? Sorry if i sound critical, I hate playing with other players who make xp challenged characters.. makes me feel sooo guilty as i do all the killin and lvl so many more times than they do. Each to his own!
Peace
If you're not taking Epic Weapon Specialization you should replace Fighter with Champion of Torm. CoT gives you as many feats as fighter does (or close to it), +1 to all saves for every 2 levels of CoT, some nice Charisma-based abilities and does NOT incur an experience penalty.
You'd have to start as Bard of course, and take Bard levels until your BA is high enough to qualify for CoT. I suggest you develop both versions in an offline training mod (such as Novice to Epic Mod in my sig) and then compare the results.
In addition, be sure to develop the Taunt skill. It's quite a formidable weapon in 'raising' your AB by lowering the enemies AC.
Kaliban _________________ Check out the Epic Character Builders Guild Click Here Test your new builds in this mod: Click Here
Thanks much for the input guys, but I'm still real new to building, and I just liked the idea of a Halfling Bard, lol, if anyone wants to mess around with the build to make it any better, feel free to!
Here's an idea for a Bard/CoT/Weapon Master
You'll need your first 10 levels to be Bard, then you can take 4 CoT levels for the feats needed to be a Weapon Master. Levels 15-21 can be taken as a Weapon Master, and the rest is up to you.
I suggest ending up as Bard 15/CoT 10/Weapon Master 15.
I tested a build like that and ended up with- HP- 270 AC- 30 (Started with 18 DEX, and ended with 30, instead of 32) Fort Save- 29 (took Epic Fort as a feat) Reflex- 42 Will Save- 29 (took Epic Will as a feat) BA-27
Also took Improved two-weapon fighting and Improved Whirlwind attack. 6 attacks at +40/40/35/35/30/25
What someone said above about replacing the Bard levels with Rouge levels is right. The Bardsong, even maxed out only gives a small attack bonus, temporary HP and +2 (I think) to AC. With Kukris, the sneak attack would be much more effective.
Quote: Posted 01/29/05 22:17:53 (GMT) -- Xeroyne
Here's an idea for a Bard/CoT/Weapon Master
You'll need your first 10 levels to be Bard, then you can take 4 CoT levels for the feats needed to be a Weapon Master. Levels 15-21 can be taken as a Weapon Master, and the rest is up to you.
I suggest ending up as Bard 15/CoT 10/Weapon Master 15.
I tested a build like that and ended up with- HP- 270 AC- 30 (Started with 18 DEX, and ended with 30, instead of 32) Fort Save- 29 (took Epic Fort as a feat) Reflex- 42 Will Save- 29 (took Epic Will as a feat) BA-27
Also took Improved two-weapon fighting and Improved Whirlwind attack. 6 attacks at +40/40/35/35/30/25
What someone said above about replacing the Bard levels with Rouge levels is right. The Bardsong, even maxed out only gives a small attack bonus, temporary HP and +2 (I think) to AC. With Kukris, the sneak attack would be much more effective.
One thing to keep in mind with kukris is that although they have a great crit range, if your opponent has a high AC then the extended crit range doesn't come into play. Syrath can explain it better (I think he's the one I've seen point this out before). As I understand it:
Say you crit on 12-20 with kukris and only 17-20 with shortsword. Well, if the combination of your AB and the opponent's AC results in you needing a 19 or 20 just to hit them, then you are getting no benefits from your kukris, and you may as well have stuck with shortswords (and not used a feat on exotic weapons), since if you roll a 12-18 you miss your opponent.
Kaliban _________________ Check out the Epic Character Builders Guild Click Here Test your new builds in this mod: Click Here
I think the kukris are worth it for a Bard build that maxes Taunt and has high Bard / Curse Song. Something like Bard 21 / CoT 14 / WM 7, with a high enough Perform score, can bring an enemy's AC down (and its own AB up) enough to make the enhanced crit range of a kukri come into its own.
Another thing, I would not go the dex-based route unless taking at least 13 levels in Rogue. Dex-based builds that don't take Epic Dodge are missing out on one of the best feats that is potentially open to them. I played a halfling Bard 21 / Rogue 13 / CoT 6 that managed to melee very well, despite really poor hit points, thanks to Epic Dodge, Taunt, his songs and his buffs.
If you really wanted Epic Dodge, I guess you could go for 10 levels of Shadowdancer instead of the Rogue levels, but I always think that HiPS without sneak attacks is more pointless than sneaks without HiPS.
Ahh, you gotta love the people that work here !
The other thing that COT offers is NO XP penalty, but also, they share the charisma bonus, so a higher charisma would be amazing. Just my other two cents.
Peace
Quote: Posted 01/30/05 04:01:17 (GMT) -- avado
Ahh, you gotta love the people that work here !
The other thing that COT offers is NO XP penalty, but also, they share the charisma bonus, so a higher charisma would be amazing. Just my other two cents.
Peace
Who's two cents?
Quote: Profile: Saturday, 29 January 2005 04:38AM If you're not taking Epic Weapon Specialization you should replace Fighter with Champion of Torm. CoT gives you as many feats as fighter does (or close to it), +1 to all saves for every 2 levels of CoT, some nice Charisma-based abilities and does NOT incur an experience penalty.
You'd have to start as Bard of course, and take Bard levels until your BA is high enough to qualify for CoT. I suggest you develop both versions in an offline training mod (such as Novice to Epic Mod in my sig) and then compare the results.
In addition, be sure to develop the Taunt skill. It's quite a formidable weapon in 'raising' your AB by lowering the enemies AC.
Kaliban
Kaliban _________________ Check out the Epic Character Builders Guild Click Here Test your new builds in this mod: Click Here
Edited By Kaliban99 on 01/31/05 04:34
For the old wandering assassin/preformer template, you might go for a bard16 Blackguard15 Shadowdancer9 and split the diffrence between str and dex for a devcritting, sneak attacking, self-buffing, highAB/AC, dual-weilding, epic dodging, high saves with evasion type of versitle little badass. A pal of mine is testing this build in a PvP server with no small amount of sucess.
AH sorry Kali! Guess I should clean my glasses and learn to read fully.
Peace
If you go Bard 16/WM 16/CoT 8, you will still get the same amount of feats (WM bonus at 16) and a much better bard/curse song (2 more AC I think) for one point of Save bonuses and a less efective Divine Wrath. Since Bard Song lasts longer, I would go that way.
Fighter - DEX +1, Spring Attack
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