All Stat increases go into DEX except 1 point into CHA.
Level Progression: First 10 levels: Bard, keeping Tumble, UMD, Spellcraft, Perform and Lore maxed. Lvl 11 - 20: Palemaster, putting points in Spellcraft only Lvl 21 - 30: Red Dragon Disciple, putting points into Spellcraft only Lvl 31 - 37: Bard. Max out Tumble, Perform. The rest can be used to max out either UMD or Spellcraft, with the remainder going into the other. Lvl 38 - 40: Palemaster.
Feats, in order: Mobility Blind Fighting * Curse Song Weapon Focus: Light Crossbow * Improved Critical: Light Crossbow * Point Blank Shot * Armor Skin Epic Weapon Focus: Light Crossbow * Rapid Reload * Expertise (shows up at level 30) Imrpoved Expertise Great Dexterity I Great Dexterity II
* Feats marked with an asterisk can be substituted for other feats without compromising the integrity of the build. The post-epic-level feats can be substituted for Great Dexterity which would add 1 more point of AC to the final build.
Major Strengths: Using HOTU gear and a few buffs (noteably Bard Song, Mage Armor, and Cat's Grace), this character had an AC of 110 in my test build. It could only be hit by natural 20's, and was immune to criticals. Lots of handy immunities (critical hits, sleep, fire, hold, paralyze, stun).
Major Weaknesses: Weak damage. The Bard Song helps with this a bit. Also has weak Fort and Will saves. This is not a huge issue, however, because the character is immune to a lot of things that require Will saves, and to Devastating Criticals.
This is my first attempt at an epic munchkin. Any feedback would be welcome! I have seen some similar builds listed here, but the levels were different. I made this build with a particular goal in mind
Edited By Cinnabar Din on 02/27/08 20:41
If you make him 14 Bard 16 Palemaster 10 Red Dragon you gain another 2 AC from palemaster, and you can take 2 epic spells...like Epic Mage Armor. Depending on your gear this will add another 5 - 20 to your AC.
I took the extra bard levels to get 40 ranks in Tumble. I will try the extra PM levels.
I went with 12 bard / 18 PM / 10 RDD and took more Great Dexterity feats and Epic Mage Armor and Epic Warding. End result: AC 113, only a 3 point increase. However, the DR 50/+20 was a major asset. Naked AC was 45 and the Fort save was a bit better.
The mod I use to test builds has 3 ridiculously powerful characters with uber-weapons. Durok is FTR 40/WM 20 (CR 19864), Sir Gunky is a WIZ 40/ CLR 20 (CR 12306), and Morfirion is CLR 30 / ROG 30 (CR 21091). The ultimate test of a character build is to either a) survive longer than 1 or 2 rounds against the trio, or b) actually kill them, using only items that are available in HotU (no custom items). This character survived 5 or 6 rounds. Build successful!
When looking at this build I notice that you put 20 as your starting dex. If you instead lowered that to 18 you would get 6 points to add to other abilities. If you added points to intelligence so it was at least 13, then you could take expertice and imp. expertice pre epic and have two free post epic feats that can be used for great dex giving you the same dexterity as you have now. though of course this would influence your feat choices pre epic so you might not want that, but I think I would go that way.
You mention you get AC 100+ when testing this character, I gather that is through items. I would like to know what you get without magical items.
Edited By AFaRDeMoNsPaWnDK on 02/09/05 08:54
You can take the bard lvl 14 at 37 or later to get 40 ranks in tumble. What is de name of the mod you are using for your test?
You could even go 7 Bard / 3 PM / 10 RDD pre-epic, finishing at 8 Bard / 22 PM / 10 RDD for even more AC.
Naked, unbuffed AC was 42 for the first build. The second build had a naked AC of 45. With Imp. Exp. it was 55. I forget what it was with Bard song, Imp. Exp. and the few buff spells, but I believe it was in the mid-60's.
113 AC was with haste armor (+4 Dodge AC), +10 AC bracers (Armor AC), +10 ring of protection (Deflection AC), dodge AC of +3 (or 5, i forget) from boots, ammy of nat. armor +7, large shield +7 (+9 Shield AC bonus), imp. exp. (+10 dodge), +10 dex belt (+5 dex AC), bard song, cat's grace (which did basically nothing), and mage armor (again, useless with the items).
Using the second build, I was still able to get exp. and imp. exp. after the 10 RDD levels. It is entirely possible to take all 10 RDD levels pre-epic to get these feats, just changing the order of when you take the levels. And you can sub the post-epic weapon feats for great dexterity.
The mod I use is one I made myself. It has the three uber guys, which are the level-giver, store and alignment changer, on the upper level and two rooms in the bottom with a number of decently-equipped lvl 20 NPC enemies to test the character against. I also made a PRC version of the mod to test all those wicked new prestitge classes.
Herbie, I took more bard levels to get a better bard song. It works by bard level as well as perform ranks, so more bard levels = better buffs.