"It's just an elf," the half-orc sneered. His buddy, the gnome illusionist, snickered as he thought of what spells he would cast.
The approaching elf stopped and arched an eyebrow. A massive blade could be seen, strapped to his back.
The half-orc lifted his scythe to a ready position. The gnome began muttering the words to a protective spell.
"Yargh!" the half-orc cried as he lunged to the attack.
Suddenly the elf sprang into motion, the massive blade swinging out.
The gnome's mutterings ceased abruptly. The elf's huge blade cut deeply into the half-orc's side at the same time as the severed head of the gnome hit him in the face.
The half-orc gasped and swung his scythe in a wild arc. He never saw his blow hit, as his view was obscured by the elf's greatsword plummeting from above, shattering his skull and slicing swiftly down, paralleling his spine.
The gnome's robe made for a good cleaning cloth as the elf surveyed the remnants of the bandit scum that thought they could challenge the Greatsword Master.
-------
This simple build is designed to deliver maximal damage with minimal finger-waggling. Fingers are instead wrapped firmly and tightly around the hilt of whatever massive greatsword du'jour the character has acquired.
Features of this build:
* 34 strength!
* AB with mundane greatsword: +47/+42/+37/+32
* Regular damage with mundane greatsword: 26-36
* Critical damage with mundane greatsword: 79-114 (threat range: 15-20)
* Overwhelming critical at level 21, devastating critical at level 24--plenty of time to play with both in HotU
Feats: (* denotes feats that may be replaced with your preference, BF denotes fighter bonus feats)
1. Dodge, Weapon Focus (greatsword) 2. BF: Mobility 3. Expertise 4. BF: Weapon Specialization (greatsword) 6. Spring Attack, BF: Whirlwind Attack 7. Weapon of Choice (greatsword) 9. Improved Critical (greatsword) 12. Toughness 15. Power Attack, BF: Cleave 17. BF: Great Cleave 18. Iron Will* 19. BF: Blind-Fight* 21. Great Strength I, BF: Overwhelming Critical (greatsword) 23. BF: Epic Weapon Focus (greatsword) 24. Devastating Critical (greatsword) 25. BF: Epic Weapon Specialization (greatsword) 27. Great Strength II, BF: Epic Prowess 29. BF: Armor Skin 30. Great Strength III 31. BF: Epic Toughness I 33. Great Strength IV, BF: Epic Toughness II 35. BF: Epic Toughness III 36. Great Strength V 37. BF: Epic Toughness IV 39. Great Strength VI, BF: Epic Toughness V
This build really needs to focus on taking down everything before everything has a chance to take him down.
On a server that doesn't allow Devastating Critical, I suppose you could replace Iron Will with Knockdown and Dev Crit with Improved Knockdown. Simulate Dev Crit by knocking your foes down and then cutting them in half as they try to stand back up.
Just don't be surprised when you fall to some charming sorceress waggling her fingers at ya.
Anyone who demands and submits that levels 14-19 can be taken as Champion of Torm to boost saves by +3 had best enter "Torm" into the deity field and roleplay accordingly.
Edited By Nukenin on 02/26/05 09:56
I think you forgot to list your stats.
Also, I'd take devastating critical as a fighter bonus feat instead of a normal feat. This would let you take another Great Strength. Of course, this would be at the cost of an Epic Toughness feat, but I think the trade is worth it.
Why elf and not human/dwarf/half-orc? Elf seems a strange pick for such a strength-based build. Especially since elves take a constitution hit.
Thanks for posting your build.
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Quote: Posted 02/26/05 12:25:32 (GMT) -- Aligory
I think you forgot to list your stats.
Also, I'd take devastating critical as a fighter bonus feat instead of a normal feat. This would let you take another Great Strength. Of course, this would be at the cost of an Epic Toughness feat, but I think the trade is worth it.
Heh--thanks for catching that. That's what I get for condensing from my build document using a format similar to Bioware's posted epic builds--I condensed out the stats. D'oops!
Starting Stats: Str 18, Dex 13, Con 12, Int 13, Wis 8, Cha 8 Ending Stats: Str 34, Dex 13, Con 12, Int 13, Wis 8, Cha 8
As for taking Dev Crit as a fighter bonus feat, yes, that'd let you get another Great Strength for a final strength of 35, but at the cost of either 2 AC (Armor Skin), +1 BAB (Epic Prowess), or 20 HP (Epic Toughness). Plus you would not get Dev Crit as early. And that extra strength point is all but useless, IMHO.
However, if you were to do an alternate of this build, a half-orc starting with Str 19, Dex 13, Con 12, Int 13, Wis 8, Cha 6, then you could make the following changes to the feat progression: ... 23. BF: Devastating Critical (greatsword) even earlier! 24. Great Strength II 25. BF: Epic Weapon Focus (greatsword) 27. Great Strength III, BF: Epic Weapon Specialization (greatsword) ... 40. Great Strength VII, BF: Epic Prowess
This loses 20 HP, but gains 2 STR (+1 AB) and one point of damage per hit (3 points of damage per critical).
(I haven't tested this half-orc alternate, but it should work out.)
A human variant of the elf build is easy--identical stats, and one extra feat to play with at level one, and one additional skill you can fully develop. So give the human weapon proficiency exotic, have him sub scythe for greatsword, play with the extra skill points as you wish, and you've got that classic archetype. Or just give him Luck of Heroes at level one for better saves, make him a Torm worshipper, and take levels 14-19 as Champion of Torm, for +4 to all saves.
Dwarf starting stats would be Str 18, Dex 13, Con 14, Int 13, Wis 8, Cha 6--this nets an additional 40 hit points due to the boosted Con. Replace greatsword with greataxe if desired.
Halfling and gnome variants are a bit more complex. Starting stats will be Str 16, Dex 13, Con 14, Int 13, Wis 8, Cha 8. Greatsword should be replaced with a weapon like rapier or warhammer.
Feat progression in epic levels must be altered to reflect the lower strength:
... 21. Great Strength I, BF: Epic Weapon Focus (rapier) 23. BF: Epic Weapon Specialization (rapier) 24. Overwhelming Critical (rapier) 25. BF: Epic Prowess 27. Great Strength II, BF: Armor Skin 29. BF: Devastating Critical (rapier) ...
(Strength for gnomes and haffers will end at 32, not 34.)
For the perfect katana master, take a halfling (or gnome) and adjust the initial 4 levels as follows:
... 15. Power Attack, BF: Weapon Specialization (katana) 17. BF: Cleave 18. Great Cleave ...
The halfling katana master is pretty much the first build I took through HotU (though I think I took Power Attack at 12 and moved Toughness somewhere in the 15-19 range). Very fun to play if you want to take a break from the finger-waggling.
Why elf and not human/dwarf/half-orc? Elf seems a strange pick for such a strength-based build. Especially since elves take a constitution hit.
Heh--I just posted the info on all three as alternative races. Human pretty much has identical stats, just an additional feat at 1st level and 43 more skill points to play with. Dwarf gets to work in a higher Con for more HPs, at the expense of being a bit more difficult to get along with (lower Cha). The half-orc build can get to higher strength, at the expense of 20 hit points from the loss of one of the Epic Toughness feats.
Elf was purely a RP choice.
Hints above are also given for gnome and halfling variants, which basically just get less strength (and must work with a smaller weapon of choice) but are otherwise just as viable.
I'm new to NWN, is it better to take more ftr levels than wpn master? If so, why?
I've also been told it's impossible to finish SOU & HOTU at lvl 40, that it will be more likely you'll finish at around lvl 26. If this is true, how would you adjust your build?
I'm new to NWN, is it better to take more ftr levels than wpn master? If so, why?
It's a tradeoff--taking all the epic levels as fighter gives you 10 bonus feats versus the 6 you would get taking them as weapon master. However, you would get +4 to your AB (attack bonus) from taking a full 30 levels of weapon master (maybe even +5, I'm not sure if superior weapon focus goes up at level 10 weapon master or not, but it will increase at 15, 20, 25, and 30).
In a variant of my build, you could simply take weapon master to 10 pre-epic (i.e. levels 7 through 16 or any other combination giving you the full 10 pre-epic)--you will have to sacrifice one of the fighter bonus feats. Then take all 20 epic levels as weapon master, and simply sacrifice three of the epic toughness feats (60 hit points) and epic weapon specialization (see below) and shuffle the other bonus feats around a bit to fit the every-three-level WM progression.
However, this will cost you epic weapon specialization. An alternative is to keep the listed pre-epic progression (13 fighter/7 weapon master) and take the 14th fighter level at 21 as listed, to get both epic weapopn focus and specialization out of the way, then take the remaining 19 levels as weapon master. This costs you +1 potential AB from going to the full 30 weapon master levels possible, but the +4 damage is well worth it, IMHO.
So it comes down to trading 60 hit points and for +3 (or +4, again depending on whether you get an additional +1 at WM level 10) AB.
Quote: I've also been told it's impossible to finish SOU & HOTU at lvl 40, that it will be more likely you'll finish at around lvl 26. If this is true, how would you adjust your build?
Thank you
No adjustment--the build is basically a putting-to-paper (or -post as the case may be) of the first character I took all the way through SoU/HotU (though I went the halfling katana master route, but I've mentioned the differences above). The build as specified delivers devastating critical by level 24, which gives you some time at the end of HotU to hopefully benefit from it (my halfling katana master did not get DevCrit by the end of HotU, alas, due to lower starting strength and probably also due to whatever on-the-fly development mistakes I may have made).
Any build I post here will be optimized for a fun (for me, anyway!) SoU/HotU experience, as I don't (yet!) play multiplayer PvM/PvP so my builds don't ever see level 40 except when testing (though I hope to discover a good HotU follow-on experience to build my characters a bit further along the build plans I've written up, without jarring the integrity of their background coming from the SoU/HotU stories.
Thanks for the questions and feel free to ask any more you may have.
Quote: Posted 03/06/05 02:03:24 (GMT) -- Nukenin
It's a tradeoff--taking all the epic levels as fighter gives you 10 bonus feats versus the 6 you would get taking them as weapon master. However, you would get +4 to your AB (attack bonus) from taking a full 30 levels of weapon master (maybe even +5, I'm not sure if superior weapon focus goes up at level 10 weapon master or not, but it will increase at 15, 20, 25, and 30).
It starts at level 13 and every 3 levels thereafter, so 13,16,19,22,25,28 for a total of +6. You also get a 2nd weapon of choice. So you can fit in a blunt weapon for slash /pierce resist monsters.
It starts at level 13 and every 3 levels thereafter, so 13,16,19,22,25,28 for a total of +6. You also get a 2nd weapon of choice. So you can fit in a blunt weapon for slash /pierce resist monsters.
I'll have to experiment with more WM-weighted options then.
I think to get a 2nd weapon of choice, you need to also have focus in that 2nd weapon, right?
Yes, you need a second weapon focus to get the 2nd weapon of choice.
Syrath
You can get more than 2 weapons of choice actually, 3 is easily done and I suspect that 4 might be possible as well. There is a triple weapon master build Ive posted on this forum already.
Quote: Posted 03/08/05 00:29:09 (GMT) -- M1ke47
You can get more than 2 weapons of choice actually, 3 is easily done and I suspect that 4 might be possible as well. There is a triple weapon master build Ive posted on this forum already.
Cool--that's what I suspected (and I do believe I skimmed your build a while back ) but I've yet to try it firsthand. Most of my play grinds to a halt around level 27 (i.e. most of my play touching the epic levels is in characters taken through SoU/HotU; I'm still looking for a good single-player epic module I would enjoy, as right now multiplayer is more or less not an option) so I try to squeeze in a taste of the epic (e.g. Overwhelming Crit and DevCrit in this build) while I still have the time to enjoy it.
Theoretically you can have a weapon of choice for each weapon master bonus feat. So 7 is the max , one at levels 1,13,16,19,22,25,28
Syrath
I like how you balanced it and waited it out 'til epic levels before you got all your bonus fighter feats. I don't typically make very many fighters with over 10 fighter levels because it's just too many useless feats.
)
That's what I get for condensing from my build document using a format similar to Bioware's posted epic builds--I condensed out the stats. D'oops!