Directions for skill points are to increase discipline at to 42 at last monk level and to specifically make sure that you take four levels of Intimidate at level 9. It is a class skill for a rogue so you will save four skill points that way.
Unbuffed and unenhanced in any way, Shadow Striker already has a solid 33 AC.
2. Near complete evasion.
With 50% concealment from Empty Body, Epic Dodge, and Improved Evasion, most enemies will have a difficult time hitting him at all.
3. Anti-spellcasters
As if the virtual immunity to physical damage were not enough, he also has a nice 30 spell resistance to help turn mages into mince meat.
4. High Parry
A nice defensive ability that, as it is enhanced by his dex., also doubles over as an offensive ability with riposte attacks.
Offensive Capabilities
Yes, the Kama is a low damage weapon, and yes, he is a dexterity fighter. This must mean that he won't be hurting anyone right? Dead wrong.
1. 7d6 Sneak Attack
Its not that much, but can increase his damage from below ten into the thirties easy. Crippling Strike also lends 2 strength damage to his hits.
2. Critical hits
Hey, just because he doesn't have devastating critical doesn't mean he can't use them. His kamas naturally do 17-20, x3 damage on a critical hit. Keen puts them at 16-20. This doesn't start to show itself until he gets a kama with damage enhancements on it, but it gives him a nice big damage increase when he does.
3. Eight attacks per round
Six attacks in the main hand, 2 in the off-hand, and he can get one more from flurry of blows and a final from hast. That's ten at max. These also help him with his critical hits because he gets about the same amount per round as a scimitar-wielding weapon master.
4. Improved Knockdown
Did you know that a knocked down character is vulnerable to sneak attacks? You do now because that is exactly what he can do.
5. Good AB
Natural AB: 35 With Kama: 39
With dual kamas, his attack que is +37/+34/+31/+28/+25/+22/+37/+34
A fair AB I believe, though not the best to be sure.
For the sake of readability please use Griphook's build template in the future
That said... this build's got a lot of room for improvement I'm afraid. The big thing is that WM doesn't really seem to benefit the build as much as it costs it. You lose more than a little AB (since you have a relatively low ending dex for a dex build and haven't got room for epic prowess) and have to put off two-weapon fighting for over half of your career in return for improving the critical hit stats of a weapon (kama) with the worst natural crit stats in the game (20 x2).
In most regards it really looks as though you'd be better off using COT instead of WM. It would be more realistically playable, and end up more effective all around. You're so feat-starved you don't even get blind fighting, from what I can see... a melee without blind fighting is in a lot of trouble against many enemies.
Quote: 2. Near complete evasion.
With 50% concealment from Empty Body, Epic Dodge, and Improved Evasion, most enemies will have a difficult time hitting him at all.
50% conceal and epic dodge are good, but improved evasion doesn't do anything to protect you from melee or ranged attacks, just traps, spells, and spell-like abilities.
Quote: 3. Anti-spellcasters
As if the virtual immunity to physical damage were not enough, he also has a nice 30 spell resistance to help turn mages into mince meat.
Real spellcasters and caster-heavy spellswords/battle clerics will be built to punch 32 SR at a minimum... evasion and perfect self will do a lot more for you against casters. 30 SR will be good for slumming (fighting enemies way lower in level than you) and for fighting low-caster-level enemies (such as some spellsword or cleric builds). But it won't be much help fighting in PvE against enemies that are around your level.
Quote: 4. High Parry
A nice defensive ability that, as it is enhanced by his dex., also doubles over as an offensive ability with riposte attacks.
Parry will definitely hurt this character more than it helps. You give up all your attacks per round (which is 10 when hasted and flurrying) in return for 3 parry attempts per round. You'd take less damage if you just stayed offensive and beaten the guy up faster. Considering the fact that 50% conceal and ED make you hard to hit already, investing points into parry is just flushing them down the toilet.
Offensive Capabilities
Yes, the Kama is a low damage weapon, and yes, he is a dexterity fighter. This must mean that he won't be hurting anyone right? Dead wrong.
Quote: 1. 7d6 Sneak Attack
Its not that much, but can increase his damage from below ten into the thirties easy. Crippling Strike also lends 2 strength damage to his hits.
2. Critical hits
Hey, just because he doesn't have devastating critical doesn't mean he can't use them. His kamas naturally do 17-20, x3 damage on a critical hit. Keen puts them at 16-20. This doesn't start to show itself until he gets a kama with damage enhancements on it, but it gives him a nice big damage increase when he does.
7d6 sneak attack is fine when you have a monk attack schedule. The problem with building for both sneaks and crits in a dex build, is that the same enemies tend to be immune to both. In fact the only enemy type I remember that is racially immune to sneak attacks, but not immune to critical hits, are Dragons.
It's a really good idea to keep scrolls of flame weapon or darkfire around to UMD on yourself with this build when you run into those kinds of enemies (at least the ones that aren't immune to fire too).
Also... with a low AB like this character has, an improved threat range helps a lot less than you think - if you miss, even if the diceroll's inside your threat range, you still just miss.
Quote: 5. Good AB
Natural AB: 35 With Kama: 39
With dual kamas, his attack que is +37/+34/+31/+28/+25/+22/+37/+34
A fair AB I believe, though not the best to be sure.
For a WM melee this AB is well below average. You want to have an AB of at least 40 dual wielding in order to keep up with the joneses... preferably 42 so you can absorb the flurry penalty. That means you want a single-wield AB of +44 if you possibly can.
Your AB goes back down to 35 if you flurry for your max attacks/round... against an epic level target you'll only hit it on a 20, realistically speaking. _________________ Experience is the mother of good judgement; bad judgement is the father of experience.
Thanks for the format help. Its my first post/first build so I had no idea it existed.
As for the waste in weapon master, I suppose you may be right. I might want to change that out for something else. I suppose I could check out that COT.
I made this build pitting it solely against monsters that were available in the game or against monsters that I made with the tool set. As such, I have no experience fighting real human players.
Your remark about the kama having some of the lowest critical hit abilities is actually wrong. The maximum percentage for critical hit chance with a scimitar is 55% with a x3 as I believe. His maximum with kamas is about 25% as i believe with x3. However, he gets about twice as many attacks as a scimitar wielding character. 25% of 8 attacks is about the same as 55% of 4. As such, I have calculated that his critical hits in a single round are about the same as a maximimum scimitar wielding weapon master. This said, he could use devastating critical to great effect, but I wanted to try for defense rather than offense.
As to the enemies with immunities, you are right. I haven't had that much trouble however with undead, elementals, or constructs however as he can simply wear them down in time.
Is that true what you say about parry? The skill description said that I could parry as many attacks per round as I have. I have used it and it didn't seem all that bad.
That said though, perhaps you are right about WM. I probably should exchange that. (Its only real use is, like I said, with high damage enhancement kamas).
Oh, yes, and his spell resistance is not that high at all. Its only real use is against people who use very small amounts of spellcasting (like ten or so levels).
Also, depending on how powerful kamas are in the area, he may want to use unarmed strike (natural 1-20, +3 enhancement).
Finally, his saves are
Fort 21 Reflex 34 Will 18 (but complete immunity to mind spells and effects)
Edited By Dark Centurion on 12/19/05 20:57
Also, I forgot to mention that this build is not actually meant to be a very great offensive weapon. I meant for the sneak attacks to let him get by in the low magic worlds and critical hits to get him by in high magic worlds. The real idea of this character is actually to be defensive. And he does so on a very wide scale. From dragon warriors to demiliches, he can withstand much more of a beating than most other characters. He also does so on the run, without having to spend more than about three seconds buffing up. UMD helps him with certain odds and ends in both areas.
true enough, the build seems pretty solid, but I do question the need for WM in it. I'm really thinking of the feats required to take it, and after all you only take 7 levels. Do you really need all of these otherwise? Dodge, Mobility, Expertise, Spring Attack, Whirlwind Attack and Weapon Focus. Sure maybe 2 or 3.
CoT springs to mind as Xylo pointed out. Thinking about going that route then drop Rogue to 10 maybe and take 10 CoT - your saves, HP and AB may well benefit greatly, without any sacrifice to your AC. Not to mention the possibility of Great WIS through the CoT in epic levels.
Just a few thoughts.
With uncanny dodge, wisdom is not necessary for this build. I agree with both of you that WM is a bad idea. COT however does not appeal to me very well. I was thinking about trying Dwarven Defender instead. Any tips for that?
Quote: Your remark about the kama having some of the lowest critical hit abilities is actually wrong. The maximum percentage for critical hit chance with a scimitar is 55% with a x3 as I believe. His maximum with kamas is about 25% as i believe with x3. However, he gets about twice as many attacks as a scimitar wielding character. 25% of 8 attacks is about the same as 55% of 4. As such, I have calculated that his critical hits in a single round are about the same as a maximimum scimitar wielding weapon master. This said, he could use devastating critical to great effect, but I wanted to try for defense rather than offense.
In this case it's not the kama's critical stats that are okay, it's that the monk attack schedule is covering over their weaker stats Put on armor and lose the monk attack schedule, and the kama isn't going to match the scimitar anymore.
But that's why the kamas have weaker stats, to balance them out against other weapons when monks can get 10 attacks per round with them.
Quote: Is that true what you say about parry? The skill description said that I could parry as many attacks per round as I have. I have used it and it didn't seem all that bad.
Yeah this is sad but true. I've experimented a lot with parry (as have others) and it's very rarely worthwhile. It doesn't work as advertised and really doesn't have much going for it unless you're fighting an extremely tough single enemy and are tanking it for a party.
Even then you're better off using improved expertise first.
You can do a search in the general forums for more info on specifically how parry works... the biggest problem in practical terms, is how much it slows down your dealing damage to the other guy though.
Quote: Also, depending on how powerful kamas are in the area, he may want to use unarmed strike (natural 1-20, +3 enhancement).
Ki strike doesn't give your fists an actual enhancement bonus... (ie, it doesn't give you +3 to hit or +3 to damage), it just lets you punch DR as if your bare fists were +3 weapons. The attack bonus on monk gloves counts for DR punching and adds to your AB... meaning that if you have gloves +5 on, you get +5 to hit and can punch DR like a +5 weapon.
The build concept is fine but your description of it runs afoul of a number of things that don't work the way you'd think. The manuals and even the ingame descriptions have a lot of inaccuracies... it's not your fault, just many things don't work as advertised (such as parry, ki strike, WM bonuses, etc). _________________ Experience is the mother of good judgement; bad judgement is the father of experience.
Sigh, and I thought I was good at this.
Oh well, I have since reformed this build, dumping weapon master and using dwarven defender in its place. The build seems to have perked up a bit. So, despite the slight bruise to my ego. I am all the better for it. Constructive Critisism I believe its called. I thank you for it.
(Also, I am sorry that I messed up the rules for posting, moderators, but this is my first and I didn't see the rules. I am, however, dumping this build and am now reforming it). (Missed parts - 350 HP, Straight level 40) Sorry about the confusion, like I said, I'm new).
Edited By Dark Centurion on 12/20/05 03:08
everyone has a first time!
btw... how is the split with DwD involved as well now?
Looks like you will have to post that as a brand new build.
Sigh, yet again my invincible genius has been foiled by people who are much smarter than me. I tried Monk 20 /DwD 10 / Rogue 10 and it turned out better. I got epic prowess and blind fight, about 50 extra HP, and 6 points of damage reduction. It was a much better build than my original fiasco, but I just remembered that COT gets extra fighter-esce feats. With at least four extra feats, I could increase my Dex heavily. As such, I believe that I will follow the advise of Samphus for the leveling guide (makes a lot of sense) and see what I can do with that. And yes, I may want to start another build for that.
By the ways, if anyone is interested in working on the dwarven defender / monk / rogue idea, then what I found out was that it did maximize on defense, but it centered more on absorbing hits rather than evading them. Of course, you guys probably knew that already. I like the idea of evading, but if anyone wants to follow up on that idea, it was a pretty good build idea. I think.
Put on armor and lose the monk attack schedule, and the kama isn't going to match the scimitar anymore.
Sigh, yet again my invincible genius has been foiled by people who are much smarter than me. I tried Monk 20 /DwD 10 / Rogue 10 and it turned out better. I got epic prowess and blind fight, about 50 extra HP, and 6 points of damage reduction. It was a much better build than my original fiasco, but I just remembered that COT gets extra fighter-esce feats. With at least four extra feats, I could increase my Dex heavily. As such, I believe that I will follow the advise of Samphus for the leveling guide (makes a lot of sense) and see what I can do with that. And yes, I may want to start another build for that.