Can anyone think of a good Melee/Ranged character build for a player vs monster world?

I thought of a Dex based fighter, but damage is on the low side? Especially vs bosses?
Any suggestions? elf. Dex based monk 8, then 10 levels Blackguard, then 2 shadowdancer, then take all blackguard except for 3 more levels of shadowdancer scattered at levels that allow you to increase AC with tumble and to take epic dodge on the final SD level. This will net you a high AC, high AB, rapid rate of attack unarmed, 4 attacks with a weapon and virtual invunerability to ranged attacks and reflex based spells, as well as the option to HIPS. sneakers will not be a problem if you max listen. you also have a formidable sneak attack, especially unarmed or with kamas. This build is exceptionally easy to level too. downsides include dealing with anything using unnerfed trueseeing and anything immune to sneak attacks. If you want to boost your damage without resorting to sneak attacks (which many things are immune to), you have a few options:

1) Feats. Bane of Enemies (requires lvl 21 Ranger) will boost your damage and AB against Favored enemies, whereas Epic Weapon Spec (requires level 4 Fighter) will boost your damage by +6 as long as you are using your chosen weapon.

2) Spells. I think Clerics get the best spells in terms of boosting damage and AB, and some of their spells will boost your AC as well, which is nice. Wizards and Sorcs don't get as many damage buffs, but they do get some reciprocal damage spells (Death Armor, Elemental Shield, Mestil's Acid Sheath) which can do quite a bit of damage vs. melee characters.

3) Bard song. Not technically a spell, but still one of the best buffs in the game. If you get to Bard level 20 you can learn Lasting Inspiration, which allows you to use Bard Song and Curse Song simultaneously for effectively double the effect. Also note that Bards get a reciprocal damage spell in the way of Wounding Whispers, and get damage buffs in the way of Bull's Strength, Greater magic weapon, and War Cry.


Thus, maybe try something along the lines of a Bard 21/Fighter 10/AA 9. You should have enough feats to get Epic Weapon Spec with both a melee weapon as well as your bow. Although you may want to consier dual-wielding, you might find yourself short on feats if you try to get all the dual-wield feats as well as 2 Epic Weapon Specs. Race should be Elf.


Alternatively, you could try something like a Bard 15/Cleric 15/RDD 10, pick up Zen Archery, and split your points between Str and Wisdom. Since you'll get +8 to Str from the RDD, another 3 points would get your Str high enough to allow you to get Dev. Crit. Thus, you could pump up to 7 more points into Wisdom, which should allow you to do OK with a ranged weapon.

Maybe start your stats like this:

Str 14
Dex 8
Con 14
Int 14
Wis 14
Cha 14

Make sure to pick up Still Spell since you'll want it for casting Bard spells in heavy armor. Even with your poor Dex, with Bard Song and Curse Song, as well as all your Cleric buffs, +8 AC from Tumble, and another +4 AC from RDD, you should do OK in terms of AC, and if you choose to use a one-handed weapon, or a sling rather than a bow, you will be able to wear a tower shield in the off-hand for another +8 to AC.
Quote: Posted 01/29/05 17:10:28 (GMT) -- CrispyCritter

Thus, maybe try something along the lines of a Bard 21/Fighter 10/AA 9. You should have enough feats to get Epic Weapon Spec with both a melee weapon as well as your bow. Although you may want to consier dual-wielding, you might find yourself short on feats if you try to get all the dual-wield feats as well as 2 Epic Weapon Specs. Race should be Elf.


A powerful archer, but be aware this build carries a racial XP penalty which can only be avoided by choosing half-elf.

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Click Here "A powerful archer, but be aware this build carries a racial XP penalty which can only be avoided by choosing half-elf."

Maybe a bit of a silly question, but I'm not quite that well versed in character building as most of you out there. As I understand it the experience penalty comes into play when you have more than two levels difference between the highest level class and the next one right? Unless the main class is an affinity class for a certain race. If this build would have AA as main class, would that avoid the xp penalty or are you always stuck with that if you have bard and rogue as classes when you're an elf? Man this is confusing, I hope someone can make sense of this post AA is always ignored in terms of XP penalty because it's a prestige class. You need to be either an Elf or a Half-Elf in order to become an AA. Elf's favored class is Wizard, which means that whenever you play an Elf any Wizard levels are ignored when figuring your XP penalty (if any).

Bard and Fighter levels, however, are not ignored. If your Bard level is more than 1 level away from your Fighter level (i.e. if you did something like Bard 21/Fighter 10, or even Bard12/Fighter 10), you would then suffer a 20% XP penalty.

Half-Elf, like Human, has a Favored class of Any. How this works in NWN is that it considers your highest level class as your favored class, unless that class is a Prestige class, in which case it ignores both the Prestige class AND the second highest class, meaning no XP penalty for you.

Thus, the only way to get an XP penalty as a Human or Half-Elf would be to do something like a Wizard 23/Cleric 11/Fighter 6, in which you have 3 base classes, none of which are within one level of each other. thanks for the explanation... bleh, so I ruined another character my account at the PW I play at is full of them For a strong player vs monsters melee char, its difficult to go wrong with a Ftr/Cleric, or cleric/BG or Cleric/CoT, making sure that you take 4 of the fighter or BG or CoT pre epic so as to get 4/round.

IMO that is