Hi there! First of all, excuse me for my poor English.

I have a demanding request for you all excellent character builders. I play on a server based on the LOTR world, in which items rule. Yes, your equipment can be more important than the way your character is built, primarily because of damage immunity and damage resistance items. This limits severely the kind of characters you can be successful with, because monsters have whopping damage reductions and ACs, as well as PCs. Of course, items are limited by level, so that you can’t get the best bonuses until you are 30-35. A lvl 40 character can easily get the following via items (apart from the bonuses of the build itself):

+12 to the preferred characteristic (STR for fighters, DEX for rogues, INT for wizards…)
20/- resistance to slashing, piercing and blunting
25% or more immunity to slashing, piercing or blunting
10-15/- to fire, cold, acid, electric, sonic, positive and negative damage types
AC boosted to 50-60 with 8 DEX and no points in tumble (Armor, shield and other items, such as boots).
Immunity to death magic, knockdown and mind-affecting spells, such as Hold Person
Weapons with +8 to hit and damage, and 2d12 of an elemental damage type (including positive and negative)
For spellcasters: armors, robes, rings and staffs giving extra spell slots

You can have even more resistances and bonuses but if I list them all I will have no room left for my request.
The thing is, you have to be a heavy meleer, a pure spellcaster, or maybe a cleric combination to really excel in this server. Or at least that is what I think now, and the reason why I post this request. I would like you to give ideas for a server like this (I imagine this is not the only one on Earth with such incredibly powerful items), and especially a good arcane caster/meleer combination, since this is the kind of build I would enjoy most

TIA.
Quote: Posted 06/28/05 09:08:53 (GMT) -- Sontyr

...your equipment can be more important than the way your character is built...

My advice is to make a character that excels at what it focuses on, and uses the good items both to improve that further and cover its weaknesses.

Eg. If you want to make a melee character with as high AB as possible. There's a limit to how much you can improve AB with items. So the build that has the highest AB naked and unbuffed will also be best with maxed items.

You have the same situation with AC. Best with non magical equipment will also be best with maxed items.

If you make a caster, many things improve with increasing levels and class stats. A lvl 40 wizard with high INT will have better spell penetration and spell DC than a multiclassed battlemage. It will also be better at dispelling and avoiding being dispelled.

If you use the toolset, you'll see that there are a number of feats and bonuses you can't get on items. Other feats and bonuses won't be implemented the same way they would if they were part of your build.
So you can't get everything from items! Keep that in mind when you decide what to focus on.
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I generally avoid temptation, unless I can't resist it... Hmm. Interesting server and request (pm me with the name if you could! i would like to check it out, thanks).

I was thinking of a build the other day that would be interesting on this server. I know its against everything i have done up til now, but a strength based paladin seems to fit here. You mention alot of nice bonuses, but the one you missed was immune to fear (which probably could be found on an item or 2) but it is so nice to not have to worry about that. The other classes I would take are 3wiz/16-22 pale master. Having imm to crit with 4 atts/rd and high strength give you alot to the build. If you can get 12 str AND 12 charisma you will have nice saves to boot! The only thing thats missing from this is the wpn specialization feats, which for a melee character are nice (having +6 dam PLUS +12 str is like havin +24 to str )

The ONLY thing with this is the alignment shift from good to neutral, if the server allows Thank you guys for answering my request. A couple of things:

Mick Dagger (good nick! ): You're right, in a server with these kind of items you have to focus your character in one thing only. For instance, if you are doing a fighter with devastating critical, you have to put points into Strength in every single time you have the opportunity in order to maximise your devastating critical DC. With a Strength of 26 + 12 (items) = 38, your DC would be 44. In this server almost everybody, including monsters, has a Fortitude higher than 44, so you would have to rely on 1s to devastate. The same thing applies to wizards' spells DC, rogues' sneak attacks... I like tanks and pure wizards, but I would prefer to play a more versatile build. In fact, I made a Paladin 5/Cleric 17/Sorcerer 18 I had seen in one of the earliest Excellent Character Builds forums... only to discover that he quite sucks... for this server, I mean. (I still like the idea of having all the cleric and most of arcane spells in one build). Besides, classes like Shifter are pure rubbish for this server, because Shifter and Druid forms don't take advantage of the properties of the items.

Anyway, thinking that you can't have all the feats with items and that there's a limit to how much you can improve your attack using them is a good point. Thank you for the advice.

avado: the use of Pale Masters has recently been restricted in the server. You can only choose PM if you are Wizard or Sorcerer, and if you choose it you can't take a third class. Otherwise, yes, it would be great. Paladins with high STR and good CHA are quite frequent and deal really whopping damages, but with only 3 Smites per day (it can't be increased further than that, or am I wrong?), and having to wait 4 hours to rest again once you have rested (sorry, I forgot to mention this happened in the server), it's not as good as it could be.
(BTW, immunity to fear is included among the immunities to mind-affecting spells and effects).

You have given me some good ideas, but I'm still looking for a fighter/spellcaster type of build, but adequate for this server, with the highest AB and damage possible and still getting lvl 9 spells and, among the epic spells, at least Epic Warding. Maybe I'm asking too much... Anyway, the way to get it would be Fighter/Sorcerer/RDD?

TIA again. Dam.. an immune to crit spellcaster! what's the point! LMAO Oh well.

Peace