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Post by Cinerith on Jan 2, 2007 1:55:13 GMT -6
IntroductionThis is a basic guide on how to build characters. It does not have any actual builds. It just contains pointers. First and foremost, if you have a version of Microsoft Office, you should consider downloading this: nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=Other.Detail&id=856It really helps in planning out your builds and if you select the Output tab you can easily copy and paste the build into a txt file for easy storage or posting on forums. Terra's guides are useful for understanding the game's mechanics as well. See Terra's BAB guide and Terra's Guide to Armor Class and StackingAnother useful link is www.nwnwiki.org which has a comprehensive listing of all the feats, spells and classes in the game, what their requirements are and what they do. Now on to stats.
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Post by Cinerith on Jan 2, 2007 2:38:52 GMT -6
Stats
Right from the get go you should have a clear idea what your main stat is going to be. If you intend to melee well your main stat should either Str, Dex (Weapon Finesse/Archers) or Wis (Zen Archery). This should be obvious but I've seen Monks based on unarmed attacks with higher Wisdom than Strength or Dexterity and they complain about missing a lot when the reason they miss a lot is pretty obvious. It's the same with Bards with higher Charisma than Strength or Dexterity even though the Bards' spellbook doesn't really support a caster-style offensive. If you intend to rely on your spells then it's a bit of a grey area but at the very minimum you should have enough of a mental stat to cast the level of spells you aim for (ie Int for Wizards, Wis for Clerics, Druids, Paladins and Rangers, Cha for Bards and Sorcerers) and you should go higher if you want higher DCs (translation: higher success rates) on your spells.
For clarification I'm going to refer to AB a lot. AB means Attack Bonus ie Accuracy when translated to English.
Strength increases melee damage and melee AB. If you're a melee character and you want to hit stuff and you don't intend to rely on Weapon Finesse or Zen Archery this should be your main stat. Strength is also required for certain feats like Power Attack and Devastating Critical so make sure you have enough points in Strength if you intend to get these feats. Note that Power Attack is a requirement to get Divine Might. Strength also increases your carrying capacity.
Dexterity increases your AC if you can get your Dexterity bonus above 9. It also increases your ranged attack AB. If you have Weapon Finesse, it increases your melee AB with a light weapon as well. Note that there are 2 numbers on your character sheet. the number on the left is the Ability Score and the number on the right is the Ability Bonus you get for having that score. You need an Ability Score of 28 Dexterity including items and buffs to get an Ability Bonus bonus of 9 for your Dexterity. If you need an English translation, you need many points in Dex for it to be worth the investment if you want a high AC. If you only have a mediocre score in Dex you're better off in full plate. Also, some feats require a certain amount of points in Dex, like Dodge, Ambidexterity, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting and Epic Dodge. However, if Strength is your main stat it is not advisable to go out of your way to get Dex just so you can take two-weapon fighting feats. Consider taking 9 levels in Ranger if you really want to fight with 2 weapons while being a Strength-based character. Note that the Weapon Master and Shadowdancer classes have Dodge as one their prerequisites.
Constitution increases your HP and fortitude saves. At level 40 2 points in Con equates to 40 HP, so subraces like Pixie and Illithid that lose 4 Con are forgoing 80 HP. If you think 80HP isn't much imagine this scenario: You are a pixie/illithid mage who started with 14 con and ended up with 10 con after subrace adjustments. With Toughness you get 5 HP per level for 200 base HP at level 40, or 440 HP with +12 Con from items. A Crimson Terror breathes on you for 450 damage after taking resists into account. You die. On the other hand, a Dwarf mage started with 18 Con and Toughness, getting 9 HP per level for 360 HP, or 600 HP with items. He eats the same breath attack and drinks a Heal potion, then casts Dominate Monster. Win. Also note that 21 Constitution is a requirement for getting Epic Damage Reduction, which can be taken 3 times to grant a total of +9 to your damage soak.
Intelligence determines the amount of skill points you get. Some characters can make use of this more than others. To me, Discipline and Tumble are must-haves for a melee character, and Concentration for a caster. If you have to melee AND cast then you have to take both. On top of that Bards need Perform to get a good Bard Song. They also get other nice skills like Use Magic Device which allows you to use Scrolls and wear items reserved for other classes, and Taunt which lowers enemy AC by up to 6 which can mean the difference between hit-hit-miss-miss-hit and hit-hit-hit-hit-hit. Put simply you should have enough Int to take the skills you want (or need), but no more than that unless you're a Wizard. Also note that you need 13 Int to take advanced combat feats like Expertise, Improved Knockdown and Disarm. Expertise is a requirement for the Weapon Master prestige class.
Wisdom increases your Will saves and AC if you're a monk. It also increases your ranged AB if you have Zen Archery. Also, most melee casters that have spellbooks rely on Wis to cast their spells, like Rangers, Paladins and Clerics and Druids. In most cases Wisdom is a stat that you can leave at 8 unless you are one of the aforementioned classes.
Charisma increases... nothing on its own =p But characters with high charisma look cute! (though this is not directly reflected ingame) Paladins and Blackguards add their Charisma bonus to saves though. The feat Divine Might will add your Charisma bonus to your damage, while Divine Shield adds it to your AC. It's also the caster stat for Bards and Sorcerers, and increases the duration of the domain abilities of certain Cleric domains and the Champion of Torm's Divine Wrath. Like Wisdom, Charisma is usually a stat that you can leave at 8 unless you are one of the aforementioned classes.
Your main stat should start at 16 BEFORE racial adjustments (ie 16 con for humans should mean 18 con for dwarves and 16 dex for humans should mean 18 dex for halflings etc), and you should put every point you gain through level ups into that stat. That should give you 26 minimum. Additionally, if you spend Epic feats getting Great Strength/Great Dexterity/etc you can raise it even higher.
Your secondary stats should be 14 or 16 depending on whether you can afford it and what you're going to use it for. I would consider the casting stats of more melee-oriented casters as secondary stats. This includes Bards, Paladins, Rangers, characters taking a bit of Cleric or another caster class for buffs etc. I also consider Wisdom a secondary stat for Monks unless they are Zen Archers. The reason being if you want to raise AC you might as well take Dex and Weapon Finesse to raise your AB at the same time, and if you don't then just take Strength. Under most circumstances it is not advisable to raise a secondary stat beyond its starting value at the cost of a primary stat. In other words, if you have to choose between your main stat and this, choose your main stat. But if for some reason, like if you get a Bonus Feat that allows you to raise your secondary stat but not your main stat and you think it is worth raising it, then by all means do it.
An exception to this is if you are trying to go for a something that requires a certain amount of points in a stat, like Epic Damage Reduction which requires 21 Con, but your main stat is say Strength, or you want to cast level 9 cleric spells, which requires 19 wis. You should increase your secondary stats in such cases, but do note that the price of doing so is not cheap so you should really know what you are doing, and if possible try to create a situation where bonus feats in a certain class or just flat out bonuses will help to offset this. One example is taking Champion of Torm in epic levels to get Great Wisdom as a Champion of Torm bonus feat so that raising Wisdom doesn't cost you any normal feats.
As a general rule of thumb, if you can afford to leave a stat at 8, leave it at 8 and then cover the shortfall with items. Prime candidates to leave at 8 include Wisdom, Charisma, Dexterity for characters with Strength as their main stat, Strength for characters with Dexterity as their main stat, or both Strength and Dexterity for casters or Zen Archers. Intelligence and Constitution are grey areas in that leaving them at 8 can lead to rather serious disadvantages like low HP or not enough skill points to get all the skills you need. Don't leave a stat at 8 if you intend to take a class or feat that requires a certain amount in a stat though. One example is Shadowdancer which requires that you have the Dodge feat, and that in turn requires 13 Dex. Do your homework at nwnwiki.org before you happily drop a stat down to 8 only to find out later that you need 13 in it for a certain feat and it's too late to change it.
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Post by Cinerith on Jan 2, 2007 4:42:22 GMT -6
Classes
I will not be going through what the individual classes are and what they can do because the ingame descriptions and nwnwiki can do a much better job than I can.
Rather, I will be talking about 2 concepts related to multiclassing, Class Combination and Class Synergy.
Class Combination are self-explanatory. It is the combination of classes that a character takes. Rogue/Shadowdancer/Assassin is a one combination. Ranger/Monk/Blackguard is another combination.
Class Synergy is how well they work together, and this depends on the judgement of the player and the environment of the server. For example, someone can say Rogue 9/Shadowdancer 1/Assassin 30 is good synergy because it's 3 stealth classes. You can stack the Rogue's Sneak Attack with the Assassin's Death Attack and Shadowdancer lets you Hide in Plain Sight so you can do a lot of Deathly Sneak Attacks/Sneaky Death Attacks or whatever you call them. On the other hand a combination like that has more than its fair share of weaknesses. First of all if you read Terra's BAB Guide, this build will have a BAB of 23 at level 40 which is terrible for a melee character. All things being equal, in a situation where a fighter will hit 100% of the time, this build may only hit 65% of the time. When said fighter only hits 65% of the time, this build will hit 30% of the time. Second, with a Sneak Attack this high, it is a good idea to maximize the number of attacks you can do in a round to make the most out of it. however, the low BAB means it only has 3 attacks per round compared to 4 from a fighter of equivalent level, and without bonus feats it would be hard to afford all 3 two-weapon feats. And even if it did take 2-weapon feats that would only drop its already low AB even further.
On the other hand, if it went with Monk 6/Fighter 8/Assassin 26 instead, taking Monk 4/Fighter 8/Assassin 8 in the first 20 levels, it would end up with a BAB of 17. This is much better than the original due to the Fighter's high BAB progression and better BAB organization pushing the BAB of the build up. Taking two-weapon feats would also be easy with the bonus feats the Fighter offers, while Monk means you can do up to 10 attacks per round when dual-wielding Kamas. You can also put some points into Wisdom and wear Wisdom-boosting items to increase your AC so that the disadvantage of not wearing a shield is negated. You get a small speed boost due to Monk levels, and finally you get Improved Knockdown for free when you get your 6th Monk level, which makes it easier for you to knock an opponent down and do a flurry of Death Attacks even from the front. Even then, this build has disadvantages - it is not able to get Epic Dodge because none of the classes will give it Improved Evasion and Defensive Roll even if it did meet the Dexterity requirement of 25. Second, even though its BAB is better it's still nothing spectacular compared to a Fighter/Weapon Master or Barbarian/RDD or fully buffed Cleric. It loses Hide in Plain Sight compared to the original and it has no casting ability.
The moral of the story is that every build has its pros and cons and while it is good to play to your strengths you should also try to cover your weaknesses. At the same time it must be acknowledged that it is impossible to truly cover every hole, even if it may take a while of actual playing for that flaw to become evident. In a PvM environment like Netheria there will always be a build that is better than yours at something, be it crowd control, dealing damage, tanking, farming easy areas in record time, soloing hard areas etc. In a PvP environment every build has a counter-build. If there was a One Build™ to rule them all then there wouldn't be a point in having a forum like this now would there? =p
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Post by Cinerith on Jan 2, 2007 5:08:54 GMT -6
Hard numbers
These are the benchmarks at level 40 for reference. Do note that a build that can beat these numbers may not necessarily perform well. A build that falls short of them might not be sub-par either.
- ACs on items here go up to +7 - Enhancement Bonus and AB on items here go up to +10 - Permanent Haste is available on items. - For the purposes of calculation I will include factors that everyone can get with ease, like taking a single feat or saving a number of points and taking a single level in a class to dump those points in a class skill.
AC (Fullplate) 10 Base 8 Full Plate 1 Dex 3 Tower Shield 4 Haste 2 Armor Skin 8 Tumble 7 Armor Ench (item) 7 Deflection (item) 7 Natural (item) 7 Shield (item) 7 Dodge (item) ================= 71 AC =================
AC (Dex-based)
Conditions: - 16 dex at level 1 - No racial bonuses - Every point at level up into Dex (Total +10) - Great Dex VI (Total +6) - +12 Dex from items - Total Dex: 44 for a bonus of 17
10 Base 17 Dex 3 Tower Shield 4 Haste 2 Armor Skin 8 Tumble 7 Armor Ench (item) 7 Deflection (item) 7 Natural (item) 7 Shield (item) 7 Dodge (item) ================= 79AC =================
AB
Conditions: - Fighter BAB progression - Assume 44 Str/Dex/Wis as calculated above - +8 weapon (middle ground between +5 and +10, rounded up)
30 BAB 1 Weapon Focus 2 Epic Weapon Focus 1 Epic Prowess 17 Ability Score 8 Weapon =============== 59AB Single Wield 57AB Dual Wield/Rapid Shot ===============
Spell DCs
Conditions: - 18 Int/Wis/Cha at level 1 - No racial bonuses - Every point at level up into the respective caster stat (Total +10) - Great Int/Wis/Cha VIII which is easier to raise due to bonus feats (Total +8) - +12 Int/Wis/Cha from items - Total Int/Wis/Cha: 48 for a bonus of 19
10 Base 6 Epic Spell Focus 19 Ability Score ===================== Spell Save DC = 35 + Spell Level =====================
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Post by Phunic Ivdon on Jan 2, 2007 12:22:14 GMT -6
Awesome guides, Cin. Maybe you should put these up on the site?
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Post by Cinerith on Jan 31, 2007 1:12:19 GMT -6
This was updated on the site with a section on how to get more AC
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Reaper
Diamond Member
Netheria DM
Fear the Reaper
Posts: 278
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Post by Reaper on Jan 31, 2007 1:33:54 GMT -6
Yay *tyreal reads*
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