Calling all Ironworks NWN’ers

[Target]

Can you help with a new build. I recently went on a spiritual camp, amongst the talks and courses I did some archery and the martial art Stav. (see www.iceandfire.org for more info.) So now I would like to build a new character that can use a bow (long range fighting) and a Stav (staff, 2 handed stick) for close combat.
Can anyone help with that sort of build?
I don’t really mind about gender, race and what classes are used, although I’ve never really got on all that well with spell casters.

So any suggestions will be greatly received.

I think I’ll be playing this character through the 100% XP version of the OC, so a build from level 1 please
Cheers

[Zink Whistlefly]

Well, the 2 handed staff will give you a 50% strength damage boost, so you'll want a high strength to take advantage of that. For using the bow, you'll want to crank your dexterity up too for the increased attack bonuses.

Here's some suggested stat's (non power-gaming)

STR: 15 (will give you +2 to hit and +3 to damage with the staff)
DEX: 15 (gives you +2 AC and +2 to your ranged AB's)
CON: 14 (+2 HP/L)
INT: 12 (+1 skill points/L)
WIS: 10
CHA: 10

These stats provide no penalties in any 1 area, and sets you up nicely for your extra points at level 4 and 8 to place into STR and DEX. Which ever you do first can be determined by which weapon you tend to be using the most - bow or staff.

I suggest you take human, since you're wanting to be skilled with both a ranged and a melee weapon, which will require a large amount of feats, and the bonus skill points, combined with the extra +1 from a 12 INT gives you 4 per level (assuming you take fighter). Fighter is the logical route to take since you'd rather avoid a spell caster by the sound of things, and you'll get a ton of feats.

Suggested feats:
Weapon Focus: Quarterstaff
Weapon Focus: Long/Short Bow
Point Blank Shot
Rapid Shot
Weapon Specialisation: Quarterstaff
Weapon Specialisation: Long/Short Bow
Power Attack
Cleave
Improved Critical: Quarterstaff
Improved Critical: Long/Short Bow
Great Cleave

It would take you up until level 12 to get all these however, so you'll need to be patient. Feats to take from level 12 could include Dodge, then Mobility (to give you the improved AC against attacks of opportunity, which you are leaving yourself open to using a bow in close combat), then spring attack (moving around in combat is always useful, especially if your HP are low and you need to retreat) and finish off with Whirlwind Attack which seems like a logical attacking manoeuvre for a staff expert. These last couple of feats require the expansion packs however!

For armour I suggest you use Chainmail, and then switch to Scalemail or a Chain Shirt if your Dexterity ever reaches 18. Full plate doesn't quite seem right for this kind for dextrous combat!

[ 09-05-2005, 05:47 AM: Message edited by: Zink Whistlefly ]

[Legolas]

Any elven character regardless of class can use both of those weapons so that whatever your choice of build, you needn't worry about getting the required weapon feats.

There are several interesting options to explore with the combination.
The Paladin class is interesting because of the weapon enhancements it allows you to place on your quarterstaff. Similarly, the bard, cleric, wizard and sorcerer classes have a number of spells available that will let you get more out of your weapon, though with the exception of the Darkfire and Flame Weapon spells, the paladin has the best set available really. Blackstaff isn't much of a match for Holy Avenger, though Greater Magic weapon has some benefits in that it's available earlier on.
Of these, the Wizard and Sorcerer are also notable for their Truestrike spell, the paladin for its high base attack, and the bard for arguably being the better choice if you take Dragon Disciple or Arcane Archer levels.

Dragon Disciples are a key part of many DevCrit builds, and indeed it is interesting to have a devestating critical attack on both your staff and your bow.
Arcane Archers are key in getting mad base attack bonusses with missile weapons.

Then there are the Fighter and Champion of Torm classes to consider, both of which give you a good few bonus feats. You may find you need them since you're trying to specialise in two different weapon types.

Rogues are another good choice, Rogue Shadowdancers particularly so. Missile weapons go well with high sneak attack damage, and so does knocking low discipline characters down in melee. The Assassin class has some use as well as it can paralyze but now we're looking at sneak attack builds more than bow/staff ones really. They assume that you'll hit eventually even if you're no good with the weapon you use.

As for the druid, monk and ranger, they're sadly ill-equipped for bow and staff fighting. You may get something out of the ranger's Favoured Enemy damage increases but the fun ends there.

But with the other base classes all having some function, and several prestige classes playing roles as well, I'd say you're spoilt for choice and there isn't any one build I'd suggest over the others.

[Zink Whistlefly]

Some excellent suggestions there Legolas [img]smile.gif[/img] . Much more innovative than my plain fighter route!

I've always been a little skeptical of the True Strike spell due to its incredibly short duration (9 seconds, and swithiing from spell casting to combat is considered another action, and must therefore wait until the current tound has finished, giving it around 6 seconds, or one rounds effective duration. Still, 2-3 pretty much guaranteed hits in that round must have its uses somewhere!

Darkfire is a great spell, and stacks with any other elemental damage the weapon provides (its 1 hour per level duration is crazy). Flame Weapon is similar but lasts 1/6 the time!?).

What benefits does Holy Avenger provide for a weapon?

Magic weapon and greater magic weapon aren't as appealing as I originally thought! Mainly because the enhancement bonus over-rides any enhancements already present on the weapon, rather than adding to them.

The Dragon Disciple and Arcane Archer build together does sound incredibly interesting...Begin with Bard or Sorcerer for a few levels until you reach the necessary lore value (and take PBS and WF:L/SB), then take a few levels of RDD, and take AA when the AB's are high enough. From that point spreading the levels across both priestege classes until RDD reaches level 10, and then going AA for the remainder of the game sounds like a very potent combination...Devastating critical for ranged and melee combined with immunity to fire, massive melee and ranged damage and awesome ability scores sounds like one heck of a character!

[Zink Whistlefly]

Hmm, I've just put together a build that consists of both Arcane Archer and Red Dragon Disciple, that has both Devastating Critical Long/Short Bow and Devastating Critical Quarterstaff. The bad news is that it will take until
30 character levels to achieve this (at least as far as I can work out!).

Here's the build:

Starting Abilities (Half-Elf):

STR: 14
DEX: 14
CON: 14
INT: 12
WIS: 10
CHA: 14

Starting Abilities (Elf)

STR: 14
DEX: 16
CON: 12
INT: 12
WIS: 10
CHA: 14

Here's the progression:

Bard 1: BAB = 0, Lore=4, (Feat = Weapon Focus :Long/ShortBow), D6 hitdice
Bard 2: BAB = 1, Lore=5, D6 hitdice
Bard 3: BAB = 2, Lore=6, (Feat = Point Blank Shot), D6 hitdice
Bard 4: BAB = 3, Lore=7, (Ability increase +1 DEX), D6 hitdice
Bard 5: BAB = 3, Lore=8, D6 hitdice
RDD 1(6): BAB = 4, (Feat = Power Attack), +1 AC, D6 hitdice
RDD 2(7): BAB = 5, +2 STR, D6 hitdice
RDD 3(8): BAB = 6, Extra attack per round, 2D10 Fire Breath, (Ability increase +1 DEX), D8 hitdice
AA 1(9): BAB = 7, (Feat = Cleave), Enchant Arrow +1, D8 hitdice
RDD 4(10): BAB = 7, +2 sTR, D8 hitdice
AA 2(11): BAB = 8, Fireball Arrows, D8 hitdice
AA 3(12): BAB = 9, Enchant Arrow +2, (Ability increase +1 DEX), (Feat = Improved Critical: Long/ShortBow), D8 hitdice
AA 4(13): BAB = 10, Seeker Arrow, D8 hitdice
RDD 5(14): BAB = 11, Extra Attack per round, +1 AC, D8 hitdice
AA 5 (15): BAB = 12, Enchant Arrow +3, (Feat = Improved Critical: Quarterstaff), D8 hitdice
RDD 6 (16): BAB = 13, (Ability increase +1 STR), D10 hitdice
AA 6 (17): BAB = 14, Seeker Arrow 2, (Ability increase +1 DEX), D8 hitdice
RDD 7 (18): BAB = 15, +2 CON, 4D10 Fire Breath, (Feat = Weapon Focus: Quarterstaff), D10 hitdice
AA 7 (19): BAB = 16, +4 Enchant Arrow, Extra attack per round, D8 hitdice
RDD 8 (20): BAB = 16, +1 AC, (Ability increase +1 STR), D10 hitdice
AA 8 (21): BAB = 17, Hail of Arrows, (Feat = Great Cleave), D8 hitdice
RDD 9 (22): BAB = 18, Wings, +2 INT, D10 hitdice
AA 9 (23): BAB = 19, Enchant Arrow +5, D8 hitdice
RDD 10 (24): BAB = 20, +1 AC, Darkvision, Immunity to Sleep Paralysis and Fire, +4 STR, +2 CHA, 6D10 Fire Breath, (Ability increase +1 STR), (Feat = Overwhelming Critical: Long/ShortBow), D10 hitdice
AA 10 (25): BAB = 21, Extra Attack per rouhd (total 4), Arrow of Death, D8 hitdice
AA 11 (26): BAB = 21, Enchant Arrow +6, Epic Arcane Archer, D8 from here onwards
AA 12 (27): BAB = 22, (Feat = Devastating Critical: Long/ShortBow)
AA 13 (28): BAB = 22, Enchant Arrow +7, (Ability increase +1 DEX)
AA 14 (29): BAB = 23, (Bonus AA Epic Feat = Overwhelming Critical: Quarterstaff)
AA 15 (30): BAB = 23, Enchant Arrow +8, (Feat = Devastating Critical: Quarterstaff)

Suggested finishing stats would therefore be (for Half-Elf):

STR: 25
DEX: 18
CON: 16
INT: 14
WIS: 10
CHA: 16

And for Elf:

STR: 25
DEX: 20
CON: 14
INT: 14
WIS: 10
CHA: 16

In terms of hit dice, this character has (7D6 + 18D8 + 5D10) + CON modifier.

If someone wants to take a look at the progression and comment if I've done it correctly that would be appreciated. I'm not sure if I've got all the BAB accumulation/epic feat progression entirely correct.

30 Levels is certainly pushing it for a SoU -> HotU character (think 28 was my highest finish), although I'm not sure about the OC on 100% XP (Level 25?). This will most likely be a build for EFU by the looks of things, but is still interesting, and will still kick butt up to level 28.

[ 09-06-2005, 09:59 AM: Message edited by: Zink Whistlefly ]

[Target]

That looks great Zink, I might give that ago.
Thanks.

[robertthebard]

Hey Zink, nice build, but the Dex needs to be higher. If you set str and dex to 16 to start, and spread the other points a little more evenly, keep int around 14, you'd still end up with a playable char, then, take one point of str on lvl up, and put all the rest in dex. The 10 RDD lvls will put your str to 25, but you'll end up with a really nice bow ab with the dex points up there, good damage, if your bow has the Mighty feat, and with the staff. The one flaw that I found with this type of build, dev crit in more than one weapon, is that you lose the focus in one or the other, and end up sort of mediocre with both. That is how Anah lost out in the EfU tourney, too many feats spread out over the range of weapons, instead of focusing on the one. Granted, in the OC's it won't be as big a deal, but in a high magic world, the less you spread out the better.
Overall, the bard/rdd/arcane archer is a really strong build though, and one that I particularly like.

[Zink Whistlefly]

Yeah you're quite right about the DEX needing to be higher for the AA side of things. If I was going for a power build I'd have certainly jacked it up higher, and lowered CHA and WIS, but I always like to spread the abilities quite nicely, and don't often raise an ability score past it's upper value after which it costs 2 or more points to increase, but this just boils down to taste!

If we set both STR and DEX to 16 at the start, it's going to cause problems with the Bards spell casting ability if we keep INT at 14. Probably best then to leave the INT at 10 and use a 14 CHA to give:

STR: 16
DEX: 16
CON: 12
INT: 10
WIS: 8
CHA: 14

I'm not sure what you mean about losing focus in one weapon if you concentrate on 2, could you explain this please? Unless you meant that you can't invest as many feats as if you are just using the one weapon since you need to spread them over 2?

I'm trying a new build out at the moment which is shaping up quite well - A Fighter/Weapon Master/Shadowdancer (taking shadowdancer without any rogue or ranger levels has meant that some compromises have had to be made). He's weak at the start, but will soon be an excellent character. The build consists of 7 levels of WM, 10 levels of SD and the rest poured into fighter to maximise feats. He's dual wielding Kukri's, so the damage numbers outside of critical hits are pretty poor at the moment (need some elemental boosts). If you're interested in the progression I'll post it [img]smile.gif[/img] .

[robertthebard]

The Cha will get a two point boost from RDD, so you can leave it at 12, unless you intend to go a lot higher in Bard than I would take this build. Bard lvl 7 is really all you need, and I'm not sure, but the build listed above may be short a few points to start out with. As to the lack of focus, or losing of, it's because you have to take all the same feats twice, to get dev crit in more than one weapon, which I personally will never do again. Well, not all of them, but all the weapon based feats, and those feats could go to other places, or improve the use of one particular weapon with epic focuses, etc.
As to the last build you posted, the f/wm/sd, it sounds interesting, but I'm more into obscure type builds now, such as Bard/Cleric/AA that I have tried out. It's not very effective as a spell caster, no epic spells, but the buffs are outrageous, and it's relatively good with the bow as well.

[Zink Whistlefly]

You raise some good points Robert [img]smile.gif[/img]

The only (slight) side effect of starting with a CHA of 12 and pumping all subsequent points into DEX is that (if the character is taken through SoU) the bard will be limited to level 2 spells for the first 5 levels of bard. I suppose there's always Nymph cloaks and potions/spells of eagle's splendor to buff up CHA (if that works - does it need to be a base CHA value to cast a certain spell!?).

The points are indeed a couple short. A 12 INT is probably where these would go.

Obscure builds are my fav too. I'm planning a scythe wielding dwarven druid/monk for my next game, although I'm sceptical as to how he will turn out since each class won't really have a chance to come into its own...It's quite difficult coming up with builds+weapon combos that haven't been done a zillion times before, that are effective. I'm even tempted to try a Dwarven Defender/Harper Scout/Druid or something just to be different! I do like the creativeness of a C/B/DD! Bufftastic indeed [img]smile.gif[/img]