a Newbees Party

[Azred]

Originally posted by Kitiara: EDIT: @ Azred: (heh, I actually missed your post at first! sorry! I'ts my own fault for not taking the time to check things properly!) I've heard that the dwarven ladies wear these cute pink bows with beer perfume in their beard to really catch the guys interest! [img]tongue.gif[/img]

I thought they got the dwarven males mostly drunk, whacked them over the head, and dragged them back home. [img]graemlins/beigesmilewinkgrin.gif[/img]

NobleNick, join the ranks of the elderly! Remember that age and deceit will always overcome youth and ability. [img]graemlins/laugh3.gif[/img]

For the druid, you might also want to put some weapon points towards large sword to allow for scimitars. There are a couple of really good scimitars in the game, especially if you get HoW/TotLM.

An elven ranger gets an extra +1 to attack with bows that a human ranger would not get; this is a racial advantage. There are a couple of bows that allow for multiple attacks per round, so look for those and combine them with the Acid Arrows (which work most efficiently).

[Kyrvias]

Originally posted by ister: quote: Originally posted by Aerich: You may wish to go for an elven ranger instead of a human, for better bowmanship.

Why an elven ranger rather than an elven fighter? The fighter will be a significantly better archer as he will be able to put a third star in bows, and will level faster (so he'll always have better to hit rolls). The ranger does have some advantages over the fighter, but bowmanship is not one of them. [/QUOTE]By pure D&D rules, elves get bonuses to hit and damage when using long swords and long bows. Its just what they are proficient with, as a race.

[Kitiara]

@ Kyrvias: thank you!

@ Aerich and Azred: ok, then the Druid /Fighter will majorly use a scimitar, and a sling and a quaterstaff as backup. I think I'll give my Cleric/Fighter spears as backup instead... if that's possible that is
(Well, it's nice that the dwarves have different approaches on the dating problem. I think it's just so that the guys won't catch up on the gals you know [img]tongue.gif[/img] )

@ Ister and Kyrvias (again): The biggest reason for me to make her a ranger is that I'd like to try the class, and as I've understood it it includes a few spells as well as the favorite-enemy advantage. BTW, any hints on wich enemies to choose? (don't spoil me to much! )

[ 06-01-2005, 04:01 AM: Message edited by: Kitiara ]

[NobleNick]

Kitiara,

The below assumes HoW is installed and that your party will do IWD and the expansions.

No I don't think your Cleric/Fighter can do the spear; and I would be surprised if the Druid could. And even if she could, I wouldn't subject her to that.

Bare knuckles is the only thing worse than a quarterstaff, unless you are going up against skeletons, for which daggers is probably the worst weapon.

NobleNick's index of bad weapon choices for an IWD warrior: Worst melee weapon = staff; second worst = dagger; third worst weapon = club. Fourth worst = spear. Worst ranged weapon = darts; second worst = Short Bow.

NobleNick's index of good weapon choices for an IWD warrior: Best melee weapon for Paladin = Largesword (longsword). Best for non-paladin = Largesword, Axe or Mace. Best ranged weapon = Bow (Long Bow, Composite Bow, and variants). Best ranged weapon for those who's ethos disallow Bow = Sling.

I didn't know that a Druid couldn't do Flails. Really? Why not: the Clerics can use them. Hmmm... Guess I didn't pay attention, cause if mine hadn't gone Scimitar, I would have saddled him up with a Mace.

Good choices for racial enemy for the Ranger are: Corporeal Undead and Skeletal Undead.

Given that the party you have settled upon has lots of warrior skills (very good decision) and a Bard to turbo-charge them (also an excellent decision); you do not need to undo most of your good work by making generalists out of the only gals who can specialize. My advice is to capitalize on the luxury you have afforded yourself, and specialize those characters which you can.

You need to dish out slashing AND crushing damage with your melee weapons (Bows will cover you for piercing damage.) Your heavy hitters (if you build them correctly) are:
1.) MC Fighter/Cleric (constrained to 2PP per weapon. Constrained to crushing.)
2.) SC Ranger (constrained to 2PP per weapon)
3.) SC Fighter (5PP melee, 3PP ranged, or 5PP melee/ranged Axe)
4.) DC Druid/Fighter (did you mean Fighter/Druid?) (5PP melee, 3PP ranged. Crushing or Scimitar, only.)

So, 2 of your 4 warrior mixes will have to generalize, and consequently will get O.K. proficiency in just about every weapon their little hearts desire. (Try to stack 2 PP high, wherever you can.) Also, you have 2 of your 4 main warriors already constrained to crushing weapons (unless the Druid goes with Scimitar). Your D/F will be Neutral, thus allowing her to use The Giving Star (an excellent Mace) or possibly (name withheld so as not to spoil) (an excellent Flail). If your MC F/C is aligned Good (a good decision, no pun intended), then she also should have a good (no pun) choice of crushing weapons.

So, the point I am getting around to is: If you let the DC Fighter/Druid go Scimitar, then go all the way to 5 PP. And, yes, in that case you should take Aerich's advice and let the Dwarf do a crushing weapon (Mace is a really good choice); but, whatever you choose, let her go all the way to 5 PP. If you let the F/D specialize in a crushing weapon (again, Mace is a really good choice), then go to 5 PP in it. The Dwarf can then do 5 PP in Axes and 3PP in crushing, or 5PP in whatever other edged weapon you like and 3 PP in Bows.

The Mace is an **EXCELLENT** crushing weapon, and there are plenty of awesome ones to go around. Nothing says that you can't have 2 or 3 gals specializing and packing these around.

Simultaneously balance the team to get all damage types represented, and let the guys who can specialize SPECIALIZE: stack those PP as high as they will go!! 5PP gets you an advantage over 2 PP of: 2 more points THACO; 3 more points damage and 1.0 more Attacks per Round! Your front line will be much more lethal if you have a 5 PP slasher and a 5 PP crusher in it then it would if all warriors were at 2 PP. The extra versatility is not worth losing the 5 PP lethality, especially when you have already bought plenty of versatility by virtue of your excellent decision to have so many warriors.

The Dwarf doesn't need to be THE tank. In fact, the Elf Ranger might make a better tank than the Dwarf Fighter; because the Dwarf maxes out at 17 DEX, which hurts the natural bonus to AC. AC is THE most important thing for a tank. The second most important trait is HP. The Dwarf maxes out at 19 CON, which helps bonus HP, but I don't think it is enough to offset the loss in AC.(Surprisingly, the best tank material is arguably the Halfling, with DEX = 19.) Make sure that all your warrior mixes are max on STR, DEX and CON. Then, at worst, you will have 3 gals who can tank. On occasion, when the F/D shapechanges to the correct form, you'll get 4. You have tanks in spades.

A good DC Fighter/Druid is one of the hardest characters to roll: You need *AT LEAST* 88 ability points, and they must be allocated carefully. There are extensive discussions in this forum on the subject, including a painful expose' of how I did it wrong. Just do a search in this forum.

By the way, you did have me fooled. Your English is excellent. I wish some of the U.S. born and raised kids running the check-out counters in my neighborhood could do as well. Here's a quote on the subject that I found quite enjoyable:

Q: What do you call someone who knows four or more languages?

~

A: A Polyglot.

~

Q: What do you call someone who knows three languages?

~
A: Trilingual.

~

Q: What do you call someone who knows two languages?

~

A: Bilingual.

~

Q: What do you call someone who knows only one language?

~

A: American.

--------------------
What's a party,
without a song?
Bards ROCK!
Party On!!


[ 06-01-2005, 01:00 PM: Message edited by: NobleNick ]

[ister]

Definitely take the Ranger if that's what you want, but keep in mind that a fighter will always be a better archer than a ranger. And I agree that undead are good racial enemies - you want to pick something that is reasonably common, but also reasonably challenging. Either undead fit the bill.

But I want to argue this one:

Worst ranged weapon = darts; second worst = Short Bow

To me darts are competitive with slings. I know the line I've cited was in reference to warriors, but I think in almost all cases darts are as useful as slings.
Consider a druid, who can't stack PPs.
Darts, 3 APR, 1-3 damage per attack. expected damage per round = 3-9 times hit probability, expected number of hits = 3* hit probability
Sling 1 Apr 2-5 damage per attack, expected damage per round 2-5 expected number of hits = hit probability.
The darts win in every possible way.

Now consider an MC ranger or paladin, who can stack 2 PPs (below level 7).
Darts, 3.5 Arr, 3-5 damage per attack. Expected damage per round = 10.5-17.5 times hit probability, expected number of hits per round 3.5 times hit probability
Slings, 1.5 Apr, 4-7 damage per attack. Expected damage per round = 6 - 10.5 times hit probability, expected number of hits per round 1.5 times hit probability
Agin the darts are a clear cut winner.

Same character at level 13 (which is quite late in the game)
Darts, 4.5 Apr, 3-5 damage per attack. Expected damage per round = 13.5-22.5 times hit probability, expected number of hits per round 4.5 times hit probability
Slings, 2.5 Apr, 4-7 damage per attack. Expected damage per round = 10 - 17.5 times hit probability, expected number of hits per round 2.5 times hit probability.
Still a win for the darts

For a fighter (including a DC druid) the darts are even more favourable - the extra star just adds more damage per attack.

With normal darts you inflict more damage and cause more spell disruption than with a sling. Either allows you to use a shield. The reasons I can see for preferring slings to darts are
1) There are more magic bullets and slings than there are magic darts. This is an important point. But for the druid or mage whose ethos prevents the use of bows, look how far behind he starts out. A +2 bullet causes the same damage as a normal dart, and less spell disruption unless the roll required to hit is 19 or more (in which case you're mostly wasting your time, especially with magic bullets). Even the addition of a magical sling (which will improve hit chances) will only really make the sling better against very low AC enemies. And to beat +1 darts you need a +4 bullet. For the low level ranger the case for the darts is somewhat weaker, and even the high level ranger a +1 bullet is only as good as a normal dart.
So the magic weapons can't make up for the inherent disadvantages of the sling. It is true that for enemies that you need a magic weapon to hit there are advantages to the sling simply because there aren't enough magical darts to sustain the attack rate. So I'll concede that this is one reason to choose the sling. But if your ethos prevents you from using bows (which are obviously better than darts and slings) why on earth are you using a sling OR darts against an enemy that can only be hit with magic weapons. You ought to be using some spells!
2) The logistics of darts are a royal pain. It's true that you have to carry ridiculous numbers of darts and do a lot of inventory manipulation to use them effectively, and if you don't use them effetively the sling (which requires almost no work) is better. This is the only decent argument in favour of the sling IMHO, and THE reason I tend to choose slings. But if you're a real powergamer this sort of thing shouldn't stop you - you ought to be willing to do all sorts of work to get a small advantage, and the advantage of darts is not that small.

I guess my point is that for anyone other than high level warriors the dart is clearly a better weapon than the sling. If you're using slings over darts it's because you're lazy, and you should be comfortable with that. I use them all the time, and it is because I'm lazy.

[Azred]

Originally posted by NobleNick: NobleNick's index of bad weapon choices for an IWD warrior: Worst melee weapon = staff; second worst = dagger....

Au contraire, amigo mio. (there--a mix of French and Spanish in one sentence. Am I American or what? [img]tongue.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/petard.gif[/img] )

My halfling fighter/thief was specialized in daggers and made extremely effective use of Spinesheath, which is enchanted to +5 (so it can hit everything in the game) and offers a +5 to hit. He was the bane of spellcasters, even though he didn't do whopping amounts of damage with it. Combined with a potion of strength and a potion of speed he could hit anything about 4 or 5 times per round, making spellcasting impossible; he went toe-to-toe with Malavon in HoF and (almost) won.

[NobleNick]

Azred,

I am talking about the effectiveness of a warrior in general. My comments about desirability are assuming HoW (and TotLM) are installed, and that the party will do at least IWD and HoW. I must admit that your Spinesheath (1D4+1, THAC0 bonus=5) build is a viable warrior, and is probably BETTER in the Malavon fight than would be the wielder of the best club available. And a dagger is a better fit for a Thief than a club. However, RPG and class-fit considerations aside, if a Spinesheath-wielding Fighter waded into a pack of monsters he would be expected to fare considerably worse than an equivalent build who specialized in clubs and was packing, say, Svian's Club (1D6+5, THAC0 bonus=5) or Debian's Rod of Smiting (1D8+3, THAC0 bonus=3, plus specials).

Don't get me wrong, I am not advocating the use of clubs, just damning daggers by saying that they are even worse than clubs.

I am impressed with your story about Malavon. This was a very tough battle for me. It is amazing that such a simple technique would thwart such a powerful opponent.

ister, Same story for darts and slings. I hate slings, but use them as the price for getting Cleric/Druid abilities. BUT a sling is not the worst ranged weapon you can find: Friends don't let friends do darts: A vanilla dart is 1D3. A vanilla bullet is 1D4+1. Let's not even talk about Jamison's Sling (+4), Giant Killer (+1, +4 against Giants) or Quinn's Fancy Sling (+3 damage, +5 THAC0). Just compare a plain old easy-to-come-by +1 Sling: Average dart damage = 2 HP per hit. Average Sling damage = 4.5 HP per hit.

Now here is where the smoke and mirrors start, because we must hypothesize THAC0s and ACs for an imaginary encounter. Let's presume a journeyman warrior with a natural THAC0 of 9 encountering an enemy with an AC of 0. The chance of a dart hit is (20-(9-0)+1)/20 = 60%. So the expected damage per dart attempt is (0.6 x 2) = 1.20 HP. The chance of a bullet hit (+1 Sling) is (20-(8-0)+1)/20 = 65%. So the expected damage per Sling attempt is (0.65 x 4.5) = 2.925 HP. The slinger gets 2 attacks per round, for an expected damage of 5.85 HP per round. The dartist MUST HAVE AT LEAST FIVE (5) ApR with the dart to better this expected damage (5 ApR x 1.20 HP/attack = 6 HP damage per round, which is essentially the same as the slinger's 5.85). Tougher opponents (better enemy AC relative to the Fighter's THAC0) make the slinger look better. More desirable slings make the slinger look better. Higher level warriors (better ApRs) make the slinger look better. Add in the factors that you pointed out about the plentiful sling ammo (much of it enchanted) and the choice is clear.

I can see the use of darts for highly special purposes: e.g., disrupting spellcasters; but I would not rely on it as a mainstay ranged weapon unless my class choice (Single Class Mage) forced me into it. This is just one of several very good reasons to NOT do a SC Mage.

--------------------
What's a party,
without a song?
Bards ROCK!
Party On!!

[pritchke]

There are some good clubs in the game but they are found right at the end of HoW so there usefulness depends on when you enter HoW and how much of the game you have left. There are also a few daggers I like, a poison dagger as its advantages, there is another that gives 100% cold resistance which is good when going up against certain creatures, another is Spinesheath and the other is a very nice throwing dagger that returns to the sender I think it is a +4 THAC0 and damage found in HoW I believe. Usually give it to my druid characters so they don't have to worry about bullets anymore.

I am not a dart fan and I used them once on a beefy front line fighter. It is difficult to hit the broadside of a barn with them. But I tried them for fun and it was fun.

[ 06-02-2005, 01:48 PM: Message edited by: pritchke ]

[Kitiara]

oh, I'll have to read these last two posts through more that once to grasp it all , but I think I get the idea...

~

@ NobleNick: I'm not sure if my Fighter/Druid can use flails, but i found the idea interresting. If not, I'll have her learn mace and give the dwarf flails as blunt backup instead.
I didn't really think about the tank-issue like that... well, the more the merrier! [img]smile.gif[/img]
(Good joke BTW! Keep giving me compliments, it's been raining cats and dogs all week so I need all the pick-me-ups I can get! )

@ ister: I didn't know that about slings... I like to have all my chars learn a ranged weapon as backup in case there are any hard-to-reach enemies, so I'll definetly give at least one of them a sling after that info! [img]smile.gif[/img] thanks!

~

In general:

I'll definetly take your advice in consideration, as long as it doesn't change the concept of my partymembers. The whole idea with RPG is after all, IMO, to create characters that may not be perfect, (unless that his/her goal ), and still make them survive with their own skills and "personality"...
My goal is therefore not nessesarily to make the most of them, but make the most interresting of them.

I do like he idea of the F/D using scimitars, it seems fitting somehow. And after the info I've recived, I think this gal is the most fitting to have a sling as ranged bacup.

to quote pritchke: "I am not a dart fan and I used them once on a beefy front line fighter. It is difficult to hit the broadside of a barn with them. But I tried them for fun"
Well, I'd like to try darts as well, and the only chars I have that doesn't have ranged backups is the dwarf and the F/C... I think darts fitts the F/C the most, and hoping there will be more than one decent crossbow the dwarf will get that as her backup then.

[ 06-02-2005, 01:43 PM: Message edited by: Kitiara ]

[Azred]

I can agree with that, NobleNick. In general, daggers are good only for the money for which you can sell them. A real fighter, in the generally-accepted use of the term, would use a sword, mace, hammer, or club against most foes.