Shield and monk questions...

[E.Bill]

I was thinking of getting a paladin level to my fighter/cleric so i could use the paladin only sword.

Thx

[Bozos of Bones]

Bette not, the level adjustment of 20% doesn't make up for that sword. If you're proficient with greatsowrds, try buying Delnar's Cleaver.

[E.Bill]

No i mean im thinking of starting a new game. My current melee tank is excellent, but he is susceptible to the occasional panic attack and i would like the cleric spells so im thinking of

Paladin 3 (Immmune to fear, protection from evil to cast on self for bonus AC, sword usage)
Fighter 4 (specialisation, Extra feat)
Cleric X

But the problem is, only the female drow has cleric as a favoured class. Because of the high WIS and DEX values this allows, it might be worthwhile to get 3 monk levels as well (with spirit armour, this allows nice AC values), but this puts me a whopping 12 levels (2 drow ecl penalty) behind my other cleric , meaning this character will only begin shine very late into the game (level 19 for holy power)

STR 18
DEX 18 (20?)
CON 16
INT 5
WIS 18 (16?)
CHA 5

Basically, this character can be much better protected than my current Barb(x) fighter(4), has access to some cleric spells late in the game, is immune to fear, but takes a massive hit to Hitpoints (barblevels, con penalty - i could be losing 100+ Hp's), and a slight loss in strength. Also, whereas my current tank is responsible for 65% of my kills (Normal mode, im near the end of Ice Temple).

PS - Doh! i forgot you cant have 3 levels of monk and paladin. So i think a better build would be paladin 2, monk 1, cleric (x).

What do you think?

[E.Bill]

Another question:

How do i use items such as the ring of the ram or the collar i get from vgothan?

[Bozos of Bones]

OK, let me get this straight: You want a Drow Paladin/Fighter/Cleric/Monk? That would put you 2 levels behind everone a the start, and then 40% behind because of the multiclass XP penalty. Bad idea IMHO. You can have three levels of Paladin and Monk, just take three Paladin after you've taken three Monk. I can imagine a Monk X/Paladin 3(or 8) kicking a lot of a$$, but I wouldn't add anything to that mix. One race you're overlooking for the mix is Aasimar, because theyir favored class is Paladin.
To use the rings, amulets, other special equipment, just click on the character that has it, click on the icon that looks like a wrapped bundle and there should be the icon for casting the special.

[E.Bill]

I think that because of monk and paladin orders, you cant level up more than one of the other class

My monk is level 3. I cant advance as monk again. because i have already multiclassed as monk, i probably cant advance as paladin either, or is it i can advance as far as i like now as a paladin until i multiclass to something thats not a favoured class of paladin?

if what you say is correct about the monk/paladin, then my character may still be created
My idea was {paladin(3), fighter(4),monk(3)} cleric (x)

The races under the {} brackets are within one level of each other, so no multiclass penalty is incurred, and as cleric is female drow's favoured class, it is ignored for the penalties.

[E.Bill]

I could also use human, of course, if the 2 ECL penalty proves to be important

[Bozos of Bones]

Paladin and Monk are then counted as one, but you still get 20% xp penalty(P+M, F, C, C is favored, but F and P+M aren't). And you won't be able to use shields, weapons and armor, unless you forfeit monk specials.

[E.Bill]

I planned to use ghost + spirit armour from my wizard to further boost AC. This character starts off with 18 AC unarmoured + 5 (ghostarmour) +6 spirit armour = AC 29. I could also add cats grace to boost AC.

if i used platemail then my AC would be 10+9(platemail) + 5 ghost armour = 24, far less than without armour.

[E.Bill]

Another Q: in the manual, it says ambidextrous fighters using the 2 weapon feat get a -4 penalty on each hand, but if using a light weapon on the off hand, it drops to -2 penalty on each hand.

What counts as a "light weapon"?

Thx