Avoid ECL classes

[Khazraj]

Gimli, thanks for all your help, I finally understand it, the BABs, but of course I am "mud"....

I will get on with that fruitcake party of 6 monks and later on I'll report on it to you. Thanks.

[Luvian]

Originally posted by toriuxik: lols are not the materials of flames. they are laughing. lol@your stupidity would be a flame. heh heh (is that better?). Also, I play D&D with pnp primarily. I highly doubt that you know more about 3rd than me. Feel free to test me if you wish! lol

Change your attitude or you will find out the hard way why there are no Trolls at the Ironworks.

Also, you have already been told that your sig pic is too big and need to be changed.

[Gheital]

Originally posted by Luvian: Also, someone mentioned that monks have higher ac than normal, so that compensate for their low hitpoints. I disagree. By the end of the game, about every ennemies have at least +20 to attack, so you will never evade anyway. And let's not even talk about HOF mode... In my opinion, in this game, the only thing that make difference is damage reduction.

NOOOOOO. Is this really true? Is my deep gnome barbarian doomed to suck? I'm in the beginning of chapter 2 and he has 28 AC. Will he get hitted almost everytime too? If he will then... it just sucks because he has only 16 str. Well, at least he still has the mirror image speacial ability.

[Nightowl2]

Yeah, the enemy to-hit rises as you go along, and it's hard to avoid taking damage, because AC doesn't really keep pace, especially if you wear light armor.

It is very much worse in HOF mode, as the gobbies start with +29 (fighters) and +31 (archers) to hit. It only goes up from there.

Nightowl2

[Jack of Speed]

Yes... I pissed to find out how WORTHLESS my monk became in HoF because of her low hit point. Typicaly she would go down in 5-6 hits. No time to heal her, she had to be resurected often. I think I would have prefered a fighter4/barbarianX instead. HIGH constitution!!! That goes Double for Sorc/Wiz/Rogue/bards! They need as many hitpoints as possible in HoF!

[Warhammer]

So sayeth Nightowl2: Yeah, the enemy to-hit rises as you go along, and it's hard to avoid taking damage, because AC doesn't really keep pace, especially if you wear light armor. It is very much worse in HOF mode, as the gobbies start with +29 (fighters) and +31 (archers) to hit. It only goes up from there.

So true my characters had a buffed AC in the 40s by mid game HoF, but still they only get missed on a critical miss, OTOH same thing applies on their attacks, they never miss. HoF is all about dealing a lot of damage quickly while being able to survive a beating.

I dunno if it is a problem of misimplementation of the HoF (monsters just got artificially beefed up instead of gaining levels as specified in the Monsters Manual) or an intensic problem in the 3rd ed rules (Warrior classes' BAB increases linearly while AC caps off). Prolly a combination of both.

[ 11-04-2002, 09:40 AM: Message edited by: Warhammer ]

[Jack of Speed]

It puts me in a difficult gaming sitiuation. When I play HoF I feel like the game is cheating me... but when I play in regular mode it seems to easy and the weapons suck. For now I will cheap out and give level one characters my HoF gear. Im working on the theory that my party had VERY rich backers in Luskan an they got us "money-is-no-object" gear... it was awful sweet of them. Not just that but most of the cool stuff I got was in severed hand so I only got to use it for about an hour of the game at the end of HoF. [img]tongue.gif[/img] I beat the game fair twice... now its time for some cheesy fun.

[Khazraj]

I actually did you what you said. It was sooooooo hard. But fun. You should have around level 10 party by the palisade's first chunky fight vs Caballus. Enjoy

[toriuxik]

Weapon finesse can be made to apply to any weapon at least 1 size category smaller than you. It can also be used on neat weapons with that as a special ability (like the spiked chain if I remember right, which I may not). Thats why its pretty popular with single classed monks with lower strength scores. You can still hit, and your damage is already higher than anybody elses. A monk with 20 dex and Weapon Finesse is very powerful. Keep boosting dex too.

[Gimli]

"Weapon finesse can be made to apply to any weapon at least 1 size category smaller than you. It can also be used on neat weapons with that as a special ability (like the spiked chain if I remember right, which I may not)."

Maybe with a Mod I'm not aware of, but in IWD II, so far as I know, weapon finesse applies only to short blades.

"Thats why its pretty popular with single classed monks with lower strength scores. You can still hit, and your damage is already higher than anybody elses. A monk with 20 dex and Weapon Finesse is very powerful. Keep boosting dex too."

It would be more popular if it actually worked without modifying the game; as it comes, weapon finesse in IWD II does not apply to unarmed combat. And I wouldn't say a low Str Monk, even at high levels, has damage "higher than anybody elses". They get a d20 as base damage - but with a low Str, they get no bonus to damage; their criticals only do 2x damage and only happen on a 20; they don't get any added damage a magic weapon would grant. Also they can't take weapon focus or specialization with fists.

A character with maxed out Str and a magic 2-handed weapon does the most melee damage, by far - it's not even close.