Help with a Katana wielding Phantom

[redwood]

Hello, I was thinking of making a katana wielding phantom for RP purposes. I have no idea how to begin a build that might be viable. I'm not very good at building powerful characters. Any help is appreciated.

[redwood]

Hello, I was thinking of making a katana wielding phantom for RP purposes. I have no idea how to begin a build that might be viable. I'm not very good at building powerful characters. Preferably human for RP purposes. Any help is appreciated.

[chad878262]

I'd say you can either go one hander feat with 19 DEX (shadow dancer) and then wear a +3 DEX item and use leather or Mithral chain, disregarding WIS to A.C. And pumping STR. Otherwise you could possibly try for greater two weapon fighting from tempest with 17 DEX/~14-16 WIS and high STR, just go katana/short sword or something. At the in laws so can't work with the builder right now.

[redwood]

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm thinking of going with short swords as much as I wanted to wield a katana. I'm not 100% sure, but I think a phantom is unable to use her ki powers while wearing armour. I liked both suggestions, I'm not a builder at all so they expanded my horizon haha. Have a good day at your inlaws. I'm in no rush to start this character. I had one on a different server with UMD as a cross skill. It was fun to use a ninja with scrolls. That was the only thing that made him half useful with a shield scroll as well as cat's grace and all that good stuff. He had weak strength though. I don't remember how I built it, and it wasn't very good all around. Appreciate the help. From what i've read on the forums it seems 25 phantom/ 5 shadow dancer is pretty useful.

[chad878262]

You will be far happier with short swords... pro tip, you can make them look like wakizashis.

[chad878262]

Here's a baseline for a Phantom. I put notes in the build itself explaining some of the different things you can do.

http://nwn2db.com/build/?262733

[redwood]

Thanks chad878262. That gives me a good idea of what the class is capable of.

[Sun Wukong]

Hmn... Hmn... Hmn... Are you willing to play a human? (That is to avoid multiclassing experience penalty, or you could pick a race with Fighter as favored class.)

Human: Fighter 4/Phantom 16/Wilderness Stalker 10

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Class leveling order:                             Feats taken:

Level 1:  Phantom (1)                             Able Learner
Level 2:  Fighter (1)                             Excotic Weapon Proficiency
Level 3:  Phantom (2)                             Track
Level 4:  Fighter (2)
Level 5:  Phantom (3)                             Weapon Focus (Katana)
Level 6:  Fighter (3)                             Northlander Hewing (Maybe?)
Level 7:  Phantom (4)
Level 8:  Fighter (4)                             Weapon Specialization (Katana)
Level 9:  Phantom (5)                             (Any feat)
Level 10: Wilderness Stalker (1)
Level 11: Wilderness Stalker (2)
Level 12: Wilderness Stalker (3)                  (Any feat)
Level 13: Phantom (6)
Level 14: Phantom (7)
Level 15: Phantom (8)                             (Any feat)
Level 16: Phantom (9)
Level 17: Phantom (10)
Level 18: Phantom (11)                            (Any feat)
Level 19: Phantom (12)
Level 20: Phantom (13)
Level 21: Phantom (14)                            Epic Prowess
Level 22: Phantom (15)
Level 23: Phantom (16)                            Epic Precision
Level 24: Wilderness Stalker (4)
Level 25: Wilderness Stalker (5)                  Expose Weakness
Level 26: Wilderness Stalker (6)
Level 27: Wilderness Stalker (7)                  Great Strength I
Level 28: Wilderness Stalker (8)
Level 29: Wilderness Stalker (9)                  Great Strength II
Level 30: Wilderness Stalker (10)

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Base Ability scores:

STR: 16 +7 (Ability Increases) +2 (Great Strength) +3 (Strength Belt) = 28
DEX: 16 +4 (Potion of Cat's Grace) = 20
CON:  8 
INT: 10
WIS: 16 +4 (Potion of Owl's Wisdom) = 20
CHA:  8

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AC:
10 (Base)
+5 (Dexterity)
+5 (Wisdom)
+3 (30 Tumble)
+2 (Wilderness Stalker)
+1 (Phantom)
+4 (Natural Armor Amulet)
+4 (Bracers of Armor)
+4 (Deflection)
+4 (Wand of Shield)
[-2 (Northlander Hewing)]
= 42... [40]

AB:
26 (BAB)
+9 (Strength)
+1 (Weapon Focus)
+4 (Enchantment Bonus)
+1 (Epic Prowess)
[-2 Northlander Hewing]
= 41 [39]

Damage:
1d10 (Katana)
+13 (Strength*1.5)
+4 (Enchant Bonus)
+2 (Weapon Specialization)
+11d6 (Sneak attack)
= 63~ 

Damage with Northlander Hewing:
10 (Katana)
+13 (Strength*1.5)
+4 (Enchant Bonus)
+2 (Weapon Specialization)
+11d6 (Sneak attack)
+13 (Northlander Hewing, "+9 STR & +4 EB")
= 80.5~ 

What worries me is the low AC... And how easily your potions and wands can be dispelled. However, potions are relatively cheap to buy and you can easily carry many stacks of them. You could choose to lower strength by one and make use of Potion of Bull's Strength and get the Epic +AC feat. Additionally, you could take Luck of Heroes on level, Able learner on level three, and Track before your first Level of Wilderness Stalker. That is easily +2 AC for your build.

Additionally, if you take two more levels of Phantom instead of 2 levels of Wilderness Stalker, you will reduce your BAB by 1 and lose your sixth attack and 1d6 sneak attack, but gain that three round 50% concealment that might work much better with your lowish AC. The loss of your sixth attack is not a big deal since you will still have two attacks in your first attack flurry.

Note on Northlander Hewing, it will cut your number of attacks down by half (Rounded up), lower your AB and AC, but it will give your full weapon damage dice and strength modifier combined with the weapon enchantment bonus as bonus damage. It is something very handy when overcoming damage reduction. You could interpret 'Northlander Hewing' as a way to do those those 'cinematic' samurai chops and cuts.

Now, I do not recommend this build... but if you want a strength based katana wielding phantom... I suppose this could be at least some food for thought.


Edit: It might be smart to take your 4th level of Fighter in the epics, this way you can use the fighter bonus feat to pick up Epic Prowess, and get extra Great Strength, which means that with the aid of the Bull's Strength potion, you can have '30' strength.


Edit: I think I need to redo this whole thing... Ugh. Too lazy! Treat it as some food for thought!

[chad878262]

I only made the Phantom human because no race was indicated. The main reason to stick with Phantom for a minimum of 24 levels is improved evasion, this plus a PRC that grants Defensive Roll qualifies the character for Epic Dodge. SD is the only thing that grants Defensive Roll prior to level 8 (whirling dervish). You could go P24/SD6 for +1 BAB, -1 sneak dice.

There is certainly every reason to be a race with bonus stats which could increase AC/AB via +2 DEX race (Tiefling is probably the best here), but I didn't want to make assumptions and it can be done with a human (or other non-DEX race).

Of course other builds are possible, but you have to consider what you gain vs. what you lose. With no favored class you could go P16/M9/SD5 which can still get epic dodge, but loses an epic feat. Also the AC bonus from Monk and Phantom do not stack. Still the gain to speed and an extra attack through flurry is welcome, if you don't mind using kama's instead of short swords.

[aaron22]

my only suggestion would be if you are starting at level 1 new. and you choose a multi class with fighter. take the fighter at the first level. the armor restrictions early on the phantom make playing this VERY HARD at levels 1-2. you could try to spend your first level in the city doing quests, but fighting is faster.

the better build is the phantom/SD build personally. i think this is probably the best build for the phantom platform.

[chad878262]

Always take the higher skill point class at first level. Taking fighter fist would be a huge mistake on a build that relies heavily on several skills.

[aaron22]

while i do normally agree with that for sure chad. i would not care to play that first two levels on phantom again. so i guess it is a warning that those levels are very hard. low hps and bad ac is a rough combination.

[chad878262]

while i do normally agree with that for sure chad. i would not care to play that first two levels on phantom again. so i guess it is a warning that those levels are very hard. low hps and bad ac is a rough combination.

Not much different from a 1st level rogue, honestly... Spend some of your 1K gold on a potion of mage armor (~50 gp) and a potion of Barkskin (~100 gp?) and you now have +4 armor AC for 30 minutes and +3 Natural AC for quite a bit longer (an hour and a half I think). In that time you should be able to get XP near, if not surpassing level 2 and also more than enough gold to get more potions.

[Invoker]

Phantom (and its best build, Phantom 25/SD5) dislikes Katanas.

Katanas are best used on a STR-based Ghost-faced Killer, if you want to stick with this theme.

[Snarfy]

Phantom (and its best build, Phantom 25/SD5) dislikes Katanas.

It's true... for example. You would hate your life playing a katana wielding Phantom, trust me. I tried this build for a while and by level 7 I wanted to hang myself.