Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

Going to jump in here because I am working on something similar.

My original goal was 20 fighter/10 DC for the extra saves. After poking through some other builds I realized Man-at-Arms have tumble as a skill. So I've finally resigned myself to the fact that I should probably just rcr to get the extra 3 ac from tumbling and shield block plus the added bonus of +1 AB from Challenge.

My primary goal is survivability so I am willing to sacrifice a little offense for that. I have an Earth genasi and I plan on getting the epic regen feats up to +4, so +5 with a cloak and maybe more if I find a vamp weapon or regen ring. Is Epic regen worth it or am I only fooling myself? Should I just forget that route and go more damage?

So, 16 F / 10 DC / 4 MaA

Sitting at level 20, my Fort and Will saves are pretty damn solid, with Reflex lagging a bit behind.

I've been mostly happy with my character so far, but I am realizing there is a hump coming up that I need to get over that will require much better gear and a slight tweak to my build.

Take a close look at Dragonslayer too. It's another High BAB class with tumble and gains Elemental Resists, and +1 magical damage to dragons per level. It's not a bad combo with Master at Arms.

Alternately, Dragon Warrior is High BAB, and has very low prerequisites to gain. It gives strong Elemental based feats, and Tumble.

Some things to look into, without going caster.

I would say Anointed Knight or Warrior of Darkness is better for a non-spellcasting melee build (over Dragonslayer).

Depends. Dragonslayer, Anointed Knight, and Warrior of Darkness all gain tumble and 3/- DR. The later two are more offensive with general weapon buffs available. Dragonslayer offers that strong generalized Energy Resistance, which is more defensive. Even wasting two general feats can be worth gaining 10/- to Fire, Cold, Acid, Electricty, and Sonic.

Anointed Knight is easily one of the best melee prc's. It's almost a 'must-pick' imo. And it has many great defensive capabilities that place it above other melee prcs.

AC81 wrote:Anointed Knight is easily one of the best melee prc's. It's almost a 'must-pick' imo. And it has many great defensive capabilities that place it above other melee prcs.

Please define many? I only see 3 DR.

Also has tumble and spellcraft+ high will saves. It really is a notch better than any other melee only prc.

Edit: and heal... but what makes it really great is the only feat requirement is a solid pickup for fighter anyway...then you get almost as many useful feats (4, alertness isn't bad though if you also have a class that opens up spot) as you would get bonus feats from 10 levels of divine champion or fighter, plus the ability to make any +4 weapon as good as epic, or make a massive crit weapon if paired with weapon master. It gives so much extra top a fighter build that any fighter 12 can't go wrong picking it...still got 8 levels for whatever else you want.

I'm with Theodore. I see two Fighter and/or basic feats, 3/- DR of Barb type, a 1d4 weapon bonus, and Tumble. It's good. However, 10/- Fire, Cold, Acid, Electric, Sonic normally takes a Fighter six feats, five of those Epic feats. It's pretty huge on a non-caster facing even 1d8 elementary weapons.

Edit: actually, 10 feats... right?

Vogar Eol wrote:I'm with Theodore. I see two Fighter and/or basic feats, 3/- DR of Barb type, a 1d4 weapon bonus, and Tumble. It's good. However, 10/- Fire, Cold, Acid, Electric, Sonic normally takes a Fighter six feats, five of those Epic feats. It's pretty huge on a non-caster facing even 1d8 elementary weapons.

Edit: actually, 10 feats... right?

There are items with DR 20/- vs. the various elemental types that can be purchased at auction occasionally, usually for 5k or less. So as a Fighter type you can always carry around the elemental resistance items to use as needed. However, +6 Save vs. spells (from spellcraft) +3 AC (from tumble, but DW also gets), High Fort and Will saves (same as DW), 4 skill points / level, max heal skill, free blindfight and toughness (that any fighter type is going to take anyway) plus two bonus feats at 9 and 10 (in epics) which are not as limited as fighter bonus feats are all good stuff. I'm not saying Dragon Warrior is bad, but all it gets is blindfight and fear immunity so that's -toughness, -2 bonus epic feats, - spellcraft, -heal in exchange for one elemental resistance 20, immunity to fear and a weak breath weapon. Elemental Resistance is easily replicated, immunity to fear is too (prot from evil) and the breath weapon is mostly an rp thing.

The DR 3/- also stacks with epic DR so if you go CON 21, STR ~21-25 depending on race and min/maxing you could get DR of up to 12/- pretty easy.

Theodore01 wrote:

AC81 wrote:Anointed Knight is easily one of the best melee prc's. It's almost a 'must-pick' imo. And it has many great defensive capabilities that place it above other melee prcs.

Please define many? I only see 3 DR.

Many? Okay, here goes ...
Iron Will prereq. - +2 will saves (a solid defensive choice for fighters)
High Fort and Will saves.
Towershield Prof (dragon warrior does not get this)
More skill points (you can spend these on spellcraft and heal which dragon warrior also does not get)
Speaking of skills: access to Heal and Spellcraft. (+6 to saves vs spells anyone?)
Tumble
Blindfight
Toughness (Dragon warrior doesn't get this and it leads to Steadfast determination, an awesome feat and more powerful than many epic feats)
Alertness (bonuses to spot and listen are always good)
3DR leads to an easy 12DR if built for it. Makes for a great 'non-dwarf' dwarven defender.
2 bonus feats which really should be written as '2 bonus epic feats' because if you take levels 9 and 10 you should take them in epic levels. Could be anything almost - armour skin, damage reduction, regen feats, whatever.

Anointed Knight even though it's been nerfed from the original Kaedrin's version is still probably OP'd compared to many other prc's. Unless you have a very specific build in mind, this is one prc you almost have to include.

Dragonslayer Chad, not Dragon Warrior. You would have to take:

1. "Energy Resistance: Fire" + "Epic Energy Resistance: Fire"
2. "Energy Resistance: Cold" + "Epic Energy Resistance: Cold"
3. "Energy Resistance: Acid" + "Epic Energy Resistance: Acid"
4. "Energy Resistance: Electricity" + "Epic Energy Resistance: Electricty"
5. "Energy Resistance: Sonic" + "Epic Energy Resistance: Sonic"
6. Gains Fear IMMUNITY (no save throws)
7. High Fort and High Will, and Tumble + Parry
8. 3/- DR (doesn't stack with good DR classes... but neither does AK or WoD)

While it's not exactly an offensive set of features, it's 5 normal feats, 5 epic feats, immunity to a whole class of spells and spell-like abilities, +3 AC, and decent parry if you want parry. Taking Dodge, Ironwill, and 2 Tumble synergizes fairly well with some builds too. Paired with a 15/- DR, +6 regen Barb or DD.... it's not a bad defensive choice. It just impairs offensive choices. If you like you can still take +3 saves from spellcraft too.

I'm not saying that AK is bad, it's just not the end all and be all for every fighter purpose either. Verity and all that.

Energy immunity is terrible man. You rarely face pve opponents with elemental damage and it barely saves any damage from traps. A better way to negate pve elemental is with a decent reflex save and evasion to avoid traps as this is where the majority of elemental damage comes from. I agree with you on one thing though ... variety is the spice of life, can't all be AK's.

One could argue that 12 UMD allows for wands, scrolls, and potions also. Doesn't mean feats gained from any of the classes we are talking about are useless. I like to use Dragonslayer combined with 3 lvl dips in Cleric on 8 - 10 wisdom. The extra caster levels matter for using with an amulet like Karond does. Niche uses, but uses none the less.

My original intent was simply to declare a bunch of High BAB classes that grant Tumble. That was to allow him to look over all of them for which one had the RP flavor he wanted. Simply forgot that AK and WoD had Tumble.

I wasn't saying Dragon Warrior, or Slayer is weak, but AK get's more for a non-casting build. DS is of course going to be a bit light since it also gives spell progression.

Honestly, for me 10/- Sonic is huge. In all my years here, I've been trying to obtain a 20/- Sonic amulet... I have all the other ones. I'm fairly convinced they were removed for balance reasons.

An additional +2 AC from a Tumble class I'm certainly behind. An additional +3 to saves sounds great too, but I usually take Slippery Mind and Steadfast... Then pump Con and Fort. +3 to saves ONLY to spells doesn't much interest me enough to take a class just because of it.

Toughness I dislike in a PrC Feat. Where Toughness shines is in levels a little earlier then you can take most PrC's. For quality of life issues, and generally not dying to Kobolds I take Toughness within the first 3 levels if at all possible.

An example of how I tend to build below. Yes this is a DD with a Dragonslayer Dip but those DD levels could just as easily be a 17 Fighter / 3 Cleric / 10 Dragonslayer. Epic Toughness is a standin for Fast Healing. With Slayer replacing DD, it would still have 12/- DR.

Different strokes for different folks.

http://nwn2db.com/build/?261189