A few beginner questions

[Teaboar]

Hello everyone,

I've played on this server a few times before, but I always shied away from the role playing and thus ended up quitting the game when I got bored of playing by myself. Anyway, I would like to change that and finally give role playing a go. I've started to read through some of the lore, and now I've started to think about which class I should play.

Now I'm wondering what would be an ideal class for someone who does not have experience of role playing? I'm interested in the Ranger class, but I'm worried that it might be a difficult class to role play for a beginner. I've read a lot about clerics, and they sound like a very challenging class to rp because of the deities. Does that also apply to Rangers? I was also thinking that I would pick a neutral good alignment for my character, and the race would be human. What do you guys think?

[Hawke]

Welcome back to the server!

RPing is something that is different with each person (and character too).

You dont have to go all "how art thou, milady" but can talk normal.

The amount you WANT to RP is up to you. If you want to RP a Ranger, you don't have to go into how you worship your god to other players, or you can wait, or whatever you want.

Two key things to remember on the server. RP how you want. And always play off of your character sheet.

Something that might help you out is by writing a biography for your character, whatever you choose to play. Submit it, get awarded like 1,000 XP, but you can also refer to it whenever you need to. This sometimes helps when a PC asks which part of Faerun your character is from or where he is going.

But that is just a guide, you can change your character's current and future goals, and can even record it in the journal section on the boards for people to enjoy OOCly.

Main thing is to have fun and it's always easier to play something that you can identify with first... because RPing what you can relate to, is definitely the gateway enabler to RP. Later you can go with something that is well outside your comfort zone, and you might find you like that more.


But to answer your main questions. Any of the base classes will be easy to RP. The prestige classes might be a bit more challenging, like Pale Master or Red Wizard of Thay or Divine Seeker. Those classes you need to do more research on them to see if you can fit the loose mold that you will need to conform to.

Race? Just stay away (if you are intimidated by your RP-fu) from the Underdark (until you get comfortable) and Gray Orcs. Just because things are a bit more advanced with the RP encounters with other players.

Also, your alignment matters. Most people in society are Lawful Good. So if you stick with that alignment, it generally is easier to relate to. I.e. You see someone get robbed at "arrowpoint". Do you call the police/guards or do you chase him, give em a beat down and return the purse? Or do you keep the purse? Most people will say, call the police. Being a good lawful good citizen.

Chasing the person down to get the purse back for the woman, generally Neutral Good (or chaotic good... but that gets more...anarchy-like in the future).



So have fun!

[Teaboar]

Thank you for the reply! Your advice is very helpful. I did the alignment test and I actually did get a Lawful Good alignment, so maybe I have to re-consider. I was pretty surprised it gave me that alignment though. I will do some more research and then I will definitely write a biography. Thanks again! Maybe I'll have some more questions later.

[Hawke]

No problem. When the community sees the post, I am sure there will be more tips.

[Teaboar]

So I came up with some new questions already, this time related to the build that I've planned. I'm trying to avoid a power gaming build, but at the same time I'm worried that I might be gimping myself to a point where I won't be able to partake in high level content and events. With that in mind, I was wondering if there are some suggested minimum stats for high/max level melee characters to shoot for? I'm thinking about attack bonus, hit points, armor class and so on?

I'm also wondering what favored enemies to pick for my character. I've already decided to go for undead, and I'll try to think of a good reason for that in the character biography. I also thought humans and possibly giants would be a good choice for a favored enemy. Other than that though I'm really not sure, because I've never seen any high level content on this server. My main interest is PVE though, so I would like to make choices based on that. I was thinking demons/devils would also be a cool favored enemy, but I'm not sure under which category they fall? I will have 6 favored enemies in total.

Apart from that I also have a question about skills and feats. I was thinking about making a high strength ranger build, but now I'm not so sure if that's a good idea. My dexterity based skills would definitely take a big hit for that, and I was wondering if it's even worth maxing skills like hiding and move silently if my dexterity isn't very high? I would still level these skills of course, but I could leave them a bit lower in this case. I'm even considering whether it would be a better idea for me to make a fighter, considering all the new feats you have on this server. Any thoughts on this?

[Zanniej]

A good place to look for your build would be nwn2db.com. Do keep in mind that there is a lot of power building there. You can also ask here in the character building forum. Here you can tell people what you want, and they'll make you some great builds.

Concerning your wish to avoid a power gaming build: You don't really need one, unless you want to solo the server. I very much prefer to adventure with a group, which means you don't need a power build. However, you can't always find a group, which will make it harder to reach all the areas alone.

There is a forum topic concerning the best favored enemies concerning the available content. Though picking those goes a bit towards power building.

There was also a topic on a strength ranger. Perhaps you'll find more answers to your questions concerning that part there.

Apart from all that, Hawke gave great advice. Try to start with a character that's close to your own personality. That makes it a lot easier to RP it. I always tend to come up with a story for my toons, so that I know what motivates them to do what they do, and how they became that way.

Last but not least: Try to have fun. You can have all the fun in the world with this game, even with a under-optimized build. The server is quite do-able without having a powerbuild and even moreso if you adventure together. If you focus on having fun, you'll do fine!

[chad878262]

If you post your build our many ranger gurus well no doubt give you more specific advice, but for now just some general comments (all of which are in the strength ranger topic Zanniej linked)

1. STR ranger is the most powerful. Wood elf or human, 16 dexterity, the rest in strength. This allows either +4 studded leather or, later on a Mithral breastplate. After casting extended cats grace, halo of sand (+4 deflection), and barkskin (+5 natural), wear the best dodge boots you can get and you should be able to hit around 40s for AC.

2. Must have feats: LoH, protective ward (careful K will show rangers getting this automatically, but on bg you have to take it as a feat), oversized TWF and I highly encourage extend spell.

3. Other feats to consider: two weapon defense, combat expertise/ICE (requires 13 INT).

4. You can start with 11 wisdom and use an item so you can cast spells, charisma is your dump stat, but you really should rp it so unless you want to rp 8 CHA throw a couple points in there. INT should be 12 or 14 to maximize all the great skills you get. However, wood elf gets -2 INT so consider staying at 12 then just adding a point at level 8 or 12 so you can take CE.

Enjoy, throw any or all of this out the window and play what you envision your character as!

[Teaboar]

Thanks a lot for the replies to both of you. I really appreciate the help. I decided to change the build quite a bit, although I'm still planning to go for a melee strength ranger. In my earlier build I got 27 ranger levels, but in the current one I only get 22 (plus 8 fighter levels). Should I still get Protective ward if I don't get the full benefit of the feat? Or is it a mistake to go for only 22 ranger levels? I do have two weapon defense and the improved version as well. I could drop Oversized Two-Weapon Fighting for Combat Expertise at a later point if it's needed.

The major downside of my current build as I see it is that I only hit caster level 28 with my ranger, and if I recall correctly that makes me vulnerable to dispels? That being said I'm starting to feel like this is already starting to turn into a power build. Maybe I should stick with my current build, even if it has flaws. One last question though, is it better to have even attributes or uneven? I'm referring to the +3 attribute equipment here. It seems like there are so many +4 attribute buffs that even numbers tend to be better?

[chad878262]

Ranger 30 is totally viable on it's own, but I see no issue with adding some fighter levels for extra AB/damage. I personally would limit fighter to 3 levels until you hit ranger 21 and make sure you take ranger on a level where you get an epic feat for bane of enemies.

you are losing epic bonus feats at ranger 23, 26 and 29, but I suppose gaining fighter bonus feats.

I would still take protective ward as you want all the extra ac you can get.

Currently dispel goes against character level, but even when it's fixed you will be fine so long as caster level is 25 or higher.

You could also consider ranger 21/fighter 4/WM 5 or ranger 23/WM 7 though you would be pretty feat starved.

At one point I considered all of these splits but ended up liking the idea of pure ranger the best.

Regarding attributes, rangers can cast cats grace and bears endurance. Relying on wands for a strength buff would get really expensive though and if your bears endurance spell wears off when you just finished a boss fight with 5 hit points left you could get a free pass to the fugue. So basically you want dexterity at exactly 16 so with cats grace you hit 20 to maximize the benefits of a Mithral breastplate. You can go odd or even for constitution depending on how risky you want to play with bears endurance. You have no way to consistently buff strength so go odd there. INT should be even UNLESS you need 13 for CE and can't get the scores worked out to fit hitting 14. Wisdom should be either 11 with a +3 item or 14 if you don't want to be item dependant for spells.

[Teaboar]

EDIT: Thank you for the help yet again. I somehow completely missed the last part of your post regarding attribute distribution, but it was very helpful.

I also think Weapon Master would be great, but I would rather not create a build around critical hits. I like the amount of extra feats that I get from the fighter levels, and I think fighter will fit in well with the background that I'm planning for my character. Wait, does that mean that a caster level of 25 is enough to be immune to greater dispel magic? If so then that would free up one feat.

[chad878262]

CL 25 is enough so for ranger 22 you will need practised spell caster to get you to 26

[Teaboar]

CL 25 is enough so for ranger 22 you will need practised spell caster to get you to 26

Awesome, thanks again!

[Teaboar]

I used a leveling module to get to 30 just to see that I can get all the feats and so on. When I did that I noticed that my will save is only 8 at level 30. I'm guessing that might become a problem?

[chad878262]

Most melee classes have poor will saves. UMD is highly recommended for things like protection from evil, death ward, etc... You can live without it, but it's not recommended. My main doesn't have it and it causes no end of frustration for me.

[Hawke]

Something isn't right... as a pure ranger, you get +10 to will saves... then you need at least 14 wisdom (unless you bypassing things with a +wis item) which would give you +2 more Wisdom.

So minimum Willpower save will be 12. If you do spellcrafting, you can +3 (crossclass skill) to your saves against spells. So that is a +15. If you didn't bypass your way to 14, then you can add +2 to your save with Spell/item so that puts you at a grand total of 17 Willpower save against spells.

Not sure what module you were using... or how high in level you got to. (We go to 30 here).

Stick with nwn2db.com it's a great tool for planning, then you can use Jegs module to proof the test.