Bard or rogue/fighter for WD/GFK build?

[Farmboy2003]

I`ve returned to the lands of your marvellous server, only to see loads of new content! awesome! - But I feel like i need to ask the seasoned players a thing or two about my new character.

I love playing sneaky greatsword wielding elves so I`ve strung together a mix of Whirling dervish and Ghost faced killer - But what is best for building it on?

I´m leaning on bard or fighter/rogue. Apart from the mechanical differences, I need to learn from your experiences. (Really boils down to +3 ab/dam from heroism vs. more SA and Wpn expertise - Apart from great RP spells as well) I´m set for 3/4 rogue/fighter or 8 bard before PRCing

1: Will the lvl 8 bard buffs do anything for my character that I can´t reasonably do with UMD in the form of scrolls and wands? (heroism, mirror image, inspirational boost, sonic wpn, haste fx) 8 rounds for sonic weapon is a bit underwhelming, but I can live with 8min for mirror image fx

1a: Does inspirational boost still have that bug where it never runs out?

2: And in the wake of that - what are the rules for resting? It seems like I can rest whenever, but I´m only lvl 2 - having limited rest would also make bard buffs a bit less useful.

3: Is it reasonably easy to find items that give lingering song as a bonus feat? (Giving ironskin chant a use) - It´s hard to find a proper use for bardsong in this build

4: Is it a good idea to have more than one combat style feat? (Athkatlan triparite, sembian fencing, arterial strike all look so good)

5: Will my 8 bard levels add to my score in the custom lore skills?

[chad878262]

We have fixed dispels so if you want to rely on buffs you need CL 27+.
There are multiple ways to build a fun GFK/WD build. Here's one route with Fighter or Rogue that you might enjoy.

R12/GFK10/BG4/WD4 - BAB26 and lots of skill points. Go for a mix of STR and CHA for EDM and divine shield. Gives you multiple ways to damage/kill enemies between GFK abilities, Feint/Sneak Attack and EDM. CHA synergizes well with GFK abilities, EDM and saves. I would split my stats with the aim of hitting STR 21 DEX 14 CON 11-13 INT 14 WIS 8 CHA 21. Wear Mithral Chainmail which is AC: 6 with max 4 DEX bonus on this server. You end up with 11d6 sneak dice, Epic Precision and EDM when needed. Feint is unfortunately only useful rarely and less as you hit epics, but when it does work you will wreck stuff.

F12/GFK10/BG4/WD4 - Same as above, but only 5d6 sneak dice, but instead you have way better AB and +8 damage with your chosen weapon. You still gain evasion so stat split should be the same, play style is the same, you just give up sneak dice and skill points in favor of more HP and AB as well as feats. You could of course drop Fighter to 6 if you want WD 10, but nothing that exciting to gain.

If your interest is more in ghost step (Frightful attack DC is not going to be good enough to be worthy your time) you might look in to building a Phantom 25/SD5 build which is a reskin of the Ninja class with several changes. Something to consider.

[Farmboy2003]

Thanks for the reply Chad! Will I encounter many dispelling foes? - or are youwriting from a pvp POW? is that the same point about Frightful attack?

I´d rather not play evil, but I do know there´s a synergi with (E)DM. I could play pally or cleric, but then i´d get an xp penalty. Good aligned elf is the keyword here

[chad878262]

I rarely respond with detail on PvP as I am terrible at it. There are foes that will cast dispels, though we reduced the amount since the dispel fix, you will encounter them in certain areas. The GFK DC for Frightful Attack is 10+GFK level+CHA modifier so at best you're looking at about ~27 DC at GFK 10 with 21 CHA and a +3 item. In epics this might work 5-20% of the time in PvE which is roughly equivalent to an Assassin's Death Attack. The difference is death attack has unlimited uses and forces a save ~4 times vs. Frightful attack which has minimal uses and fires once. Thus it will almost never actually work.

If you drop EDM there is far less synergy to CHA from GFK and I would recommend dropping it all together. If you want something similar to Ghost Walk you can get minor teleportation from Whirling Dervish 10 and use your other class for something with more synergy. If you are interested in being more Fighter focused you could look at mixing in a class like Anointed Knight, Dervish, Tempest or Divine Champion. If going for more of a Rogue Focus I would grab Assassin. So if your final goal is to have a "Fighter/Thief" type of character (to use 2nd edition terminology) here are a few splits without GFK that will work well with WD.

- F12/A8/WD10 - BAB only 25 so no 6th attack and better served as a DEX based dual wielder to get more death attacks out of HiPS. Also no Epic Precision so sneak dice don't apply to crit immune. However, for those enemies you can hit the combination of Fighter feats (melee mastery, epic specialization) and 7d6 sneak dice would make you deadly in some area's of the server. Recommend you use dual finesse weapons like short swords, hand axes, or kukri's.

- R16/AK4/WD10 - BAB 23, but get's loads of sneak dice, epic precision and epic dodge. However, with no HiPS you have no way to land your sneak attacks. This is remedied by dropping Rogue to 13 and taking SD 3, which drops your BAB further to 22. This is honestly more a pure rogue than a Fighter/Rogue hybrid, but does get a slight Will saves boost from AK.

- R13/A8/WD9 - Pure rogue build, but gets almost full WD levels along with HiPS, Epic Dodge, Epic Precision, lots of sneak dice. BAB 21 so will need to put some effort in to increasing attack bonus. You want a minimum AB of ~34 at level 30 to be able to land sneak attacks out of stealth.

- F12/R10/A8 - No WD, but this is a much stronger 'fighter/thief' since you get Epic Precision to gain 1/2 damage vs. crit immune enemies.

Not sure if any of these is what you are looking for. GFK is a very specific class that has some synergies if you are going for high CHA/STR builds vs. max DEX builds. It's unfortunate that Feint is near worthless in the vast majority of area's, otherwise GFK would have great synergy with any Feint build since it's own near useless abilities would still be good flavor. Sadly that is not the case, which is why I recommended the EDM route so that you would have some use for the high CHA beyond Frightful attack.

[Farmboy2003]

Isn't the point of ghost step and ghost walk that they give you opportunity to use sneak attack? And doesnt rogues get hide in shadows if they break from combat as a 10th lvl ability?

Ill look into epic precision.

[chad878262]

Isn't the point of ghost step and ghost walk that they give you opportunity to use sneak attack?

At level 10 GFK you have 4 uses of Ghost Step. Are you only planning to sneak attack 4 times per day?

And doesnt rogues get hide in shadows if they break from combat as a 10th lvl ability?

Yes they do, but you have nothing that gives you the ability to disengage for a long enough period for HitS to work. There are some improvements to HitS that make it a solid ability for those with a TON of Rogue class levels, but if you are going to have ~10 levels of Rogue than HitS is not really something that can be used in the same manner as HiPS.

[Farmboy2003]

At level 10 GFK you have 4 uses of Ghost Step. Are you only planning to sneak attack 4 times per day?

Well, I did start by asking the resting rules. I have no idea how often I can replace uses/day. I read somewhere that you can only rest by a campfire - but at my current level i can rest seemingly whenever. I´m guessing a few flanking opportunities will arise too

I did think it was 8/day too - perhaps that's in Kaedrins version.

I´m currently looking at playing a phantom instead, as it has most of what I´m looking at at the cost of going dex based instead

[chad878262]

Phantom25/SD5 has pretty much everything you want. HiPS, Epic Precision, Epic Dodge, Phantom Ki for the neat abilities and flavor.

[Farmboy2003]

Apart from my greatsword! found your build on nwn2db - only thing is i want a custom combat feat(arterial strike), but I´m not really sure I should forego blind fight - or does the ghost sight trump that?

Considering going one handed rapier instead of dual short swords - I like the feat freedom - but I also like cool elven short swords...

But will HiPS not render alot of my phantom abilities void? Hips will be better and cheaper than ghost walk 80% of time, barring dm events, Spotter (N)PCs wont it?

Is there any custom feat, like firery feat defense I can use with my ki pool?

[chad878262]

Apart from my greatsword!

*shrug* Fighter/Thief types with greatswords would be great if there was a reliable way to land sneak attack outside of HiPS. Out of HiPS your APR really matters which is why PTWF is so important. Each 6 second round is made up of 3-2 second flurries. So if you have 5 APR with a Greatsword you get 2 sneak attacks per round. If you have 10 APR with dual short swords you get 4 sneak attacks per round. Considering the vast majority of your damage is from sneak attacks you can see how short swords will out damage the greatsword by a wide margin.

only thing is i want a custom combat feat(arterial strike), but I´m not really sure I should forego blind fight - or does the ghost sight trump that?

First, any build you find of mine is either a) highly optimized for QC theory crafting or b) a request from a forum post or PM. So you should feel free in either case to change anything or everything about the build so long as you understand what is lost, what is gained, and make sure you don't lose any of the key attributes of the build. For P25/SD5 the key pieces you must keep in the build are:
1. Epic Dodge, which means you must be P24/SD5 at level 29 when you get your last feat, which is the only feat you will get to take Epic Dodge with due to Improved Evasion coming at P24 and Defensive Roll at SD5.
2. Expose Weakness, which means you also must keep Epic Prowess.
3. Perfect Two Weapon Fighting (and by extension TWF/ITWF/GTWF pre-epic)

Blindfight is not strictly required as mobs with displacement are rare (Blindfighting lets you re-roll your miss chance when fighting concealed enemies). However, Ghost Sight (True seeing) does not replace or trump blindfight in all cases since it won't see through displacement IIRC.n I have had builds without blindfighting and with it. It is a really nice to have feat and ranks high on the list of feats to grab IMO, but it is not required for a character to be viable in PvE. If you want Arterial Strike, go for it. Blinding Strike is another strong option if you are looking at custom feats.

Considering going one handed rapier instead of dual short swords - I like the feat freedom - but I also like cool elven short swords...

See above... Your damage is reliant on sneak attack damage. When attacking out of stealth/invisibility only the first flurry of attacks are sneak attacks. With 13d6 sneak attack damage, realize how much damage you are giving up by not dual wielding. Mobs on this server are relatively low on AC, but stupidly high on hit points so you really don't want to give up half of your damage by going single weapon instead of dual wield.

But will HiPS not render alot of my phantom abilities void? Hips will be better and cheaper than ghost walk 80% of time, barring dm events, Spotter (N)PCs wont it?

Not necessarily. Ghost Step becomes Ethereal once you reach P10 so it can save you in situations where invisibility or stealth would not. An important distinction. HiPS would be my offensive weapon to land sneak attacks, Ghost step would be my "Oh @#$%!" button.

Is there any custom feat, like firery feat defense I can use with my ki pool?

Currently there are no custom feats for Phantom's using ki, though Phantom was only introduced within the past few months. Feel free to make suggestions in the appropriate thread if you have any ideas for unique abilities with good flavor that might be nice to offer to Phantoms.