Spear Dual-Wielding Build Fine-Tuning

[PhantomLamb]

Hey everyone,

I believe at long last I've settled on some form of crazy build. I want to make a Stormlord/Dread Pirate ... who needs Umberlee when her boss has your back?

The idea is he'd take advantage of Oversized Weapon and dual wield spears. Dread Pirate helps me avoid investing heavily in DEX. I'll have to wait until later levels due to the skill requirements, but I can use a shield until then.

I'm wrestling with how best to fine tune this. I can see a couple avenues to build this up involving some combo of FS, Cleric, Tempest, and/or Fighter:

* Cleric base, capped off with Tempest
PROs: Heavy armor. No real stat squeezes. Access to Greater Two-Weapon Fighting and +2AB. Slightly better spell progression.
CONs: Significantly strapped for additional feats (Mobility, Weapon Focus). Clerics should be RPed dogmatically IMO and I don't know if that's the way I want to go.

* Favored Soul base, capped off with Tempest
PROs: Access to Greater Two-Weapon Fighting. +2 AB. Free Weapon Focus.
CONs: Requires >12 Dex. Must invest in Mobility. No heavy armor.

Etc. etc. ...

Anyone try a build like this before? Any recommendations here? Thanks!

[Theodore01]

I'm wrestling with how best to fine tune this.

Arghhh , just drown him

Tempest Defense works only while wearing light or no armor.

[PhantomLamb]

Ah good catch! I didn't spot that one. So Tempest is off the board, which solves on problem.

Is this kind of build worth it without access to greater 2-w fighting? Only two extra attacks, but lots of coolness.

[chad878262]

cleric pro=Hierophant... Cl/DP/H/SL. 6 levels of Hierophant give you spell power 3 for up to 7 total levels of non caster progression. Thus of you went C7/SL10/DP7/H6 you would get improved two weapon fighting and CL30.

[PhantomLamb]

cleric pro=Hierophant... Cl/DP/H/SL. 6 levels of Hierophant give you spell power 3 for up to 7 total levels of non caster progression. Thus of you went C7/SL10/DP7/H6 you would get improved two weapon fighting and CL30.

True, but at the cost of investing heavily in DEX. I see this as more of a melee-focused hybrid.

[Sun Wukong]

I would actually go for Ranger 21/Stormlord 9... or Ranger 20/Stormlord 10... or Ranger 22/Stormlord 8...

Having 14 in both dexterity and wisdom is a no issue, it lets you have 14 in Intelligence for skill points, and start with 16 in strength, while constitution and charisma are both at 10.

Thus, with 14 dexterity, you just need to cast your Cat's Grace to get most out of a regular Chain Shirt, or a Mithral Chain Mail. You do not have to worry about that many feats, and you can just aim for as high Strength as possible.

The only choice is whether you want Perfect Two-Weapon Fighting with Bane of Enemies or Storm Avatar. Since you are dual-wielding spears, I would lean towards PTWF and Bane of Enemies. Also, consider that with 12 attacks per round, you should still get 8 attacks per round with Northlander Hewing Active, and Northlander Hewing lets you have your strength modifier as extra damage while maximising your 1d10 damage roll to ten.

(Northlaner Hewing does not increase critical hit damage, but it doesn't really matter that much to be honest.)

[chad878262]

cleric pro=Hierophant... Cl/DP/H/SL. 6 levels of Hierophant give you spell power 3 for up to 7 total levels of non caster progression. Thus of you went C7/SL10/DP7/H6 you would get improved two weapon fighting and CL30.

True, but at the cost of investing heavily in DEX. I see this as more of a melee-focused hybrid.

Why does this require investing heavily in DEX? (answer, it doesn't. Unless you are urgently going for that 1 extra attack from GTWF vs. ITWF)

Simple answer is, based on what you are trying to do, it requires giving something up, unless you want to go the Ranger route, as Comments suggests (which is a good suggestion, if you want to go that route).

I see two issues that you need to account for. 1 is Attack Bonus since you are going to have -4 or -6 AB (-4 if you take Oversized TWF, but you're going to be quite feat starved). The 2nd issue is dispels. If you go FvS (or Cleric) 11/DP6/T3/SL10 your caster level is going to be 25 and you have no HiPS. Thus Greater Dispel from a CR20 or higher mob is going to strip between 1/4 and 1/2 your wards (probably closer to 1/2 with the way the NWN2 RNG works).

The way I see it, giving up 1 attack for becoming immune to dispel is a no brainer. Thus you build the same way, which I am assuming is 16 WIS (w/ +4 item to hit 20) and either EDM or full STR. DEX can either be 8/9 for Full Plate (EDM or STR) or 12/13 for Mithral Full Plate (STR only). Also remember that you are highly dependent upon Divine Power, so getting to CL30 gives each Extended Divine Power a 6 minute duration (vs. 5 minutes for CL25). You need to be able to have Divine Power up for a total of ~22.5 minutes at level 30 to be able to go non-stop between rests. More if you don't want to have to rest every ~20-25 minutes and then spend a couple minutes rebuffing. Talos doesn't have STR domain so only levels 4 and 5 (extended) can be used for DP. I would say you want all the extra duration you can get.

With DP up and assuming you go the GTWF route your AB will be:

30 (BAB) + 5 (GMW) + 2 (Bless/Aid) + 1 (WF) - 4 (TWF w/ large weapons assuming you have OSTWF) = 34 + STR. Thus if you go EDM with 22 STR you end up with 28 (DP) for 43, max 44 if you Epic Prowess.

Going Tempest is also FAR more Feat intensive. If you go Cleric/SL/Hierophant/DP you need Weapon Finesse, Extend Spell, Great Fortitude, Toughness and WF. As a human you have 3 more feats (2 more as Aasimar). If you go Tempest for GTWF you have to take Dodge and Mobility (you get Spring Attack from Dread Pirate) and you still need Extend spell for Divine Power at minimum, thus you have 1 feat left (0 if Aasimar). Going to be tough to get OSTWF, PA/EDM, or what-have-you...

Is all this worth 1 extra attack? I would say no...

Now, Talos Domains are not all that great for a melee cleric (very good for a caster cleric) so if you want to go FvS route, you can't take Hierophant. So in that situation, where you also get more spells per day and Free Weapon Focus than Tempest makes a little more sense, but still not sure it is worth taking Dodge and Mobility for one extra attack. I'd rather take Power Attack and Divine Might and go for EDM on those 8 attacks (9 w/ haste), rather than 1 extra attack with no EDM.

[PhantomLamb]

Very good breakdowns, thanks for the advice. It may be wise for me just to go the ranger route since it's much simpler. I've been away from the game for ages and need to get my bearings.

Is a dual-wielding ranger viable on this server? HIPS helps tremendously but is only for the outdoors really. Would I need a lot of party support to level?

... maybe I'll just toss it in the garbage and go for a duelist spear build instead! or save that for Archivist, should that ever surface

[Steve]

Sad thing is, when using a spear with Monkey Grip or OTWF spears, the animation is to slap your enemy with the spear, instead of piercing attack animation. It looks quite ridiculous...and that alone, can ruin a build idea!

[Sun Wukong]

But there are spear models with slightly longer and wider blades, so the animation looks less silly. Just click on the NWN eye symbol in game, and select Appearance Changer and you can find those spear models fairly fast and easy.

[Sun Wukong]

Is a dual-wielding ranger viable on this server? HIPS helps tremendously but is only for the outdoors really. Would I need a lot of party support to level?

I do not think that you will have many issues, with or without HiPS. High strength full bab builds tend to do really well in this game, especially early on.

[Babuguuscooties]

The idea is he'd take advantage of Oversized Weapon and dual wield spears. Dread Pirate helps me avoid investing heavily in DEX. I'll have to wait until later levels due to the skill requirements, but I can use a shield until then.

Did you get this idea from Fate/Zero's Lancer?

[PhantomLamb]

I could also scrap the whole dual-wielding idea and go 2h. It's gimmicky, but does the spear still work with Duelist Precise Strike here?

[Sun Wukong]

It does.

[Babuguuscooties]

I could also scrap the whole dual-wielding idea and go 2h. It's gimmicky, but does the spear still work with Duelist Precise Strike here?

Ooh, this could be like a cool Oberyn Martell thing. I didn't know duelist precise strike worked with spears.