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

Hello all, recently I have had conversations in game and via PM with a few of you so thought to take it to the rest of the community. Our topic of conversation is Shield Bash (and the associated feat tree's therein). First a brief explanation of the feats and what they provide for those that don't know.

Shield Bash (No requirements) - The required feat in order to unlock this play style. You gain 1 attack per round with your shield which does d3 (light), d4 (heavy) or d6 (tower) damage. However, if you shield bash with a Medium or Tower Shield you take a -2 Attack Bonus (in addition to the -2 you get for equipping a Tower Shield). Power Attack, IPA are stated to work (needs testing, but assume it does for now) and sneak damage will apply to shield attacks, but other effects such as spells and EDM will not.

Shield Charge (Requires Shield Bash, Knockdown and BAB +3) - Attempts a Knockdown if your shield attack hits on a charge action.

Shield Slam (Requires Shield Bash, Shield Charge [and thus knockdown] and BAB +6) - Once every 18 seconds you can attempt to daze your opponent (it's described as daze, but it specifies the opponent is flat footed/subject to sneak attacks). The DC is 10 + 1/2 level + STR, so at level 30, a character with 30 STR would have 10+15+10= 35 DC, which is respectable and approximately aligned with Blinding Strike which has a longer cooldown (45s) but is nowhere near as feat intensive.

So that is four feats to get one attack, a possible knockdown when you charge and a decent DC stun every 3 rounds. My opinion this is a pretty well balanced cost vs. benefit investment.

The second part of the shield line, I do not feel is worth it. That is:
Shield Specialization (Requires Shield Proficiency) - +1 AC for the selected Shield type. You should already have decent AC and have invested significant feats in your shield. Only worth it if you can afford to grab Agile Shield Fighter as well.
Agile Shield Fighter (Requires Shield Bash, Shield Specialization, DEX 13) - Reduces your attack penalty by 2 when using your shield specialization of choice. Honestly if this was just one feat I would say it's worth it to help ensure those shield slams connect. But two feats when you already spent four? Unless you're going Fighter 30 I doubt you can afford it. Compare to Melee Mastery which gives full +2 AB and Damage for one feat, but requires F12. If you just consider Bash, Specializaiton and Agile Shield Fighter you've spent 3 feats for one attack, 1 AC and +2 bonus to attack with that one attack.
Shield Weapon Focus (Requires Shield Proficiency; Oddly it does not require Shield Bash, but if you don't have Shield Bash it does nothing) - +1 AB on your Shield Bashes, +1 attack per round when shield bashing. bonus 1 APR is nice, but you have now spent 7 feats on your shield of choice. As a non-human/strongheart halfling, non-fighter your non-epic feats are gone.
Shield Weapon Specialization (Shield Proficiency, Shield Weapon Focus, Fighter 4) - +2 damage and you now have 3 APR with your shield. Not bad, but you've now spent 8 feats. Note this might be worthwhile for a sneak attack based character or one with tons of fighter levels if Shield Slam could be activated every round or when activated caused saves against all 3 shield attacks for that round, but it is just one attack, so the extra's, while adding damage are causing you to be severely starved for feats.


So, we have 8 feats (including knockdown) in order to have a fully dedicated Shield Fighter type. As stated, I've looked at it multiple ways and have come over to what seems to be the common belief that the last four aren't worth it. Now, considering Invoker had stated he had 95 damage crits on his shield bashes, maybe those feats would be worth it, but would need to consider the average damage per round on just 1 attack vs. 3 to come to a conclusion.

Note that Ranger 11 get's GTWF for free meaning you don't need to have a bunch of DEX and can save four feats. However, 10 levels of fighter gets you 6 bonus feats (one at first level and one at every even level) so you can still leave DEX at 13/14 and come out a couple feats ahead by going Agile Shield Fighter and focus feats. In addition, you are gaining AB, AC and Damage with your shield so it is not really a benefit to go the TWF route to gain attacks with your shield.

Builds:

Man at Arms - Immediately springs to mind since they do still get some bonus feats, if not as many as fighter. There is certainly synergy with the free shield AC M@A gets. While such a build will have minimal sneak dice if any, stunning an enemy is never a bad thing. M@A25/X5 (where X is Paladin or Blackguard most likely) is super powerful anyway so these feats would be gravy if you can afford them.

Fighter/Rogue (or Phantom) - F14/R16 would be the baseline. Get's enough feats that you could go for the entire line of 8 feats. However, it is likely not a great idea to do so. As a Fighter Rogue, You still want lots of AC (no HiPS), lots of Attack Bonus (though probably don't need as much as a traditional Fighter, low-to-mid 40's is recommended), and good saving throws. Thus feats like Steadfast Determination to help will saves and Epic Weapon Focus are advised.

My thought is F8 is the minimum so that you can get Epic Weapon Focus and additional extra feats. F12 is preferred for Melee Mastery, though Greater/Epic Specialization is nice, it is less of a priority. F12/NWN3/R15 is an option, though it does lose 1 epic feat over the F14/R16, it gains 2d6 sneak dice and 10% movement speed, which is worth an epic feat if you ask me.

One build that was suggested to me and originally built by Karond was R19/F4/NWN3/GT4 which gets loads of sneak dice, but I feel suffers from a severe feat starved situation. While the sneak dice will be really good, the Attack Bonus will be quite low. This one would seem to be fantastic in a group, but probably a bit lackluster solo. Though with Blinding Strike and Shield Slam, I imagine a max STR build could be landing sneak attacks pretty often by opening up battle with blinding strike against the highest priority target and then shield slamming either as soon as blind effect wears off or when that enemy dies (which should be in about 4-5 attacks thanks to 14d6 sneak dice). Still, against enemies with high fortitude saves, this build has not much of anything it can do to them.

Blackguard might not be a bad choice to add to such a build... F12/NWN3/R11/BG4 or R19/F4/NWN3/BG4 would be interesting, thanks to the Blackguard Aura helping Shield Slam land. However, now you need power attack and cleave on an already feat strained build...

So, interested in hearing everyone else's thoughts. I like things like this because you can do a lot with it, but you definitely are giving up something good to get something else good. What kind of theoretical builds can you come up with? What have you played and experienced good or bad results with? Interested in hearing the various view points especially with those that played a shield basher at least in to early epics. Was it useful?

Recently I wanted to make a build with as many shield and charge feats as I could get. This was the result:

http://nwn2db.com/build/?295076

It should fair pretty well on this server, I think. Any way to make it better? The wiki is rather poor IMO on the documentation on shield feats (specifically, the focus/spec feats) but I did what I could with what the wiki presented.

It should have a good amount of CC between Shield Bash (38 DC), Shield Charge, and Improved Knockdown.

Shouldn't have any issues hitting, especially with that +4 bonus from charge (low 50s in AB for both shield and scimitar attacks). I think it'll probably deal around 300-350 on average per round in damage assuming:
--you charge,
--enemies have no DR,
--2/3 attacks that land crit on scimitar,
--1/3 attacks that land on shield crit,
--shield lands all of its attacks, and
--that the mainhand scimitar hands 4/6 of its attacks.

I was a little disappointing by the 49 AC, I figured MFP and Tower Shield would end up with more. But, it should be more than fine.

A solid disabler... I thought about doing something similar with Barbarian 20/Fighter 10. Epic Rage with ~40 or so Strength would make Improved Knockdown, Shield Charge and Shield Slam a potent combination to keep opponents incapacitated until they're dead. Damage will be somewhat tame at ~28.5 for a +4 Scimitar, but what can you expect from a Sword and Board Fighter? Where it shines is the ability to tank up and slowly whittle away enemies.

I would probably want to find a way to fit in Improved Combat Expertise so you can 'Turtle up' when a horde of enemies spawn and Northlander Hewing in order to deal with crit immune/high DR enemies. However, the only feats that you could drop would be Luck of Hero's, Improved Initiative and Weapon Supremacy so I suppose it's a bit of a toss-up, though I would consider Improved Initiative and Supremacy no great loss and Luck of Hero's isn't strictly needed. Either way, not sure if it's what you are looking for as an 'improvement' but it would help such a build deal with some of the situations you can find yourself in when solo in epic area's.

EDIT: Forgot, Improved Initiative is required for Dire Charge... I can see why you wouldn't want to give up Blindfight as well so tough call. Most likely depends on PvE or PvP focus.

If you went barbarian, imo dwarven battlerager is a good route. That frees up 4 feats, plus gives some extra AC (owing to the fact that it gives all the charge feats).

Could go Barbarian 21/Fighter 4/Dwarven Battlerager 5

You've got. . .10 pre-epic feats.
1 is used for Ice Troll Beserker.
Extra and Extend I Rage are given by an amulet. If you don't use that, its advisable to pick up Extra and as many extends as possible. This can occupy anywhere from 1-6 feats.

Shield Feats are 6 in total, 7 if you want +1 AC.

So!
1 (Ice Troll)+7 (shield feats)+2 (KD feats) = 10 Feats Used.

If you have a rage amulet, you could do this, I think. Epic feats would be untouched by these pre-epic feats. You could pick up:
Epic DR 1-3
Epic Rage
+1 STR

That would take up all 5 of your pre-epic feats.

Go Shield Dwarf, start with 18 STR and 18 CON.
Take 4/7 points into CON, put 3/7 points in STR. Now you've got 22 STR and 22 CON. With rage, you are put at 34 STR, which is solid enough for knocking people down.

You wouldn't have expose, but your AB should be ok without it. No wiggle room at all for other feats.

You end up with every single shield and charge feat, plus 14/- DR and a sizable HP pool.

My quick two cents:

chad878262 wrote:[...]The second part of the shield line, I do not feel is worth it.[...]

+1 AC is +1 AC, and despite already being tanky, if you're not already at the sweet, sweet spot of (Your enemy's max AB + 20) AC, I can see an argument for picking up Shield Specialization. Especially, if that could mean that you don't have to stay in CE/ICE and get more offensive capability for an encounter.

I would say that Agile Shield Fighter could afford to have Shield Spec. dropped as a pre-req, however. No need to have a niche defensive pickup tied to an equally-niche offensive one, and it does seem as more of an especial pickup (for example, if you're planning on going tower-shield-slammin' and would prefer to get as much AB as possible to compensate for the penalty).

As for Shield Weapon Focus/Spec., they seem more like luxury feats, but a harmless option to have available.

chad878262 wrote:[...]Compare to Melee Mastery which gives full +2 AB and Damage for one feat, but requires F12.[...]

To be honest, I feel a bit queasy trying to compare Fighter feats to others, since the way I see it, they're more like 'Class Abilities' that give you the flexibility to take another feat in their place. Melee Mastery (equal to three feats: Weapon Focus, Imp. Weapon Focus, and Weapon Spec.) and Weapon Supremacy (equal to two feats: Epic Prowess and Armor Skin) are certainly above comparable feats. However, for either one you're dedicating either 2/5ths or 3/5th of your entire build to the class. Plus, they're feats that the fighter will have stacking with any of the 'lesser' feats they will have.

I built the following when those bash feats came out. It focuses on the incapacitating DCs, has two bashes, and is geared towards the Epic TWF flail in the shop for the +2 AB (I don't know whether it applies only to the bashes or also the regular attacks). Alternatively, one could consider the Monkey Grip Tower Shield with the Magic Vestment helmet for +5 EB and a focus on Warmace, which would add quite a bit of damage at the cost of some AB.

http://nwn2db.com/build/?295180

So is Shield Bash/Slam builds considered mostly a non-sneak attack based feat line? I have been looking at it from a different angle, for example going F14/R13/NWN3 or F12/R15/NWN3 (depending if you need a fighter bonus feat or want an extra sneak dice.) Such a build would focus on getting Shield Slam and blinding Strike ASAP in order to land sneak dice as often as possible while being an up front fighter. Feint would be nice, but would require too much focus and IMO doesn't work consistently enough (on the surface, works great in UD). This would allow for full UMD to use scrolls (instead of only wands) to protect from spellcasters a bit. Dispels are an issue with no HiPS, but even when dispelled such a character will have high 40's to mid 50's AC and decent (not great) hit points. Just need to be quick with invisibility, dimension door, least mantle, or silence when appropriate.

That said, it's a question of offense vs. defense... Adding sneak damage definitely helps you be a solid damage dealer as a shield build, but it also absolutely takes away from having stronger defenses such as Barbarian increased will saves during rage, AK/WoD improved saves, etc. and makes the character far more reliant on dispelable buffs. It's an interesting give/take, but I thought there would be more of a split. Has experience taught players that the sneak damage isn't worth what you give up?

i play this build:

Pal 26 / Rog 4 -> cavalier kit, Aasimar, final STR 22 (30 with buffs)

2 attacks with shield, ICE and Northlander Hewing to up the dmg. Paladins have a decent shield enchant spell (+5EB,+5 Reflex) and other nice spells to (+8 STR e.g.). Rogue also allows 2d6 SA

Plays nicely, only downside is low duration spells and low number of spell slots. cant recast things. fear dispels ^^

I also had an idea for a heavy cleric/4 fighter build with Strength domain and IPA/ICE. i think that works well too.

chad878262 wrote:[...]So is Shield Bash/Slam builds considered mostly a non-sneak attack based feat line?[...]

I'd say so. Aside from the armor check penalty of shields, which imparts at least some effect to builds that want to strike from the shadows unseen, I'm not sure if light shields are actually Weapon-Finesse-able, whereas most may hope to use their primary sneaking attribute (DEX) to benefit their attack as well. Likewise, the common sneak attack classes don't typically have shield proficiency, or are sufficiently feat-starved that the sizable investment into the Shield Bash line of feats doesn't seem worth it when they can just equip two short swords and rely on HiPS for defense rather than a shield bonus.

For sneak attack DEX builds which have access to Perfect 2WF, it would likewise seem odd to limit their off-hand attacks to just 3, especially in partied content.

chad878262 wrote:[...]Feint would be nice, but would require too much focus and IMO doesn't work consistently enough (on the surface, works great in UD).[...]

Matches with my experience. As far as Feinting goes, it really don't seem worth it. It requires some gear skill bonus investment, but unlike HiPS, doesn't give you a defensive escape option in addition to being able to provide sneak attacks (so you have to both rely on your gear to provide you with your offensive options to work, and you have to rely on their defensive bonuses... and the never the twain shall meet). Additionally, the primary attribute bonus for the check comes from CHA, which doesn't coincide well with the stats you want to have.

On the 15th I'm going to be RCRing my attempt at a no-stealth Feint IB dagger build to a more general Duelist/WM rapier build, since the first didn't work at quite the consistency that I had wanted (and yes, something generally useless against any crit immune enemies feels like it's going to be more consistent in its performance).

I remember you mentioning a potential option of not having skill bonuses from gear stack, and in turn having encounters re-balanced for that change. I'd be fully on board with that idea, especially if Feint is swapped to competing against JUST an opposing attack OR Spot check.

Svabodnik wrote:I'd say so. Aside from the armor check penalty of shields, which imparts at least some effect to builds that want to strike from the shadows unseen, I'm not sure if light shields are actually Weapon-Finesse-able, whereas most may hope to use their primary sneaking attribute (DEX) to benefit their attack as well. Likewise, the common sneak attack classes don't typically have shield proficiency, or are sufficiently feat-starved that the sizable investment into the Shield Bash line of feats doesn't seem worth it when they can just equip two short swords and rely on HiPS for defense rather than a shield bonus.

Such a build would be your 'thug' type and thus DEX would be 14 (to wear Mithral Chainmail and use Bracers of the Peerless Archer. They would not go for finesse weapons, instead using medium weapon and shield. Idea would be to use Shield Slam every 3 rounds to apply sneak attacks as well as blinding strike every 45 seconds. DC of both would be low to mid 30's making them far more useful than feint is (at least on the surface). While I agree, striking from HiPS is more consistent and a 'sure thing' for the most part, only the first flurry of attacks will land as sneak attacks. Whereas when Blinding Strike or Shield Slam lands, it's 1-4 full rounds of sneak attacks. Thus if you have a 10d6+ sneak attack build that also has 9 APR you will put the hurt on enemies...

So for example, F12/NWN3/R15 has 10d6 sneak dice, so if you were able to afford all the shield feats you could have 6 APR with your weapon and 3 with your shield, all doing an extra 35 damage per hit on average (17.5 vs. sneak immune), which is easier to do with Expose Weakness and denying enemies DEX to AC when Shield Slam or Blinding Strike lands.

It gets even crazier if you do something like R19/F8/NWN3 which would have 12d6 sneak dice of R19/F4/NWN3/GT4 which would have 14. However, losing so many levels of Free Fighter feats starts to cost you when you have such heavy feat requirements to consider.

I do see the lure of going for full on Fighter/Barbarian-type builds as it gives higher attack bonus and you can just focus on your fighter strengths and weaknesses without worrying about the awful saves that come from rogue as well as fewer feats and HP. I just think when you consider the benefits on the other side (skillpoints/skill access to Tumble, Spot, UMD, etc, Evasion, EW, and sneak attack damage along with Epic Precision) it would seem to me a very good synergy. Most PTWF Sneak attack builds land 4 sneak attacks out of stealth. A shield weapon specialization/agile shield fighter build could land 9 on a successful shield slam, more than that with blinding strike, but honestly most things will be dead after the first 6 or 7 hits, even in epics.

Svabodnik wrote:Matches with my experience. As far as Feinting goes, it really don't seem worth it. It requires some gear skill bonus investment, but unlike HiPS, doesn't give you a defensive escape option in addition to being able to provide sneak attacks (so you have to both rely on your gear to provide you with your offensive options to work, and you have to rely on their defensive bonuses... and the never the twain shall meet). Additionally, the primary attribute bonus for the check comes from CHA, which doesn't coincide well with the stats you want to have.

Yeah, even with synergistic builds like EDM or Ghost Faced Killer types, Feint seems suspect. Even if an epic Frost Giant Warrior has ~25 BAB and 25 spot, you need 50 bluff for a 50/50 chance. I don't know how much spot enemies have around the server, and I know it's better than it was many years ago, but getting high CHA on a build that needs to max STR for shield slam DC's is counter productive at best. Then again, if you can afford the extra feat, when feint does work it is absolutely DEVASTATING, so I can understand why many area's enemies are built to avoid it being useful.

Svabodnik wrote:On the 15th I'm going to be RCRing my attempt at a no-stealth Feint IB dagger build to a more general Duelist/WM rapier build, since the first didn't work at quite the consistency that I had wanted (and yes, something generally useless against any crit immune enemies feels like it's going to be more consistent in its performance).

Hope you enjoy it! Remember SB gets Epic Precision at 12 so that should help... Evasion comes at 16 so SB16/WM7/D7 would seem like a relatively perfect split. I started such a build, but stopped playing it at around level 12 for some reason.

EDIT: Forgot to mention, while there have been past discussions about skill items and stacking there are no plans to make such a drastic change so I would not build on such an assumption. The current plan is to leave things as they are, with up to +4 to skills from items (some higher, but usually they are weaker items overall) which can stack to a total bonus of 50. This is vanilla and would require a lot of rework to implement differently.

Cavalier (Paladin Kit) gets Shield Bash, Shield Charge, and Shield Slam for free. Not to mention up to +8 strength with their spells. This is another base class to consider when making a shield basher.

Because Shield Bash attacks are not seemingly reduced by Northlander Hewing, the two do combine rather well. Just my honest opinion.




As for the Fighter/Rogue type of builds, what has gone unmentioned is the Pommel Strike on a high strength build. This is a free feat, and it does offer something extra to use while the Shield Slam or Blinding Strike are on their cooldown timers. Even though it might not enable sneak attacks like it used to, it still lowers the enemy AC for a while, which in my opinion might be enough to warrant its use.

Spoiler due to off-topic.

Insightful Strike from Swashbuckler works with a shield equipped. I do not know if the shield gets the Insightful Strike damage, probably not. But technically speaking you could make a strength based shield bashing Swashbuckler that gets little extra intelligence based damage with those main hand attacks.

Anyhow, the Epic Precision and Insightful Strike is a custom server change. Normally Insightful Strike would not give extra damage against critical hit immunities, but with the change you should get your intelligence based damage. It also makes the Swashbuckler 21/Assassin 9 build a slightly better option, or basically allows you to make use of the HIGH BAB sneak attack PRCs.

The Duelist Precise Strike applies whenever you are only using one 'pure' piercing weapon, dagger, rapier, shortsword, or a spear. The extra damage does not multiply on critical hits. It goes a bit against the official description in that regard, but in general it is better that way.

is dire charge on the fighter epic bonus feat list?

I actually like Ranger 11 for this. You get feats for free for the extra attacks, but also lots of nice extra stuff, such as :

Toughness
Evasion - for Expose Weakness!
Good skillset
Track+swift tracker
2 FE

A build like 11 Ranger/16 Fighter/3 Anointed Knight would be nice.