10 Levels of Blackguard

[Deathgrowl]

There was recently a blackguard topic, but I thought I'd not hijack that one, since it is a little bit away from what I am looking for.

Over the last couple of weeks, I've been trying to bend the 10 levels of blackguard to my will without a whole lot of satisfying success. The only reason to go for blackguard, mechanically, remains turn undead and charisma to saves. This is a little bit annoying, but I've decided I'm happy to work with it, even if that means basically wasting 6-7 levels on bad spells, mediocre summons and sneak attacks I probably won't be able to deliver anyways.

My criteria for this has been relatively simple:
- Blackguard 10. And thus EDM to make use of it at all. With all those blackguard levels, it should also be easy enough to get Divine Shield in.
- Access to at least tumble. I like my AC.
- Human.
- 14 int because I like skill points.
- No stat below 10. I could maybe accept a wisdom dump, but I really don't like the idea of that on a blackguard.

But what else to put into the build? Fighter12 seems like such an obvious go-to. MaA20 seems too low to be effective. Are there other avenues I could go?

The two most appealing ideas so far, has been Fighter16/Blackguard10/Warrior of Darkness4 and Fighter12/Blackguard10/Frenzied Berserker5/Warrior of Darkness3.

The first one of the two is a little bit more flexible on the feats and stats, but the latter hits harder.

[The Whistler]

Take a look at this

You can easily repurpose it for human

[Rudolph]

Depending on how much Bluff is needed to make Feint reliable, maybe Rogue 12/NN 4/BG 10/Assassin 4 would work well. The strange class numbers are there to reach 26 BAB. Feats are tight, but with wand buffs and gear this build could get 40 AB, AC in the high 40s, 80 Bluff, and all additional Shield Bashes (for SA delivery). The strength of the build is a lot of high Epic Precision damage per round and the chance of DA paralysis as an extra.

[Steve]

Alright, this isn't like the most pwning build, but I'd say you'd enjoy seeing those DMG numbers!

http://nwn2db.com/build/?297389

[Archaos]

I'm thinking that you could make a Ranger/Blackguard work.
Mainly for PTWF EDM Sneak Attacks, no BAB loss, easy access to Tumble/Evasion and spells being a bonus while the Hide skill requirement is also easily taken care of.

Biggest problem would be how absolutely MAD that is and the AC wouldn't be too good.

But PTWF EDM builds are hardly anything new, though tougher to pull off with Human.

[Deathgrowl]

Ranger doesn't get tumble, though. That's just Kaedrin. It's not even in PnP.

[Archaos]

Damn, that's right. I thought we had that change here.

By the way, Kaedrin's change is based on a PnP option from Cityscape.
http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp? ... /20070228a

It replaces Ride that we don't have also, anyway.

[chad878262]

R10/GFK10/BG10. 11d6 sneak dice and 27 BAB.

Feats:
Exotic Weapon Proficiency (there is an epic Katana that gives +4 bluff and epic amulet that gives +4 bluff and power critical: katana)
Shield Bash
Knockdown
Shield Charge
Shield Slam
Blinding Strike
Power Attack
Improved Initiative

Stats: 16(25)/14/10/14/11/13 (Idea being max STR and leaving epic feats open for Epic Precision, Epic Prowess and Expose Weakness. Two epic feats plus 7 level ups gives 25 final STR score. This will give you the most mileage out of Shield Slam.) WIS 11 means you can hit 14 to use Blackguard spells which, while not amazing are still of benefit. This may make you want to drop CHA to 10 and raise STR to 17 so you end at 26/30 w/ Bulls STR which further increases Shield Bash AC, AB, and damage. You don't want to use amulet slot, much better to find/buy a ring of +3 WIS which are occasionally available for around 25K, since there is an epic amulet in Beregost you'll want. You could of course drop CHA to 11 for a bit more CON as well, depending on how comfortable you are with your defenses. Note this REQUIRES Rieli's Belt of Mischief in order to have Feint. Otherwise you can only land sneak attacks by using shield slam, blinding strike and limited use per day ghost step. You basically take Rogue to 7 at which point you qualify for GFK (EWP, Improved Initiative, Power Attack) then GFK to 6 so at level 14 you can take Blackguard. At level 20 you want to be R9/GFK6/BG5 so at 21 you can take Crippling Strike and Epic Precision.

Blackguard aura gives good synergy to blinding strike and shield bash while focusing on bluff allows for some solid use out of feint. 6 APR (7 with shield bash) and 11d6 sneak dice gives you about ~270 sneak dice in one round of attacks. Shield Slam DC will be 10 + 15 (1/2 level) + 9 (STR) + 2 (BG Aura) = 36 and Blinding Strike is 10 + 11 (sneak dice) + 2 (1/5 Rogue) + 6 (1/5 level) + 2 (BG Aura) = 31. So if you face a spotter mob you have 2 solid abilities to allow for application of sneak dice. However, in most cases, the ~60 Bluff you should be able to get will be enough for Feint to work after 2-3 attempts, even on the surface. Good combination of controller and damage dealer. And for emergencies, you have 8 uses of Ghost Step so while not the full on defense of HiPS, it's there when you see a caster mob throwing a dangerous spell your way. I realize the common consideration is BG is the gateway to EDM, but your summons also give you another method to land sneak attacks if you are careful, so I see quite a bit of synergy with Blackguard being an interesting pick for a non-HiPS'ing sneak attacker.

If you are dead set on using BG for the turn undead side of things (EDM) with your stat requirements your 5 epic feats are going to be 4 Great CHA or STR and EDM. So you should disregard making sneak damage a priority in favor of Attack Bonus to land as many hits as possible. Certainly Barbarian 20/Blackguard 10 is a solid option, but you are now trying to get decent STR, CON and CHA while not dumping any stats. However, you could dump WIS since you don't need the BG spells and go 16/14/10/14/8/15. With a Ring of Might and Epic Rage you'll still have 22 CON while raging. Might seem a bit odd to RP an intelligent Barbarian, but was thinking it could be a scenario where the demon/devil that pacted the Blackguard has an antagonistic relationship with him that makes him hulk out or whatever. Standard Rage barbarian with Blackguard is going to have amazing Fortitude and Will saves. Very good survivability.

F12/BG10/DC8 has a lot of synergy with Divine Wrath and EDM. No Evasion, so you can drop DEX a bit in order to keep the rest of your stats better aligned. Something like 16/13/11/14/8/15 should make getting EDM pretty easy. You could of course drop Divine Champion and go Warrior of Darkness 4/Rogue 4 for evasion/skills, but DC gives +4 saves, +4 feats, and Divine Wrath... If you really want evasion could drop DC to 5 and take R3 as well.

Biggest issue is BG10 should really want some WIS for spells, but when you have 14 INT requirement while also going for EDM that makes it very difficult. What do you give up?

Finally, just as a side note you should strongly consider if Divine Shield is truly worth it. If we are talking a max CHA Paladin it is a no brainer since regular Divine Might does about as much as EDM and you have way more uses per day of Turn undead. However, for an EDM build that is going human (no bonus STR/CHA) you are almost certainly going to end up at 21/21 STR and CHA, 24 with an item. That means you have 10 uses of turn undead and EDM lasts for 14 minutes in total per 20 minute rest (and are you really going to want to rest every 20 minutes? Especially if you are using any wands like Deathward that will get very expensive.) I would say Divine Shield, which is only 36 seconds long is a luxury that will rarely if ever be used. Yes +7 AC is very strong, but it reduces that bonus damage you've built around and used all of your epic feats to obtain. If it were up to me I would take Combat Expertise over Divine Shield. +3 AC when needed while still having full uses per rest of EDM. You might have enough feats to get everything else you want/need and have Divine Shield on a F12+ build, but anything else will have to skip it.

[mrm3ntalist]

MaA20/BG10

CHA to saves will help the low fort of MaA
Aura of fear will help the MaA DCs

[metaquad4]

MaA20/BG10

CHA to saves will help the low fort of MaA
Aura of fear will help the MaA DCs

5-10 doesn't really give you anything, though. You'd be gaining by taking MAA 26/BG 4.

I mean, you can stuff blackguard 10 into many builds. Fighter 12/Blackguard 10/Rouge 3/FB 5. You can make 20 levels of something else "carry" the 6 "dead levels" that are Blackguard 5-10. That is simple enough to do. Barbarian 20/Blackguard 10. Blackguard 5-10 isn't what is benefiting your build, Barbarian 20 and Blackguard 4 is.

The trick is to make blackguard 5-10 actually benefit your build. Which is where Blackguard, for the most part, fails as a class. Though some of the below builds admittedly have done this, but to a lesser extent than what could be done other options.