Dragon shifter question

[Legacy_meteor0L]

               Hi, i have used the search engine but wasn't really able to find an answer to my question.

I haven't played for a very long period, and i'm about to start again.
Since i was playing sorc in every combination all the time, i want to do something new this time.

So here is my question : what is a good/ the best dragon shifter build?

I was checking the old nwn forum , but all links posted there don't work. I have read that many old dragon builds like "puff" won't work with the latest patch.

Some questions about the whole dragon shifting :

1)Does a shifter dragon has any advantages over a pure druid dragon ( think i've read something about stronger breath attack)?

2) I think dragons only can use the armor. Do they suck compared to other builds in high-magic worlds because the lack of item bonuses?

3) I think its obvious that i have to take a few monk levels... i thought about taking shadowdancer as third, because of hide in sight. druid/monk/shadowdancer...will this work or suck? ( backstabing dragon has to do some dmg , doesn't he?)

4) what do you think ist the best class to add to druid/monk/x ?

Thanks for your help '>
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               1) yes, stronger breath attack whis is poor advantage over the loss of caster level
2) well they still can get very good AC and tank monsters but the ability loss is really issue unless there are +10 str/dex/con items designed specially for shifters as a druid you get a boost of +12wis, +1-5 str and then one ioun stone which you would want to use for dex which gives you +1ac
3) HIPS will work but SD has no sneak damage so it would be quite useless
4) rogue, you get sneak, you get additional skillpoints especially if you take rogue at first level, you get access to UMD and using of scrolls/wands/special items and you get ability to spot traps with 36+DC on search, the wands will allow you to get improved invisibility or negative energy protection

this however applies only for vanilla NWN, any module specific change to the polymorphing/dragon shape may change everything. And most servers have their changes for dragons...
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_galelabriel]

               

meteor0L wrote...

4) what do you think ist the best class to add to druid/monk/x ?

druid/monk/cleric

Take enough levels in Druid to get Dragon Shape. Take a level or 2 of Monk for skill dumps. Take the rest in Cleric for buffing power. Raise WIS through the roof.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_meteor0L]

               ok, thank you '>

i have another question. in nwn 2 i played with following build :
i took fighter9/bard1/RDD 10. plan was to make use of the rdds' huge str bonus to raise it like hell and use 2hand weapons. it worked pretty well in nwn 2 (it felt like working pretty well, i don't really care about all the numbers).

will this work in nwn 1 or are there any restrictions? if it works , how many lvls of each class would you choose? leave bard at 1 and take more fighter and rdd? or add some bard levels?

Thank you for your answers
               
               

               

                     Modifié par meteor0L, 01 avril 2011 - 11:20 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_galelabriel]

               26 Bard 4 Fighter 10 RDD is a pretty popular split for that type of character.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_HipMaestro]

               

meteor0L wrote...
i have another question. in nwn 2 i played with following build :
i took fighter9/bard1/RDD 10. plan was to make use of the rdds' huge str bonus to raise it like hell and use 2hand weapons. it worked pretty well in nwn 2 (it felt like working pretty well, i don't really care about all the numbers).

will this work in nwn 1 or are there any restrictions? if it works , how many lvls of each class would you choose? leave bard at 1 and take more fighter and rdd? or add some bard levels?

Thank you for your answers

Straying OT but I'll make a stab (you may want to start a new topic once you are playing it).

If you want to raise the AB as high as possible, delay as many of the RDD levels as possible into epic levels (assuming you will be playing this PC in epic levels, of course).  Take RDD in multiples of 4, in any case. The total number of fighter and bard levels will depend on how extensively you want to develop skills like UMD, Tumble and Perform.  Again, this is an enironment-dependent decision.  The first 10 levels of RDD are really the most beneficial so then you need to decide which feats are most important since you'll need more fighter levels to get a lot of them.  For dual-wielding effectively, you'll need LOTS of feats.  IMO bard spells develop too slowly to be of much use in any but high-bard builds.

But don't overlook the value of Bard Song/Curse Song either.  You'll get skill bonus beginning at Bard 6 and AC bonus beginning at Bard 11 with an analogous curse effect on enemies at the same level. At bard 8 you can get a +2AB boost.

However, if this is intended for a pre-epic build, I would probably opt for Ftr8/Brd2/RDD10 and dump to bard at level 20.  The BAB will be the same and you wiil still get the ftr bonus feat at ftr8.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shia Luck]

               As mentioned by Galabriel, B26/F4/Rdd10 is a great way to do this. The bard song can provide a lot of the shield AC you lost and mage armour gets you at least a dodge +1 AC.

Take improved disarm as well. Disarm is improved by strength (you got lots) and how large the weapon is (you got the biggest possible), so it is the best possible build for it... (and they cant hurt you so much without a weapon, no? )

Have fun '>