Help with Fighter

[Legacy_Elhanan]

               Personally, not much into Clerical spell duration being a cornerstone of a build. With Dispels and the like, I prefer a more permanent foundation.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Gregor Wyrmbane]

               The best advice I can think to add here concerns some feats. There are 3 feats that are very useful for making a front line fighter, and to have all 3 of them will require a base DEX of 13. They are Dodge, Mobility, and Spring Attack. I always give my fighters 13 DEX just to get those feats.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Elhanan]

               

Gregor Wyrmbane wrote...

The best advice I can think to add here concerns some feats. There are 3 feats that are very useful for making a front line fighter, and to have all 3 of them will require a base DEX of 13. They are Dodge, Mobility, and Spring Attack. I always give my fighters 13 DEX just to get those feats.

I miss Bob, or was it Tom? Great build, though he was a WM, I believe; not a pure Fighter. Using a simple club as a secondary disciplinary device was classic!


               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               

Elhanan wrote...

Gregor Wyrmbane wrote...

The best advice I can think to add here concerns some feats. There are 3 feats that are very useful for making a front line fighter, and to have all 3 of them will require a base DEX of 13. They are Dodge, Mobility, and Spring Attack. I always give my fighters 13 DEX just to get those feats.

I miss Bob, or was it Tom? Great build, though he was a WM, I believe; not a pure Fighter. Using a simple club as a secondary disciplinary device was classic!

unless the pure fighter is somehow boosted in environment you want to play it, it will be always worst choice amongst all fighter builds
fighter/WM
fighter/rdd
fighter/cleric/rogue (in any class distribution)

are all ten times better choices than anything you could ever cook with pure fighter, maybe with some rogue levels, all those extra feats might sound great but unless the module you play is limited to max lvl of 20 it won't pay off
               
               

               

                     Modifié par ShaDoOoW, 20 décembre 2013 - 06:00 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_henesua]

               

MagicalMaster wrote...

Elhanan wrote...

Nope; prefer to start with 14 STR, WIS, and DEX; granting +2 ST bonuses to all.

And your build will be inferior 99% of the time.  I'm not trying to be mean or cruel, that's simply the harsh truth.  You hit less often for less damage with no significant defensive benefits to outweigh the loss (getting feared 10% less often isn't useful).

This build might be combat inferior for a pure fighter in the OC, but given that PWs were mentioned there are most likely other factors involved than the pure numbers in combat for Elhanan's making such a choice.

Its helpful to limit such discussions to particular environments, and be explicit about the environment this is relating to. I think part of the problem in this discussion (and the myriad of others like it) is that NWN is incredibly diverse, and it is trivially easy to create rulesets which throw build optimizations on their head.

Granted the OP is discussing the original campaign. So I don't mean this as any criticism of you, MM. It is clear to me that you are talking about vanilla NWN. BUT one must keep in mind that there are so many ways to customize the game that there is no such thing as an optimized build across all environments.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Gregor Wyrmbane]

               In his second post, the OP stated he was playing SoU. That's what I based my advice on.

@ Elhanan. Bob Johnson is that WM. Yeah... I still play him sometimes. He's a hoot.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Westan Willows]

               Right now he is in SoU. He started at str 18/dex 12/con 14/int 14/wis 8/cha 6. discipline 4 heal 4 search 2 tumble 2. So far he is doing well. He is hitting more often and doing more damage per hit. He is getting hit less often. Gregor what vantage does Dodge, mobility, Spring Attack have?
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Gregor Wyrmbane]

               

Westan Willows wrote...

Right now he is in SoU. He started at str 18/dex 12/con 14/int 14/wis 8/cha 6. discipline 4 heal 4 search 2 tumble 2. So far he is doing well. He is hitting more often and doing more damage per hit. He is getting hit less often. Gregor what vantage does Dodge, mobility, Spring Attack have?

Dodge gives a +1 dodge bonus to armor class versus current or last opponent. Mobility gives a +4 dodge bonus to armor class versus attacks of oppurtunity. Spring attack prevents opponents from getting attacks of opportunity against your PC while moving around in combat. 
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Aelis Eine]

               

Elhanan wrote...

Personally, not much into Clerical spell duration being a cornerstone of a build. With Dispels and the like, I prefer a more permanent foundation.

Magic Vestment and Darkfire are undispellable and form the main buff foundation. The rest - Divine Favor, Divine Power should have a lot of redundancy i.e. lots of spell slots dedicated to it, so recasting should be easy.

As a melee Cleric there's no good alternative for level 1, 2, 4 and 5 slots anyway. As long as at least one is up you're already better than an equivalent Fighter. Now suppose as a level 10 Cleric you have 4 Divine Favors, 4 Extended Divine Favors, 3 Divine Powers and 3 Extended Divine Powers, that's a potential 21 minutes of "better than a Fighter" time. Who cares if a dispel knocks a minute or two off? And that number only goes up with more levels.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Westan Willows]

               Right now I am learning Fighter. I'll learn Cleric later. That Domain stuff overloads me.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Aelis Eine]

               The main thing to know about domains is that most domains are useless unless the module says they've been modified to not be useless.

As a general rule of thumb, take Trickery Domain and take either:
- Magic (if Caster Cleric)
- War (if Dex or Monk Melee Cleric)
- Strength (if Strength Cleric)
- or Travel (if module does not give Haste items)
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MagicalMaster]

               

Elhanan wrote...

And they are called Saving Throws for a reason. Planning a build on the assumption of failure does not seem reasoned to me.

A level 5 Fighter with 14 wisdom has 3 Will save.  Let's say you picked up Spellcraft to get another +1 Saving Throws for 4 Will Save.  An enemy level 3 cleric casting Hold Person with 16 Wisdom and Spell Focus: Enchantment will have a DC of 18 -- meaning you're going to fail on a 13 or less, which is 65% of the time.  That's with 14 Wisdom fighting a level 3 enemy WITHOUT greater spell focus and fairly low casting score.

So yes, you should effectively assume you're going to fail -- I've only seen one module (counting both campaign modules and PWs) where an emphasis was placed on Will saving throws for Fighter types -- and that was only in high epic levels assuming you had tons of saving throw feats.

Aelis Eine wrote...

I'm serious here. You really will make a better fighter with a Cleric.

Generally true but a fighter is still perfectly fine -- Fighters don't seriously fall behind other classes until at least the early teens.  And a level 40 fighter is considerably stronger than most people give it credit for.  I'm not saying it's not weak compared to multi-classed builds but it's not as awful as people think (unless we're assuming everyone is playing a Sorcerer/Paladin/Monk, Fighter/WM/Rogue, or other similar power builds).  So if he wants to learn a pure fighter to start, that's all right.  It's definitely a lot simpler than a cleric and doesn't require knowing how to manage combat buffs.

Aelis Eine wrote...

On the other hand, you get Summon Badger.

Note that summons eat 20% of your XP which is generally a bad thing in campaigns.

Aelis Eine wrote...

The way NWN works is you are either immune to something or you will die to it. Many module designers throw hordes of the same mob at you that use some kind of gimmick like Basilisks with Stone Gaze to fish for a 1 roll and then expects you watch paint dry as the mob tries to kill you while you are paralyzed for 40 minutes. That's why I am a huge proponent of immunities and pro-active defenses like Blind/Silence/Knockdown, which Clerics have in bucketloads.

Sad but true.

Aelis Eine wrote...

And the thing is, a Cleric is not going to fight very differently from a Fighter. Once you get your buffs running...

So after you spend nearly a full minute buffing and need to watch buff durations both long and short term and need to manage a spellbook they're basically the same '>

Aelis Eine wrote...

Fighters don't even make very good tanks - they don't get any AC or mitigation buffs exclusive to them. Expertise and Epic Damage Reduction are available to every class. So Wizard/Pale Masters are higher DPS when tanking, while Dwarven Defender/Pale Masters with low level Bard or Wizard offer better mitigation.

Fighters are quite good tanks until the mid to late teens.  They just begin to get really outscaled and gain no key class features once you close in on epic levels and push past into them.

Elhanan wrote...

Personally, not much into Clerical spell duration being a cornerstone of a build. With Dispels and the like, I prefer a more permanent foundation.

As mentioned, you can easily have 5+ "back-up" spells for the main buffs that make you better than a fighter at higher levels.  It's not an issue.

henesua wrote...

This build might be combat inferior for a pure fighter in the OC, but given that PWs were mentioned there are most likely other factors involved than the pure numbers in combat for Elhanan's making such a choice.

SoU was what the OP mentioned and I don't recall Elhanan making an RP arguments here.  Nor does the game support making an effective fighter with 14 int/14 wis/14 cha -- that's just not how the mechanics work.

henesua wrote...

Granted the OP is discussing the original campaign. So I don't mean this as any criticism of you, MM. It is clear to me that you are talking about vanilla NWN. BUT one must keep in mind that there are so many ways to customize the game that there is no such thing as an optimized build across all environments.

I'm definitely talking about at least every single campaign module and PW I've seen with one possible exception.  And even in that exception I'm not even sure going past 8 wis is really needed.

Westan Willows wrote...

Right now I am learning Fighter. I'll learn Cleric later. That Domain stuff overloads me.

As  mentioned, you can basically ignore domains and be perfectly fine -- but you generally want Trickery and one other domain.

Aelis Eine wrote...

As a general rule of thumb, take Trickery Domain and take either:
- Magic (if Caster Cleric)
- War (if Dex or Monk Melee Cleric)
- Strength (if Strength Cleric)
- or Travel (if module does not give Haste items)

Plant for Barkskin is another choice -- frees up amulet slot.  Generally Travel or War is better but Plant isn't bad.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par MagicalMaster, 21 décembre 2013 - 03:38 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Elhanan]

               

MagicalMaster wrote...

A level 5 Fighter with 14 wisdom has 3 Will save.  Let's say you picked up Spellcraft to get another +1 Saving Throws for 4 Will Save.  An enemy level 3 cleric casting Hold Person with 16 Wisdom and Spell Focus: Enchantment will have a DC of 18 -- meaning you're going to fail on a 13 or less, which is 65% of the time.  That's with 14 Wisdom fighting a level 3 enemy WITHOUT greater spell focus and fairly low casting score.

So yes, you should effectively assume you're going to fail -- I've only seen one module (counting both campaign modules and PWs) where an emphasis was placed on Will saving throws for Fighter types -- and that was only in high epic levels assuming you had tons of saving throw feats.


As mentioned, you can easily have 5+ "back-up" spells for the main buffs that make you better than a fighter at higher levels.  It's not an issue.


SoU was what the OP mentioned and I don't recall Elhanan making an RP arguments here.  Nor does the game support making an effective fighter with 14 int/14 wis/14 cha -- that's just not how the mechanics work.

I'm definitely talking about at least every single campaign module and PW I've seen with one possible exception.  And even in that exception I'm not even sure going past 8 wis is really needed.

Dwarves get another +2 vs Spells. And Iron Will worked very well on a low lvl (non-Epic) PW, so SoU should be fine, too.

Cleric has to re-cast, where a Ftr gets to attack again.

And yet, here I am with several effective Ftr builds designed just like that. Perhaps they are not up to PvP, but they do fine elsewhere.

Guess our experiences differ.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               

Elhanan wrote...

Dwarves get another +2 vs Spells. And Iron Will worked very well on a low lvl (non-Epic) PW, so SoU should be fine, too.

Cleric has to re-cast, where a Ftr gets to attack again.

And yet, here I am with several effective Ftr builds designed just like that. Perhaps they are not up to PvP, but they do fine elsewhere.

Guess our experiences differ.

if you only play SP modules, you could in most modules play anything you want even the craft master (worse build for nwn ever) because these modules are usually designed not to be very difficult and to be completeable with even pure fighters. Not to mention that you can always change difficulty settings if you find some battle too hard and try it again.

Also, most SP modules are designed for lvls 1-20 where the class power differences aren't that big, so you can play pure fighter without problems, in lvl 20 environment it is actually not that bad choice due to the ammount of feats.

But in Persistent Worlds, you would soon discover the all these weaknesses in yor build that MM points because PWs are usually balanced for strongest characters, no matter if its RP or Action style of game, on the contrary Action modules usually have easier monsters and leveling but then you gonna fail in pvp or whatever is the module focus.

So thats it, I agree with all that MM wrote, your build sucks, putting wis is total waste, you just don't know it because you play modules where you can't notice the difference. So the question is whether you really want to know how to build better or play your style in which case I don't understand what you expect from this topic.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MagicalMaster]

               

Elhanan wrote...

Dwarves get another +2 vs Spells. And Iron Will worked very well on a low lvl (non-Epic) PW, so SoU should be fine, too.

Okay, so a 14 wisdom Dwarf with Iron Will against a VERY weak enemy caster will STILL fail the throw 45% of the time.  That's an enemy half your level with terrible stats!  Now imagine a fear aura of a Dragon or something.

Elhanan wrote...

Cleric has to re-cast, where a Ftr gets to attack again.

Spending 10% of the time re-casting to be 50% more effective the rest of the time is significantly better.

Elhanan wrote...

And yet, here I am with several effective Ftr builds designed just like that. Perhaps they are not up to PvP, but they do fine elsewhere.

I haven't mentioned PvP yet.