A few questions for the experienced NWN players :)

[Legacy_Bogdanov89]

               A few questions i am hoping experienced NWN players can answer with certainty:


1. As far as i can tell, Monk uses Wisdom to increase his AC and to
improve his Stunning Fist, Ki Strike (epic feats) and Quivering Palm -
am i missing some other purpose of Wisdom for the Monk class?

2. I am confused about the Unarmed vs Kama monk - could you please explain to me which type of monk is better suited for what?
Which type of Monk has better damage output, and which type can get through enemy damage reduction/resistance better?

3. Do feats like Ambidexterity, Two-Weapon Fighting and Improved Two-Weapon Fighting actually improve the Unarmed Monk?

4. Can you pick Weapon Specialization and Epic Weapon Specialization in Unarmed?
Can you become a Weapon Master in Unarmed?

5.
About the Monk's "Unarmed Base attack bonus" - i read on nwn.wiki that a
multiclass Monk (at high levels) can reach a 6th attack in every round.
However what i do not truly understand is how important is this 6th attack for dealing damage?
Is that 6th attack a very big increase in Monk's damage, when compared to only 5 attacks in a round?

6.
A general question: aside from using weapon enchants (like Kama +5),
what else can i do to get through enemy (physical?) damage
resistance/reduction/immunity?
Does Attack Bonus or Damage Bonus help get through enemy resistance/reduction/immunity?

7. Do Throwing Axes, Slings, Darts and Shurkens use Dexterity for their Attack Bonus - or Strength?

EDIT:
8. I am thinking of making a character (what race?) fully focused on either a Mighty Heavy Crossbow (with Rapid Reload feat) or a Mighty Longbow.
Can you folks please give me your opinion on which of the two would be better for such a character, and why?
I am having trouble finding a Heavy Crossbow with a Mighty - does it even exist? I can't find it on any website!

9. Is it possible to Empower or Maximise (or any other metamagic) buffs like Bull's Strength and Prayer and Divine Power?

I should mention that I have read the nwn.wiki top to bottom, but since i got literally zero experience in DnD most of that stuff is like chinese to me (also i am not sure how accurate the wiki-a is).
Especially things like Damage Reduction/Resistance/Immunity and how to get through them.

I also tried googling every possible question i got, but i often find conflicting answers or people who are "not quite sure".
I know that answering these "pretty basic" questions must be quite dull for you folk who have been DnD-ing for a decade, but it would mean a great deal to me if we can get a definite answer on these dillemas that are just unclear.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Bogdanov89, 25 janvier 2014 - 02:46 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               ok so

1) correct, wisdom improves monk AC, and DC of his special unarmed strikes (not Ki Strike that is passive feat that grants penetration to certain damage reduction) nothing more, no bonus dmg no attack bonus, the only exception is Zen Archery but you will lose monk's additional attacks without kama/unarmed so this is choice only for luring monsters in distance not really viable combat choice

2) very usually kamas are better, but depends on many environment factors
a) character build (classes distribution, feats...)
occurence of good kamas/gloves
c) additional balance changes (some PWs restrict kamas entirely, some just disallow dual wield, some are boosting gloves etc.)
d) where/what do you play - if you play single player modules, everything is viable so take what you like most, if you play on persistant world (PW), where usually you want to have as much powerfull build possible, ask players there what is better since this is different on each PW given their changes
this is question on its own thread believe me, and you will get contradictional opinions, im Gloves-lover btw haha '>

3) no, only when he is using kamas which is one factor why kamas are usually better choice

4) no, another + for kamas, but WM isnt much beneficial for a monk with kamas either, I believe that 10fighter is far better than 7wm for a usual monk which you can do regardless on weapon

5) each attacks grants a chance to hit a creature and therefore increases damage, this is higly dependant on the creature AC and yours AB but usually another attack even when at -15ab is very significant and most players are trying to build their characters to attain it (its 4 base attacks with BAB of 16+ but unarmed/kamed monk has 2 extra attacks)

6) attack bonus acts like enhancement bonus for treating damage reduction

7) Dexterity.
little explanation:
Strength - applies to damage for any weapon that character possess (unless its bow/sling/xbow without mighty property), applies to attack rating with melee weapon
Dexterity - applies to AC, applies to attack rating with ranged/throwing weapons

special case: is Zen archery which allows apply wisdom modifier to the attack rating instead of dexterity with ranged/throwing weapons and Weapon Finesse that allows apply dexterity modifier to the certain melee weapons
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MagicalMaster]

               

Bogdanov89 wrote...

Is that 6th attack a very big increase in Monk's damage, when compared to only 5 attacks in a round?

Shadow has most of it right, but...no, a 6th attack is not a large increase.  Let's imagine you have 20 AB and your opponent has 25 AC.  That's a 20/17/14/11/8 attack schedule which is 80%/65%/50%/35%/20% which is 2.5 hits per round.  Adding a sixth attack will only increase this to 2.55 hits per round, a 2% increase.  If you have Haste and/or are using Flurry of Blows, this is even less of a bonus.

...however, what IS important is the extra AB -- because a person with 6 attacks has an extra BAB.  So we'd really be looking at 85%/70%/55%/40%/25%/10% which is 2.85 hits per round.  That's a 14% increase now, which is far more significant.

Or to rephrase that: 16 BAB is good because it's an extra AB, the extra attack part matters far less.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Empyre65]

               With 16 of more levels of Monk, your fists have a higher base damage than any other weapon in the game, 1-20 (d20, which means a 20-sided die), but there are downsides. While fighting unarmed, you have to use your gloves slot for your "weapon", while with kamas, your gloves slot is available for other things. The + on monk gloves adds to your AB only, while the + on a weapon adds to your AB and your damage. Your fists do not count as weapons for meeting the requirements for taking Champion of Torm or Weapon Master. Your fists count as a 1-handed weapon, giving neither the benefits of dual-wielding nor a 2-handed weapon.

I remember a thread where somebody did the math and figured out that a Monk using Unarmed Strike did more damage than with dual kamas in an environment with less than +6 weapons and gloves, but because of the 2 attacks with the off-hand, dual kamas do more damage in an environment with +6 or higher weapons and gloves. I might not remember correctly exactly where the cut-off point was, so it might be +5 or +7 or so.

There is also the coolness factor of using no weapon and no armor but kicking butt anyway.

Yes, you can take Weapon Specialization (WS) and Epic Weapon Specialization (EWS) in Unarmed Strike.

Weapon Master can be useful for kamas, but generally, you would want Fighter levels as well, to help get all those feats required for WM, and for WS / EWS. Technically, you only need 1 level of Monk to get the Monk attack progression for your kamas, but additional levels of Monk gain you additional benefits, like Tumble as an class skill (every 5 levels of Tumble gives you +1 AC), and every 5 levels of Monk gives you +1 AC, and there is also Monk speed and Monk spell resistance, which both increase with more levels of Monk.

You can find good bullds with the Epic Character Build Search Engine. If you need mroe help, you can either ask here, or in the NWN Epic Character Builders Guild forum.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Empyre65, 24 janvier 2014 - 04:40 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               

MagicalMaster wrote...

Bogdanov89 wrote...

Is that 6th attack a very big increase in Monk's damage, when compared to only 5 attacks in a round?

Shadow has most of it right, but...no, a 6th attack is not a large increase.  Let's imagine you have 20 AB and your opponent has 25 AC.  That's a 20/17/14/11/8 attack schedule which is 80%/65%/50%/35%/20% which is 2.5 hits per round.  Adding a sixth attack will only increase this to 2.55 hits per round, a 2% increase.  If you have Haste and/or are using Flurry of Blows, this is even less of a bonus.

AC dependant, you do not always attack monsters with 5ac above your ab, its reversed actually if we are speaking singleplayer-wise (where the ac of the monsters usually stick at 20-25 across whole campaign). AC of the target can also drop because of stunned/knocked down condition. In those situations the extra attack even with -15ab is significal.

I did the math as well and I also not seeing this *that* big bonus but practically speaking, the 16bab is taken for the fourt attack not for the +1ab. I do the same, the fourth attack even on a cleric build (who has divine power) is just a must.

I remember a thread where somebody did the math and figured out that a
Monk using Unarmed Strike did more damage than with dual kamas in an
environment with less than +6 weapons and gloves, but because of the 2
attacks with the off-hand, dual kamas do more damage in an environment
with +6 or higher weapons and gloves. I might not remember correctly
exactly where the cut-off point was, so it might be +5 or +7 or so.

agree anyway

as I said already it is also dependant on build, you are monk/cleric or maybe perhaps paladin/monk? go kamas for sure. You are noncaster monk? I suggest fists.

Oh btw. I forget that there is a new feature in Community Patch which is not enabled by default but can be enabled via PC Widget Tool or by a module builder that allows character to cast weapon boost spells (darkfire, flame weapon, deafning clang, greater magic weapon (which will add enhancement bonus on gloves while normally they do have only attack bonus), bless weapo, holy weapon... on gloves.

This, perhaps imbalanced (?really?), feature is wiping the main difference between kamas/gloves allowing to play cleric with gloves sucesfully.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par ShaDoOoW, 24 janvier 2014 - 05:31 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Bogdanov89]

               Thank you all for replying!
I welcome even more players to come and give us their answer (or opinion) '>

ShaDoOoW
Can you please explain why would you go Fists on a non-caster monk?
I really don't do multi-classing at the moment (too complicated), but i would like to hear your reasoning behind that Monk dilemma - why Fists on a non-caster monk, and why Kama on a caster monk?
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               

Bogdanov89 wrote...

Thank you all for replying!
I welcome even more players to come and give us their answer (or opinion) '>

ShaDoOoW
Can you please explain why would you go Fists on a non-caster monk?
I really don't do multi-classing at the moment (too complicated), but i would like to hear your reasoning behind that Monk dilemma - why Fists on a non-caster monk, and why Kama on a caster monk?

why kamas for caster monk? because you can boost kamas with flame weapon and other weapon boosts which drastically improves damage which doesnt normally work on gloves, as a noncaster you cannot count with that so its better to use gloves because:
1) to use kamas effectively you need: two weapon fighting. ambidexterity (15dex base requirement), improved two weapons, these three feats and you must not be halfling which imposes ab penalty - this might not be possible to take without sacrifices for lot of builds.
2) you can use stunning fists *erasier*
3) it is usually easier to get decent fists and they are up to +10 in standard palette while kamas are maximally +8 and the few unique kamas you can found aren't any special - usually since its about item cost you find a gloves of +2 more attack rating than kamas enhancement bonus and as you heard an extra ab = extra damage
3b) also you can find a various gloves with different elemental damage it is worth to keep these gloves because there are plenty of cold/fire resistant monsters, also few acid and electrical ones, so you can switch to different gloves if your fire ones aren't doing anything
4) there are next to zero bludgeoning immune monsters while there are a slashing immune monsters

In singleplayers though, its best to have both weapons as you dont need the extra ab you get from weapon focus and often a possibility to use effectively another weapon with different damage type.

EDIT: Then if you turn the boost gloves option in Community Patch on, it doesn't matter if you are caster or noncaster anymore and both choices are almost the same. The more general bonus damage you have (bane enemies/divine might/divine favor/and others possibly) the more are kamas advantageous (because of two extra attacks with high attack)
               
               

               

                     Modifié par ShaDoOoW, 24 janvier 2014 - 07:22 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_MagicalMaster]

               

ShaDoOoW wrote...

AC dependant, you do not always attack monsters with 5ac above your ab, its reversed actually if we are speaking singleplayer-wise (where the ac of the monsters usually stick at 20-25 across whole campaign).

I don't know which campaign you're talking about (especially since none was mentioned) but pretty much all of the campaigns I've played have monster AC above player AB except for perhaps some WMs and AAs.  If anything I thought someone might object that the monk ONLY has 5 less AB than the monster's AC where something like having 5-10 less AB is probably more typical.

ShaDoOoW wrote...

AC of the target can also drop because of stunned/knocked down condition. In those situations the extra attack even with -15ab is significal.

Not really -- let's say you effectively get 4 extra AB from that.  Now 5 attacks is 95%/85%/70%/55%/40% = 3.45 HPR.  Add on another attack at 25% and you get a 7% increase.  However, add an extra AB and you get 95/90/75/60/45/30 = 3.95 HPR which is a 14.5% increase.  And we're not even including Haste or Flurry of Blows which massively dimishes the value of the extra attack -- let's go back to the first example and throw Haste in.  95%/85%/70%/55%/40%/95% = 4.4 HPR.  Attacking another attack at 25% is now only a 5.6% increase even with an incredibly high AB relative to AC.

ShaDoOoW wrote...

I did the math as well and I also not seeing this *that* big bonus but practically speaking, the 16bab is taken for the fourt attack not for the +1ab. I do the same, the fourth attack even on a cleric build (who has divine power) is just a must.

Practically speaking, it isn't for the reasons above -- hell, since the extra attack is at a -5 penalty versus -3 it matters even less on a non-monk.  And a cleric WANTS to end on 15 BAB so that they get a bonus attack at -5 versus a fourth attack at -15.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Bogdanov89]

               I added one question, if you can please answer '>

I am thinking of making a character (what race?) fully focused on either a Mighty Heavy Crossbow (with Rapid Reload feat) or a Mighty Longbow.

Can you folks please give me your opinion on which of the two would be better for such a character, and why?

I am having trouble finding a Heavy Crossbow with a Mighty - does it even exist? I can't find it on any website!
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Bogdanov89, 25 janvier 2014 - 05:55 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_MagicalMaster]

               Longbow because Arcane Archers have to use bows -- and they're the best archers by far.

If you're trying to make a rogue or cleric attacking from ranged or something, Heavy Crossbow with Rapid Reload will work just fine as long as you have Haste.  If you don't have Haste, then Longbow wins out by a large margin due to Rapid Shot.  If you do have Haste then Rapid Shot (at least for a non-AA character) winds up not adding much and you probably save a feat on Martial Weapon Proficiency.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Empyre65]

               I'd say consider an Arcane Archer, using a longbow (because their abilities do not apply to crossbows). The race would have to be Elf or Half-Elf, and Elf is almost always better.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               

MagicalMaster wrote...

Practically speaking, it isn't for the reasons above -- hell, since the extra attack is at a -5 penalty versus -3 it matters even less on a non-monk.  And a cleric WANTS to end on 15 BAB so that they get a bonus attack at -5 versus a fourth attack at -15.

I just cant agree with this. The fourt attack whatever low ab it might have is just a must, even a monks with the two extra attacks sucks with 3base.

I was admin of a epic high magic action loot server where almost all content is for lvl 40. Players there, myself include are trying to make new and new specilized builds for single dungeon, group of dungeons, or a role (healer, dmger, tank). And except a cleric builds which gets the fourth attack via divine power, never ever was a character with just three base attack well rated. Few builds like that was build (PM/AA, monk/RDD) but trashed because they didnt stand a chance against anything else. And the main reason was the missing attack. The usual AC on this server is 55-60 btw. (So the lowest ab for character is around 60) I have created the best archer build, 23wiz 2fighter 15AA - it would not work without the 2 fighter levels which are there in order to get the fourt attack. Actually the PM/AA which is one of the fail builds has much higher AC, same ab, but missing the fourt attack which makes him incompetable in various situations. Also reason why RDD monk is crap build but DD monk with lower ab isn't.

Maybe the practice is different in a lower magic worlds but I doubt it. Of course in singleplayer where the game ends around lvl 19-22 attaining the fourth attack on lvl 20 has not much sense, but wherever game continues it has.

Same goes for cleric, I know that divine power gives him extra attack at full base (no haste) or -5( with haste) but I never seen nor made myself a build with 15BAB if that build could have 16+BAB (such as cleric fighter monk 20 10 10) just to abuse this fact. It might seem to be huge advantage on paper but in practice, its not. The AB itself is a reason there of course since cleric with all buffs reach +20cap easily, but thats just one reason, to have 4 base attacks without boost is simply more comfortable. Not only because of dispells or limited resting.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Bogdanov89]

               Nevermind this question about the Aurora toolset, ShaDoOoW already helped me solve the problem in a different thread '>
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Bogdanov89, 25 janvier 2014 - 07:06 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               

Bogdanov89 wrote...

I am having trouble finding a Heavy Crossbow with a Mighty - does it even exist? I can't find it on any website!

In a vanilla game there probably isnt. You do intend to play a OC? Still crossbows often have a haste itemproperty which is great.

This is again environment dependant, in OC this will be probably similar power-related because there is low variety of weapons and you might not even found one of the bow with mighty (unless its in shop im not sure now). Specializing for one particular weapons is a choice rather in multiplayers (where you perhaps already found that weapon with another character, or its widely known crafted weapon).
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Bogdanov89]

               Is it possible to Empower or Maximize (or use any other metamagic) on buffs like Bull's Strength and Prayer and Divine Power?