Is there still hope?

[rat0a]

You can but it won't stack with similar clothing or ring items

Your AC is not too bad really but you need to keep in mind that you need to hit as well

You need DISC for sure. PVP encounters the first 15 seconds usually your adversary will
Spam that KD button, as soon as he realize he can't drop you easy he will do other things

[Mulled]

Avoid Great Cleave; it's for killing hordes of goblins and so forth.

Concentration is for casters and to oppose Taunt. Invest instead in Heal or Appraise perhaps.
http://nwn.wikia.com/wiki/Concentration

But those numbers don't add up. Those feat changes would add only +1 attack from Epic Prowess. Suggest starting the PGCC off with your exact level 30 current build and working from there.

[msterswrdsmn]

For katana you needed Exotic weapon (a feat used on this is a big deal when one does a wm. I may suggest scimitar/rapier next time for optimization (unless katana was a must for your RP concept, ofc)

...They have 19 fighter levels. Thats totally not an issue in terms of burning a feat. Katana's aren't great crit-weapons, but obtaining a feat for exotic weapons isnt hurting them -at all- at this point with 19 fighter levels.

The 30/25/20/15 AB. Thats -without- the weapon equipped, right? I'm assuming you have basic/epic weapon focuses, so....36/31/26/21 as your AB? Buffed with Bulls STR, thats 38/33/28/23, right?

Thats not -bad-. Not great, but not bad. Whats going to hurt is trying to use expertise and combat feats as the same time.

I believe is low because the player invested her atributes in CON, INT and DEX

WM only needs 13 INT and DEX

If the player toon is on heavy armor the DEX bonus is wasted

It should only be a few points difference, though. And their stats don't look terribly unbalanced (ex: 16 CHA).

Shadowy pointed it out, but as a character that has 17 full BAB levels pre-epic with a full set of weapons feats and 26 STR, it should be physically impossible for them to have an armed AB of 30.

Tumble: 14 (I spent 30 points in it though o.O)

Armor/shield penalties. Don't worry, you still retain the 6 AC dodge bonus of having 3 ranks.

Why concentration? Roleplay reasons? Anti-taunting? If your going to relevel, save whatever skillpoints you would have put into concentration and drop them in spellcraft (all 1-2 ranks you'll probably be able to buy). With a little gear loving, you'll be able to raise your saves vs spells, which is going to help you quite a bit.

Aside from that....do you pvp a lot in general? The discipline needs a little love, but i'm not seeing anything thats utterly breaking you here. Were you just up against a monster build or had bad compatibility against your opponent?

[Arther Goodmane]

HA, Oh my word. I'm such a scrub.

My AB is not 30. It's 40. I had Improved Expertise on when I looked at it. So the build I proposed (Where I end up with 39 AB) actually looses 1 AB.

EDIT: "Aside from that....do you pvp a lot in general? The discipline needs a little love, but i'm not seeing anything thats utterly breaking you here. Were you just up against a monster build or had bad compatibility against your opponent?"

Actually master swordsman, no I don't PvP that much. I just want a decent enough character. I invest in Discipline so I won't get taunted or knocked down (Which happened excessively with my last encounter, which surprised me, since many have tried and failed badly).

I honestly don't know what kind of build or gear my opponent had, but it's literally the first time in 2 years, since my toon became level 30, that anyone beat her so badly. And My toon has gone up against really tough dudes too.

The fact that there is very little wrong with my build, also frustrates me. But at least I now have something to do. >:)

[msterswrdsmn]

haha, okay. That makes a LOT more sense.

Thats not bad. I usually try shoot for an AB of my character level+10. Obviously, higher is better. You might run into issues against some characters, in which case use something like a ILMS wand to hose down that imp. expertise palemaster that turned their AB to mush.

After a certain point, you have to start making sacrifices to get your AC past a certain point. Either that, or you're reliant on buffs.

Edit to your edit:
You got...knocked down a lot? Or taunted? I'm assuming knocked down.

Your Discipline was what, 40? And your AC was 43/48 at its highest with expertise/imp expertise?
If they can hit you with any degree of reliablity with their first attack or two, they're going to pretty much ignore your discipline roll. If you got knocked down a lot, i'm guessing they had an AB of 42-45 to start? Thats still normal-ish for melee builds.

If possible, you want your discipline score to be higher than your AC for this reason.

As for the pvp....could just be differences in pvp experience. Them pvp shakes can royally screw people up, regardless as to how good/bad their builds are.

[The Man of the Moon]

I honestly don't know what kind of build or gear my opponent had, but it's literally the first time in 2 years, since my toon became level 30, that anyone beat her so badly. And My toon has gone up against really tough dudes too.

Sorry if I am being repetitive...

Just don't touch your build (unless you had any non fighter level in your last three or four: then I could suggest to delevel untill you may fix to become level 20 fighter instead stay at 19)

About the gear, contact urgently a good enchanter:

You really need to replace your adamantine stuff (the gold you might get from it, may serve to pay the enchants) and use bronze enchanted with:

For armor, helmet, shield, belt, amulet, rings (2), gloves/bracers and cloack:
+1 STR
+1 CON
+2 Dicipline
+2 Heal
+2 Spellcraft (each five ranks on this will grant you +1 saves against spells)

For boots:
+1 STR
+1 CON
+1 AC

For weapon... You can keep a masterly damask with +4 essence untill you may get enchanted:

1. A masterly Damask weapon with Keen (So expensive and hard to get)

2. Instead, the more easy option: Bronze weapon with:
Keen (enchant)
+First 1d4 elemental damage of your chose (enchant)
+Second 1d4 elemental damage of your chose (enchant)
+Third 1 d4 elemental damage 1 of your chose (enchant)

As stated before, this will start improving your character, and the whole process untill you get those things, you will have enetrtainment.

EDIT: Yes, you might need to get again essences to enchant protections against elements on your new gear... So once you could replace the gear, you may sell also the old one to keep with some remnant gold after all.

[Arther Goodmane]

Thanks everyone for helping me. I'll seriously take a close look at all your advice. Man on the moon, I'll be sure to do that .

I have a question though (last one probably ). How high can you make an Attack bonus go on a weapon? I tinkered with a shvord in PGCC and found that a +6 AB on my Katana (plain) will give me 44 AB overall (in addition to all my gear).

I noticed that my blows rarely struck my opponent, so it doesn't matter how powerful the weapon is if I can't hit them. But what do you guys think? Should i just stick to Man on the moon's suggestion?

[High Primate]

I'm actually surprised people are recommending against taking concentration. I've invested in it on my WM build; it's very useful for resisting taunts, which can bring your AC down a good 6 points.

With your current build, the highest unbuffed attack bonus you'd be able to get on a weapon is +3. The highest anyone can get on the server is +6: a level 30 pure fighter.

[The Man of the Moon]

Thanks everyone for helping me. I'll seriously take a close look at all your advice. Man on the moon, I'll be sure to do that .

I have a question though (last one probably ). How high can you make an Attack bonus go on a weapon? I tinkered with a shvord in PGCC and found that a +6 AB on my Katana (plain) will give me 44 AB overall (in addition to all my gear).

I noticed that my blows rarely struck my opponent, so it doesn't matter how powerful the weapon is if I can't hit them. But what do you guys think? Should i just stick to Man on the moon's suggestion?

Aside the Fighter bonus (+1/5 levels of fighter) there are not better Attack Bonus on Weapons than +3 (Unless you found a rare artifact in the epic dungeons, epic chests... )

So far, +3 from masterly damask or from greensteel weapons.

Or: with a bronce weapon without anything... you could get a cleric casting a spell to enhance its bonus... but this is temporal and you need the said cleric... he might give a temporal +5
But there is the tradeoff that you can't use keen, nor permanent damage enchants or permanent essences.

[msterswrdsmn]

I'm actually surprised people are recommending against taking concentration. I've invested in it on my WM build; it's very useful for resisting taunts, which can bring your AC down a good 6 points.

With your current build, the highest unbuffed attack bonus you'd be able to get on a weapon is +3. The highest anyone can get on the server is +6: a level 30 pure fighter.

Its not terrible (like parry), but you're far more likely to get spells thrown at you than taunts, hence my suggestion of spellcraft over concentration. Taunting requires you to be flatfooted for one round, which can be murderously dangerous against weaponmasters as you're denying yourself a good chunk of AC while doing so.

At this point, they're redoing 4 levels, so its not like they're going to loose a lot of concentration, regardless.

[Baron Saturday]

Should also point out:

Adamantine Armour (AC+3, Negative energy resist 5)
Adamantine helmet(AC +3, Negative energy resist 5)

Having negative energy resist on both is a waste, as the property DOES NOT stack. None of the energy resists do, they just use the highest value that your character has.

[Cortex]

Taking +21 CON while not taking epic DR is a waste of CON.

[Cadarnfel]

Just someone who doesn't break like wet tissue paper, everytime someone with a decent build even farts at my toon.

A lightly off-topic comment, if I may ...

As a player new to Arelith, and very rusty on some of the D&D mechanics, I'm struggling with building any character that can survive.

I've rerolled a number of times, working on a Wood Elf hunter. I do the basic messengering task in Corder to get up to level 3, can't find any rats on Tert's boats, so organise with Bernto to go hunting in the forest for meat.

So I head off to the forest (Brambles?) and find the rabid badgers (or whatever they are, probably wolverines ) are a tough enough fight. Then I encounter the goblin scamps, and it's goodnight time.

I've once managed to kill a handful of the goblins, and retrieved some buffed arrows that cost my entire purse to identify, only to find I'm not levelled high enough to use them .

It seems that a character needs to be levelled at least in the high single digits before leaving the city gates, and loitering around the city doesn't really suit a wood elf

I've looked at enchanting some items in Thoramund's shop, but the cost is way more than any gold I have access to, I don't seem to make any progress in crafting (and that seems a long process in itself), so it's all very discouraging.

[Scurvy Cur]

Taking +21 CON while not taking epic DR is a waste of CON.

I'd go even further and say that taking more than 22 con (21 con for the DR feats plus a point to even out the score) is generally a waste of build resources, period. For the vast majority of builds, you eventually hit the point where you should have higher build priorities than "more hp". If you are losing a fight at 500 HP, chances are quite good that the only thing pushing your hp total up to 750 will do is, at best, make you take half again as long to lose the same fight. Much better to get your HP to the point where you have enough of it, and then to shift focus to AB, damage, AC, or saves.

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

To briefly touch on the topic of PvP balance that was brought up in this thread-

NWN is a D&D game. D&D is not balanced as a Player versus Player game, it is balanced on the premise of PlayerS (yes, plural) vs. Environment.

In D&D based games where PvP is a thing, there is one crucial fact you must learn to accept for your sanity: The only PvP balance that exists in D&D is that every class is broken- but some classes are more broken than others. And that's okay, because the game is cooperative in nature, even when the characters are competing.

As far as build advice, I'm happy to offer any help I can provide if you shoot me a PM on your specific goals. I also like to build according to concepts.

[Cortex]

Taking +21 CON while not taking epic DR is a waste of CON.

I'd go even further and say that taking more than 22 con (21 con for the DR feats plus a point to even out the score) is generally a waste of build resources, period. For the vast majority of builds, you eventually hit the point where you should have higher build priorities than "more hp". If you are losing a fight at 500 HP, chances are quite good that the only thing pushing your hp total up to 750 will do is, at best, make you take half again as long to lose the same fight. Much better to get your HP to the point where you have enough of it, and then to shift focus to AB, damage, AC, or saves.

Getting 22 or more can still be functional depending on the build, CONlock specially.

[Scurvy Cur]

Taking +21 CON while not taking epic DR is a waste of CON.

I'd go even further and say that taking more than 22 con (21 con for the DR feats plus a point to even out the score) is generally a waste of build resources, period. For the vast majority of builds, you eventually hit the point where you should have higher build priorities than "more hp". If you are losing a fight at 500 HP, chances are quite good that the only thing pushing your hp total up to 750 will do is, at best, make you take half again as long to lose the same fight. Much better to get your HP to the point where you have enough of it, and then to shift focus to AB, damage, AC, or saves.

Getting 22 or more can still be functional depending on the build, CONlock specially.

CONlock is the reason I said "vast majority" instead of "every single build", and I agree that on the conlock, this is a viable choice. Warlocks are sort of an exception to a lot of rules, though, just based on the high performance of the class kit on virtually any stat spread that has enough charisma to manage all the spells needed.

[andthenthatwasthat]

OP - don't want to derail the discussion, but curious - that last time you lost PvP you mentioned, was that when storming the crematorium in Cordor? Because that was one crazy fight.

[Arther Goodmane]

I kinda don't want to reveal who it was my character dueled with, but to answer your question andthenthatwasthat, no. It wasn't in Cordor, it was in Sibayad.

By the way everypony, I found a way to make my character half decent. I had NO idea that bronze armor would give me the exact same AC as Adamantine (for a fighter class). That just blew my mind.

[The Man of the Moon]

I had NO idea that bronze armor would give me the exact same AC as Adamantine (for a fighter class). That just blew my mind.

And if you can fix the levels so you may become with 20 fightr levels, your armor, helmet and shield will become +4 AC, as you weapon +4 enhaced (a master damask weapon in your hands may become +4 hit/+6 dmg instead +3/+6... a bronze weapon may become +4... arrows +4, etc)

This is why you want to add that extra fighter level and leave at 30 this: Fighter 20, wm 7, rogue 3.

This one is btw the first build I made for Morkhav Wolfgheist, the first character I played on Arelith a year ago, and I was quite happy with him.

[rat0a]

Like MOTM said above

If your rouge levels are close to the end levels I recommend you to rebuild and get the total of 20
fighter levels.

I did the same thing when the Fighter Perk came live lucky me I took the last rouge level at level 30
you will gain so much by doing so 4 Bonues AC on helm, shield and armor is highly recommended.

Now reading above I knew it, I fought the same guy three days ago, I don't mind loosing myself
but was the way he did things....more than a test for joining his organization the whole thing looked more like he wanted to test his super uber powerbuild with EPIC characters.

At least in my own case I got my pride back when I won the RE-MATCH with no wards.

He does have a point though even if your build is better and assuming that he have the same levels as yours is going to be challenging to beat him because he have the upper hand with the wards and he knows what he is doing,

In the end I been in a few PVP fights and they usually go like the one you experienced at the arena in Symbayad

Funny thing is I was yesterday at that Red Island with my old PC and she hold her own fighting that nasty thing down below and she did her part nicely.

Is not only your build, is just you aren't used to PVP that's all. Now I have one of my hotbars PVP ready and optimized for that sort of thing and of course I'm going to get rid of my adamite gear and my greensteel shield soon. I don't know why I haven't done it yet, maybe because I just use her more for RPing purposes, my other epic fighter is on a cheap 8GP leather armor that I enchanted myself.

[andthenthatwasthat]

I kinda don't want to reveal who it was my character dueled with, but to answer your question andthenthatwasthat, no. It wasn't in Cordor, it was in Sibayad.

Hey no worries - I was referring to the two years ago thing. One of my chars was there. But I understand if you don't want to call out anybody.