Build my build (melee) plz

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DestroyerOTN
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Re: Build my build (melee) plz

Post by DestroyerOTN » Sat Aug 22, 2015 6:46 pm

Ork wrote:Also there are only so many relevant Epic Fighter Feats. Eventually you're gonna be stuck taking things like Imp. Power Attack and Called Shot. Bleh.
Worse aberrations are far more likely friend. Dirty Fighting will also eventually crawl onto that list, surely. Barf!

Fighter 25/Rogue 5 (built properly) is okay for PvM soloing (though lackluster in PvP by comparison to devoted tanks/damagers), though; if you want to get as close as viably possible to that fabled +6! Still pierces premo with even the most mundane weapon~
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Lorkas
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Re: Build my build (melee) plz

Post by Lorkas » Sun Aug 23, 2015 7:08 am

Ork wrote:20 Fighter gets +4, 30 Fighter gets +6. That's a spread of -6 AC, -2 AB, and -2 DMG from enchantments. Now look at the Blackguard. He gets +10 AC, +10 damage from divine feats. He also gets +10 saves from BG levels. What is he lacking? the 2 AB. I think for the other qualities, I'd sacrifice a bit of AB for sustainability.
Except that all of that CHA that the BG invested in can be STR, CON, or (on gear) +1 saves for the fighter. Talking about +10 saves on a BG compared to a fighter ignores the fact that the fighter could put +1 saves on every single piece of gear (which the BG would have to spend mostly on CHA bonuses), so that +10 to saves quickly looks less impressive compared with +11 saves that the fighter could pick up. It is still a good and worthwhile bonus, especially since the BG can apply it to other things as well, but it isn't so clearly superior to what a fighter can do as you're saying.

So maybe the BG can have 4 more AC when divine shield is on, but that's AC that's lower by 6 for the rest of the time. The damage increase is nice, especially since it ignores damage resistance or immunity, but all of the fighter's physical damage will ignore spell-based DR from level 25 on. These bonuses can be activated for, altogether, 19 minutes per rest with extra turning, so they aren't very limited, but they take 12 seconds to activate both and the fighter's bonuses are always on. Again, it seems to me that this isn't so clearly superior to what a fighter can do, especially when we start to talk about the fact that the BG has to have at least a base CHA of 18 and a large portion of their gear to achieve these numbers, and the fighter can invest these points into STR or CON instead to gain an advantage in another way.

The fighter will always have +2 AB compared to the BG also, and that advantage can be even greater if the fighter uses the points that the BG spent on CHA on STR instead, and is able to pick up extra Epic Prowess because of the 5 extra feats the fighter will have.

Both builds are solid, and have their strengths over the other. The main differences are RP freedom and the question of [Always on, slightly lower] vs. [Activated abilities, slightly stronger].

Maybe a good compromise build would be fighter 26 / BG 4. You pick up all of the same bonuses that you talked about before, but get an extra 3 epic fighter feats, +1 AB/damage, +3 AC, and the ever-important stoneskin/premo DR piercing.

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Re: fighter epic feats

This is where you have to think carefully about what feats you want that are fighter bonus feats and which are not. For example, you can take epic saves boosts only on general feat levels, not on fighter bonus feats. If you take all three of those, you will be getting a huge boost to your character and lowering the number of epic feat slots you have to think about to only 6. EWF, EWS, Epic Prowess, and Armor Skin would take up 4 of those, and now you just have to think of 2 feats that you want. If you have at least 21 CON then the decision is easy: EDR feats. At least 23 STR, and you take overwhelming critical.

There is definitely enough good stuff at epic levels to take on a fighter if you think through what you need to take on what levels. It's only when you start taking too many feats that are on the fighter bonus feat list as general feats that you'll really run out and wind up taking too many pre-epic feats as a pure fighter.

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Re: Build my build (melee) plz

Post by Ork » Sun Aug 23, 2015 7:26 am

Concerning the BG STR v CON v CHA. Here's the skinny. CON is useful, but it's not better than +10 AC, +10 damage. You can still have a fighter invest in equal parts Str & Cha without sacrificing much since the point buy system caps stat points. Also, the fighter 20/BG5/Rogue 5 has access to tumble. That's +6 AC as opposed to +3 crossclass. That weakens the 30 fighter considerably to just +3 AC. I'm able to pic up all relevant epic fighter feats with 20/5/5.

Full Fighter is gimped in the saves it can achieve and the skills it can achieve. UMD is hella useful. Sure in a party it won't matter so much, but solo or PvP that UMD skill's value skyrockets. Darkness + Ultravision alone allows the fighter to have access to AoO's he wouldn't previously had & 50% concealment. In the end, I've never found a only class build to be as effective as a crossclass, with the exception of Druid.

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Re: Build my build (melee) plz

Post by Lorkas » Sun Aug 23, 2015 9:12 am

The same argument of CHA vs. CON doesn't work when it's CHA vs. STR, and with at least 18 base CHA in the build, you are giving up some STR in the build in one way or another compared to a fighter with 10 or 8 CHA. UMD certainly makes a big difference, but then we are no longer comparing a fighter 30 to a fighter 20/BG 10, which is the post I was replying to. The fighter is not really gimped in saves, if built correctly.

The +10 damage is great of course, but like I said before, that 10 damage is made up by the fighter when fighting anything with stoneskin, and it is more than made up for when fighting something with greater stoneskin or premo. I am certainly not arguing that the fighter build is flatly better, but I'm seeing a lot of talking-up about the benefits of the BG build without much talk of the balancing factors.

They are both tough builds, with the fighter having higher AB, HP, and always-on AC and damage (via the fact that it will have more STR, even if just 2 more) and having damage that is difficult to resist, and the BG having better peak AC and damage if they have at least 12s of buffing time before an encounter (and the encounter doesn't last more than 1 minute).

UMD is a separate question, since the option to take 3-5 rogue levels is just as open to a fighter as it is to a fighter/BG, and I don't at all contest that UMD is ridiculously, disproportionately useful in this game.

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Re: Build my build (melee) plz

Post by Ebonstar » Sun Aug 23, 2015 1:27 pm

personally I wish you couldnt take rogue levels at all if your a fighter or monk or vice versa. you spoke of ruining immersion, yet nothing does that more then a monk or armor clad stopping and pulling out picks to open a chest.
But thats just me.
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Lorkas
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Re: Build my build (melee) plz

Post by Lorkas » Sun Aug 23, 2015 4:21 pm

The problem isn't the multiclassing as much as it is the ability to save up skillpoints and then dump them all into another class's skills. The same thing is true in reverse of rogues, clerics, or mages who take fighter (or other) levels and dump a huge amount of skill points into discipline.

Essentially what it's saying is that you can learn to be really super good at something instantly as long as you learn less earlier in your training. As long as you solve the skilldumping problem, then it's at least true that a level 27 wizard/3 rogue will have only as many ranks in rogue skills as a level 3 rogue could have, correctly reflecting the amount of time and effort they spent on improving those skills. I don't have much of a problem with that level of multiclassing, but it is weird when a highly multiclassed character is as good in every single one of their classes' skills as a pure-classed character would be.

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Re: Build my build (melee) plz

Post by Ork » Sun Aug 23, 2015 6:56 pm

Lorkas wrote:The problem isn't the multiclassing as much as it is the ability to save up skillpoints and then dump them all into another class's skills. The same thing is true in reverse of rogues, clerics, or mages who take fighter (or other) levels and dump a huge amount of skill points into discipline.

Essentially what it's saying is that you can learn to be really super good at something instantly as long as you learn less earlier in your training. As long as you solve the skilldumping problem, then it's at least true that a level 27 wizard/3 rogue will have only as many ranks in rogue skills as a level 3 rogue could have, correctly reflecting the amount of time and effort they spent on improving those skills. I don't have much of a problem with that level of multiclassing, but it is weird when a highly multiclassed character is as good in every single one of their classes' skills as a pure-classed character would be.
That issue is a specific 3.5 flaw that has constantly been debated. Some D&D groups don't allow their characters to "save" skill points, and that solves the issue. Arelith doesn't, and it would be increasingly difficult/not fun for it to change.

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Re: Build my build (melee) plz

Post by Lorkas » Mon Aug 24, 2015 3:37 am

It would be different, that's for sure. I know that I have played builds that wouldn't have been possible without saving skill points through certain levels. It has been debated for a long time on these forums also (EvilBrage was a longtime advocate of preventing skilldumping).

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Re: Build my build (melee) plz

Post by Durvayas » Mon Aug 24, 2015 7:08 pm

The prevalence of characters with the 3 rogue dip, while a boon to wand markets everywhere, has had the unfortunate side effect of horribly decreasing the value of rogues in general.

When 6/10 characters you see have elements of rogue that they can do better than a normal pure rogue at lvl 10, there is a problem.

A solution would be to make UMD cost a ton more skill points(only 14 to unlock everything magical right now, but it costs about 30+ for people to use and disarm traps effectively, when did understanding the intricacies of magic become so simple? For that matter, why would someone who can cast 9 circles of magic need to pick up rogue levels to use magic devices. magic focus: enchantment, should just come with 30UMD.)

That would, of course, hamstring the builds people are suggesting here that involve dipping rogue.

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Re: Build my build (melee) plz

Post by Ork » Tue Aug 25, 2015 2:10 am

I don't think they replace rogue. Any build with a 3 rogue dip will not have enough skill points to take disarm trap, search, set trap & open lock. These 4 skills are nearly inaccessible to a 3 point dip, and wholly rogue specific in that only rogues can disarm an epic trap. Also, a 3 point rogue dip won't be able to break into anyone's houses or pickpocket their valuables. Most 3 point dip rogues only acquire UMD & tumble from the exchange.

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