NWN2 barbarian build

It's decent for the purposes of CRPGs, if only NWN 2 wasn't so bloody easy (or if it was turn based).

I played through the OC with a pure Paladin and even on the hard core setting (+ a limited resting personal rule) it was still anything but hard. You could go with a full Barbarian if you wanted to and barely notice a difference against a power gaming build.

MoTB could change a couple of things but then you don't have to use the same character all the way to 30. Once you finish the OC (if you can handle it) just download a character creation module and make yourself another.

 

I had alot of fun with a barbarian/druid build
If you go for a max of 4-5 levels of Barbarian (with MotB) you end up with a full powered druid and pet with a bit of rage (3-5 a day if you take the extra rage feat) and wicked fast movement (+10% Barbarian and +10% Druid in wilderness), plus a bit more fighting ability and HP.

Armor and stat buffs from the Druid are great, as is a full-on pet. You also get a bit of offensive, healing and general utility magic too.

I imagined the character as a kind Odin-like Norse character.

Good feats for this character are:
Extra Rage
Extended Rage
Elephant Hide
Oaken Resilience
Natural Bond
Practised Spellcaster
Spellcasting Prodigy

You can go for more a melee build with feats (weapon specialisation, improved crit, power attack, cleave, etc).

 

I see you caught on to my main source of inspiration there. Come to think of it, I kind of like the idea of having som bard influence in my character, very Fafhrd-esque as you said, and it should motivate me to spend some points in charisma to raise my diplomatic ability. Besides some sort of Bard/Barb build would make for an interesting character, and Countersong sounds like it fits my (loose) character concept of an anti-magic tank pretty well. Plus having some social skills could be a good idea for MoTB as I understand it.

I gave some thought to including a Rogue in there, but really didn't find it to my liking as Bard struck me as more in line with what I have in mind. So, given the Bard/Barbarian base how should one proceed?

 

I've also been looking at somehting along those/these lines myself :wink:
First of all, I don't really care much for spellcasters so only on or two levels of Bard would be suffiecient. With a few skill points in perform you will get Inspire Courage at first level(+1 to attacks and damage) at lvl2 you'll have Inspire Competance (+2 to all skills) great for all non-combat situations!

Frenzied Berzerker doesn't mix well with Barbarian IMO, their Frenzy and Rage doesn't stack, only the AC penalties (wtf!)
I'd go with either all Barbarian or Barbarian8/Red Dragon Disciple 10.
18 barbarian will get you lots of skill points, hit points, better rage and more Rage (btw you probably wont need the feat Extra rage because by the end you'll have plenty of them anyway. Also when going in to rage, you'll miss out on an entire round, just standing there huffing and puffing, so when confronted with a big, hard-hitting s.o.b rushing at you, it's not really that great of an idea to Rage, thus you wont be using it all that often. And besides, The futher on you go, with all the gear you get, you'll probably find yourself using it even less. Extend Rage is still good thou, makes the most out of Rage when you do use it.
If you do decided to go with RDD, there is no point in going less than all out, really. With bonuses to intelligence(evens out the fact that rdd has fewer skill points than brb) strength, constitution and natural armour AC, it's perfect for a Barbarian. Be sure not to pick Blind-Fight Feat, you'll get it for free with RDD.
If your concerned of the RP reasons of being the great grand son of a freakin' dragon, see it as a rumour spread among the jealous villagers trying to explain your chars gargantuan strenght and appetite! and temper?

 

Barb rage does stack with frenzy, it's just that the total magical bonus to a single stat can't improve beyond +12.

Actually, your point about rage is what I hate about these nwn games: bad implementation of DND rules. It is a (slightly popular) myth that rage requires a whole round of working. It's a free action, you could do it anytime in any round without it affecting any of your time. In fact, it should work like elephant hide does for the druid, you click on it and it's on.

 

I've kind of decided on starting out as a Human Bard for about two levels or so, taking the Able Learner feat for starters and put some points in diplomacy and perform (for countersong), then shift over to Barbarian for a couple of levels. Since I'm not big on magic either the Bards spell progression matters little to me. I've been debating the RDD aspect, but I just find it way too much munckin for my taste. Descendant of a red dragon, seriously? From a powergaming perspective the RDD makes sense with it's stat boosts. I suppose the ideal build in that case would be BARD 2 / BARB 8 / RDD 10 in the long term but. But again, when did you see a warrior from the frozen north with red dragon blood in him? Idealy the this build will be a recurring character on different modules and/or PW (if there are any good ones out there). The FB on the other hand is more in line with my idea, so I might go for that one later on. So now I'll just have to pick some good feats to help me along.

 

To be fair, this IS Forgotten Realms. Three out of every five people will either be aasimir, tiefling, a sorcerer, or some other supposedly rare race that somehow makes up most of the population. Plus, Greenwood, the guy that made the setting, was obsessed with his fantasy characters having sex. In a really, really creepy way. So yeah, it wouldn't be too out of the ordinary.

 

The main problem with Frenzied Berserker is that the strength bonus is considered an enhancement bonus, just like the magical strength bonuses you get from Bear's Strength, or Strength enhancing items. Why take a temporary +6 to strength with penalties and HP damage, when you can have a permanent +6 to strength (+12 in MoTB...) penalty free? Barbarian Rage is its own bonus type, so the strength bonus stacks with everything except the Rage spell that mimics it. The only downside is, as others mentioned, there's a total available bonus of +12, so if you stack bonuses beyond that you lose out.

Generally the barb is way more useful than the FB.

 

The point of the Frenzied Berserker is to get all the supreme cleave and supreme power attack feats, not the ability to Frenzy. Further more, one peculiar characteristic of the latter is that you can't die while the ability is on (learned that the hard way when fighting Lorne after the 'trial'. How humiliating for my Paladin to run around waiting for the effect to dissipate). Unless this side effect is disabled for the player (the description for 'deathless frenzy' surely doesn't mention getting smashed in the head with a +4 two handed sword) having the ability to turn invulnerable (sort of, your hit points will still go down when hit they just can't go below 1) for several rounds before taking a dirt nap is actually pretty impressive. I'd test this myself but i'm too lazy to bother.

 

Truly deathless Deahtless Frenzy seems to be Lorne-exclusive, I've died a lot.. err.. once or twice, by the hands of one Sergei.