NWN2 (or dnd 3.5 ed) multiclassing

[Jasede]

No, Rangers are still awful, simply because a fullplate fighter (with a shield, or if you really want, two swords) is still SO much more powerful that it isn't even funny.

And a Fighter/Rogue kicks the Rangers ass ten times.

Of course Rangers also can sneak fairly well, get a few useless spells, and have such great skills as "Animal Empathy".

But if you like Rangers, go ahead!


And what the fuck, party members get up after dying in battle? I mean, yeah, that's normal. They don't die unless they get below -10 HP, before that they are unconscious and bleeding. But I'm sure they die if a 50 HP char receives 100 damage? They can't just auto-raise, that'd absolutely ruin what little balance D&D has!

 

[Demnogonis Saastuttaja]

What's the use of dual-wielding anyway, unless you have sneak attack or some other form of damage bonus. Be a Frenzied Berzerker with a two-handed weapon and you'll surely deal way more damage than some pansy ranger.

For SoZ I think I'll just have :

Fighter/Blackguard, for higher saving throws and sneak attack damage
Rogue/Shadow Thief of Amn or Assassin, since the higher rogue levels don't get you anything flashy
Wizard/Pale Master, though I'd surely use Red Wizard if I actually cared to powergame in single-player games. Then again, OC with Wizard 5 / Eldricht Knight 8 / Pale Master 7 was easier than with any other character I tried.
Cleric/Stormlord, to have another melee-capable character.

While this isn't terribly original, you couldn't really have a moustache-twirling evil squad in OC or MOTB.

 

[Mareus]

I don't know why some of you say ranger class sucks. I played a ranger in NWN2 and it is one of the most powerful classes I have tried. He can kick fighter's ass with his hands tied behind his back and if you dual class him into ranger/fighter he will be a real slicing machine. I had him dualwield short sword and longsword which I created myself. Each sword had +5 and 1-6 fire damage and I think even something more. Anyway I raised his dexterity and he was so agile that a full plated warrior with a shield had just a bit higher AC. With each turn he did incredible ammount of damage. I am talking: around 120 damage per turn. Those 45, 60, 73, 57 damage popped out like every half of second. I am telling you a real slicer! By the end of the game I could solo pretty much anything, except that red dragon. His pet also does decent damage so we are talking about 120-160 damage per round, while my fighter could barely do 80 damage per round. I also tried paladin and he was nowhere near the ranger. The only other non-caster class that is stronger would be the monk.

----EDIT----

Oh and this is just a ranger that doesn't use all other skills like tracking which is very useful. Sneaking, magic casting which although not overly useful can still come handy. His pet can also be a great ally, so ranger is really powerful.

 

[Maia]

No, Rangers are still awful, simply because a fullplate fighter (with a shield, or if you really want, two swords) is still SO much more powerful that it isn't even funny.

Not really. There is only a small difference between a good light armor + decent Dex and full plate. And ranger is quite good, because he can be a high-Str dual-wielder. Normally, dual-wielders suffer from doing too little damage and being stopped by damage resistance, but not ranger, obviously. Their "racial enemies" if chosen well, are also very helpful. Keyword "Undead", here.
Now, archer rangers are crap because missile combat generally sucks in this engine.

And a Fighter/Rogue kicks the Rangers ass ten times.

Given that about half of the enemies are sneak and crit immune, not really. Well, it does get better in MoTB where they get a feat that allows them to sneak-attack those for half damage, but still...

Of course Rangers also can sneak fairly well, get a few useless spells, and have such great skills as "Animal Empathy".

That was in NwN1, IIRC. Rangers have Survival and tracking ability in NwN2, which while rather useless in OC due to easy combat and rest everywhere, is going to get new importance in this impending expansion, which will have neither as far as I understand. And it would be usable on the overland map to pick and choose random encounters, too.

And what the fuck, party members get up after dying in battle?

Whatever. IMHO, it was a tedious hassle to revive them, re-equip them and re-fill their inventory in the IE games. The main problem is that the fights are so easy in the OC, that party wipes are all but impossible too. I understand that there is an AI mod that remedies that.
In the custom modules with good combat - like with enemy spell-casters actually using spells, it is challenging enough. Of course, spell-casting has been generally dumbed down since 2e, there is no help for that.

 

[Warden]

Hm, you forget the bonus feats a fighter gets every two levels. That probably makes him the strongest class possible. Apart from the Hips abuse with the Shadowdancer (which OUGHT to be fixed).

Another thing to note is heavy armor vs. light armor. Now, in d&d there's this shitty system that makes all types of armor pretty similar (4 ac + 4 dex or 7 ac + 1 dex - idiotic). But - when you are stunned/paralised you DO NOT lose the armor AC bonus but you do lose the dex bonus to AC. That's why heavy armor is better. Ok, light armor is more useful against touch attacks.. that has to be noted as well. Nontheless, it's more scary to be repeatedly stunned by a group of ghasts than to be blasted by some cause wound spells.


And you say a ranger can be a high-strenght dual wielder.. and what prevents a rogue to be a high str dual-wielder?


Me, I like to combine fighter/rogue. Taking 2-3 rogue levels. I'm keeping it simple..

 

[Demnogonis Saastuttaja]

Was this already linked? http://www.gamefaqs.com/computer/doswin ... 2154/49094

 

[deuxhero]

Hm, you forget the bonus feats a fighter gets every two levels. That probably makes him the strongest class possible. Apart from the Hips abuse with the Shadowdancer (which OUGHT to be fixed).

Another thing to note is heavy armor vs. light armor. Now, in d&d there's this shitty system that makes all types of armor pretty similar (4 ac + 4 dex or 7 ac + 1 dex - idiotic). But - when you are stunned/paralised you DO NOT lose the armor AC bonus but you do lose the dex bonus to AC. That's why heavy armor is better. Ok, light armor is more useful against touch attacks.. that has to be noted as well. Nontheless, it's more scary to be repeatedly stunned by a group of ghasts than to be blasted by some cause wound spells.


And you say a ranger can be a high-strenght dual wielder.. and what prevents a rogue to be a high str dual-wielder?


Me, I like to combine fighter/rogue. Taking 2-3 rogue levels. I'm keeping it simple..

Acttualy, NWN2 dumbed down the armor system, in PnP armor type plays a role beyond profinicnys (heavy and medium armor slow you down) among other things

The dex to AC has a few things to keep in mind
1.it can easily be lost without uncanny dodge.
2.It takes an epic level dex score to get max dex AC from light armor.

Also, rogue is prevented from doing that because 1.it needs dex to qualify for the feats (ranger gets them without the dex prerequisite) 2.Rogues need dex anyway for many of their skills (note the countless dex skills and... acttualy, I don't think NWN2 has any skills that are based on str, PnP has jump and climb...) 3.takeing 1 into account, that means you need 2 ability scores high, the rouge alreddy needs a decent INT for skills and charisma if you want to talk, meaning you need a lot of high abilitys, can you say impossible.

 

[Warden]

1st. Ranger needs to wear light armor if he wants his bonus feats ( i.e. dual-wielding/archery) to stay active. Rogues can perfectly dual wield in heavy armor if they take 1 fighter level for example.
So rangers are screwed with light armor.. not rogues.

2nd. Rogues need only moderate dex (like any other class) to pick up the dual-wielding feat. I'd have that dexterity anyway.
And again.. rangers NEED high dex for ac .. since they ARE bound to light armor.

I'm not talking about skills.. since most are pretty meaningless.. I'd take an int of 13 anyway for combat expertise and I need dex (like the ranger). So skills would be pretty buffed anyway.

I would pwn you with a feint rogue.. you'd lose all your dex and dodge to ac and I'd get free sneak attacks while you're facing me.

 

[Murk]

No, Rangers are still awful, simply because a fullplate fighter (with a shield, or if you really want, two swords) is still SO much more powerful that it isn't even funny.

And a Fighter/Rogue kicks the Rangers ass ten times.

Of course Rangers also can sneak fairly well, get a few useless spells, and have such great skills as "Animal Empathy".

But if you like Rangers, go ahead!

No animal empathy in nwn 2 - but the high dex requirements for dual-wielding make fighter builds kind of lob sided, with a ranger, you get those dual-wielding feats for free so you can focus on STR making you more effective at dealing damage.

on topic of AC - this is ridiculous, there's so much dex-raising gear in game that makes the heavily enchanted abundance of light armors totally viable for a ranger.

my ranger/assasin/neverwinter nine (accidently did too much good, couldn't level as assasin anymore) has sneak-attack, and up to level 11 of ranger skills. Wearing light armor and some crap on the side, he has an ac of 35 and gets 6 attacks per round which easily bring down something like 1d8+5 (enchanted long sword), +1d6 (enchanted elemental damage), +8 damage (str bonus) per swing. the assasin levels give him a 3d6 death strike too.

for the people saying fighter dual wielder wins or the extra feats make it better.... not quie, there's so many feats in the game but only so many good ones, and after all is said and done ranger gets almost as many feats as fighter if you consider all the bonus feats it gets for free. the fighter will run out of shit to take unless you count crap like three weapon focuses a good plan.

as for light armor, again, a mithral breastplate is light armor that gives you +5 ac and has a dex bonus of +5, that's higher than a full plate which gives you +8 ac and +1 dex. if crafting is a pain then pick regular chain shirt, +4 ac as well as a +4 dex mod, that's only 1 ac less than a full plate can offer WITH its dex mod.

 

[Desmodus Rotundus]

Well since you brought up mithral, full plate from mithril has +3 dex bonus, so it still beats every other armor in the game. I prefer 2handed over dual wielding though, you'll lose 2 attacks but you get 1.5 strenght bonus, while your off hand only gets like .5. Also 2handed is better agains any damage reduction.

Fighter I'd only take 4 levels for specialization though, after that you're better off going pally or barb for instance, all those extra feats are not what they're cracked up to be, barb gets more hp's, rage, damage reduction, evasion, trap sense, pally gets immunities spells.

Last thing I tried in NWN2 was barbarian x/bard 1/RDD 4 wielding falchion - RDD for 4 str and 2AC and bard over sorc because I had only 8 charisma anyway so only thing I could use from that level were skill points, and bard had more of them and more class skills, and with NWN2 engine, all the bards class skills remained my char's class skills since the bard level.

 

[Murk]

Well since you brought up mithral, full plate from mithril has +3 dex bonus, so it still beats every other armor in the game. I prefer 2handed over dual wielding though, you'll lose 2 attacks but you get 1.5 strenght bonus, while your off hand only gets like .5. Also 2handed is better agains any damage reduction.

an extra two points of AC (if you take medium armor proficiency as well) is hardly worth the loss of free Greater Two Weapon Fighting.

Fighter I'd only take 4 levels for specialization though, after that you're better off going pally or barb for instance, all those extra feats are not what they're cracked up to be, barb gets more hp's, rage, damage reduction, evasion, trap sense, pally gets immunities spells.

I agree entirely with this, but i have a mental soft spot for full clas fighters.

 

[SpaceKungFuMan]

Well since you brought up mithral, full plate from mithril has +3 dex bonus, so it still beats every other armor in the game. I prefer 2handed over dual wielding though, you'll lose 2 attacks but you get 1.5 strenght bonus, while your off hand only gets like .5. Also 2handed is better agains any damage reduction.

Fighter I'd only take 4 levels for specialization though, after that you're better off going pally or barb for instance, all those extra feats are not what they're cracked up to be, barb gets more hp's, rage, damage reduction, evasion, trap sense, pally gets immunities spells.

Last thing I tried in NWN2 was barbarian x/bard 1/RDD 4 wielding falchion - RDD for 4 str and 2AC and bard over sorc because I had only 8 charisma anyway so only thing I could use from that level were skill points, and bard had more of them and more class skills, and with NWN2 engine, all the bards class skills remained my char's class skills since the bard level.

You should have taken all 10 RDD levels. The str bonus nets out to a better to hit bonus that the extra levels of high BAB. You also get AC bonuses, resistances, and int/con boosts. bard 1/FB 5/RDD 10/any high BAB class x is an insanely overpowered two handed build. If you use those extra 14 levels as a fighter, then you can even epic weapon focus and epic weapon specialization (i think those are tied to character level 21, not fighter level 21). At the very least, you can get Greater weapon specilization/focus. I don't think you can end up with a better base damage bonus and to hit bonus than this character has. I played this character through OC and MotB, and it was capable of soloing every fight in MotB on hardcore, often with one or two hit kills even on the hardest enemies.

 

[Desmodus Rotundus]

Well I might take 4 levels of fighter then, didn't know exactly how the exp penalty worked, always thought that if one class lvl is like 2 higher than the other it already kicks in but if it's 4 levels then I shouldn't get any penalty with 4 fighter lvl's. Didin't get RDD up to 10th because I wanted the higher level barbarian abilities like tireless rage, mighty rage, more rages per day, Indomitable Will, damage reduction.

About that mithral full plate, wasn't suggesting it for ranger, was just saying that all the other fighter classed get a better armor which doesn't need so much dex. Since you were saying that ranger can have just as good AC, and that dex boosting item you must have(if you're going with high str and plan to get your dex up with an item) takes up a slot you could use for something else.

 

[Crichton]

Well I might take 4 levels of fighter then, didn't know exactly how the exp penalty worked, always thought that if one class lvl is like 2 higher than the other it already kicks in but if it's 4 levels then I shouldn't get any penalty with 4 fighter lvl's.

It is two levels. The post above about mutli-classing is in error about that too.

http://nwn2.wikia.com/wiki/Multiclass_penalty

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If a multiclass character's classes are not nearly the same level, then he suffers a multiclass penalty of -20% XP for each class that is not within 1 level of his most experienced class. These penalties apply from the moment the character adds a class or raises a class's level too high. For instance, a 4th-level wizard/3rd-level rogue gets no penalty, but if that character raises his wizard level to 5th, then he'd receive the -20% penalty from that point on until his levels were nearly even again. The penalty is -40% if three classes are uneven -- for instance, a 5th-level wizard/3rd-level rogue/1st-level fighter -- and -60% if four classes are uneven (a 7th-level warlock/5th-level wizard/3rd-level rogue/1st-level fighter).

 

[Aothan]

Animal Empathy in NWN was incredible. If you played on persistent worlds, you could empathise with a Dire/Legendary Tiger at absurdely low levels. This ability never really reduced in strengths, since stronger animals could always be found well above your level.

The stealth, trap, archery and then close combat worked well also.

Rangers may not have been the leetest character build but they were easily one of the most involving, I spent days stealthing around in online worlds using traps, empathy, Archery (Called Shot) and spells+unique items to augment my animal companion. So long as you are using group commands to control when your animal stays still, flees or attacks they could be used effectively.

Dont know what has changed in in NWN 2 since I have not played it very much and the online presence is incredibly small compared to the original (what happened ?).

Im curious if the Druid has Natural Spell in NWN2 ? I always wanted that ability and had hoped the PRC community would implement such a possibility. 300+ Health, critical immune, transmutation/necromancy specialised Druid/Heirophant would have been nice.

I will have to look around for some downloadable 'worlds' for single player sometime. Im happy to explore and level and while the interface of NWN 2 is really bad, I did enjoy the first one; mostly, part 2 does not seem all that different.

 

[Murk]

About that mithral full plate, wasn't suggesting it for ranger, was just saying that all the other fighter classed get a better armor which doesn't need so much dex. Since you were saying that ranger can have just as good AC, and that dex boosting item you must have(if you're going with high str and plan to get your dex up with an item) takes up a slot you could use for something else.

oh no doubt, but the point was that the ranger is better for two-weapon-fighting than a fighter is given the way you'll end up spreading your ability points/armor and all that.

Truth is that having the max AC possible isn't really a point worth considering since nwn2's combat isn't anywhere near hard enough to warrant that. my ranger with a natural dex of 14 with a +6 dex enhancing item has 35 AC at idle with no spells and is a two weapon fighter. If i remember correctly there was nothing in the slot for the dex item, it was probably gloves/bracers now that i think about it. before that i was using the guantlets of iron first in the OC but once i got the belt of cloud giant strength the hands were freed up and i went with a dex boosting bracers. for about a whole level my "wrists" slot was empty.

@crichton, thanks for clarifying, i couldn't remember off the top of my head what the level-gap was before experience penalties hit.

@aothan, natural spell is in nwn2

 

[Lyric Suite]

No, Rangers are still awful, simply because a fullplate fighter (with a shield, or if you really want, two swords) is still SO much more powerful that it isn't even funny.

Not on epic levels. If you squeeze in a cleric level you can qualify for Divine Might, which combined with Perfect Two Weapon Fighting and a set of heavily enchanted weapons gives you the highest possible melee DPS in the game. I forgot what the correct build was but you can fiddle around with a character creator mod and try it out. Really obscene stuff. AC doesn't matter as much when you can just gib your way through hordes of enemies. I don't know if it's still as good as a pure fighter but it's certainly viable.

 

[Jasede]

You're likely wrong, even though I didn't play NWN 2 because I daresay a Fighter with all the dual-wield feats (and then some) is still better than a ranger, and nothing prevents him from taking Cleric levels. [What a stupid argument, we must be very bored.]

 

[Lyric Suite]

You're likely wrong, even though I didn't play NWN 2 because I daresay a Fighter with all the dual-wield feats (and then some) is still better than a ranger, and nothing prevents him from taking Cleric levels.

Yes, but only a Ranger can get Perfect Two Weapon Fighting for free (thus allowing you to pump STR and CHA), which essentially gives you a full attack cycle on each hand, each attack benefiting from the Divine Might bonus. Furthermore, once you qualify for the PTWF feat you can stop taking Ranger levels and pump in some fighter levels for some extra feats.

[What a stupid argument, we must be very bored.]

This is Codex, we have to pretend we are above such things but in reality we're just closet power gamers, and graphic whores too. The life of a pretentious elitist prick is an hazardous one requiring great powers of self deception and denial plus some double think in order to get rid of all the mental dissonances.

 

[Murk]

Jasede, much of the argument of why a ranger should be taken instead of a fighter for dual-wielding is entirely because the ranger doesn't need to keep pumping DEX early on to get the two weapon fighting feats, if a tall.

Perfect two-weapon fighting requires a natural dex of 25. The ranger can have it with a dex modifier in the negative and deal great melee damage that a fighter won't match.

EDIT:You havn't played nwn2? Okay well the game is sufficiently different than 3.5 tabletop. How your games run are not going to be comparable to nwn2, i really think you're off your mark.

 

[Lurkar]

The reason fighter generally loses to Ranger in NWN2 is due to the lack of dexterity based feats or classes that have good synergy with it. No swashbuckler, for example, for that three level dip. Ranger on the other hand can get incredibly high damage due to dex being a non-issue for his dual wielding feats.

Plus, the expansion gives some absolutely absurd weapon enchants, so your base attack almost doesn't matter - the more you attack, the more your absurd weapon enchants do damage. That's why the meat grinder in NWN2 is some freaky monk hybrid designed entirely to pump out as many attacks as possible.

 

[Murk]

I'm not well versed in epic levels - does a monk's flurry of blows gain more attacks or cap out at +2?

If so, it'd be 7 attacks at level 30 with a BAB of 22, and if you somehow manage to get perfect two weapon fighting in then you would get 14 attacks total (assuming they stack with flurry of blows) while using kamas or whatever monk weapon.

EDIt: After viewing the d20srd (d20srd.org) it looks like it doesn't according to core rules, but nwn2 may have handled it differently.

BAB increases but flurry of blows stops at greater flurry (two extra attacks at highest BAB) and unarmed strike damage doesn't go up either after level 20.