Post by MightyKhan on Jun 9, 2008 23:45:24 GMT
The Sylvan Champion
3 Rogue / 7 Paladin / 30 Champion of Torm
With this build, your AC will reach mid 120s in ultra-rare gear, with Pentavite Shield and Girdling of the Faithful. Fully buffed, your AB will be mid 90s. Your saves will all be fairly high, Will being lowest around 60. You will deal a lot of damage against everything you hit, due to large chunks of irresistable damage and nice critical hits, while being immune to critical hits yourself, coupled with 40/+15 damage reduction. Your greater smite is only 3 levels away from it's maximum.
Champions of Torm get a lot of nice tricks and bonuses. They can do Greater Smite, are under constant restoration, have permanent true seeing, are immune to mind affecting spells and abilities and can activate a spellresistance lowering aura, the Nimbus of Victory. Their Divine Wrath ability also got upgraded. It lasts longer, has improved bonuses scaling up to 50 levels of CoT and gives an additional attack when you have reached level 60. Since you will have eventually 40 base strength, Divine Wrath also provides immunity to critical hits!
They also deal a lot of damage. The damage bonus from Divine Wrath is irresistable and so is the damage from Divine Might. A neat trick is the Great Smite. With this ability you will eventually deal 11x58 points of either sonic, positive, magic or divine damage to every evil monster within a medium radius of where you targeted, provided you hit them.
The 7 paladin levels are mostly for the AB prerequisite, but also for the Divine Might feat. You need to be able to turn undead, and paladin's get that ability at level 3. Paladin's are also immune to fear and disease and can remove the latter once per day. Another main reason for paladin is the Divine Grace feat. This feat will add your charisma bonus to all your saves, but only if you are of a good alignment.
The rogue levels give you evasion and Use Magic Device. These are wonderful tricks to have. Evasion, in combination with a high reflex save, will make you take a lot less damage. Taking the second rogue level at 20 allows you to put 23 points in use magic device. This skill can be a life-saver, as with your high charisma score, you will be able to use almost any scroll and wand you come across. In higher levels, being able to use a timestop wand or a greater sanctuary scroll can make the difference between wipe and win.
A complete overview of class changes on higher ground can be found here.
Character creation:
Race: Half-elf
A Legendary Skill Affinity feat allows that particular skill to be raised as if it was a class skill. CoT's do not get Listen as a class skill, so the only way to get a maximized Listen skill is by going half-elf. A high listen skill effectively "reduces" the concealment of the monsters you are trying to hit (even more than Blind Fight does). As such, without listen, you will deal a lot less damage. I put reduces in between quotes, because it only affects your own chances of hitting. The additional skill points allow for a lower intelligence score to be taken, while maintaining a decent amount of skills.
Subrace: Nymphkin - this is case sensitive, make sure you put in exactly Nymphkin, or you will have to delete the character and create a new one (use !delete or speak to Rowans Guardian).
Champions of Torm are very charisma orientated. The minimum charisma you need at level 1 for this build to work is 16. With Nymphkin's +2 bonus, we get 2 points back (relative to a subrace without charisma bonus), countering the dexterity and wisdom penalties a bit.
Class: Rogue - rogues get a lot of skill points per level, 6 more than paladin and CoT. These points are quadrupled at level 1, so you get more skillpoints if you start with rogue instead of paladin.
Alignment: Lawful Good - paladins must be lawful good.
Starting ability scores:
STR 14
DEX 9
CON 14
INT 14
WIS 9
CHA 16
just after you arrive at the Ascension docks, your subrace edits will be applied. In this case, you will get +2 charisma, -1 dexterity and -1 wisdom.
Skills: maximize craft armor, listen, tumble, use magic device - craft armor provides +1 AC for every 40 points, an easy way to increase your AC. Tumble provides +1 AC for every 5 base ranks. Note that while the crafting skills DO include bonuses when it comes to calculating bonuses, tumble does not. Tumble also protects against attacks of opportunity, although you need at least 15 tumble (including bonuses and penalties) to be completely safe.
Feats: blooded - blooded is an enabler feat. It will allow you to pick Legendary Skill Affinity - Tumble in legendary levels, which will in turn allow you to take tumble ranks as if it was a class skill. Not taking LSA tumble will have a great impact on your AC, and that's definitely not what we want.
Pre-epic levels:
Level 2: Paladin
Skills: maximize craft armor, discipline
Level 3: Paladin
Feats: Weapon focus (XXX) - this feat is a requirement for the champion of torm prestige class. It provides +1 AB when using the chosen weapon. I would go for warhammer, bludgeoning damage is one of the best types and theres a nice hammer you can find in Rona that does a lot of damage against evil enemies and can only be used by good aligned characters like yourself.
Skills: maximize craft armor, discipline
Level 4: Paladin
Ability scores: charisma (19) - the number in parantheses is the base score you should have after the increase.
Skills: maximize craft armor, discipline
Level 5: Paladin
Skills: maximize craft armor, discipline
Level 6: Paladin
Feats: Power Attack - power attack is a prerequisite for two other feats in this case: cleave and divine might. against low AC targets, this is a nice combat mode, as it provides and effective +10 strength.
Skills: maximize craft armor, discipline
Level 7: Rogue
Skills: maximize craft armor, tumble
Level 8: Paladin
Ability scores: Charisma (20)
Skills: maximize craft armor, discipline
Level 9: Paladin
Feats: Divine Might - a semi-important feat for this build. It will for a short time (13 rounds in this case) provide +13 irresistable divine damage!
Skills: maximize craft armor, discipline, concentration
Level 10: Champion of Torm
Skills: maximize craft armor, discipline
Level 11: Champion of Torm
Feats: improved critical - a must have feat for any weapon based character, as well as a prerequisite for Overwhelming critical. This feat will improve the chances of scoring a critical hit and therefore your overal damage.
Skills: maximize craft armor, discipline
Level 12: Champion of Torm
Ability scores: Charisma (21)
Feats: toughness - you are going to take lot's of damage, whether you like it or not. This feat provides an additional 60 hitpoints, making you last longer.
Skills: maximize craft armor, discipline
Level 13: Champion of Torm
Feats: blind fight - while the offensive part of this feat does not stack with a high listen score when it comes to hitting concealed stuff, it has some defensive aspects listen alone does not have.
Skills: maximize craft armor, discipline
Level 14: Champion of Torm
Skills: maximize craft armor, discipline
Level 15: Champion of Torm
Feats: cleave, great cleave - these two feats are both prerequisites for overwhelming critical. in addition, they can be handy to quickly drop a couple of monsters that are low on hp.
Skills: maximize craft armor, discipline
Level 16: Champion of Torm
Ability scores: Charisma (22)
Skills: maximize craft armor, discipline
Level 17: Champion of Torm
Feats: expertise - in case it gets really rough and you are the only tank in the party, switch on expertise for an additional +5 AC, at the cost of 5 AB.
Skills: maximize craft armor, discipline
Level 18: Champion of Torm
Feats: extra smiting - this feat greatly reduces the time in between smites. a must have for this build.
Skills: maximize craft armor, discipline
Level 19: Champion of Torm
Feats: improved expertise - similar to normal expertise, this combat mode provides +10 AC and -10 AB instead of +5 -5.
Skills: maximize craft armor, discipline
Level 20: Rogue
Ability scores: Charisma (23)
Skills: maximize craft armor, listen, use magic device, put 20 points in tumble
Epic levels:
Skill and class selections in epic levels are easy. All levels are Champion of Torm levels and whenever possible, maximize craft armor and discipline.
because it's this straightforward, I have left out the levels at which you only get to pick skills.
Level 21:
Feats: Great Charisma I - we need 25 charisma before taking feats at level 24. This feat is needed to get to that in time.
Level 24:
Ability scores: Charisma (25)
Feats: Great Smite I, Epic Weapon Focus (XXX)- ah, the great smite feats. this is what we needed 25 charisma for. what will these feats do for you? they will increase the power of your smite, decrease the recharge time in between smites AND provide a total of +10 strength when you hit 41! you were scared you didn't have enough strength, we'rent you? Epic weapon focus provides and additional +2 ab and is required for both legendary weapon focus and overwhelming critical
Level 27:
Feats: Great Smite II
Level 28:
Ability scores: Strength (15)
Feats: Great Smite III
Level 30:
Feats: Great Smite IV
Level 32:
Ability scores: Strength (16)
Feats: Great Smite V
Level 33:
Feats: Great Smite VI
Level 36:
Ability scores: Strength (17)
Feats: Great Smite VII & VIII
Level 39:
Feats: Great Smite IX
Level 40:
Ability scores: Strength (18)
Feats: Great Smite X
Legendary Levels:
Leveling in legendary levels is done through a conversation with the altar of legends. When you first use this altar, you will gain 40 unspent skillpoints! The skills you have to maximize are craft armor and discipline. From level 43 to 57 maximize tumble as well. At level 45 you can start maximizing listen. At level 60, put as many points into craft weapon as possible.
Level 41:
Level 42: Legendary Skill Affinity - Tumble, Strength (29)
Level 43: start taking ranks in Tumble
Level 44: Strength (30)
Level 45: Legendary Skill Affinity - Listen
Level 46: Strength (32) - start taking ranks in Listen
Level 47:
Level 48: Epic Prowess, Strength (33) - this feat eventually gives us a nice +2 AB bonus, as we will take legendary weapon focus later.
Level 49:
Level 50: Strength (34)
Level 51: Legendary Weapon Focus (XXX) - Legendary weapon focus grants an additional 2 AB when using the chosen weapon, unless you have the epic prowess feat, in which case it grants 3 AB instead.
Level 52: Strength (36)
Level 53:
Level 54: Overwhelming Critical (XXX), Strength (37) - instead of adding additional damage to a critical hit, overwhelming critical adds 1 to your critical threat range while using the chosen weapon, which, against an unarmored target, means an additional 5% chance to score a critical hit. It also enables devastating critical.
Level 55:
Level 56: Strength (39)
Level 57: Devastating Critical (XXX) - Devastating critical no longer allows for instant kills (that's the job of the assassin and ranger), but instead adds 1 to the critical hit multiplier when using the chosen weapon. Who needs weaponmaster when you can do something very similar like this?
You may wonder why we don't take any more tumble. The answer is very simple: taking more tumble is useless. You can not get more tumble AC by increasing beyond 60 points: 12 is the maximum.
Level 58: Strength (40) - congratulations, you have reached 40 base strength! what's so special about that, you ask? it's an easy answer: you will be completely immune to critical hits while using divine wrath. stop taking tumble ranks here.
Level 59:
Level 60: Armor Skin, Charisma (26) - Armor skin is a must have feat for any tank. It gives you +2 AC. Put as many points into craft weapon as possible. It functions just like craft armor, but increases your AB instead of AC.
3 Rogue / 7 Paladin / 30 Champion of Torm
With this build, your AC will reach mid 120s in ultra-rare gear, with Pentavite Shield and Girdling of the Faithful. Fully buffed, your AB will be mid 90s. Your saves will all be fairly high, Will being lowest around 60. You will deal a lot of damage against everything you hit, due to large chunks of irresistable damage and nice critical hits, while being immune to critical hits yourself, coupled with 40/+15 damage reduction. Your greater smite is only 3 levels away from it's maximum.
Champions of Torm get a lot of nice tricks and bonuses. They can do Greater Smite, are under constant restoration, have permanent true seeing, are immune to mind affecting spells and abilities and can activate a spellresistance lowering aura, the Nimbus of Victory. Their Divine Wrath ability also got upgraded. It lasts longer, has improved bonuses scaling up to 50 levels of CoT and gives an additional attack when you have reached level 60. Since you will have eventually 40 base strength, Divine Wrath also provides immunity to critical hits!
They also deal a lot of damage. The damage bonus from Divine Wrath is irresistable and so is the damage from Divine Might. A neat trick is the Great Smite. With this ability you will eventually deal 11x58 points of either sonic, positive, magic or divine damage to every evil monster within a medium radius of where you targeted, provided you hit them.
The 7 paladin levels are mostly for the AB prerequisite, but also for the Divine Might feat. You need to be able to turn undead, and paladin's get that ability at level 3. Paladin's are also immune to fear and disease and can remove the latter once per day. Another main reason for paladin is the Divine Grace feat. This feat will add your charisma bonus to all your saves, but only if you are of a good alignment.
The rogue levels give you evasion and Use Magic Device. These are wonderful tricks to have. Evasion, in combination with a high reflex save, will make you take a lot less damage. Taking the second rogue level at 20 allows you to put 23 points in use magic device. This skill can be a life-saver, as with your high charisma score, you will be able to use almost any scroll and wand you come across. In higher levels, being able to use a timestop wand or a greater sanctuary scroll can make the difference between wipe and win.
A complete overview of class changes on higher ground can be found here.
Character creation:
Race: Half-elf
Half-Elves (can speak Elven)
- All half-elves receive 1 additional skill point per level. Skill points for levels prior to 41 will be granted upon taking level 41 at the Altar of Legends.
- All half-elves can acquire Legendary Skill Affinity Spot and Listen in legendary levels.
- All half-elves receive 1 additional skill point per level. Skill points for levels prior to 41 will be granted upon taking level 41 at the Altar of Legends.
- All half-elves can acquire Legendary Skill Affinity Spot and Listen in legendary levels.
A Legendary Skill Affinity feat allows that particular skill to be raised as if it was a class skill. CoT's do not get Listen as a class skill, so the only way to get a maximized Listen skill is by going half-elf. A high listen skill effectively "reduces" the concealment of the monsters you are trying to hit (even more than Blind Fight does). As such, without listen, you will deal a lot less damage. I put reduces in between quotes, because it only affects your own chances of hitting. The additional skill points allow for a lower intelligence score to be taken, while maintaining a decent amount of skills.
Subrace: Nymphkin - this is case sensitive, make sure you put in exactly Nymphkin, or you will have to delete the character and create a new one (use !delete or speak to Rowans Guardian).
"Nymphkin"
- FCs: Highest Class, Bard
- CHA +2, DEX -1, WIS -1, speaks Animal, speaks Sylvan
- FCs: Highest Class, Bard
- CHA +2, DEX -1, WIS -1, speaks Animal, speaks Sylvan
Champions of Torm are very charisma orientated. The minimum charisma you need at level 1 for this build to work is 16. With Nymphkin's +2 bonus, we get 2 points back (relative to a subrace without charisma bonus), countering the dexterity and wisdom penalties a bit.
Class: Rogue - rogues get a lot of skill points per level, 6 more than paladin and CoT. These points are quadrupled at level 1, so you get more skillpoints if you start with rogue instead of paladin.
Alignment: Lawful Good - paladins must be lawful good.
Starting ability scores:
STR 14
DEX 9
CON 14
INT 14
WIS 9
CHA 16
just after you arrive at the Ascension docks, your subrace edits will be applied. In this case, you will get +2 charisma, -1 dexterity and -1 wisdom.
Skills: maximize craft armor, listen, tumble, use magic device - craft armor provides +1 AC for every 40 points, an easy way to increase your AC. Tumble provides +1 AC for every 5 base ranks. Note that while the crafting skills DO include bonuses when it comes to calculating bonuses, tumble does not. Tumble also protects against attacks of opportunity, although you need at least 15 tumble (including bonuses and penalties) to be completely safe.
Feats: blooded - blooded is an enabler feat. It will allow you to pick Legendary Skill Affinity - Tumble in legendary levels, which will in turn allow you to take tumble ranks as if it was a class skill. Not taking LSA tumble will have a great impact on your AC, and that's definitely not what we want.
Pre-epic levels:
Level 2: Paladin
Skills: maximize craft armor, discipline
Level 3: Paladin
Feats: Weapon focus (XXX) - this feat is a requirement for the champion of torm prestige class. It provides +1 AB when using the chosen weapon. I would go for warhammer, bludgeoning damage is one of the best types and theres a nice hammer you can find in Rona that does a lot of damage against evil enemies and can only be used by good aligned characters like yourself.
Skills: maximize craft armor, discipline
Level 4: Paladin
Ability scores: charisma (19) - the number in parantheses is the base score you should have after the increase.
Skills: maximize craft armor, discipline
Level 5: Paladin
Skills: maximize craft armor, discipline
Level 6: Paladin
Feats: Power Attack - power attack is a prerequisite for two other feats in this case: cleave and divine might. against low AC targets, this is a nice combat mode, as it provides and effective +10 strength.
Skills: maximize craft armor, discipline
Level 7: Rogue
Skills: maximize craft armor, tumble
Level 8: Paladin
Ability scores: Charisma (20)
Skills: maximize craft armor, discipline
Level 9: Paladin
Feats: Divine Might - a semi-important feat for this build. It will for a short time (13 rounds in this case) provide +13 irresistable divine damage!
Skills: maximize craft armor, discipline, concentration
Level 10: Champion of Torm
Skills: maximize craft armor, discipline
Level 11: Champion of Torm
Feats: improved critical - a must have feat for any weapon based character, as well as a prerequisite for Overwhelming critical. This feat will improve the chances of scoring a critical hit and therefore your overal damage.
Skills: maximize craft armor, discipline
Level 12: Champion of Torm
Ability scores: Charisma (21)
Feats: toughness - you are going to take lot's of damage, whether you like it or not. This feat provides an additional 60 hitpoints, making you last longer.
Skills: maximize craft armor, discipline
Level 13: Champion of Torm
Feats: blind fight - while the offensive part of this feat does not stack with a high listen score when it comes to hitting concealed stuff, it has some defensive aspects listen alone does not have.
Skills: maximize craft armor, discipline
Level 14: Champion of Torm
Skills: maximize craft armor, discipline
Level 15: Champion of Torm
Feats: cleave, great cleave - these two feats are both prerequisites for overwhelming critical. in addition, they can be handy to quickly drop a couple of monsters that are low on hp.
Skills: maximize craft armor, discipline
Level 16: Champion of Torm
Ability scores: Charisma (22)
Skills: maximize craft armor, discipline
Level 17: Champion of Torm
Feats: expertise - in case it gets really rough and you are the only tank in the party, switch on expertise for an additional +5 AC, at the cost of 5 AB.
Skills: maximize craft armor, discipline
Level 18: Champion of Torm
Feats: extra smiting - this feat greatly reduces the time in between smites. a must have for this build.
Skills: maximize craft armor, discipline
Level 19: Champion of Torm
Feats: improved expertise - similar to normal expertise, this combat mode provides +10 AC and -10 AB instead of +5 -5.
Skills: maximize craft armor, discipline
Level 20: Rogue
Ability scores: Charisma (23)
Skills: maximize craft armor, listen, use magic device, put 20 points in tumble
Epic levels:
Skill and class selections in epic levels are easy. All levels are Champion of Torm levels and whenever possible, maximize craft armor and discipline.
because it's this straightforward, I have left out the levels at which you only get to pick skills.
Level 21:
Feats: Great Charisma I - we need 25 charisma before taking feats at level 24. This feat is needed to get to that in time.
Level 24:
Ability scores: Charisma (25)
Feats: Great Smite I, Epic Weapon Focus (XXX)- ah, the great smite feats. this is what we needed 25 charisma for. what will these feats do for you? they will increase the power of your smite, decrease the recharge time in between smites AND provide a total of +10 strength when you hit 41! you were scared you didn't have enough strength, we'rent you? Epic weapon focus provides and additional +2 ab and is required for both legendary weapon focus and overwhelming critical
Level 27:
Feats: Great Smite II
Level 28:
Ability scores: Strength (15)
Feats: Great Smite III
Level 30:
Feats: Great Smite IV
Level 32:
Ability scores: Strength (16)
Feats: Great Smite V
Level 33:
Feats: Great Smite VI
Level 36:
Ability scores: Strength (17)
Feats: Great Smite VII & VIII
Level 39:
Feats: Great Smite IX
Level 40:
Ability scores: Strength (18)
Feats: Great Smite X
Legendary Levels:
Leveling in legendary levels is done through a conversation with the altar of legends. When you first use this altar, you will gain 40 unspent skillpoints! The skills you have to maximize are craft armor and discipline. From level 43 to 57 maximize tumble as well. At level 45 you can start maximizing listen. At level 60, put as many points into craft weapon as possible.
Level 41:
Level 42: Legendary Skill Affinity - Tumble, Strength (29)
Level 43: start taking ranks in Tumble
Level 44: Strength (30)
Level 45: Legendary Skill Affinity - Listen
Level 46: Strength (32) - start taking ranks in Listen
Level 47:
Level 48: Epic Prowess, Strength (33) - this feat eventually gives us a nice +2 AB bonus, as we will take legendary weapon focus later.
Level 49:
Level 50: Strength (34)
Level 51: Legendary Weapon Focus (XXX) - Legendary weapon focus grants an additional 2 AB when using the chosen weapon, unless you have the epic prowess feat, in which case it grants 3 AB instead.
Level 52: Strength (36)
Level 53:
Level 54: Overwhelming Critical (XXX), Strength (37) - instead of adding additional damage to a critical hit, overwhelming critical adds 1 to your critical threat range while using the chosen weapon, which, against an unarmored target, means an additional 5% chance to score a critical hit. It also enables devastating critical.
Level 55:
Level 56: Strength (39)
Level 57: Devastating Critical (XXX) - Devastating critical no longer allows for instant kills (that's the job of the assassin and ranger), but instead adds 1 to the critical hit multiplier when using the chosen weapon. Who needs weaponmaster when you can do something very similar like this?
You may wonder why we don't take any more tumble. The answer is very simple: taking more tumble is useless. You can not get more tumble AC by increasing beyond 60 points: 12 is the maximum.
Level 58: Strength (40) - congratulations, you have reached 40 base strength! what's so special about that, you ask? it's an easy answer: you will be completely immune to critical hits while using divine wrath. stop taking tumble ranks here.
Level 59:
Level 60: Armor Skin, Charisma (26) - Armor skin is a must have feat for any tank. It gives you +2 AC. Put as many points into craft weapon as possible. It functions just like craft armor, but increases your AB instead of AC.