General Effective Building Guidelines

[mishimayukio]

Been seeing a lot of poor building choices recently and thought I would help a bit. I apologize for the poor format but I'm not so great at writing.

General theme: HP is very important, there is tons of unavoidable damage you will take on HG, and the only way to stay alive is to have a large buffer of HP to keep you going in-between heals.

Stats:
Basically you want to max your primary offensive stat and then meet minimum requirements on other stats, then try to put as many points as you can in Con. As a rule of thumb, I try to avoid
con penalty subraces and use con increasing ones more often unless I don't have a choice for my build, and then if I have spare epic feats I will take great con before LLs. I also avoid letting con go under 14, or 12 if I'm using a con penalty subrace.

Dex Builds:
Leave str at 6 or 8. The feats and few extra points of damage are not worth losing dex or con over, which keeps you alive.

Str builds: leave dex at 6 or 8, unless you need WM or DD.

Splash monk dual wielders, or monk builds:
Wisdom should be a lower priority than con, basically either leave it at 8-10 or up it to 14 if you have spare stat points.

Casters:
I can't begin to explain how important HP is to a caster. After maxing your primary casting stat to 18-23, you want con to be at least 16-18, possibly even 20 with a con increasing subrace like planewalker. After that put some points into int for skill points. Wizards can spend the points into int into dex and/or wisdom for saves.

Skills listed in order of usefulness:

Concentration (casters)
Tumble
Discipline
Perform (If a bard)
Heal (If a caster cleric)
Animal empathy (If a druid/ranger)
Open lock/disable traps/search (If a rogue or assassin with a rogue level.)
UMD (you only need 33 for scrolls, will need a little more if your charisma is under 10. If you have spare skills points feel free to max it.)
Pickpocket (Dexers only need 10-20 depending on what kind of shield they use, str builds using full plate/tower will need the full 43.
Taunt (useful for breaking GS and lowering AC, will need the full 63 ranks to affect casters)
Lore (need about 50 to ID level 40 items, some illithid gear and most URs need about 60.)
Concentration (non casters, for resisting taunt)

Feats:
Toughness (must have feat for everyone)
Great Con (Take this in even amounts if you have spare feats
Pre-epic save feats (take these if you have extra pre-epic feats, lowest saves first.)

Melee/AA builds:
Armor skin
Epic weapon focus
Epic prowess
Blind fight
improved critical
Weapon focus
Rapid Shot (for AAs)
Expertise/Improved Expertise (for melee)

Dex builds
Epic fort (if fort is under 52 at level 40
Epic will ( if will is under 48 at level 40
Self conceal 1-5 (These are hard to fit in, but well worth it if you have improved evasion.)

Str builds:
epic fort (if fort is under 52 at level 40
epic will ( if will is under 48 at level 40
epic reflex (if reflex is under 52 at level 40

WMs:
Power attack/Improved power attack
Knockdown/Improved knockdown
Disarm/Improved disarm

All casters:
Combat casting
Improved combat casting (I hear you can skip these if you are good at using defensive casting mode, but I didn't have much luck with it.)
regular-legendary spell penetration

Caster clerics:
Regular-legendary spell focus evocation
Maximize spell
Silent Spell

Sorc/wiz:
Regular-legendary spell focus necromancy
Regular-legendary spell focus evocation
Silent Spell
Maximize spell
Empower Spell

Caster druid:
Regular-epic spell focus evocation
Regular-epic spell focus transmutation
Regular-epic spell focus conjuration
Regular-epic spell focus necromancy
Regular-epic spell focus abjuration
Silent Spell
Empower Spell
Maximize Spell
With caster druids its not as important to max wisdom as it is to get those 5 epics. Dropping 2-4 great wisdom feats is pretty much your only choice if you want to get all 5.

Rogues:
Improved evasion
Defensive roll
Epic dodge
Epic skill focus disable trap/search
Slippery mind

Common Mistakes:
Cleave, great cleave, overwhelming critical etc. (Just not worth the stiff requirements for something of questionable worth. Even cleave can be a hazard in areas with kickback monsters.)
Circle kick
BAB mishaps:
When mixing 3/4 BAB classes (rogue/monk etc.) with full BAB classes (fighter/paladin/ranger etc.) pre-epic, always try to take the 3/4 BAB classes in groups of 4. For example, a 8 rogue/12 fighter would have 1 more AB than a 9 rogue/11 fighter. This post explains it best:

hiryuu said:

Your final BAB, base saves, and number of attacks are determined by wha you do before level 20. Epic progression is the same for all classes, so mix and match however you like up there.

There are 3 different AB progressions, repeating in blocks of 4 class levels, that depend on how melee-oriented the class is.
"fighter": 1/1/1/1 (full progression)
"rogue": 0/1/1/1 (3/4 progression)
"wizard": 0/1/0/1 (2/4 or 1/2 progression)

The best level 20 BAB you can have is 20 (all melee tank, such as Fighter/Ranger). If you add 1 Rogue (19 Fighter/1 Rogue), you get a 0 for that rogue level, leaving you 19 AB. The next 3 Rogue levels get 1, so 16 Fighter/4 Rogue is also 19 AB. Add a 5th Rogue, and you get 18 AB.

You get an extra attack at pre-20 BAB of 6, 11, and 16. That's why Mish's Bard has 16 Bard/4 Paladin for the first 20. You get 0 AB at bard 1, 5, 9, and 13, for a pre-20 BAB of 16 and 4 attacks. With 17 Bard, you get another 0, which would be BAB of 15, and only 3 attacks.

Saves are more complicated. Each class has high and low saves, which you can guess from the class. Rogue likes reflex, Clerics like Fort and Will, Fighters like Fort, etc.
Low: 0/0/1/0/0/1/0/0/1/0/0/1/0/0/1/0/0/1/0/0
High: 2/1/0/1/0/1/0/1/0/1/0/1/0/1/0/1/0/1/0/1

As you might guess, that +2 to start the high line means you usually get the best saves if you involve all 3 classes before level 20. From there, you need to balance it with your BAB progression to get a build that works well for you.

The tables in the manual break down the AB progression and saves for each class.

[mishimayukio]

Requesting someone who is good at writing and conveying ideas to clean it up a a bit while still getting all the points across. Also requesting feedback and new ideas to add to this post.

[chainlink]

I'd say Self Conceal 5 is almost a must for AA builds as when using your bow you will have a severely reduced ac. Also useful if you don't want to find Vrocks running off with your weapon. Even with a puny discipline (a bonus feature of a Wiz, Rogue, AA build!) I've yet to be disarmed on an immortal run. I see you haven't noted Weapon Specialisation which is interesting as I came to the conclusion that its not that useful in in most circumstances, would you agree? I would disagree with the cleave in one case, for a dev crit'er where each target you hit you have a chance of taking them out completely but that's my personal preference. After reading your "After maxing your primary casting stat to 18-23" comment I just realised that even if you have an odd stat addition bonus from a sub-race you might as well use all of it and save yourself one Great Stat feat as you'll still end up with the same final score and have a free feat. Although at the top end of stat additions you're going to hurt your secondary stats, its worth checking out though.
"Open lock/disable traps (If a rogue or assassin)", I'd also add its only really worth maxing these as an Assassin if you have a Rogue level in the build or you'll be severely limited in what you can open/disarm.

[bort]

Thanks Yue, seen most of those tips posted in chunks from build to build, but a begineers guide to the must haves is very helpful. Nice one!

[velement]

just debating on whether i should take slippery mind or epic will. It appears that from a mathematics point of view, if you treat the rolls like a percentage (e.g., you have 40 save and enemy has 60 DC, so 40/60=0.67 or 67% chance i'll fail save), slippery mind is in everyway better than epic will. However, not sure if saves work that way...? Maybe it's more like, enemy 60 dc, i have 40 save, so no chance in he*l i'll make the save regardless of the number of times i roll? hmmm, thx, oh great tome of knowledge...

[Besiege]

Nice and good work!
There´s only one thing. Epic Prowess doesn´t work for AAs (bows). It doesn´t add +1 to AB. True is I tested it only in character sheet...

[mishimayukio]

From NWNwiki:

Epic prowess works, but the bonus is not always listed on the character sheet -- especially with ranged weapons. The bonus will always appear in the combat logs though.

[Besiege]

Ok, thanks very much .

[FunkySwerve]

Faith in the character sheet claims another victim! Logs, people, check the logs.
Funky

[Yomi]

velement said:

just debating on whether i should take slippery mind or epic will. It appears that from a mathematics point of view, if you treat the rolls like a percentage (e.g., you have 40 save and enemy has 60 DC, so 40/60=0.67 or 67% chance i'll fail save), slippery mind is in everyway better than epic will. However, not sure if saves work that way...? Maybe it's more like, enemy 60 dc, i have 40 save, so no chance in he*l i'll make the save regardless of the number of times i roll? hmmm, thx, oh great tome of knowledge...

I don't think you can do the analysis like this. For example if you have a 40 save and you are resisting a 60 DC, you have a 95% chance you'll fail the save, not 67%. Here is my quick analysis of the two feats. Also note that 1 gives a failure regardless of your save and DC, and 20 success. I assume that slippery mind kicks in on a roll of 1 and gives you another roll.

Epic Will grants a +4 bonus to will saves.

Slippery Mind allows a reroll to any failed save vs. mind affecting spells. It is not generally available to all classes.

Also don't forget spellcraft bonuses to saves vs. spells.

There really are 3 cases:

The first in when your save is 24 below the DC (or lower). In this case epic will doesn't accomplish anything since your save is still 20 below the DC and you only succeed on a 20. Slippery mind let's you try again for a 20 if you didn't get one the first time, raising your success chance from 5% to 9.75%.

The second is when your save is between DC-23 and DC-16. In these cases epic will comes out ahead, though at the two endpoints it's within 1% so is a tossup. But the difference is nontrivial for a few of the numbers (e.g. DC-20 where epic will is 25% chance of sucess vs. 9.75% for slippery mind).

The third is from DC-15 and higher. Slippery mind is ahead, and comes out substantially ahead when your saves gets close to the DC or exceeds it. For example, with a DC of 50 and your save is a 47, you would normally have a 10% chance of failure. Epic will converts this to a 5% chance of failure. Slippery mind results in a 1% chance of failure -- quite a difference.


First, a caveat. Slippery mind is only supposed to work against mind effecting spells. The places I've had issues with will saves are lost soul domination and illithid attacks when mindblank is off. Does slippery mind cover these cases?

In most cases, slippery mind is better than epic will. Only when one's saves are between DC-23 and DC-16 does epic will come out on top (and the end cases are within 1%). When ones saves are "pretty close" meaning off by 10 or less, slippery mind is a clear winner.

[mishimayukio]

sti15 said:

Also don't forget spellcraft bonuses to saves vs. spells.

One thing I forgot to mention. The bonus from spellcraft is included in the +20 cap to saves you can get from gear, making it totally unnecessary unless you want bioware epic spells or plan to counterspell. And even then you don't need that many points into it. 23 is sufficient to identify all spells being cast, although there are times when your skill will be lowered, so unless you are a wizard you will want another 10-15 ranks or so.

-Edit- Found another interesting bit of information from NWNwiki:

A negative Spellcraft -- such as when a Curse Song lowers your skills -- will provide a penalty for saving throws against spells (-1 for each -5 points). However, since Spellcraft requires training, the penalty will only occur if the player has at least one rank in Spellcraft. For example, if a character who put no skill points into Spellcraft is cursed for -6 points, they will receive no penalty, since they're not trained in Spellcraft and can't use it. If a character that has 1 rank in the skill is cursed for -6 points, they will get -1 saves versus spells.

[velement]

Thanks Yomi for the reply, that was very informative! (boy, you sure don't have a lot of posts, but when you do post the stuff usually comes with its own table of contents ;P)

[rover]

This is a veeeeery useful post for us noobs. Thanks a lot!

There is something that would also help us a lot build the 'rights' templates and that is a general idea as to how high some stats should be upon reaching lvl 40 and 60...
Let me explain it better: How High should your AC be when you hit 40 and/or 60? How high should your AB be? also saves, and prolly skills like taunt, Lockpick, Disarm Trap...etc..

Maybe just some ranges like this stat should be between x (minimun for a viable template) and y (optimum)

Thanks a lot again for all the info

[rover]

umm just a quick question and please dont flame me hehehe. Why do you consider toughness a must have? is 1 HP per lvl such a big advantage? specially at lvl 60 when u have around 850 HP naked?

[mishimayukio]

Because every little bit of HP helps, and the fact that toughness gives the equivalent of 2 great con feats, for one pre-epic feat.