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Post by johannhowitzer on Jan 21, 2009 21:03:12 GMT
Been a while since I posted a build on here, so here goes. I once saw Drunkenboaster playing a halberd juggernaut assassin, and the idea caught my interest. I've not seen his build, so this is built from scratch. I'll be using it soon, since 1) I prefer STR tanks to DEX tanks, and 2) I don't have any assassin daggers.
Subrace: Juggernaut (you could also use other high-STR Large subraces for this, but if your subrace lacks bonus feats toward WM, you may need to drop LSA Discipline.) Alignment: any Evil
Starting abilities (with subrace): Strength 18 (24) Dexterity 14 Constitution 12 (18) Intelligence 14 Wisdom 8 Charisma 6 (4)
Skills: Intimidate 4 BEFORE level 7 Hide 8 BEFORE level 14 Move Silently BEFORE level 14 Tumble 60 UMD 63 Discipline 63 Listen 63 remainder in Craft Armor or Craft Weapon (will be 57 points for Juggernaut)
Level Progression: 1-6 Fighter, 7-13 WM, 14-40 Assassin
All ability increases in Strength
Feats: 1 - Dodge, Bullheaded 2 - Weapon Focus (halberd) 3 - Mobility 4 - Spring Attack 6 - Whirlwind Attack, Great Fortitude 9 - Improved Critical (halberd) 12 - Lightning Reflexes 15 - Iron Will 18 - Toughness 21 - Epic Weapon Focus (halberd) 24 - Great STR I 27 - Great STR II, Epic Reflexes (convert to Great STR III) 30 - Great STR IV 31 - Epic Reflexes (convert to Great STR V) 33 - Great STR VI 35 - Epic Reflexes (convert to Great STR VII) 36 - Great STR VIII 39 - Great STR IX, Epic Reflexes (convert to Great STR X)
42 - Legendary Fortitude 45 - Legendary Skill Affinity (discipline) 48 - Armor Skin 51 - Epic Prowess 54 - Legendary Weapon Focus (halberd) 57 - Legendary Reflexes 60 - Legendary Will
Stats at 60 raw (and maxed via gear):
Strength 54 (66) Dexterity 14 (26) Constitution 18 (30) Intelligence 14 (26) Wisdom 8 (20) Charisma 4 (16)
AB will be mid to high 90s, worked it out but changed a few things after. AC will be 124 in BUR gear, normal for STR tanks. 128 with Girding, 131 or so once demi. Hit Points will be around 950 pre-demi.
Saves at top end: Fort 63 Reflex 64 Will 55
Gets best range for halberd, and good mortal strike DC. Will is a little low, no ESF Listen, no Concentration, and no dev crit means damage will be lower than usual for STR tanks. At least WM helps that some.
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Post by chainlink on Jan 21, 2009 22:02:03 GMT
Your Mortal Strike potential wll be zero as you need 28 Assassin levels to get this ability. You also don't need to convert Epic Reflexes to Great Str as the Str feats will be available to you at level up due to the HG Enhanced integration.
Mortal Strike - For characters with 28 or more Assassin levels, the honed weapon delivers mortal strikes, inflicting added damage and potentially killing the target instantly. Targets immune to critical hits now suffer full base damage if they fail their fortitude save. Targets not immune to critical hits suffer the full base damage if they make their save, and are instantly killed if they fail.
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Post by johannhowitzer on Jan 21, 2009 23:49:05 GMT
I was under the impression that that ability was obtainable in LLs.
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Post by chainlink on Jan 22, 2009 0:00:20 GMT
I'm afraid not.
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Post by johannhowitzer on Jan 22, 2009 2:35:55 GMT
Journal needs to say that, then. I just wasted a good three hours designing this build, and I've got to scrap the whole thing. Mortal strikes aren't testable via the test chamber.
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Post by Acaos on Jan 22, 2009 3:00:11 GMT
It does:
Rule One of legendary levels: legendary levels are not class levels. They do not apply unless the documentation says they do:
Acaos
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Post by chirikov on Jan 22, 2009 6:20:44 GMT
the only subraces that can fit 7 wm levels and still mortal strike would be the ones that have +hide/ms (so you can take assassin early). none of those subraces are large sized however, and most of them do not have a str bonus
you can modify the build to not use wm levels, or perhaps reduce it to only 5 wm so you can keep the extra multiplier (not sure about feasibility or efficacy of the latter though)
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Post by johannhowitzer on Jan 22, 2009 15:56:57 GMT
It would be better to just drop WM entirely and use over/dev crit feats. Also, Stinger would be capable of taking WM7 and 28 Assassin, I think - it gets Spring Attack, enabling WWA before level 6. But I don't like the look of Stinger.
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Post by chainlink on Jan 22, 2009 16:59:13 GMT
You should have just asked me, it's not like I've not built just about every assassin variant possible
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Post by simpetar on Jan 22, 2009 22:05:18 GMT
IIRC even as little as keened halberd with Improved Critical should give you something like 12-20, which is not bad at all. My very first hell runner on this server was a wraith assassin with 11-20 and it MSed fairly often. There are more ways how to increase frequency and power of MS - just now I can think of: 1. increasing critical range; if you do not want to burn 3-5 feats on devastating critical line (you should need only Overwhelming Crit in fact, and 1 monk lvl could give you Cleave for free), you can take just Exotic Prof and go with Stygian Razor 2. boosting DC of MS; you already plan to max strength, keep in mind however that assassins get special bonuses at lvl 49 and 50, another option might be 4 lvls of XDD splash (you lose 1 attack per round this way though) 3. more attacks per round with honed weapon; there are some rare assassins out there who use monk weapons despite their pitiful critical range, but their speed somehow outweights it.
Hope that helps.
cheers simpetar
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Post by starlandra on Jan 22, 2009 22:41:04 GMT
You can however go juggernaut with 5 ranger 5 wm 30 assassin so you get max dc and you only lose 2 str (to have dex and int high enough) which is better than losing 3 assassin levels with 13-20 x4 crits not as good at 11-20 you would get with 7 wm but still doable. Prob is you need 5 ranger to get your hide up enough to get assassin. I suppose you could go 28 assassin and 7 wm for the crit range. personal choice at that point I guess
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Post by elnar shadowfox on Jan 23, 2009 5:34:09 GMT
Also, Stinger would be capable of taking WM7 and 28 Assassin, I think - it gets Spring Attack, enabling WWA before level 6. But I don't like the look of Stinger. For WM at level 6, I think (speaks the novice builder) that you can do it with any subrace that either: a) starts with one of the WM feats and is based on human or b) starts with two of the WM feats (and can have any base race) if you c) make levels 1-3 any of the main-classes for BAB except fighter (so ranger, barbarian or paladin). That will let you take feats at both levels 4 and 5 with BAB+4 or greater to allow Spring attack and Whirlwind attack before level 6. So I think you could use Kurai, Half-Kyton, Lycan, Salamander, Kolyarut (like what str class can't it do?) or even Pixie Sadly none of them are large. Anyway, I don't have any of those races so I can't test it. I think it would work like this, for example, with Kurai and Barbarian (get d12 and intimidate as a class skill) 1 - Barb (1) : BAB+1, lvl 1 feat: Dodge, bonus human feat: Mobility, Subrace feat: Expertise 2 - Barb (2) : BAB+2 3 - Barb (3) : BAB+3, lvl 3 feat: Weapon Focus (any melee) 4 - Fighter (1) : BAB+4, lvl 1 fighter feat: Spring Attack 5 - Fighter (2) : BAB+5, lvl 2 fighter feat: Whirlwind Attack 6 - Weapon Master (1) : Whoo Hoo! Or am I missing something about the requirements for WM?
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Post by chirikov on Jan 23, 2009 9:10:58 GMT
close, but levels 1-3 can be fighter as well; bab progression is the sum based on class levels. you would have to splash something to meet the intimidate req before 5 though, and going something like fighter/barb/wm means you cant take any other classes (like assassin in this case)
the main issue is that going 7 wm means losing 2 assassin levels because of the extra levels needed to get wm, and going 5 wm means losing the +2 crit range meaning dev crit is far more cost-efficient
the end result is that you need to have a boost to hide/move silently so that you can fill in assassin levels early and take wm later, and those subraces are all dex based with the exception of one-eyed, which is medium sized
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Post by elnar shadowfox on Jan 24, 2009 3:52:16 GMT
I knew if I posted I'd betray some complete newbness somehow. Maximum of three classes... yeah.... I knew that but still... I did figure out how to make WM by level 6 with only a secret race... Regardless, my thanks to Johann for the inspiration of the OP. I've been sitting on a Battlerager book talking myself into making a new DD but my (only immortal and not yet to hells) Hell Freezes Over DD is so much fun it's been hard to find the enthusiasm for making a second DD instead of playing the first... I think I'll make some kind of WM / Assassin with it instead.
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Post by simpetar on Jan 24, 2009 9:06:15 GMT
I think I'll make some kind of WM / Assassin with it instead. WM / Assassins were in fashion some time ago, before Assassin Daggers were introduced. They are still very viable builds - and can be the best option for people who do not want to use Assassin Daggers or cannot use them e.g. because being of large statue - but keep in mind that qualifying for WM itself will cost you 6 feats, unless your subrace grants them to you or you can acquire it for free. Nowadays, builds using the daggers are predominant and IMHO somewhat "cheaper" (not so feat demanding) to make. cheers simpetar
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