Whirling Dervish - 32 Fighter/7 WM/ 1 Monk

[Bakchuda]

Using the Halfing Death as a template, and combining the new Epic Prowess -> Stat swap for Fighters, I present you a slightly different take on the dexterity warrior:

The Whirling Dervish

For subrace choice and base stats, you can't go wrong with the suggestions from the Halfling Death build, so I'll just quote it verbatim here:

Starting race: Tiefling Halfling, Derrzagon, Planewalker Halfling, Atomie, or Halfling Lycan

Starting stats: (Tiefling/Derrzagon/Planewalker/Atomie/Lycan)
STR 6, 8 for derrzagon (6/8/4/6/6)
DEX 20, 18 for derrzagon (22/20/22/23/24)
CON 16, 14 for lycan, 18 for derrzagon (16/18/18/16/16)
WIS 8, 10 for lycan (8/6/8/6/10)
INT 12, 14 for lycan (14/14/14/14)
CHA 8 , 6 for derrzagon (6/4/8/10/6)

From here, things go a little differently for the build. The progression is:

10 Fighter / 7 WM / 22 Fighter / 1 Monk

Stat Increases: All Dexterity

The key thing to remember when leveling up this build is to take WM feats and other important feats as Fighter Bonus Feats. So yes, you could take all of the feats required for WM by level 6, but you would have crappy choices left over for the Fighter Bonus Feats you get later. If you remember this rule, you actually end up with a LOT of flexibility in your other feat choices.

To help you out, here's links to the NWN Wiki:
Fighter Bonus Feats
Epic fighter bonus feats

Here is the feat selection schedule I went with on my first run through the training halls (as a Derrzagon, so Blind Fight was free)

Class	Feat	Bonus
F 1	Luck of Heroes	Dodge

[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]F 2[/td][td][/td][td]Mobility[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]F 3[/td][td]Weapon Finesse[/td][td][/td][/tr]
[tr][td]F 4[/td][td][/td][td]Weapon Focus(handaxe)[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]F 5[/td][td][/td][td][/td][/tr]
[tr][td]F 6[/td][td]Toughness[/td][td]Expertise[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]F 7[/td][td][/td][td][/td][/tr]
[tr][td]F 8[/td][td][/td][td]Spring Attack[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]F 9[/td][td]Improved Critical(Handaxe)[/td][td][/td][/tr]
[tr][td]F 10[/td][td][/td][td]Whirlwind Attack[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]WM 1[/td][td][/td][td]Weapon of Choice(handaxe)[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]WM 2[/td][td]Great Fort[/td][td][/td][/tr]
[tr][td]WM 3[/td][td][/td][td][/td][/tr]
[tr][td]WM 4[/td][td][/td][td][/td][/tr]
[tr][td]WM 5[/td][td]Iron Will[/td][td][/td][/tr]
[tr][td]WM 6[/td][td][/td][td][/td][/tr]
[tr][td]WM 7[/td][td][/td][td][/td][/tr]
[tr][td]F 11[/td][td]Knockdown[/td][td][/td][/tr]
[tr][td]F 12[/td][td][/td][td]Improved Knockdown[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]F 13[/td][td][/td][td][/td][/tr]
[tr][td]F 14[/td][td]Great Dex[/td][td]EWF: handaxe[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]F 15[/td][td][/td][td][/td][/tr]
[tr][td]F 16[/td][td][/td][td]Arm Skin[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]F 17[/td][td]Great Dex[/td][td][/td][/tr]
[tr][td]F 18[/td][td][/td][td]Disarm[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]F 19[/td][td][/td][td][/td][/tr]
[tr][td]F 20[/td][td]Great Dex[/td][td]Improved Disarm[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]F 21[/td][td][/td][td][/td][/tr]
[tr][td]F 22[/td][td][/td][td]Epic Prowess (Swap)[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]F 23[/td][td]Great Dex[/td][td][/td][/tr]
[tr][td]F 24[/td][td][/td][td]Epic Prowess (Swap)[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]F 25[/td][td][/td][td][/td][/tr]
[tr][td]F 26[/td][td]Great Dex[/td][td]Epic Prowess (Swap)[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]F 27[/td][td][/td][td][/td][/tr]
[tr][td]F 28[/td][td][/td][td]Epic Prowess (Swap)[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]F 29[/td][td]Great Dex[/td][td][/td][/tr]
[tr][td]F 30[/td][td][/td][td]Epic Prowess (Swap)[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]F 31[/td][td][/td][td][/td][/tr]
[tr][td]F 32[/td][td]Great Dex[/td][td]Epic Prowess (Swap)[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]M 1[/td][td][/td][td][/td][/tr]
[/table]

Level 40 Monk for Evasion and the Tumble dump. Parry and Discipline are the other needed skills, and don't forget those 4 points of Intimidate for WM. If you aren't using Derrzagon, swap one of the other feats for Blind fight, since listen is not a Fighter class skill. Other than that, skill assignment is pretty flexible.

For the 2nd Weapon foci I took Mace to do a little extra damage to any crit immune guys. But there are lots of possibilities there. You could go for Epic Weapon Specialization, dual-wielding, take exotic weapon prof ealier and use kukris and put something else here, etc.
Updated to get KD/Disarm feats

In LLs, your saves get a big boost, here are the recommended feats:

Legendary Will
Legendary Luck
Legendary Fortitude
Great Dex 8
Epic Will

Beyond those you can take Great Dex 9 and 10 to even out your dex or boost it further, or take Improved Parry and Epic Prowess to get the 3rd Greater ability and boost AB. Pick the 2 that best fit the subrace you used.

With Derrzagon, here are some figures for saves and stats:
Saves maxed out at 60 would be:
F: 67
R: 77
W: 63

And Fortitude could go up to 71 if you take Epic Fortitude for the cost of 1 reflex save (losing a Great Dex or 2)

With the stat boosts from the Epic Prowess swap, your BASE Dex at level 40 will be 43.
After LL's and at least Great Dex 8, it will be 54.

Oh and you get Epic dodge for free at Figher level 30. And make sure to do plenty of whirling to drop enemy physical resists! Also the new scripted Disarm and Knockdowns should help in tight corners, and even the regular versions of those feats can come in handy.

Biggest Con to the build is no Self Conceal.

Updated: 4/30 for new fighter feats. Thankfully I have to lose only one level with my current char to stay on pace for this build.

Updated: 6/26 to account for not needing a feat to aquire Greater ability feats. Now you can collect all 3!

Updated: 9/15/07. Putting this back in the main list. Updated to indicate need for Parry as a skill.

[Bakchuda]

Updated to shift feats around since taking Lightning Reflexes was overkill. Any comments to this build? I have mine up to level 18 now, just got the Fighter's Whetstone.

[chainlink]

You could take 3 monk levels and then you would gain super monk speed with the use of Freedom of Movement although you would lose this if you equipped a shield. I might also be tempted to take one or two monk levels below 20 to improve your saves at the cost of one ab and a bonus fighter feat.

[maljin]

Minor typo: You need epic weapon focus to get epic weapon specialization, so you have to switch the fighter bonus feats at level 14 and 18.

[Bakchuda]

Updated, thanks for catching that

As for the couple extra monk levels, it is an option. Taking 2 monk levels pre-epic would get you +2 to all your saves, at the total cost of 2 AB, 1 AC and 1 damage. (-1 BAB, -1 stat swap, and -1 damage from the whetstone). The only really low save is Will though, and even that can get up to 63, so I'm not sure it's worth the cost. But it would work and not break the build.

It would give you an option of taking Kama as a 2nd weapon focus, which could be interesting in some situations.

[fragment]

I'm interested in the role you see this character in, acting on the battlefield. There are a rather large number of dexer fighter/WM/something builds out there, who can 1) tank most things, 2) apply modest to low damage, 3) do something.

A rogue-something can pick locks and disarm traps, a sd-something can GS, a ranger-something can buff some (?), a bard-something is invaluable, you get the idea. What's your role?

Regards!

[Bakchuda]

In this case the key "do something" is whirlwind. The LL Fighter whirlwind drops physical resistance by 10% for two rounds, along with getting two hits in on each mob it hits. In fact, I will update the feat recommendations to change out something to get Improved Whirlwind, since doubling the range on this is a very Good Thing.

[sabregirl]

The problem is WW attack is currently extrordinarily buggy, usually making you flatfooted for what seems to be ages, before actually attacking. As a strength fighter using it on harbingers trail all it did was get me turned to stone. Personally, I wouldn't design a build around it until bioware fixes it.

-S

[Trazik]

I would suggest that the way around the flatfooting problem would be to get uncanny dodge. F31-WM7-SD2 comes to mind, or even F30-WM7-Ro3. It's not like you get the bonus to saves for the monk level, and it's not like you need the wisdom AC bonus (unless you plan to dual wield). And the rogue variant could get open lock and/or pick pocket skill. But you have to give up Cleave (or sacrifice the second Weapon of Choice).

The build could be modified slightly to get Self Conceal 5, but you would have to make a sacrifice to saves by skipping a few LL save feats.

[Bakchuda]

With the new Fighter Greater skill feats, I am going to be updating the build to remove the 2nd weapon feats and add in the Greater Disarm and Knockdown feats. If whirlwind gets fixed with some later 1.69 patch of NWN, then swapping one of those for Improved Power Attack to up the vulnerability penalty may be good, but that remains to be seen.

Let me know what you all think of this modification.

[Kazatel]

I'd like to know what you all might think of a variation on this.
Fighter 30, Shadowdancer 10

Level progression: 1-17 Fighter, 18-26 Shadow Dancer, 27-39 Fighter, and 40 Shadowdancer.
1- Strong Soul, Improved Initiative, Weapon Finesse
2- Mobility
3- Improved Parry
4- WF: Mace
6- Toughness, Knockdown
8- Blind Fight
9- Iron Will
10- Ambidexterity
12- Great Fortitude, Two-Weapon Fighting
14- Improved Critical
15- Improved Two-Weapon Fighting
16- Weapon Specialization
18- Improved Knockdown
21- Epic Weapon Focus
24- Epic Will
27- Epic Fortitude, Armor Skin
29- Epic Prowess
30- G. Dex
31- Epic Prowess
33- G. Dex, Epic Prowess
35- Epic Prowess
36- G. Dex
37- Epic Prowess
39- G. Dex, Epic Prowess

LL's - SC I-V, Leg. Will, Leg. Fort

[Bakchuda]

Updated to reflect the fact that you don't need to pick a feat to get the Greater Abilities for fighter.

[Bakchuda]

Please move this build to the main list