Dusty's Pal - 50 Rdd/8 Paladin/2 Bard

[bort]

17/12/06 - updated with change to starting stats and feats to give +4 reflex -1 will over previous version.

Large sized RDD (large size gained at level 40) immune to fire and 65% immune to cold (once you reach level 19, ignore that icon in the top right, you ARE immune to fire).
Wields warhammer and shield. Wears heavy armor.
Saves: Fort-69, Reflex-68, Will-65
AB: 61 (maximum of 81 possible with gmw and bardsong/cleric buffs)
Calculating HP @ 60 is beyond my patience with maths, but you should have plenty.

Thanks to Chainlink for pointing out how "Half-Dragon - White" can be combined with RDD for 100% immune fire and 65% immune cold.
Thanks to Yue for his advice on weapon choice.
And thanks to mrslayer, bkelowna and arielt for some great suggestions on how to dramatically improve the saves of the build.

Race: Human
Subrace: "Half-Dragon - White" (+2 str, +1 dex, -2 int, 65% immune cold, 150% vulnerable fire)

Stats: (subrace changes) [at 40]
STR 17 (19) [41]
DEX 11 (12)
CON 14 [18]
WIS 8
INT 10 (8) [11]
CHA 14 [17] <-- + to saves with paladin

All stat increases into strength.

Level Progression: 1Bard/8Paladin/10Rdd/1Bard/20Rdd

You'll need to become lawful AFTER level 1 (bard) to enable you to take your 1st level of paladin at level 2.
Ask around in game if you're not sure how to achieve this/need help.
After you've taken your 8th level of paladin but before level 20, you'll need to convert back to neutral or chaotic for the second bard level at level 20.

Skill points:
Make sure to put 8 points into Lore either on or before level 9 to unlock RDD.
Put 23 points into Tumble and UMD at level 20 (bard).
Max Discipline on the remaining Rdd levels.
25 points left over to use as you see fit - I went with Spellcraft for + to saves vs spells.

LL Skills:
Discipline, Spellcraft

Pre-epic Feats:
Luck of Heroes (must be taken at chargen)
Snake Blood (must be taken at chargen)
Toughness
Weapon Focus Warhammer
Blind-Fight
Iron Will
Lightning Reflexes
Improved Critical Warhammer

Epic Feats:
Epic Weapon Focus Warhammer
Armor Skin
Epic Toughness X (unlocks RDD bonuses)

Legendary Feats:
Epic Reflexes
Epic Prowess
Great Strength I-V

Saves:
@ 40: Fort-31,Reflex-26,Will-27
(+38) +20 from items, +5 LL save increases, +6 for maxed con,dex&wis, +6 for maxed cha, +1 for the increase to 18 base cha at level 60 and +4 to reflexes from Epic Reflexes feat.
@ 60: Fort-69, Reflex-68, Will-65

AB:
Naked ab @ 40: 43
+6(maxed str items) = 49
+5(LL str stats) = 54
+3(LL 6 great str feats) = 57
+3(LL +6 racial str bonus) = 60
+1(epic prowess) = 61

+13(average gmw) = 74
+7(bardsong/etc) = 81

Variations:
Swap out two Great Strength feats for Epic Will and Epic Fortitude for -1 AB (60-80) and +4 will & fort saves (69 will, 73 fort).

[chainlink]

You could free up a feat by not taking heavy armor and using the Cloak of Worldliness to equip it. Its a minor irritation in that you have to fiddle around every time you log on but hey its another feat you can use for something else.

[mrslayer]

i prefer 9 pal to 9 barb. U get heavy armour free, plus pal saves from cha.

[bort]

chainlink said:

You could free up a feat by not taking heavy armor and using the Cloak of Worldliness to equip it. Its a minor irritation in that you have to fiddle around every time you log on but hey its another feat you can use for something else.

Luck of Heroes would be a good feat to pick up at character generation if you wanted to skip Heavy Armor (or use either fighter or paladin and get it for free). Weapon Proficiency Exotic is another option if you want to use a scythe.

mrslayer said:

i prefer 9 pal to 9 barb. U get heavy armour free, plus pal saves from cha.

Free heavy armor sounds good, but I wouldn't be wearing anything with a + to charisma, so 8 points in charisma isn't going to improve saves. It's certainly a valid option if you plan on wearing a +12 charisma item though (which I think would be +5 to saves??)

Fighter is another option, same hit die(d10) & bab as paladin, a few bonus feats, free Heavy Armor...

Barbarians have d12 hit die, which probably doesn't make an enormous difference over 9 levels, but I didn't think the build was hurting for feats, so decided to go for it.

Thanks for the feedback.

[bkelowna]

Well actually RDD levels will add some extra chr so pally is a viable option and saves 4 of the preepic feats you took. Personally I'd opt for more int for expertice and skills (at the expense of the con), HP are not the problem for most RDD builds.

[bort]

More int would be lovely, but this build was designed with three main objectives in mind -

• The elemental immunities (hopefully I'll visit the pyramid soon, at last, and dusty runs will be a breeze - relatively)
  
• Reasonable AB, so I can be of some use on the battlefield, not just a tourist.
  
• Loads and Loads of HPs. No; I want MORE HPs!
  I even considered shifting some epic toughness feats to LL so I could get some great con feats in pre-legendary instead of LL great str feats, but figured I didn't want to hurt the AB and couldn't bare the thought of going past 40 without large size.
  

So I gave Expertise the boot. You won't have super dooper WM AB to throw away with Expertise, and even with characters I've made that have Expertise as a WM requirement, I never use it - I'd rather more of my hits land so I can kill whatever's killing me faster. It's all preference though - I think you can do pretty much what you like with the first 9 levels, provided you've got a good reason for it.

Paladin is certainly a valid option, even if you only go with it because you're feeling holy... I was feeling savage, so it had to be Barbarian
Re. saving feats, I'd still take the save feats with Paladin, so I could really push my saves through the roof - why settle for less when you can have more? It's not like you've got Epic Dodge or Self Conceal to boast of, why not have uber saves?

[bkelowna]

Yep, expertise gets different mileage for different folks.

Doing 1 bard, 4 Pali, 10 RDD, 5 pali, 20 RDD to levels 40

Str 16(18)
Dex 8(9)
Con 14
Int 15(13)
Wis 8
Chr 14

You net the same AB as your build but naked saves at 40 are
F-30 R-22 W-26
at 60
F-68 R-60 W-64 instead of 61,52,56
+38 at lvl 60 buffed (+20, +5 LL lvls, +6 for stats, + 6 for chr boost, + 1 at level 60 when extra chr takes your base chr from 17 to 18)

edit: had con at 12 when it started at 14

[mrslayer]

My version would junk int and expertise. Have High Str, Hi Con, Decent Cha, everything else junk.. You need 2 skills (Disc and tumble) plus a bit of lore. If Human int 8 nets u 3-1 skills per lvl (boosted to 3 per lvl once you get the 1st rdd int boost). At a push you could be slow getting one of your 2 skills and go down to 6 int, and wait on the 2nd rdd into boost...... I prolly would not tho.
Id go something like this on stats
STR18+2
CON14
DEX 8+1
INT10-2
WIS8
CHA REST

[bort]

Different strokes for different folks!

edit: Thanks again for all the input guys, the suggestions on improving saves in particular look great.

[bort]

Going to redo this in the tester (when i have time) based on my favourite of the suggestions posted here.
Will be 9 Paladin 1 Bard 30 Rdd.
Might even throw in a load of save feats just to cheese it up

[bkelowna]

In that case:

I reworked that model to include 1 more bard at 20, that allows UMD to be increased enough to use scrolls (23 UMD + the Chr modifier). So 1 bard, 4 pally, 10 RDD, 4 Pally, 1 Bard and rest RDD.

[bort]

bkelowna said:

In that case:

I reworked that model to include 1 more bard at 20, that allows UMD to be increased enough to use scrolls (23 UMD + the Chr modifier). So 1 bard, 4 pally, 10 RDD, 4 Pally, 1 Bard and rest RDD.

Thanks Bkelowna, great idea - I've taken my favourite of the above ideas and reworked the build - thoughts please

If the hells demand it, you could even swap two Great Strengths for Epic Reflexes and Epic Will for +4 to those saves and -1 to AB.

I think I'll only be able to use level 7 scrolls at best with the 16 base cha the updated build will have @ 60:
Maxed CHA @ 60 will be 28(16+12)
-10 (10 is effectively a modifier of 0) = 18
/2 = 9
23+9
DC for UMD with scrolls is 25+spell level.

[bkelowna]

Cool, you can always equip an item with umd for those special circumstances, so you can use scrolls to 9.

I'd still chose int over wis for the build but that really only a personal choice, love those skills.

Cheers

[bort]

bkelowna said:

I'd still chose int over wis for the build but that really only a personal choice, love those skills.

Cheers

When you start a build with Paladin, the minimum WIS you can have is 11.

But, if you started with Bard, your only requirement is having 11 CHA and not being Lawful at character generation, which is no problem, and you can leave WIS at 8 or 10.
Progression would be 1Bard/8Paladin/10Rdd/1Bard.

If you go this route, the downside is having to change alignment (to be able to go Paladin at level 2) from Neutral or Chaotic to Lawful Good (and visa versa for Bard @ 20) Easy if you can persuade a friend to help you out for the first change.

[arielt]

Change starting stats to 17/11/14/8/10/14... Use one less Great STR feat and pick up Epic Will instead. You get +3 to Will saves.