Post by the1kobra on May 21, 2008 22:45:06 GMT
Odd class combination eh?
This build is my work at making a lifethreader with an open subrace. Before I begin, a lifethreader is a quasiclass that gains unique benefits through it's unusual class combonation. It has it's unique "lifethreading" ability, which allows it to eat up spellslots to harm your enemies and heal your allies, making a very nice front-lines role character.
Be sure to read up on this before you make this character to get familiar with the quasiclass.
www.hgwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Lifethreader
The wiki needs to be updated. For more accurate information, type "!doc quasi lt" in game.
The build below is a dexterity based lifethreader, which combines good survivability, strong offense, and healing, all in one package.
The class combonation is designed for maximum damage output, thats what the 20 WM levels are for. Ordinarily, 19 WM would be your natural cut-off point, but 20 enhances your quasiclass abilities
Here is Fuzzy T Kobold at 60, unbuffed.
Subrace: Humanoid-Kobold
The reason I choose kobold, other than the aesthetic value, is that one: it gives you the ability to take 2 feats at first level, and feats is something this character desperately needs. Two: it gives you a dexterity bonus without a wisdom penalty, and strength is something that you can afford to lose. Third: Kobolds are small, the sickle is your weapon of choice, and being small nets you a subtle +1 to AC and AB.
By 20: 16/4 Cleric/WeaponMaster
By 40: 20/20 Cleric/WeaponMaster
Benefits: -2 Str +2 Dex, Darkvision, +2 search, small size.
Keep in mind you need to have these prerequisites to become a lifethreader, done by level 31:
20 Levels of Cleric, 10 of Weaponmaster
25 Ranks of heal skill
Weapon of Choice: Sickle
Healing Domain, Death Domain.
Starting stats:
8/15/14/14/16/8 (base)
6/17/14/14/16/8 (kobold)
Now to start, you're probably going to be playing like a casting cleric, try to use your spells to the best of your ability, since you won't deal much damage to start with a strength of 6. Use spells wisely.
Below, Clc means Cleric
WM means Weapon Master
Feat selection:
Clc,1: Blooded, Dodge, Healing Domain, Death Domain.
Blooded is what is called an investment feat. It will allow you, for the cost of a feat in the legendary levels, to take tumble as if it were a class skill. This is very useful because it allows you to gain the full 12 AC from tumble rather than 6.
Dodge is a feat that will give you 1 AC against your current target, it is also required to become a weaponmaster.
Clc, 2:
Clc, 3: Expertise
Expertise is a mode feat. It will allow you to enter a stance that makes you lose 5 AB for 5 AC, making you harder to hurt at the expense of offense. You probably won't be using this too much, but it might help you stay alive. It is also required to become a weaponmaster.
Clc, 4: Wisdom + 1
Clc, 5:
Note: it might be a good idea to sink 4 points into intimidate now, it's needed for weaponmaster later and you don't want to forget about it.
Clc, 6: Weapon Focus Sickle
Weapon focus sickle gives you +1 AB when using a sickle. The sickle is an unusual weapon to use, but is required by the quasiclass and allows you to use your quasiclass threading. It is also required to become a weaponmaster.
Clc, 7:
Clc, 8: Wisdom + 1
Clc, 9: Mobility
Mobility is largely useful as a prerequisite for weaponmaster, but it will give you some AC when facing attacks of opportunity from running around.
Clc, 10:
Clc, 11:
Clc, 12: Wisdom + 1, Spring Attack
With this stat poured into wisdom, that should make your wisdom 19, which will allow you to use all levels of spells. You should now, with all subsequent stat points, use them to raise dexterity.
Spring attack is a feat that will allow you to ignore all attacks of opportunity that come your way from moving around. It is also a prerequisite for weaponmaster.
Clc, 13:
Clc, 14:
Clc, 15: Whirlwind attack.
Whirlwind attack, when used, makes you look like a drunken fool and does nothing, causes bugs, and prevents you from doing anything until you relog. Great feat eh? For some reason, it's required for weaponmaster, which is the only reason you're taking it.
WM, 16: Dexterity + 1
WM, 17:
WM, 18: Weapon Finesse
Weapon finesse is a feat that will allow you to use your dexterity modifier instead of your strength modifier when using certain weapons. This will give you a spike in your attack bonus, since you have a str of 6.
WM, 19:
Clc, 20: Dexterity + 1
Clc, 21: Blind Fight
Blind Fight is a feat that reduces the penalties of going blind, and helps when fighting concealed enemies, giving you a second chance to hit if you miss on concealment. It is reccomended you take this for any melee based character.
Clc, 22:
Clc, 23:
Clc, 24: Toughness, Dexterity + 1
Toughness is a feat that will give you 1 Hit point every level, there is going to be a lot of damage you cannot avoid, and since you will likely be in the middle of fights, you will want to take every chance to increase your survivability.
WM, 25:
WM, 26:
WM, 27: Improved Critical: Sickle
The sickle is the weapon you want to use, since it is required for your quasiclass abilities. This feat will enhance it's weapon threat range by two, meaning you deal more critical hits.
WM, 28: Dexterity + 1
WM, 29
WM, 30: Epic Skill Focus: Heal
Epic Skill Focus Heal gives you 10 to your healing skill. Your quasiclass benefits are all based off of your healing skill, so you want to be able to keep this high.
You are now a lifethreader, now life gets much easier for you.
WM, 31
WM, 32, Dexterity + 1
WM, 33: Armor Skin, Great Dexterity 1
Armor skin will give you 2 AC, it is reccomended for any melee based character
Great Dexterity feats increase your dexterity score. Every two dexterity increases your AB, AC, and dexterity based skills by one. You want this to be as high as possible for the enhanced defense.
WM, 34:
WM, 35:
WM, 36: Epic Weapon Focus: Sickle, Great Dexterity 2
Epic weapon focus gives you 2 AB when using a sickle, meaning you get to hit things far more often.
WM, 37:
WM, 38:
WM, 39: Epic Prowess, Great Fortitude
Epic prowess gives you 1 AB, so it's nice for that extra edge in hitting power.
Great Fortitude will give you a +2 to your fortitude, enhancing resistance to poison, disease, and instant death.
WM, 40: Remember to max out your discipline this level, it is not a cleric class skill so you cannot raise it after this level.
Legendary levels
Spend dexterity on all available points.
Feat selection:
42: LSA tumble
LSA tumble is a feat that allows you to take tumble as a class skill. Remember blooded? That allows you to take this. Starting with your next level, you can dump points into tumble for 9 more AC.
45: Epic Skill Focus: Discipline
Discipline is a skill that helps you resist all kinds of nasty special attacks. Such attacks will disarm you, destroy your gear, knock you down, and more. None of it is fun stuff to have happen, and makes you stop your threading.
48: Iron Will
Iron will gives you a +2 to your will save. Many will checks in this game are not protected by gear, so you will want to keep this high.
51: Legendary Will
This feat will give you another +7 to your will save, making you much harder to harm with mind affecting and other attacks.
54: Legendary Fortitude
This feat will give you a +7 to your fortitude save, which will make you more resistant to poison, disease, and instant death.
57: Legendary Weapon Focus
This feat will give you a +3 to your attack bonus, very nice for that extra hitting power.
60: Legendary Skill Focus: Heal
The power of your threading is based on your healing skill. This feat will add +20 to your healing, making your threading heal and harm more. The +20 it gives is contained within the +50 engine cap, but it is still very useful to have. This will make hitting 127 heal much easier.
Skills:
Cleric and weaponmaster both give 2 pts per level + intelligence, you get 2 more per level from that and another 1 per level from being base human. You get:
5(63)=315 skillpoints.
use this on:
63 Heal:
Heal is crucial for your lifethreading abilities, keep this maximized at all times.
4(8 points spent crossclass) Intimidate
Required to become a weaponmaster, but has no other use.
60 Tumble
60 points in tumble will give you 12 AC, which is useful for staying alive. There is no reason to take more than 60 points in tumble. If you're not sure how much AC you're getting from tumble, use !list ac
43 Discipline
Discipline is a skill that helps you resist being disarmed, knocked down, having your gear destroyed, and more. Being resistant to this is crucial. Sadly, you only can get 43 points here, as cleric does not have this as a class skill. Max this out at level 40.
63 Parry
Parry will give you partial critical hit immunity, it gives crit immunity equal to (parry - 20) / 2, capping at 50% at 120. It is very nice since you get no other protection from critical hits in this build, other than high AC.
63 Craft Armor
every 40 points in craft armor will give you 1 AC, modifiers are included in this calculation so having boosts like bard song and prayer may have this skill give you 2 AC.
15 Craft Weapon
Like craft armor, but with offense, this will help you have that little edge in hitting power.
HP calculation:
40(8, cleric levels)+20(10, WEaponMaster Levels)+60(2, Constitution)+60(toughness)+240(gear)=940
AB calculation:
16(base attack pre epic)+10(epic)+12(legendary)+7(weapon foci)+5(weaponmaster bonus)+19(dexterity)+1(midget)+0-20(enhancement)=70-90
Enhancement is given a range and not a solid number because if may vary on your weapon, boosts like bard song, prayer, and greater magic weapon, and more. You can use divine power(fourth level spell) to raise this to 20, but remember that spells cast means spells lost when threading.
AC calculation: I decided to leave this out since this is highly gear dependant. However, you should be fine if you simply use light armor with base AC 3 and a shield. Light armor, in this module, has an AC+max dex of 22, so you get your full dexterity in light armor.
Here are some things to keep in mind when playing. Some of these strategy tips are taken from other Lifethreader builds, I will use citations where needed.
Try to fit in as much casting gear as possible, the more spellslots you have, the more threading you can do.
Your dexterity will not be high enough to take advantage of robes, get a good suit of light armor and you'll be fine.
Try not to overbuff, every spell you cast means one less shot of threading, my character rarely buffs, preferring to use all slots for fueling his threading.
Even with lots of caster gear, you'll still be turning threading on and off constantly to conserve spells. I turn it off ASAP at the end of each fight, and turn it on only right before spawning or right as the mobs arrive at the party. (Light weight threader, Yomi)
You have no conceal. Get Displacement from a bard or mage whenever possible. (Light weight threader, Yomi)
Positioning is important. You'd like to be in the center of the enemy group to hit as many things as possible. You also would like to hit as many of your party members with the healing as possible, especially the front lines. You'd also like to focus your sickle damage on whatever is most in need of going down quickly. This may mean some manual maneuvering around the fight.(Light weight threader, Yomi)
Don't forget you have a good AB and 20 WM levels. There's no way your sickle damage will keep up with the big guns, but you'll probably beat some of the other dexers. Don't just stand around -- hit stuff! This does extra damage as well as keep you from being flatfooted. [Some threaders seem to want to just stand around](Light Weight Threader, Yomi)
This build is my work at making a lifethreader with an open subrace. Before I begin, a lifethreader is a quasiclass that gains unique benefits through it's unusual class combonation. It has it's unique "lifethreading" ability, which allows it to eat up spellslots to harm your enemies and heal your allies, making a very nice front-lines role character.
Be sure to read up on this before you make this character to get familiar with the quasiclass.
www.hgwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Lifethreader
The wiki needs to be updated. For more accurate information, type "!doc quasi lt" in game.
The build below is a dexterity based lifethreader, which combines good survivability, strong offense, and healing, all in one package.
The class combonation is designed for maximum damage output, thats what the 20 WM levels are for. Ordinarily, 19 WM would be your natural cut-off point, but 20 enhances your quasiclass abilities
Here is Fuzzy T Kobold at 60, unbuffed.
Subrace: Humanoid-Kobold
The reason I choose kobold, other than the aesthetic value, is that one: it gives you the ability to take 2 feats at first level, and feats is something this character desperately needs. Two: it gives you a dexterity bonus without a wisdom penalty, and strength is something that you can afford to lose. Third: Kobolds are small, the sickle is your weapon of choice, and being small nets you a subtle +1 to AC and AB.
By 20: 16/4 Cleric/WeaponMaster
By 40: 20/20 Cleric/WeaponMaster
Benefits: -2 Str +2 Dex, Darkvision, +2 search, small size.
Keep in mind you need to have these prerequisites to become a lifethreader, done by level 31:
20 Levels of Cleric, 10 of Weaponmaster
25 Ranks of heal skill
Weapon of Choice: Sickle
Healing Domain, Death Domain.
Starting stats:
8/15/14/14/16/8 (base)
6/17/14/14/16/8 (kobold)
Now to start, you're probably going to be playing like a casting cleric, try to use your spells to the best of your ability, since you won't deal much damage to start with a strength of 6. Use spells wisely.
Below, Clc means Cleric
WM means Weapon Master
Feat selection:
Clc,1: Blooded, Dodge, Healing Domain, Death Domain.
Blooded is what is called an investment feat. It will allow you, for the cost of a feat in the legendary levels, to take tumble as if it were a class skill. This is very useful because it allows you to gain the full 12 AC from tumble rather than 6.
Dodge is a feat that will give you 1 AC against your current target, it is also required to become a weaponmaster.
Clc, 2:
Clc, 3: Expertise
Expertise is a mode feat. It will allow you to enter a stance that makes you lose 5 AB for 5 AC, making you harder to hurt at the expense of offense. You probably won't be using this too much, but it might help you stay alive. It is also required to become a weaponmaster.
Clc, 4: Wisdom + 1
Clc, 5:
Note: it might be a good idea to sink 4 points into intimidate now, it's needed for weaponmaster later and you don't want to forget about it.
Clc, 6: Weapon Focus Sickle
Weapon focus sickle gives you +1 AB when using a sickle. The sickle is an unusual weapon to use, but is required by the quasiclass and allows you to use your quasiclass threading. It is also required to become a weaponmaster.
Clc, 7:
Clc, 8: Wisdom + 1
Clc, 9: Mobility
Mobility is largely useful as a prerequisite for weaponmaster, but it will give you some AC when facing attacks of opportunity from running around.
Clc, 10:
Clc, 11:
Clc, 12: Wisdom + 1, Spring Attack
With this stat poured into wisdom, that should make your wisdom 19, which will allow you to use all levels of spells. You should now, with all subsequent stat points, use them to raise dexterity.
Spring attack is a feat that will allow you to ignore all attacks of opportunity that come your way from moving around. It is also a prerequisite for weaponmaster.
Clc, 13:
Clc, 14:
Clc, 15: Whirlwind attack.
Whirlwind attack, when used, makes you look like a drunken fool and does nothing, causes bugs, and prevents you from doing anything until you relog. Great feat eh? For some reason, it's required for weaponmaster, which is the only reason you're taking it.
WM, 16: Dexterity + 1
WM, 17:
WM, 18: Weapon Finesse
Weapon finesse is a feat that will allow you to use your dexterity modifier instead of your strength modifier when using certain weapons. This will give you a spike in your attack bonus, since you have a str of 6.
WM, 19:
Clc, 20: Dexterity + 1
Clc, 21: Blind Fight
Blind Fight is a feat that reduces the penalties of going blind, and helps when fighting concealed enemies, giving you a second chance to hit if you miss on concealment. It is reccomended you take this for any melee based character.
Clc, 22:
Clc, 23:
Clc, 24: Toughness, Dexterity + 1
Toughness is a feat that will give you 1 Hit point every level, there is going to be a lot of damage you cannot avoid, and since you will likely be in the middle of fights, you will want to take every chance to increase your survivability.
WM, 25:
WM, 26:
WM, 27: Improved Critical: Sickle
The sickle is the weapon you want to use, since it is required for your quasiclass abilities. This feat will enhance it's weapon threat range by two, meaning you deal more critical hits.
WM, 28: Dexterity + 1
WM, 29
WM, 30: Epic Skill Focus: Heal
Epic Skill Focus Heal gives you 10 to your healing skill. Your quasiclass benefits are all based off of your healing skill, so you want to be able to keep this high.
You are now a lifethreader, now life gets much easier for you.
WM, 31
WM, 32, Dexterity + 1
WM, 33: Armor Skin, Great Dexterity 1
Armor skin will give you 2 AC, it is reccomended for any melee based character
Great Dexterity feats increase your dexterity score. Every two dexterity increases your AB, AC, and dexterity based skills by one. You want this to be as high as possible for the enhanced defense.
WM, 34:
WM, 35:
WM, 36: Epic Weapon Focus: Sickle, Great Dexterity 2
Epic weapon focus gives you 2 AB when using a sickle, meaning you get to hit things far more often.
WM, 37:
WM, 38:
WM, 39: Epic Prowess, Great Fortitude
Epic prowess gives you 1 AB, so it's nice for that extra edge in hitting power.
Great Fortitude will give you a +2 to your fortitude, enhancing resistance to poison, disease, and instant death.
WM, 40: Remember to max out your discipline this level, it is not a cleric class skill so you cannot raise it after this level.
Legendary levels
Spend dexterity on all available points.
Feat selection:
42: LSA tumble
LSA tumble is a feat that allows you to take tumble as a class skill. Remember blooded? That allows you to take this. Starting with your next level, you can dump points into tumble for 9 more AC.
45: Epic Skill Focus: Discipline
Discipline is a skill that helps you resist all kinds of nasty special attacks. Such attacks will disarm you, destroy your gear, knock you down, and more. None of it is fun stuff to have happen, and makes you stop your threading.
48: Iron Will
Iron will gives you a +2 to your will save. Many will checks in this game are not protected by gear, so you will want to keep this high.
51: Legendary Will
This feat will give you another +7 to your will save, making you much harder to harm with mind affecting and other attacks.
54: Legendary Fortitude
This feat will give you a +7 to your fortitude save, which will make you more resistant to poison, disease, and instant death.
57: Legendary Weapon Focus
This feat will give you a +3 to your attack bonus, very nice for that extra hitting power.
60: Legendary Skill Focus: Heal
The power of your threading is based on your healing skill. This feat will add +20 to your healing, making your threading heal and harm more. The +20 it gives is contained within the +50 engine cap, but it is still very useful to have. This will make hitting 127 heal much easier.
Skills:
Cleric and weaponmaster both give 2 pts per level + intelligence, you get 2 more per level from that and another 1 per level from being base human. You get:
5(63)=315 skillpoints.
use this on:
63 Heal:
Heal is crucial for your lifethreading abilities, keep this maximized at all times.
4(8 points spent crossclass) Intimidate
Required to become a weaponmaster, but has no other use.
60 Tumble
60 points in tumble will give you 12 AC, which is useful for staying alive. There is no reason to take more than 60 points in tumble. If you're not sure how much AC you're getting from tumble, use !list ac
43 Discipline
Discipline is a skill that helps you resist being disarmed, knocked down, having your gear destroyed, and more. Being resistant to this is crucial. Sadly, you only can get 43 points here, as cleric does not have this as a class skill. Max this out at level 40.
63 Parry
Parry will give you partial critical hit immunity, it gives crit immunity equal to (parry - 20) / 2, capping at 50% at 120. It is very nice since you get no other protection from critical hits in this build, other than high AC.
63 Craft Armor
every 40 points in craft armor will give you 1 AC, modifiers are included in this calculation so having boosts like bard song and prayer may have this skill give you 2 AC.
15 Craft Weapon
Like craft armor, but with offense, this will help you have that little edge in hitting power.
HP calculation:
40(8, cleric levels)+20(10, WEaponMaster Levels)+60(2, Constitution)+60(toughness)+240(gear)=940
AB calculation:
16(base attack pre epic)+10(epic)+12(legendary)+7(weapon foci)+5(weaponmaster bonus)+19(dexterity)+1(midget)+0-20(enhancement)=70-90
Enhancement is given a range and not a solid number because if may vary on your weapon, boosts like bard song, prayer, and greater magic weapon, and more. You can use divine power(fourth level spell) to raise this to 20, but remember that spells cast means spells lost when threading.
AC calculation: I decided to leave this out since this is highly gear dependant. However, you should be fine if you simply use light armor with base AC 3 and a shield. Light armor, in this module, has an AC+max dex of 22, so you get your full dexterity in light armor.
Here are some things to keep in mind when playing. Some of these strategy tips are taken from other Lifethreader builds, I will use citations where needed.
Try to fit in as much casting gear as possible, the more spellslots you have, the more threading you can do.
Your dexterity will not be high enough to take advantage of robes, get a good suit of light armor and you'll be fine.
Try not to overbuff, every spell you cast means one less shot of threading, my character rarely buffs, preferring to use all slots for fueling his threading.
Even with lots of caster gear, you'll still be turning threading on and off constantly to conserve spells. I turn it off ASAP at the end of each fight, and turn it on only right before spawning or right as the mobs arrive at the party. (Light weight threader, Yomi)
You have no conceal. Get Displacement from a bard or mage whenever possible. (Light weight threader, Yomi)
Positioning is important. You'd like to be in the center of the enemy group to hit as many things as possible. You also would like to hit as many of your party members with the healing as possible, especially the front lines. You'd also like to focus your sickle damage on whatever is most in need of going down quickly. This may mean some manual maneuvering around the fight.(Light weight threader, Yomi)
Don't forget you have a good AB and 20 WM levels. There's no way your sickle damage will keep up with the big guns, but you'll probably beat some of the other dexers. Don't just stand around -- hit stuff! This does extra damage as well as keep you from being flatfooted. [Some threaders seem to want to just stand around](Light Weight Threader, Yomi)