Weapon Master build

[magnate]

Archived from groups: alt.games.neverwinter-nights (More info?)

Hi folks,

I'm building a standard Human Fighter/Weapon Master. I took feats as
follows:

1st - Weapon Proficiency (exotic)
Weapon Focus (two-bladed sword)
Two-weapon Fighting

2nd - Dodge

3rd - Mobility

4th - Spring Attack

At 6th I will take Expertise and Whirlwind, allowing me to start as a
WM at 7th. I'll get new feats at 9th and 12th, and I'm pretty certain
they should be Ambidexterity and Improved Critical, but which would you
take at 9th and which would you leave until 12th?
Interested in your views,

CC

 

[magnate]

Archived from groups: alt.games.neverwinter-nights (More info?)

Barry Scott Will wrote:

> Well, since you should have taken Amb at *1st* level, I'd say take it

> next (at 9th). You've been fighting at -2 primary and -6 off hand
attack
> bonuses all this time, when you could have been at -2/-2.

Er, yeah, thanks. The aim of this build was to start as a WM as early
as possible. If I had taken Amb early I would have had to delay one of
the other feats. Six of them are required to become a WM, so delaying
any would have delayed starting as a WM by two levels. The other two
are Exotic Weapons and Two-Weapon Fighting. Replacing Exotic Weapons
with Amb was not an option if I wanted Weapon Focus: Two-Bladed Sword.
Replacing TWF with Amb would mean I'd have my off-hand better by +2 but
my primary attack worse by 2, so I'd rather have the primary attack
better.

CC

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.neverwinter-nights (More info?)

magnate wrote:
> I'll get new feats at 9th and 12th, and I'm pretty certain
> they should be Ambidexterity and Improved Critical, but which would you
> take at 9th and which would you leave until 12th?


Well, since you should have taken Amb at *1st* level, I'd say take it
next (at 9th). You've been fighting at -2 primary and -6 off hand attack
bonuses all this time, when you could have been at -2/-2.
--
Barry Scott Will
Pyric RPG Publications
http://www.pyric.com/

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.neverwinter-nights (More info?)

magnate wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> I'm building a standard Human Fighter/Weapon Master. I took feats as
> follows:
>
> 1st - Weapon Proficiency (exotic)
> Weapon Focus (two-bladed sword)
> Two-weapon Fighting
>
> 2nd - Dodge
>
> 3rd - Mobility
>
> 4th - Spring Attack
>
> At 6th I will take Expertise and Whirlwind, allowing me to start as a
> WM at 7th. I'll get new feats at 9th and 12th, and I'm pretty certain
> they should be Ambidexterity and Improved Critical, but which would
> you take at 9th and which would you leave until 12th?
> Interested in your views,
>
> CC

I would probably take ambidexterity before improved criticals - there's no
point in doing a lot of damage if all you hit is air

Devast8or

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.neverwinter-nights (More info?)

Devast8or wrote:
> magnate wrote:
>
>>Hi folks,
>>
>>I'm building a standard Human Fighter/Weapon Master. I took feats as
>>follows:
>>
>>1st - Weapon Proficiency (exotic)
>>Weapon Focus (two-bladed sword)
>>Two-weapon Fighting
>>
>>2nd - Dodge
>>
>>3rd - Mobility
>>
>>4th - Spring Attack
>>
>>At 6th I will take Expertise and Whirlwind, allowing me to start as a
>>WM at 7th. I'll get new feats at 9th and 12th, and I'm pretty certain
>>they should be Ambidexterity and Improved Critical, but which would
>>you take at 9th and which would you leave until 12th?
>>Interested in your views,
>>
>>CC
>
>
> I would probably take ambidexterity before improved criticals - there's no
> point in doing a lot of damage if all you hit is air
>
> Devast8or
>
>
Hitting an Air Elemental then? :-D

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.neverwinter-nights (More info?)

"magnate" <chrisc@dbass.demon.co.uk> wrote in
news:1106048877.223604.251880@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com:

> Hi folks,
>
> I'm building a standard Human Fighter/Weapon Master. I took feats
> as follows:
>
> 1st - Weapon Proficiency (exotic)
> Weapon Focus (two-bladed sword)
> Two-weapon Fighting
>
> 2nd - Dodge
>
> 3rd - Mobility
>
> 4th - Spring Attack
>
> At 6th I will take Expertise and Whirlwind, allowing me to start
> as a WM at 7th. I'll get new feats at 9th and 12th, and I'm pretty
> certain they should be Ambidexterity and Improved Critical, but
> which would you take at 9th and which would you leave until 12th?
> Interested in your views,

This is an aside to the discussion of how to build a WM. The question
is: should you? I too thought the class looked super-cool when I
first got HOU. But on further study and without playing the class, it
seems to not be quite the deal I thought it was.

I won't do an exhaustive comparison, but here are my thoughts:
You can't possibly get to L1 WM until you've got 6 levels of other
classes (mostly fighter for all the required feats). And as far as I
can tell, you get no real benefits until you make level 5 WM, then
again at L7. In other words, you need to be character level 11 to see
any imrovement.

The loss of feats is tremendous. Dodge is useful, but expertise is
generally not for fighter types (spell casters yes). If you are moving
all over in combat, maybe mobility and spring attack are useful, but I
seem to just wade straight in with my fighters and my high AC does the
job. And how useful is whirlwind? Unless you have four attackers
around you, you are better off with your normal three attacks, right?
So you get Dodge, Weapon Focus, and have your choice of two (three if
human) other feats by 11th level. Meanwhile, a straight fighter gets
Dodge, WF, and eight (nine if human) other feats. You give up six
feats to get +1 to hit and an extra critical multiplier. You give up a
seventh feat to get the extra +2 to the threat range. But the worst
thing is the complete dependence on critical hits for the improvement
for the class. It's great if you don't fight critical immune
opponents, but if you do you are just a poor fighter. And so many of
the tougher opponents are immune to criticals.

Would you rather have Power Attack, Cleave, Great Cleave, Toughness,
Weapon Specialization, and Exotic Weapons, or +1 to hit and +1X to the
multiplier.

Lastly, the benefits only work if you have a good weapon. That's not a
bad deal in HOU, where, especially if you are on your second go-round,
you can pick a great weapon you know you'll find, or know you'll just
"build your own" when you get to the Underdark. If you are in another
campaign, you are at the mercy of the designer. Roleplaying a dwarven
WM with a Dwarven Waraxe might seem cool, but I'd guess that most
modules won't have a magical one available for your character.

I'm not saying you have to powergame every decision, but I just don't
see how the WM is any more interesting than a single-weapon-dedicated
fighter, which has a lot more flexibility (one of the things I enjoy in
play).
--
John Viveiros
xxjjv4xx@prodigy.net
remove the x's to reply

 

[magnate]

Archived from groups: alt.games.neverwinter-nights (More info?)

John Viveiros wrote:

> This is an aside to the discussion of how to build a WM. The
question
> is: should you? I too thought the class looked super-cool when I
> first got HOU. But on further study and without playing the class,
it
> seems to not be quite the deal I thought it was.

[snip]

I have to say, I'm tempted to agree with you. The WM seems very weak by
comparison with the rest of the prestige classes - absolute zero gain
between 7th and 13th levels, and then only +1 per three levels with the
chosen weapon. It really needs some added damage to make it worth
taking over a pure fighter - access to specialisation wouldn't hurt,
especially since the WM gets only 2/3 as many epic feats.

I'm just trying it for the maximised critical range - never tried it
before and I like the idea of a 13-20 critical with each end of a
two-bladed sword by level 13.

Just comparing NWN with what I know of PnP (1st Ed only) and BG1/2 (2nd
Ed), there are some startling differences. The huge number of extra
feats available to Fighters make them vastly more attractive than in
1st or 2nd Ed, and the difficulty of NWN is astounding relative to BG.
The Gang Leader who has the prison key - one of the first boss monsters
you take on if you follow the plot obviously (leave Aribeth, speak to
Bethany, head into Peninsula etc.), has over 135hp! There isn't a
single monster in BG1 with that many!! I hate to think how bad it's
going to get later - an no I haven't moved the difficulty slider from
the default Normal setting.

Now we really have digressed ...

CC

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.neverwinter-nights (More info?)

magnate wrote:

> single monster in BG1 with that many!! I hate to think how bad it's
> going to get later - an no I haven't moved the difficulty slider from
> the default Normal setting.
>
> Now we really have digressed ...

I actually found the difficulty level to be just right (Normal), and I
played a mage, so it was by no means a quick start for me. Of course, as
a mage I had access to a familiar and a summoned creature, so that
helped a lot with melee while I stood back. But even the bigger fights
were satisfying, IMO.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.neverwinter-nights (More info?)

John V said:
> And how useful is whirlwind? Unless you have four attackers
> around you, you are better off with your normal three attacks, right?


Even if you have four attackers around you, it's normally better to
concentrate on one foe and take him down quickly, than to spread out
your damage over four (or more) foes.

On the other hand, the graphic for the spinning and whirling for
Whirlwind Attack is cool to watch.

 

[KAOS]

Archived from groups: alt.games.neverwinter-nights (More info?)

On 20 Jan 2005 05:46:38 -0800, alordofchaos@yahoo.com dared speak in
front of ME:

>John V said:
>> And how useful is whirlwind? Unless you have four attackers
>> around you, you are better off with your normal three attacks, right?
>
>Even if you have four attackers around you, it's normally better to
>concentrate on one foe and take him down quickly, than to spread out
>your damage over four (or more) foes.

Whirlwind is good for when some of those multiple opponents will fall
just as fast to one attack as to a full attack; clearing out 3 of the
chumps so you can focus on the tough guy without distraction is useful
- at least in the P&P d20.

I haven't tested in NWN yet, though. Nor have I seen how it interacts
with Cleave. Hopefully it doesn't do the 'bag of rats' effect...

--
Address no longer works.
try removing all numbers from
gafgirl1@2allstream3.net

 

[finn]

Archived from groups: alt.games.neverwinter-nights (More info?)

alordofchaos@yahoo.com wrote:
> John V said:
>
>>And how useful is whirlwind? Unless you have four attackers
>>around you, you are better off with your normal three attacks, right?
>
>
>
> Even if you have four attackers around you, it's normally better to
> concentrate on one foe and take him down quickly, than to spread out
> your damage over four (or more) foes.
>
> On the other hand, the graphic for the spinning and whirling for
> Whirlwind Attack is cool to watch.
>

Whirlwind is fantastic when used with devastating critical on opponents
who are not immune to crit, especially if using a high threat range
weapon. But only when you are surround by several opponents. This will
bring down several foes quickly. After that it's pretty much useless,
even if u have 4 or 5 opponents dev crit will take them down fast and
you can make good use of cleave feats that way. It's been my experience
that for the most part dev crit and great cleave is a more effective
than whirlwind attack. My 2 cents.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.neverwinter-nights (More info?)

Finn wrote:

> Whirlwind is fantastic when used with devastating critical on opponents
> who are not immune to crit, especially if using a high threat range
> weapon. But only when you are surround by several opponents. This will
> bring down several foes quickly. After that it's pretty much useless,
> even if u have 4 or 5 opponents dev crit will take them down fast and
> you can make good use of cleave feats that way. It's been my experience
> that for the most part dev crit and great cleave is a more effective
> than whirlwind attack. My 2 cents.

I would certainly hope Devastating Critical would be more effective than
just about any non-Epic feat.

It's not like anyone would ever be in a position to make a serious
choice between them, though.

 

[finn]

Archived from groups: alt.games.neverwinter-nights (More info?)

Kish wrote:
> Finn wrote:
>
>> Whirlwind is fantastic when used with devastating critical on
>> opponents who are not immune to crit, especially if using a high
>> threat range weapon. But only when you are surround by several
>> opponents. This will bring down several foes quickly. After that it's
>> pretty much useless, even if u have 4 or 5 opponents dev crit will
>> take them down fast and you can make good use of cleave feats that
>> way. It's been my experience that for the most part dev crit and
>> great cleave is a more effective than whirlwind attack. My 2 cents.
>
>
> I would certainly hope Devastating Critical would be more effective than
> just about any non-Epic feat.
>
> It's not like anyone would ever be in a position to make a serious
> choice between them, though.

Just pointing out that that's about the only time whirlwind is useful.
Sorry if I didn't make my point clear. lol