When do (or should) I take fighter mix-in levels for a DG barbarian?

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I'm currently doing a party with a mix of races. I found that my tanks seem to be the ones getting hit with magic most of the time, and that it's more important for my spell casters to be of higher levels than the tanks, so I've chosen the two ECL races for them. I went with a Deep Gnome Barbaian as I haven't played them much, and because I thought it was funny, a Drow Paladin.


Due to the non-favored class penality, I'm suddenly having second thoughts on if I should take 4 levels of fighter as a mix-in at all. So, my question to the powergamers is when should I have the two characters take fighter level mix-ins to get weapon specialization. I've just finished the ice temple, and the svirfneblin is ready to level up from level 9.

The rest of the party consists of a Druid, a Wizard, a Cleric, and a Bard. I'm also undecided when I should have the bard take sorcerer levels, if at all. I just got War Chant of the Sith, which is what I was procrastinating that decision for.

 

I'd recommend leaving your characters pure. The bard will have longer-lasting and more powerful spells if you continue to advance him.
Your barbarian and paladin will be better off without the XP penalty, and especially your barbarian will gain high-level abilities sooner by staying pure. On the other hand, if your frontliners' advancement is stunted by their XP penalty, then eventually your casters in the back could benefit from this by getting a level higher. But in total party levels, XP penalties are always detrimental: the growth-stunted character always loses more than the others gain from this.

 

I agree with coineineagh. Keep the barbarian pure unless you want her to level more slowly. Barbarians get +1 damage reduction at level 11 and every 3 levels thereafter, 1-2 damage reduction (applies both to physical and elemental damage) helps more than the weapon specialisation bonus.

For the drow paladin the only benefit from more paladin levels is better smite evil and lay on hands, spellcasting is useless. An option is taking the fighter levels after 10 paladin levels, so getting the third attack per round (BAB 11) isn't delayed. But it won't hurt if you keep this character pure either.

I'd keep the bard pure. High level bard spells are more useful than low level sorcerer spells.

If your barbarian and paladin are the only characters with ECL penalties, the other party members won't benefit from their even slower levelling if they take an additional 20 percent penalty.

 

IMO taking 4 Fighter levels is not such a good move unless you really need them for feats (but why would you? Weapon Specialization is overrated) and since with these characters you can't avoid XP penalty they're certainly not worth the trouble. A fulltime Barbarian will have better class abilities without those few Fighter levels.

I'd keep the Bard pure as well for the same reasons listed above by Coin and Kmonster.

 

I'm with the others here. 4 fighter levels gets you Weapon Specialization (+1 dmg, woo!) and the option to spend a ton of feats to get... another feat! Maximized Attack is pretty powerful, but I don't think it's worth gimping your Barbarian or Paladin for.

 

I've used a Drow Paladin(X)/Wizard(3) in the past, just for Mirror Image. His stats were not the most powergaming of builds, but he certainly held his own. The fighter levels are too much of a detriment for the Drow Pally.

Str - 16
Dex - 10
Con - 14
Int - 12
Wis - 12
Cha - 16

For the Deep Gnome Barbarian, I have tried this one as well. I also used 3 levels of Illusionist as a mix-in, again for the Mirror Image. Again, the fighter levels are just a negative for this character. His stats were the following.

Str - 16
Dex - 14
Con - 18
Int - 12
Wis - 8
Cha - 4

Note I never play HoF, so I can't say these builds are useful or optimal at higher levels.

 

Taking 4 fighter levels for weapon specialization sounds like optimizing for performance at the expense of operational efficiency--sure you get +2 damage for your frontliners (what is that, a 15% boost? Boost to total party output of 2%?) but you'll lose out on BAB for the rest of the game because of the XP drag while you're getting UP to Fighter 4 (unless you squat), and at every Barbarian level thereafter. It does let you get every erg of possible damage out of your barbarian--but if you'd really been going for damage you'd already be a cleric anyway. If I were going to take 4 levels of mixin on a DG barbarian they'd be illusionist levels for (Minor) Mirror Image, to enhance tanking ability and/or survive own-party nukes like Horrid Wilting.

-Max

 

Since neither your pally nor your barbarian can take the fighter levels without EXP penalty, that's a big no-no. I'm not sure I'd do that even if you could avoid it -- the paladin gets at least a few more spells (buffs > all towards the end) while the barbarian gets more resistances, which kinda are the point of being a barbarian.

However...

Well, it depends. Since average level is all that really counts, anyone's lost level is compensated by granting a level to someone else in the party by the dynamic exp calculation. No, it doesn't work in 1:1 manner nor instantaneously, but the effect is there.

 

It doesn't work this way exactly. Only the rounded down average level counts, for the combat XP it doesn't matter if the average party level is 10 or 10.9 for example.
So assuming the XP are divided equally among the party members during the game, the 4 humans in a party with 4 humans, a drow and a deep gnome won't level faster if the drow and the deep gnome get an XP penalty unless it's so high that they're at least 3+4 levels behind the humans.