Best class/multi-classes for your warrior?

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My thinking for a best warrior is a multi-classes of Lv(X) fighter/Lv1 barbarian/Lv1 ranger. He will have enough feats to learn all the useful ones and also have the barbarian rage(+4 to str and con is nice to me, when hp is low or when fighting big boss) and the two weapons skills of rangers
What's yours?
Btw, I don't care much for role-play for this topic, so feel free to put in your most power-gaming warrior/s here.

 

I'm sure people can do better, but my best "warrior" is a half-orc barbarian 1, sorcerer 19, fighter 10 (fighter levels taken only after L20; barbarian is taken immediately for proficiencies).

He is wielding a Great Axe +5 fight now, and he's essentially invincible for the most part of HoF mode and a good part of normal mode. With Stone Skin and the ability to renew it on onself and the ability to cast Blink and Haste, he seldom gets hit, takes little damage, and can dish out damage at a rate comparable to a normal tank. In HoF mode, he uses the 50/3 damage reduction of Iron Body to just sit in the middle of a gigantic mob and shrug off every attack while he attempts to cast a MFS with the 80% casting failure penalty. If MFS runs out, that's no problem. He switches back to the Great Axe instead of the crappy 1d6 fists and starts to do even greater damage (especially with 2 Tymora's Loop and Executioner's Eye).

[ December 03, 2003, 06:35: Message edited by: Hojo Jojo ]

 

Skywind, why are you even bothering with the ranger levels? The two-weapon and ambidexterity feats are only useful if your wearing light armor. IMO I think it's a waste of valuable levels which could be spent getting weapon specialisation and damage reduction much faster. Also is taking ranger levels not a drop in hit-die? If your going for a "warrior" through and through, then you want all the hit points you can get. Taking a ranger level will only get you 1-8hp per level wheraes taking another barbarian will get you 1-12.

 

Rangers get 1d10 hp at levelup in this game. It's the same as a fighter.

 

I agree with Razal'dar, you will not need the ambidexterity and two-weapon feats if you are going to wear heavier than light armor and (I think?) a light weapon in the off-hand.

I find that Fighter(4)/Rogue(10)/Barbarian(X). The Rogue levels are for the slippery mind feat, which can be a life savor. You may not get as much HP, but who needs that if you can not be hit as well by weapons and magic does not effect you or only does half damage it you fail your saving throws?

 

1. Dual-wielding isn't worth it. But one attack at crappy bonus.

2. There are no good magical armour suits, especially light ones. Dexterity doesn't give you nearly as much. And there are also shields.

Therefore, you're better off with an ironclad tank with a two-handed weapon or holy avenger and shield, if he has any paladin levels.

The barbarian/fighter/ranger build is only good for finessed fighters who fire arrows a lot and do some covert ops. Don't forget rogue levels for evasion and lots of skill points. Generally, you'd better start the game as a rogue in this case. Don't forget to take dash - with your barbarian movement rate increase, the guy will be quick like a rocket. I advised this built to my brother for a party rogue and he never complained. Contrary, it was probably his second favourite character after some drow fighter/rogue/wizard solo.

Renowned butchers include:

Paladin of Helm (x) / Fighter(4)

Weapon specialisation with holy avenger. Ironclad, holding a shield also. Either crappy WIS and no casting, so STR can be bigger, or he has a good wis and thus: casting of nice spells and good will saves. Another variant of untouchability is putting everything in CHA for saves.

Paladin of Helm (2-3) / Fighter (x)

Practically straight fighter with the ability to wield holy avenger and also resistant to fear and disease. Abysmal-high charisma for saves isn't a good idea, you're better off with putting it in CON instead (no spell increasing it), and buying saving throw feats if needed.

Fighter (4) / Barbarian (x)

Marginally lagging behind barbarian with the edge that organised military training gives him: weapon specialisation, two gratuitous feats, heavy armour allowance.

Battleguard of Tempus straight

Yes, this is a fulltime reverend. Yes, this is a butcher. How? He gets weapon specialisation in axe for free. Note: not even rangers, paladins or barbarians get this. Only fighters (4). And battleguards of Tempus. This also means acquisition of weapon focus in axe for free, for two feats total. Fighters get one feat more at the beginning only. Your HP will be slightly lower than that of a fighter - by 2HP per level. Your base attack bonus will be 3/4 of that of a fighter. But: you get the full assortment of cleric spells and several awesome domain spells.

Cleric spells give you abysmal increases to your combat-useful stats. First, bull's strength lasts for ages and grants you 2-5 STR. Second, draw upon holy might grants you +1 to physical stats for each three caster levels. Holy power is a net +4 to damage. Ironskins (cleric now) absorb your damage. Also, there's a whole lot of elemental protection spells and also ones that protect from specific kinds of weapons or damage. Several area damage spells won't harm either. Or healing spells. Or whole-party buffs. On higher levels, you'll have plenty of those spells and you should be able to rest before encounters and use them in every battle you fight. This guy rocks. In his own right, he's a slightly below average fighter, and with personal buff spells he's equivalent to a strong fighter build. Mind you, you also have a full-fledged cleric.

Races:

Human: for a bonus feat and a bonus skill point per level (useful if you have other classes than fighter or barbarian) and for favoured class being the highest level class

Half-elf: you loose a feat and +1SP/level, you get some slight advantage in exchange. As you like it.

Elf: for dex-based builds and specific favoured classes they have. I won't list them, the game has it in the menu.

Dwarf: you get more CON and take a DEX or CHA hit. Some slight bonuses of different nature.

Halfling: people might use them for fighters or barbarians, but well, I haven't thought much about it on my own.

Half-Orc: big STR, CHA and INT hit. Dwarves with their CON are better, also for stat point sum total.

Drow: people have played drow paladins even, so you might as well try. A different kind of power, I'd say. It's not going to be an uberbasher of the dumb but strong kind, for sure.

Svirfnebli: abysmal AC, ECL+3 doesn't hurt non-casters all that much. Single class fighters preferred, for ECL+3 is already much like multiclassing.

Aasimar: hehe, you wouldn't suppose? But it's +4 stat points net to distribute for the price of 1 level behind. 1 level behind is one BAB less, which is perfectly fixed by +2 STR. The remaining +2 can go to CON, for example. Several slight advantages - minor immunities, infravision, sun scorch (blinds the enemy). For these reasons Aasimar is good for any class, so long as you're single-classed or multiclassed evenly.

 

1. Actually, Battleguard of Tempus gets Weapon Focus in axe, not Weapon Specialization. It's still 2 more feats than the average cleric, but you don't get the +2 damage, and +1 to hit is pretty much useless. The proficiency is very useful, though.
2. Four levels of fighter gives 3 more feats. Fighters get a feat at L1 and a feat for every even level. Sick, isn't it?

 

@Razal'dar,
If I'm not wrong, the only disadvantage a ranger has against a fighter is that he/her gain lesse feats. Since I only go for 1 Lv of ranger which give me two feats, and a minor favorite enemy bonus, I think it's worthy. Although I will have to give him/her light armour, his/her high dex should be able to make up a little for that(lower AC than heavy armour, but higher dex save)
@chevalier,
Yeah, I agree(two-handed damages more than dual-wield). My barbarian/fighter/ranger will be have str=dex, since his off-hand wield a short sword and his main-hand wield a long sword. I'm guessing that my char will have enough str + barbarian rage for his better main-hand weapon and enough dex for his off-hand weapon and dex save. When Leveling up, I will also put in at least 2 points in wis, to increase his wis save(starts at 10).
So, I think this char should have good saves for dex and wis(normally low for warriors), 1 martial weapon and 1 small weapon should be-able to maximise his dual-wielding skills, the heroic inspiration(sp?) feat which pure fighter cannot have, so that the many feats of fighters are well applied. But he lack in AC which his dex will helps a little. Btw, your idea of battleguard is good too. Yeah, the races are important too, but I will hardly go for half-orcs, as they seems to lack some things(In BG2, half-orcs have bonus in con but not in IWD2). TO me, half-orcs will only do well at the start, but when against wizard, they are going to suffer more than any other races, as they have lesser stats than most of the race and not enough bonus(like the deep gnomes or gray dwarves) to cover up that lack.
Oh yeah, I did consider Aasimar too, and I agree too. They are good.

@back to all,
Do you think a deep gnome pure monk will be almost untouchable, given their high dodge+monk's AC and racial MR+ monk's MR and monk's high saves?

[ December 03, 2003, 09:31: Message edited by: Skywind ]

 

If you support said Deep Gnome monk with AC enhancing spells (see Jukka's UPP) and give him generic AC boosting equipment, then he'll be pretty much impossible to hit except with a roll of 20. If you don't support him with spells, a high level sorcerer with Mordekain's Sword will hit him every time.

 

An elf PC with levels spread evenly between Fighter and Rogue can be very deadly and effective for an average party.

 

The Deep Gnome monk does become untouchable however he levels up so slowly that you'll always be scared to put him on the front. His low HP, low BAB and the fact that he is small (i.e. less damage) doesn't make him that attractive. Woo! Nothing can touch him. Doesn't mean much if he can't hit stuff back.

 

Hey, the point of a decoy is to not die while the rest of the team destroys the enemy. Who cares if the monk does no damage whatsoever if there are, say, 5 sorcerers in the back hurling spells at the enemy?

 

@Skywind: If you must increase will save, you should rather take one of those feats, like Iron Will or Bull-headed. It's +2 and some skill check bonus. Or luck of heroes for a human for +1 to all saves.

 

@Skywind.

As Chevalier said there are no good magical light armor suits in the game so the Dexterity bonus isn't all that great. I agree with Chevalier, you're much better off in a 200lb lumb of metal and a shield.
As regards to the dual-wielding you said that you would have a small blade in the off-hand. I presume your taking the weapon-finesse feat yes? And if you're going to have a martial weapon in the main hand then theoretically the game will have to make two different attack roles with two different ability modifiers i.e strength when attacking with the main hand and dexterity when attacking with the off-hand. Will the game do this?
I'm not sure if it will but i've always thought that the rolls apply to both hands not individual hands.

 

So far as I know, the game should make different calculations for both weapons. However, if STR=DEX, then no point getting finesse. Also, a fighter with STR, DEX and CON to care about needs more points to spare and achieves less deadliness. I would therefore propose:

A. A strength-based two-handed fighter. Be it large sword, double axe or polearm. Since there's no shield, 12 DEX might even be a good idea. Just what a full plate allows you to profit from - any surplus is wasted. Late in the Hand, I found a mithral fullplate (IIRC) armour suit +10 AC allowing +2 DEX bonus, so maybe even 14 would be an option - making you also elligible for feats allowed only to 13+ DEX characters. Sure, why not.

However, dodge is crap. It's just one point of AC. Same to most other feats where DEX is relevant. Still, if you're a fighter, you have more feats than you can spend intelligently, so why bother.

I'd rather take power attack, cleave and weapon focus in your chosen two-handed weapon so soon as possible and specialisation in it the moment you turn level 4. Improved crits as the next priority (you need 8 BAB for it) and greater cleave (also 8 BAB) later. With 12 or 14 DEX, getting specialised in bows might even be fun.

B. Dexterity-based fighter. Since you're not going to wear heavy armour anyway, it's wiser to take ranger level 1 than to waste feats on ambidex and two-weapon. You would also use evasion and perhaps sneak attack damage, so rogue(2) is in order. Ultimately, barbarian (1-2) if just for the speed increase. Strength and only strength provides bonus to damage, so finesse isn't going to help you here. Your abysmal dex will only help you with to-hit bonus, AC and reflex throws. You may well be untouchable and hit often, but dealing small damage isn't good when fighting stoneskinned folks.

If you don't go for a flood of feats, I suggest you take ranger levels instead of fighter. The same BAB, but at least you'll get some skills. As Shura said, fighter/rogue might be deadly. Or perhaps fighter(4)/ranger/rogue where fighter is the favourite class (works for some races). Perhaps also fighter (4)/rogue (3-5) and the rest ranger, which will work for humans and half-elves. A tiefling or halfling, except ghostwise, is elligible for fighter(4)/ranger(3-5)/rogue(x), rogue being the favoured class. Ghostwise, however, has barbarian as its favoured class, so no matter how many levels you take, it won't count it and your other classes being within one level difference, you will avoid XP penalties.

For munchkins:

Fighter with benefits:
Fighter(x)/Rogue(2)/Barbarian(2)/Monk(3)/Ranger(2)

Kickass rogue:

Fighter(4)/Ranger(3)/Barbarian(3)/Monk(3)/Rogue(x)

Both should start as rogue to get more skill points than they deserve

[ December 10, 2003, 14:59: Message edited by: chevalier ]

 

I beg your pardon...

Chain of Drakkas:
No Armor Proficiency Required
Armor Bonus: +7
Max Dex Bonus: none
Armor Check Penalty: 0
Arcane Spell Failure: 0%

Chain of Drakkas Fury:
No Armor Proficiency Required
Armor Bonus: +8
Max Dex Bonus: none
Armor Check Penalty: 0
Arcane Spell Failure: 0%
Special: Attack Bonus +3, 1 extra attack/round

You don't even need light armor proficiency to use these.

Consider a heavy armor scenario for most of the game:
+8 armor from 1/4 weight plate
+1 dex bonus
+5 deflection bonus from ghost armor
+3 armor bonus from tower shield
You end up with over 60% casting failure for arcane spells, meaning this character can't be an arcane spellsword.

Now consider a magical armor scenario for most of the game:
+6 armor from spirit armor
+x dex bonus
+5 deflection bonus from ghost armor
+2 bonus from Footman's Folly
You need 6 more dex than the heavy armor character to match the heavy armor AC bonus. Considering that this character can be an arcane spellsword, and he might be able to use shield on himself, that's 4 more dex required.