What is the best build for a melee character

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Several questions arise when discussing melee characters.

1. Is it more important to deal out damage or to be able to take lots of damage (the classical "Tank").

2. If the most important thing is to deal out damage what is more important?
2a. Each hit deals lots of damage (example: 2H weapons).
2b. Each hit deals less damage but hits are more frequent (example: Dual wielding).

3. Will trading BAB for spellpower (example: Fighter/Wizard) make a better melee character and if so, when?

4. Will trading BAB for other abilities (example: Evasion from Monk) make a better melee character and if so, when?

5. What do you think is the best melee oriented character in normal mode and in HoF mode?

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Here's a first character to sink your teeth into:

Half-Elf Fighter-4/Paladin
Str 18, Dex 11, Con 16, Int 3, Wis 10, Cha 18

- Avoiding ECL races which means a higher BAB.
- Half-Elf is like a Human but with a few extra benefits.
- Fighter gives access to several important Feats.
- Paladin for the rest of the levels because a plain fighter provides absolutely no benefit to make it worth taking Fighter levels instead of Paladin levels.
- Dexterity 11 for the potion which gives you 2 Wisdom in exchange for 1 Dexterity (--> Dex 10, Wis 12).
- Constitution could have been 18 (instead of 16) netting you another HP/level, but the trade-off for lowering another stat is not worth it IMO.

Level - Feat:
1 - Power Attack
1 - WF: Great Sword
2 - WF: Flail
3 - Cleave
4 - WS: Great Sword
6 - WS: Flail
9 - Improved Critical
12 - Maximized Attacks
15 - Greater Cleave
18 - Dash

A typical competitor to this build would be to make the race Aasimar instead of Half-Elf.
This would result in one lower BAB due to the ECL+1 in exchange for +4 stat points making this distribution possible:
Str 18, Dex 11, Con 18, Int 3, Wis 10, Cha 20

Another thing: Even with a higher Con this Aasimar build has less HPs than the Half-Elf build until reaching level 13 (using Max HP/level) - again because of the ECL+1 handicap!

Edited:
Heh, maybe this Fig/Pal should get WS in Large Sword for that neat 'lil sword he can get.

[ December 18, 2002, 10:48: Message edited by: Earl Grey ]

 

What about a Wiz-1/Barbarian cloke of mystra thing.

Shield Dwarf or Human.
18 str - 16 dex - 20 con - 3 int - 18 wis - 3 cha.

He has 15 damage reduction in HoF.

Greater Cleave sucks imho.

 

I would have to go with a classic when it comes to a melee character. Fighter4/barbarianX, you have all feats you need and it is only needed to specialise in one weapon. Stats should be like this at 1st level 20 14 18 3 14 2 or thereabouts, didnt bother to count exactly. In normal mode AC is important and there are quite a few good armours where you can have +2 dex ac bonus. In HoW AC is almost useless so that doesnt matter. Give this tank a twohanded sword and put all statpoints in strenght and then let him rage and youll have one asskicking tank. I agree that it is useless to take more than 4-6 fighter levels as there arent enough extra feats to make it worthwile, it is better to get the extra HP and special abilities of a barbarian than to be able to take spellfocus for a tank .
I have never played with a paladin but they might be as good as a barbarian in their own way but I just cant stand a paladin in any party.
In my current HoW game my half-orc fighter/barb does around 30-45 damage per hit and can take a fair amount of punishment.
Atleast in HoW twohanded style is always preferable to shield or dualwield as the most important thing is do lots of raw damage and you dont take full advantage of a high strenght if you dont use twohanders.

 

Weapon Specialization in two weapons is good for two reasons:
1. Need both Blunt and Slashing damage to handle monster immunities.
2. Maximized Damage Feat requires that you have WS in two wepons.

@joacqin
Half-Orc Fig-4/Barb would have the following stats:
Str 20, Dex 16, Con 18, Int 1, Wis 18, Cha 1
Yes, that is one mean little boy!

A Fig-4/Pal would have the benefit of being able to buff with spells in comparison to a Fig-4/Barb.

I believe You mean HoF, not HoW.

@SCSI
Does this mean that you consider it more important for a melee character to be able to take damage, than to deal it out?
If you don't like Greater Cleave, then suggest another Feat in it's place. I don't think there are many good Feats left at the point which I suggested that character take it (end of normal mode/start of HoF).

Oh, and I know you really like the Cloak of Mystra!

[ December 16, 2002, 14:40: Message edited by: Earl Grey ]

 

I just can't imagine a character with the intelligence of a head of lettuce.
Other than that, most of the above makes sense and I'm learning again here, thankye.

 

Is it Heart of Winter or Heart of Fury? I mix up em up all the time and I am now leaning towards HoW .
I have never really bothered with maximised attacks as you need a pretty hight int for it and iirc it is only usuable once a day. Not to mention that the damage roll isnt all that important on later levels, if you have +15 damage from strenght +5 from weapon and +2 from specialisation I dont think it matters much if you roll a 2 or 12 on your greatsword.
The amont of foes that has damage resistance isnt large enough to warrant spending two feats extra just to be able to dish out an extra two damage to ice golems and Boneguards. I switch to blunt weapons but I havent taken feats in it. I prefer save boosters and heroic inspiration instead.

 

Maximized Attacks require Conc 4 and WS in two different weapons. No Int requirement. Perhaps you're confusing it with Expertise?
Your point about the usefulness of Maximized Attacks is well worth taking into consideration.

I still believe Weapon Specialization in your back-up weapon is a good idea.
For a warrior you might want to go with Iron Will and Luck of Heroes, but that's as far as I'm prepared to go with regards to save boosting feats.

 

as I have writ elsewhere here, a half-orc fighter with min int/wis/char (well not min, but close) and max on s/d/c, yields very strong results.

at 13 ftr/1 barb (for the speed really) he has
28/18/18/8/6/2
or something like that.
Now before you start condemning this, the fact remains that he has 51% of the kills/exp in the party. And he has around 200 hp and a 25 or 28 AC and he uses a two handed something +3. Belt for imp. str, cold resist something, and a cloak of I forget.

sometimes the 12 Palidan, 14 druid, 11 rogue, 12 wiz, 13 clr, seem like they are there for decoration and/or back up.

With a haste spell and defensive bonus (even barkskin), once I engage, I just wait untill I see the yellow xp text.

I do not know if I answered your question, but I think this is a very good combat char.

 

Ah concentratio, well there arent any other skills really for a tank to put skillpoints in, intimidate is rather pointless as they tend to have very low cha. But that doesnt change the fact that maximising a dice roll once a day when the modififiers are in the +20ish is pretty useless imo. Weapon specialisation in more than two weapons may be nice but you need 6 fighter levels for that instead of 4 which makes it take longer time to get barb damage reduction and greater rage. Not to mention that you lose 4hp.

 

Male Half Orc Fighter, level 30.
27 str - 16 dex - 18 con - 1 int - 18 wis - 1 cha.

420 HP, 35 average damage, BAB 45+.

VS...

Male Shield Dwarf Wiz-1/Barbarian, level 30.
18 str - 16 dex - 27 con - 1 int - 18 wis - 1 cha.

600 HP, 25 average damage, BAB 44+, 15 damage reduction.

My cloke of mystra Barb deals 425 damage to the Half-Orc and loses 340 HP.
My Barb without damage reduc. does 425 damage to the Half-Orc and loses 595 HP.

Toughness > Greater Cleave in HoF.

 

I saw someone else making that faulty assumption a few days ago somewhere. The only requirement for getting Weapon Specialization is four Fighter levels, then you can take WS any time you get another Feat regardless of which class you level up in.

 

I've honestly never found cleave to be worthwhile either. I go for flair and ability, not strength, I've also never used a "tank" per se, I always thought they sucked and I quit my games with them fast. Technique always wins the day. I always go for technique. Monks and paladins for example. My monk rules, I always brag about her.

 

never forget about will on a tanker...
tankers should have high sth and con...
then wisdom and then dex.
All good tankers are stupid and ugly
dex is not that important as most decent armour i have found limit you to a +1 bonus

i agree with jorgon... monks RULE
especially deep gnome ones

[ December 18, 2002, 10:11: Message edited by: stupid ugly kickass monk ]

 

Deep Gnome Monk, says "stupid ugly kickass monk".
That race is ECL+3!

IMHO the Deep Gnomes (or Svirfneblin) really got screwed over compared to the Aasimar, Tiefling and Drow.

* Let's check out the stats *
Svirfneblin: +2 Dex/Wis, -2 Str, -4 Cha
The lowest you can start a stat is 1. In effect this means that the net stat gain for a Deep Gnome is zero since you'll never set Str to 1.

Drow: +2 Dex/Int/Cha, -2 Con
Net stat gain is four, possibly two if Cha means nothing to you.

Aasimar: +2 Wis/Cha
Net stat gain is four, or two if Cha means nothing to you.

Tiefling: +2 Dex/Int, -2 Cha
Net stat gain is four.

Of course stats don't tell the whole story, but they do mean a lot.

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I totally agree that high Wisdom on a tank is vital. Naturally a Paladin is an exception to that since his Charisma bonus applies to every save.

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Cleave and tanks.
Don't dismiss heavily strength based tanks for they can certainly "rule" in normal mode.

As has been shown, 2H-weapon outperforms dual wielding in IWD2, so please show the race/stats/feats/level of the character you think can do better than a strength based 2H-weapon wielding tank!

[ December 18, 2002, 10:40: Message edited by: Earl Grey ]

 

i agree that +3 lvl adj is pretty expansive...

however i explained this in further detail in the topic "how is this for a party" appreciate it if you gave your opinions after reading

 

I have to comment on % kills/exp related to a party. Of course the character who has the highest number of hits and the greatest damage is going to get the highest number of kills. But, think about this. My sorc sends out a fireball and drops all my enemies' health but gets no kills. She and my paladin do buffs but get no kills for this either. My rogue takes out the traps and opens the chests and gets the money for my party to buy better weaponry. So, what does the percent really mean? You have to take it into context.
IaaA

 

Deep gnome monk.
İt is not about stats... Deep gnome has really "special" abilities which justifies the ECL +3. As far as I know, races with ECL can also reach lvl 30. Somewhat it means that you can reach lvl 33.

 

Stats aren't everything you know. This is an rpg game to some and there are real people out there who want to imagine themselves as swirfnerblins. They don't mind taking the logical-game hit because they are acting out a fantasy. And, there should be a character that is obviously the worst for gameplay.
The next thread should be and someone should start it: "The worst race/class/type." and is it better to be "evil" or "good" related to the balancing of the game and the stuff you find.
IaaA

 

I had a half-elf cleric/rogue with my very first party and beleive me it was a real headache to play. I just look elsewhere and in a second she was dead. Letting your cleric die means trouble you know... The stats, equıpment, skills, feats everything was a real dilemma.

 

IaaA and Anakha, you're both Off Topic!

This is not about "people out there who want to imagine themselves as swirfnerblins" or about trouble when your cleric dies.
Please stay on topic!