Rogue/ Fighter/ SD/ Weapon Master Build?

[Wulfgar621]

What I love about this game is the endless number of character builds you can make. I'm interested in a Rogue, Fighter, Shadowdancer, Weapon Master build. I'm thinking at least 10 levels of Rogue and 1 level of SD for HIPS, but what should the fighter/ WM mix be? Assuming 40 levels.

[Selphea]

Are you playing NWN2 or NWN1? In NWN1 you're limited to 3 classes max.

A human can do Rogue/SD/WM. The pre-epic levels will be torture, you'll be stuck in light armor and single wielding with no Knockdown to generate Sneak Attacks... realistically it'll start paying off at level 21 at the earliest, when you have Rogue 12, WM 8, SD 1 and can do crits with single wield sneak attacks from a HiPS - which will be it's only way to get sneak attacks solo.

Or any race can go Rogue/Fighter/SD. Dual wield and use fancy feats to get Sneak Attacks without having to waste time re-stealthing. Loses out on ridiculous Weapon Master AB and crits but I think the dual wield DPS and HiPS flatfoot advantage mitigates that. This route has an easier time levelling and can cover off the essentials better too.

I'm feeling a pre-epic Dex-based Rogue 8/Fighter 12. Get Exotic Prof for kukris and and invest in all dual wield feats to max attacks per round. Also get the feats that generate Sneak Attack, aka Improved Knockdown. Cover off the essentials: Imp Crit, Blind Fight, Weapon Spec, Toughness. Finally, there's the Shadowdancer prereq feats. Those 12 Fighter levels will do a lot of that heavy lifting!

At 21, take Shadowdancer. After that, aim to end at Rogue 19/Fighter 20/SD 1. The 4 epic Fighter feats go to: Epic Focus, Epic Spec, Epic Prowess, Armor Skin. The Rogue feats go to Epic Dodge prereqs, Crippling Strike and Slippery Mind. The general feats go to 6x Great Dex and Epic Dodge. All stat points go to Dex too - That will make sure AB stays competitive and Improved Knockdown DC is high.

[jimbobslimbob]

As Selphea says, 4 classes are (at least currently) illegal in NWN 1. It's 3 maximum.

If you are going the Weapon Master route, I would avoid a Dexterity based build, since Sneak Damage doesn't crit. Go Strength based instead.

Here is a Fighter/WM/Rogue that may suit your needs (there are 2 variants there): https://steamcommunity.com/groups/NWN-Players/discussions/1/494632506575102278/

Points of Interest (of the above linked build)
- High Critical threat range with Devastating Critical (lvl 29) (50% chance of a critical with a Keen Scimitar)
- Epic Damage Reduction (absorbs first 9 points of all damage taken) (lvl 36-40)
- High Constitution and HitPoints
- Gets maximum Tumble (+8 AC) and UMD (to use Monk boots, for example)
- Gets Knockdown (lvl 15) and 1d6 Sneak Attack (lvl 20) for even more damage
- High AB (48) and high damage (EWS and decent Strength score)
- Great Cleave (lvl 1, lvl 9) and Whirlwind Attack (lvl 6) for earlier level AOE (less useful later on).

[Selphea]

Dex Rogue WM works best as a single wield Epic Dodge tank imo. Epic SWF lets it walk around in Improved Expertise and still hit effectively.

Good build in multiplayer where PWs tend to balance around higher ACs. For solo play, the extreme AC is probably overkill and the low damage of Dex single wield with no Dev Crit can make for boring gameplay.

[Bishop]

I have played strength based fighter/rogue/sd through all Swordflight modules (which is a magnitude harder than any official bw module) and it was just fine. 12 rogue/7 fighter/1 sd till lvl 20. 31 rogue/ 8 fighter/ 1 sd all the way to the cap.
The ab is not amazing but it hits like a truck and can deal with sneak immune foes pretty well.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1768176130

[Wulfgar621]

Thanks all. I was thinking strength based, even though I did not specify. If I wanted more of a balance between rogue and fighter, I'm thinking it would be better to skip SD and just go for weapon master.

[Selphea]

If you're Str based you don't even need to optimize, just use a Scimitar, Tower Shield and Heavy Armor and get Dev Crit. Your classes can be any split at all and the whole game would still be a cakewalk. You can literally knock dragons down and instantly kill them before they get to pull off anything.

[Wulfgar621]

Single wield better than dual wield or a 2-hander?

[jimbobslimbob]

- Single-handed for AC (Scimitar is awesome on Crit builds)
- 2-Handed for more damage at the cost of AC (Greatsword or Scythe if you have a spare feat for Exotic Weapon Prof.)
- Dual for Dex-based (Short Swords or Kukri if you have a spare feat for Exotic Weapon Prof.)

[Selphea]

In general, more attacks makes sense for a Sneak Attack build. Sneak Attack is a big additional number to every attack so 2 more attacks = 2 more Sneak Attacks. It's also an extra 2 chances to Knockdown and set up sneak attacks per round, at your 2 highest Knockdown DCs.

To take that further, if you go full cheese, a dual wielding Monk with Flurry and 4 Improved Knockdowns out of stealth is complete BS since a target would take 4 Sneak Attacks upfront and need to resist Improved Knockdown 4 times in a row to get a chance to move.

The downside is you give up the shield. Not as big a deal for a Str-based Shadowdancer that can pick it's fights. If you're a plain ol' Rogue/Fighter/WM then it might hurt since you can't just ambush out of stealth and never take a hit. Str Shadowdancer is one of the few ways to pull off a Two-Bladed Sword build imo. Of course, Shadowdancer tends to make a lot of silly things viable so there's that...