Combat Dwarf Build for 1-40 PWs [Fighter 6/WM7/DD27]

Like Dwarves? Want to make a strong warrior with one? Try this build out!
Focuses on balancing offensive power with defensive power, and makes use of the Dwarf race and Fighter class to make it happen.

Introduction

Welcome! This is my first builld guide for Neverwinter Nights: EE, focusing on making a combat machine.

The idea for this build is to use the extra bonus feats of the Fighter class to rush to your prestige classes as soon as possible, gaining the offensive and defensive advantages that come with those. With seven levels of Weapon Master, you will gain both an improved critical multiplier as well as an improved threat range, meaning you will crit harder and more often. Immediately after that, you move on to Dwarven Defender for further offensive and defensive bonuses all the way to 40th level.

Advantages of this build

• Full BAB
  
• High damage that gets even higher with crits
  
• Immunity to flanking sneak attacks
  
• 18 points of damage reduction without items
  
• Solid stats in general

Disadvantages of this build

• Very few combat feats
  
• No spellcasting
  
• Saves aren't the greatest

Abilities and Skills

Starting Abilities
STR: 18
DEX: 13
CON: 10
WIS: 10
INT: 13
CHA: 8

Ending Abilities
STR: 30
DEX: 14
CON: 10
WIS: 10
INT: 13
CHA: 8

Alternatively, you could end up with 13 dex and 32 strength (see the section below)

For skills, you should up your Discipline every level, as you should with any fighting class. This determines your ability to resist knockdowns, disarm attempts, called shots, and other annoying combat feats.
To make the build work, you NEED to have 4 points of Intimidate by level 6. If you don't have this, you can't take Weapon Master.
As for the rest of your points, do whatever you want with those. I strongly recommend spending them on Tumble for the free Armor Class you get for every 5 points in it though.

Levels, Feats, and Ability Changes

Below is a general level-by-level guide to which feats you should take.

Fighter 1: Dodge, Mobility
Fighter 2: Expertise
Fighter 3: Weapon Focus (Weapon) (Scimitar or Rapier recommended)
Fighter 4: STR 19, Spring Attack
Fighter 5:
Fighter 6: Whirlwind Attack, Weapon Specialization (Weapon)
Fighter 6, WM 1: Weapon of Choice (Weapon)
Fighter 6, WM 2: STR 20
Fighter 6, WM 3: Toughness
Fighter 6, WM 4:
Fighter 6, WM 5:
Fighter 6, WM 6: STR 21, Power Attack
Fighter 6, WM 7:
Fighter 6, WM 7, DD 1:
Fighter 6, WM 7, DD 2: Cleave
Fighter 6, WM 7, DD 3: STR 22
Fighter 6, WM 7, DD 4:
Fighter 6, WM 7, DD 5: Great Cleave
Fighter 6, WM 7, DD 6:
Fighter 6, WM 7, DD 7: STR 23
Fighter 6, WM 7, DD 8: Improved Critical (Weapon)
Fighter 6, WM 7, DD 9:
Fighter 6, WM 7, DD 10:
Fighter 6, WM 7, DD 11: STR 24, Armor Skin
Fighter 6, WM 7, DD 12:
Fighter 6, WM 7, DD 13:
Fighter 6, WM 7, DD 14: Great Strength I (STR 25), Overwhelming Critical (Weapon)
Fighter 6, WM 7, DD 15: STR 26,
Fighter 6, WM 7, DD 16:
Fighter 6, WM 7, DD 17: Devastating Critical (Weapon)
Fighter 6, WM 7, DD 18: Epic Weapon Focus (Weapon)
Fighter 6, WM 7, DD 19: STR 27
Fighter 6, WM 7, DD 20: Knockdown
Fighter 6, WM 7, DD 21:
Fighter 6, WM 7, DD 22: Epic Toughness I
Fighter 6, WM 7, DD 23: STR 28, Great Strength II (STR 29)
Fighter 6, WM 7, DD 24:
Fighter 6, WM 7, DD 25:
Fighter 6, WM 7, DD 26: Epic Toughness II, Great Strength III (STR 30)
Fighter 6, WM 7, DD 27: DEX 14

In the end, you get a solid amount of strength, plenty of critical bonuses, and of course Devastating Critical to frequently cause "save or die" scenarios for your enemies.

These feat choices are strict and can't really be changed at all for the Fighter and Weapon Master levels, but you can make a slight change during the Dwarven Defender levels if you choose to. At DD 20, I threw in Knockdown because I didn't want this build to be entirely without combat feats. If you really don't care about them, you could substitute this for a Great Strength, and then take Strength instead of Dex at 40th level, which would leave you with 32 strength. However, this depends on how highly you value having Knockdown.

[schnurbart]

dev crit is disabled on most pw worlds because its well devestating...cleave is only good really for pve they are wasted feats if you plan to fight other builds with pvp in mind. Knock Down is another optional feat. To be fair i have never built that complicated a weapon master and dont really remember what else would be available. tumble is good but thats mostly for a dexer build i think as its added ac is dodge and i dont think one gets many of those bonuses if wearing armor. tumble i do not think is natural to any of those classes either making it expensive. But i see nothing wrong with the over all idea.

[Orion]

I like how you have put this challenging set of classes together with dev crit and I think this is nice.

In a party, with spell protections from a group of arcane spellcasters (ie Empowered Strength, Mind Blank, Haste, Flame Weapon, Keen Weapon), this will be an absolute monster.

These are some suggestions:
- Start with Int 14 and Dex 14 and drop Wis to 8. 43 extra skill points and high dex from level 1. All stat gains into Str.
- Go Fighter 7 WM 7 DD 26
- Swap Epic Toughness x2 and Knockdown for Epic Weapon Specialization and Epic will / Epic fortitude. EWS is +4 damage, for crit immunes. Epic will / Epic Fortitude for saves. +4 to a save = essentially 20% extra chance to make a save.
- Improved Critical at level 9 rather than 21, more fun earlier. Great Cleave level 21.

You could also put Strength to 34 by having six Great Strengths, Great Cleave level 21, and your four DD bonus feats being Overwhelming Critical, Dev Crit, Epic Weapon Focus and Epic Prowess.

[The Flying Rodent]

That’s fair enough. High strength is never usually a bad thing on Dev builds.

My two favourite/preferred DD tanks are Fighter 12 / DD 26 / Rge 2, and Bard 8 / RDD 10 / DD 22.

The former gets Dev and epic Dr III. The latter just gets Dev and maxes out strength as much as possible (from memory it can potentially get up to 40 unbuffed!) but requires an alignment change from neutral to lawful to switch from Bard to DD.

Both builds get UMD and Tumble as well, which are rather handy!

[Reifam]

Ah yeah those changes would probably be effective. I wanted to push the strength pretty high because that impacts the DC for DevCrit, but going for Epic DR would enhance the defensive side of this build a lot more.

[The Flying Rodent]

Hey Reifam, nice build! Aside from the lack of a skill dump class (e.g Rogue), this combo is a pretty solid little tank.

You can do a couple of other things feat wise with it as well. If you instead started str 16 dex 13 con 18 Int 13 wis 8 cha 6, you can ‘just’ squeeze in Epic DR 3 (I’d replace armour skin and the two epic toughness feats for this), and end with dev, epic dr iii, 26 str and 21 con. Gets a bit less AB, but is a lot more solid!

Another thing you can do is take a 7th Fighter Level epic instead of a 27th DD, and get Epic Weapon Spec as a feat instead of KD. Might not be ideal in all cases, but the option for that it there too.

All in all though, looks good. Hope you’re having fun with it! :)