Barbarian/Rogue or Barbarian/Fighter/Rogue builds?

Lathspellguest

Have any of you ever tried these combos before? Or heard of it? They're basically Conan builds, which sounds like a fun idea.

Any pros and cons to these builds that y'all can think of?

Kenji

Oh, so many possibilities!

I imagine you will be taking 4 levels of fighter for specialization feat and the rest in Barbarian/Rogue.

For the first level, take Rogue for maximized skills. Depending on XP penalty or not, spread the levels out evenly until level4 fighters. Then comes the real choices for Barbarian/Rogue: (I imagine you'd want epic levels in Barbarian because it's Conan)

1. You can take up to 3 levels of Rogue for Evasion, Uncanny Dodge, and 2d6 of Sneak Attack damage.
2. 10 levels of Rogue for the bonus feat in Crippling strike feat, the rest in Barbarian
3. 11 Levels of Rogue for Uncanny Dodge III and extra 1d6 Sneak Attack, the rest in Barbarian

As for the skill allocation, avoid putting any points into anything that cost 2 instead of 1 until the next level where the class you take is proficient in said skills.

You'll want Tumble (1AC per 5 Base Tumble, regardless of Dex mod.), Discipline, and Heal. Since you're taking Rogue levels, you can also consider Search, Disable Traps, Open Lock, Hide, and Move Silently.

Pros: Great for solo and/or party playthroughs, you'll be tanky, deal adequate damage, and great versatility (specialize in either ranged weapon, 2H weapons, or dual-wield at the cost of 2 extra feats). The flexibility in feats (no more meeting requirements for prestige class) means you can take feats that are most beneficial to what you'd like to do for your character.

Cons: Jack-of-all-trades means master of none. There may be times where a trap/lock is too difficult for you, or your hide/move silently does nothing and aggros the enemy. Also, lower levels before reaching Epic levels will be hard to progress with xp penalty.

Lathspellguest

This is awesome, thank you!

DJKajuru

Level 1
Barb
L2 fighter (xtra feat!)
L3 rogue (tumble up to 5 which means more AC)
L4 fighter
L5 fighter
L6 fighter (weapon specialization)
L7 barb
L8 rogue (tumble up to 10, evasion)

Keep progressing as barbarian and level as rogue every 8 levels for 5 more tumble skill points.

Lathspellguest

How bad is the XP penalty for these builds going to look in an SoU+HotU campaign? An early 20s instead of late 20s character?

Would it be better to go with just a barb/rogue combo? Is the slower advancement worth what's gained from the 4 fighter levels?

Malclave

Depending on how many levels of each class you take (and your character's race, of course), you may not have an xp penalty at all due to favored classes.

Jimbobslimbob

I had made a build *similar* to your overall concept before, although it had no Barbarian (Shadowdancer in place of it). They are fun builds to play. Link here, in-case you are interested. That thread has a number of variations on the Fighter/Rogue concept that may also be worth looking at.

Have fun!

Lathspellguest

Thanks, Jimbob—I'm going to file that one away for future use.

I've decided to go human barbarian/fighter/rogue. Is there any reason to NOT spread all of the levels out evenly the whole way through? Otherwise, 20% XP penalty kicks in at level 15 (if leveling evenly until 4 fighter levels, then finishing with barb and some more rogue levels).

BelleSorciere

As a human you only need to keep two classes close to each other in level, not all three.

Lathspellguest

Ah, I wondered if that might be the case. NWN Vault must be incorrect, then? This is what they say on their site:

"Human is not always the best choice to avoid an XP penalty. For example, a human 2nd-level fighter/8th-level wizard/8th-level rogue would suffer a -20% XP-penalty..."

Lathspellguest

Unless it's the minor classes that need to be close together? In other words, I can go as high as I want with barb as long as rogue and fighter are no more than one level apart?

I've read that, for humans, the highest level class doesn't count.

Malclave

IIRC, humans treat their highest class level as their favored class. So, the 2/8/8 character would have the xp penalty calculated as if he were 2/8.

If you wanted 3-5 levels of rogue, 4 levels of fighter, and the rest barbarian (for example) you'd be fine, depending on the mix at any given time.

Lathspellguest

Perfect, thanks for the clarification!

Lathspellguest

The next question is...is it better to have fighter rather than barb as the main class?

From an RP perspective, this is the barb essentially joining civilization as an adventurer and deciding to focus on a more structured fighting style. Conan fought among civilized armies and mercenary companies and even ruled a civilized kingdom. @Kenji recommends a minimum of three rogue levels. To avoid an XP penalty, we're looking at 3-4 barbarian levels if fighter is the main class. Is that so low a contribution from the barb as to be pointless?

RP comes before powergaming, but I also don't want to waste 3-4 levels. In that case, I'd go with barb as the main class. But if it can still be fun and useful as one of the minor classes, I like the fighter-oriented option, too.

Parasolsyndicate

You might need a Half-Orc to pull it off. Get 4 levels of Fighter, 3 of Rogue. Then pump Barbarian from then on.

Above poster is right, human would work too.

Jimbobslimbob

As another thought, here is a link to the NWN character builder spreadsheet (in-case you were not aware of it):
https://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn1/other/tool/characterbuildcalculator-cbc

Which allows you to plan your character out in Excel. It's a great help in making characters. I have a modified version of it myself that outputs in a tabular format (like in the link I gave earlier), if anyone was interested.

Kenji

Lathspellguest said:

RP comes before powergaming, ...

Yes! The most important thing is to have fun! I've seen so many people wielding ugly scimitars and rapiers instead of longswords or b*stard swords due to the former selections having higher crit rate than the latter.

It doesn't hurt to embrace both. If you can somehow incorporate some of the aspects you have learned from powergaming into roleplaying, all the power to you.

CutlassJack

Kenji said:

Yes! The most important thing is to have fun! I've seen so many people wielding ugly scimitars and rapiers instead of longswords or b*stard swords due to the former selections having higher crit rate than the latter.

You mean ugly longswords and bastard swords instead of elegant rapiers and scimitars right? I can greatly assure you I use the latter entirely for RP reasons. No self respecting swashbuckler would choose otherwise.