What are your favorite builds?
WarChiefZeke
Member Posts: 2,651
For myself, I have two high level builds I enjoy using in HoTU.
*The Master of Dragon Style* Druid x/Monk 1. A high level druid that pumps wisdom as high as possible will get access to Dragon familiars and Dragon shapeshifts. A level of monk gives combat bonuses to Dragon form. Simple, easy, and overwhelmingly powerful once you reach that point. Not to mention massively fun to play.
*Death's Dirge* Bard/Pale Master. You don't really appreciate what the Pale Master brings to the table until you start pumping more than 10 levels in the class. Your summons continue to increase in strength, eventually going to Lich and even Demi-Lich. I like using Bard rather than Sorcerer or Wizard for this class because you can still be an effective bard with gimped casting, pumping your already powerful summons up even more and making full use of your bardic skill set to increase your AC and use any magic items you come across. Not an OP build, but unique and fun with lots of combat options.
*The Master of Dragon Style* Druid x/Monk 1. A high level druid that pumps wisdom as high as possible will get access to Dragon familiars and Dragon shapeshifts. A level of monk gives combat bonuses to Dragon form. Simple, easy, and overwhelmingly powerful once you reach that point. Not to mention massively fun to play.
*Death's Dirge* Bard/Pale Master. You don't really appreciate what the Pale Master brings to the table until you start pumping more than 10 levels in the class. Your summons continue to increase in strength, eventually going to Lich and even Demi-Lich. I like using Bard rather than Sorcerer or Wizard for this class because you can still be an effective bard with gimped casting, pumping your already powerful summons up even more and making full use of your bardic skill set to increase your AC and use any magic items you come across. Not an OP build, but unique and fun with lots of combat options.
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Comments
None of the prestige classes in either NWN1 or NWN2 ever caught my fancy much. I thought of them as needlessly complicated, and feat-wasters.
In NWN2, I tried an Arcane Scholar of Candlekeep and an Eldritch Knight, and both of them seemed kind of "meh" to me. I thought I could pretty much do anything they could do using a combination of two base classes.
In NWN1, nothing seems better to me than Cleric/Fighter or Druid/Fighter.
Every once in a blue moon I try a Bard, with some Red Dragon Disciple levels thrown in at high levels.
Cleric/Fighter still does that better, imo.
Build it right, you have devastating critical with the long bow by level 24. Nothing more satisfying than seeing an enemy drop by a single arrow 100 paces away.
I don't remember many specifics right now, although I regret to admit I went for the katana rather than something cool like a scythe.
Honestly, once you get to the higher levels and you start dual weilding rapiers it just seems to make sense.
You are cleaving around with wings (which don’t seem to work atm) and a necrotic arm and everything just seems work
One of the loading screen messages in-game says "a monk/Pale Master is a potent adversary" yet I've never seen any worthy build using these two.
[By the way, is it right that a sorcerer doesn't gain additional number of spells per day after level 20, except through ability score increases?
Oh, I accidentally left out Bard/Red Dragon Disciple/Palemaster. Great tank.
Another fun build is 1 sorcerer \ 19 fighter then on level 21 you get dev crit and insta kill most stuff with 1 hit.
But in some campaigns I tried various other build,
1. The pure Wizard, you learn lots of spells and get free feats.
2. 1 shadowdancer + assassin\rogue one of the most fun classes which allows you to abuse HiPS with awesome stun and double sneak attacks. not that good vs undead you'll need to use traps against those. but with high enough stealth you can spam traps and let them commit suicide.
3. Paladin\Cleric - I like this one as you can get free feats and extra saving throws then mix the proper cleric domains for some crazy stats and become pretty much immortal.
4. fighter\blackguard\weaponmaster > tried this guy on SOU\HOTU run back at the day and it was insane how effective this guy was.
In general the only builds which I've avoided are shapshifting ones, there is an issue when you get extra spell slots on your spell book from items you wear but once you shapeshift you need to re-memorize all your spellbook spells.
Since a rogue's strength is usually relatively low (save for some pure str pvp half-orc rogues), you can easily get knocked down; it's almost a death sentence at that point.
demons: your fists are like mosquito bites
bunbun: ..... omae wa mou shindeiru...
Honorable mentions: straight sorcerer (sometimes with 1 level of paladin later on for saving throw bonuses), high str fighter/weaponmaster, offensive caster druid, and even offensive caster cleric with careful domain selection.
Least favorite: High dex, low (12) strength Fighter/Thief building toward weapon master, dual-wielding small weapons with Weapon Finesse. Some of the bosses in chapter 1 of the OC were extremely difficult, and by chapter 2, I was running into (a few) enemies I couldn't damage with a +1 weapon (sometimes even with a crit) because I wasn't doing enough damage to overcome their damage reduction. Crits (and weapon master) multiply your damage done, but if you hardly do any damage per hit, then there's not much to multiply.
Playing NVN2 now. I know this thread is about NVN1 only, but having fun with a 50/50 bard/rogue build and figured I might try that out next time I play NVN as well. I seem to recall reading bard is better in NVN2 than in NVN1 though (can wear armor?). Back in the day when I played NVN1 I was always something fighter-oriented, like dwarf fighter/barbarian etc. I think monk/cleric was the furthest I went when it came with "creative" builds :P Using the cleric to buff the monk was pretty effective, I seem to recall.
And a Nercomancer Red Wizard who could one-shot most characters with nigh-irresistable death spells.