Builds

The last three are secondary priority, and fill in before you can get some of the others (like Weapon Specialization and Greater Weapon Focus). Taking as many Fighter levels as I do, feats aren't in short supply.

 

About choosing which class at which moment, I mostly make a study between the 2 classes.
If 1 class gives me more bonuses as the other, then that's the one I take. For example, you have cleric2/fighter2. A 3rd lvl of fighter gives only a boost to his att value and his saves, while a 3rd lvl of cleric gives the same as the extra fighter level, plus acces to new spell levels, plus a new domain spell. As such, cleric becomes the new candidate lvl
When I'm playing ToEE, my 3.5 players handbook is never far away :yes:

For the moment, I'm now trying a build I've never tried, a Wizard/Monk with my newest -evil- party. Started out as a lvl 1 Necromancer (Abj & Transmu as banned schools) and gained just recently his first Monk lvl. I'll get to lvl 4 with monk, to return then back to his wizard studies. In the mean time, my 2 clerics (Cleric1/Rogue1, Nerull & Cleric1/Fighter1, Nerull) and my owl druid (lvl 2), will have to take care for most parts of the magical needs of the party.
But why a monk? Why 'till lvl 4? Monks are trained in unarmoured fighting, and wizards spells can fizzle because of armour. That's already a win-win situation. At lvl 2, the monk gains evasion which is always a nice feat to have, and at lvl 3 they gain "still mind" so as to make sure that the mage will be almost impossible to get charmed.
Now, add to that his elven heritage, and you guessed it. This boy will be a master of death from afar, with a will of steel and no wimp when it comes to hand to hand combat.

This party of evildoers is also accompanied by a dwarven rogue (who will later get some fighter lvls) but also by some animal npc's. You heard about the owl druid earlier before, and there's also a black cat, with the good old Barbx/rogue1 combo.
That cat is truly a powerfull ally at your side, so if you find the game to hard, you might want to think about getting one of your own. If on the other hand you find the game too easy, stay away from the cat!

 

Well, after all these years of D&D crpg's I still have a lot to learn about building

I was wondering if a monk/cleric or monk/wiz could be designed to take advantage of touch attacks. I did notice that the harm spells are quite effective, though my vanilla cleric didn't have much trouble pulling them off.

What does on level of rogue by a barb build?

You guys have provided a lot of good ideas. At least for me this is a great way to make my next play through a lot more interesting =)

P.S.
Do any of you guys keep NPC's for any length of time? I've pretty much ignored them unless they're quest related.

 

Well, the base attack bonuses for a monk are better as for a wizard, so that helps. Clerics & monks have the same bab build-up, so in that case it won't help. Also, why would you want to make a Cleric/Monk? Clerics can profit from heavy armour, while monks don't get their bonusses once they are in any armour...

One level of rogue means you get to do 1D6 of sneak-attack damage on a flanked opponent. Or if he's flatfooted, helpless or...
Who could say no to that, hey?

Since I found out recently that you can gain certain animals as NPC's, yes, I keep them for a looong time Before that, I thought of NPC's as xp-stealers...

 

@nyarlathotep: How do you build your Barb? Do you shoot for whirlwind?

[EDIT1] as a followup question - why barb instead of fighter? I know this has come up before (fighter feats versus HP?)

[EDIT2] It looks like with Rogue1/Barb19 you can get Greater Cleave going the martial feat rout, but maybe more rogue levels and the finesse route would be better?

 

Barbarians can move further than any other class in combat I think, except for maybe a monk.

 

Yeah, I was just playing around. Barb levels definitely add something and synergize well with Rogue. I was thinking something like Fighter-4/Rogue-10/Barb-6: fighter early to get feats (weapon specialization, prereqs for WW) and then equal amounts of Rogue and Barb for a while. Last Rogue levels have an XP penalty, but you would get crippling strike after 10. Actually, do you really need 6 Barb levels?

Actually, maybe it's better to take only 1 or 2 levels of Barb and take the rest as Rogue/Fighter. It seems to me you could still get Greater Cleave and Whirlwind with a lot of sneak attack damage (or swap one for (G)TWF). Crippling strike would come late but should be effective. With enough int they could be the locksmith, though leveling could be tricky.

I've been playing around with PCGen which seems pretty good for planning out builds:

http://pcgen.sourceforge.net/01_overview.php

It might be possible to tweak it to match the ToEE rules variant a bit more closer (there's no crippling strike in their 3.5 rules).

[EDIT]: Okay, I think I understand that there's an XP penalty problem with Bab2/FtrX/RogX unless it's a 1/2 orc and the ftr/rog levels are within 1 of each other... Favored class being the highest for humans breaks a few interesting builds.

 

We use PC Gen for our character builds in Fantasy Grounds 2.

With FGII you have to build your character and then send it to the DM before game time and this product works nicely.

You can even load different data bases for different RPG systems like D20 or Pathfinder and such.

 

I've been playing with PCGen and it's pretty nice. I bet there's a way to customize it for ToEE (basically limit the available items). I've found it helpful together with consoling in XP and trying things out

 

I was thinking the same and did some testing but twf is bugged with flurry. You get a -15 for your first attack and sometimes don't even get your second attack.

 

Are you using a monk weapon, like a kama, with that attack? Seems to work fine on my end. Staff as a double weapon does not work in this game however.

 

Hi nyarlathotep,
Can I ask why you go barb x/rogue 1 with your cat? Is it purely for better BAB and HP progression? I know sneak attack damage is reasonably expensive at 2 levels per extra D6, but I'm not sure how else you would add damage to your attacks with a cat, and had been thinking of going rogue x/ barb 1

 

Indeed, but also for the extra rages. The cat will probably switch over to more rogue levels once he hits 10 lvls Barb, as apparently nothing of their superior abilities are included in the game. Also, the added speed of the Barb levels is really great, as you can be sure that the little feline will always be able to reach & hit a target.

Fighter is not really the best for animals, as their limited Int & Str rules out quite some feats. Also the fact that they can't use weapons except for their natural weapons is again holding down the different options.

 

Thank you for telling me. I checked it again and determined that when I click full attack from the radial menu I get -15 on the first attack and if I don't move my pointer I sometimes lose my second attack. However, if I just click on the target without using the radial menu then it works fine with all three attacks.

 

Interesting... have you tried monk for any of your animals? Or does alignment rule that out?