Seeking some tips and advice I plan to go through game again (have been through it many times) I am thinking to create a pure melee party (no spellcasters) I am wanting to create "heavy hitters" I am thinking Paladin with 2 handed sword 2 weapon Ranger (2 long swords) Maybe Barbarian using???? Maybe great axe? Perhaps fighter (bastard sword?) Seeking advice on 4-5 member party Also please by sure to suggest main weapon (want to bulid towards that weapen) your thoughts..?? Advice?
Well, there are some interesting Monk builds I'm doing right now. (They are all Human, that extra feat is NICE!) - Monk 4/ Paladin x : Has power att, cleave & 2 weapon fighting as his main feats, ftm he uses his Ki powered fist as his main weapon & a +2 longsword as offhanded weapon. Not really a big damage dealer if not buffed, and his AC isn't great either. But man, these guys are mage killers, as they are almost impervious to spells due to a nice set of saves. - Rogue 2/ Ranger 2 / Monk x : Has Weapon Finesse, Quick draw and Dodge as his main feats and can use a variety of main weapons. Rogue lvls are for sneak att damage & evasion, Ranger lvls are for Favoured enemy ( Goblinoid) and 2-Weapon fighting. When reaching (2nd? ) lvl of monk, be sure to take the monk bonus feat Deflect arrows, and from then on don't wear armor and leave your main hand free (You'll need 1 free hand to use that feat). Not the big damage dealer either, and AC will be lowish in the lvl 5-to-8 stage, but this character-build is a very opportunistic one. But he's difficult to hit with arrows, has good enough saves and in the end wil hit pretty hard with his free hand. Offcourse, having a Druid in the party helps these builds enormously - but as you said, you won't be using spelllcasters. Good luck with that, because wth some fights you surely are going to weep for not having a spellcaster at hand. And you'll have to use the gear you'll find in the game... No crafting? Ouch... And other cool builds: Rogue / Barbarian: fast & deadly. Begin with 1 lvl of Barbarian, then 3 lvls of Rogue. Repeat until you hit lvl 10 in Rogue, then go further into Barbarian. I prefer them either in a) classic 2-handed weapon style, focusing on a reach weapon of choice (the feats Power att & cleave) or awesome damage - the Scythe is excellent for that. In that case, try to go the Improved trip route... b) the more"delicate" 2-weapon style. A heavy pick in your main hand and a handaxe in the off-hand can do a nasty bit of damage when critting & flanking. Don't forget to pick up Improved critical as a feat.
After my current run through the alignments I was thinking the opposite- going with at least 1 of every spell casting class but as for a pure melee group my suggestions would be this: General suggestions: make them all human- human fighters get 3 feats at creation- VERY useful indeed. Improved Initiative should be a must, as well as Power Attack and Cleave. Always put points into Tumble- it still helps even when heavily armored. And with no clerics someone should have points in the Use Magical Device skill to help with any wands of healing you might find. Also have one put points into Appraise- it will make buying the masterwork items a lot cheaper and you're going to have to pay to Identify items (although by now you might be familiar enough with every item to know all of their functions by heart). 1- if playing good alignments have a fighter with ransuer as a weapon focus, as you can find a holy ransuer in the air temple- same with longsword, as you can get a holy longsword +1 if you do one of the main Hommlett quests. Good alignments also net you a holy spike chain, greataxe and of course the awesome Fragarach. 2- you'll find plenty of arrows at Hickory Branch so you might want to have at least 1 or 2 have the Longbow weapon focus and Point Blank Shot or PBS and Precise Shot- if that's the case rangers would be a good choice as you can guide their build to get the benefits of both Ranger styles of combat- archery and 2 weapon fighting as well as favored enemy selections- goblinoids, giants, outsiders and humans would be my choices. 3- unless you want to take along an NPC to pick locks a rogue 4/fighter 16 would be a good idea as you're going to need someone to open locked chests (Warp Wood or Knock is out of course). I wouldn't worry too much about the Disarm Device skill- unless your rogue is very low on HP's a trap won't do enough damage to kill them and rogues can Sneak Attack with missile weapons (I prefer masterwork composite shortbows for them, which you can buy from Armilo after clearing the spiders from Deklo Woods). 4- since their are 5 basic fighting classes if you chose to dual class one of them with the rogue class the favorite way seems to be rogue/barbarian- it seems to be a time honored tactic that works well- just make sure you have an alignment picked out that makes this possible- the LG-NG-LN corner would seem to allow for all fighter types. Good luck!
Could be tricky staying alive, since early on you'll need to spend on armour which will compete with buying potions. There are some early fights where a bit of crowd control is decidedly useful- you might want to investigate alchemical alternatives like smokesticks (do tanglefoot bags exist). A rogue with dust of disappearance is probably your quickest route to consistently high damage before you start finding holy or elementally damaging weapons- indeed a dip of rogue for sneak attack dice is probably useful to most of your PCs, except the Paladin, who you probably want to get to spellcasting levels asap. A bard can be useful (glitterdust + rogue archer, Tasha, some healing and Charm, bardic music) if you're allowing it.
Alignment wise, I'd go for NG, meaning you can have CG for optimum use of the Silver Sword of Chaos (good vs Hextorites) as well as any other Bastard Swords you find, plus still have a Paladin, Monks etc; everyone still gets to use a holy weapon.
I've been considering doing a melee only run through as well. here's what I was considering (not necessarily for pure battle prowess but a mix of dmg ability and variety): ftr 4/barb X (halforc) - tank that will use greatsword ftr 4 barb X (human) - tank that will use fragarach/scather pure monk (human) - great saves, low dmg, variety ftr4/rogue X (elf?) - sneak attack dmg ftr8/ranger X (human) - archer it's been a while since I've tried to optimize multiclass builds, should I put more/less levels into any of these combos to gain specific "free" feats? thanks.
This guy will suffer a 20% exp point penalty. Why not just make him a straight multiclass ftr/rogue? Believe me, he will kick ass and take names. Mine dual wields the cleavers and also holy maces when blunt weapons are required.
I can't figure out how to make dual wield a practical pursuit unless your talking about your dex toon who will use 2 short swords. If you dual wield 2 long swords you will take a penalty to hit that is hard to justify. Your supposed to use a big weapon in the main hand and a small weapon in the offhand but their just isnt enough feats to be good at everything. Your better off with a 2-handed weapon or a 1h + shield, imho. And more or less the reach weapons like longspear and ranseaur are godly especially if you buff with enlarge person. (and bull's) A warrior with greater cleave can go solo after that..
TWF & ITWF is another 2 attacks, which when combined with Full Attack, Improved Trip and positioning can mean another 2 trips per round. Or 2 more thrown attacks, with Quickdraw. You can get both offhand attacks as a lv6 Ranger without worrying about Dex, just wear light armour or less -- Try a HO Barb-Rang (Rage-Ranger? heh) with Improved Trip + Enlarge Person + High Str. I prefer Dwarf for Stability and 1d10 Waraxes and an orange mohawk (Warhammer Slayer imitation). It works well, touch attacks don't lose thaco for an offhand and you receive +4 bonus to hit a prone with melee. Any which way you get there, when you see your warrior dunking 4 Bugbears a round at lv6, you feel mighty
Doesn't a dwarf Rgr/ Brb fall foul of multiclass XP pens? I have to cofess to making a Orange mohawked dwarf called Gotrek on my second playthrough of this game...
I've worked with multiclassing a bit and for melee builds, three levels of paladin is amazing. Giving your character that anti fear ability is invaluable.
It's not 100% pure melee and it's not optimal for power-gaming, but I'm a Fritz Leiber fan and a "Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser" party is fun: 1. Rogue with 1-2 levels of Wizard 2. Barbarian with a few levels of Bard That's it. Be careful.
Nothing wrong with stopping at F4. If you alternate, you won't take an XP penalty until 10th level. At 10th level, you SHOULD take an XP penalty because the game wasn't properly designed for XP after 10th level. A F4/R16 gets +6 feats relative to a normal character. A F10/R10 gets +7 feats. I'd rather have the +3d6 sneak attack damage than have that extra feat (you'll have most of the useful feats at that point anyway).
