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Worst ... character ... ever ...
Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 3:53 am
by Apandapion
Khaelindra wrote:Kat wrote:Arkonswrath wrote:
Amen
*frowns*
Why do people always say that. Yes, I "party up" whenever I can. But as I'm sure you know, it isn't always possible. I was on Rockhome yesterday and not a single other person logged on for 5 hours. Party with who?
If you are alone, and STILL you insist on going to areas that are so dangerous that you need huge amounts of healing pots to survive....you're simply asking for it.
Divinia is level 34. A weak level 34, but still level 34. When she is alone, she will NOT go down the Avlis Rift or the Hala Drow Caves or such places...it's not a place to go alone. Instead she goes to areas that are relatively effortless to her, but are still a fair challenge due to her being alone...Avlis FoM, Hala Felmoran Ruins, such places. A simply question of knowing, and accepting, her limits.
What you are complaining about is that when you are ALONE, you go to a CHALLENGING area WITHOUT a cleric or druid, and the healing costs to replace said cleric by potions are high. Well duh!!!
I strongly disagree with anyone who demands to be able to cheaply solo places that are means for parties of his or her level. If you happen to be solo: go to easier places. If you find a neato party...go to the cutting edge for your level.
One has to wonder how weak a 34th level character can get. After all, the weaker you get, the more encounters supposedly "for your level" will eat you alive. A hypothetical useless high-level character would die even in a moderately difficult area, just because the engine says that you can kill X because you are level Y - and you can't.
I've always felt powergaming more tolerable in NWN in general just because the game goes for your jugular like this. In many RPGs, if you have an odd or silly character design, you can just level more and go back. For many reasons, from the dynamic encounter system to the lack of respawning monsters in most SP modules, this just doesn't work in well in NWN.
That inspires a tangent to me (which is why we are in a new thread) - I wonder if there's ever been a "weakest" character competition? Everyone submits a level 40 build, unequipped, with X amount of gold. Someone designs a gauntlet which spits out increasingly hard monsters. At the front of the gauntlet is a merchant with an extremely liberal variety of equipment. (It occurs to me that if you do this you need to limit the amount of expendables somewhat or somehow - maybe different money for permanent items and expendable items?)
Here's the tricky part. You play everyone's character but your own design, and you try to do as *well* as possible, fighting as high as possible through the gauntlet before you die. The winner is the character that, on average, everyone does the worst with. The ideal winner would come up with a way to build a 40th level character that can't even best the crop rats that come first.
Anyone have a build proposal, for yucks?
Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 5:05 am
by Wombatforhire
My lvl 3 Shelby is on his way to being one of the weakest characters ever. He's a halfling barbarian, for starters...but he has decent stats for the class. However, as he's been rping a lot with people lately and he seems to be 'speaking' to me as slightly more intelligent than his stats depict, I'm putting his lvl 4 point into int.
No joke
Did I mention he's my 'main'?
![Very Happy :D](./images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif)
Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 5:31 am
by Starslayer_D
I vote for a halfling wizard with 6 STR, 10 DEX, 8 CON, High WIS, 10 INT, high CHA.
(basically, put 2 pts in Int, rest in Wis + Cha)
Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 6:11 am
by Khaelindra
Starslayer_D wrote:I vote for a halfling wizard with 6 STR, 10 DEX, 8 CON, High WIS, 10 INT, high CHA.
(basically, put 2 pts in Int, rest in Wis + Cha)
Didn't he mention it had to be a serious character build? Of course everyone can build a INT-10 wizard who only takes skill focus [useless] for feats and puts both skillpoints in concentration (highly commendable without spells...
![Cool 8)](./images/smilies/icon_cool.gif)
), but that's not the thing i think.
Re: Worst ... character ... ever ...
Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 6:25 am
by Khaelindra
Apandapion wrote:Khaelindra wrote:
Divinia is level 34. A weak level 34, but still level 34.
One has to wonder how weak a 34th level character can get. After all, the weaker you get, the more encounters supposedly "for your level" will eat you alive. A hypothetical useless high-level character would die even in a moderately difficult area, just because the engine says that you can kill X because you are level Y - and you can't.
Too true...most creatures of CR 21+ will get Divinia down, and as soon as it's "easy" instead of effortless i know it will have abilities that will eat me alive even when fully prepared. In Divinia's case, it's the aspect of not having any epic class levels combined with having "not really optimized" stats and having many druid-levels which do not really interact with the rest and which by themself are not strong. Druid and Bard are a bit...behind, i think.
She's not weak in absolute standards, not quite as she has good gear and is tough to quickly kill, but she doesn't hold a candle to specialized builds with 25+ casterlevels with commensurate epic spells, or fighters with DevCrit, or such. Generally, i rate her as a very sturdy lvl 24 and go from there...that usually works out quite well.
All of that isn't too relevant though. Each character, be it an uberbuild or an inefficient build, has it's par, and should know when the opposition is above par or below par.
Lol...some loony even called Divinia (druid20/rogue6/wizard8) a power-build...
![Laughing :lol:](./images/smilies/icon_lol.gif)
...that was really funny...Divinia must really puts the scare of death into the other lvl 30+ characters because of her terrible power...when we encountered cloned of Ed, Lafreth and Divinia, everyone was only REALLY terrified of the Divinia-clone...
*snickers* sorry...had to share that with you...*sniffs*
M.
As for the competition...it won't fly. You can always but the extreme silly character that doesn't work, but it also doesn't mean a thing. You'd simply get lvl 40 wizards with INT 10 and no useful feats or skills chosen, as they give the least hit points or combat ability while also giving no spells. Probably an elf, as low CON hurts such wizards the most. So you get lvl 40 characters with +20 base attack, STR 8, 60 hit points and 6 cantrips as spells, while having a two skills maxed out cross-class (say Move Silently (without hiding useless) and Persuade) and spell focus, greater spell focus and epic spell focus in every school of magic as far as needed to sink all feats (after all, without spells, who cares about spell-DC).
There's your build.
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_smile.gif)
Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 8:07 am
by Drakuul
*Is the overall winner of the "Most Ineffective Epic Character Award" of 2004*
Fighter rogue (Dex based) which multi'd to Psion with a wis of 10. After multiple levels in Psion she wasn't ineffective any more
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_smile.gif)
That award I think will pass to Ayren Milen this year.
Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 8:25 am
by Starslayer_D
Khaelindra wrote:Starslayer_D wrote:I vote for a halfling wizard with 6 STR, 10 DEX, 8 CON, High WIS, 10 INT, high CHA.
(basically, put 2 pts in Int, rest in Wis + Cha)
Didn't he mention it had to be a serious character build? Of course everyone can build a INT-10 wizard who only takes skill focus [useless] for feats and puts both skillpoints in concentration (highly commendable without spells...
![Cool 8)](./images/smilies/icon_cool.gif)
), but that's not the thing i think.
Serious wasn't mentioned by him. And he is able to cast lvl 0 spells.
![Wink ;)](./images/smilies/icon_wink.gif)
Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 9:56 am
by Gairus
I just took my 1 fighter/12 psion to rockhome, where none of his powers function. It's a serious character but it SO wins the award while on rockhome.
Rogue HP/BaB and no abilities of any sort.
*does victory dance*
Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 12:55 pm
by Wyrmwing
Offensive Eldraea? *shudder*
Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 2:35 pm
by Arond
In general, most triple class builds are probably worthy of consideration. Very fun to RP and handy overall in groups since you can fill multiple roles, but compared to a max single class builds, probably weaker to solo with.
Re: Worst ... character ... ever ...
Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 3:56 pm
by Apandapion
Khaelindra wrote:Apandapion wrote:Khaelindra wrote:
Divinia is level 34. A weak level 34, but still level 34.
One has to wonder how weak a 34th level character can get. After all, the weaker you get, the more encounters supposedly "for your level" will eat you alive. A hypothetical useless high-level character would die even in a moderately difficult area, just because the engine says that you can kill X because you are level Y - and you can't.
Too true...most creatures of CR 21+ will get Divinia down, and as soon as it's "easy" instead of effortless i know it will have abilities that will eat me alive even when fully prepared. In Divinia's case, it's the aspect of not having any epic class levels combined with having "not really optimized" stats and having many druid-levels which do not really interact with the rest and which by themself are not strong. Druid and Bard are a bit...behind, i think.
She's not weak in absolute standards, not quite as she has good gear and is tough to quickly kill, but she doesn't hold a candle to specialized builds with 25+ casterlevels with commensurate epic spells, or fighters with DevCrit, or such. Generally, i rate her as a very sturdy lvl 24 and go from there...that usually works out quite well.
I've never felt that druids are all that weak... must just be me. I always thought of them as "brass cannons", slightly more durable than wizards with a wide array of options. I think my highest level druid was 15th in single player, however, and that was a long time ago.
I've noted that the PnP druid, more than almost any class other than fighter, really starts to flesh out with stuff from expansion books. Wild spell, master of forms, and better spell selections really round out the class. In some ways the druid is a second edition class that never really made it to third edition until late in the game.
On to NWN druids - I made a high level version of Malin to tinker around with offline. Dragon form was really fun, and I fiddled with some of the higher level spells to get a feel for them. One thing that irritated me was that I was using "Kobolds vs Goblins" as a test bed, and my animal companion *died to kobolds* while I was fiddling with spell buffs off to the side. Granted, there was a bottomless number of kobolds, but still. My elemental-swarm elemental wasn't even hurt. I guess the animal companion goes out to pasture around the same time you get monsters with damage reduction ... spell share might help with that, though.
Khaelindra wrote:
As for the competition...it won't fly. You can always but the extreme silly character that doesn't work, but it also doesn't mean a thing. You'd simply get lvl 40 wizards with INT 10 and no useful feats or skills chosen, as they give the least hit points or combat ability while also giving no spells. Probably an elf, as low CON hurts such wizards the most. So you get lvl 40 characters with +20 base attack, STR 8, 60 hit points and 6 cantrips as spells, while having a two skills maxed out cross-class (say Move Silently (without hiding useless) and Persuade) and spell focus, greater spell focus and epic spell focus in every school of magic as far as needed to sink all feats (after all, without spells, who cares about spell-DC).
There's your build.
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_smile.gif)
Regardling that level 40 wizard with a 10 int... I know in PnP you can gain class abilities from the bonuses off of permanent items. Is that not true in NWN? Couldn't you get that wizard up to fifth level spells with +5 int off of some kind of item? And couldn't the character use almost any type of arcane wand?
I almost think that you'd get less (less is more!) mileage off of a low-stat fighter, with enough levels of something useless to crimp his BAB to lower his number of attacks per round.
Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 5:45 pm
by Khaelindra
Items don't give spell level usage, so even a +10 to INT ring doesn't give 1st level spells.
Fighters get too much hp and BAB to be as perfectly weak as CON-6 mages.
![Very Happy :D](./images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif)
Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2005 7:44 am
by Arandil
I remember being partied with Divinia when we fought lizards in the canopies...and her and Quicksilver were the only ones left standing near the end...those spawns were well above CR21 btw. So she didn't strike me as weak..nice try Khael! Yes..all triple classed characters are wimps.
Arandil
Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2005 8:30 am
by Drakuul
Yes indeed - *points to Jill and Jill as a perfect example of a weak triple class*
Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2005 9:07 am
by Khaelindra
Arandil wrote:I remember being partied with Divinia when we fought lizards in the canopies...and her and Quicksilver were the only ones left standing near the end...those spawns were well above CR21 btw. So she didn't strike me as weak..nice try Khael!
Arandil
*cough* like i said...
Khaelindra wrote:She's not weak in absolute standards, not quite as she has good gear and is tough to quickly kill, but she doesn't hold a candle to specialized builds with 25+ casterlevels with commensurate epic spells, or fighters with DevCrit, or such. Generally, i rate her as a very sturdy lvl 24 and go from there...that usually works out quite well.
She is very good at surviving, but also very bad at dealing damage. At lvl 34, fully short-term buffed, she does +29/+24/+19 for 1d6+7+1d8[magical] (with a +2 weapon) and no combat feats, and somehow that doesn't seem to make a real impression on most CR>21-critters. One single Drotid Captain (those guys with 2 heal-potions) kills her unless she uses a full stack of heal-potions herself, and he is rated 'effortless'.
Posted: Fri Apr 15, 2005 6:24 am
by Xeo Bodacea
Wombatforhire wrote:My lvl 3 Shelby is on his way to being one of the weakest characters ever. He's a halfling barbarian, for starters...but he has decent stats for the class. However, as he's been rping a lot with people lately and he seems to be 'speaking' to me as slightly more intelligent than his stats depict, I'm putting his lvl 4 point into int.
No joke
Did I mention he's my 'main'?
![Very Happy :D](./images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif)
Kanga was a Halfling Barbarian first ever PC on Avlis for me.
lvl 12 he was.
Not played him in a year due to Isamu and logged him back for a few run arounds.
Had a CvC fight with Tal-Hawkins and he had a 1+ sword and no equipment as I gave it all away a year ago.
WHOOPED SOME ASS! Kanga did.... So its not a weak build a Barbarian/Halfling.
But he was a Dex Barb
Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2005 8:23 am
by Talwin Hawkins
Xeo Bodacea wrote:Wombatforhire wrote:My lvl 3 Shelby is on his way to being one of the weakest characters ever. He's a halfling barbarian, for starters...but he has decent stats for the class. However, as he's been rping a lot with people lately and he seems to be 'speaking' to me as slightly more intelligent than his stats depict, I'm putting his lvl 4 point into int.
No joke
Did I mention he's my 'main'?
![Very Happy :D](./images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif)
Kanga was a Halfling Barbarian first ever PC on Avlis for me.
lvl 12 he was.
Not played him in a year due to Isamu and logged him back for a few run arounds.
Had a CvC fight with Tal-Hawkins and he had a 1+ sword and no equipment as I gave it all away a year ago.
WHOOPED SOME ASS! Kanga did.... So its not a weak build a Barbarian/Halfling.
But he was a Dex Barb
where was i when this happened?
Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2005 9:28 am
by Xeo Bodacea
Outside Elfs Gate.....
Kanga challenging PCs to Barbarian Duels!
Nearlly got booted out of Elysia.
![Cool 8)](./images/smilies/icon_cool.gif)
Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2005 3:48 pm
by Talwin Hawkins
Had a CvC fight with Tal-Hawkins and he had a 1+ sword and no equipment as I gave it all away a year ago.
WHOOPED SOME ASS! Kanga did.... So its not a weak build a Barbarian/Halfling.
But he was a Dex Barb
I mean Tal Hawkins? i dont remember getting pwn by kanga?
Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2005 1:28 pm
by Final Shinryuu
My main, Feril, is currently level 5 rogue/ 4 bard/ 5 fighter.
Going to keep all the levels equal as I go up.
She has 18 AC now, and can't fight anything straight up, but is a blast to play. She easily gets killed by spawns that appear effortless to her, unless I use my head, and make use of all of her items and abilities.
As a build, it is a very fun and diverse one, able to fill in any role in a party, from buffing to lockpicking and trap removal, to scouting and front-lining. Just can't do anything
well.
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_smile.gif)