Help with half-orc Champion of Gwynharwyf build inspired by Daelon in NWN

[Joshua Randall]

For regional feats, I agree that Thug (+2 Init, +2 Intimidate) is strong. You might also consider Bullheaded (+1 Will saves, +2 Intimidate) or Foe Hunter (+1 damage against designated foes).

As the Champion of Gwynharwyf (CoG) rages stack with barbarian rages, I think Bbn 4 (rage 2/day) is enough. But, if you feel strongly about getting Improved Uncanny Dodge (can't be flanked), go to Bbn 5.

To get into CoG as quickly as possible you would then want one or two levels of fighter, giving you some bonus feats. So: Bbn4/Ft2 or Bbn5/Ftr1 gets you ready for entering the CoG PrC. (Remember to max out Intimidate as you go.)

Your feat selection is somewhat constrained in this build; Bbn4/Ftr2 gives you five feats (3 general, 2 fighter bonus) and Bbn5/Ftr1 gives you four feats (3 general, 1 fighter bonus). You know what you want three of the feats to be: Righteous Wrath, Knight of Stars, and Power Attack. You should use a fighter bonus feat for Power Attack, and the exalted feats take up two of your general feats. That leaves one general feat (= regional feat or Exotic Weapon Proficiency) and either zero or one fighter bonus feat (= Two-Weapon Fighting or Resounding Blow).

If you are going to wait to enter CoG, you could go to Bbn4/Ftr4 or Bbn5/Ftr4, in either case taking Weapon Specialization as the 4th-level fighter bonus feat.

So... Bbn4/Ftr4/CoG10/xxx2 or Bbn5/Ftr4/CoG10/xxx1. If you wanted to be cheesy you could throw in Rgr2 at the front end of the first build, which would get you Two-Weapon Fighting without spending a feat on it. You mentioned a desire for Annointed Knight, but I think that's going to be quite difficult given the Knight's skills pre-reqs. Otherwise, any Good BAB class would make a fine addition to Daelan -- you could even dip back into barbarian or fighter for abilities or feats.

As far as abilities go, do not negelect Charisma! Two CoG abilities are tied to it (smite evil and divine grace), and if you take Resounding Blow you'll want a good Cha for that, too.

I think Wis 12 is enough to start with, if you want to cast spells at all. That will get you a bonus spell at CoG1, and allow you to cast 2nd-level CoG spells at CoG4. Try to pick up a periapt of wisdom +2 at some point so you can eventually cast 4th-level CoG spells - the prizes here are death ward, holy sword, and possibly also sword of conscience if you are going to be fighting evil foes a lot.

Actually this build suffers from some pretty serious multiple-ability dependency, as you want good stats in every ability except Int. (Although as noted above you can get by with lower Str/Con thanks to rage.)

Daelan is a great NPC in Neverwinter Nights and your version of him seems like it will be both flavorful and effective. Have fun!

 

[Chasmodai]

Barb 2/Fighter 4/CoG 10/Vassal of Bahamut 2/Warrior of Righteousness 2

This combo cannot work as a Vassal of Bahamut needs to be Lawful Good, and a Champion of Gwynharwyf needs to be Chaotic Good.

Thought I'd point that out.

 

[Gaiden]

This combo cannot work as a Vassal of Bahamut needs to be Lawful Good, and a Champion of Gwynharwyf needs to be Chaotic Good.

Thought I'd point that out.

Good catch - thanx.

 

[Gaiden]

Here is what I am thinking about now:

Barbarian 2, Fighter 4, CoG 10

For those 16 levels:

Bullheaded (CL1)
Knight of the Stars (CL3)
TWF (don't forget my house rule that gives half-orcs familiarity with orc double axe) (F1)
WF - orc double Axe (F2)
Righteoous Wrath (CL6)
WS - orc double Axe (F4)
Power Attack (CL9)
CL12 feat
CL15 feat

I have 3 character level feats and then however many from the last 4 levels left for this character. Here are the ones I am thinking about:


Roll With It (Toughness)
Improved Critical - orc double axe
Iron Will
Extended Rage
Extra Smite
Cleave -> Great Cleave
Improved Two Weapon Fighting -> Greater Two Weapon Fighting

Which feats should I take? Are there feats I have not listed that you think would be better choices? What class/PrC should occupy the last 4 levels?

As always, feedback appreciated.

 

[Joshua Randall]

A few off-the-cuff comments:

Roll With It - can't remember what this does.

Improved Critical is sub-optimal for a weapon (orc double axe) that only threatens on a 20. You'd normally use Improved Critical on something like a rapier or scimitar (or even longsword) to give extensive threat ranges.

Iron Will is always a good choice for fighter-types who don't want to be charmed, dominated, etc.

Extended Rage seems like a poor feat. A high level Bbn/CoG should be able to rage for many, many rounds - far more than most combats will last. I would only take Extended Rage if I anticipated lengthy (10+ round) combats.

Extra Smite... whoop-dee-doo. I dislike feats that only give you 1/day more use. If this gave 3/day more smites then maybe - but as is, forget it.

Cleave -> Great Cleave is somewhat campaign-specific. In some campaigns you will face hordes of weaker enemies, so you'll get to (great) cleave a lot. In others you will face single, powerful enemies and (great) cleave will be useless.

Improved/Greater Two-Weapon Fighting, assuming you meet the Dex requirements, can give you a ludicrous number of attacks at high level. But, again, somewhat campaign specific in that the -5/-10 penalty makes it hard to hit high-AC foes. If you're going to be churning through weak enemies then it's great, but otherwise you might wish you hadn't spent these feats.

As for those last 4 levels, here is a great resource that lists tons of PrC's... it could spark some thoughts for you.
Crystal Keep - scroll down to Index of Prestige Classes (3.0) and check it out.

From the BoED, what about the 3-level PrC that gives Good BAB and gives more exalted feats? Then you could amuse yourself with things like Ancestral Relic, Resounding Blow -> Quell the Profane, Exalted Smite, Sanctify Martial Strike.

Also, if the pre-reqs are compatible, you could try to get into the Fist of Raziel PrC to pump up your smiting abilities.

 

[Gaiden]

Roll With It - can't remember what this does.

prereq - Con 20, Toughness
benefit - increases DR by 2 (stackable)

Improved Critical is sub-optimal for a weapon (orc double axe) that only threatens on a 20. You'd normally use Improved Critical on something like a rapier or scimitar (or even longsword) to give extensive threat ranges.

I used to think so too - then I saw a warhammer wielding Dwarven badass named Aramek put improved critical to devastating effect against many a foe in RttToEE. I agree that the feat is best used when combined with a high threat ranged weapon. However, statistically, a large range is no different than a smaller range multiple times. Here is what I mean: with the orc double axe, especially if Daelan takes ITWF, the extra attacks balance out the smaller range of the weapon. IC - long sword yields 17-20 threat range. IC orc double axe yields 19-20 threat range two times (once for each head). There is the issue of confirming threats. However, considering that this barbarian will uniquely gain access to bless weapon, confirming threats is moot. Granted, IC with the scimitar for a whirling dervish would probably be better, but I am not sure it would be that much better.

Extra Smite... whoop-dee-doo. I dislike feats that only give you 1/day more use. If this gave 3/day more smites then maybe - but as is, forget it.

The new Extra Smite from CW grants 2 extra smites a day.

Cleave -> Great Cleave is somewhat campaign-specific. In some campaigns you will face hordes of weaker enemies, so you'll get to (great) cleave a lot. In others you will face single, powerful enemies and (great) cleave will be useless.

Don't forget that I am the DM. As a general rule I try and have as diverse encounters as possible both within an encounter and between encounters.

Improved/Greater Two-Weapon Fighting, assuming you meet the Dex requirements, can give you a ludicrous number of attacks at high level. But, again, somewhat campaign specific in that the -5/-10 penalty makes it hard to hit high-AC foes. If you're going to be churning through weak enemies then it's great, but otherwise you might wish you hadn't spent these feats.

Since when have you ever heard of a barbarian missing? More importantly, could you ever imagine a barbarian now able to buff himself with some very good paladin and clerical spells missing? I agree that the GTWF feat may be unnecessary. However, the -5 for ITWF is probably going to be laughable against this guy's attack bonuses. The ridiculous ability scores I rolled up just make the character all the more sick.

Thanks for the list of PrC's. I went through all of them and didn't really find anything else fitting to the character. I think I will just take an additional 4 fighter levels. That leaves 5 total feats.

I am thinking (in no particular order): ITWF, GTWF, IC, Cleave, GC. If there was ever a hordebreaker, Daelan would be it. In 2-D, he could actually handle the max 13 possible threatened combatants I think.

I was just thinking - another option might be to go Ninja Scroll and give him PBS, RS, PS, and FS and get his orc double axe enchanted to be a throwing, returning weapon.

I guess at this point I will just leave it up in the air and see where the campaign and my PCs take this NPC.

Thanks for everyone's help.

 

[Olive]

Cleave -> Great Cleave is somewhat campaign-specific. In some campaigns you will face hordes of weaker enemies, so you'll get to (great) cleave a lot. In others you will face single, powerful enemies and (great) cleave will be useless.

I agree for great cleve, but cleave itself is rarely useless, as only silly DMs throw major NPCs at players with NO backup. And it's always worth getting some extra hurt of the next bad guy.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Roll With It does sound nice. DR is an underrated ability, I think.

If you're interested in using some non-core d20 products, might I recommend BadAxe Games' Heroes of High Favor: Half-Orcs. It contains a variety of feats related to raging, that let you do the following. [The tilde (~) means "if you are already raging, you may expend another of your daily rages to do..."]

Adrenal Healing: ~ to gain Fast Healing: 1.

Boar’s Hide (Fort +6, DR 1/-): ~ to increase DR by +1/-. Can spend additional rages to keep increasing DR.

Bull’s Health: expend rage to re-roll failed save vs. poison or disease.

Extra Orcish Raging: may rage +3/day.

Stag’s Heart (BAB +3): ~ to gain extra move action each round. Does not stack with haste, etc.

Wolf’s Cunning: if raging and flanking, do not suffer usual -2 AC for raging.

 

[Gaiden]

Roll With It does sound nice. DR is an underrated ability, I think.

If you're interested in using some non-core d20 products, might I recommend BadAxe Games' Heroes of High Favor: Half-Orcs. It contains a variety of feats related to raging, that let you do the following. [The tilde (~) means "if you are already raging, you may expend another of your daily rages to do..."]

Adrenal Healing: ~ to gain Fast Healing: 1.

Boar’s Hide (Fort +6, DR 1/-): ~ to increase DR by +1/-. Can spend additional rages to keep increasing DR.

Bull’s Health: expend rage to re-roll failed save vs. poison or disease.

Extra Orcish Raging: may rage +3/day.

Stag’s Heart (BAB +3): ~ to gain extra move action each round. Does not stack with haste, etc.

Wolf’s Cunning: if raging and flanking, do not suffer usual -2 AC for raging.

Those abilities are all (surprisingly) extremely well balanced IMO. I don't plan on using non WOTC/FR material for this game. However, thanks for the info.