That only applies to your first attack, though.

A scimitar weapon master can reasonably expect to hit most foes on a 10 with his first attack and probably second attack, but not with his fourth that comes at -15 AB. A rogue will have a higher AB on his first attack than a weaponmaster on his fourth, so the rogue will still be able to hit enemies.

A scythe weapon master with a crit-range of 16-20 may well benefit more against high AC opponents, because even his last attack is likely to hit on a 16, due to all those AB bonuses you mention.

Nothing inherent, no, but in practice it's the case anyway: Module makers very often give the property to bosses, even though there's no real reason for them to have it, because they don't want them to be killed by Devastating Critical or critical hits and sneak attacks in general. Bosses often have lots of immunities for this reason. It's a way of inflating their difficulty.

You might argue that this is an issue of bad design, but it's still something you see quite a lot in both single- and multi-player NWN modules, and something that you have to consider when making a weapon master.

Still, even without bosses, there are so many crit immune enemies that it can limit weapon masters severely. If you're in an undead heavy module, and specialised in a slashing weapon, you'll be in for a much harder time.

Let's break these down into some actual numbers. Let's assume you can get +12 to your main stat and you have +5 weapons (the exact number on the weapons doesn't matter as long as everyone is using the same number).

A 40 Rogue who starts with 18 Dex, gets Great Dex IV, Epic Prowess, and Epic Weapon Focus gets 49 AB while dual-wielding (17 Dex + 25 BAB + 5 Weapon + 4 Feats - 2 Dual-wielding).

Something like a 25 WM/10 Fighter/3 Rogue (or Bard) will have 63 AB (18 Str + 30 BAB + 5 Weapon + 4 Feats + 6 WM Stuff).

If we're assuming the WM hits most foes on a 10 with his second attack, that means he needs a 5 on his first attack. 63 + 5 = 68 AC for enemies. And if most foes have 68 AC...what exactly is that poor rogue with 49 AB going to be hitting?

It is bad design. And it screws over rogues even more than weapon masters -- a scimitar weapon master might lose 50% of their damage...but rogues can easily lose over 80% of their damage.

At level 40, you're right. Weaponmasters get so much more AB from their epic class levels that in a well-designed module they'll be hitting pretty much everything.

The vast majority of modules, though, other than persistent worlds, are pre-epic, or low-epic. At level 20, that rogue will have 4 less BAB, 2 less AB from dual wield, and 1 less from superior weapon focus. 7 total. Which means the rogue's 1st attack (and 1st dual wield attack) will be 8 points better than the weapon master's last attack.

As with all these things, it comes down to the environment you're playing in.

I don't disagree. But it's a very common design. It's not entirely module makers' fault. It's inherent to NWN, and to a lesser extent D&D. There are just so many monsters that are immune to criticals/sneak attacks.

Particularly in single player, it's a good reason not to play either rogues or weapon masters unless you know you won't be buried in undead/constructs/elementals/etc. And that includes the OCs, which outside of perhaps Shadows of Udrentide indeed are replete with such foes.

5 less BAB, so 8 total. So let's run some numbers again..

WM hits on a 10 with his second attack, which is 3 better than the rogue's first attack. So let's say the enemy has 30 AC, the WM has 25 AB, and the rogue has 17 AB (it's the difference between AB and AC that matters, not the absolute values).

WM: 0.8 + 0.55 + 0 .3 + 0.05 + 0.8 = 3.05 hits per round

Rogue: 0.4 + 0. 15 + 0.05 + 0.4 + 0.15 + 0.5 (hasted attack doesn't get -2 AB penalty) = 1.65 hits per round.

So the rogue is hitting about half as much. And for less damage per hit (without sneak attacks).

But back to the original issue of crit confirming -- the WM has a very good chance of confirming the 0.8, 0.55, and 0.8 attacks. The 0.3 attacks have a lower chance to confirm and the 0.05 attacks are basically never going to confirm..so the threat range doesn't matter. I made a program to actually crunch the numbers on this and the long story short is that it doesn't make a significant difference in most cases.

I don't see how Dragons are immune to sneak attacks, for example, in 3.5. Can't find a 3.0 bestiary offhand.

Nor is it inherent to NWN -- a module designer can easily remove the immunities (I did).

Plus we're often talking about things like "The final boss is a human fighter? LET'S GIVE HIM CRITICAL IMMUNITY TO MAKE IT HARD!" which is a conscious (and idiotic) design choice.

A WM is still functionally a better Fighter, even against crit immune foes. Which is its own problem, but that's another issue.

But yes, rogues get screwed over hard in many modules for no actual reason.

Lots of bosses seem to be crit immune, likely to make a fight of it and keep them from being cheap shotted.

Massive WM AB bonuses? Oh, of course, this always turns into the single purpose 40th level character build.

I have played all the NWN original content and 50+ top modules. Never once did I have a 40th level character. It irritates me that people always use something rarely encountered, as if it were the most common situation.

The reality is most of the playing is done in pre-epic levels, where hitting is a lot more hit and miss.

Even if you only need 10 to hit and your have best crit range in the game, 10-20, And that requires, useing of the few big range weapons like a Rapier, Being Weapon Master with his special feat, have the regular improved crit feat, and find a keen weapon. Then you still need to roll:

10+ (55%) and then 10+(55%) to confirm your crit, that makes your chance of a crit ~30% (45%*55%) on your first attack.

And your second attack at -5 becomes 15+(30%) to hit making a crit only (30%*30%) = only 9% likely.

And your third attack if you have one: 5%*5% = .25% (less than 1%).

Needing two rolls, drastically reduces crits in the normal course of the game. Level 40 uber builds that I have never played excepted.

Cheap shotted? You mean Dev Critted? There are several ways to avoid Dev Crit being an issue.

If you're talking about "multi-purpose" characters...then those are going to have even less AB. Nor is this limited to level 40 characters, HotU goes up to level 27-28.

Sands of Fate? The Aielund Saga (level 37ish)? Careena: Krakona Rising? (mid to high 30s at least, forget the exact details)?

Let's look at level, say, 15 (the earliest WMs get their crit range extension is 13 anyway). Say we have a Fighter 8/WM 7 vs a rogue 15. The rogue does not have weapon focus (so he can swap weapons!) and started with 16 dex. Say both have +6 Str or Dex from gear.

The rogue has 11 BAB, 7 Dex modifier, and -2 AB from dual-wielding. That's 16 plus weapon bonus on his highest attacks.

The WM has 15 BAB, 8 Str modifier, and +2 AB from feats. That's 25 plus weapon bonus.

If the WM "only" needs a 10 to hit...the rogue needs a 19 to hit.

In other words, the WM will hit far more easily than a 10 unless the mobs have absurdly high AC which screws over rogues, monks, etc.

You said, and I quote:

"Never once did I have a 40th level character."

That's 1 AB in this situation.

Not in my experience. The difference at level, say, 10...is literally 1 AC. And you're giving up 1 BAB for it. When I make 12 Fighter/25 WM/3 Rogue characters, I'm taking my first rogue level in the epics.

Then the WM can be a half orc and start with 2 more strength.

When I see people diss "single purpose" characters, they rarely ever take weapon focus since it's "just 1 AB!"

Even disregarding the issues above...you have the WM with 16 strength for some reason.

Nothing if the opponent has True Seeing. Shadowdancer will lower your BAB even further in most cases.

That's the first flurry of the fight. Against something that might very well be immune to sneak attacks.

That was true (even though I at least started all 3 of those mods) and don't leave out the rest of the context. "It irritates me that people always use something rarely encountered, as if it were the most common situation."

Then you listed what? 1 Module that goes to Level 40. That makes it rare. Not common.


This is the response of people who paper build, end loaded, Level 40 characters.

When you actually play through, what is 1 BAB vs what 3 rogue levels give you: Feats: Evasion/Uncanny Dodge. Skills: Search/Disarm Traps/UMD, and enough tumble boost AC by 4, pre epic. That seems pretty one sided in favor of taking the rogue levels.

I think you are being more than a little disingenuous.


You could, but most people don't, as you take a hit on Intelligence which you also need for WM, and then you will have take an experience point penalty if you do ever multitask to rogue for it's many goodies. Oh, yeah, I forgot, XP multiclass penalties don't matter for paper level 40 builds.

That would still leave you 18 vs 20 for the Halfling dex. Unless you are going to pretend you would put your Con down to 9, to win an argument point.

Same reason you gave the Rogue 16 Dex in your example, and the above issues are covered... again.

That doesn't negate attack bonus. I thought your big argument was, poor rogues couldn't hit anything.

Besides the things Peter's listed, in single player modules rogue levels will often give a character more options for quest-resolving. (Persuade, making spot/listen checks) and gameplay (UMD, evasion, locks & traps.) If you play, for example, the Aielund saga, I certainly wouldn't want to wait until level 21 to take my first rogue level. That's what... the 3rd module of the series?

Yep, the third module. I'd be waiting until level 22-23 (22 for Tumble dump, 23 for UMD dump if I'm at negative charisma). That's precisely what I usually do. Feats are tight enough pre-epic anyway.

Hell, when I soloed the Aielund Saga, I just did a straight-up Fighter/WM build. Had no troubles.

I didn't say level 40 was common, you literally said you never had a level 40 character. The general "issue" exists in the upper 20s and beyond too -- where HotU ends, more or less. And there are quite a few modules in that level range.

Like how I soloed the Aielund Saga from level 1?

It's a 4 AC boost for 4-5 levels. You also seem to have a lot of skill points suddenly. And if you take 3 levels of rogue pre-epic, how many are you taking in the epic levels?

And what feats are you giving up? Even as human feats are tight as a 10 Fighter/10 WM. You get 7 normal feats, 1 human feat, and 6 fighter feats.

WM requires...

Weapon Focus
Expertise
Dodge
Mobility
Spring Attack
Whirlwind Attack

That leaves 8 extra feats.

Weapon Specialization
Improved Critical
Knockdown
Improved Knockdown
Blind Fight

That leaves 3 feats for everything else, including...

Toughness
Power Attack
Cleave
Great Cleave
Iron Will
Great Fortitude
Lightning Reflexes
Strong Soul
Luck of Heroes
Improved Expertise

Oh, and if you want to use exotic weapons or dual-wield, toss in a few more feats.

So which of those are you giving up?

You're missing my general point. Most people who complain about "single focus characters" are going to have a lower score than that because they think it's power-gaming. I've seen people legitimately play rogues starting with 14 dex and refuse to take weapon focus because "it's only 1 AB." They also tend to gear less to maximizing Dex. Those same people playing weapon masters then get high strength and literally have to take weapon focus. This is recounting actual experiences from people I've played with.

We can talk about min-maxed characters if you'd like to divert to that, but that wasn't my original point.

My argument is a lot of people (the average person) often build poor rogues that can't hit anything and something a WM needs a 5 to hit on his best attack will heavily punish one of those poor rogues.

When I build a WM. I usually go with 10 Fighter/7 WM/3 Rogue (or 9/7/4 and sacrifice 1 feat).

10/7/3 has the exact same feat count.

So really all I Trade pre-epic is 1 BAB.

For:

Bonus feats:
Evasion (much less damage from Area of Effect attacks)
Uncanny Dodge
+2D6 Sneak attack

Skill Access:
Tumble: +4 AC (or possibly just +3 depending on where I take levels)
UMD: Bonus magic item use, common is Monk Boots for even more AC.
Search: To not walk blindly into Traps
Disable Traps: To not walking into them when you know they are there.
Open Locks: Often extra treasure you can't get from bashing.
(and MANY more options, naturally you have to be picky, so the above are the main ones I grab)

1 BAB for all this? It's such a great trade-off, that I couldn't imagine not taking it? What does it take to ignore such a great trade-off? Pigheadedness making a silly point?

Your whole take on this, has been disingenuous and one sided.

You optimize your WM build and purposefully gimp the Rogue build to sell the idea that you have +10 to hit advantage.

It's only reasonable to assume someone building a Rogue also knows how to build characters, and understands game mechanics. In NWN you can mess up just about any build if you don't know what you are doing.

The original point of the debate was, I believe, whether a 10-20 critical threat rating for a weaponmaster is at all useful.

In that regard I have to change my mind after reading MM's arguments: the average single-player module indeed is designed at a low level of difficulty, so as not to endlessly frustrate the people who hit the recommended button when making a rogue or bard. (I know, bards are awesome, but not when someone doesn't know what they're doing and hit recommend.)

Therefore, a scimitar-weaponmaster will indeed cut through monsters as if they were made out of wax, even though his AB isn't much higher than a normal fighter's before he hits epic levels. Against low AC foes, having a wide crit threat rating wil be very helpful. (And make easy hack-and-slash a lot less tedious to boot.)

Of course, this same argument also drives home the point that min-maxing a weaponmaster is overkill in such modules. Which is why I definitely do not get wanting to spend 50-60% of a game series lacking fun skills and abilities like UMD or Evasion, just to get a bit more hitting power at the end. But to each his own.

Indeed. Lower levels are tuned as being fairly forgiving in campaigns and on high level PW worlds or campaigns where the tuning is harder the extra AB is coming into play.

Well, soloing Aielund would be rather difficult as a recommend button rogue. Evasion would be more important if modules were generally harder -- all it's doing is saving on healing during combat, so if that's not really ever an issue Evasion isn't really important. UMD's usefulness also vastly varies module to module.

If you're only going 7 WM pre-epic, then you're losing out even more in the epic levels. Assuming you're going at least 2 rogue levels in epics for skill dumps and 2 fighter levels for weapon specialization, that gives you 12 Fighter/ 23 WM/5 Rogue (or more likely 12 Fighter/22 WM/6 Rogue). Which means you lose out on a WM bonus feat and a WM AB as well, so now we're 2 AB and a feat down.

You also get Epic Weapon Focus/Epic Weapon Specialization more slowly -- I could get those at level 23 and 25 respectively, you'd have to wait until 26 and 28.

1 AB is usually a 10-15% increase in damage -- and it's especially important against the hardest to hit enemies. And if your AB gets insanely high you can then freely use Expertise/Power Attack and/or have a better Knockdown chance.

I'm relaying actual builds I've seen other people make.

Level 21 (Fighter 11) - EWF
Level 22 (Fighter 12) - EWS

I am sure you have also seen other people make good builds as well. So this is still being disingenuous, or arguing in bad faith. It's a petty tactic.