Dex bases means limited damage, and most tough enemies in NWN are Sneak/Crit immune (often with Damage Reduction on top).

Never ever use the recommend button. You'll always get the worst decisions from it. BW was trying to push the RP aspect of the game, hiding all the really good choices.

The best fighter in a low magic scenario is a str based cleric because it's basically a walking magic item shop. Buffs and heals are the real power of this build. But the Harm spell is devastating even in high magic settings and Heals are always welcome.

Human
str 16
dex 10
con 10
wis 15
int 14 (plenty of skill points, get Tumble, Concentration, Spellcraft, and something else)
cha 10

As far as ability increases, first get your wis to 19 so you can cast 9th level spells, then the rest goes to str. For feats, you want martial weapon proficiency, combat casting, KD, imp kd, the rest would be metamagic feats, Extend most importantly, and Empower.

There are a number of good domains to choose but you can only have 2:
Earth
Plant
Magic
Strength
Travel
War

For weapons, use the best you can find. Shields add a lot to your defense especially when you consider magic.

Checkout the Epic Character Builder's Guild: http://nwnecbguild.forumer.com/

They even have a module where you can fight NPCs built by them.

Kamiryn's Character Build Calculator: http://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn1/other/tool/characterbuildcalculator-cbc

So someone choosing the absolute simplest route of a fighter with recommended settings, so you recommend a spell-caster?

Clerics might be awesome, but a lot of us don't want the upkeep of managing spells.

Let fighters be fighters.

That's the way it is. It's not my fault BW made it that way.

It's either use a magic user or use the command console to give yourself items/gold or turn down the difficulty.

It's more a problem with the 3rd edition rules that Bioware was following. If anything, Neverwinter Nights made the problem much less severe than it was in pen and paper. Stuff like two weapon fighting, bad as it is in NWN, is still miles better than it was in pen and paper.

Maybe for you.

I have played through everything multiple times, all with fighting, or stealth characters.

It's very doable without resorting to being a spell caster or cheating.

Also if you play third party modules like Swordflight with rest restrictions, it is actually a lot harder to play spell casters, though I bet you would cheat your way around the rest restrictions as well.

And for your next trick, you'll rant about how unbalanced the game is, thereby completely supporting my claim that in a low magic setting cleric is the best fighter because it's a walking magic item shop.


P.S. I'll play my games as I please and if it breaks your heart, I don't care.

No one was ever arguing that cleric in low magic didn't have an advantage.

Just your pointless assertion that you have to cheat to play a fighter.

Your input is unhelpful (at best).

In a low magic setting, that is true.

But let's face it. How many NWN modules are low magic? They tend to range from "medium-high" to "Montyhaul".

In the OC alone you can get items offering permanent haste, freedom of movement, immunity to mindspells, poison, death magic, disease, stat drain, stacking stat-boost items, etc, etc. In Hordes of the Underdark it gets even crazier with the +10 acid weapons and whatnot.

If you do find a low-magic multiplayer module, or play Saleron's Gambit, then clerics definitely have a huge edge. And in the OC they are still stronger than fighters. But you definitely don't need to be a spellcaster to compete, thanks to the piles of loot and magic items you can gather up.

I don't disagree with that and in fact it supports what I said. Let's keep in mind that most high magic modules start off low magic. But, even in a high magic setting heal and harm are very useful. Stacks of Blade Barrier is a useful boss killer in a high magic setting. Implosion clerics are powerful in high magic settings too. Storm of Vengence can keep a lot of mobs stunned for a quiet a while. It's a versatile class whether built for str or wis.