I was very excited to make my fighter a weapon master at the earliest opportunity, but having done that I am regretting it.

Brog became a Weapon Master at level 7 or 8. I think.

However, at this point, there was still a number of useful feats that he didn't have, like Cleave and Great Cleave, Improved Critical, Power Critical.

Weapon Master only gives you the interesting stuff at level 5 and 7. That's 3 bonus fighter feats missed out upon.

This has made me feel like I should first level up as fighter until I have all (or: almost all) the feats I really want, and only then begin the long slow journey to Increased Multiplier and Ki Critical.

What do you guys think? Am I missing something?

Hi Bookwyrm

I only took a single level in it so far, and that is my regret - I should not have taken even that (yet).
What you say is true. But I have looked at the progression tables and I see that I only get something nice in Weapon Master on level 5 and 7.

Cheers
P

You'll have to balance what you actually want and need.

If you have other needs, then go meet those other needs. However, the sooner you work toward those WM levels with the really nice toys, the longer you'll be able to play with those toys. If you don't have a pressing need for Cleave, Great Cleave, etc, then keep pushing the Weapon Master levels, since you still get the standard feat per 3 levels to spend on the other stuff.

I really don't play Weapon Masters unless I am going to epic levels and building a high level character.

WM are just painfully Feat Starved, I hate playing the early levels with them.

Cleave (requires Power attack ) is so awesome at low levels that I usually get it at first level. This feat is more relatively powerful the earlier you get it. Blind Fight is another must have, and I toughness, Weapon Specialization...

Basically WM is 14 levels of deprivation(feat starvation) until you get your awesome crits. These days I won't play a WM unless I am starting at level 15+.

Even after level 15 you are going to be way behind on your favorite feats forever, just to do awesome crits...

@PeterScott
Thanks - Having technical issues replying to this - no idea why...
@PeterScott
something goes wrong when I try to use quotes the right way, so I fall back to the old-fashioned punctuation ;)

"I really don't play Weapon Masters unless I am going to epic levels and building a high level character."

This is Storm of Zehir, so Brog is at least not my only character. With the first 6 levels in Fighter, he is the party superstar in combat. But the least impressive out of it. Such are the way of things with Fighters.

"Cleave (requires Power attack ) is so awesome at low levels that I usually get it at first level. This feat is more relatively powerful the earlier you get it. Blind Fight is another must have, and I toughness, Weapon Specialization..."

Agreed. Is Blind Fight really that important, though? I've not yet encountered a situation where I would need it...

"Basically WM is 14 levels of deprivation(feat starvation) until you get your awesome crits. These days I won't play a WM unless I am starting at level 15+."

14 levels? Don't you mean 7?

"Even after level 15 you are going to be way behind on your favorite feats forever, just to do awesome crits..."

Yup - I had the same general feeling, which is why I consoled Brog back 9000 XP, and took fighter levels instead of Weapon Master levels.

However, I seem to recall from the OC that, at the higher levels, Kelgar was kinda out of interesting feats to take, and Weapon Master certainly adds a lot of damage output by the time you reach level 7.

Blind fight might get more use in NWN1.

7 Levels of Fighter before you get first level of WM, then 7 more levels of actual WM before you get that Ki Critical ability that gives you more critical. So 14 levels before you get your main special ability.

Actually I don't think I ever played a WM in NWN2. Though I played WM a fair bit in NWN1.

Storm of Zehir, really benefits from having a skilled/stealth main character with survival skill, and since one of my favorite Classes, Ranger gets a big boost, I played Ranger there and a lot of the other Mods as well.

SoZ I was a Rogue/Ranger/Fighter/FB. In NWN2, Most of my Melee characters either dual Wield or I go two handed with Frenzied Berzerker. Not for the berzerking, but for the Surpreme Cleave and Enhanced Power attack.

At the end of MotB I was a Ranger 23, Rogue 2, Fighter 2, NN 3. I was strength based, but from Ranger I had "Perfect Two Weapon Fighting, so as many attacks with my offhand as my main. I just checked my old save near end game. My Ranger had modified 39 Strength, and 12 attacks/round (6 in each hand) with awesome crafted weapons.

So Melee I go high strength, and either put that high strength to optimal use, with a massive two handed weapon backed by Enhanced Power Attack with extra cleaves, or a LOT more attacks from ranger dual weapon feats.

Yup, I played a ranger in one and only OC playthrough, because it is also my favorite class.

However, many of the skills did not have much occasion to shine (survival, move silently). But I can attest to the damage output of that dual wielding ranger, with crafted weapons and buffed up the wazoo by Qara, Elanee and Zjaeve... yup, it was impressive.

Since the skilledness of the ranger was not really helpful in OC, I left a ranger out of my party in my first (current) playthrough of SoZ, only to discover that it would have been mighty helpful to have one. But on the overland map, my dwarven rogue Joff Hammerhead (I think of him as a pirate) turned out to be a fine party leader, albeit a bit of a slow one without the Survival skill. I hired the Ranger in the first town since it seemed appropriate. Interesting thing about her is that, when I took her, she already had twf as chosen style, but she had PBS as a feat, while not having the TWF feat. As I typed this, I realised I could set this straight through the console commands...