Hi again - thank you very much for your super swift response.

I would presume you would take this Sworlord ASAP as well.

I'm assuming an Aldori Dueslist with CHA would dump STR and WIS, getting -2 to Will saves. Even in this case you think that Paladin level are not needed? It will take some time until a buffer can compensate for this and makes the tank prone to hold, fear, etc.

Or would you dump INT?

Again thank you so much for the sharing your insights and your time.

Will saves are easy to circumvent. Freedom of movement and unbreakable heart would do it for the most part. That would leave dominating effects which unbreakable heart doesn't affect(if it should or shouldn't is not the debate here - it currently doesn't). There is also remove fear... and you can grab a few mind blank scrolls for rare occasions where you'd want it. And there is above-mentioned bestow divine grace that would give you cha saves still. Greatest downside of wis dumping are things that drain wis. Those can kill you real fast if they can hit you.

Int is a bit of a harder deal. It depends on what I have and what I need. Usually it's not hard to get everything you'd want. And if you do dump it - to go human to compensate for it a bit.

Thanks again for the swift reply.

If you ever have the time/patience would love to see your take on that Aldori CHA with Swordlord to check feats and amount of Swordlord levels you think are appropriate (I'm torn between 1 and 5).

Thank you again for all your time and help.

Done. Kept the low-maintenance spirit of it, I believe. That being said, it can be better on a vivisectionist or saint base instead of aldori.

Again thanks a lot for your swift reply. Very kind of you.

Will look into doing it on a Vivi or a Saint as well.

You have a small typo in the build - Crane Wing at 1.

If I may pester you with yet another question: would this be the build for a DEX (major), INT and CHA (minor) character? Or should I divert into a higher micro Vivi/Saint base?

Thank you very much for all your help.

fixed

What build to go depends on the difficulty mostly. I am currently going with my saint through unfair and early levels sure were not pleasant.

As to the dex itself... well... The higher you go the worse dex builds really are as they have pretty meh late-game AB ramp. And you can get 70AC on most anything, really. It's just the amount of items that differs. Most dex build can offer is a tad more comfortable early levels. But even then if you die in 1 hit it's not much of a bonus as you have to CC enemies and pray to RNG gods. And hard and down is mostly a face-roll if you know the game and abuse exp gains.

After the recent EE changes to Fighting Defensively and combat expertise (see below), is it still worth spending feats on the Crane line? I’m trying to build Valerie mainly as a tank, I see most builds have the Crane feats and Dazzling Display.

“Fighting Defensively and Combat Expertise switched off only after combat, even if the character using them only made one attack. They should switch off every round a character does not make attacks. Resolution: fixed.”

Well, this explains why it constantly turned on and off for me. I thought it was bugged.

sure it is. Dazzling is just a tiny bit more of an opportunity cost, that's it. So now it's useful to off-load it to 2nd row characters like sorcs and clerics. The equation of shatter didn't change one bit though, so dazzling is still taken on pretty much any melee.

Not to mention that frontliners(unfair-viable ones that is) sport concealment and mirror images anyways, so taking a risk or two won't matter too much.

I see your point regarding Dazzling and Shatter. What about the Crane feats - still worth it?

free AC is free AC. What other things give 8 dodge in 2 feats?

I see your point. How are you getting to 8 dodge? Isn't it 1 from Crane Style and 4 from Crane wing (5 total)?

Considering fighting defensively is pretty much unusable without crane style - it's 8.

I was working on a new build for a new EE playthrough and saw that for DD you get the +4 str and +2 AC by level 5. Was this always this way? I thought you got those bonuses by level 4.

Thanks for all the awesome builds. I will use most of the companion ones, but I have trouble picking one for the MC. I really like the idea of a front-liner with strong pet, decent damage and AC, but I would also like to do a LG playthrough. Is it possible to build an effective character like that?

I'm currently thinking about following:
1) Base class inquisitor - sacred huntsmaster.
2) Take 1 level of monk to improve AC.
3) Take 4 levels of ranger to give favored enemy bonuses to my pet.
4) Would you ditch ranger levels, or maybe flip it around (like ranger 16/inquisitor 3/monk 1)?
5) Will STR build have enough AC to survive hard, or do I have to go DEX?
6) Do I have to take aasimar for the wings?
7) Is boon companion worth it for this build?
8) Do levels of sacred huntsmaster stack with ranger for the favored enemy bonus?

Sorry for asking so many questions. Any advice you can give me would be much appreciated.