Minmax the Absurd, archer extraordinaire

[Morgan Terror]

Since i haven't seen this build on here before i reckoned i'd post it. This is no complaint, but rather an example of a massive stat-based loophole that i found. Unfortunately i don't have a screenshot of my character sheet, but here's what i did:

-2 points per level in DEX, 1 in STR.
-At 1st level, 5 points in archery. NOTHING else. No armor, no lockpicking, melee skill or cartography.
-Got archery up to 10 by level 2 or 3, improvised from there.
-Made a beeline for port kuudad and start buying bludgeoning skill, returned afterwards to smash any locked objects i skipped. Also invested money in any other skill i fancied, but still no armor skills. The bludgeoning skill exists mainly for the sake of negating the need for lockpicking.
-Grabbed some tinker's gloves as soon as i found them. Of course, if you're going for the untouchable achievement you might not want to do this. Wether you want to rush to Durnore, pay for repairs or just put points into the skill is up to you.

As you might imagine this character is extremely good for netting achievements. However, it's also extremely boring. My accuracy was so absurd that i could use a power attack by default, since it reduced my hit chance to the 80's at worst on any given enemy. Not that it mattered. I was regenerating my archery skill once every 3 or 4 rounds by the time i was making my way to durnore anyway. I could have theoretically finished the game at this point, provided i had enough arrows.

I prefer a concentration-based ranger/rogue now, for the sake of not being so overpowered. It's a strong build, if you go for an archery/lockpicking/piercing combination. It manages to sit neatly at the top of the effectiveness scale while still remaining fun to play. Don't remember if i went for stealth skills though. I find them rather useless, given the fact that they seem to be designed for only two of the dungeons in the entire game. The rest of them have too much light, and it's far more effective to just kill something before it even gets to you rather than try to sneak-attack it. Adding genuine sneak-attacks in the next game would change everything though. It seems a popular idea, and being nigh-undetactable is undeniably fun. Ninja-ing the ninjas never gets old.

[Kreador Freeaxe]

The focused archery build is extremely powerful in Book II, as is the focused mage build. One quick note, the Feat refresh peaks at every 5th turn.

There is a point to not wanting to build a completely optimized character. I've never particularly worried about min-maxing and prefer to have fun finding ways to succeed with whatever build I come up with.

[Morgan Terror]

I've never had good luck with mages. I either get stuck somewhere due to unforseen circumstances or just stop playing the character halfway through. They've got some great potential, but i don't like their limited amount of attacks that much. I do like to compare the advantages of magic vs. alchemy though. They're nicely balanced.

It was an experiment in twinking, really. Personally i've tried a shield or dodge build as well, but the skills turned out rather gimmicky. Shields are arguably the worst of the two, since shields 11 essentially does the same as dodge 1, insufficiently offset by the shield AC bonus. Both skills are a nice addition to your defences, but there's just much better alternatives. I've already seen the discussion all over the forums though, so i don't really know why i bother.

For those interested, i tried combining dodge with bludgeoning and sword skill to create a pile-up of to-hit bonuses, creating a compensation for the sword's low feat damage by increasing it's normal hit chance. The sword feat was only used as a defence, thus stacking two methods of defence with my armor. It was kinda clunky for most of the game, but it was devastating against bosses. The bludgeoning feat effect stacks. In hindsight, it may have been better to trade the defensive attitude of sword skill in exchange for bludgeoning power. This build does give you the room to invest stat points in other stats than your melee skills though, so it might have potential use for magic/melee combinations.

[Kreador Freeaxe]

Shield skill is an interesting one. You may have seen my description of my shield-and-spear character I built. What helps shields is a quirk in the game mechanics that makes corner squares act like ranged attacks, meaning you can get your shield deflection even on melee attacks if you keep your opponents on corner touching squared rather than side on squares. It was also a great character against the Taurax spearmen. Just wade right in, with almost no chance of being hit.

[Morgan Terror]

Oh yes, i remember that. It only counts distance along diagonals rather than horizontal or vertical directions as well. I never remembered it long enough to abuse it though. Force of habit. It's the same handicap that makes me lug 3 barrels along for the final bossfight and then forget to use them. Although i DID set the entire floor on fire in that same savegame. Somehow ended up with 12 flasks of demon oil III. Thing is though, if a skill is dependent on a programming flaw to be appealing, it's not really a good skill.

Another bug i found is that the sword weapon feat doesn't auto-deflect ranged attacks. It's quite crippling. I wonder if it bypasses the shield bonus as well.

[RPGamer]

I've tried the sheild/spear combo before. It was deadly effective, even without using the corner cheat, which I never even knew about. Since the spear required dexterity and speed, though, I put the points into dexterity, improving my to-hit and my base armor rating. The character became ridiculously powerful, the only things that ever hit her were magic attacks and the rare ranged attack, most of which was negated by either my armor rating or my missile deflection chance. Sheild skill is not unappealing at all to me. It became one of my favorite skills in the game.

[leshpar]

I don't know how relavent this is to this thread, but since people are talking about glitches I figured I'd mention one I found.

When under effect of the spell haste if you use the sword feat it removes haste no matter how many turns you had left on it.