Could be a good build at higher levels, but it will have a very difficult time in early and mid levels, especially against crit immunes (e.g. undead), since not only will you not be getting crits, but you also won't get any bonus damage from Insightful Strike (so all those points in Int won't do a thing). This changes once you get Epic Precision, but that's a long time to wait while playing a character with very little offensive power. You'll also hit a multi-class experience penalty early on, and stacked with the experience penalty you already have from the Tiefling you'll be gaining levels pretty slowly. Ultimately it's a build that could be interesting if you get to start at epic levels, but getting there naturally would be a real chore.

Oh, I agree, I was just musing about what could be done with Mad3's previous concept. Uh, what? Favored class of tiefling is rogue, and his fighter and swashbuckler levels are never more than 1 apart, so he doesn't have any experience penalty.

ECL penalties only really hurt at low levels. Much as he'll suck against precision-immune enemies, he'll be competent in most situations at level 5+

My mistake, you're absolutely right.

@ darwin: your build looks very good to me.
I would start with lv1 as rogue and take every second level as rogue until he has swash3, fighter4 so he can use his skill points for useful skills like traps, sneaking and UMD. With his enormous amount of skill points, able learner would be good for him. He travels in a group and I never play PvP.

@ everyone: This is what I want to use for SoZ.
-An earth genasi strengh fighter (I give him a falchion because I used already characters with great sword and scythe)
-A tiefling rogue (the one from darvin is good)
-An aasimar cleric/paladin/doomguide
-A human wizard/arcane scolar/red wizard

I know that I will not reach lv30 there, this is just the basic concept.
So decendants from celestrials, demons, elementals and humans travel together.
Whats strange about this?
Answer: No sane creature wants to travel with a human :-)
Maybe I drop the red wizard and take a snake (yuan ti). This group would be more fitting for role playing :-)

And now to something completely different:
Is all physical damage except sneak attacs multiplied by a critical hit?
There is weapon damage, strengh modifier (int with combat insight), weapon specialization, some class abilities (like insightful strike) and maybe something more.
I know that sneak attacs and elemental damage is not multiplied.

Note: In NWN1 SoU I used a hammer that does 1point additional sonic damage. On a critical hit I saw 3points sonic damage sometimes. I guess this is a bug.

Ok, my last question is answered here:
http://nwn2.wikia.com/wiki/Damage_roll
and
http://nwn.wikia.com/wiki/Critical_hit


and about ability score reduction:
http://nwn2.wikia.com/wiki/Swashbuckler

it says that it can reduce the ability score to zero, but it says not if this is deadly.

Absolutely a good plan; it means you won't have weapon finesse at 1st level, but the skill points will be well worth it in the long run. Because most of his class levels are in rogue, he already has a lot of class skills so this isn't very necessary. As well, he's kinda feat starved since he's going both weapon master and dual-wielding. Why stop with Earth Genasi? Go Dragon Disciple ^_^ Should be noted there's a recruitable NPC Doomguide in SoZ The SoZ campaign is non-linear, so depending on the order at which you do things you may encounter the end-game fairly early (I arrived at level 13!) so make sure you know which of these two classes you want to prioritize.


My first SoZ playthrough was with this group:
Human Sorcerer/Arcane Scholar
Dwarf Fighter/Bard 1/Red Dragon Disciple
Wood Elf Ranger
Tiefling Fighter/Rogue/Shadow Dancer

Took me forever to find the one merchant that actually stocked healing kits (it was later patched so every major town had a merchant who sold them; apparently the devs hadn't anticipated people playing parties without a cleric or druid), but once I did it was actually a really cool party. The rules are different from one game to the next. This is one of the discrepancies between NWN1 and NWN2.

Thats what I want to do. Feels a bit like cheating.
Kealyn was very impressive in MotB. She could easiely beat the game alone.
I wanted to make something like her (well, there are no wings).

There are NPC group members in SoZ? I thought you need to create a comlete team.
I wanted to make a group that covers most aspects of the game very good
(maybe excluding nature, no druid or ranger)

I never used the healing skill at all.
In all DnD games I always had someone who was at least partly priest (cleric, druid or something similar) in my group and I give always a stack of potions to everyone. Potions require no skill check.

Yes, there are recruitable NPC's in SoZ. The "build your own party" is technically optional (although you'll have a hard time with the starting area if you're soloing). You can also mix-and-match freely.

The Doomguide NPC is found in Port Llast, roughly 1/3rd the way through the campaign. I've never used him, though; I find SoZ one of the least replayable of the campaigns (despite it being my favourite on first playthrough) and haven't explored different party combos extensively. Actually, this is a bit of an issue. The survival skill is very important in SoZ, since it determines your party's overland movement speed. Fortunately there are some NPC's you can recruit to fix this.

Does a bigger Party get less exp?
In some games the exp are divided between all party members.

For quests, the answer is no; XP is awarded to each party member individually irrespective of party size.

For combat, the answer is "it depends". The amount of XP earned will be split between party members, but it is also modified by the relative different in power between the party and the monsters they're fighting (I'm not 100% sure on the math there) which makes figuring it out a bit complicated. For instance, a 10th level character might earn 75 XP from an encounter, while a party of 5th level characters might earn 200 XP each because their level difference wasn't as dramatic.

Also, unlike previous NWN campaigns, disabling traps counts for XP here.

New questions (I am to lazy to start a new thread for every question)

-In NWN1 some equipment seems to absorbs damage.
My drow friend in chapter 2 HotU has an armor that has "+6 soak 10 damage" (there are some other items like this)
Does this mean "DR 10/+6"?
I can uderstand what is written that way: "damage reduction/way to ignore it" (like 10/+5 for stoneskin)
But what the hell does this soak thing mean?

-In NWN1 critacal damage is first multiplied, than absorbed.
example: your normal attac makes 9 points of damage and you fight something with damage reduction 10.
when your crit multiplier is 2, you do 8 points of damage ((9 * 2) - 10 = 8)
I found this out when bashing metal doors or statues.
Is it the same in NWN2?
note: In the Drakensang games its the other way round. Damage is first absorbed, the multiplied.
In the example above you would do no damage because ((9 - 10) * 2 < 1) = 0 damage

Yea, soak is the same as damage reduction.
And I'm pretty sure criticals work the same way in NWN1 and 2. Multiply and then reduce.

Some new questions:

-Is there any reason to use a char that is focused on ranged weapons?
In NWN1+2 I usually meet large groups of enemies and melee combat cannot be avoided most of the time.
Unlike casters you don´t have AOE or CC attacs with ranged weapons.

-I was looking through some builds on nwn2db.com.
Why do many people say you must have hide in plain sight as melee char?
I can understand it is very useful when you have lots of sneak damage and when you do PvP.
But also many other chars have it. The only thing I can think of is: When a battle gets too hard,
disappear, run away, heal and buff yourself, sneak back and continue where you stopped.
Note: Till now I always played the campaigns you get on gog, I was always in a group and I
will never do PvP even if I play somewhere else.

-I read the description of two weapon fighting again.
Is it true that only your off hand weapon needs to be small to get -2/-2 penalty?
So a human can fight with a longsword in his main hand and a short sword in his off hand without problems.
Till now I thought you need small weapons in both hand to get the minimum penalty.
I am not sure but I believe there was a game where you need small weapons in both hands.
I also think NWN1+2 are the same in this sense.

Not really. It is useful when you're able to just stand still and kill without wasting time moving around. Also handy for getting a lot of bow sneak attacks against opponents who are battling somebody else. But generally hand to hand is more effective anyway. Arcane archer could theoretically be real nice build, but then you usually get piles and piles of enchanted arrows anyway. No other reason than that. People giving build tips are usually crazy powergamers. It is real effective to do the hide-sneak-attack-hide-heal-sneak attack routine. Pretty much unbeatable in PvP. But not essential by any means. Both are right. It's enough to have a small offhand weapon.
But the builders also assume you to take weapon focus and specialization and it's more economical to have the same weapon in both hands so both get the focus, specialization, improved criticals and whatever.