Bear in mind that a non WM would still have 12-20 under the same conditions. But most of the early levels the WM is feat starved of very useful feats.

I disagree with something that was said earlier, that modules get harder at higher levels. IMO it's usually the other way around. The difficulty curve is harder the lower your level. Level 1 is usually the hardest. You can be killed by a couple of goblins.

The longer you play the bigger survival cushion you get, the more feats you accumulate, the more magic items and potions you get. In practically everything I have played, by the time you get to the high teens you tend to be a lot more powerful vs the opposition. So early level balance is even more critical, and WM kind of suck there.

One of my favorite starting Feat setups for combat characters at 1st level is Power Attack/Cleave. Cleave at 1st level is a massive increase in combat capability when facing groups. When can a WM afford to take that? When can WM take Weapon Specialization? Blind Fight?

IMO WMs suck more up till about level 15, and it is only really in Epic where they really shine, more likely on level 40 powerbuilder servers, where all fighters are WMs. Sounds dreary to me.

True, there's not that much difference between a weaponmaster and a fighter before epic levels. (And much of what there is doesn't pack out favourably for the weaponmaster until you hit mid-levels.) But since the original question was about threat ratings, the point still applies to normal fighters wanting to decide between a scimitar and a warhammer for their weapon feats.

In practice, yes.

But I'd say it's as least as much a matter of the divide between a power-build and a non power-build widening dramatically. Or just between a character made by someone who knows what they're doing, versus one made by someone who just hits the recommended button. Not to mention, in a longer module, the difference between someone who's doing all the sidequests and someone who just follows the critical path, and so misses out on tons of loot and XP.

It's much easier to balance a module for level 3 character than it is for level 13 characters, and even that is easier than balancing for level 33 characters. And the higher the level range goes, the more module makers have to play it safe to account for very weak characters, making it easier for most. (Though adding strong henchmen can certainly compensate for that.)

Of course, one could make a challenging module in which evasion is useless. For example, an evil module designer could give enemies spells and breath attacks that look (and for the most part act) like Fireball and dragon breath, but don't actually check for evasion. (This is assuming the engine is flexible to allow for custom spells like this.)

Similarly, one could (assuming a flexible enough engine) create an item whose script checks the user's class, and if the user is the wrong class, refuses to work without allowing a UMD check.

Then again, an evil module designer could do things like having a normal looking door teleport anyone who opens it to an area with epic level monsters, and put that door in a place where a level 1 PC could open it. Without extreme trickery (are the\re exploits that could be used here?), a level 1 character is not going to be able to survive against epic level monsters.

(Side note: How much XP does this game give to a level 1 character who somehow defeats a level 40 enemy?)

I think that is a reasonable reason. But what it still amounts to in practice, is that a Weapon Master is weaker at lower levels, when the relative challenge is higher and improved capabilities are needed more, and stronger at higher (epic) levels when the relative challenge is lower, and the extra bonus is needed less.

The WM is end loaded, when the game is front loaded difficulty. It looks kind of backwards to me. I prefer characters to gain early advantages.

I am not a fan of WM for a starting build. In fact the only time I played one was starting a new character at level 15 for HotU.

Speaking of challenge levels of modules. Have you played Swordflight? I am in Ch 2 and it seems to be maintaining a fairly decent challenge level. I think this would be a hard module for someone hitting the recommend button.

It is an excellent series and one that stays challenging into the low epics (which is where Chapter 3 ends...to be continued). Will respond more later but wanted to lather on some praise for Swordflight.

So...now you're giving up a Great Strength feat as well?

The question was about how OTHER people design modules. And they generally design modules to be forgiving to those bad builds. Which means the high threat range is useful in those modules.

And if a fighter in armor and d10 HP is killed by goblins, what's a mage without armor and d4 HP going to do? Modules are even MORE forgiving at low levels because low levels suck in D&D. 3+ is when things start to be decent and 7-15 is, in my opinion, the overall "sweet spot" for the game.

Level 4 for Weapon Specialization. Level 9 or 12 for Blind Fight -- or delay WM by two levels and pick it up earlier by going to Fighter 8 rather than Fighter 6.

Or can even take it somewhere in the level 1-6 range if human.

At level 11 they have +1 AB and an extra multiplier, that's a massive power gain. At level 13 they have all their pre-epic features.

The engine is flexible enough, but I don't see the relevance of this statement. The question is "does Evasion reduce enough damage to go from NOT needing to heal during combat TO needing to heal during combat?" In other words, if you take 25% of your HP in damage during a fight WITH evasion but 50% of your HP in a fight WITHOUT evasion...you didn't need to actually heal in either case so Evasion doesn't really give a benefit.

Depends on the module settings.

The WM gains early advantages. He has d10 HP, heavy armor, full BAB, and high strength from level 1. That's more than most other classes early game even if he didn't pick up a single feat, period.

In NWN1, mages are quite capable of surviving low levels against much bigger odds than fighters are. They have familiars, possibly with regeneration, various immunities and damage resistance. They can summon badgers, who have many more hitpoints than a level 1 fighter. And a single sleep spell can take out a whole mob of goblins that might pincushion a fighter. So chances are, that mage is never even going to be attacked by those monsters that took out the 13HP fighter. (He'll probably have to rest after 1-2 fights, but there's nothing stopping the mage from doing so in 80% of modules.)

In general though, you're quite right about NWN's sweet spot. Low levels are just too random. Even a "perfectly" balanced level 1 module could see the fighter killed if the enemy rolls two 20s in a row. It just isn't very much fun. At higher levels, the odds of such lucky streaks causing an upset are much, much lower, and in any case you can just drink more healing potions to compensate.

No the question was about you purposefully gimping the rogue in your disingenuous one sided comparison.

Massive? I don't think so. Also feat starved.

Those are simply fighter advantages, and early on, the WM is just a feat starved version, so weaker. You can't burn a feat on Toughness, you can't burn two feats on PA/Cleave. Cleave is a massive advantage fighting groups at low level. Can't burn feats on KD/IKD, huge advantage one-on-one. You also have to spread out abilities more, so starting at 17 or 18 str is more difficult/damaging/impossible.

Weaker, starved of good feats, all to get a slight bonus in Critical, that don't even work against undead/constructs/others that modules are full of.