Robbin' Beard (A build by request)

[sigtrent]

From Sigtrent's Build Request Thread (http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=117232)

Build Name: Robbin Beard
Author: Sigfried Trent
Requester: Dross the Juggernaut
Last Updated:07/28/10

Key Words [Ranger, Rogue, Traps, TWF, Tough]

Objectives
The request was for a dwarven rogue/warrior that was good with traps but more durable and versatile than a pure rogue. He specifically wanted two weapon fighting which really is more the standard than the deviation these days.

Design
This, like the original is primarily a ranger build. Ranger is the wonder class that gives you ranged combat and strong melee without really breaking a sweat. It’s a bit dependent on favored enemy for top damage performance, but its always strong. And most of all it pairs perfectly with rogue as you get many skill points and some of them are in class.

Tempest is an easy choice, but without any bonus feats you get some of the staples pretty late in the build. I try to take advantage of all the dwarven goodies; D Axes, Toughness, Spell Defense and even Armor Mastery which is not typical for rangers. Since this is kind of a tough solo survivalist type build, ranger devotion seems like a good pick. Ranger really doesn’t have the wealth of quality enhancements that other classes do so not much sacrifices is needed to pick all these up.

The end result is pretty solid with respectable hit points, AC, and Saves (especialy vs spells). DPS is excellent, especially on favored enemies. Trapping and UMD are in good shape as well.


Character Plan by DDO Character Planner Version 3.5.1
DDO Character Planner Home Page (http://www.rjcyberware.com/DDO)

Level 20 Neutral Good Dwarf Male
(2 Rogue \ 18 Ranger)
Hit Points: 338
Spell Points: 299
BAB: 19\19\24\29\29
Fortitude: 16
Reflex: 18
Will: 8

Starting Feat/Enhancement
Abilities Base Stats Modified Stats
(32 Point) (Level 1) (Level 20)
Strength 16 23
Dexterity 14 18
Constitution 16 20
Intelligence 12 14
Wisdom 12 14
Charisma 8 10

Tomes Used
+2 Tome of Strength used at level 7
+2 Tome of Dexterity used at level 7
+2 Tome of Constitution used at level 7
+2 Tome of Intelligence used at level 7
+2 Tome of Wisdom used at level 7
+2 Tome of Charisma used at level 7

Starting Feat/Enhancement
Base Skills Modified Skills
Skills (Level 1) (Level 20)
Balance 6 13
Bluff -1 0
Concentration 3 5
Diplomacy -1 0
Disable Device 5 26
Haggle -1 0
Heal 1 2
Hide 4 6
Intimidate -1 0
Jump 7 16
Listen 1 2
Move Silently 4 6
Open Lock 6 24
Perform n/a n/a
Repair 1 2
Search 5 28
Spot 5 25
Swim 3 6
Tumble 6 8
Use Magic Device 3 23

Level 1 (Rogue)
Feat: (Selected) Dodge
Enhancement: Rogue Haste Boost I
Enhancement: Dwarven Axe Damage I
Enhancement: Rogue Sneak Attack Training I


Level 2 (Ranger)
Feat: (Favored Enemy) Favored Enemy: Undead
Enhancement: Ranger Sprint Boost I
Enhancement: Rogue Disable Device I
Enhancement: Ranger Search I
Enhancement: Rogue Improved Trap Sense I


Level 3 (Ranger)
Feat: (Selected) Mobility
Enhancement: Dwarven Spell Defense I
Enhancement: Ranger Favored Damage I
Enhancement: Ranger Dexterity I


Level 4 (Rogue)
Enhancement: Dwarven Axe Attack I
Enhancement: Dwarven Constitution I


Level 5 (Ranger)
Enhancement: Dwarven Armor Mastery I
Enhancement: Dwarven Spell Defense II


Level 6 (Ranger)
Feat: (Selected) Spring Attack
Enhancement: Ranger Energy of the Wild I


Level 7 (Ranger)
Feat: (Favored Enemy) Favored Enemy: Giant
Enhancement: Dwarven Axe Damage II
Enhancement: Ranger Favored Damage II


Level 8 (Ranger)
Enhancement: Ranger Tempest I
Enhancement: Ranger Devotion I


Level 9 (Ranger)
Feat: (Selected) Improved Critical: Slashing Weapons
Enhancement: Dwarven Constitution II


Level 10 (Ranger)
Enhancement: Ranger Dexterity II


Level 11 (Ranger)
Enhancement: Ranger Favored Damage III


Level 12 (Ranger)
Feat: (Favored Enemy) Favored Enemy: Elemental
Feat: (Selected) Oversized Two Weapon Fighting
Enhancement: Ranger Devotion II
Enhancement: Ranger Devotion III


Level 13 (Ranger)
Enhancement: Dwarven Armor Mastery II


Level 14 (Ranger)
Enhancement: Ranger Tempest II


Level 15 (Ranger)
Feat: (Selected) Toughness
Enhancement: Racial Toughness I
Enhancement: Racial Toughness II
Enhancement: Racial Toughness III


Level 16 (Ranger)
Enhancement: Ranger Favored Damage IV


Level 17 (Ranger)
Feat: (Favored Enemy) Favored Enemy: Evil Outsider
Enhancement: Racial Toughness IV


Level 18 (Ranger)
Feat: (Selected) Power Attack
Enhancement: Ranger Devotion IV


Level 19 (Ranger)
Enhancement: Dwarven Spell Defense III


Level 20 (Ranger)
Enhancement: Ranger Energy Resistence Boost I
Enhancement: Ranger Tempest III
Enhancement: Ranger Energy of the Wild II



Play
This is one of the easier builds to play as it has few weaknesses or special techniques. In a party it can handle traps and serves to beat down on the bad guys. Don’t forget you are a very solid archer as well as a melee. That can come in quite handy while soloing or in certain quests.

Variations
The easiest way to take this to 28pts is to take strength down 2. The tomes are purely optional on this one.

[Girevik]

The use of bastard sword necessitated a mix of dex and strength for combat so I leveraged thrown weapons a little bit to further take advantage of that.

? How does this apply to this guy? A left-over from another build?

Also, I have been noodling a similar build this week (I just opened 32-pointers on Wednesday and I like my stunties) and have some questions on your stat choices and reasoning.

STR 16 Check, I was thinking the same.
DEX 14 Ditto

After that we differ a bit and I was wondering on your logic.
CON 14 I would have gone with 16 because I love a bargain. But, I can see 14.
INT 12 I would have gone with a 14 here for sure. 1 more skill point in a skill starved build plus another point to Search and DD.
WIS 14 I would have dropped this to 12. A few less spell points, and -1 to Will Saves hurts, but he is a Dwarf with their resistances.
CHA 8 I would have left this at 6 as well. It's a -1 to UMD, but it allows for the more hit points, more Fort Save from Con or the More Skills, higher bonuses for DD and Search.

I guess I see where you are coming from, it's just a minor question of which will play a bit better. Were there any hard and fast goals that you were shooting for with the Wis 14 and Cha 8 that couldn't be met with a 12 and 6?

P.S. The 14 Int does open up the Combat Expertise option as well.

[Nemonon]

thats the comentary from his thief acrobat build. probably just copy and pasted the wrong one onto here.

[sigtrent]

I guess I see where you are coming from, it's just a minor question of which will play a bit better. Were there any hard and fast goals that you were shooting for with the Wis 14 and Cha 8 that couldn't be met with a 12 and 6?

P.S. The 14 Int does open up the Combat Expertise option as well.

The requester wanted all his Saving throws to be 18+ and I didn't want to go the paladin route so I was thinking I should make the three saving throw stats pretty decent, especialy wisdom, in order to hit those targets. I also though he could take advantage of the decent wisdom via spell points and spot since it is usualy a weak spot on many rogues. He also wanted a specific UMD target upper 20s low 30s as I recall. A lot of the time I do the stats first so I'm eyeballing the outcomes. Occasionaly I'll go back and adjust them if I don't meet X target or another.

I think you could certainly lower Cha or Wis to bump Con up without effecting the build much. I'm not sure there is much need for more INT, I felt like I had plenty of skill points. With more int you might be able to drop SF Disable freeing up a feat. I think I might drop the Cha before Wis. I was able to meet my UMD target without too much trouble thanks to action boost and the Skill Focus feat. Loosing one point wouldn't hurt much at all and an extra 14 HP might be nice.

And yes the stuff about bastard swords was from another build. I seem to have at least one remnent of the last build in just about every one of these. I work on them in MS word and they can be hard to read with all the BB markup tags in there. Thanks for catching it!

[Olaff]

From Sigtrent's Build Request Thread (http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=117232)

Commentary
I honestly wasn’t sure what to do with the feat at 12. Included power attack which I think is almost always nice to have for a strong combat character. You could go with mental toughness if you want to do more casting or a feat oriented for defense.

IMO, you're better off taking WP: Slashing at 12 so you can take Power Crit: Slashing at 15. That leaves you with an open feat slot at 18. It also makes up for the loss of 1 BAB incurred when taking Rogue 1.

Alternately, try to fit SF: Search in, if the Rogue skills are that important.

[sigtrent]

IMO, you're better off taking WP: Slashing at 12 so you can take Power Crit: Slashing at 15. That leaves you with an open feat slot at 18. It also makes up for the loss of 1 BAB incurred when taking Rogue 1.

I'm not a big fan of Power Critical. It's decent if you have a low attack, but at that point I'd try to shore up the basic attack numbers before working on confirming crits. Pretty good with really high AC targets as well, but I don't see so many of them. I'd think its best with characters who run power attack or combat expertise. Anyhow, I appreciate the advice, its something for the requester to consider. I'm curious why you like it though..



Alternately, try to fit SF: Search in, if the Rogue skills are that important.

There is a post somewhere (I have it linked at work) that lists the current known trap targets excluding Cabal Elite. The builds current search number excedes that needed to find the all traps and secret doors sans the afore mentioned super trap. Dwarves get the handy +2 in search so they are about as good as elves in that department. Aslo for dwarves when I do want to bump their search I'd generaly take their least dragon mark instead of skill focus. It offers +2 search, a special search enhancement line up to +4 and you get fire trap as a fun little bonus.

[Olaff]

I'm not a big fan of Power Critical. It's decent if you have a low attack, but at that point I'd try to shore up the basic attack numbers before working on confirming crits. Pretty good with really high AC targets as well, but I don't see so many of them. I'd think its best with characters who run power attack or combat expertise. Anyhow, I appreciate the advice, its something for the requester to consider. I'm curious why you like it though..

I figured if you're going to go with Improved Crit to double the crit range, you might as well go Power Crit to help confirm them. Besides, if memory serves, Power Crit is not weapon type-specific, so it works with whatever weapon you happen to be using. I actually don't take Power Attack unless I want Cleave / Great Cleave, and then I never actually use PA. I'd prefer to make sure I hit things. CE I use regularly, but only when I need to turtle. So, for me, Power Crit wouldn't work with either combo. Just my opinion though. :)


There is a post somewhere (I have it linked at work) that lists the current known trap targets excluding Cabal Elite. The builds current search number excedes that needed to find the all traps and secret doors sans the afore mentioned super trap. Dwarves get the handy +2 in search so they are about as good as elves in that department. Aslo for dwarves when I do want to bump their search I'd generaly take their least dragon mark instead of skill focus. It offers +2 search, a special search enhancement line up to +4 and you get fire trap as a fun little bonus.

Ah, right, I'd forgotten that the Dwarf Dragonmark grants that as an innate bonus. You're right, that's probably a better choice for a Dwarf than SF: Search. As for why to take it... I personally don't build for the current levelcap, I always plan out to level 20. Though, the case can be made that this feat should come later, if you can meet the needs through other means.

Either way, your build looks pretty solid, and when it comes to it, the suggestions I made come down to personal choice.

[Drummerman121]

So I made this build and started playing it. I loved it, because I've never played a meleer type before, OR a rogue, and this was a cool new build for me. I noticed that it is 2 years old, and the level still only goes up to 14. I was just wondering if anyone thinks there should be any changes to this build based on game updates in the past 2 years, and what should be done with levels 15-20?

[Drummerman121]

Bump

[Impaqt]

I would never recomend a 3 level splash it todays game. 17/3 at end game is gonna be frustrating.

Try to eliminate one of the Rogue Levels and you'll be fine.

[Drummerman121]

I would never recomend a 3 level splash it todays game. 17/3 at end game is gonna be frustrating.

Try to eliminate one of the Rogue Levels and you'll be fine.

Just curious, what would make it frustrating?

[Impaqt]

Just curious, what would make it frustrating?

Well, Ijust noticed why else this build should of been retired.

No Tempest...

ANy Dual Weilding focused ranger should be taking the Temest PrE Path. THis required Dodge, Mobility and Spring Attack as feat. You gain 10% Attack Speed.

At level 18, you can take Tempest 3. THis adds an additional attack at the end of your attack chain. It will be viewed as an esentialpart of being a dual weilding ranger.

With 3 Rogue Levels, You will most likely never be able to take that enhancement.

SF UMD is also no longer real necessary with the level cap raises. and SF DD is not very useful either. You should be able to easily maintain your skills without that. Add a Feat at l15 and another at 18 and you have plenty of options to move to Tempest.

[sigtrent]

A lot of these could use an update, but its a big task with so many of them.

I suppose I have to say buyer beware, and the older the build the less optimal it likely is. (not that optimal is how I'd describe many of them since they are often based on particular desires and I liked to build to spec rather than try to make best of breed builds)

None the less I'm sure the build would hold up decently with some feat re-specs at higher level. I still have many of my original builds that if they remained unchanged would not work well, but feat re-specs can often allow you to really optimize a build even if it wasn't specked out that way to start with.

For this one I agree you would stick with 2 rogue levels and go 18 in ranger for the best performance. Rogue at 14 here was more of a... what do I get for that last level? Rogue had 1d6 sneak attack and more skills, ranger 12 at the time had very little going for it.