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ive heard mention repeatedly of the monk attacks bug when multi classed, but have never seen any real explanation of what it is, so if anyone is willing to enlighten me, i would be most appreciative.

as for fighter questions....... there is a rapier near the beginning of HoTU that i have been thinking about creating a fighter to use. +1, 1D6 acid damage, KEEN. normally a 1d6 weapon would never interest me..... however, i have seen precious few higher damage keen weapons. the rapier interests me from the standpoint of making a very high AC shield bearing weapon master. rapier base threat range, 18+. improved critical brings it to 15+, keen to 12+, weaponmaster Ki critical to 10+ threat range. now granted, not every hit will be a crit, but that many threats should add up the damage FAST, especially when you have added in the epic critical feats. the basic idea would be to get 21 fighter, 7 weapon master, 9 monk for the saving throws and Imp evasion. although 12 monk for the SR would be a valid choice as well i believe.

base stats would look something like:
Str 16
Dex 13 (prereq)
Con 14
Wis 10
Int 13 (prereq)
Cha 10

i suppose charisma really has no place in the build since it wont have any abilities based off Cha, and that could be use to possibly bump Con 2 points more, or str one more point.

i am pretty new to the game, have finished NwN, and just started tinkering with hotu. i have yet to touch multiplayer, but it sounds as if PvP ability can be important.... so im looking for a strong melee type that will be playable solo, and i can still use to play in multiplayer games (if you can play an open based character.... not really sure, like i said, i havent touched multi yet.) this struck em as a character who would be fairly unique since i dont expect i would see a lot of rapier fighters out there.

at any rate, please, critique, critisize, comment thanks in advance for any responses here.

As for the monk thing - I don't know. I've never bothered with a monk before, neither as multiclass or single class in singleplayer or multiplayer

As for the weapon - that rapir dosen't sound all that good, compared to what you can find in HotU. (Weapons in HotU can become so insanely overpowered).
You can quickly in HotU get a +4 Long Sword with an insane +5 vampiric regeneration within the first area of the Undermountain.
So I would go for longswords (I think the sword can be a short sword as well, but that is more for rogues)

My own fighter which I turned into a fighter/barbarian/weapon master had the starting attributes of 14, 14, 14, 14, 10, 12. But then again - I'm not really a powergamer (I don't like to play stupid and ugly characters ), so I guess you could take wisdom and charisma down to 8 and boost some other stats.

Just so show you what weapons can become in HotU - this is what the abilities of the Long Sword "Enseric" (the +4 I mentioned) was when I ended the game: (you get the chance to upgrade weapons)
Enchantment bonus +6
Vampiric regeneration +5
Haste
Acid bonus damage 2d6
Keen
Spell resistance 20
Strenght drain on hit with a DC 24
and it could for a short periode of time become a +9 blade by draining 6 consitution (which could be counted by putting on items that made you immune to ability drain )
That is an insane weapon.

yeah, i know of enseric, it can also take greatsword form, as i have a greatsword warrior who uses it. if enseric can be upgraded to those levels... im sure the rapier im thinking of can as well. it is a named weapon... i just cant remember the name of it at the moment

if anyone can confirm 100% for me where the rapier drops i would be most appreciative.... i thought it had dropped in the drow ambush just south of the entrance on level 1, but when i did the ambush, it didnt drop. perhaps that encounter respawns and it drops on the second go round or something?

at any rate, the reason for taking some monk levels is to get improved evasion, the ability to just ignore so many spells is very nice. also, if monk is taken to 12 for diamond soul that should provide a REAL hefty SR since it lists diamond soul in teh manual as 10+CHARACTER level for your SR. hopefully that isnt a misprint, and it actually is character level as opposed to class level. the nice saves from taking some monk levels are icing on top of the improved evasion, also get a couple other nice goodie, cleave and improved knockdown most noticably.

edit to add: the reason for taking rapier over longsword is the threat range. weaponmaster with a keen longsword can push a 13+ threat range, a rapier can make 10+. not a huge difference per se, but thats why i wanted to try rapier, and the fact that it is just a bit different.

Well - you can only upgrade each weapon to a certain extent and at 2 given places (well - the Strenght Drain is gotten a third place), and if the weapon only is a +1 at start, then you will get a real problem beating some of the creatures damage resistance.
I don't know how many good rapiers you can find in the game, but you can likely find some.
The one you are thinking of is likely the "Rapier of the High Road" which is +1, 1d6 acid and keen (Don't know where it is optained). Not terrible good. But naturally - the game can of course be played using rapiers. I'd just not use it for the Weapon Master, even if you can gain a threat range of 10-20.
If I wanted to try something different for a WM, I'd go for a Scythe.


Secondly - the monk.
Improved Evasion is nice, yes - but I hardly see it as much of a problem or a gain. You have to factor in what you can loose if taking other classes.
As for the diamond soul, then 12 levels + 10 in spell resistance is also nice, but if you take a look at the stats I've listed for enseric, you will notice that I have gotten the sword enchanted with 20 magic resistance, and it didn't cost me one level, as compared to 12 levels of monk for 22. I am sorry, but I don't see a mid level monk + 10 as much to gain in spell resisitance. The monk spell resisitance is good when you reach high level but not as mid-level (in my oppinion).

i havent double checked the stats in game to be sure it isnt a misprint *yet*. the monk class lists diamond soul as being 10+CHARACTER level, not class level. so once you up into the mid 20s youre gonna have 35+ SR.... thats considerably more usefull than a flat 20. from a little reading around ive done now it looks like scimitars are the same threat range and there are some nice ones in the game, so i may go that route, but i want to try rapiers, just to do something different.

and yes, that was the rapier i was thinking of

I just made a Level 12 monk / 1 figther - he had 22 spell resisitance. I'm also pretty sure it said class level in the game, on the description of "Diamond Soul".

Scimitars are on same damage and critical as a rapier.

Monk SR is based off class levels (otherwise in pvp casters would not be a very viable class).

Rapiers have the advantage of being finesseable.

The Monk attack bug involves many bugs. First of all, Flurry of Blows works with dual-wielding kamas. Secondly when calculating attacks if uses total attack base as opposed to monk attack base. As monk only gets to 15, you get 5 attacks, however if you were to take 3 levels of fighter, your BAB will be boosted to 18 (or 19?) and you will get another attack.

thanks for the answer about the monk bug.

as for a rapier warrior.... so far it is pretty sick. scraped together every gold piece i could gather to upgrade my rapier all the way. threats on a 10+ and with power attack active it has a crit range of like 84-129. non crit hits of 28-43. seems to be working pretty damn well so far, usually get at least one crit hit a round, if not 2-3. against low HP enemies using great cleave you can really just mow em down.

so if there were any doubts..... its a very solid choice. will be even nastier once i get up to haveing some of the epic crit hits.

I played WM with a scythe: 16-20/x5. I took a 170 damage on a critical hit when the scythe was upgraded. Thebimar's scythe has massive criticals 1d8

final damage for crit hits was in the neighborhood of 102-148 if i remember correctly. that was with a fully upgraded +10 rapier, +2d6 acid damage, +10 str bonus epic weapon focus. not nearly on par with the crit hits you can get from a scythe obviously, but the 10+ threat range makes it much more dangerous i think. against low HP opponents it was not uncommon to drop 5-6 opponents in a round. the character topped out at level 28 in the campaign.

if monk's 6-th bug or not is very tricky matter. since BAB step of monk with monk's weapons (kamas and unarmed) is 3 so by the rules he should get 6 hits per round when BAB >15. so if you mix monk even with 1 level of any class that have 100% BAB improvement (monk have 3/4 BAB improvment,becouse of that monk of 20 level have 20*3/4 = 15 BAB) you'll get monk with 6 hits per round from main hand . if you will take 3 fits on 2-weapon fighting that will give you 2 more atacks from off-hand. furry and haste will bring you 2 more. so in the end we can make 10 atacks per round,that will make great for Thief or Duelist (dexitiry fighter with maxed parry skill).
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since kamas are not great weapons as bastard,rapiras or katanas we can use another monk's bug - to wield in offhand any other light weapon. even with 1 kama and other light in offhand monk keeps his 3-BAB-step and furry mode. . shortsword of quickness might came handly.

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i dunno how you build your monks,since single module you can complete even with epik Harper Scout,but i like to get from monk all i can. so i usualy mix him with 5 Shadow Dancer's levels (then i got Defencive roll for Epik Dodge + HIPS) and levels of Cleric (Darkfire will greatly improve kamas damage problem. )

[QUOTE=Drakosha]if monk's 6-th bug or not is very tricky matter. since BAB step of monk with monk's weapons (kamas and unarmed) is 3 so by the rules he should get 6 hits per round when BAB >15. so if you mix monk even with 1 level of any class that have 100% BAB improvement (monk have 3/4 BAB improvment,becouse of that monk of 20 level have 20*3/4 = 15 BAB) you'll get monk with 6 hits per round from main hand . if you will take 3 fits on 2-weapon fighting that will give you 2 more atacks from off-hand. furry and haste will bring you 2 more. so in the end we can make 10 atacks per round,that will make great for Thief or Duelist (dexitiry fighter with maxed parry skill).[/QUOTE]

Well actually it is possible to get 12 attacks (with buffs).....

[QUOTE=Drakosha]since kamas are not great weapons as bastard,rapiras or katanas we can use another monk's bug - to wield in offhand any other light weapon. even with 1 kama and other light in offhand monk keeps his 3-BAB-step and furry mode. . shortsword of quickness might came handly.[/QUOTE]

Do you not need Kama to utilise the attack bug (I think flurry only works with Kama's)?

[QUOTE=Drakona]i dunno how you build your monks,since single module you can complete even with epik Harper Scout,but i like to get from monk all i can. so i usualy mix him with 5 Shadow Dancer's levels (then i got Defencive roll for Epik Dodge + HIPS) and levels of Cleric (Darkfire will greatly improve kamas damage problem. )[/QUOTE]

Harper Scout can of course be replaced by any other class to better effect . Also Monk/Shadow/Cleric won't get you max attacks.

1) yep. with cleric's bugged DP it's possible to get 12. but in character card you'll see only 10,hovewer in log will be 12.

2) yep. withough kama in main hand you'll lose 3-BAB-step. i prefare to use haste from shortsword on servers and free some other slots for more better equipment,for example.

3) monk9/clerik27/fighter4 have AB 62 (with 2 kamas) and AC 92 with improved expertice. i'll trade a bit of AB and replace fighter with SD. still my AB vill be 55+,but i'll get epik dodge instead. i think it's good trade to have uncany dodge for keeping dodge AC,HIPS and epik dodge.

[QUOTE=Drakosha]2) yep. withough kama in main hand you'll lose 3-BAB-step. i prefare to use haste from shortsword on servers and free some other slots for more better equipment,for example.

3) monk9/clerik27/fighter4 have AB 62 (with 2 kamas) and AC 92 with improved expertice. i'll trade a bit of AB and replace fighter with SD. still my AB vill be 55+,but i'll get epik dodge instead. i think it's good trade to have uncany dodge for keeping dodge AC,HIPS and epik dodge. [/QUOTE]

You can get haste on kama's too.

You take fighter for the feats, not just AB. And for pvp, you completely overestimate the worth of epic dodge and HIPS.

1) there is no kamas with haste in standart HoA set. thouse that you can made by improvement at smith counts as cusom.

2) Looks like we played by different rules. me and my friends like to play with standard CORE rules with standart HoA item set. also with changed caster's system (it called item-based-magic. for casting spell you must have some ingridients. memorizing spells will be not enough). sometime without permanent haste,true seeing and imunities. it's hard,but fun.

3) to many things with permanent true seeing = rogue class death. there is a couple of things in standard set with true seeing on them. so in world where permanent true seeing is hard to get HIPS rules. Epic Dodge with high AC very poverfull combo. and that what every dextirity based fighter should have. IMHO

1) Doesn't Rapier of the High Road or something have it?
2) Well when playing with friends I play with the PRC pack. Otherwise I play on arena servers, which generally have upto +5 restrictions, and Timestop removal.
3) Epic Dodge with high AC not a particulary good 'combo' seeing as if you have good AC you won't need Epic Dodge. Until Improved Invisiblility is fixed, self-concealment > Epic Dodge. Isn't if also only possible to take Epic Dodge if you multi-class to Rogue/SD/Assassin (defensive roll or something)?

1) there is shortsword of quickness for offhand ,if you like monk + haste from weapon. but with +5 items better to get haste from platinum helm or robes (Dark moon or binding of blood)

2) Epic Dodge with hight AC not sounds so powerful,if your opponent AB sux and you fighting him on d20 hits only (then monk with big amount of hits per round teoreticaly should win). but usualy monsters/players on servers (i am not talking about single on easy mode. singde from bioware you may over even with epik harper scout ) also got nice AB,so they will hit you at least with first hit. . with haste they have 2 hight AB hits,with Rapit Shoot 3 hits with -2 penalty (but AA can gain realy hight AB). so i prefare discard 1 attack from my opponent with highest AB. Epic dodge could have only dex-based characters,but they also must have Uncany dodge. so you need anyway to take 2 level of Assasin/SD or 3 levels of Rogue or some levels of DD/Barb. Also i found bug (i think) with Defencive Roll. it's rolls saves vs Death every time on letal blows and not once per day as written in PH. So my choise for dex-based char - 5 levels of SD + Epik dodge. For my cler/monk SD replaced even whole domain - Trickery. now with HIPS i can take instead Plant domain and combine wisdom amulet with barkskin to gain more AC.