Duelist Question

[ThePaganKing]

I have a character that is becoming a knife/dagger expert and I was thinking of taking duelist with the daggers. I have a couple questions because I know duelist was kind of bugged when NWN2 first came out.

1. Do you receive your duelist abilities while fighting two handed?
2. It says any one handed piercing weapon, so I assume daggers would be included and you would get the bonus for both daggers if duel wielding?
3. Do you think it is worth it combat wise or should I stick to fighter (who would be an expert at high levels anyway) and the two rogue levels I was planning on taking?

For RP purposes I could go either way.

[MKartMaster]

From what I can tell, the only thing you will lose when fighting with 2 weps is your precise strike damage.

Daggers, being light or one-handed piercing weapons, should qualify.

Personally, I think duelist sucks hard. You give up your other hand for +1d6 damage, and eventually the abilities to parry really good and deal an extra 2d6 damage. On one attack. Every 30 seconds. Go with what you had, just don't take an odd number of fighter levels.

[Kelmoth Xanthor]

From what I understand you also loose the INT AC bonus of a duelist when you wear any armor as well. Perhaps an invisible blade would suit your needs?

[Jaeram]

I was going to suggest the invisible blade. Actually I worked up an invisible blade/duelist once that seemed to work pretty well, high dex moderate int. As far as I could tell the int based armor bonus for both classes stacked. Both of the bonuses require you to not wear armor.

Invisible blade would probably be good if you are trying to make a dagger specialist, because that class is essentially supposed to be a dagger or kukri specialist.

[BattlePixie]

from what i understand the duelist only gets the int bonus up to the duelist level, which in my opinion, sucks. Shouldn't it be like a monk? Anyway...

[Kelmoth Xanthor]

Ya, basically they get their INT bonus to AC or their Duelist Level to AC whichever is lower.
Basically unless you dump all your points into INT, which most wont, you could have a max ac bonus of +4 with an 18 INT....once your duelist level is 4.

[nickbeat]

I have every intention of playing a dagger duelist, and have reached 5th level so for with good old Beans. He has been pretty effective so far without Duelist levels, up to a 22 Dex without buffs now! With Cats Grace going, that puts him at a +8 Dex mod, so who needs armor anyway?

There ARE a number of INT bonus items, so you might be surpised to find a high int is not too hard to get. Taking a level of wizard is really tempting actually. I actually took duelist because nobody else has yet bothered, even though I fear he may not be too good. That being said, he has beaten three fighters in duels so far. Granted, he cheated.

As far as I can tell, you still get everything but precise strike while fighting two handed, but your parries improve effectiveness when fighting two handed because you can parry more attacks.

I have a follow up question. Does Parry work INSTEAD of AC? Or in addition to it?

[Jaeram]

I believe that parry works in addition to it. Because to make a parry it's more like using an attack action, where as normal ac would just be dodging it. I've used some parry builds before and haven't noticed them getting hit more often with parry, than without, so I assume that it works in addition to ac.

[Kelmoth Xanthor]

I think parry works like this.

1. You only have the oppurtunity to parry as many attacks as you have attacks per round. Ie. you have 6 attacks per round, you get 6 parry attempts, on the 7th attack it is applied directly to your AC. If you miss a parry with any of your normal 6 attacks then the attack is applied directly against your AC to determine if you are hit or not.

[MKartMaster]

I think parry works like this.

1. You only have the oppurtunity to parry as many attacks as you have attacks per round. Ie. you have 6 attacks per round, you get 6 parry attempts, on the 7th attack it is applied directly to your AC. If you miss a parry with any of your normal 6 attacks then the attack is applied directly against your AC to determine if you are hit or not.

The thing with Parry that breaks it past 3 attacks for a single attacker is the concept of a "flurry". The linked article has a good description, but a simple summary is that you simply cannot parry all the attacks of an attacker if they have more than 3/round, no matter how many attacks you have.

Also, you can parry more attacks per round than you usually have, but after your usual allotment number you start taking penalties (-3/attack).

I put together a parrier-type a little while ago just to see how high I could get it in the few levels I had. I hit 16 or 17 at level 3, IIRC.

[Kangleton]

from what i understand the duelist only gets the int bonus up to the duelist level, which in my opinion, sucks. Shouldn't it be like a monk? Anyway...

Level 14 Wizard/ 1 Duelist, here we all come!

Seriously... thats Wizards taking the one level for a +8 bonus to AC. Take a single level of Monk, and a single level of Palemaster, and you've got an arcane nuking machine with over 50AC. Make it a deep gnome, and you're invincible.

Anyone remember Maddock?

Thats why Duelist's don't work like that...

[BattlePixie]

ya funny thing is after i posted, i went "DOH!"