Holiday

Hi guys,
I'm on holiday, first in CZ and then Derbyshire for a couple days, pretty much until the end of the year. I will probably pop up every now and then but probably not a lot during the usual playtime, ie evenings and weekends (will be going out a lot :p), so you might not see much of me.
Take care everyone, Merry Christmas. :)

M.

A misanthropic ranger with a lute

As a part of the neverending quest to find the gimpiest build, I've been contemplating this hybrid for Reckluse's 3rd life. At first I was planning to go back to the original build, ie. Ranger 15 / Monk 3 / Rogue 2 as that was quite fun, but I have a pure ranger on Ghallanda and I know from previous experience that, despite some differences, playing both at the same time gets a bit old. So I'm going to go for something a little different this time.
I don't think I'm going to post this on the DDO forums or anything like that as I'm not all that interested in the opinion of general public, and the build is designed to suit my playstyle and preferences anyway, but I thought I'd put it here for guildies to peek at.

Level split

Ranger 11 / Bard 8 / Rogue 1
Why this split? Why 8 levels of bard and not just 6 for Warchanter splash?
Ranger 11 - all free TWF and archery feats, 30pt energy resistance. And because I like rangers. :)
Bard 8 - Warchanter I for DR song, extra dmg and two extra levels for level 3 spells: Haste, Displacement, Cure Serious Wounds
Rogue 1 - trap skills

Final stats with easily sustainable self-buffs:

Strength 35 = Base 15 +5 (level) +2 (tome) +6 (item) +3 (exceptional) +2 (Ram's) +2 (rage)
Dexterity 24 (so I can shoot things sometimes) = Base 15 +2 (tome) +6 (item) +1 (enhancement)
Constitution 26 = Base 15 +3 (tome) +6 (item) +2 (exceptional)
Intelligence 16 = Base 14 +2 (tome), will put a +6 item on for difficult traps
Wisdom 19 = Base 11 +2 (tome) +6 (item) - need Base 11 to be able to cast level 3 ranger spells
Charisma 20 =  Base 11 +2 (tome) +6 (item) +1 (enhancement) - need Base 11 to be able to cast level 3 bard spells


459 Hit points (499 with Rage and ship buffs, 519 if I find space for a Toughness item) = 142 (base) +160 (Con) +20 (heroic dur.) +30 (gfl) +10 (draconic) + 22 (toughness) +20 (racial toughness) +45 (shroud) +10 (barb past life)
827 Spell points = 97 (base ranger 11) + (225 base bard 8) +80 (Wis bonus) +85 (Cha bonus) +40 (enhancement) +300 (shroud)


Feats
1 Toughness
3 Weapon Focus: Slashing (Warchanter pre-requisite)
6 PA
9 Extend
12 Maximize
15 Improved Critical: Slashing
18 Quicken
No Oversized TWF, but with Weapon Focus and songs to-hit should be fine. Will carry some Divine Power clickies as well.


Skills (without ship buffs and using items I already have; will farm all the new exceptional bonus stuff at some point)
Concentration 34 (without item on) = 22 ranks +7 (Con) +4 (GH) +1 (Focusing chant)
Disable Device 62 = 23 ranks +6 (Int) +4 (GH) +15 (item) +7 (tools) +1 (Focusing chant) +3 (Ventilated bracers non-upgraded) +3 (skill boost)
Search 55 = 23 ranks +6 (Int) +4 (GH) +20 (item - Epic Spyglass) +1 (Focusing chant) +3 (skill boost)
Open Lock 41 = 4 ranks +7 (Dex) +4 (GH) +15 (item) +7 (tools) +1 (Focusing chant) +3 (skill boost)
Perform 48 = 23 ranks +5 (Cha) +4 (GH) +15 (item) +1 (Focusing chant)
UMD 37 (39 ie. no-fail Heal scrolls with ship buffs, can put Head of GF or Cartouche on if no ship buffs) = 23 ranks +5 (Cha) +4 (GH) +5 (Shroud)


Saves (before ship buffs)
Fortitude 27 = 7 (rgr) +2 (brd) +0 (rog) +5 (resistance) +8 (Con) +1 (halfling racial) +4 (GH)
Reflex 32 = 7 (rgr) +6 (brd) +2 (rog) +5 (resistance) +7 (Dex) +1 (halfling racial) +4 (GH)
Will 25 = 3 (rgr) +6 (brd) +0 (rog) +5 (resistance) +4 (Wis) +1 (halfling racial) +2 (halfling enhancement) +4 (GH)

Enhancements
All song enhancements you can get
Warchanter I
All favoured attack and damage you can get
Ranger Favoured Resistance I
Rogue Haste Boost I
Rogue Damage Boost I
Ranger Spring Boost I
Ranger Skills Boost II
Halfling Cunning and Guile II, Sneak Attack Training I (planning to make a Rad II scimi)
Bard Charisma I
Ranger Dexterity I
Bard Wand and Scroll Mastery III
Ranger Devotion IV
Halfling Will II
Racial Toughness II
Rest can be divided among skills or halfling saves

AC
Ironskin Chant and Displacement. No, seriously, no real AC to speak of.


Gear (green items are ones I already have, rest I need to farm)
Head: Min II helm (heavy fort, prot +5), +45 hp
Goggles: Tharne's / DD
Neck: Torc / Shintao Cord / Silver Flame
Trinket: Bloodstone
Cloak: Conc Opp (+6 Wis, +300 sp, +5 cha skills)
Armour: DT robe - Heal Amp 10% / Heal Amp 20% / Dodge +3
Belt: Knost's (+6 Con, GFL)
Ring. Warchanter (+6 Cha, +1 exc Str, +2 exc Con) / Kyosho's (+6 Wis, +1 exc Str, +2 exc Con)
Ring: ?? (ToD Dex ring with +2 exc Str - need to look into those)
Bracers: Fabricator's Bracers
Gloves: Fabricator's Gloves
Boots: Striding / Anchoring

The Dodge +3 sovereign DT rune is mostly useless on this build but I already have it on my robe and I'll probably keep it, just in case I decide to TR into something with AC again. Or I might make a new DT with the two heal amps and a decent guard on the sovereign rune.
Torc and Shintao Cord and Warchanter and Kyosho will be swapped around as needed.
The problem with this gear setup is that there's no Toughness. Minos has been replaced by a Min II helm so I need to find another Toughness item or one with a blue augment slot that would fit in. Bloodstone doesn't help the slot problem a lot, some seeker is pretty much a must, but with nothing else on it (even on the epic version), it's quite obsolete. Ring of the Stalker would be the obvious solution, but that would prevent me from putting +2 exc Con on a ToD ring. EDIT: Epic Brawn's Spirits might be the answer, it has +2 exc Con and a green slot to put Toughness on, which would allow me to use the Ring of Stalker and slot +6 Dex on it.

Just thinking aloud here, really. :p


What I expect from the build

• Speed! Ranger sprint + haste! I like the extra speed on my current barb life, but the need to either constantly drink haste pots or drag a bard hireling along is slightly frustrating.
• Self-sufficiency. 30pt energy resistance, jump, extended haste, rage and displacement - basically everything a melee wants (except FoM). Quickened self-heals, CSW with ardour clicky and some heal amp should be in the region of 150 hp. UMD to use Heal and GH scrolls and to remove neg levels.
• Songs - though this bard doesn't like performing for other people! He just hums tunes to himself while zerging through dungeons on his own. A bit weird, I know, seeing as the best thing about bards is that the whole group benefits from them. Anyone who's played a high level ranger probably knows that their damage output against favoured enemies is respectable, but against everything else they feel a bit gimped. By grabbing 8 bard levels, I sacrifice some favoured damage (and some BAB), but overal damage will be better. Also Ironskin Chant, in combination with Displacement, will make up for low AC.
• Some ranged combat options. With 11 levels or ranger I get all the free archery feats, however there is no room for Improved Crit: Ranged. I'm not planning to use bows very often though, it'll mostly be about manyshotting distant casters, being able to do some ranged damage in EDQ while Lailat is ported away, being able to easily grab Sally's aggro in ToD etc.
• A bit of trapsmithing. Melee combat is fun, but it's good to be able to faff with traps and locks a bit for variety. And with only basic evasion, I might actually be better off disarming some traps rather than zerging through them. Not to mention the up to 15% bonus XP.

Cons/concerns

• No FoM.
• Only two level 1 ranger spell slots, so will have to pick only two out of Resist Energy, Jump and Ram's Might. With ship buffs and some backup level 11 resist wands, I expect I will lean towards having Jump and Ram's on most of the time.
• No room for Tempest pre-reqs. That doesn't bother me so much though, to be honest, I'm not a big fan of Tempest anyway, don't even have it on my pure ranger (who's pre-dominantly melee). Costs too many feats for the benefit it gives, and without a monk splash it would really just provide the extra attacks - the shield bonus to AC wouldn't get me very high anyway.
• The Will save is a bit low for soloing. Being commanded or held while on your own is no fun. I might play about with the enhancements to be able to take all 3 tiers of Halfling Will. And I'll probably eat a +3 Wis tome if I can get my hands on one, for another +1.

Level 62

We hit level 62 last night. We can now have all +2 stat shrines and all 30pt energy resistance shrines. We don't have enough amenity hookpoints for all of those, so we have all stats and fire, lightning and acid resistance shrines. We reckon these are the most convenient ones for leveling. I was deciding between acid and cold, cold is probably present in more quests but acid traps generally tend to deal more damage. Sonic is handy at endgame when you fight a lot of orthons, but at that point most builds can either self-buff or there's someone in the group who buffs everyone up.
At level 63 we'll get a +3% XP shrine and, to be honest, that's about as far as my ambitions go with the tiny member base we have at the moment (5 people playing on a regular basis right now). It's pretty uninteresting all the way to 70, when you get Large Guild status, Tier 3 Shroud altar and Twelve teleporter. However, that's at 17 milion renown and considering it has taken us roughly a year and a half to amass 12 milion, we can expect to hit level 70 in the second half of next year ( remember, renown decay will hit increasingly harder) unless something changes and we get a lot more active. Which I don't really see happening, unless the crazy Danes come back and decide to stick around for more than 2 months or something like that.

On a related note - although we're not actively recruiting at the moment, we could definitely do with more people, so if you come across somebody who you think would fit in and would be interested, don't hesitate to refer them me, or me to them.