Newbie query: Dice rolls and weapons/armour - what it all mean?

[Mousey]

I am having probs with all these d20 17-18 x3 thingies when I try to evaluate my weapons and stuff. Is there a page I can visit to have these things explained, please? I get a choice of weapons/armour and am never quite sure which is the better/faster.

EDIT: OMG I am so thick... 'tis all there on the game help pages for players. /em smacks head

 

[Nightchill]

Hehe
When the evaluations were done (and in D&D the evaluators were pretty thorough/geeky) it turns out that two weapons with the same damage but different crits:
1 doing 19-20, x2
1 doing 20, x3
do exactly the same damage over time. It's just whether you want more but less powerful, or less crits but each being more powerful.

3rd Edition D&D is extremely balanced, no class is better than any other (in general party usefulness) and all the weapons (with a couple of exceptions that didnt make it into NWN) are balanced too

 

[Mousey]

Double entered... whoops

 

[Mousey]

Thanks Nightchill.... I reckon I am just gonna have to buy the D&D 3rd edition book as the Players Guide is somewhat generalised...

 

[Nightchill]

For the first 18 months after it came out it was only £10. Same for the DMG (dungeon masters guide) and MM (monstrous manual). Those were really the only 3 books you needed to play so they made them cheaply (apparently at a loss) to get people interested
Now they've put them up to around £20 although you can still catch some slow to update sites doing em for a tenner

 

[- Pathfinder -]

3E might be balanced; NWN isn't (Rangers are horribly gimped compared to fighters, stick to them for RP value only )

 

[Nightchill]

Plenty of people say Rangers are gimped in 3e as well The main criticism was always levelled at the "favourite enemy", you'd choose some low level species at first level (like orcs) then at level 20, do you really need that +5 to hit & damage against them? most likely not :\ poor rangers.

 

[- Pathfinder -]

While that is true, rangers in NWN are even more gimped chainshirts count as medium armour, thus making them useless for rangers; two weapon fighting is horribly bugged (offhand weapon receives no Focus/Specialization bonuses (You'd need a fighter lv for specialization, though)), the pet is virtually useless unless you wish to powerlv and the spells are rather feeble. For pure effectiveness, a fighter is better, but I stick to my ranger as I like him

 

[Sar]

I play as a ranger as well, but I like rangers anyway

 

[- Pathfinder -]

Ranger rocks Dual katanas anyday; the increased damage output, coupled with a high str, makes up for the to hit penalty

 

[Nightchill]

If the only advantage you're giving the Ranger is Dual Wielding then I'll point out that a Fighter can do it just as well and with a higher damage output due to Weapon Spec and the feats to have Improved Crit on both.

You could say "well it costs the fighter 2 feats" but The fighter gets 11 feats on top of what a Ranger gets (by level 20). It does mean your Fighter should, in theory, need a 15 Dex (to get the Ambidex feat) but a small price to pay for 7 attacks a around hehe

 

[- Pathfinder -]

I'm well aware of this; hence my note on rangers being gimped Personally I'd say twohand weapons are better, damage wise, for fighters (only 5 attacks vs 7, but you won't have any To Hit penalties, and your opponent will FEEL it when you hit ), but as we all know, two weapon fighting has a certain coolness factor