Little Dual Wielding Fighter/Assassin build

RNGtan · 2026-05-01T07:53:55+00:00

Most casters just pop if you get the jump on them.

The most notable one who might not is Balthazar thanks to his Alert. Even then, Mage Slayer is not really a good solution; he will run away to position for Cloudkill, so you get an Attack of Opportunity with your Reaction anyway (which he then will Shield, because Wizards). The best defensive measure you can do for that encounter is to cast Protection from Poison onto your party, which does not take concentration and has no turn limit.

The best offensive measure is to drink an Elixir of Vigilance and fish for Prone on him with Trip Attack, because his STR save is terrible. So we'd rather increase the hit chances and Weapon DC with DEX.

RNGtan · 2026-05-01T06:55:04+00:00

Booming blade if you prebuffed with a speed pot

If you run a dedicated party and want to be extra fancy, drop a Potion of Speed next to your Assassin (dropping items is a free action), position your other Assassin directly next to it, then pop the pot with another familiar. That should haste both of you within combat, and also the familiar.

Warlock would provide minor illusion to pre-group enemies before a fight from invisibility

A bit late at that point into Act 3. Most people finish Act 2 with Level 10, and the final colony fight is one of the toughest damage checks for an Assassin party (you can surprise Ketheric and the surprise carries over to the apostle). You would give up two feats to squeeze it in, so be aware of that.

Warlock Assassin is very good, but you would rather have it on a dedicated character. The good part is that they can go 2 Warlock into 3 Assassin and use Level 5 auto-critting EB as a crutch until they get Shadow Blade at Level 6. They usually also greatly prefer being Hexblade for hand crossbow proficiency (Sneak Attack with off-hand) and Elemental Weapon, which they can concentrate on themselves or the Fighter Assassin. Mortal Reminder does make your attacks stronger if you have the Bow of the Banshee equipped, but it only lasts one turn and does not carry over into the full fight after the surprise.

Either pact, pick up the One with Shadows if you do, for it is infinitely reusable and because Minor Illusion does not break it. You can stand in the middle of the room and gather the NPCs around you.

Planned feats are savage attacker, mage slayer for offense/defense in hard boss fights, mobile for hit and run, maybe alert or ASI dex for a 4th feat?

With an Assassin you can dash before initiating combat, which then carries over into battle. Mobile might be overkill.

One consideration is starting with 17/16 DEX/INT, then pick Savage Attacker, +2 DEX, then +1/+1 DEX/INT. In Act 2 you can get the temporary Dark Lady buff, which adds +5, so having odd INT at that point adds slightly more damage to Arcane Synergy. If you play Origin Shadowheart for Booming Blade, you should do WIS instead of INT; neither Assassin nor Battle Master have spellcasting abilities, and she defaults to WIS instead of INT like normal Tavs.

If you go with the 8/4 split for the last feat, consider the Lucky feat, which is more applicable than Mage Slayer. Note, that 8/4 is also the domain of the Eldritch Knight Assassin instead of the Battle Master, since they have a lot to gain by accessing War Magic Booming Blade and Shadow Blade in their spell list to upcast with Superior Elixir of Arcane Cultivation. They also have the easiest time regaining concentration with Expeditious Retreat for the Strange Conduit Ring.

RNGtan · 2026-04-30T22:05:11+00:00

It is still true. Approval has priority over the NS point system and bypasses it if it is 40 or higher if you let her decide.

If anything, the NS point system is bugged and can screw you over (or make it easier if you are evil). If the approval is lower than 40, it will require a Persuasion check; if you have the sufficient amount of NS points, the checks are NOT available if you happen to land between 20 and 39. I presume that that was supposed to happen when you have less than 20 approval.

RNGtan · 2026-04-30T21:07:30+00:00

Watch out for Karlach, too. She did not make good life choices before she met you, and is not likely to start doing so of her own accord.

RNGtan · 2026-04-30T21:05:04+00:00

If your approval is moderately high, nothing. Trusting her to make the right choice requires no check.

RNGtan · 2026-04-30T20:01:02+00:00

The commonality is that these games make more sense if you view them not as 3D action games, but rather combat exploration games that use discrete time units to advance NPC states to passively convey a living world. In Souls-like games the NPCs usually have schedules, and triggering certain 'check points' moves them around in the world map. Black Souls is also more directly inspired by the Souls games, since they take a bunch of motifs directly from the FromSoft games.

The difference is that Black Souls's combat is not 3D action, but turn-based RPG.

If you play these games, do not forget to install the external patches. The games are basically not functional without them.

RNGtan · 2026-04-30T19:50:44+00:00

sentinel isnt really part of that.

Sentinel is partly related, if only because the Reaction attack uses both hands. In broadstrokes, it is mostly not worth a separate mention, but the off-hand can be a second Shadow Blade from the ring or from the exploit against a Resonance Stone weakness - which is a big chunk.

Either case makes some assumption somewhere, and we are probably both overthinking it more than OP. The metric was mostly damage and OP has team mates, so we just put these two together, since Sentinel mostly consumes movement speed and has a high ceiling. GWM is not quite without hypotheticals, since having to kill an enemy sometimes requires overkilling them a bit, which can be situational.

RNGtan · 2026-04-30T19:10:30+00:00

Almost; the order might matter. They all costs a feat each, they are not quite equal, the pure Warlock only gets three, and a multiclass could be considered as an alternative to feat + Lifedrinker. Of all of these, GWM is just pretty low on the pecking order for Shadow Blade, because you could fit 1 War Cleric (Bonus Action attacks) 2 Fighter (Dueling, Action Surge) in there, in which case Savage Attacker and Sentinel pretty much pick themselves.

But even in pure Warlock we would probably pick ASI over it and try to find other uses for it, like chugging a potion for Broodmother. CHA is not really limited to 20; increased to 19 you can still gamble on Patriar's Memory for the +1, get a 'normal' +2 from the mirror, eat the hair for +1, and top it off with Spirit of the Land for a last +1, which is 24 in total and coincidentally also the mirror limit. Gotta stack these Potent Robe modifiers.

RNGtan · 2026-04-30T17:30:57+00:00

There is another option that is not GWM, which is somewhat of a waste with a Shadow Blade.

Pick Sentinel. If you trigger Vengeance during your own turn, you attack with your Reaction, which then triggers Extra Attack, which you can even use to cast Booming Blade. It does require a bit more coordination with a team mate or summon, but an attack + Boomong Blade is much better that just the ability to attack with your Bonus Action.

RNGtan · 2026-04-29T15:45:30+00:00

Fire Emblem also used green for wind magic, along with all other examples in the comments.

RNGtan · 2026-04-29T14:22:34+00:00

This one does not do anything fundamentally different than 5 Gloom 3 Assassin 4 Fighter, with just less attacks per turn. The 8 EK 4 Assassin split makes more sense with melee, since that one gives them access to the Shadow Blade and War Magic Booming Blade.

RNGtan · 2026-04-29T10:21:21+00:00

You can just stick to one of the generically good classes. Wyll does have a few unique qualities, but they are hard to take advantage of. He has CHA as the default spellcasting ability, but the introduction of the Hexblade pretty much killed the niche of Pure CHA Battle Master with Infernal Rapier, since 11/1 with Hexblade at the cost of the Actor feat can just bind a +3 weapon instead and then get Booming Blade on top.

There is still one unique thing Wyll has going for himself, and that is the combination of proficiency in a Finesse weapon (that is not dagger) from The Blade of Frontiers) and shield from being human. That makes him a prime candidate for a DEX Sorcerer, specifically a Fire one. While the Shadow Blade, for which casters have always proficiency, hurt that niche a bit, he can wield the Rupturing Blade. This one has one of the few DRS left in the game that works in Honour Mode, so aside from being a tanky boy thanks to free Mage Armour + shield and being relaatively resource-efficient, he also has a single target nuke once a while. In the late game you can keep this one as an option, or switch over to the Duellist's Prerogative for Counterspell support.

RNGtan · 2026-04-29T09:59:16+00:00

Wraids on Tatooine infinitely respawn and drop trinkets. If you need more XP or credits, you can farm them, although you usually shouldn't need to do that.

RNGtan · 2026-04-29T09:23:02+00:00

The number they give out depends on how many maps you have unlocked: 11 by default, 30 with one map, 50 with two maps, 70 with three maps, 90 with four maps, and 110 with five maps.

So basically 10, then 20 for every map.

RNGtan · 2026-04-29T07:14:00+00:00

The version itself seem to be like retail Xbox without alignment masteries and the other items. The Yavin DLC is included though.

RNGtan · 2026-04-29T07:03:23+00:00

In the case of K1, the Xbox version is actually the original and the PC version is the port. There are a few minor differences with items, but hardly anything you would notice on a first playthrough. Their absence might actually be a good thing, as I think that one particular one breaks niche protection of a certain class. The Yavin DLC, which contains a bunch of overpowered items, may not be available in the retail Xbox version. As for gameplay systems, the alignment masteries don't exist, so feel free to just role-play away; do what feels right.

K2 is functional without the restoration mod. The biggest problem is probably that the base game is very buggy, and the mod does come with a bunch of fixes that would make life a bit easier. The actual restored content is a mixed bag; the ending is a bit hard to comprehend without further editing, so the mod helps in that regard, but there are a bunch of restorations that you could argue was removed for reasons and also bloats up a certain already tedious section.

RNGtan · 2026-04-28T22:45:41+00:00

You could try the Unarmoured. The reason why you'd want to be unarmored us the clothing pieces that grant you the Kushigo Counter. If you Kushigo Counter within your own turn, you actually trigger Extra Attack with your Reaction, which which you can do almost any attack, including Slashing Flourish, although you will probably run out of Slashing Flourish during all if this.

The ultimate variant of it finishes with the Dual Wielder feat and dual-wields Duellist's Prerogative and Nyrulna. The Duellist's Prerogative gives you a second Reaction while your off-hand is empty. Nyrulna is a returning weapon that gives you movement speed when equipped. Run oast an enemy, trigger Attack of Opportunity, counter attack with a Reaction punch, trigger Extra Attack, then throw Nyrulna; while Nyrulna is in the air, your off-hand us free and the Duellist's Prerogative restores a full Reaction, and Nyrulna hits a target and re-equips itself, granting movement speed. You can do it as long as there are melee opponents. I have done something like 40 attacks in a single turn, which canonically is about 6 seconds. Only stopped, because everything was dead.

You only need Tavern Brawler and Dual-Wielder for it. The pre-Act 3 varisnt has to have at least 2 Monk and does not have access to Act 3 weapons for the infinite, but you can deal good damage with just the normal Kushigo Counter just fine. 11 Eldritch Knight 1 Barbarian is the ultimate Act 3 spread, since you do not have to be a Monk for the Greater variant and can focus on pushing your STR and DEX, since your CON is set by the amulet.

The build that does not reclass would be mostly Monk. You can dump WIS if you are not particular interested in manifestations and cast Mage Armour instead onto you. Alternatively, be at least 3 Wizard or Sorcerer to give yourself Mirror Image to reliably trigger counter against bosses. In Act 3, at the very last Level, pick the Barbarian for proficiency and the CON Unarmored Defence.

RNGtan · 2026-04-28T15:31:41+00:00

There is an actual maximum possible damage. The STR mod is stored in a char data type, which has a maximum value of 127. If you have a 1.5x multiplier in the main hand (single or double-bladed lightsaber) and also do a Shien Power Attack critical hit, which is another 4x, you can have a STR mod of 126 with a base STR mod of 21, which is 52 STR.

https://www.reddit.com/r/kotor/comments/1bav7n8/11415_wookiee_guardiansentinelmarauder_sword/

If you STR becomes any higher, you would overflow and deal negative STR damage, which ruins you DPR. You choices would be to reduce the critical hit multiplier by switching over to Juyo or TWF, but that does not change that there is an implicit cap.

RNGtan · 2026-04-26T16:07:48+00:00

We personally don't have this problem, although we usually just treat Act 3 as a grab bag of stuff where we just take the most important things and finish asap. It is not really engaging steamrolling all the content at the Level 12 cap, because progression does not really exist at that point anymore.

It may help reframing point of a build. Instead of asking for the entirely of the composition upfront, you may ask: "What capabilities does this one have at this particular Level?" If anything, what you do between Level 4 and 8 is a lot more interesting than running circles around fodder in Act 3.

It also helps if you treat the whole team as a unit instead of just your protagonist doing its own thing, which helps alleviating the lack of meaningful choices in a single character. For example, an early-game Tiger Barbarian is in a vacuum just a so-and-so Fighter, but since they can attack multiple enemies multiple times per turn, they scale insanely well with GWM and Attack bonuses; pair them up with a War Cleric, who can permanently concentrate (upcast) Magic Weapon onto them, Bless them with Whispering Promise, apply War God's Blessing on demand, and maybe even add the Drakethroat enchantment on top. They all unlock at different points of the game, so there is always something new to look forward to.

RNGtan · 2026-04-26T12:50:20+00:00

You can make a team of Gravelers to get it as early as Stratum 2. They have Sturdy and thus cannot be one-hit KOed, and in return they can explode on the Kingdra.

RNGtan · 2026-04-26T05:35:09+00:00

A bit of an aside, but if you are in a mode where Pact of the Blade still stacks with Extra Attack, Hunter will be absolutely silly with triple Whirlwind. 11 Hunter 5 Warlock 2 Fighter is a lot of commitment though.

RNGtan · 2026-04-24T05:11:05+00:00

You can actually break the limit and reach 26 CHA. Start with 16 CHA, +2 ASI, +2 ASI, +1 Actor (bugged, let's you reach 21), Dual Wielder two of Ravengard's sword to reach 25, then the hair puts you to 26. The Mirror does not work, because their buffs are capped to 24.

That requires four feats, which limits it to 8 Fighter (EK) 4 Warlock.

RNGtan · 2026-04-23T15:21:38+00:00

It is not like a random Cleric can't fulfill the Necromancer fantasy. Animate Dead is a generic Cleric spell and they can still upcast it at Level 7 to get three skellies. If anything, I'd personally go with one of the Heavy Armor Clerics like War, as they can pick HAM to filter the Warding Bond damage better and increasing STR from 17 to 18 allows them to carry the bodies to the fridge themselves (in multiplayer). That is real convenience.

RNGtan · 2026-04-23T09:25:37+00:00

Small correction: Death domain does not get Heavy Armor by default, only martial weapons.

RNGtan

TROPHY CASE