The Official Purple Dragon Knight Iconic Discussion Thread!

[ArcaneArcher52689]

I created a 2/18 Ftr/FvS melee focused which seemed to work well. My only issue is that I wanted to use two handed swords but was trapped by deity to use one handed swords. Over all some interesting interactions with charisma based hit/damage toon with bards, Socs, FvS, and to some extent, paladins. Also, being human based and having the extra skill (and feat when bug fixed according to devs) adds to their appeal. With skills boosting your spell power and other things intelligence is more useful for extra skill points.

What do you mean by trapped?
Because with 2 fighter levels you should have full martial proficiency.

[Salmagnus]

What do you mean by trapped?
Because with 2 fighter levels you should have full martial proficiency.

Trapped probably not the right word, maybe sorta pushed into not using THW. The deity bonuses as a PDK are for longsword or bows, without a choice for a deity with large two handed weapons. Also, in the FvS vengeance enhancements line, articles of faith (your deity's weapon becomes a spell casting implement) won't work for a two handed PDK since they can't choose the lord of blades deity. A THW PDK is certainly viable to probable solid build, but there are some bonuses which they will not get. Not a big deal, and shield and board builds can use some love, IMHO.

[Salmagnus]

If you go 2 pal/2 fight/16 cleric (plus 21-28 cleric), how would that be? Reasonable? I am looking at it from a bonus feat point of view.

Should be a decent battle cleric since you can use strength, dex, and to a lessor extent, intelligence as dump stats and still keep ok hit/damage with good saves.

[Leclaire1]

At the outset I was less interested in this iconic class than the others (Morninglord and Shadar-Kai were intriguing to me). Nonetheless I rolled one up with a tankish Stalwart Defender heavy pure fighter build and had tons of fun running heroic Wheloon stuff. I definitely enjoyed it more than Shadar-Kai and possibly more than Morninglord, which I also really like. Clearly the inspiration is the 4e Warlord class which prodovides Charisma based party-buffing stuff on an otherwise combat-oriented character. My only observation is that I highly doubt anyone will play a pure fighter on live. There is just far too much advantage in going primarily Paladin (and perhaps dumping strength for cha), or at least splashing a few levels for Divine Grace. Nonetheless, this is a fun iconic class and well done. The most significant needed change is not just using a tuskless horc avatar for the women, as they look like nasty hunchbacks. It works for the men since other male PDK knights in Eveningstar look this way, but the women there look normal. I;d highly recommend using a human avatar for the women, otherwise I couldnt stand Tr'ing any of my female toons into this.

[Death_Mystic]

Hate to say it as I like the enhancements the PDK gets and the idea of the PDK, but not getting all human benefits kills it for me.

The PDK is human. The Racial enhancement tree was tweaked to work for the iconic (the Dragonmark line replaced with most of the PDK abilities) which I like and understand.

The only thing I do not understand is as human they should be getting the human bonus feat at first level and do not. On live a human fighter at first level gets 3 feats (1 Standard, 1 Fighter Bonus and 1 Human Bonus). They do get the 4 extra skill points at first and the extra skill point each additional level, but compared to a normal made human they are lacking 1 feat. These is (imo) the biggest draw to play a human and what makes it awesome. As it stands, I will not build a PDK on live without the benefit of the extra feat.

Sorry Turbine, the PDK is nice but lacking in an important area making it in my opinion underpowered.

[Steelstar]

The only thing I do not understand is as human they should be getting the human bonus feat at first level and do not.

They will. This is fixed internally, and should appear on Lamannia soon.

[HatsuharuZ]

My problem with the PDK iconic is this: There is no fighter class enhancement tree that rewards or encourages high charisma.

With the way that PDK encourages high charisma, which isn't a main fighter stat, it seems more reasonable to multiclass into a paladin or bard. Fighters get some to-hit and damage bonus, along with the ability to easily get lots of combat feats, but a bard/fighter gets Inspire Courage, UMD, Haste, Rage and lots of other useful abilities. Paladin/fighter gets LoH, healing amp, and Divine Might, which I suspect makes a lot of the PDK charisma-based abilities except "For Cormry!" redundant.

Because of how many of it's abilities can be rendered redundant, I think that PDK is the weakest of the Iconics, when comparing all of them as single-classed characters. To compare:

Bladeforged: Very solid melee combatant. The fact that it doesn't suffer from a penalty to charisma, along with the fact that it has repair spells, makes it very durable.

Shadar-kai: Bonus to dex and no penalty to constitution? Perfect. A small loss to charisma is a small price to pay. Now, if only there was a lore explanation as to why a sneaky rogue in dark leather armor is wearing what looks like a white t-shirt, which shows up very well in the dark.

Morninglord: Not bad as a caster-based cleric. The +2 to intelligence helps offset one of the cleric classes' greatest weaknesses: skill points.


As for the PDK: There is very little synergy between charisma and fighters. Really would have been better as a bard or paladin.

[Death_Mystic]

They will. This is fixed internally, and should appear on Lamannia soon.

Really glad to hear this. Thank You and I am now looking forward to trying a couple builds I have in mind after its implemented.

Again Thank You Very Much for the reply.

With the way that PDK encourages high charisma, which isn't a main fighter stat, it seems more reasonable to multiclass into a paladin or bard.

I agree, but there are a couple build (pure), and some splash builds that I am going to try when the 1st level feat gets added.

[Svartelric]

I'd like to try a pure PDK build, any suggestions? I was considering a max intimidate, sword & board tank, with Stalwart Defender as PrE...

[Scrag]

I'd like to try a pure PDK build, any suggestions? I was considering a max intimidate, sword & board tank, with Stalwart Defender as PrE...

Im honestly thinking cleric.... Having cha around means higher chances for turn/destroy undead, mixing paladin means +cha bonus, cleric means wis/cha, and pdk means cha i believe. This means you can just pour your level-up stat bonuses into wisdom and rock with a 13 strength from creation for pa,cleave, great cleave, and mix it up anywhere you want.

[die]

Imo Charisma too hit and Dmg is just wrong unless your hitting with your face or ***'s, just another example of this game going too ****

[Scrag]

Imo Charisma too hit and Dmg is just wrong unless your hitting with your face or ***'s, just another example of this game going too ****

Charisma isn't just about your pretty looks. An ugly person can have a force of personality or great charisma. Likewise, a person of great charisma could possibly use their charisma to pretend to be less of a threat than someone else in the party, which would let the attacker gain better access to the opponent.

[Svartelric]

Imo Charisma too hit and Dmg is just wrong unless your hitting with your face or ***'s, just another example of this game going too ****

You know NOTHING about RPGs.

[die]

You know NOTHING about RPGs.

Well you may be right, but I have been playing dnd since I was in jr high in the 70"s and never has there been a case of using chr for too hit or dmg

[HatsuharuZ]

Well you may be right, but I have been playing dnd since I was in jr high in the 70"s and never has there been a case of using chr for too hit or dmg

In a way, sorcerers and bards DO use their charisma in an offensive manner.

[die]

In a way, sorcerers and bards DO use their charisma in an offensive manner.

Yes, but what im reading you guys want your bard too have a bad ass DC AND have a just as high hit as a barb or fighter that really seems lop sided too me

[FlaviusMaximus]

Yes, but what im reading you guys want your bard too have a bad ass DC AND have a just as high hit as a barb or fighter that really seems lop sided too me

Bards don't have enough feats to have both high DCs and good DPS. Even if a bard ignores casting feats and wholly focuses on combat feats, I wouldn't worry about them out DPS'ing fighters or barbarians, and that's in a scenario where their DC's wouldn't be worth much in higher difficulty quests.

Trust me, I hardly bother swinging Elyd Edges on my charisma based CC Spellsinger even though they are charisma based weapons because the DPS just isn't there with the feats spent on casting rather than combat.

The option of using charisma for damage as Purple Dragon Knights is a slight boost for bards, which they need, not an overwhelming one by any stretch of the imagintion.

[Havok.cry]

What would you guys think of a 4 fighter 16 bard PDK with stalwart defender and Spellsinger enhancements? I don't have Lama downloaded right now so can't try it myself, but am wondering what you guys who can see the stuff might think.

[Nodoze]

I just found this thread after working up my idea of a max Charisma Synergy PDK 17-cleric/2-Paladin/1-Fighter as I was searching to find whether similar bonuses in Sacred Defender & Stalwart Defender stack... That being said I wish we could LR out of Fighter or take whatever class at first level that we want as I would prefer to try other combos.

Anyway, I think you definitely have to make some sacrifices but am thinking of trying it. I wanted to max Charisma with good health & survivability and worried that I may need more skill points than I have & may have min-maxed too much and need to balance stats more.

Feedback and especially improvements appreciated:

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...elee-Healer%29