NWN2 Tips for NWN2 beginners - waiting for 1.07

Neverwinter Nights 2
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First off: I thought about posting this under the very helpfull thread "Tips for playing in hardcore rules mode?" by Prime Junta by decided against it because I felt like that would be thread hijacking.

I thought this would be a helpfull thread for those waiting for 1.07, those that for some other reason haven't played the game yet and those who are going to give the game a second/third/fourth shot.

So.. those of you that have played to game to some extent please post hints and tips, do's and dont's for us NWN2 newbies here... and no spoilers of course :D

What class is the most fun? What alignment to choose? The game settings? Some critical discussions/places/quests that might be missed, must-have mods ... etc.. etc...

Thank you!

EDIT: I'll just post the link to the pretty impressive 1.07 patch notes too:
http://nwn2forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=582924&forum=109

I was also wondering about the party members... How does it work? How limited is the selection? Which ones would you recommend?
 
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Okay, I'll start at the top.
Settings: Go for the "hardcore D&D" difficulty if you've played D&D games before, Normal if you haven't. The biggest difference is how you can use AoE spells, since they will harm your own members on hardcore (if you hit them, that is).

Most people would recommend you to turn off the AI regardless of settings, but I don't agree. I feel that the latest AI improvements have made the AI more than good enough to use - friendly spellcasters will only use singlet target, direct damage spells now, for example. Having healers that run around and heal automatically is something I've come to appreciate ever since PS:T where Fall-From-Grace can keep the party going on her own. In general, I recommend that you tweak and adjust AI settings of each individual character untill you find a setting that you like.

Classes: Go for whatever you feel like basically. There are so many options it's hard to really recommend anything specific. Of course, I can recommend a few things:
Offensive super damage: Barbarian(10 lvls) -> Berserker(10 lvls)
Defensive super tank: Fighter (10 lvls) -> Dwarven Defender (10 lvls)
Extreme caster: Sorcerer(20 lvls), no PrC needed
A fighting spellcaster: Wizard (8), Fighter (2), Eldritch Knight (10)
Holy fighter: Paladin (10), Holy Champion (10)

I've completed it with all these classes, and it worked out nicely. I've also had some less successful games, so I'm not going to recommend those, hehe. Make sure you plan what Prestige Class (PrC) you want to get, so you can get the correct stats/skills. If you have any questions, ask someone who's played through it a few times before.

As for races? I prefer picking someone that does not get levelling penalties, but choose whatever you feel like.

Alignement: I usually play the Good Guy all the way, I like how the world reacts to good deeds, but there is nothing wrong with playing evil. Again, play whatever you prefer to roleplay.

I hope this helps. :)

Edit: I forgot to add companions.

Soon after you've started the game, you have three regular companions. These companions are versatile and will help you till you get to the point where you have several to choose from. I recommend having all three with you untill that point (at least). All companions are always at the same level, so even if you decide to leave someone behind for a time, they will level up when you do, and will have gained levels when you come back. Later in the game you can get a party of up to 5 people, including the main character.


Normally, a good mix will make the best parties: Two frontline fighters, a healer or two, and a solid spellcaster. There are traps and locked objects in the game, but I still see no real need for a thief - traps are rarely deadly, and death for one character is hardly important (they just get back up as long as someone in the party is still standing). Most locked objects can be bashed with brute force, although one item is then often turned into junk.
 
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(1) Tactically, an all-steel group works really well. Spellcasters are very vulnerable, because combat almost always ends up a close-quarters slugfest.

(2) Crafting weapons is very powerful, so make sure all your spellcasters have a mix of Craft Arms and Armor and Craft Wondrous Item feats. Once you hit level 8 or so, you'll always be significantly ahead of the game making your own weapons rather than using what you find. (OK, the endgame über-weapon is pretty... über, but that's it.) More, you can craft weapons out of different materials: having a cold iron, alchemical silver, and adamantine blade in your party guarantees that you have *something* available that'll beat any enemy's resistances. Generally don't bother making them keen, since you can get that effect through other ways (improved critical feat, keen edge spell), which means you can save the enchantment slot for, yep, more damage. "Holy" is really good because most of your enemies are evil anyway.

(3) Because of (2), standardization and specialization pays. That is, pick a weapon, and then make sure everyone in your "front-line" party has the feats needed to use it. For example, if you decide to do longswords, take the Martial Weapons feat for all of your characters, and take longsword-specific feats on those that can afford it. As you get the possibility to craft ever more powerful longswords, your older and slightly weaker ones will still see good use -- a +3 holy acid-dripping blade is still pretty badass even in the endgame, and you can make that in Chapter 1.

If you're a munchkin, make your character a weapon master -- she will deal out obscene amounts of damage per round towards the endgame. For *really* obscene amounts of damage, pick a two-handed weapon for her. With the Monkey Grip feat, you can even use a shield with a pretty small penalty.

(4) Distribute your equipment carefully. Note that bonuses of the same type don't stack, so there's no point in having a +3 armor and +4 bracers of armor.

(5) Generally, a shield is a better bet than two-weapon fighting, since it'll bump up your AC a fair bit as well as give you another resistance. (Try an umber hulk hide heavy shield -- immunity to mind effects, +4 AC.)

(6) Have an item around that'll let you do Haste a couple of times a day. This is available at least in bracers, weapons, armor (supposed to be craftable but bugged, throws delayed blast fireballs instead), and boots (craftable).

Which classes to pick? All of them work fine, as long as you pay attention to "combat survivability" when leveling them up (that is, try to get their AC to hit 30 as soon as possible); however, wizards and sorcerers are tough because they're not at their happiest when swarmed by things trying to hit them with sharp objects. (In particular, there's one level where you're suddenly dropped to be on your own; this is not easy to survive if you've been playing from the back row until then.)

The experience will be a fair bit different for different styles of character builds, though:

(1) Melee boy (fighter/ranger/barbarian etc.). Pick Intimidate, or you'll miss out on much of the social content. The game is easiest with this type of guy. Most of the "specialties" of other classes can be filled in with items (boots of speed, chime of opening etc), and you can pretty much ignore traps. Specialize in one weapon. Take 14 Int to have a few extra skill points around and get Combat Expertise, and 13 Dex so you can get Dodge->Mobility->Spring attack, and you can get Whirlwind Attack, which is more effective than a fireball in taking down mobs.

(2) Skill boy (rogue or bard). Weight social skills, and you'll get a fair bit of stuff you'd otherwise miss on; however, make sure you have good enough Str and Con (say, 16 and 14) to be able to pull your weight in combat, and pick combat-specific feats (Power attack -> cleave -> great cleave are cool, as are weapon-specific feats like weapon focus -> greater weapon focus and improved critical). Make good use of Sneak Attack (if a rogue), and life will be fun. (Either build up your Tumble skill or take Dodge -> Mobility -> Spring attack.)

Note that most of the rogue-specific skills (Open Locks, Disable Device, Hide, Move Silently) aren't really that useful in the game; you can kick down doors and magic open chests, sneaking is just tedious, and traps don't do more damage than a decent tank can handle.

(3) Magic boy (wiz, sorc). I strongly recommend you take the Armored Caster feats; otherwise you'll be in serious trouble in melees. OTOH how cool is someone dressed in magical full plate armor raining down arcane death on foes? (The answer is "very cool.") Other than that, pay attention to the spells needed for crafting if playing a sorc. When you meet someone with serious magic resistance, switch to buff mode instead -- buff up yourself or your buddies to take them down with physical damage.

(4) God boy (cleric, druid). This plays like halfway between melee boy and magic boy, with the best of both worlds only not quite to the hilt. Probably the easiest to play if you're not quite sure how to go about character building.

Races: for powergamers, humans are best: there's no multi-classing penalty and you get extra feats, which you will need unless you're a fighter. However, the game reacts rather nicely to your race; playing a tiefling, for example, is interesting even if the spreadsheet benefits are pretty minimal. If you pick a non-human, you need to plan your class development ahead, or else you'll get hit with a pretty severe XP penalty -- so, for example, tiefling rogue -> blackguard (or weapon master) works great, but a human can get there faster by going fighter -> blackguard.

Alignment: give in and play a goody-goody. Evil isn't really well done in this game; it's not as much fun, the rewards are slimmer, and much of it feels forced and contrived (and you'll miss out on the implied elven nooky).
 
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thanks for the excellent hints so far.
Few questions:

- Does having many companions come with XP sharing? Does having only one companion have any advantages for example....

- How is the romance stuff in this game? I have heard there is some? So.. who to pick with you and what NOT to say :D

- I love multiclassing. I multiclass whenever possible. I had a very nice fighter/mage character when I last played Throne of Bhaal.. I cast half a dozen protection/buff spells on myself and had all the cool wizard trinkets on and wielded two swords.
He absolutely, utterly and completely kicked ass even though he was not wearing any armor. And it was also very fun to play him RP-wise. He was like a chaotic neutral madman :D
Do you think something like this could be done in NWN2 succesfully.
For some reason I always liked the older 2nd edition AD&D rules better than the new 3rd edition ones.

Baldur's Gate 2 and the first Icewind Dale game after using the expansion pack had these "2.5" (or something) rules that were essentially 2nd Ed but threw in some of the nice things from the 3rd edition fules. I think that is the most fun version of the ruleset.
 
Really? I thought 2nd ed sucked compared to 3rd ed, due to the lack of choices in characterbuilding. But that's just my personal oppinion, so anyway...

There is no character exp shareing whatsoever. As stated, your NPC's are allways on the same level as you are, and you get as much XP solo as you get with a full three companions in your party.

Multiclassing is possible, but it doesn't work as in 2:nd ed rules. When you level up in 3:rd ed rules, you choose one class and level up in that. The next time you level up you can choose another class if you want to (and so on and so forth). If you take two classes that are not your races preferred class though (for example, dwarves have fighter), they have to follow eachother (a maxgap of one level in between them), otherwise you'll get an xp-penalty. There are allso so called prestige classes that doesn't give xp-penalty. These are usually "better" classes in themselves (they give specific bonuses for example), but they usually have requirements (to be a dwarven defende you have to be a lawfull dwarf and you need to have the toughtness feat IIRC. Prolly some more things, but that's not the point here, you can read about that in the manual (which is free for download IIRC) ;). Long parenthesis...). Not only do prestige classes need requirements, you can allso only take 10 levels of them before level 20.

But anyway, multiclassing is highly possible (you can have levels in as much as four classes ;), but you need to do a lot of planning).

I never got to the part when you started to romance, so I can't help you there.

Übereil

PS I was once trying to make a class that dualwielded greatswords. I went something like this:

Wood elf with 11 levels in Rangers, one level in fighter and one level in barbarian (think it was three in fighter and two in barbarian, but that doesn't add up to 20 with), 7 levels in weapond master. Don't know if it would work in practise though (it might have been 9 levels of ranger... Or I ignored the third level of two weapond fighting...).
 
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Yeah... having played NWN1 + all the expansions and IWD2 several times (love the game) I know the 3rd ed. rules. just wondering if multiclassing was a viable/sensible way to go in NWN2.
 
thanks for the excellent hints so far.
Few questions:

- Does having many companions come with XP sharing? Does having only one companion have any advantages for example....

I honestly don't know. I've always maxed out my party.

- How is the romance stuff in this game? I have heard there is some? So.. who to pick with you and what NOT to say :D

It's there, but it's really badly done IMO -- their heart clearly wasn't in it. There's only one romance option each for males and females, and it feels badly tacked-on. The game gives enough hints about who it is for you to figure it out by yourself.

Do you think something like this could be done in NWN2 succesfully.
For some reason I always liked the older 2nd edition AD&D rules better than the new 3rd edition ones.

Most certainly. Just pick a human and multiclass all you want. (Weirdo. The 2nd ed. rules were a royal mess; the 3d ed. ones actually make some kind of sense.)
 
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The romance was poorly done. The most 'attractive' female character in a personality way, is not available as an option, and the rest tend to be quite annoying in various ways!!
 
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There is no xp sharing as far as I know, everyone levels according to the main character. When he/she levels up, so does the rest, noone has individual xp here like they did in BG etc.

And yes, I always like 2nd edition better as well - a multiclass is much stronger there than in the 3rd edition, because they go through all the low levels first of each class, while in the 3rd edition your next fighter level (for example) will require more than your former 5 levels because it's a 6th level. In 2nd edition it would simply be the 3rd fighter level. Here's a progression example:

2nd edition:
Fighter - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10
Mage - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10

3rd edition
Fighter 1 - 3 - 5 - 7 - 9 - 11 - 13 - 15 - 17 - 19
Mage 2 - 4 - 6 - 8 - 10 - 12 - 14 - 16 - 18 - 20

See how both characters have 20 levels, 10 in each class? The 3rd edition character will keep requireing higher and higher experience per level, as if he was a pure fighter, even if he's taking mage levels, while the 2nd edition character would be done with those 20 levels before most classes reached 15, because the first 5 levels or so in each class requires so little experience.

Why do I consider this a better balance? Simple, a lvl 10 mage / 10 fighter is not the equal of a lvl 20 mage, that happens to have 9th level uber spells. In 2nd edition, you could reach something like 14 mage / 15 fighter or so by the time a mage reached 20, which makes the multiclass much more viable.

Now, I know that hardcore gamers can make some insane builds with the 3rd edition rules, as they take certain levels from certain classes and mix it to get a maxed out uber combo, but casual players will simply not benefit from multiclassing anymore, unless it's the simple: pure class -> prestige class path.

A level 20 monk would smash any multiclass a casual player could come up with, but would get flattened by a 2nd edition fighter/mage (due to their massive buffing abilities).

So, you do have far more options in the 3rd edition, but most options are just not as viable as the few options you had in 2nd edition (a cleric/mage for example will suck completely in 3rd edition, because he'll be 10/10 instead of 15/14, on the same amount of experience).

However, you *can* make a bard/cleric/ranger/rogue now if you really want to. You'd have to let your party do the actual fighting though, since the main character would be worthless, hehe.
 
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So, you do have far more options in the 3rd edition, but most options are just not as viable as the few options you had in 2nd edition (a cleric/mage for example will suck completely in 3rd edition, because he'll be 10/10 instead of 15/14, on the same amount of experience).

As a parenthesis, in the real ruleset of D&D 3:rd ed (and in a mod I found for NWN1) there is a prestige class called... something (psonic theurg or something like that IIRC) where you needed cleric and magelevels, and once you managed to fulfill all the requirements (quite big requirements so it took a while to fulfill IIRC) you advanced in both your mage and your clericclass as if you hadn't left them (kind of like a 2nd ed cleric/wizard ;)). Maybe if a similar mod is released for NWN 2 (which would be lovely btw, they added loads and loads of prestige classes, it was somewhere between 30 and 100 IIIRC. And not only did it add loads of new prestige classes, it allso added loads of new base classes, with the coolest one being Psonic).

Übereil
 
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I've just started it now to work my way through to be ready for MoTB, and have been trying to work out character builds. I think I'm going to try for the red dragon disciple through a sorcerer approach, but I don't really know the ruleset well enough. I'm already annoyed to find that background & race bonuses to Lore don't count when working towards prestige classes pre-requisites.

Is it particularly worth multiclassing in general? Some of the discussions here suggest that just going for a straight single class is better.
 
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@Benedict -- I'd suggest bard/RDD instead. If you go sorc/RDD, you'll end up with a character that has only somewhat stronger spells and no buffs, but is significantly weaker in melee. A sorcerer's strength is in her spells, and low-level sorcs aren't very useful as they run out of ammo very quickly, so you don't want to do anything that handicaps spellcasting more than a level or two -- and a RDD will handicap a whopping 10 levels of it.

Multiclassing in general? No, it isn't. Multiclassing in some specific instances? Certainly. In 3d edition, prestige classes generally fill in for 2nd edition multiclassing -- where you'd have picked a fighter/mage, for example, you might want to go with a sorcerer->eldritch knight. The end result plays much the same way.

What are those specific instances when it does pay off?

Split the base classes into four types: stealth, melee, arcane, and divine. (The monk is the odd one out here, and in fact doesn't mix well with any multiclass.)

First, make sure you can get the extra class with no XP penalty (i.e., you're human, half-elven, or your other class is your race's favored class, or you intend to progress at the same rate in all of your classes).

(1) Melee and stealth mix well. For example, a light-armor using dexterity-oriented fighter (or ranger or barbarian) with a few levels of rogue will be just about exactly as good in melee as a pure fighter/ranger/barbarian, but will get a limited selection of strong rogue skills (e.g. open locks, disarm traps, or stealth) plus some very nice bonuses (improved evasion, stealth attack). Conversely, a rogue with a couple of levels of ranger will get a whole bunch of weapon and armor feats plus two-weapon fighting "for free," as well as a slightly boosted base attack bonus -- and by distributing the skill points intelligently he'll be just about as good a rogue as a pure one; the only penalty will be that he'll fall behind a bit with the stealth attack bonus.

(2) Melee and divine spellcasting mix well. A fighter/ranger/paladin with a couple of levels of cleric or druid will have a whole bunch of useful heal, buff, and dispel spells.

However, don't bother with trying to mix divine and arcane spellcasting or melee and arcane spellcasting, other than through prestige classes -- you'll end up pretty seriously handicapped in both areas. As a general rule, D&D rewards specialists rather than generalists; if you're not within spitting distance of a specialist's capabilities in at least one area, you will hit a fight that'll be very tough or impossible to beat. (I understand this is a conscious decision built into the system -- one design goal was sufficient differentiation between classes so there is no single "winning strategy" of character development.)

Edit: that was generally speaking. If you're really good at building characters, you could certainly come up with something like a fighter/sorcerer/duelist who would play very well -- to use the duelist abilities she can't wear armor, so she can cast away all she likes in melee; many of the duelist's skills are CHA based so there's a nice synergy there, and you can get away with only two high ability scores (CHA and DEX).
 
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@Benedict -- I'd suggest bard/RDD instead. If you go sorc/RDD, you'll end up with a character that has only somewhat stronger spells and no buffs, but is significantly weaker in melee. A sorcerer's strength is in her spells, and low-level sorcs aren't very useful as they run out of ammo very quickly, so you don't want to do anything that handicaps spellcasting more than a level or two -- and a RDD will handicap a whopping 10 levels of it.

Edit: that was generally speaking. If you're really good at building characters, you could certainly come up with something like a fighter/sorcerer/duelist who would play very well -- to use the duelist abilities she can't wear armor, so she can cast away all she likes in melee; many of the duelist's skills are CHA based so there's a nice synergy there, and you can get away with only two high ability scores (CHA and DEX).

Hmmm, I've been looking around a bit more . . . over the full 30 levels in MoTB I think the RDD would be pretty good, maybe 6 levels of sorceror, 10 levels of eldritch knight, 10 of RDD and 4 of Arcane Scholar of Candlekeep, to give 19 sorcerer caster levels and a base attack bonus of 22 with all of the additional benefits . . . only one attack per round less than a full fighter and some serious spellcasting & attribute bonuses along with some decent feats for free.

I just quite like the RDD idea :)
 
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RDDs work well with Eldritch Knights to create "fighting casters", where the main focus of the spells is to buff yourself into immortality. I really like such builds myself.

There are two ways to go about it:
- Paladin -> Sorc -> Eldritch Knight (Paladins get various charisma benefits, including saving throws).
- Fighter -> Mage -> Eldritch Knight (Bonus feat for fighter).

The reason you need to start out as a paladin or a fighter is to get martial weapon feats, which is required to become an eldritch knight.

Whether you want to put the last few levels into RDD is up to you. It might just boost your strength by quite a bit, which is nice, but I'd focus on getting level 9 spells first.
 
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I'd get experience point penalties then, I ended up going for a wood elf because they seemed to have the best stat options for what I wanted. Plus one can pick up the martial weapons feat easily enough, I grabbed it at level 3.

Any advice on feats that are particularly good?
 
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The reason you need to start out as a paladin or a fighter is to get martial weapon feats, which is required to become an eldritch knight.

OTOH you could always just take the Martial proficiency feat as one of your feats and not lose that spellcaster level. If you're human, you get a quite a lot of bonus feats, so you won't really lose out on much either.

You won't get those armor or shield feats, of course, but if you intend to do battle casting you probably won't want to wear any anyway.

Whether you want to put the last few levels into RDD is up to you. It might just boost your strength by quite a bit, which is nice, but I'd focus on getting level 9 spells first.

Agreed.
 
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Any advice on feats that are particularly good?

* Blind-fight. You'll be fighting enemies with concealment or invisibility all the time; some will also temporarily blind you. (Replacement: True Seeing.)

Kick-ass sequence for any fighter type who can afford it -- you'll be able to freely position yourself in melee and you'll get a really great special attack for fighting mobs:

* Dodge -> Mobility -> Spring attack (req: Dex 14 IIRC) -> Combat expertise (req: Int 13 IIRC) -> Whirlwind attack

Kick-ass sequence for a STR-based two-hander fighter:

* Power attack -> Cleave -> Great cleave (-> Improved power attack)

If you take the Frenzied Berserker prestige class, the Supreme Power Attack plus frenzy features will let you deal absolutely ridiculous amounts of damage. This one is unbeatable against individual, very tough (=damage resistant) enemies.

The "dexterity-based" melee fighter feat sequence:

Note: Max out the Parry and Tumble skills

* Weapon finesse
* Two-weapon fighting -> Improved two-weapon fighting
* Improved parry
* Improved critical: Rapier
* Weapon focus/Weapon specialization: Rapier

Combine this with the Duelist prestige class, and you'll get a completely different fighter that'll also be able to dish out ridiculous amounts of damage and is just about untouchable in melee when in Parry mode -- unbeatable fighting mobs, may be in trouble fighting individual very tough opponents with a lot of damage resistance and regeneration.

Spellcasters should focus on metamagic and item creation feats, and then take the Epic Spells first. Mass Fowl is hilarious, Vampiric Feast becomes "skip this battle" much of the time.
 
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* Dodge -> Mobility -> Spring attack (req: Dex 14 IIRC) -> Combat expertise (req: Int 13 IIRC) -> Whirlwind attack

You need Dex 13 and Int 13 for this sequence.

And about Great Cleave: if you're not going Frenzied Berserker I'd avice against getting Great Cleave since you pretty much never kills an opponent in one hit (unless maybe if you're a scyte weaponmaster and get a critical...).

And about Duelist: Does the Duelistfeats acually stack if you're wielding two Rapiers? And wouldn't your partymembers be able to kill that tough monster for you (if you travel with three partymembers they should be able to do SOME damage, right)?

Übereil
 
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The only duelist perk you lose if you dual-wield is Precise Attack (or what it's called). You get to keep the über-parrying perks, the AC perks, and all the rest. I played MotB halfway through with a duelist; he breezed through most fights without breaking a sweat. The only times he ran into some trouble was when fighting the Paragon Beasts in the cave in the woods: not enough damage per hit to break through their damage resistance.

Re Great Cleave: that does actually work pretty well if you use your spellcasters intelligently: for example, apply Energy Immunity: Fire to your PC, and then have your casters bomb the area with Delayed Blast Fireballs or such. One or two of those will whittle down the opposition to the point that you'll be able to polish several off per round with Great Cleave. With Str near 40, Improved Power Attack, Improved Critical, and the 1.5x STR bonus rule for two-handers, you will be dishing out some pretty obscene damage per hit -- 100 hp isn't unusual.

OTOH of course if you can dish out that kind of damage, the only thing Great Cleave does is shorten the battle a round or two. It's not a decisive edge by any means.
 
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