Did I mess up my character? 9possible spoilers I suppose)

[Heavy Metal Monk]

Alriht, so I'm playing a fighter. Right now I am on my way to the Broken Blade to find Sparrow. My character is level 10 with the followin stats: 40/22/22/16/12/15/12/12

My skills are:

Alchemy 1 (from a book)
Light Armor 8
Cartography 7
Dodge 4 (from two rings)
Medicine 10
Spot Hidden 1 (from a book)
Bludgeoning Waeaons 1 (bought, don't know why)
Bow Weapons 2
Cleaving Weapons 10
Swords 1 ( bought, again don't know why)

I just thought I'd ask because I seem to having a bit of trouble, with the goliath boreheads and then I also foundthat Necromancer spot and the zombies kill me. I can run away but I can't beat them all.

Any tips or should I start over? I'm ten hours into the game.

[Kreador Freeaxe]

The points in Light Armor (beyond level 1) and Medicine are probably not the best choices. There's a big advantage to having weapon skills over level 10, and the more over (up to about the mid 30s) the faster the Feat comes back. As it happens, the Cleaving feat is not one of the best. It would be good if you found your way to the archery trainer and upped your Bow skill above 10, as the Focus Feat with Bows is really good.

You may want to wander around the region near the Farrock Caves and see if you can't get yourself some more levels and loot.

[geishaboy]

I've never found dodge to be all that fantastic. I would recommend getting rid of those rings and replacing them with ones that increase base attributes

I would also learn foraging if I were you. Even if you're not making much with alchemy, the bits and pieces that you find can always be sold for a bit of extra cash, there is a trainer for it too, so you don't need to waste precious skill points

Don't stress too much though, you're only level 10, boreheads and zombies killed the hell out of me too when I was at that level

[Heavy Metal Monk]

Thanks for the tips.

may I ask why the points in Medicine and Light Armor (past level 1) were not a good idea? I've decided not to start over, but I just got a level up and threw all skill points into my weapon skill and bumped endurance up 3.

edit: Also should I invest in shields at all?

edit 2: I feel like that last level up really helped alot. I cn stand toe-to-toe with two goliath boreheads and not go under half hp.

[sirdilznik]

Thanks for the tips.

may I ask why the points in Medicine and Light Armor (past level 1) were not a good idea? I've decided not to start over, but I just got a level up and threw all skill points into my weapon skill and bumped endurance up 3.

edit: Also should I invest in shields at all?

The benefits of training Light Armor (and Heavy Armor) skills beyond level one are slower armor durability degradation (which isn't a big deal as long as you have at least 1 Repair skill and can fix your own armor) and a slight increase in the chance for 50% damage reduction (which kicks in so rarely even with high skill that it's for the most part negligible). Someone else can comment on Medicine skill better than myself.

As for getting Shield skill it's absolutely useful to get the skill , especially to get it up to level 10 at which point you will start to deflect missiles. You're better off spending skill points and/or money on Shield skill than Armor skill, at least up to level 10.

Also as already mentioned Cleaving weapons get one of the worst, if not THE worst feats in the game. Still since you're already deeply invested in the skill you might as well continue increasing it as the weapons themselves are pretty good. Your character build is far from a failure and you can still totally go through the game with your character. Go out and fight somewhere else for a couple of levels and come back to fight the Goliaths when you're a bit stronger. In the meanwhile sink most of your points into weapon skills and shields.

Also some Divination skill would be a smart purchase as long as it doesn't go against your character philosophy (and as long as you have enough Wisdom to use it) as the Divination buffs can help you out a lot.

[Heavy Metal Monk]

I actually did take one point in Divination. Even that level one heal spell makes a huge difference, and just in case you didn't see my last edit, with my last level up I can stand up against two goliath boreheads at once and do just fine.

[sirdilznik]

I actually did take one point in Divination. Even that level one heal spell makes a huge difference, and just in case you didn't see my last edit, with my last level up I can stand up against two goliath boreheads at once and do just fine.

No I didn't see the edit. Good to hear you're doing fine against the Goliaths now. I myself had no problems at all with them with my fighter character but I didn't fight them until I was about level 13 or so. You don't have to make an optimal build to succeed in the game, make your character however you want, just make sure you continue developing your weapon skill some (Cleaving) continuously. While the feat isn't very useful for Cleaving the increased to hit ratio will help you enormously. Good luck and have fun!

[IJBall]

I've never found dodge to be all that fantastic. I would recommend getting rid of those rings and replacing them with ones that increase base attributes

Dodge gets more and more decent, but you have to put some work into making it effective, and it's only worthwhile if you're going to play a close-combat melee fighting character.

Dodge below Level 5 is pretty much useless, but Dodge at Level 5 give you a 5% chance at 'Dodging' and if you put a good amount of Levels into your primary melee weapon by that point in the game the odds are good that the follow-up ToHit after the Dodge will be 99%.

By the time you start getting Dodge to Level 10-15 or higher, it does start to become a pretty powerful compliment to melee fighters.

The problem with Dodge, particularly in Book II, is that you'll either never get a chance to pump up your Dodge enough to make it substantially effective, or you'll have to wait until near game's end to do so at which point having high Dodge may not be as satisfying.

Anyway, Dodge is a pretty decent alternative, but you almost have decide at game's start that you're going to concentrate on it, and it's a Skill that should really only be focused on with hardcore melee-fighting characters...