What kind of stats would you recommend for a human fighter? I'm planning to embark upon a low-level campaign, so I thought I coud make a str-based fighter with points in str, dex and con. We will probably max out at level 6.

My other choice was a dex-based fighter using finesse however for such a low campaign a str-based character is much more effective, right?

What kind of feats would you recommend? I was thinking of going for cleave and I'd like to use swords as a weapon of choice. I'll also put some points into Intimidate and Persuasion.

Strength-based melee pretty much rules the roost prior to the epic levels. Nothing else really has comparable damage output to two-handed weapon fighters, and on the defensive side of things platemail and tower shield is hard to beat. In the epic levels there are other options, but at low levels (especially 1-6) pretty much all of your bonus damage will be coming from your strength modifier, and nothing compares to the astronomical AC bonus of platemail plus tower shield. Longsword and Greatsword are fine weapons, so no troubles with your preference there.

For a strength-based melee build ending at level 6, I'd go with this:
Human, Str 16, Dex 12, Con 14, Int 14, Wis 10, Cha 10

If you want to do some archery on the side you could drop anything other than strength to raise dexterity to 14, but it's not nearly as important as it is in pen and paper so I'd just stick with the 12 dexterity.

Personally, I'm a huge fan of beginning my fighter's career as a rogue. The rogue and fighter classes go together perfectly, each one covering the other's weaknesses and complementing them perfectly. One of the big advantages of doing this is that cross-class skills, such as persuasion, become very accessible. I'll do two 6-level builds for you, one with Rogue and one without.

Fighter/Rogue:
level 1 - Rogue - luck of heroes, knockdown
level 2 - Fighter - power attack
level 3 - Rogue - cleave
level 4 - Fighter - great cleave
level 5 - Rogue
level 6 - Rogue - iron will

Fighter
level 1 - Fighter - luck of heroes, power attack, knockdown
level 2 - Fighter - cleave
level 3 - Fighter - weapon focus (your choice)
level 4 - Fighter - weapon specialization
level 5 - Fighter
level 6 - Fighter - great cleave, iron will

The idea of both is pretty simple: knockdown for single important targets, cleave/great cleave to wreck large numbers of weaker targets. Both builds have weak will saves, so boosting it with luck of heroes and iron will is very helpful. The straight fighter uses his extra feats on weapon focus/specialization. Use any two-handed weapon of your choice, although you could equip a tower shield and a one-handed weapon if you prefer.

Thanks for your input! I'm going to be a pure fighter, however I'd like to keep some higher dex and int for flavour/RP purposes, so I quite like your build. Yeah, otherwise doing a mix of rogue/fighter is great, esp. when I go for a 'pirate' where I have more rogue classes there, but here I'd prefer the have a pure fighter since I can RP those other skills. :)

The other interesting builds I've found are these two, one which is a greatsword build going 16/16 for str/con and 13 Int, the other a multiple weapon/dual-wield build which goes for quite high dex - 16/15/14 and 14 Int. The one on gamefaqs is very similar to the first one on Gamebanshee, it just doesn't put Wisdom into -1 and instead keeps Dex at 10.

Since I'd like to be more of a typical swashbuckler I'd like not to nerf the dexterity for RP purposes, however since wisdom isn't used much, I was considering putting it into -1. I might try asking the DM before we start if that will have any impact on my character RP wise or if it's fine, since that way I can keep my dex or con higher. :) I'm not sure yet if I should do a more extreme version like 16/14/15 with less intelligence or nerf the con/dex and have Intelligence at 14.

Thanks for your help! :)

Fair enough, that's your call. The only reason to go for 13 dexterity is to qualify for the dodge feat. Given that you want to pursue a single-class Fighter and you will never reach a level at which Weapon Master is relevant, this just isn't worth going out of your way for. Either push dexterity to 14 for better archery, or keep it at 12. Due to your desire to invest in cross-class skills as a single-class fighter, 14 intelligence seems pretty much mandatory. You need the skill points.

Going for 8 charisma is a viable choice, but that'll hurt your persuasion skill. Going for 8 wisdom is risky, as that weakens what's already your biggest defensive liability: a bad will saving throw. The iron will and luck of heroes feats become top priority to compensate for this weakness. Given that single-class fighter already has ample hit points by default, I think 16 constitution is total overkill and those points are better served elsewhere. The toughness feat is unnecessary for a Fighter for this reason.

If you want to build a two-weapon fighting character, that stat distribution on the second character build is good. You could drop 2 points out of constitution and reinvest them elsewhere (fighters have plenty of HP by default; 12 is perfectly sufficient) but that's about the only change I'd recommend. Since you will be playing at low levels, the short sword would be the ideal weapon choice (kukri is better at higher levels, but not worth the effort for a 1-6 build).

Their feat selection is really weird though. Focusing on the bastard sword on a two-weapon fighter? Bastard swords are cool but they're a terrible weapon to focus in for two-weapon fighting, and delaying the two-weapon fighting feat is just a bad idea. This would be my suggestion:

level 1 - Ambidexterity, Two-Weapon Fighting, and Luck of Heroes
level 2 - Weapon Focus (short sword)
level 3 - Iron Will
level 4 - Weapon Specialization (short sword)
level 5
level 6 - Power Attack, Cleave

Actually, I'd prefer a two-handed sword or a sword and shield rather than a two-weapon fighting build, I mentioned that one out of interest. Thanks for the explanation why 16 con is an overkill, and yeah, I was thinking too low charisma might impact some of the skills so I wouldn't get it down to 9. What would you say about this?

16/11/15/14/10/10

Or is there a reason to keep dexterity at 12 and not 11? I'll probably have the same feats as you posted in order to get cleave at level 2 and have a weapon specialization depending on whether I'll go for the greatsword or a longsword/buckler/tower shield.

Alhtough, most campaigns are full of relatively cheap attribute +1 items,
which tend to be rather useless when a character is built smartly with even number stats.

But cant count on getting one in an unknown campaing.

Heya! Sorry for not replying sooner, it was so late and I forgot about it the next day as we were busy getting the campaign on. Thanks a lot for your help!

Yeah, I forgot for a moment there that 12 gives you the bonus but 11 doesn't, so I did decide to go with the 12 dexterity.

In the end I went for a 16/12/15/14/10/10 since I discovered in-game that you can gain +1 to str as you're required to choose a sub-type of your class that gives you bonuses (but looking back, maybe I should've picked the other one that gives you a knockdown instead of +2 to fight again forest creatures as we've spent most of the time underground). And I've decided to try out disarm and see how it goes! :)

Do you know why was I able to pick two feats at level 2 as a fighter though and not just one like you've got listed? True, although this is a real DM-run campiagn so I wasn't sure if there'd be any.

It also sucks to have an inventory slot tied up with it. The more generous the campaign is with magic items, the more likely you are to get that +1 item you're looking for, but also the more likely you are to have other items you want to equip instead. Tricky part with disarm is that enemies are immune to it by default; the module creator has to explicitly mark a creature as being vulnerable to disarm. So disarm is module-dependent. Hope it works out for you. Sounds like there are custom rules at work. Enjoy your freebees, I guess :-)

Thanks for the info, I'm off to make sure our DM has included it! :)

Going for will saving throws is effectively pointless. A 6 fighter will have 2 base will. A 6 cleric/sorcerer/wizard casting Hold Person will have a DC of at least 15 without even focusing on their casting stat or taking spell focus. The difference between 10 wisdom and 8 wisdom is the difference between failing 60% of the time versus failing 65% of the time. Either way, you're probably going to fail, you're going to want mental protection via other sources, and you might as well focus on your strengths.

Ditto for Charisma. You're literally just losing -1 to Persuade, effectively (or whatever your diplomatic skill of choice is). Better to have 8 Cha and take Skill Focus: Persuade or whatever, net gain of 2 skill.

18 Str
12 Dex
14 Con
12 Int
8 Wis
8 Cha

is your best bet if your goal is an effective build. Can swap 14 Con for 14 Int if you wish (and thus 12 Con).

Feats would probably be...

1. Power Attack, Cleave, Weapon Focus: Greatsword
2. Weapon Focus: Longsword
3. Knockdown
4. Great Cleave
6. Weapon Specialization: Greatsword, Weapon Specialization: Longsword

That will allow you to fight with full effectiveness with both weapons. Can drop one line of feats for something like Toughness and a Skill Focus (take one at level 3 and the other at level 6, which means moving Knockdown to 2) if you want (or two Skill Foci or whatever). Now why would you say that? They stack in NWN, unlike PnP.

+1's here and there add up. It's less about 10 wisdom in isolation and more about 10 wisdom with iron will and luck of heroes and (preferably) and item to boost it further. It's not that hard to bring a Fighter's will save into decent territory. I totally agree that having outright immunity to mind-affecting is vastly preferable to relying on the Fighter's shaky will saves, but I'm going on the presumption that this isn't available on a reliable basis in a 1-6 campaign. If you do go with 8 wisdom, be sure to go through the potions offered by the shopkeepers and buy up anything that offers some protection.

With respect to charisma and skill focus, you could always take skill focus while retaining 10 charisma so I don't think that's a fair comparison. All else equal, 10 charisma will always be one point ahead of 8 charisma. I fully agree that going with 8 charisma and eating the -1 penalty to charisma-based skills is viable. If you need an extra 2 points, this is the place to get them. I just don't think there's anything wrong with 10 charisma.

All that said, a two-handed weapon backed by 18 strength hits like a truck at low levels. While the difference over 16 strength isn't actually that big (+1 attack, +2 damage), over the course of a few battles you're going to rack up a few kills that a slightly weaker fighter wouldn't have landed. If you want to go "all in" to strength, that's certainly an option, and a deadly one at that.

Presuming they're rings or you can find similar items for different slots. It doesn't matter that strength increases stack if you can only find them on gauntlets in the campaign you're playing.

That "decent" territory you mentioned is still...5. Which is a 45% chance of failing still. And yes, you can sometimes get saving throw items...but if you can do so then that applies to the 8 wisdom fellow as well. If a fighter focusing on will has a 95% chance of success, a fighter ignoring will still succeeds 75% of the time.

And between Protection From Alignment and Clarity, it's usually not difficult to get mind spell immunity when it actually matters (which is very rare at low levels).

My point that was that it's only a -1 penalty, period (and a feat, which fighters have spades of, is three times as powerful) 10 Charisma doesn't suddenly make you succeed where you always failed with 8 Charisma. It's a very minor difference.

Well, with 16 strength and a Greatsword you deal 7 + 4 damage = 11 per hit. With 18 strength and a Greatsword you deal 7 + 6 = 13 damage per hit. That's an 18% increase (and makes it more likely you'll one shot stuff at lower levels).

If you hit an opponent 75% of the time, 1 AB is another 6.7% increase, for a total increase of 26%.

If you hit an opponent 50% of the time, 1% is another 10% increase, for a total increase of 30%.

In other words, 18 strength versus 16 strength is at least a 25% damage increase overall (this difference obviously shrinks as you get buffs/magic weapons but it's still a 10-15% bonus).

It still does due to Bull's Strength. With an even strength, you have a 50% chance to receive a +1 modifier and a 50% chance to receive a +2 modifier.

With an odd strength, you have a 25% chance to receive a +1 modifier, 50% chance to receive a +2 modifier, and a 25% chance to receive a +3 modifier.

Which is what I forgot.
Still fair chance to first find something giving +1, the later additions, if any, then being a nice bonus.