Double Weapons fixed?

[Alabast]

Let me explain: There is an article on WOTC for D&D insiders about the Shadar-kai. Since the SK like wicked weapons, the present mastery of the spiked chain as a multiclass path that any martial character can take. Here is the initial feat.

Spiked Chain Mastery
Prerequisites: Dex 13, any martial class
Benefit: You gain proficiency with the spiked
chain. You can treat the spiked chain as a double
weapon and a light blade. As a double weapon, the
spiked chain deals 2d4/2d4 damage, and it gains the
off-hand property. For more on double weapons, see
Adventurer’s Vault, page 10.

It allows the wielder to treat the spiked chain as a double weapon (not to mention a light blade, so that's good for rogues). It says that the weapon gainst the off-hand property, but it says nothing about gaining the DEFENSIVE property. Unless I'm mistaken, it was the fact that double weapons were BOTH off-hand and defensive that made them so overpowered for tempest fighters, no? I wonder is this is indicative of WOTC acknowledging the problem and future steps to fix it. Have I missed an errata somewhere?

 

[themilkman]

I think that spiked chain doesn't have the Defensive property to balance the fact that it's a reach weapon.

Either way, defensive is just 1 point of AC, so I'm not too worried about it.

 

[Mentat55]

I think the bigger problem with double weapons, especially with tempest fighters, is that you gain the benefit of the group and properties of the double weapon (by RAW) for both the main and off-hand ends. So a double sword, regardless of which end you are using, is both a heavy and light blade, and off-hand, too. That means a tempest fighter gets a +2 bonus to damage with both ends, and can use powers and feats for both light and heavy blades.

 

[fissionessence]

Yeah, plus the spiked chain just doesn't seem all that defensive to begin with, regardless of how many hands you're using.

(I don't know much about weapons, though, so I could be totally wrong about how fighting with one works.)

~

 

[Mengu]

Defensive property alone is not the problem with double weapons.

The Urgosh as an off-hand weapon that does 1d12 damage is pretty broken. It's the reason why you can have a 1st level dwarf fighter attacking with an at-will power at +9 vs AC, and dealing 1d12+11 damage. One wonders why they call it a defender instead of striker.

I think double weapons are typically one benefit too many for a feat (especially so in the case of dwarven weapon training, which comes out to like three and a half feats in one).

For instance if the double sword did 1d6/1d6 damage, and didn't have the heavy blade property, it would be worth the 1 feat, for gaining a +1 AC and lowering cost of two magic weapons down to one. If it didn't have the off-hand property and light blade property, again it would remain useful.

 

[Alabast]

I see your point. One wonders how something so blatant got past QA. Perhaps Adventurer's Vault was developed a long time before Martial Power. TWF rangers don't benefit as much from double weapons since they can use two one-handed weapons anyway, though you do give them a bonus to AC they wouldn't normally have, in addition to reduced magic item cost.

I don't see the whole heavy blade-light blade problem with the two-bladed sword, however. Does it benefit anyone besides a rogue for HBO purposes? I suppose the defensive property gives it an edge over the rapier, but it DOES require two hands as opposed to one. Is there some other broken build I'm missing?

I guess it let's a character abuse Light blade precision, but again, that's doesn't seem that grievous.

 

[Caliber]

I see your point. One wonders how something so blatant got past QA. Perhaps Adventurer's Vault was developed a long time before Martial Power. TWF rangers don't benefit as much from double weapons since they can use two one-handed weapons anyway, though you do give them a bonus to AC they wouldn't normally have, in addition to reduced magic item cost.

I don't see the whole heavy blade-light blade problem with the two-bladed sword, however. Does it benefit anyone besides a rogue for HBO purposes? I suppose the defensive property gives it an edge over the rapier, but it DOES requier two hands as opposed to one. Is there some other broken build I'm missing?

I guess it let's a character abuse Light blade precision, but again, that's doesn't seem that grevious.

According to a post on these very boards by WOTC_Logan, at one point in development the double sword differentiated which end belonged to which group, and even had different damage (I think). Some digging would probably turn it up.

For the most part, I don't think double weapons are horrendously broken except in the case of Tempest Fighters. There, the problem is Tempests get some pretty sweet bonuses for using off-hand weapons; said bonuses (boni?) are meant to make up for off-hand weapons lesser damage dice. But then along come double weapons, offering one (or two!) handed weapon damage, with the off-hand tag letting Tempests soak up those nice bonuses. AND they also give a defense bonus that stacks with the Two-Weapon Defense feat ... which Tempests also start with!

It's like someone looked in AV, saw the double weapons, and then designed the Tempest specifically to exploit the hell out of 'em. House ruling the double weapons into have differentiated sides goes a long way to making them a balanced choice (I think a 1d8/1d8 heavy blade/light blade, off-hand wouldn't be a terribly broke double sword, frex. Maybe drop the die on the second head to 1d6, I dunno. But we're straying off topic here ...)

 

[Alabast]

I see the massive cheese for tempest fighters, but I've heard a lot about having a weapon be both a light blade and heavy blade that does a d8 being completely broken, but I'm not seeing it. Is it something more complicated than allowing a rogue to exploit Heavy Blade opportunity and a fighter to exploit Light blade Precision? Can anyone clue me in?

 

[avin]

A player of mine just raised a question about Spiked Chain but I'm farm from home.

He wanna know if spiked chain can be used with the Two Weapon Fighting feat. He says, according to Adventurer's Vault pg 10 "wielding a double weapon is like a wielding a weapon in each hand" and from feat description: "while holding a melee weapon in each hand, you gain a +1 bonus to damage rolls with your main weapon".

CB isn't adding the +1 bonus to damage roll.

Two Weapon Fighting feat doesn't apply to Spiked Chain or CB is wrong?

 

[Caliber]

I see the massive cheese for tempest fighters, but I've heard a lot about having a weapon be both a light blade and heavy blade that does a d8 being completely broken, but I'm not seeing it. Is it something more complicated than allowing a rogue to exploit Heavy Blade opportunity and a fighter to exploit Light blade Precision? Can anyone clue me in?

Eh, ignoring the whole Tempest angle, it really comes down to what you mean by "completely broken". Is it so terrible that the imbalance generated will be glaringly and painfully obvious at the table? Probably not. But double weapons provide one of the best exotic (excuse me, superior) weapons in the game. Rapiers are almost completely invalidated by Double Swords, frex; their only benefit is that they leave a hand open vs being off-hand, heavy blade, AND defensive, not to mention counting as two weapons.

For the short of it, as far as I'm aware the problems you laid out are generally the big issues once you get out of Tempest territory. One other angle that may be tricky is magical enhancements available to light blades or heavy blades only; not sure if there are many (or any) that are abusable in this context.