Favorite Wielding Style

[RangerWickett]

I am quite fond of exotic styles. While average NPCs, and most humans, elves, and other common races use standard styles like longsword-shield, double shortsword, halfspear-shield, or greatsword, I make sure that all my notable Dark Elf NPCs have exotic styles, such as:

• Rapier-whipblade: Though it's not necessarily the smartest way to powergame, try mixing together Duelist and Lasher and see how many cool tricks you have up your sleeves.
• Quickdraw with Kusari-gama and shurikens or throwing daggers: I let quickdraw also equate quicksheathe, so I had a foe who would attack from a range of 10 feet with his kusari-gama, then back away and throw daggers or shurikens until the PCs came back within range.
• Clawed shield and monkey-gripped longspear: I'm not sure if this is wholly legal, but I used the rules for a spiked shield to allow the guy to slash with his shield if he wanted to, and he alternated between using his spear as a reach weapon and a pole vault to provide mobility through the underdark equivalent of a bamboo grove.
• Double-ended enchanted staff: Get a fighter-mage with a magical staff. In addition to having one end be flaming and the other end be acidic, she could also fire energy blasts from it, since it had charged spells. She was quite fond of tripping her foes, dropping them to the ground then keeping her distance and firing spells.
• Weaponmaster with a morphing blade: This magic item could change forms to any melee weapon as a reaction, even when it wasn't the wielder's turn. Move in close, attack with a double-weapon, then back away, switch to a reach weapon for attacks of opportunity, then morph it again to a different weapon once your foes reach you. Sadly, the PCs never used the item, since they thought it was evil.
• Boomerangs.
• Any method of fighting that uses hair, fingernails, the belly, or eyeballs offensively.
• Illusionist/fighter who had mastered the art of making his illusions fight realistically: So realistically, in fact, that most foes actually believed their foe was too skilled for them. No one could ever hit his illusions, since it would always deflect their attacks. More of a nuisance than anything else.
• Dagger of venom-dripping and palm crossbow: My dark elf assassins have a type of crossbow that can be fired, cocked, and reloaded with only one hand. Combine with a dagger that drips venom, and a few unique feats, and this particular assassin was able to poison half the party in one combat.

 

[nick]

I usually use the two weapon style (two long swords), but would be willing to use the one sword and shield attacking style, as long as I had the feat that let you still use the shield to block. I just find that as you start fighting higher CR level monsters, that the amount of AC that a lowly enchanted shield provides doesn't really matter, as the monster is going to hit anyway.

 

[johnnygolastly]

I prefer to use 030 E71T-GS flux core wire to ensure a really good penetration. I mean, my gas mig normally can only do 3/16" steel, and that's ona good day. But man, convert that sucker over to a flux core weld and it's do 3/8" steel, easy.

Sometimes I feel daring and wanna try some vertical up. Then I have to angle the gun in the opposite direction as I do the mig. I like to shoot the wire in five degrees pointing downward though, it's just my style.

Here's where I usually write about it.

lol...

 

[Tsyr]

My three favorite fighting styles are single-blade, open hand (normaly a single longsword, or sometimes a rapier), a two-handed hammer, or a kasuri-gama... depending on the type of campagin, of course.

 

[Storminator]

I'm biased by playing lower level games, so I chose 2-handed. If you can't offset the 2-weapon penalties, two swords sucks.

I'm surprised that so many people want two short swords. I know you can double on the feats, but I prefer two different weapons: long sword & light mace frex.

In a one-shot I had a keen rapier and a disarming whip from MoF. It was pretty cool. Few levels of rogue to go wth my ranger, and I had some nice sneak attacks to augment the 2-weaps.

I really liked the whip. Disarming is a nice tactic for city games, where lethal force is frowned on, and the occasional subdual damage means you can defeat foes without killing 'em.

PS

 

[ichabod]

Depends on what I'm looking for, damage I'd probably go twin short swords. I haven't done all the math but the way I figure it is this great sword deals about the same amount of damage as two short swords (total of 2d6+str*1.5), however once you start adding in specialization and magical weapons the twin style looks like it should outdistance the the two-handed style.

The problem is that not only are your to hit rolls at -2, but you have to make two of them to do the same damage. If you have a fifty percent chance with each weapon, that's a 25% chance of doing full damage. The two handed has a 60% chance of doing full damage. You're more likely to hit with one of them, but that generally doesn't make up for it in terms of expected damage.

 

[Westwind]

My favorite style really depends on the image I have of the character, in the past it's most often been longsword&shield (I love Knightly types) and single shortsword for my archer-types. Currently, however, I am building a cleric of Tyr (War and Retribution domains) who uses a longsword 2-handed. This avoids all the somatic problems of having a weapon and shield and works really well with spells like Divine Power. Plus, clerics get enough ac buffing spells to offset the loss of the shield bonus.

 

[Ron]

What do you dislike about the shield rules?

The gain in AC is too low compared to the benefit of having an extra attack through the second weapon. Even not taking balance considerations in account, I believe that hitting a shielded opponent should be harder than what D&D rules suggest.

 

[Ravellion]

The gain in AC is too low compared to the benefit of having an extra attack through the second weapon. Even not taking balance considerations in account, I believe that hitting a shielded opponent should be harder than what D&D rules suggest.

Actually, I remember Monte Cook dicussing that after a lot of playtesting at different levels with different styles, in order to balance the system, they came to the conclusion that the sword/shield combo was the best (albeit by a very small margin).

edit: I think the problem occurs when you would enchant shields if you would boost the base power of them (they probably need to be +5 to start with, if looked at it realistically, but could you imagine getting +10 AC from a single shield?)

BTW: Favourite weapon style: Two handed weapon with animated shield

Rav

 

[Orco42]

Two Handed is the Orcish way!

Two weapons are for those weak little elves. And you don't need a stinking shield if you cleave your foes in twain with one blow!