-
NOW LIVE! Into the Woods--new character species, eerie monsters, and haunting villains to populate the woodlands of your D&D games.
Ranger w/2 bastard swords
- Thread starter Lizard
- Start date
ValhallaGH
Explorer
No.
It costs a feat. Also, it may be completely inappropriate to your character concept.
Mistwell
Crusty Old Meatwad
You can, you should, it's not cheesy, and it was intended to work that way. I believe that is in fact one of the intended uses of the Ranger 2-weap power and the feat that gives you access to the bastard sword. It's really not all that much damage relative to other feats you could take, but I think it's fine.
Oh, it fits the concept just fine. 
He's supposed to be a scary-ass mofo in an urban setting, and someone who is whipping around two six-foot long swords is pretty damn scary.
The cost of one feat for, in essence, +1 damage and +2 on critical is pretty good, and it stacks nicely with Weapon Focus and 2-weapon fighting. Switch my multiclass from Rogue to Warlord and I can grab Intimidate as a trained skill so I don't need to spend a feat on that, not to mention Inspiring Word 1/encounter.
Oh yeah. He bad.
He's supposed to be a scary-ass mofo in an urban setting, and someone who is whipping around two six-foot long swords is pretty damn scary. The cost of one feat for, in essence, +1 damage and +2 on critical is pretty good, and it stacks nicely with Weapon Focus and 2-weapon fighting. Switch my multiclass from Rogue to Warlord and I can grab Intimidate as a trained skill so I don't need to spend a feat on that, not to mention Inspiring Word 1/encounter.
Oh yeah. He bad.
It's not cheesy, it brings the damage output of the two-weapon ranger up to what the archer ranger can do with a longbow.
It is visually rather unappealing to me, though not as bad as monkey gripping two greatswords in 3e.
Some day I'd like to see the system ditch pre-assigned weapon damage, and simply tie damage dice to class abilities, and allow you decide what your weapon looks like. For instace rogue damage would be 1d6. A feat would increase that to 1d8. A class feature would allow him to reduce damage to 1d4 and gain a +1 attack (I know that doesn't fit the current mold but bare with me). So I could decide my rogue is using a rapier at level 1, that does 1d6 damage. At level 4, I could pick up a feat that increases its damage to 1d8. Another rogue could do the same using a cutlass, and yet another rogue could do it using a handaxe.
It is visually rather unappealing to me, though not as bad as monkey gripping two greatswords in 3e.
Some day I'd like to see the system ditch pre-assigned weapon damage, and simply tie damage dice to class abilities, and allow you decide what your weapon looks like. For instace rogue damage would be 1d6. A feat would increase that to 1d8. A class feature would allow him to reduce damage to 1d4 and gain a +1 attack (I know that doesn't fit the current mold but bare with me). So I could decide my rogue is using a rapier at level 1, that does 1d6 damage. At level 4, I could pick up a feat that increases its damage to 1d8. Another rogue could do the same using a cutlass, and yet another rogue could do it using a handaxe.
lukelightning
First Post
psst... the DM can't read your mind. Write "bastard sword" on your character sheet and then visualize them as chainsaws or super-scimiatars or giant sickles or war axes or angry monitor lizards being swung by their tails...
eamon
Explorer
Then again, at the latest when you describe how the roaring, revving engines tearing flesh momentarily drone out the screams of your victim, he'll figure out that you didn't just score a critical with a bastard sword ;-).
lukelightning
First Post
That's when you claim ignorance and say "isn't a bastard sword one of those chainsaw-swords that the space marines use?"
Oh, it fits the concept just fine.
Aren't D&D bastard swords four to five foot swords? Greatswords are six-foot swords (given a six-foot swordsman), and longswords are three-foot swords; bastard swords are the tweeners.
