Tempest Tecnique Question

[tiornys]

Problem with the urgrosh: you need expertise twice, weapon focus twice, mastery feats or whatnot twice etc. Essentially you're just wielding an axe in your primary hand and a spear off hand, and there's not much overlap (also stat-prereq wise) between those.

The latest Dragon issue introduced a feat that helps a little bit with this. It's called Weapon Master, has prerequisites of Weapon Focus and Weapon Expertise, and it applies the benefits of those feats to all weapons you have proficiency with. It only saves you one feat on the Urgrosh itself, but it gives you access to some extra versatility in the process. Does nothing about the stat problems though.

That makes the quarterstaff attractive again; or, for that matter, the double sword: these actually have comparable damage/proficiency bonus levels and both ends are the same weapon group.

It's probably doable, but it'll cost you a lot of feats to pull off that might be better spent elsewhere. You'd have to compare builds to really tell, but my instinct is that it's dangerously close to a trap.

Agreed.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Right. It is a resource use issue. And no, an Urgosh's higher damage die does not make up for -1 to hit. Would you take Power Attack it if were -1 to attack for +1 damage? I can't see that as a good benefit for *anyone*.

The loss of the Offhand keyword is what stings more than the other nerfs. The issue where all ends of the weapon counted for all keywords was clearly not working. Dropping the damage die on the spear end of the urgosh and the main end of the sword was fine. The loss of the Offhand keyword hurts for tempest fighters.

That being said, the build of tempest fighter seems to emphasize the mobile skirmisher more than the junior Two Weapon Ranger. The nerfs to Double Weapons make the choices available more indicative of that aspect. With Dex as a recommended Secondary, the Double Sword is an easy choice to make, same with the Spiked Chain. Of course, that and the Staff are on the chopping block, so who knows what the story will be once they are examined.

Jay

Urgrosh is -1 to attack vs what? Of course its -1 to attack WRT a +3 proficiency weapon, but so are all axes. Unless you have specific reasons to use axes its generally better to go with a sword, a factor that is orthogonal to the dual weapon thing.

There has been plenty of speculation about Spiked Chain and Staff, but its not at all assured they will be nerfed. Spiked chain requires 2 feats to use as a dual weapon, so its not clear its really in quite the same category as other dual weapons where the cost is nothing relative to some other superior weapon. Pretty much everyone DOES start with staff proficiency, so Staff Fighting is the same resource cost as dual weapons, one feat. Even so, staff in general as a group has little else going for it. Its not like there's a "Deadly Staff" feat, etc. Still, it is pretty much as good as the old dual sword right now, except it doesn't do rogues any good.

 

[Turtlejay]

Urgosh is -1 with respect to it's status pre-nerf as an off-hand weapon. Tempest fighters get their fighter bonus only with off-hand weapons.

Also, Spiked Chain only requires *one* feat, same as the other double weapons. As it stands, with 2d4 the spiked chain is the hands down best double weapon for a Tempest fighter, and to boot it counts as a flail and a light blade, is reach and off-hand, and does more average damage per round than the staff. It will most likely be nerfed. The feat is OP as written.

Jay

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Urgosh is -1 with respect to it's status pre-nerf as an off-hand weapon. Tempest fighters get their fighter bonus only with off-hand weapons.

Also, Spiked Chain only requires *one* feat, same as the other double weapons. As it stands, with 2d4 the spiked chain is the hands down best double weapon for a Tempest fighter, and to boot it counts as a flail and a light blade, is reach and off-hand, and does more average damage per round than the staff. It will most likely be nerfed. The feat is OP as written.

Jay

As I understand it you'd first have to take Spiked Chain Proficiency, then the spiked chain fighting feat, but honestly I haven't paid much attention to it. Anyway it does get a heck of a lot of bennies, so you're probably right, it will be nerfed.

 

[Turtlejay]

I'm no rules lawyer and usually only give my opinion in those discussions. My experience only comes from building one in the CB last week or so, and it gave me the proficiency bonus from just the multiclass feat that makes it a double weapon. That may be a glitch.

I will save myself the trouble of rebuilding him *again* and probably just go with the double sword. The downgrade from 1d12-->2d4-->1d6 hurts, but the bright side is that pumping Dex instead of Con gets me better defenses. . .

Jay

 

[the8bitdeity]

As I understand it you'd first have to take Spiked Chain Proficiency, then the spiked chain fighting feat, but honestly I haven't paid much attention to it. Anyway it does get a heck of a lot of bennies, so you're probably right, it will be nerfed.

The spiked chain fighter tree (which is a multiclass tree) grants proficiency with spiked chain, but because it's a MC tree you're forgoing the ability to MC.

If you want to MC with spiked chain you take WP: Spiked Chain which does NOT grant it as a dual weapon, or a light blade.