An idea I had about the bastard sword

[Mike Sullivan]

Also, to quickly respond to Mike Sullivan's feat, I think that the BAB checking mechanic is too unwieldy. Checking hit dice or even a sense motive roll with a DC of 18 seems like a better route. Does the +2 apply to all attacks in the round or just the first?

Is it unwieldy? It seems like everyone has their BAB right there...

Hit Dice would probably also work fine. I was being a bit picky and thinking that what I wanted to rate was martial prowess rather than general experience.

A Sense Motive check involves another die roll, and I prefer to avoid that if I can.

I was thinking that the +2 would apply to all attacks. It sounds strong at first glance, but it does mean that half of the time, you're attacking with a one-handed weapon and no shield (the worst of all possible fighting styles, in general), and the rest of the time you're fighting with a sub-par two-handed weapon. And it's most useful against mooks that you could probably handily beat anyway.

Neat idea, btw.

Thank you!

 

[Spatzimaus]

Re: Re: Yup

It's also not particularly true that an attack bonus is better than a damage bonus.

One point of an attack bonus, on a given weapon, may be less important than one point of damage. However, attack bonuses can be turned into damage or AC (Power Attack, Expertise, fighting defensively) while the reverse isn't true. At least in the core rules, that is. Look at Monks. Low BAB, massive fist damage; against high-AC people they don't have many options.

Since practically every fighter has PA, it's usually far better to get effects boosting your attack roll or reducing the enemy AC and PA down the excess.

 

[Technik4]

Would be interesting to try a bastard sword/ spiked gauntlet fighter. One round you get all your attacks, the next switch to 2-h bastard sword. With a +2 bonus essentially every round (if I read correctly) you manage to negate the 2-wpn negs when making all those attacks and net a nice +2 bons when using it for damage.

Technik

 

[Mike Sullivan]

Re: Re: Re: Yup

One point of an attack bonus, on a given weapon, may be less important than one point of damage. However, attack bonuses can be turned into damage or AC (Power Attack, Expertise, fighting defensively) while the reverse isn't true.

That's fair.

 

[Mike Sullivan]

Would be interesting to try a bastard sword/ spiked gauntlet fighter. One round you get all your attacks, the next switch to 2-h bastard sword. With a +2 bonus essentially every round (if I read correctly) you manage to negate the 2-wpn negs when making all those attacks and net a nice +2 bons when using it for damage.

Huh. I didn't think of that. You could do it with Improved Unarmed Strike, too, if you wanted.

On the other hand, even with the spiked gauntlet, you're throwing four feats at it (EWP - Bastard Sword, Ambidexterity, TWF, Hand & 1/2 Fighting), and you still don't get it against someone who's your peer (either in terms of BAB or HD, depending on which form you preferred).

So I think I'd allow it. But I'm not totally sure. Obviously, I wasn't thinking of combining it with TWF.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

I guess the really sad thing is, most parties are made up of those 3 weapons: rapier (rogue/bard), longsword (1-h and shield), and greatsword (2-h). You see some axes now and then, but it really just strikes me as odd when someone doesnt use one of those 3 weapons in 3ed. Personally I try to avoid using them, and my most frequent weapon is ... a dagger, a weapon that always manages to come in handy, for any class

This is odd. My experience indicates that these are the most common weapons used--in order of use:

2 handed: Greatsword, greataxe, spiked chain, glaive, falchion, longspear

1 handed: Longsword, battleaxe, dwarven waraxe, bastard sword, rapier, warhammer, heavy pick

dual wielded: longsword+shortsword (for first levels and rangers who spent their feats on something other than melee), twin shortsword, 1-handed weapon and spiked shield (bastard sword is popular in this combo), twin kukri.

As far as mechanics go, the weapons are fairly balanced:

2 handed non-reach: Greatsword followed closely by the Greataxe. The falchion has a significant following in the "my character is so kewl 'cuz he threatens on a 12 crowd" however.

2 handed reach: glaive is the damage king but spiked chain has other benefits if you can spare the feat.

1 handed: longsword, battle axe, and warhammer are all pretty much equivalent. Bastard swords and dwarven waraxes are strictly better, averaging 1 point of damage per hit but the EWP scares most people off. Still, I've see quite a bit of use among people who don't mind spending feats (I've seen a fair number of barbarians and paladins and some dual wielding weapon and shield style ranger/rogues using these--oddly enough I've only seen one fighter using a bastard sword and one using a waraxe).
I've also seen a few characters using heavy picks--mostly because they like the amount of damage they occasionally dish out and don't mind dealing 1 point less average damage/hit on non-crits. Rapiers are popular among bards and rogues but a lot of them multiclass and use battle axes or longswords or dual wield shortswords instead--I've also seen a fair number of greatsword wielding multiclass rogues.
Morning Stars and heavy maces tend to be the weapons of choice for single class clerics without the war domain.

Dual wielding: Usually I see characters wielding two shortswords among the serious dual-wielders. Rangers who spent their feats on something else sometimes go longsword+shortsword. There are a fair number of characters who dual wield one handed weapons and shields too. The other combo I've seen is twin kukris on halfling ranger/rogues.

Oddly, although it's mechanically similar to twin shortswords, I've never seen a character wielding twin handaxes. (I plan on making a character who wields twin throwing axes--so she can throw one at an enemy if she drops her main foe with the first attack).

 

[Technik4]

In most ways a typical level 6 Fighter NPC, straight out of DMG.

A. Buser: Male human Ftr6; CR 6; Medium-size humanoid (human); HD 6d10+; hp 49; Init +1 ; Spd 20ft,; AC 20 (touch 11, flat-footed 19); Atk +11/+6 melee (1d10+7/19-20, +1 bastard sword) or +9/+4 melee (1d10+6, +1 bastard sword) and +8 melee (1d4+1/20, mwk. spiked gauntlet); SV Fort +8, Ref +4, Will +4; AL N; Str 16, Dex 13, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 8.

Skills and Feats: Climb +7, Jump +7, Prof (Weapon Master) +5. Exotic Weapon (Bastard Sword), Weapon Focus (Bastard Sword), Ambidexterity, Two-Weapon Fighting, Power Attack, Weapon Specialization (Bastard Sword), Cleave, Hand-and-a-Half Fighting.

Possessions: +1 Full Plate, +1 Bastard Sword, Mwk Spiked Gauntlet, Potion of Cure Moderate Wounds, Potion of Fly, Cloak of Resistance +1. (Due to his position as Weapon Master of a personal household, A. has slightly better equipment than a regular npc of his level).

-First round-
Charge and attack with 2-h bastard sword +13 (1d10+7/19-20, +1 bastard sword) [-2 AC]
-Second round-
Full round of attacks, using Hand-and-a-Half Fighting. +13/+8 (1d10+6, +1 bastard sword) and +10 (1d4+1/20, mwk. spiked gauntlet)
-Third round-
2 attacks with 2-h bastard sword, using Hand-and-a-Half Fighting. +13/+8 (1d10+7/19-20, +1 bastard sword)

And it would cycle from there. With access to power attack that feat could easily be as good as weapon specialization. Also note that the only classes that he would not get the benefit against are the 1/1 BAB classes.

I did that mostly for fun, Im sure someone will correct me if I got anything wrong, but as you pointed out, without taking 2-wf into account your feat is pretty powerful. At higher levels he could take some spiked gauntlet feats, and Im fairly sure he could add an enchanted buckler.

Thats sort of the fighter I always thought of, switching the bastard sword around as its needed, your feat just spurred me into thinking of it

Technik

Edited: Making this char a half-orc and losing cleave (and 1 of his skills) makes him equally viable and more of a challenge for PCs (the str bonus gives him +1 damage +1 to hit on all attacks (and +1 more damage when 2-h)). I think it also works as a dwarf (with dwarven waraxe), but his speed is pretty low at that point.

 

[Mike Sullivan]

Originally posted by Technik4
A. Buser: Male human Ftr6; CR 6; Medium-size humanoid (human); HD 6d10+; hp 49; Init +1 ; Spd 20ft,; AC 20 (touch 11, flat-footed 19); Atk +11/+6 melee (1d10+7/19-20, +1 bastard sword) or +9/+4 melee (1d10+6, +1 bastard sword) and +8 melee (1d4+1/20, mwk. spiked gauntlet); SV Fort +8, Ref +4, Will +4; AL N; Str 16, Dex 13, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 8.

...

-First round-
Charge and attack with 2-h bastard sword +13 (1d10+7/19-20, +1 bastard sword) [-2 AC]
-Second round-
Full round of attacks, using Hand-and-a-Half Fighting. +13/+8 (1d10+6, +1 bastard sword) and +10 (1d4+1/20, mwk. spiked gauntlet)
-Third round-
2 attacks with 2-h bastard sword, using Hand-and-a-Half Fighting. +13/+8 (1d10+7/19-20, +1 bastard sword)

That looks slightly off to me. Let me count it up:

Round 1, attack bonus:
+6 (BAB), +3 (Str), +1 (sword), +2 (charge), +1 (Focus) = +13

Round 2, attack bonus:
Sword:
+6/+1 (BAB), +3 (Str), +1 (Sword), +1 (Focus), +2 (H+1/2), -2 (TWF) = +11/+6, not +13/+8... unless I missed something?

Gauntlet:
+6 (BAB), +3 (Str), +1 (Gauntlet), +2 (H+1/2), -2 (TWF) = +10, right.

Okay, so I think that you were slightly off. Still, that's fair. Okay, so here's a revised version of the feat:

Hand-and-a-Half Fighting (General, Fighter)
The character is adept at quickly switching between a two and one-handed grip on his weapon in such a way as to surprise less experienced opponents.
Prerequisite: +4 BAB
Benefit: If the character is using a weapon he can use with proficiency in either one or two hands, and he wields the weapon using a different number of hands that he used last round to attack the same opponent, he gets a +2 surprise bonus to his attack rating using that weapon if his opponent has two or more hit dice fewer than he does.

Now, your example character doesn't get the +2 bonus with his spiked gauntlet attack. That means that he's like this:

Round 1 -- normal charge for a bastard-sword wielder.
Round 2 -- +11/+6 Bastard sword attack, +8 Gauntlet attack
Round 3 -- +13/+8 Bastard sword attack

And anyone his level or the level below is unaffected by his bonuses, not just fighter-types.

Does that look more reasonable?


EDIT: He'd be a lean, mean goblin-and-orc-killing-machine, pretty much. Lots of attacks, and he could funnel his attack rating bonuses to damage for the cleave, if he was already hitting them all the time. But against an opponent his own level, he'd be someone who was using TWF (which isn't a very good style) with non-optimal weapon choices for the style, and no particular bonuses. And I'm not sure that he'd even be better at killing mooks than someone who got, say, a Glaive, Great Cleave, and maybe Spring Attack.

 

[Bean 2.0]

consider this

a fighter with a bastard sword proficiency improved unarmed strike feats , and two weapon feats could deflect arrows , parry, etc. with his off hand and still attack with the bastard sword not to mention if you have the Hand of oswa-no feat from rokugan you could attack with both Think of the potencial for fighter/monks here.

Hand of Osano-wo

Reqs: two-weapon fighting , ambidexterity , base attack +3, str 15+

benifit : You gain full str bonus to all damage rolls with your off-hand weapon. This also applies to double weapons.

 

[CCamfield]

Oddly, although it's mechanically similar to twin shortswords, I've never seen a character wielding twin handaxes. (I plan on making a character who wields twin throwing axes--so she can throw one at an enemy if she drops her main foe with the first attack).

I nearly ended up with a half-elven barbarian/ranger doing this, but ended up choosing to use battle axe/hand axe. And then he died at the hands of that damn paladin (Sunken Citadel).

I had this idea for an exotic handaxe variant from the frozen north, which have a more strongly hooked blade and can be used as climbing tools, but... kinda goofy?