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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 2678133" data-attributes="member: 8461">I've already proven your rule of thumb false (that is, a +1 to hit bonus doesn't equate 2 points of damage dealt on a successful hit), so I'm not at all sure what you're saying here.No one is saying the penalty isn't there. What I'm saying is that the build I suggested by itself compensates for almost all of the penalties it brings.Actually, what's most important is average damage dealt over the course of the round. You do more damage with two attacks that have a slightly lower average damage than with one attack that does a little more.If you want a straight-on comparison, you'll need to be a little more specific about what exactly I'm comparing it to.But let's run a quick comparison. An orc Fighter 12, Strength 14 (10 + racial bonus), is using two small masterwork greataxes. He has the Weapon Focus feat tree, and the Two-Weapon Fighting feat tree.Making a full attack action, he'll attack like so: +11/+6/+1 (1d10+6/x3, small masterwork greataxe) and +11/+6/+1 (1d10+5/x3, small masterwork greataxe). Given that a successful hit with the first will deal an average damage of 11 hit points (and that's per hit), and the second will deal an average damage of 10 hit points, he has a high damage potential.Now, a human Fighter 12, Strength 10 (no racial bonuses) is using a single masterwork greataxe. He has the Weapon Focus feat tree (there's no point in giving him Two-Weapon Fighting). He attacks like so as a full attack: +15/+10/+5 (1d12+4/x3, masterwork greataxe). Per attack, he'll do an average damage of 10 hit points.Finally, a human Fighter 12, Strength 10 (no racial bonuses) is using a masterwork longsword and a masterwork short sword. He has the Weapon Focus feat tree for his longsword only, and the Two-Weapon Fighting feat tree. His full attack looks like such: +13/+8/+3 (1d8+4/19-20, masterwork longsword) and +11/+6/+1 (1d6/19-20, masterwork short sword). With the longsword, he'll do an average damage of 8 hit points per hit, and with the short sword, 3 points per hit.Now, while the single-weapon human fighter has the greatest chance of hitting out of all of them, he has less ability to do damage overall. His average damage is less than half of the orc fighter's, and for only a 20% greater chance of hitting (the +4 more to hit full attack he has than the orc).Now, comparing the dual-weapon human to the orc. The dual-wielding human suffers from his inability to put his enhancing feats (the Weapon Focus feat tree) towards both weapons. Only one weapon has a greater chance of hitting, being 10% (a +2 greater to hit chance for the longsword than the orc has on his attack), but is doing less damage. That's not a bad trade-off, but he suffers for it with the short sword. That has exactly equal chances to hit as the orc, but then does less than a third the damage.Critical hits aren't taken into account, but given that they only come in to play 5-10% of the time (not counting creatures immune to them, fortification armor, etc.) it's easy enough to write them off.Overall, all things being equal, the human fighters have a slightly better chance of landing their hits, but will do less damage when they do. The orc fighter gets a greater amount of damage, with an average to hit bonus only slightly behind his human counterpart, virtually guaranteeing he'll do more damage.If there's a lesson to be learned here, it's that raising your to hit bonus is relatively easy. Feats, Strength score, BAB, enhancement bonuses, spells, etc. all make it easier to hit, and are relatively easy to come by. The hard part is raising the actual damage dealt on a successful hit, and to a lesser degree, increasing the number of attacks per round. It's almost always favorable to trade base attack bonus for increase damage and/or number of attacks per round, because attack penalties are easily recouped from other bonuses, whereas greater damage and attacks/round results in a much higher average damage dealt over the course of the round. The orc fighter listed above strikes a nice balance in terms of how much BAB he sacrifies for using high-damage weapons and increasing the amount of attacks per round.</blockquote>

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