Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
ShortQuests -- individual adventure modules! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed to plug in to your game.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Arkhandus" data-source="post: 2554462" data-attributes="member: 13966">Your set-up seems okay Scharlata, though I still prefer 3.0 Power Attack.Thing is, the whole point of two-weapon fighting is to deal more damage by getting in more attacks in roughly the same amount of time.  Though half or more of the attacks will be with a mediocre weapon and the rest will be with a mediocre or weak weapon, they should overall exceed a two-handed weapon in damage per round (when doing full-attack actions at least).  As it stands presently, 3.5 makes TWF moot because of Power Attack and two-handed weapons; a greatsword and one feat will outdamage a TWFer every time, whereas the TWFer typically has to pay more for their weapons, put a good score into Dexterity just to qualify for the TWF feats, and spend several feats to merely come moderately close to a two-hander in damage.Examples, using your setup ---Swordsman: Human fighter 1, Str 18, Power Attack, Weapon Focus, Cleave, greatsword, 1 attack/round, +6 melee for 2d6+6 (avg 13), or +5 melee for 2d6+7.5 (avg 14.5)Hatchetman: Human fighter 1, Str 18, Dex 15, Two-Weapon Fighting, Power Attack, Weapon Focus (battleaxe), battleaxe, handaxe, 2 attacks/round, +4/+3 melee for 1d8+4/1d6+2 (avg 14), or +3/+2 melee for 1d8+5/1d6+2.5 (avg 15.5)Comparison: Swordsman gets higher attack bonuses, plus Cleave, only needs to hit once per round to deliver full damage, and doesn't need the good Dexterity score, plus the swordsman has the exact same damage capacity with every standard attack, cleave attack, attack of opportunity, charge attack, and so on, whereas the hatchetman's only advantages are that he can deal 1-2 more damage with most full-attack actions, and that he gets two chances to hit with each full-attack action (though at slightly to moderately lower attack bonuses), but only deals a half or less of his potential damage with each hitSwordsman: Human fighter 20, Str 26, Power Attack, Weapon Focus, Cleave, Greater Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, Improved Critical, Greater Weapon Specialization, Great Cleave, Improved Sunder, many other feats, flaming greatsword +5 of shocking and frost, 4 attacks/round, +35/+30/+25/+20 melee for 4x(2d6+21+3d6) (avg 154), or +15/+10/+5/+0 melee for 4x(2d6+51+3d6) (avg 274)Hatchetman: Human fighter 20, Str 22, Dex 19, Two-Weapon Fighting, Power Attack, Weapon Focus (battleaxe), Weapon Focus (handaxe), Cleave, Weapon Specialization (battleaxe), Weapon Specialization (handaxe), Great Cleave, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, Greater Weapon Focus (battleaxe), Greater Weapon Focus (handaxe), Greater Weapon Specialization (battleaxe), Greater Weapon Specialization (handaxe), Improved Critical (battleaxe), Improved Critical (handaxe), Greater Two-Weapon Fighting, a few other feats, flaming battleaxe +4, frost handaxe +4, 7 attacks/round, +30/+25/+20/+15/+30/+25/+20 melee for 4x(1d8+14+1d6)+3x(1d6+11+1d6) (avg 142), or +10/+5/+0/-5/+10/+5/+0 melee for 4x(1d8+34+1d6)+3x(1d6+21+1d6) (avg 252)Comparison: The swordsman now deals better damage even on a full-attack action, deals even more damage per individual attack, needs only slightly more than half as many attacks per round to beat the hatchetman in damage during full-attack actions, and can afford more significant enhancements to his single weapon as opposed to the hatchetman needing to divide funds between two weapons to even come close to the swordsman in accuracy and damage, while the swordsman also still beats out the hatchetman in accuracy by several points, and the swordsman gets his advantages while still spending 8 fewer feats to get them (allowing him to get more general feats to bolster his ranged, skill, save, or other capabilities), and the hatchetman also has to divert 4 ability score increases towards Dexterity just to qualify for his higher-level TWF feats (which doesn't help his melee attack or damage one bit, let alone his grapple, trip, bull rush, or similar melee rolls, unlike the swordsman's 4 extra points of Strength)I guess, my gripe is that 3.5 makes TWF completely stupid and pointless, while making two-handed weapons completely dominant, while also making classic sword-and-board fighters far outclassed by their two-hander counterparts.  The TWFer at least comes close to the two-hander in damage, but the poor sword-and-boarder (or finesser) is left in the dust at only slightly greater than half as much damage, for perhaps a measly 1-7 points more AC (from a magic shield or from magically-boosted Dex beyond what the two-hander's heavy armor would have allowed; and that's not even considering the fact that the TWFer or finesser are going to be using weaker armor anyway, just to make the most of their high Dex, so the AC difference won't even be that significant).At least in 3.0, Power Attack was the same regardless of what you wielded, and was actually more useful to TWFers, finessers, and sword-and-boarders.</blockquote>

Verification