Skillful weapons?

[jasin]

How good are skillful weapons?

IIRC, it's an enhancement from Complete Arcane which lets you use a
weapon as if you were proficient in it and had medium BAB, +2
equivalent.

When I first heard about it, it seemed the stuff of my dreams: sword-
wielding wizards, without caster level loss, whee!

Then it seemed crap, since +2/+2 to attack/damage seemed like it would
be better than medium BAB in most cases. Let's say it's equivalent to +3
attack (-1 attack = +2 damage with Power Attack, so let's say it works
backwards to), and it only starts to pay off when your BAB is 4 or more
weaker than medium BAB; 15th+ level for pure weak BAB characters. That
seems a little late to start looking into making yourself a warrior-mage
instead of a mage.

But playing a cleric that routinely casts day-length greater magic
weapon on his +1 holy mace, I'm noticing that would work with skillful
too, so it's not just a way to get an attack bonus different from
enhancement, it's a way to stack more attack bonuses on top of
enhancement!

Still, it seems rather expensive...

Has anyone played a character that used skilful weapons? Was it useful?
What were your tactics to make the most of it?

 

[kerbarian]

Has anyone played a character that used skilful weapons? Was it useful?
What were your tactics to make the most of it?

BAB isn't the main problem with arcane casters in melee -- it's one problem, but others, like poor AC and HP, likely poor strength, and lack of combat feats, are also major factors. So a skillful weapon by itself won't make an arcane caster any good at melee.

However, if you make a caster build that's already good at melee, a skillful weapon can be a significant boost. For example, consider a 16th level Sorcerer with Polymorph Any Object into a War Troll, persistent Wraithstrike, Bite of the Werebear, Greater Magic Weapon, Haste, and AC-boosting spells (Greater Mage Armor, persistent Shield). Adding a skillful weapon to that lets you power attack for more, and it would grant an extra attack. It might boost damage by up to 50%.

 

[moritheil]

I think they tightened up the wording to include (as a cleric of your level.) Before that, skillful was a must for all epic characters, as it set your BAB to 3/4 of your total levels. An 80th-level wizard with a skillful weapon would have more BAB than a 80th-level fighter without one!