Tempests with double weapons

[pokken]

I imagine this may have been discussed to death, but recently one of my players has been fiddling with a tempest with a double sword, and it feels - if you do it by the book - that it's a little overpowered. I'd be interested if anyone has a link to the numbers on comparative damage and defenses from a 1h'er to a 2h'er, to a battlerager, to a tempest.

It seems to me like you trade 1 point of AC and 1 point of Reflex (from shield + scale - 2 ac if you go plate with s&b) for the ability to do massively more damage - even the encounter powers, typically are 2w +bonuses vs 2w + (2x bonuses) or relatively close to that. Those bonuses add up to a huge amount at higher levels (+2 tempest bonus, +2 weapon focus, +3-5 enhancement, +2 for iron armbands of badarseness, +4 for power attack - +5 str if you're using encounters).

I did some rough calculations on a 20 str tempest at level 11, and it seems like you can be putting out damage roughly comparable to a rogue (perhaps 5-10% less), with fairly better defenses. Maybe I'm missing something.

It seems like, if you allow double weapons with the off-hand and multiple descriptors on each hand and all that, and all the tempest bonuses, they're a bit too good. I'm still on the fence about one with dual light blades, but they seem less broken. The double sword seems to give all kinds of free crap (multiple descriptors, 1ac, 1 damage die better) over even superior melee light blades.

Thoughts/links?

 

[Blizzardb]

You may find this thread helpful (or not):

http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-4th-edition-rules/245684-am-i-reading-something-wrong-tempest-fighter-just-better.html

You will find there a post from one of the developers, commenting how double weapons were changed before releasing the book.

 

[Caliban]

A friend of mine plays one. All I can say is a tempest fighter using the lvl 3 Rain of Blows encounter power can do an absurd amount of damage. The DM used the interpetation that Rain of Blows can grant 2 extra attacks if each of the two primary attacks hit.

In a recent combat, he hit all 4 times, with one of them being a crit, and added sneak attack to the crit. About 120 damage with a lvl 3 power. Even without critting, he usually does around 70 points of damage with it.

 

[abyssaldeath]

That would be a problem with Rain of Blows not double weapons. Your DM is allowing the most overpowered interpretation of that powers. So you really shouldn't be so surprised by the damage he does with that power.

 

[Caliban]

That would be a problem with Rain of Blows not double weapons. Your DM is allowing the most overpowered interpretation of that powers. So you really shouldn't be so surprised by the damage he does with that power.

Even limited 3 attacks, he would be doing about 50 point with the power.

Tempest fighters (at least his) seem to do as much or more damage as the strikers (except for barbarians).

 

[Bond James Bond]

Between the Tempest and Double Weapons, something is WotC design team went horribly wrong.

An essential +3 Weapon, which deals 3-14 damage, has the defensive property, counts as an axe and a spear and gives you acces to all two weapon fighting feats for the cost of one feat (aka Urgosh)?

What`s worse: I wouldnt mind that much, if the tempest would do high damage with dual strike and his two weapon powers.

It´s that he will deal more damage with, say Brash Strike, as well compared his fellow Great Weapon fighter + having better defenses (When going for the Urgosh at least).

Seriously, you never can make everything balanced. But when designing the Battlerager and the Tempest, they had an easy task: How much is the +1 to attack which other Fighter builds get worth? I think they failed miserably. but here we go again... ranting about Battlerager and Tempest, sorry for that

 

[Alabast]

I don't think WOTC has made an official ruling on this.

MY ruling (or rather, my interpretation of WOTC's intent): Double weapons are NOT the same as wielding two one-handed weapons. They are two handed weapons that follow all the rules of two handed weapons (ala Power Attack, Reaping Strike, etc). They are unique among 2H weapons in that they have the defensive and off-hand properties (and thus give special bonuses to tempest fighters). The only special rule regarding them is that they have two different striking surface you can choose from. They do NOT qualify you for any benefit of wielding two weapons, including the Two-weapon fighting and Two-weapon defense feats, and powers that require two melee weapons (even Dual Strike).

I believe this balances them out with other fighters. Tempests with double weapons will have get better damage dice, but fewer power options, than tempests with two off-hand weapons. They will have lower damage, but a better to-hit than Great Weapon fighters. They will have poorer defense, but better damage, than Shield fighters.

That's just my opinion. I could be wrong. I also don't have the books in front of me and haven't done the math.

 

[pokken]

I think that, if you remove double weapons, they seem balanced. -3AC is a significant price to pay.

 

[Mal Malenkirk]

I have removed the off-hand qualities on the double weapons as well as the light weapon quality on the double sword. These made no sense and were responsible for a lot of the abuse.

That's my compromise for the players who wants a double weapon. Because frankly, I think these are incredibly dumb looking weapons, even by the standards of fantasy game.

 

[Prism]

If for a tempest you take the baseline of a scourge which is off hand, does 1d8 damage and is +2 to hit, then you make it a superior version giving it +3 to hit you almost have the double sword (in stat terms)

I would say that the addition of the defensive property is what makes it slightly overpowered. That and the fact its cheaper to enchant than two weapons. If it was up to me I would drop defensive and charge double for the items