Tempests with double weapons

[pokken]

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

Does a scourge count as both a heavy and light blade? It's that + defensive that is so good. Plus the savings on getting two weapons of course.

 

[Prism]

Does a scourge count as both a heavy and light blade? .

I wouldn't say that makes it better - just flexible. The polearms all count as two weapons too. Being able to take two paragon weapon feats rather than one isn't all that good.

 

[Prism]

In fact if we go on the assumption that the double weapons were created with rangers in mind since they were the only double wielders at the time, why not change the ranger two blade fighting style to include double weapons without having to get the feat. Then drop the defensive property

 

[HeirToPendragon]

I wouldn't say that makes it better - just flexible. The polearms all count as two weapons too. Being able to take two paragon weapon feats rather than one isn't all that good.

Depends on which feats you're looking at. The Glaive has some abuses

 

[Danceofmasks]

So does the greatspear.
But I guess that has more to do with a reach weapon having +3 to hit working with the polearm and/or spear feats than it does with the multi typing.

 

[Moon-Lancer]

What i think is broken about tempest and double weapons is that a tempest doesn't give up the +1 to hit. They get that with offhand weapons and double weapons have the off hand property. So really they take a feat, Get high damage dice weapons that do a ton of extra damage, get the bonus to hit, and get a bonus to ac.

the dwarf can add an extra +2 damage to all the above.

2xd10+4 at level 1 is sick and gratuitous.

If all books are 'core' like wizards claims then they should do a better job cross checking the books when they balance the game. I mean this was an obvious synergy they should have known about... it shows really REALLY bad design. whats worse is they haven't fixed it yet in errata. If this is a example of whats to come, leave me out.

 

[pokken]

Just to update everyone with what we decided:

In my game, double weapons are losing the "defensive" quality and the double sword will count as only a light blade or a heavy blade (per the user's preference). That way it's essentially exactly like a scaled up short sword, which is how it should be. There is no free lunch.

The reason this is in contention is the "shocktrooper" paragon path, in particular, that makes having a light blade ridiculous.

The 11th level shocktrooper in my game, with a standard double sword, could use heavy blade opportunity for a dual strike doing 2d10+42 if both attacks hit (and with +19-20-something to hit due to the fighter bonuses, this is retardedly likely to happen). And get nimble blade as well, and the die size upgrade from shocktrooper.

The double weapon also still gets a free offhand magic item, and counts as offhand, which is superior to a rapier sadly -- but I am going to call the rapier underpowered instead of our modified doublesword overpowered.