Trying to make dual-wielding a bit better

[comrade raoul]

As long as Two Handed Weapons apply double power attack bonuses ...

For the record, I think that this rule -- like much of the other 3.5e revisions -- is just idiotic. In a sensible game, this issue just shouldn't come up.

 

[Tywyll]

I've been trying to sort this out in my head for a bit. I like the TWF only costs a feat, but I understand the math and realize that in general, a TWF gets the shaft (excepting rangers and rogues who can excell at it). I like the benefits one gets from AU TWF (esentially two attacks at BAse) and with their massive TWF you can even use two longswords or two bastard swords at full bonus. Only problem is that AU requires Ambidexterity, a feat that was wisely dispensed with in 3.5, simply because that outside of TWF, it has no use whatsoever (nothing in core attacks a person's hand, and what action is it to switch a weapon from one hand to the next?).

So what if TWF provided both of the AU benefits (ie you get a second attack at no penalty and 1/2 str)? The person not looking at the math shudders at the seeming unbalancedness of it, but the me that knows the math realizes this isn't nearly as bad as it seems.

Thoughts? Frank, you want to enlighten me on how bad this works out vis a vis the math invovled (not that I'm asking you to do it, I just assume you already know it

I realize what this does is cost a feat to allow someone the ability to take two swings to do 2dX+1.5xstr, versus the two hander who does 2d6+1.5str. For the ranger and rogue, this is a good buy, potentially (especially if the ranger stacks his bonus against a common world enemy). With the Massive TWF it really excells (use two d10 weapons for instance) but that costs two feats.

Tywyll

 

[comrade raoul]

I've been trying to sort this out in my head for a bit. I like the TWF only costs a feat, but I understand the math and realize that in general, a TWF gets the shaft (excepting rangers and rogues who can excell at it). I like the benefits one gets from AU TWF (esentially two attacks at BAse) and with their massive TWF you can even use two longswords or two bastard swords at full bonus. Only problem is that AU requires Ambidexterity, a feat that was wisely dispensed with in 3.5, simply because that outside of TWF, it has no use whatsoever (nothing in core attacks a person's hand, and what action is it to switch a weapon from one hand to the next?).

So what if TWF provided both of the AU benefits (ie you get a second attack at no penalty and 1/2 str)? The person not looking at the math shudders at the seeming unbalancedness of it, but the me that knows the math realizes this isn't nearly as bad as it seems.

Thoughts? Frank, you want to enlighten me on how bad this works out vis a vis the math invovled (not that I'm asking you to do it, I just assume you already know it

Tywyll

Look at the math again. The AU Two-Weapon Fighting feat is often worthwhile without Ambidexterity and would be too powerful if you included both benefits. You're underestimating the importance of Devanian weapons, which in effect provide the same benefit as Massive Two-Weapon Fighting, and some characters (those best-equipped for two-weapon fighting) get access to these weapons without the need to spend a feat.

Consider two characters, an unfettered 4 and a warmain 4. Both have Weapon Specialization; the unfettered in the longsword and the warmain in the greatsword. The unfettered also has Two-Weapon Fighting, but not Ambidexterity; he uses a pair of +1 Devanian longswords. The warmain uses a +1 greatsword. Both characters have Str 16.

The unfettered gets two attacks, at +9/+5 (+4 base, +3 str, +1 focus, +1 enhancment) and deals 1d8+6 points of damage with his primary hand and 1d8+4 with his off-hand. The warmain attacks at +9 and deals 2d6+7 damage.

Without adjusting for critical hits or circumstantial bonuses like sneak attacks, the unfettered deals an average of 12.55 points of damage during a full-attack against an AC 15 opponent; the warmain deals an average of 10.5 points. Two-Weapon Fighting thus provides a (small) advantage; +2 damage over two attacks isn't a great for a feat, but it can improve as a character's static damage bonuses increase (such as from sneak attacks or larger damage bonuses, such as from dire or [stronger] magic weapons).

Again, the conclusion is that the AU implementation of TWF presents it as exactly the kind of specialized fighting style it really ought to be. It's a way to boost your damage on a full attack, but it's not for everyone.

 

[Tywyll]

Look at the math again. The AU Two-Weapon Fighting feat is often worthwhile without Ambidexterity and would be too powerful if you included both benefits. You're underestimating the importance of Devanian weapons, ...

Again, the conclusion is that the AU implementation of TWF presents it as exactly the kind of specialized fighting style it really ought to be. It's a way to boost your damage on a full attack, but it's not for everyone.

In my campaign, we don't use Devanian weapons. I think they are too cheap, plus for a long time I have been granting a similar benefit to Mithril weapons (which are much more expensive... and because, frankly, making mithril weapons is pointless as written). I've also jacked up the price of DireWeapons and made Dire Exotics their own prof (Exotic Heavy/Agile will let you use Dire Simple and Martial weapons... though I am considering stripping Dire completely out and making all direweapons a seperate feat).

So, with that in mind, we can't just do a blanket comparison of availible equipment to make a feat 'worthwhile'.

I still feel that Ambidexterity is a pointless feat outside of TWF. Since taking a feat usually represents the ability to do X, where X is outside of normal ability, why require more then one feat to fully function in TWF? I'm just concerned that a single feat to get an extra attack at full bab might be too much.

 

[Jack Daniel]

About the worst thing you can do to improved the style is add more feats. Two-Weapon Fighting already suffers from being too feat-intensive, and every couple of levels you get diminishing returns burning an ever-higher level feat on a progressively weaker extra attack. The restrictiveness of the style makes it only worthwhile for fighters and rangers who are multiclassed with rogue levels. The berserking barbarian with two axes is right out of the picture, since it just takes too many feats to keep up with the damage.

Here's my method: first, drop Greater Two-Weapon Fighting. Nix the feat, it's gone. Next, raise the prereq for Improved Two-Weapon Fighting back up to +9 -- neccessary for balance, otherwise this gets too good for rogues to pass up. Change the feat so that I2WF does what Perfect 2WF used to do -- it now grants as many iterative off-hand attacks as you can make with your primary hand, not just one extra attack at -5. Now the feat is just about worth taking. For epic characters, change Perfect Two-Weapon Fighting so that it does what Absolute Ambidexterity did for the tempest prestige class -- reducing 2WF penalties by 2 in each hand. Now the style is viable.

 

[comrade raoul]

In my campaign, we don't use Devanian weapons. I think they are too cheap, plus for a long time I have been granting a similar benefit to Mithril weapons (which are much more expensive... and because, frankly, making mithril weapons is pointless as written). I've also jacked up the price of DireWeapons and made Dire Exotics their own prof (Exotic Heavy/Agile will let you use Dire Simple and Martial weapons... though I am considering stripping Dire completely out and making all direweapons a seperate feat).

So, with that in mind, we can't just do a blanket comparison of availible equipment to make a feat 'worthwhile'.

So, basically, because you changed the AU weapon rules so that they can't support the AU implementation of two-weapon fighting, the AU implementation of two-weapon fighting doesn't work? I don't see why you have to change Devanian weapons at all, and, again, if you don't change them, the system works great. (Note that IMC, I've changed the name of the template to "balanced," to make the weapon type seem more ordinary and less rooted in largely campaign-specific history.) I don't think the benefit is so good as to be worth more than 300 gp and a feat/class ability. But yes, if you for some reason don't like devanian weapons, then the AU system doesn't work as well as it should.

I completely agree with you about dire weapons being their own feat, by the way. As is, dire is way overpowered, and there's no reason to have a non-dire exotic (heavy).

I still feel that Ambidexterity is a pointless feat outside of TWF. Since taking a feat usually represents the ability to do X, where X is outside of normal ability, why require more then one feat to fully function in TWF? I'm just concerned that a single feat to get an extra attack at full bab might be too much.

Yeah, Ambidexterity is a pointless feat outside of TWF. But Spell Focus is a pointless feat if you don't use spells, Far Shot is a pointless feat outside of archery, and so on. I'm not too worried.

 

[comrade raoul]

About the worst thing you can do to improved the style is add more feats. Two-Weapon Fighting already suffers from being too feat-intensive, and every couple of levels you get diminishing returns burning an ever-higher level feat on a progressively weaker extra attack. The restrictiveness of the style makes it only worthwhile for fighters and rangers who are multiclassed with rogue levels. The berserking barbarian with two axes is right out of the picture, since it just takes too many feats to keep up with the damage.

Here's my method: first, drop Greater Two-Weapon Fighting. Nix the feat, it's gone. Next, raise the prereq for Improved Two-Weapon Fighting back up to +9 -- neccessary for balance, otherwise this gets too good for rogues to pass up. Change the feat so that I2WF does what Perfect 2WF used to do -- it now grants as many iterative off-hand attacks as you can make with your primary hand, not just one extra attack at -5. Now the feat is just about worth taking. For epic characters, change Perfect Two-Weapon Fighting so that it does what Absolute Ambidexterity did for the tempest prestige class -- reducing 2WF penalties by 2 in each hand. Now the style is viable.

Note that I used a similar version of this implementation, but I just built-in Perfect TWF into Greater. (The extra attack at -15 is really not worth that feat.) I'm not sure whether it's more balanced to have a +6 ITWF and a +11 Perfect TWF or a +9 perfect-style ITWF. The problem with your approach is that, as far as combat-focused characters are concerned, you get these weird "gap" levels between +6 and +9 BAB when you just can't take iterative attacks with your off-hand.

And I wouldn't try too hard to accomodate that dual-axe-wielding barbarian -- when you take barbarian levels instead of fighter levels, you trade formal combat training for barbarian abilities. This trade-off should hurt. (And note that with a three-feat TWF, ITWF, GTWF progression, you really can still support the barbarian: a half-orc can take TWF at 1st level, ITWF at 6th, and GTWF at 12th and still have feats at 3rd and 9th levels -- which can get him, say, Power Attack and Improved Critical with his axes.)

 

[FrankTrollman]

Devanian Weaponry costs a feat (or a class feature - which in this case is just a Bonus Feat) and 600 yen. In exchange you get +1 damage per attack, which means you get +2 damage per base attack you had when you are Two Weapon Fighting and Full Attacking.

It's the same bonus as weapon specialization for the single-weapon user, except that it costs money and requires a Full Attack Action.

Devanian Weaponry are definitionally underpowered, I don't know what people are complaining about.

-Frank

 

[comrade raoul]

Devanian Weaponry costs a feat (or a class feature - which in this case is just a Bonus Feat) and 600 yen. In exchange you get +1 damage per attack, which means you get +2 damage per base attack you had when you are Two Weapon Fighting and Full Attacking.

It's the same bonus as weapon specialization for the single-weapon user, except that it costs money and requires a Full Attack Action.

Devanian Weaponry are definitionally underpowered, I don't know what people are complaining about.

-Frank

It's nitpicky, but you get a larger array of weapons for the feat than just Devanian weaponry, and, unless you want to use finesse, you only need to buy one Devanian weapon, for your off-hand. And once you get past second or third level, the price becomes pretty trivial.

 

[Tywyll]

Devanian Weaponry are definitionally underpowered, I don't know what people are complaining about.

Perhaps in your definition, but my group prefers high dex, finesse fighters. They might not deal out as much damage as a maxed strength fighter, but then they are not playing the game as a math exercise. They chose dex based fighting, and often two weapon fighting, because it fits the concepts they prefer. Due to their high ACs they tend to be able to easily nickle and dime their opponents to death. The Unfettered is by far the most popular class among my players.

As raoul points out, the price of Devanian is negligible. Granted, I haven't made your average longsword cost more then the Devanian version (1000gp for a mithril longsword) but it still slows it down a bit, and I prefer the idea of substances granting that ability, not some culture's forging techniques.

So, basically, because you changed the AU weapon rules so that they can't support the AU implementation of two-weapon fighting, the AU implementation of two-weapon fighting doesn't work?.

Nope, never said that at all. Right now I don't use the AU implementation I use the 3.5 one. My problem with the AU implementation is the Ambidexterity feat.

Yeah, Ambidexterity is a pointless feat outside of TWF. But Spell Focus is a pointless feat if you don't use spells, Far Shot is a pointless feat outside of archery, and so on. I'm not too worried.

But the difference is that its the only style that gives less then half a benefit per feat. If being ambidexteritous had some advantage outside of combat, or in other aspects of combat, I might not mind. As it is now, what we have is a system that states: you want to fight this style? Its so powerful you need two feats, neither of which is that effective on their own, both of which are just barely on par with the Greatsword wielder.

That doesn't work for me.