Two Weapon Fighting
- Thread starter debalkez
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Nifft
Penguin Herder
TWF should probably be phrased more like this:
- With this feat, you can use a Light weapon in your off hand to make an extra attack (when you make a full attack). All your attacks this round are at -2.
- You can try it even if you don't have the feat, but you'll suck.
- You can try it with a non-Light weapon in your off hand, but you'll suck.
- The two kinds of sucking stack, so if you do both, you'll REALLY suck.
Basically, don't bother unless you have a Light weapon in your off hand. (Note that using a double weapon counts as having a Light weapon in your off hand.)
You'll probably want two Light weapons, though. You'll benefit most if you have Weapon Focus in only one weapon, so make both hands hold the same thing. Daggers are great, short swords are fine, light maces are okay, etc.
Cheers, -- N
- With this feat, you can use a Light weapon in your off hand to make an extra attack (when you make a full attack). All your attacks this round are at -2.
- You can try it even if you don't have the feat, but you'll suck.
- You can try it with a non-Light weapon in your off hand, but you'll suck.
- The two kinds of sucking stack, so if you do both, you'll REALLY suck.
Basically, don't bother unless you have a Light weapon in your off hand. (Note that using a double weapon counts as having a Light weapon in your off hand.)
You'll probably want two Light weapons, though. You'll benefit most if you have Weapon Focus in only one weapon, so make both hands hold the same thing. Daggers are great, short swords are fine, light maces are okay, etc.
Cheers, -- N
Oversized Two Weapon Fighting allows you to wield a medium sized weapon in your off hand and it is still considered a light weapon for purposes of the TWF feat.
OTWF Prerequisites:
TWF
Str 13
At 1st choose a Weapon Focus, then at 3rd you could get this. Then you could wield 2 Scimtars or 2 Longswords. If you're a Dwarf, 2 Dwarven Axes would be nice. Or, if you have an extra feat you could be wielding 2 Bastard Swords. Now that would rock.
As to the original question:
No. Actually, he'd fare better at first with a longsword and Dagger combo than he would with 2 Longswords. And the penalties for wielding 2 smaller and identical weapons, 2 Daggers for instance, would be the same thing.
WarShrike
OTWF Prerequisites:
TWF
Str 13
Nifft said:
At 1st choose a Weapon Focus, then at 3rd you could get this. Then you could wield 2 Scimtars or 2 Longswords. If you're a Dwarf, 2 Dwarven Axes would be nice. Or, if you have an extra feat you could be wielding 2 Bastard Swords. Now that would rock.
As to the original question:
debalkez said:
No. Actually, he'd fare better at first with a longsword and Dagger combo than he would with 2 Longswords. And the penalties for wielding 2 smaller and identical weapons, 2 Daggers for instance, would be the same thing.
WarShrike
Last edited:
NightCrawler
First Post
Ιn my own TWF builds i preffer to use a weapon with big threat range... Thats why i pick elven lightblades (i think this is the name of the weapon) cause they have 18-20x2 and they are light weapons dealing 1d6 dmg... If you are an elf you may probably get the proficiency for free if the dm allows you but if you are not an elf then you have to pick up exotic weapon proficiency feat.. Both ways i believe it is worth the effort..
Hypersmurf
Moderatarrrrh...
NightCrawler said:
No, but the Improved Weapon Familiarity feat (Complete Warrior) will let you treat lightblades, thinblades, and courtblades as martial weapons if you're an elf.
Non-elves would need to take a separate EWP feat for each.
-Hyp.
Darklone
Registered User
Last thing I saw was different... it depends a lot the extra damage gained per attack as well as the number of additional attacks (ITWF, GTWF etc).ceratitis said:a friend of mine calculated that damage wise TWF starts to catch up with two handed weapons only if the targets AC is lower then 13... i didnt check it 'cos he's smarter then me
And Dual Strike as well as Two Weapon Pounce are two feats that allow TWF dudes nowadays to move and attack.
From an optimization point of view, Oversized TWF is a trap. Take it only for the flavor. Why? Because a bastard sword deals an average 2 points of damage more than a shortsword, and 2 points of damage don't justify a feat, IMHO. Place this feat on the same level than Weapon Specialization, with the slight difference than OTWF doesn't open the way to Weapon Mastery and Weapon Supremacy (which you don't care about either 'cause you're no fighter).
Regarding damage, the broadly accepted theory is that TWF is only fine if you have an alternative source of damage, such as Sneak Attack, Favored Enemy, or the Duskblade's Arcane Channeling. I'm not quite sure if this is always true, but let's compare Rod the Ranger, and Bob the Lion Totem Barbarian, two lvl 16 twin brothers with 26 STR, and an orc guarding a chest in a 10'x10' room.
Rod has TWF, ITWF, GTWF, as well as +8 on damage vs. orcs from Favored Enemy. He's using a pair of +3 collision shortswords, 'cause you're pretty rich when you hit lvl 16.
16 BAB, +3 Enh, +8 Str, -2 TWF, means +25 to hit, for a total of 25/20/15/10 (1d6+24 - 8 Str, 8 Fav, 3 Enh, 5 Col) with his primary hand and 25/20/15 (1d6+20) with his off-hand. Assuming he always hits (yeah, right), that's a damage range of 163-198, average 180.5 (without Favored Enemy, remove 56 from each total).
Bob has Power Attack, Improved Bull Rush, Shock Trooper, as well as his Pounce ability for being a badass Lion Totem barbarian, one of the most broken class variant evah', and he's wielding a +5 collision greatsword, costing roughly the same as his brother's short swords.
16 BAB, 8 Str, 5 Enh, -5 (for example) Power Attack, means +24 to hit, i.e. 24/19/14/9 (2d6+32 - 5 Enh, 5 Col, 12 Str, 10 PA), damage range 136-176, average 156. Not as good as his bro, but not enemy-dependant. Now let him Pounce...
+2 to hit from a charge, and all his To Hit penalty from PA goes to AC (Heedless Charge maneuver from Shock Trooper), allowing him to use PA at -16, 'cause he's angry. He's not ragin yet.
16 BAB, 8 STR, 5 Enh, 2 Charge, means +31 to hit, i.e. 31/26/21/16 (2d6 + *drum roll* 54), damage range 224-264, average 244. Ouch. And that's without using the quite widely spread Leap Attack, or without raging. And without the bonus from Favored Enemy.
Using a Move/Partial Charge Leap Attack routine each round, Bob could hit at +31, dealing 2d6+86 damage on a single strike.
I'd say it's quite equivalent, even slightly better for PA, even though both are quite situation-dependant. Now consider that:
- TWF suffers more from Damage Reduction than standard full attacks
- TWF is MAD (yeah, you need a high Dex as a prerequisite, not your ranger's usually highest attribute if you go the TWF way)
- TWF has much less feat options
On the whole, it's not bad, but not really optimized. TWF only really shines with +16 BAB and an alternate source of damage, which you do not get if you stick to a single class, with the exception of Duskblade. Then again, there are builds like Ftr 4/Rog 16, or Swift Hunter (Ranger 4/Scout 16). But then again, we're talking high-level comparisn; at low levels, the problem is quite different and the TWF penalties even more painful (think of it, a good Fighter may get Leap Attack and Shock Trooper upon reaching level 6...). If you go Gestalt, the options are somewhat better and it might even beat THW (think Ftr//Rog gestalt with Adaptable Flanker, Keen kukris and Telling Blow, for example, or Ranger//Duskblade). But on the whole, I'd say THW has the upper hand regarding damage.
Regarding damage, the broadly accepted theory is that TWF is only fine if you have an alternative source of damage, such as Sneak Attack, Favored Enemy, or the Duskblade's Arcane Channeling. I'm not quite sure if this is always true, but let's compare Rod the Ranger, and Bob the Lion Totem Barbarian, two lvl 16 twin brothers with 26 STR, and an orc guarding a chest in a 10'x10' room.
Rod has TWF, ITWF, GTWF, as well as +8 on damage vs. orcs from Favored Enemy. He's using a pair of +3 collision shortswords, 'cause you're pretty rich when you hit lvl 16.
16 BAB, +3 Enh, +8 Str, -2 TWF, means +25 to hit, for a total of 25/20/15/10 (1d6+24 - 8 Str, 8 Fav, 3 Enh, 5 Col) with his primary hand and 25/20/15 (1d6+20) with his off-hand. Assuming he always hits (yeah, right), that's a damage range of 163-198, average 180.5 (without Favored Enemy, remove 56 from each total).
Bob has Power Attack, Improved Bull Rush, Shock Trooper, as well as his Pounce ability for being a badass Lion Totem barbarian, one of the most broken class variant evah', and he's wielding a +5 collision greatsword, costing roughly the same as his brother's short swords.
16 BAB, 8 Str, 5 Enh, -5 (for example) Power Attack, means +24 to hit, i.e. 24/19/14/9 (2d6+32 - 5 Enh, 5 Col, 12 Str, 10 PA), damage range 136-176, average 156. Not as good as his bro, but not enemy-dependant. Now let him Pounce...
+2 to hit from a charge, and all his To Hit penalty from PA goes to AC (Heedless Charge maneuver from Shock Trooper), allowing him to use PA at -16, 'cause he's angry. He's not ragin yet.
16 BAB, 8 STR, 5 Enh, 2 Charge, means +31 to hit, i.e. 31/26/21/16 (2d6 + *drum roll* 54), damage range 224-264, average 244. Ouch. And that's without using the quite widely spread Leap Attack, or without raging. And without the bonus from Favored Enemy.
Using a Move/Partial Charge Leap Attack routine each round, Bob could hit at +31, dealing 2d6+86 damage on a single strike.
I'd say it's quite equivalent, even slightly better for PA, even though both are quite situation-dependant. Now consider that:
- TWF suffers more from Damage Reduction than standard full attacks
- TWF is MAD (yeah, you need a high Dex as a prerequisite, not your ranger's usually highest attribute if you go the TWF way)
- TWF has much less feat options
On the whole, it's not bad, but not really optimized. TWF only really shines with +16 BAB and an alternate source of damage, which you do not get if you stick to a single class, with the exception of Duskblade. Then again, there are builds like Ftr 4/Rog 16, or Swift Hunter (Ranger 4/Scout 16). But then again, we're talking high-level comparisn; at low levels, the problem is quite different and the TWF penalties even more painful (think of it, a good Fighter may get Leap Attack and Shock Trooper upon reaching level 6...). If you go Gestalt, the options are somewhat better and it might even beat THW (think Ftr//Rog gestalt with Adaptable Flanker, Keen kukris and Telling Blow, for example, or Ranger//Duskblade). But on the whole, I'd say THW has the upper hand regarding damage.
