Feats for using one weapon?

[Origomar]

are there any feats for using a one handed(or light but one hand pref) and nothing in your offhand?

it seems like most feats are geared towards either dual weilding or using a two handed weapon.

[Curmudgeon]

Einhander, in Players Handbook II, is exactly the feat you're looking for.

[Freylorn]

There's Einhander, a combat style feat in (I believe) PHB2.

EDIT: Just confirmed, and yeah, it's in PHB2. It's not very good, mind you, but it's there.

There are also a couple of Shadow Hand stances in ToB that require you to have at least one hand free, so that could fit.

EDIT 2: Swordsage'd! Curses!

[FMArthur]

I think there's a weapon style feat called Einhander in PHII (maybe somewhere else), but I should just let you know upfront: the feat isn't too good and this particular style is incredibly poorly-supported. Your best bet is Tome of Battle maneuvres. The Insightful Strike and Greater Insightful Strike maneuvres in particular are powerful, cool, and don't gain anything from two-handing your sword or fighting with two weapons (that's a recurring problem with going one-handed; you can do cool things just fine but one of those two styles almost always does it better).

[LibraryOgre]

Not official, but the Knights of the Old Republic games introduced "Duelist", which gave you a +1 to hit and a +1 to AC when wielding a single, one-handed, weapon.

[Bonecrusher Doc]

There's a feat - probably in Complete Warrior - for using a weapon in one hand and a cloak in the other.

[molten_dragon]

Similar to this request, are there any feats which benefit a sword and board fighting style? I know it's unoptimized, but it's what fits the character concept.

[Greenish]

Similar to this request, are there any feats which benefit a sword and board fighting style? I know it's unoptimized, but it's what fits the character concept.There's no particular reason to be unoptimized just because you want to use sword & board. :smallconfused:

Look here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=123630), for example.

[Hallavast]

There's no particular reason to be unoptimized just because you want to use sword & board. :smallconfused:

Look here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=123630), for example.

I think he means s&b is an inferior build in itself. In other words it's the non-optimal melee option. Optimizing is a word with several meanings. Many people shoe-horn it into the one definition that fits their character building philosophy, though.

If I'm not mistaken, I think Molten is interested in a character that uses a sword and shield and would like some advice as to support for such a character in order to get the most out of the concept mechanically.

[Darrin]

Single Blade Style (Dragon Compendium p. 108). +2 dodge bonus when fighting with a one-handed weapon you have Weapon Focus with, nothing in the other hand, and in light armor. Prereqs are horrible, but it's 10 times better than the turdfest that is Einhander.

[Mikka]

Combine it with a gish sort of person, you need the hand free to cast spells : )

Or talk to your DM : )

[Rixx]

The magus, the fighter-mage from Pathfinder's Ultimate Magic book, requires a free hand to cast spells. The class is currently in public beta; you can find it on Paizo.com.

Also, there's this:

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/fighter#TOC-Free-Hand-Fighter

[ericgrau]

Similar to this request, are there any feats which benefit a sword and board fighting style? I know it's unoptimized, but it's what fits the character concept.

Shield specialization, armor specialization helps too, shield ward, etc. is as far as you can go in splatbooks. Nothing like shocktrooper ubercharger cheese. Combat expertise is also an excellent feat for those with a good AC and full BAB because you can't be hit (literally; it often takes a natural 20) and yet you can still hit your foe half the time. Yet when you are in no danger you don't need to use it. Tower shields have a similar application, in addition to defeating reach & range when used as total cover. The drawback is you can't easily "turn them off" like combat expertise when you're safe, though this is uncommon. Besides armor and shield, an amulet of natural armor, ring of protection and dusty rose prism ioun stone are essential to get your AC to scale as fast as monster AB at levels 1-20.

As long as you aren't dealing with uberchargers, god mod shivering touch (or other nigh-unstoppable splatbook attacks), a shield wielder deals more damage than any other style b/c it lets you fight for more rounds and most damage comes from a magic weapon & etc. anyway (and no, power attack usually does almost nothing in low op b/c it isn't worth the AB). It's when you're in a high op game with the aforementioned crazy stuff that you need to look elsewhere. Although at high levels an animated shield means you no longer fight with one hand to wield a shield.

[AslanCross]

Combine it with a gish sort of person, you need the hand free to cast spells : )

Or talk to your DM : )

While it is true that you need a free hand, a two-hander weapon does gish casting fine, as letting go of the sword in one hand (while still holding it in the other) is a free action. Hard to do with two-weapon fighting.

That said, a little gish never hurts anyone, although it's usually difficult to qualify.

[Critical]

Get some Use Magic Device in there and get a wand bracer on your free hand with various combat-enhancing spells?

[RandomNPC]

why is it sword and board aren't as viable an option? If you take out pole arms and archers 99% of the fighters in daggorhir and belgarth use shields.

yea yea, real fights, bringing it to table top games, killing catgirls, but a lot of us know D&D and a few compare battlefield moves to feats when teaching, it's oddly helpfull.

All I'm trying to say is that guys who compare D&D to physical combat as a successfull teaching method prefer sheilds IRL.

Back on topic: What are you doing with that free hand?

[HunterOfJello]

Snowflake Wardance if you're a bard.

[Urpriest]

Back on topic: What are you doing with that free hand?

Hey-o

...If that was a serious question, I believe that's the whole point of the thread. What kinds of benefits can you gain with a free hand?

[WinceRind]

Combine it with a gish sort of person, you need the hand free to cast spells : )

Or talk to your DM : )

Not quite. First of all, you can always use a 2 hander as a gish (you can hold it in one hand while you cast) - and if you prefer not to, I believe there might be a feat somewhere that allows you to cast with weapons in both hands, substituting the usual somatic movements done by hand with, well, movements done by whatever you're holding.

More on topic... Yeah, I can't think of anything aside from Einhander. Despite how cool one-weapon fighting is, I think it's one of the least supported fighting styles in the game. You do less damage either way, and don't gain any special benefits outside of one or two rare feats (Einhander being one of them). If you wield one hander as a 2 hand weapon, it kinda defeats the purpose of specializing in fencing with just one blade.

You could probably just homebrew a feat that, I dunno, gives you some extra benefit to some skills (Climb, Balance, I think Einhander does that) and perhaps a dodge bonus.

Or you can go the path of KOTOR game (I think the second one?) and homebrew a feat that just gives you fixed +attack and +damage while wielding a one handed weapon in one hand. Maybe scalable with your BAB or your hit dice. Or some kind of precision damage might work, but there are too many creatures resistant to it and it wouldn't make too much sense thematically in some cases.

But you gotta keep in mind that even with a feat that gives you, say, +5 to attack and +5 to damage and +2 dodge to AC bonus as long as you wield the weapon in one hand and leave the other hand free (or at least not use it in any combat-related functions) would still not be enough to make that weapon style equal to other melee fighting styles.

[WinceRind]

Hey-o

...If that was a serious question, I believe that's the whole point of the thread. What kinds of benefits can you gain with a free hand?

You could climb stuff and swing on a rope...

Or disarm someone and... Wait, that won't really work. Maybe with a whip... But otherwise, no.

... yeah. Unless you're using the other hand to hold a wand or some useful item, there's not a whole lot you could do with it.

[Fitz10019]

Not a feat, but the Duelist prestige class is in the DMG. This is a reference, not a recommendation.