Build to dual wield greatswords

[Zanos]

Big swords are cool and 2>1, so I was wondering what the best way to make a build for this was.

I was thinking a non-psionic thri-keen can dual wield two two-handed weapons and get 1.5 str mod and 2:1 power attack ratio on each. Correct me if that's not right.

So for feats:
Two-Weapon Fighting Chain
Oversized TWF
Power Attack
Travel Devotion?

Not sure what the best setup for classes is. Barbarin dip for pounce and rage, might need some fighter for bonus feats to make it work. Other classes? PrC/Feat suggestions? Templates?

[OldTrees1]

Diopsid is the race from Dragon Compendium that was designed exactly for this idea. It is a STR based dual wielder that wields 2handed weapons and does not need DEX for any feat with "Two Weapon" in its name (including Two Weapon Rend).

All for 0Racial Hit Dice and merely +1Level Adjustment.

[Zanos]

Diopsid is the race from Dragon Compendium that was designed exactly for this idea. It is a STR based dual wielder that wields 2handed weapons and does not need DEX for any feat with "Two Weapon" in its name (including Two Weapon Rend).

All for 0Racial Hit Dice and merely +1Level Adjustment.
The thri-keen racial hit die are pretty good, they give full BAB and have +1 LA. There's a lot about the diopsid that's not to like, +2 Con -2 Dex -2 Int isn't terrible, but for +1 LA with thri-keen, I get four arms, +30 jump, one less NA, and much better stat adjustments, including +4 dex that makes qualifying for most TWF feats kind of trivial.

Being able to wear heavier armor without penalties and the much better stat adjustments seems worth the racial hit dice.

[Captnq]

Oh, but you are thinking small.

How about dual wield two Six-Handed Swords?

By RAW, any weapon with balanced (+1 bonus WSA) becomes a weapon you can wield in one hand. So if you use a Six-handed Scissor Sword with Balanced, You can wield your 6 handed weapon with one hand. Then, to be rude, you use Hornblade to make it so a halfling can wield it.

So you can have a halfling who dual wields two 2d8 weapons that can be used to initiate a grapple and then do continuous damage.

Now go to eberron. Convince your DM to allow a Artificer to custom make an alchemy blade version of your scissor swords. Since they have three blades, you should be able to load three flasks of alchemy fire. Oh wait, why be cheap. Use Liquid Embers.

Now use the gloryborn template. That gives it all sorts of spikes. Add a spike shooter for 25 gp. Now make it masterwork and add Quick Loading. Now you can shoot spikes as often as your BAB allows.

Don't forget your Weapon Capsule Retainer (triple version, of course), and an Oil Chamber, while you are at it. So you can use Quickflame and Oil to your weapon as a free action. An extra 2d6 on top of the liquid embers 3d6 isn't bad.

Oh, and add some blister Oil before you fight. Can't go wrong with blister oil. If you got the money, add the Assassination WSA so you can poison your blades as well without fear of poisoning yourself.

[Gavinfoxx]

You have to have four arms to do this. So be a Diopsid.

Otherwise, the best you can get is:

-Two Weapon Fighting
-Oversized Two Weapon Fighting
-Exotic Weapon Proficiency Bastard Sword

-some Strongarm Bracers

and wield two Large Bastard Swords, and still be less effective overall than a guy who two handed a single longsword with Power Attack.

[Nettlekid]

Oh, but you are thinking small.

How about dual wield two Six-Handed Swords?

By RAW, any weapon with balanced (+1 bonus WSA) becomes a weapon you can wield in one hand. So if you use a Six-handed Scissor Sword with Balanced, You can wield your 6 handed weapon with one hand. Then, to be rude, you use Hornblade to make it so a halfling can wield it.

So you can have a halfling who dual wields two 2d8 weapons that can be used to initiate a grapple and then do continuous damage.

Now go to eberron. Convince your DM to allow a Artificer to custom make an alchemy blade version of your scissor swords. Since they have three blades, you should be able to load three flasks of alchemy fire. Oh wait, why be cheap. Use Liquid Embers.

Now use the gloryborn template. That gives it all sorts of spikes. Add a spike shooter for 25 gp. Now make it masterwork and add Quick Loading. Now you can shoot spikes as often as your BAB allows.

Don't forget your Weapon Capsule Retainer (triple version, of course), and an Oil Chamber, while you are at it. So you can use Quickflame and Oil to your weapon as a free action. An extra 2d6 on top of the liquid embers 3d6 isn't bad.

Oh, and add some blister Oil before you fight. Can't go wrong with blister oil. If you got the money, add the Assassination WSA so you can poison your blades as well without fear of poisoning yourself.

Where are the sources for a lot of those? Six-Handed in general, and Scissor Swords? Where's Balanced and Hornblade from?

[Malroth]

If pathfinder material is allowed Synthesist Summoner or Alchemist can get more arms as they level.

[Gavinfoxx]

a bunch of stuff

Sounds like Captng is assuming access to a bunch of homebrew or 3rd party stuff...

[JustIgnoreMe]

Where are the sources for a lot of those? Six-Handed in general, and Scissor Swords? Where's Balanced and Hornblade from?
Scissor Swords are apparently from Savage Species. Balanced is from Arms & Equipment. Can't remember Hornblade, but I've seen it before on the forums.

[Jeff the Green]

Why TWF when you can MWF? Get a bite attack and use it to wield a mouth pick greatsword.

[Greenish]

Why TWF when you can MWF? Get a bite attack and use it to wield a mouth pick greatsword.Thri-kreen have a bite attack. Just sayin'.

[Zanos]

Why TWF when you can MWF? Get a bite attack and use it to wield a mouth pick greatsword.
Is there an oversized multiweapon fighting? Multi-weapon fighting also specifies hands, so this arguably doesn't work.

Either way, I'm trying to optimize the concept of dual wielding greatswords, not expanding it. (Although Multiweapon fighting with some armor spikes/boot blades/four weapons/bite, etc. would be hilarious.)

[Kuulvheysoon]

Scissor Swords are apparently from Savage Species. Balanced is from Arms & Equipment. Can't remember Hornblade, but I've seen it before on the forums.

I believe that Hornblade is from Shining South (a FR sourcebook).

[Greenish]

Oversized TWF doesn't technically work with two two-handers (since it requires the off-hand to be one-handed).

Diopsid could do two Large longswords (or even bastard swords with EWP). Or you could just eat the penalty.

[Rubik]

You can buy an extra pair of arms (warforged graft) for 1,000 gp from Faiths of Eberron, and you can wear warforged components with them, just so you know. But remember, if you want any other grafts, they must be warforged grafts (which, honestly, aren't half-bad).

[Greenish]

You can buy an extra pair of arms (warforged graft) for 1,000 gp from Faiths of Eberron, and you can wear warforged components with them, just so you know. But remember, if you want any other grafts, they must be warforged grafts (which, honestly, aren't half-bad).Huh, the graft really doesn't say you'd have to lop off your own arms first (at least it's not said in FoE). This… this changes everything.

[Rubik]

Huh, the graft really doesn't say you'd have to lop off your own arms first (at least it's not said in FoE). This… this changes everything.Exactly. Blahblahblah whitetext blah.

[Talothorn]

The monkey-grip feat (complete warrior) lets you use weapons one size larger than normal. With the balanced hornblade scissor sword hijinks, your halfling can do 2d10 with each hand. Drop the hornblade and halfling aspect, replace with thri-kreen and MWF, and use 4 large scissor swords. That's 8d10 a round (more with iterative attacks)

Edit: or 12d10 with the warforged grafts.

[Gavinfoxx]

The monkey-grip feat (complete warrior) lets you use weapons one size larger than normal. With the balanced hornblade scissor sword hijinks, your halfling can do 2d10 with each hand. Drop the hornblade and halfling aspect, replace with thri-kreen and MWF, and use 4 large scissor swords. That's 8d10 a round (more with iterative attacks)

Edit: or 12d10 with the warforged grafts.

Actually Monkey Grip doesn't help any with doing anything with two handed weapons. And it's entirely obsolete, as I already mentioned Strongarm Bracers, which are strictly better.

[Greenish]

Actually Monkey Grip doesn't help any with doing anything with two handed weapons.Well, I guess that's where Balanced comes in.


And it's entirely obsolete, as I already mentioned Strongarm Bracers, which are strictly better.True enough.

[Gavinfoxx]

*Checks*

Okay, Sissors Sword is already sort of a six-handed sword, designed for Mariliths. It uses the old 3.0 weapon rules, is 'large', 2d8, 19-20/x2, and is designed to be wielded in six hands.

Needless to say, it's complete crap. Remember, This isn't 3.0, this is 3.5e, and we don't use those large/medium/huge weapon sizes any more. The biggest sword that is 3.5e compatible that I can think of is a 'Jovar', which is 2d6, 'Two-Handed', 18-20/x2, and an exotic weapon. Otherwise, there are weapons that are one handed, two handed, etc. -- as specific weapon categories.

Also, Balanced is ALSO 3.0, which uses that old, completely different weapon handedness rules!!

[LTwerewolf]

Oversized TWF doesn't technically work with two two-handers (since it requires the off-hand to be one-handed).

Diopsid could do two Large longswords (or even bastard swords with EWP). Or you could just eat the penalty.

Technically a large longsword IS a great sword to a medium creature.

[Gavinfoxx]

Technically a large longsword IS a great sword to a medium creature.

Only if you use weapon equivalency rules, which are optional.

[Curmudgeon]

By RAW, any weapon with balanced (+1 bonus WSA) becomes a weapon you can wield in one hand.
Nope. That's not RAW under either 3.0 or 3.5 rules. With the 3.0 weapon size system, where weapons were of fixed size rather than scaled to character size, Balanced let smaller creatures wield some weapons more easily. Here's the example in the Balanced weapon enhancement description:

For example, a halfling could wield a balanced battleaxe in one hand. In 3.5 D&D, a battleaxe is already a one-handed weapon.

Balanced isn't compatible with 3.5 weapons.

[pitdude243]

There's that Half-Ogre race from Savage Species, they can dual wield fullswords. :smallsmile:

[Greenish]

Technically a large longsword IS a great sword to a medium creature.It's a "greatsword" that, say, your Weapon Focus (Greatsword) feat doesn't work, and which gives you -2 to hit. So, not actually a greatsword. Welcome to 3.5.

[Gavinfoxx]

There's that Half-Ogre race from Savage Species, they can dual wield fullswords. :smallsmile:

"Fullblades" are 3.0 weapons that aren't compatible with 3.5e... can people STOP suggesting 3.0 stuff? GOD.

[Infundibular]

This build would work with either Diopsid or Thri-Kreen, but I chose Diopsid because I find them interesting and also the EPH says that Thri-Kreen have +2 LA and two racial hit dice, whereas Diopsid is +1 LA with no racial HD. Anyway, the character was a WhirlingPounceBarian with Power Attack, Leap Attack, Battle Jump, Two-Weapon Fighting, ITWF from Gloves of the Balanced Hand (MIC, 8,000 GP) and a custom continuously active ring of Wraithstrike (24,000 GP, half if you have an ally make it). This adds up to five touch attacks per round, (six with Haste) with a Power Attack bonus of 5, times two for a two-handed weapon, plus 100% for Leap Attack, then double all the damage with Battle Jump. This is 4d6+40+3 times your STR bonus per attack. The attack bonus worked out to 3+STR bonus, hitting on touch.

[Invader]

The thri-keen racial hit die are pretty good, they give full BAB and have +1 LA. There's a lot about the diopsid that's not to like, +2 Con -2 Dex -2 Int isn't terrible, but for +1 LA with thri-keen, I get four arms, +30 jump, one less NA, and much better stat adjustments, including +4 dex that makes qualifying for most TWF feats kind of trivial.

Being able to wear heavier armor without penalties and the much better stat adjustments seems worth the racial hit dice.

You're giving up 2 class levels for racial hit die so it's considerably less optimized.

[Talothorn]

Strongarm bracers are better for a character with two arms, but wouldnt you need 3 pairs for a 6 arm creature?

And, yes. The balanced enhancement lets you use them one handed. Monkey-grip for 6 larger weapons.

Also, strongarm bracers don't stack with powerful build, monkey-grip does

[Rubik]

Strongarm bracers are better for a character with two arms, but wouldnt you need 3 pairs for a 6 arm creature?

And, yes. The balanced enhancement lets you use them one handed. Monkey-grip for 6 larger weapons.

Also, strongarm bracers don't stack with powerful build, monkey-grip doesUnless you take the Extra Slot feat from Savage Species, you only gain one arms slot, and unless the item explicitly says you only gain the effects on the arms you use it on, you gain the benefits on every arm you've got.

[Gavinfoxx]

Uhhh... neither monkey grip nor strongarm bracers stack with powerful build...

[Talothorn]

Unless you take the Extra Slot feat from Savage Species, you only gain one arms slot, and unless the item explicitly says you only gain the effects on the arms you use it on, you gain the benefits on every arm you've got.

I concede that, but my point about powerful build stands.

[Talothorn]

Uhhh... neither monkey grip nor strongarm bracers stack with powerful build...

What is your source? (specifically for monkey grip?)

[Gavinfoxx]

Monkey Grip is in Complete Warrior. It mentions "weapons one size category larger than you are."

What version of Monkey Grip are you using? Sword and Fist?

[Hytheter]

What is your source? (specifically for monkey grip?)

Monkey Grip lets you use weapons 1 category larger than yourself. If you are medium, that means you can wield large weapons. If you have powerful build, you are still medium even though you can wield large weapons. So Monkey Grip still only lets you wield large weapons, because that is 1 size category larger than you are.

[Talothorn]

Hmm. I guess I was interpreting powerful build "as one size larger" (as opposed to "as one size larger than normal") to expand on what the character could otherwise do. I read it as if if you had two creatures with powerful build, and one had monkey grip, that character could use even larger weapons. The strongarm bracers specifically prohibit stacking, so I always ruled feat benefit > magic item ability (in this case)


Monkey Grip is in Complete Warrior. It mentions "weapons one size category larger than you are."

What version of Monkey Grip are you using? Sword and Fist?

I meant your source of them not stacking, not your source of the feat (which I mentioned myself)

[Segev]

You could build a Dvati, and have each body wield a greatsword.

Your reading of the Thri-Kreen getting 1.5x str for both swords sounds wrong to me, though, because you still only have one "primary attack," and the other would be "off-hand."

[Zanos]

You're giving up 2 class levels for racial hit die so it's considerably less optimized.
Yeah, Diopsid Warblade is starting to look pretty good. Might be able to ditch diopsid all together though if I can get grafted arms past my DM, however...

[Rubik]

Yeah, Diopsid Warblade is starting to look pretty good. Might be able to ditch diopsid all together though if I can get grafted arms past my DM, however...If you graft warforged arms onto a diopsid, I'd suggest doing that. Tri-wielding a bunch of two-handed weapons could be really nice. Alternately (and with a really high Str score), six-handing a single weapon could be deadly.

[Zanos]

If you graft warforged arms onto a diopsid, I'd suggest doing that. Tri-wielding a bunch of two-handed weapons could be really nice. Alternately (and with a really high Str score), six-handing a single weapon could be deadly.
My DM will at least make me justify the logistics of wielding weapons like that. I can easily just have two arms on each side on one of the sword and two hand it like that, but fighting with three seems like it would get messy.

[Rubik]

My DM will at least make me justify the logistics of wielding weapons like that. I can easily just have two arms on each side on one of the sword and two hand it like that, but fighting with three seems like it would get messy.I can only assume he won't be using mariliths against your party any time soon, then.

[Darrin]

"Fullblades" are 3.0 weapons that aren't compatible with 3.5e... can people STOP suggesting 3.0 stuff? GOD.

Nearly all 3.0 material is still legal for 3.5 games. It just needs to be "adapted"... some material more than others.

Insectile Anthropomorphic Giant Octopus Totemist 2: LA +2, 2 racial HD, twelve arms, six greatswords, bite. Throw on Mighty Arms, Deepspawn, maybe we can get up to 16 arms. Put on an extra head, and you can get Multiweapon Fighting without any offhand penalties.

[OldTrees1]

My DM will at least make me justify the logistics of wielding weapons like that. I can easily just have two arms on each side on one of the sword and two hand it like that, but fighting with three seems like it would get messy.

Put the grafted arms on your back and fight like a Xorn.

Although that would look really weird. Especially for a Diopsid.

[Curmudgeon]

Nearly all 3.0 material is still legal for 3.5 games.
I'm not sure "nearly all" is correct. Most 3.0 content has already been replaced in 3.5 books, so the 3.0 versions are defunct. Anyway, the important point is that the specific weapons and weapon enhancements mentioned in this thread are dependent on the 3.0 weapon size system, which was totally scrapped; that's an obvious exception to your "still legal" claim.

[Gizmo777]

The pathfinder Barbarian has an archetype called Titan Mauler that gets to dual wield 2 handed weapons.

[Thrice Dead Cat]

Add on the spells girallion's blessing and extra arms for two additional pairs of arms.