Two-Weapon Fighting Sucks?

[Gale]

I've been considering taking the Two-Weapon Fighting feat for my Bard in a campaign. But my group keeps telling me fighting with two-weapons is generally a bad idea and I just shouldn't do it. Is it really irredeemably bad?
In all seriousness fighting with two weapons whilst having the feat is only a -4 penalty on attack rolls which is more than balanced out by the Snowflake Wardance feat my character has. Also, Dragonfire Inspiration gives a nice 5d6 to damage rolls and being able to double that would be amazing even if it meant using light weapons to bring the penalty down another two points. So in the end the only justification for not fighting with two-weapons is the lack of a shield which I already don't have anyways, and the fact I'll statistically be landing hits less often. Oh, and I suppose I would be missing out on taking a different feat but honestly I can't find too many feats for Bards that are good I don't already have (or are planning on getting.)
So yeah, what is your opinion on this? Is it actually a bad idea?

[eggynack]

It's pretty terrible in general, though I think it's better on bards, for the reasons you've mentioned. You need some way to incentivize getting multiple attacks, and DFI does that, so you're probably fine. There's a massive amount of reasons why TWF is terrible, but it has its moments, and bards aren't too far down on the list of moments.

Edit: Also, you probably should do the light weapon thing. I don't see a compelling reason not to. Double-also, check out the inspire courage handbook (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=9830.0). I think that's the best one out, though I haven't researched deeply into it.

[MeeposFire]

Just taking two weapon fighting isn't bad. If you can get dragonfire inspiration up along with song of courage (or something similar) you are probably getting enough to make that second attack worth it.

I would not go any further down that road as the other feats are likely not worth it and are expensive to boot.

Two weapon fighting has several drawbacks. It is very full attack intensive as in unless you full attack generally your feat is doing nothing. It does not up your damage as much as two handed fighting unless you can get a good dose of bonus damage to the second attack. It down grades the most common damage boosting feat in power attack. DR screws over more attack less damage builds and two weapon fighting tends towards that (unless again you get good bonus damage).

I personally think bards should go for feats geared towards improving their benefits to the party and versatility but one feat being spent on two weapon fighting would be acceptable though you should think about what you may give up remember unless you are trying to prove the bards are better than you think point it is usually better for a bard to increase their party boosting power.

[MeeposFire]

Also go with a light weapon combo (at least in the off hand). The bonus from the accuracy is probably worth more than the small damage dice boost from a different weapon (difference between a short sword and a long sword is one point of damage but that long sword gives up two points of attack which is likely not worth it) especially if you can't get a song of courage up to go with your dragonfire.

[Slipperychicken]

TWF can generate a good damage output, and is totally a valid option. It takes an extra feat, relies on bonus damage to be effective, and requires full-attacks. That said, once you have those things (and a maybe way to reliably get those full attacks off, and ideally move with them) then you're golden.


So yeah, I say go for it. You're in a real game, not an optimization contest.

[SowZ]

If you have lots of precision damage or damage not based on strength, like Dragonfire Inspiration, or if you use certain crit fishing builds, it is not so bad of a choice. Rogues make especially good use of it as can a bard with DFI. If you have mediocre strength anyway, Two Handed Weapons aren't going to be that much better. You probably do want to pick up the TWF feat and maybe even improved TWF if you don't have anything super important, but don't go farther in the feat chain than that. Waste of time.

[Dusk Eclipse]

I wouldn't say it is terrible, sub-optimal and weaker than two-handed fighting? Sure, but not terrible. There are some ways to make it better, having a reliable source of bonus on-hit damage is a good start, but getting some sort of save or X effects on your attacks, even if the save is low you will probably be forcing the enemy to make several so it is likelier for it to roll a 1.

Edit: Improved two-weapon fighting is only 8k gold away thanks to the gloves of the balanced hand (MiC) and frankly Greater Two weapon fighting is actually terrible, a single attack at a -10? Yeah not worth it.

[SowZ]

I wouldn't say it is terrible, sub-optimal and weaker than two-handed fighting? Sure, but not terrible. There are some ways to make it better, having a reliable source of bonus on-hit damage is a good start, but getting some sort of save or X effects on your attacks, even if the save is low you will probably be forcing the enemy to make several so it is likelier for it to roll a 1.

Edit: Improved two-weapon fighting is only 8k gold away thanks to the gloves of the balanced hand (MiC) and frankly Greater Two weapon fighting is actually terrible, a single attack at a -10? Yeah not worth it.

Exactly, yeah. The houserule that all iterative attacks are at -5 is a good one, and makes the TWF chain more of a valid option, but vanilla Greater is terrible unless you are using shenanigans to get a crazy number of bonus attacks with Perfect TWF.

[Adverb]

I don't recommend TWF, for the following reasons:

1) It takes a lot of time at the table to resolve a pile of attacks. Making your usual approach be always time-consuming is unfun - or at least it is for me and the people I play with.

2) Lots of attacks are best optimized with serious +damage sources, like the DFI that was mentioned. Huge stacks of +damage create a problem for your DM if he/she wants to "keep things challenging". None of the solutions they would employ result in more fun for you. Talk to anyone who's played a Rogue with super sneak attack and then gone up against some fairly weenie undead - this is No Fun.

3) Two-handed power attack is simpler and can often result in more damage. Sword-and-board isn't high-op, but often results in fun games, and pleasantly high/cheap AC.

[MeeposFire]

I don't recommend TWF, for the following reasons:

1) It takes a lot of time at the table to resolve a pile of attacks. Making your usual approach be always time-consuming is unfun - or at least it is for me and the people I play with.

2) Lots of attacks are best optimized with serious +damage sources, like the DFI that was mentioned. Huge stacks of +damage create a problem for your DM if he/she wants to "keep things challenging". None of the solutions they would employ result in more fun for you. Talk to anyone who's played a Rogue with super sneak attack and then gone up against some fairly weenie undead - this is No Fun.

3) Two-handed power attack is simpler and can often result in more damage. Sword-and-board isn't high-op, but often results in fun games, and pleasantly high/cheap AC.

1) Not likely an issue in this case as at worst he will have similar attacks to a same level fighter so no worse than waht is typical at the table.

2) He does have a decent damage source and if he wants he can make it change to a rare resistance type (battle dragon gives sonic damage) so it will be much more likely to work than sneak attack. Besides as much damage as the bard is going to do it is nothing compared to what the party is going to do. The balance problem for a DM is not going to be changed much by two weapon fighting but more by things like DFI (or god help you words of creation).

3) Two handed is often better but not if you have really low str and you already have enough dex tor TWF and you like the concept. It sounds like this bard is not set up at all for THF and could receive decent benefits from taking one teat for TWF. I still think even ITWF is too much for a bard though as usually I find myself wanting more feats for boosting singing.

If the bard was going more for song of courage and less for DFI THF gets better but the more you use DFI the more it boosts TWF. Granted for the same cost as TWF you could pick up improved buckler defence and go THF with a shield with even better accuracy but you do lose that extra ttacks worth of bonus damage.


Your points are true in many cases they just don't apply as much with a bard.

[Gale]

Quick question on two-weapon fighting (since I've never done it before.) If my base attack bonus would normally give me an extra attack does this also grant me another extra attack with my off-handed weapon or no?

[MeeposFire]

Quick question on two-weapon fighting (since I've never done it before.) If my base attack bonus would normally give me an extra attack does this also grant me another extra attack with my off-handed weapon or no?

NO you only get one extra attack for TWF unless you pick up improved, greater, or perfect two weapon fighting which adds 1 attack each at different penalties to hit (except perfect which equalizes your main hand and offhand attacks).

[Gale]

Okay, so this means with a base attack bonus of 6/1 and two-weapons I'll have three attacks per round?

[eggynack]

Okay, so this means with a base attack bonus of 6/1 and two-weapons I'll have three attacks per round?
Yes, unless you get feats or items to give you more. Such is the way of the world.

[Sception]

On full attack actions, yeah. If you have to move, you're back down to one.

[Slipperychicken]

1) It takes a lot of time at the table to resolve a pile of attacks. Making your usual approach be always time-consuming is unfun - or at least it is for me and the people I play with.


It doesn't take long if you can quickly roll and mentally compute die rolls*. Maybe roll 1d20 for each attack, and in a line? Then call out each tohit number and have the GM respond "hit" or "miss". Then roll damage for each hit.

*(i.e. Know how your tohit and damage bonuses, and keep the sum in one place on your sheet. Make sure you have the values for each attack in the routine. Also figure out your damage dice beforehand and keep them in a pile where you can see them. If you prepare well, a large number of of attack rolls can be resolved relatively quickly)

[lsfreak]

Okay, so this means with a base attack bonus of 6/1 and two-weapons I'll have three attacks per round?

Yea, and you've stumbled across the big reason TWF sucks. If you make a full attack, you get one extra attack for your feat. If you have 6/1? Another feat if you want that second attack. 11/6/1? Another feat for the third. Want to charge and TWF? That's a feat. TWF as a standard action? A feat. AoOs? Guess.

If most of those were rolled into a single feat, it would do a lot to make TWF better. As it is, it's extremely feat-intensive, and the classes that can make good use of the extra attacks are often rather feat-intensive already.

[eggynack]

It doesn't take long if you can quickly roll and mentally compute die rolls*. Maybe roll 1d20 for each attack, and in a line? Then call out each tohit number and have the GM respond "hit" or "miss". Then roll damage for each hit.

*(i.e. Know how your tohit and damage bonuses, and keep the sum in one place on your sheet. Make sure you have the values for each attack in the routine. Also figure out your damage dice beforehand and keep them in a pile where you can see them. If you prepare well, a large number of of attack rolls can be resolved relatively quickly)
That sounds like a rather dangerous plan. Knowing what future rolls are going to be can be highly tactically advantageous in a number of ways. Even if you're actively trying to act as you would without the knowledge, there would still be some difference in play style. You'd pretty much have to hide your rolls from yourself until the attack comes up, and that creates challenges. I can see such a system being useful for a DM who wants to hide the fact that rolls are happening, but players are usually more biased towards a particular result

[MeeposFire]

I think the biggest slow down in this case would come from rerolling the bonus damage from dragonfire inspiration as otherwise a bard with haste is roughly equal to a fighter of the same level in terms of number of attacks.

In order to reduce that clutter you could just roll DFI damage once and use it for all successful attacks that round. Treat it as the intensity of the flames that round. This would save you from having to roll a fistful of d6s for every attack. Then you can just roll one die for damage and one for attack rolls per attack which is a lot more manageable.

[eggynack]

I like the one roll plan, but just using average damage might be better. Across that many rolls, DFI damage per die is going to hit pretty close to 3.5. One attack hitting might not be enough, but if you're rolling 12 or 18 d6's, you're pretty insanely unlikely to get 12 or 18 1's or 6's, and you're highly likely to roll a reasonably even distribution.

[Gale]

I don't think my DM would necessarily do this but I could easily see a monster abusing the fact I'm attacking with two weapons. He could simply make an attack then bail like 20 feet away forcing me to approach on my turn preventing a full round attack. Just a thought.
But anyways, I'm probably going to try two-weapon fighting. I don't really see too much of a downside and I'll never know how good it is until I actually try it.

[eggynack]

I don't think my DM would necessarily do this but I could easily see a monster abusing the fact I'm attacking with two weapons. He could simply make an attack then bail like 20 feet away forcing me to approach on my turn preventing a full round attack. Just a thought.

Yeah, that's one of the big problems with TWF. Fortunately, you're still a bard, and you thus have spells and party buffing to back up any deficiencies in attack power. Alternatively, you could always pick up a source of pounce or free movement (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=103358). That's the usual way around such issues.

[Kennisiou]

There are very few builds where TWF are good, thankfully, dragonfire inspiration bards tend to be one of them. You'll want to find a source of free feats probably to get the two weapon fighting feats (like taking a two level dip as fighter). You'll also definitely want to find a way to move your full movement while still taking a full attack action. Look at spells on the bard spell list that help with that, or consider nabbing some warblade levels and nabbing some mobility maneuvers like sudden leap to use to get around (warblade + song of the white raven two weapon fighting bard is a pretty solid build in general). You could also get a one level cloistered cleric dip for knowledge devotion, travel devotion and undeath domain for a free extra turning feat to get around the battlefield more readily and also add more damage to your two-weapon fighting (even without the dip, knowledge devotion is a great feat to take on a twf bard build, definitely look into it). You could also nab one level as spirit lion totem barbarian to get pounce as a class feature so you can charge and still full attack action.

In general, as a two weapon fighting bard with dragonfire inspiration, that's what you want to look for: ways to get bonus feats, ways to gain base attack bonus, ways to get additional mobility, ways to add more damage per hit effects and ways to gain accuracy. You want to do all of this while losing as few effective levels for inspire courage as possible. Warblade is one of the best ways to accomplish all of these things, but paladins can do it too by taking travel devotion and using their turning pool to power it (and bardadins are generally not bad, thanks to Initiate of Milil).

[Kelb_Panthera]

The go-to answer for twf is to take the twf feat and pick up a pair of gloves of the balanced hand for improved twf then say "to hell with greater twf."

One feat and one item for the two that matter and you only really need to pick up any of the other twf feats if you're really dedicating the character to being a two weapon fighting master.

[Spuddles]

Two weapon fighting gives you another wand chamber- wraithstrike &
Lion's pounce are pretty good choices.

[Firechanter]

If your Bard spellcasting isn't that important, consider multiclassing with Warblade and take Song of White Raven (meaning your levels stack for Inspire Courage).
There are various maneuvers that are good for TWF, by granting Swift Action Movement, Pounce or extra attacks. Oh and BAB of course.
The standard Bardblade uses Bard 4/Warblade X, but you can probably use more Bard levels if you want.

[Grams]

But my group keeps telling me fighting with two-weapons is generally a bad idea and I just shouldn't do it. Is it really irredeemably bad?

Can't speak to bard... but I played a sneak attack/craven esque SwordSage that used synergy with Cloak of Deception (greater invis) To pull off crazy amounts of attacks with two weapons that all procure sneak attack bonus damage. Being invis offsets the -4 to hit aswell.

also a dip in warblade to get Mithril Tornado maneuver coupled with Cloak of D and a spiked chain can net you over 20 attacks. all of which proc sneak attacks.

Normally only the first attack qualifies for sneak attack but greater invis allows you to continue to dish out the pain.

Any amount of optimization can make a build good. TWF is no exception.

[MeeposFire]

I like the one roll plan, but just using average damage might be better. Across that many rolls, DFI damage per die is going to hit pretty close to 3.5. One attack hitting might not be enough, but if you're rolling 12 or 18 d6's, you're pretty insanely unlikely to get 12 or 18 1's or 6's, and you're highly likely to roll a reasonably even distribution.

It would speed it up yes but I find that for most groups I have seen the fun of rolling one fist full of d6s is worth the small time expenditure to do once. Granted more than once can get excessive (unless the number of d6s is truly excessive).

Remember too that when you roll for the round you could choose to have that number be the result for all attacks made using dragonfire inspiration not just the bard since they are all related flames. One roll would still be fun (you know most people like to roll big numbers) but would take a way a lot of time "wasted" rolling for each attack. Another thing I like about it is that it makes clear the bard's effect on the battle as you can remember one number per round that you can declare was your benefit.

[G.Cube]

Yea, and you've stumbled across the big reason TWF sucks. If you make a full attack, you get one extra attack for your feat. If you have 6/1? Another feat if you want that second attack. 11/6/1? Another feat for the third. Want to charge and TWF? That's a feat. TWF as a standard action? A feat. AoOs? Guess.

If most of those were rolled into a single feat, it would do a lot to make TWF better. As it is, it's extremely feat-intensive, and the classes that can make good use of the extra attacks are often rather feat-intensive already.

What feat is this?

[Slipperychicken]

That sounds like a rather dangerous plan. Knowing what future rolls are going to be can be highly tactically advantageous in a number of ways. Even if you're actively trying to act as you would without the knowledge, there would still be some difference in play style. You'd pretty much have to hide your rolls from yourself until the attack comes up, and that creates challenges. I can see such a system being useful for a DM who wants to hide the fact that rolls are happening, but players are usually more biased towards a particular result

I mean, if the player would spread his attacks between one or more enemies, then he should do it one at a time. Or else specify something like "If I KO goblin A before I finish out my full attack, then I'll 5-foot over here and the remaining ones go toward goblin B". Usually, it's pretty easy to predict from the beginning of your turn as a beatstick.

[Kelb_Panthera]

What feat is this?

Dual strike in complete adventurer. It's a terrible feat though.

[ericgrau]

It does have a bit too much hate against it. Bonus damage and a decent attack bonus is a way to make it work. Yes you should use two light weapons. Consider each -1 to usually be around -10% damage not -5%. So a -2 better come with at least a +20% damage boost to your total weapon damage or don't bother. Preferably 30% or 40% depending on how much you can get out of alternatives.

Dual strike is great because not all your attacks are full attacks just because you wish it to be so. It is worse than pounce, though, or any way to make all your attacks full attacks. But it's not that much worse than pounce, which is saying quite a lot. The secondary attacks aren't as good as the primaries.

There are varying levels of power too. Nothing in melee stacks up to ubercharging or similar tricks. And compared to core and similar power snowflake wardance and many other bardic music boosters are OP. It's all relative and depends what your gaming group allows.

[Kelb_Panthera]

It does have a bit too much hate against it. Bonus damage and a decent attack bonus is a way to make it work. Yes you should use two light weapons. Consider each -1 to be roughly -10% damage not -5%, unless your attack bonus is crazy high. And yet not so high that you still auto-hit even after penalties. Basically this never happens and each -1 is usually around -10% damage.

Dual strike is great because not all your attacks are full attacks just because you wish it to be so. It is worse than pounce, though, or any way to make all your attacks full attacks.

No, dual strike sucks. You take a standard action and make one attack roll at the worse attack bonus of your primary and off hand then take another -4 and you only get precision and/or critical damage on the primary hand weapon. It's just not worth anything unless you have some sort of serious damage built into the weapon. Two weapon pounce in PHB2 is strictly better since you get to make separate attack rolls for each weapon.

[ericgrau]

No with two light weapons the total penalty is only -2. I did miss the bit about precision damage though. That didn't come into play with my last character who used it because he was str based, but it makes it pointless for the OP. Pounce requires a charge but yeah it is usually better. Two-weapon pounce also has a hidden -2 to hit, which hurts a lot if you aren't using precision damage. So for my str based guy dual strike was strictly better than two weapon pounce.

EDIT: unless that hidden -2 is instead of the usual penalty? It's not clear. Assuming a net of -4, you double your damage and then take off 40%, leaving you at about 20% more damage than a single attack even with precision damage (1*2*.6=1.2=100%+20%). Which isn't the most amazing thing around.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Check it again. It's -4 for a one handed and light combo.

Also, changes to the average damage don't mean much (anything really) in an actual combat. Either you hit and do your damage or you miss and don't.

Averages are given a lot more weight than they deserve around here.

[Sian]

I don't recommend TWF, for the following reasons:

1) It takes a lot of time at the table to resolve a pile of attacks. Making your usual approach be always time-consuming is unfun - or at least it is for me and the people I play with.

Depends on dice organization ... say you have several sets ...

yellow d20 + d6's is one attack
red d20 + d6's is second attack

etc

roll everything at the same time.

When i'm playing stuff that attacks multiple times I do that ... protentially with the addendum that if stuff drops on first attack, second attack is on enemy B or similar

[Andion Isurand]

I think they could stand to drop the dexterity requirement for the Multi-Weapon Fighting feats by 2, so they start at 13

And they should eliminate the TWF feats and only have Multi-Weapon Fighting feats...

they could also make Multi-Weapon Defense a single feat...
________________________________________________

Multi-Weapon Defense [Fighter Bonus Feat, General]

Your two-weapon fighting style bolsters your defense as well as your offense.

Prerequisite: Multi-Weapon Fighting (PH), DEX 13,

Benefit: When wielding a double weapon or more than one weapon (not including natural weapons or unarmed strikes), you gain a shield bonus to your AC, equal to the number of attacks you could make using one of your off-hand weapons during a full attack action. When you are fighting defensively or using the total defense action, this shield bonus doubles.

Special: A fighter may select Multi-Weapon Defense as one of his fighter bonus feats.

[Pickford]

I've been considering taking the Two-Weapon Fighting feat for my Bard in a campaign. But my group keeps telling me fighting with two-weapons is generally a bad idea and I just shouldn't do it. Is it really irredeemably bad?
In all seriousness fighting with two weapons whilst having the feat is only a -4 penalty on attack rolls which is more than balanced out by the Snowflake Wardance feat my character has. Also, Dragonfire Inspiration gives a nice 5d6 to damage rolls and being able to double that would be amazing even if it meant using light weapons to bring the penalty down another two points. So in the end the only justification for not fighting with two-weapons is the lack of a shield which I already don't have anyways, and the fact I'll statistically be landing hits less often. Oh, and I suppose I would be missing out on taking a different feat but honestly I can't find too many feats for Bards that are good I don't already have (or are planning on getting.)
So yeah, what is your opinion on this? Is it actually a bad idea?


TWF always lands more hits. Anyone who is telling you otherwise is misinformed.

Probability of hitting an AC 10 target with no modifiers: 50%
Probability of hitting AC 10 target with TWF: 40%/40% (-2/-2) net probability of success: 64%

64% > 50%

Now, normal penalties are only a 24% chance of a hit (both weapons are one-handed), which does hit less often.
If Offhand is light: 37%
one-handed + twf: 51% (so with twf feat you're already more likely to hit even using two one-handers)
off-hand weapon is light + twf: 64% chance of at least one hit.

[Namfuak]

I think they could stand to drop the dexterity requirement for the Multi-Weapon Fighting feats by 2, so they start at 13

And they should eliminate the TWF feats and only have Multi-Weapon Fighting feats...

they could also make Multi-Weapon Defense a single feat...
________________________________________________

Multi-Weapon Defense [Fighter Bonus Feat, General]

Your two-weapon fighting style bolsters your defense as well as your offense.

Prerequisite: Multi-Weapon Fighting (PH), DEX 13,

Benefit: When wielding a double weapon or more than one weapon (not including natural weapons or unarmed strikes), you gain a shield bonus to your AC, equal to the number of attacks you could make using one of your off-hand weapons during a full attack action. When you are fighting defensively or using the total defense action, this shield bonus doubles.

Special: A fighter may select Multi-Weapon Defense as one of his fighter bonus feats.

Honestly I'd just make perfect two weapon fighting the first feat (with 11+ str or 11+ dex as the prerequisite) and leave it at that (ignoring defense for the moment, your change to it looks fine). Even being able to make two attacks in a standard action at no (further) penalty is really not OP, and imo feat chains that increment the same thing are a really terrible design decision.

[Talya]

Just taking two weapon fighting isn't bad. If you can get dragonfire inspiration up along with song of courage (or something similar) you are probably getting enough to make that second attack worth it.

I would not go any further down that road as the other feats are likely not worth it and are expensive to boot.

Bards are one of the few cases where it IS worth it if you have the available feats. They simply do not miss, even with their fifth and sixth attacks, except on natural ones. And there are no better sources of twf bonus damage.

[Emperor Tippy]

TWF always lands more hits. Anyone who is telling you otherwise is misinformed.

Probability of hitting an AC 10 target with no modifiers: 50%
Probability of hitting AC 10 target with TWF: 40%/40% (-2/-2) net probability of success: 64%

64% > 50%

Now, normal penalties are only a 24% chance of a hit (both weapons are one-handed), which does hit less often.
If Offhand is light: 37%
one-handed + twf: 51% (so with twf feat you're already more likely to hit even using two one-handers)
off-hand weapon is light + twf: 64% chance of at least one hit.

Which is, in all honesty, a deeply flawed comparison and analysis.

There are a number of methods to virtually guarantee one hit (or at least make one hit very likely to occur), and a large number of ways to pile on the damage for that one hit. Far more so than is the case with TWF.

Honestly, if you want to go the lots of attack route then you want Rogue 1/ Factotum 1/ Swashbuckler 3/ Decisive Strike Invisible Fist Martial Monk 2/ Factotum 7/ Fighter 4/ Swordsage 2.

On a Gray Elf base with maxed Int and Dex along with an end Str of 14 you are potentially throwing out a dozen attacks in the first round against a target with each of those attacks being against touch AC and dealing 2*(Int+Int+Dex+Str+HD+11+10) straight damage, and with an AB of +40 or so. A dozen attacks, each at full AB and each dealing upwards of 140 minimum damage. While you are also still a first rate skill monkey, have HP higher than a front line melee monster, and still have an AC of 40 or so.

That's how you build a real "two weapon fighter".

---
If you are actually using two weapon fighting than a Bard is one of the better ways to do it but its still not really first rate.


To the OP:
You might want to dip one level of Rogue and a feat to pick up Craven. Oh, you might always want to (temporarily) spend a feat on Martial Study before doing a one level dip into Martial Monk and using your first level bonus feat to grab Martial Stance: Assassin's Stance before shuffling the Martial Stance into Shadowblade. Shuffle Improved Unarmed Strike into something else (if you are human then take Able Learner at first level and use this to make up the difference). This works out being feat neutral, costs you 2 levels, effectively makes the entire Rogue skill list class skills for you, and gives you +3d6+HD sneak attack along with adding Dex (in addition to Str) to all of your damage rolls with, say, short swords. It also gets you +Wis to AC when unarmored (for what little that is worth). It's not as useful as DFI but it is in addition to it and (if you play with fractional AB) it ups your TWF damage significantly without harming your AB.

[MeeposFire]

No with two light weapons the total penalty is only -2. I did miss the bit about precision damage though. That didn't come into play with my last character who used it because he was str based, but it makes it pointless for the OP. Pounce requires a charge but yeah it is usually better. Two-weapon pounce also has a hidden -2 to hit, which hurts a lot if you aren't using precision damage. So for my str based guy dual strike was strictly better than two weapon pounce.

EDIT: unless that hidden -2 is instead of the usual penalty? It's not clear. Assuming a net of -4, you double your damage and then take off 40%, leaving you at about 20% more damage than a single attack even with precision damage (1*2*.6=1.2=100%+20%). Which isn't the most amazing thing around.

Unless I am missing something the bard in question is not using any sort of precision damage or the like. Dragonfire inspiration is similar to using a flaming weapon. You get it even if things like sneak attack don't.

[Jane_Smith]

I think you guys also forgot the cost of enchanting or improving two weapons onto the list as to why two-weapon fighting is usually discouraged. Not only are you sinking 3+ feats to be able to keep up with someone with a two-handed weapon, and still getting a penalty to hit, but the cost, especially early to mid game, is sickening.

Think about it; lets say you got 17,000 gp to spend.

Two +2 daggers would put you around 16,604 gp total. Whelp, you can afford 2-3 potions and call it a day, your broke!

A single +2 great sword? 8,375 gp I think. You can use that 8k you saved on making your armor +2 and have enough money left over for a cloak of resistance +1, a ring of protection +1, and maybe a potion or two as well.

Or, you can get a +2 longsword for 8,315 gp, a +2 armor, and +2 shield, for 16,615ish gp (+base cost of armor/shield, so give or take 10-1500), and still have enough for a potion of stoneskin or the like.

In my opinion, its far more cost effective to go with option 2 or 3. But thats just me. And it ONLY GETS WORSE late-game for 2 weapons, as the enchantment values begin to sky rocket!


FYI: The +2 could be any combination of base enchantment/ability, i didnt mean just plain +2 dagger, it could be a +1 dagger of flaming even, the results remain the same however.

[EugeneVoid]

Unless you do shuriken cheese.
But then, you might as well go into changeling spear and get your greatsword.

[techgorilla]

Ok now i know why TWF is not very good.

One question though, do you guys know if the Two weapon fighting archetype in PF actually makes TWF worth it?

[Darrin]

Two weapon fighting gives you another wand chamber- wraithstrike &
Lion's pounce are pretty good choices.

I'm fond of instant of power (Forge of War) and critical strike (Spell Compendium). If you max out UMD, blades of fire (Spell Compendium) and blade of blood (PHBII) are also good.


What feat is this?

Probably Martial Study: Wolf Fang Strike. However, I've heard Emperor Tippy argue that the original Two-Weapon Fighting feat does this in Core. Apparently the Rules Compendium reworded it slightly, though.


Dual strike in complete adventurer. It's a terrible feat though.

Oh... yeah, forgot about that one. Yeah, it stinks.


I think you guys also forgot the cost of enchanting or improving two weapons onto the list as to why two-weapon fighting is usually discouraged.

Ancestral Relic (BoED) -> Elvencraft longbow can help there. Enchant it as a ranged weapon or quarterstaff (double weapon). Since you can sacrifice loot directly, you don't have to trade stuff back for 50% market price or pay a wizard to do it for you.

The point is this... you don't do TWF because it's effective. You can't keep up with the two-handed uberchargers, don't even try. The point is it looks awesome (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=15034585#post15034585).

[Dusk Eclipse]

Would ancestral relic work on other kind of double weapons? It would work extremely well with a Revenant Blade's* double scimitar fluff and crunchwise.


*Arguably the best TWF class in the entire game.

[TuggyNE]

TWF always lands more hits. Anyone who is telling you otherwise is misinformed.

This is not strictly true, and is somewhat misleading, since hitting is not your goal: damage is your goal. More hits may or may not increase damage.

Moreover, TWF does not in fact always land more hits. Consider a level 1 Rogue with TWF, 8 Str, and a pair of shortswords (presumably intending to get Weapon Finesse once they qualify) against an enemy with AC 17: with TWF, their odds of hitting at least once are 9.75%, but without, they have a 15% chance. The difference is more dramatic if they are TWFing with one-handed weapons without OTWF.

[Kennisiou]

This is not strictly true, and is somewhat misleading, since hitting is not your goal: damage is your goal. More hits may or may not increase damage.

Moreover, TWF does not in fact always land more hits. Consider a level 1 Rogue with TWF, 8 Str, and a pair of shortswords (presumably intending to get Weapon Finesse once they qualify) against an enemy with AC 17: with TWF, their odds of hitting at least once are 9.75%, but without, they have a 15% chance. The difference is more dramatic if they are TWFing with one-handed weapons without OTWF.

Not to mention that if you only have a 10% hit chance even minimum TWF penalties drop you down to exactly 0% hit chance (or I guess exactly 5% since a natural 20 auto-hits).

[Firechanter]

Ok now i know why TWF is not very good.

One question though, do you guys know if the Two weapon fighting archetype in PF actually makes TWF worth it?

Well, sorta kinda. Problem is, this is a Fighter class archetype that swaps out the regular non-feat class features for TWF related stuff. That's nice, but remember that the thing that makes TWF interesting is bonus damage, and Fighters only have very limited access to that (up to +4 with their main weapon, by GWS). Since the interesting bonuses come online rather late, you can't really do a lot in terms of multiclassing to get, for instance, Sneak Attack.

The interesting archetypical ACFs are:
lvl 9: Dual Strike (one attack with each hand as Standard Action, no penalties)
lvl 11: TWF penalties reduced by 1
lvl 15: TWF penalties recuced by another 1

The other specials are some useful, some meh.

I haven't done the math to see if this is actually worthwhile. Keep in mind you're still paying a lot of feats to get your off-hand attacks. And you're still not getting off more than _one_ attack per hand on a Standard Action. But you're in good company there; there's not much for Swift Action Movement in PF for anyone and a THFer might have to sink his feats into the Vital Strike line.
What remains is the problem of double expense for maintaining two weapons.

Long story short, I'd still avoid TWF. THF with a Reach weapon (and Combat Reflexes) is still superior.

[Emperor Tippy]

The interesting archetypical ACFs are:
lvl 9: Dual Strike (one attack with each hand as Standard Action, no penalties)

If you can mix with 3.5 stuff then throw on Swashbuckler 3/ Factotum 8 and that would be somewhat respectable, although it would be massively late (only fully coming on line at ECL 20).

[Talya]

TWF is only a good idea if (a) you have a large source of bonus damage for both hands and (b) your attack bonus is so high that the penalty doesn't affect you a lot. A DFI bard with snowflake wardance and a cheap pair of crystalline blades has more potential damage bonus and to hit bonus than any other class. Simply put: do it. And go all in... drive your charisma into the stratosphere and take greater twf and laugh as you regularly hit enemies for 6d8+78d6+144 in a round without any major optimization or even expensive gear.

[Pickford]

snip

Nothing you said contradicts the base premise: The same character will always hit more often if you use the TWF feat than wielding a single weapon.

This is true, and I did something useful (math proof) to help the OP comprehend that. Perhaps you could follow this example instead of shooting from the hip?

edit: TuggyNE, missing deals no damage.

doubleedit: That rogue should have picked up improved feint to gain their sneak attack bonus damage every round (and deny their opponent the dex bonus to AC, drastically improving their odds of hitting). TWF is better for a good bab than an average bab anyway.

[eggynack]

edit: TuggyNE, missing deals no damage.
What are you referring to here, exactly? His first point is that two hits deal the same damage as a single hit dealing twice as much, and his second is that the fact that weapon finesses comes online at third level for a rogue causes the TWF guy's hits/round to be generally much lower at first. I don't see what you're refuting with your comment.

Edit:
That rogue should have picked up improved feint to gain their sneak attack bonus damage every round (and deny their opponent the dex bonus to AC, drastically improving their odds of hitting). TWF is better for a good bab than an average bab anyway.
That kinda negates the point of TWF, as you're giving up your full attack to feint. Also, your plan is really feat tight. At first level, you need TWF, combat expertise, and improved feint, or there's not much point.

[Pickford]

What are you referring to here, exactly? His first point is that two hits deal the same damage as a single hit dealing twice as much, and his second is that the fact that weapon finesses comes online at second level for a rogue causes the TWF guy's hits/round to be generally much lower at first. I don't see what you're refuting with your comment.

Eggynack, the damage output from a miss is 0. The beauty of TWF is that you get twice as many attack rolls (assuming one progresses to pick up the greater versions, obviously) which doubles the chance of getting a crit.

edit: I didn't say use both twf and feint, I said to use feint instead of twf.

[eggynack]

Eggynack, the damage output from a miss is 0. The beauty of TWF is that you get twice as many attack rolls (assuming one progresses to pick up the greater versions, obviously) which doubles the chance of getting a crit.
It's all kinda irrelevant in the long run. The crit thing is nice, but average damage per round is average damage per round, and the average damage per round is generally higher with THF. The math changes in cases like this one, where the OP is pulling something like precision damage, which is why I told him to stick with it, but in the absence of that sort of damage, TWF suffers horribly under the weight of high feat cost, high GP cost, being tied to full attacks, and low damage. That's not even really all of it, with stuff like pounce and AoO's being better with THF. A buncha stuff, really.


I didn't say use both twf and feint, I said to use feint instead of twf.
That's also bad. You're still tying yourself to full round actions, effectively, and can't full attack as a result. The build still mires itself in piles of feats, and feinting doesn't work all the time. You're further limiting your sneak attack targets, and a high number of attacks is what lets precision damage compete. You could be doing a lot better where ensuring SA is concerned.

[MeeposFire]

Remember opportunity costs. When you throw out that the two weapon fighting guy is getting a bunch of feats and compare it to vanilla THF then you are not comparing the same thing. The THF warrior will have access to a bunch of feats that you neeed to account for in a study of the benefits. For instance if the TWF has the TWF feat then the THF may have power attack.


Also remember that DR tends to affect TWF more than THF as more attacks with less damage makes DR more valuable over higher damage and less attacks. For instance if you could attack twice and deal 12 or attack 3 times for 12 damage and the enemy has DR 2 The THF will deal 8 damage but the TWF will only deal 6.

[Emperor Tippy]

Nothing you said contradicts the base premise: The same character will always hit more often if you use the TWF feat than wielding a single weapon.
Except not. Gloves of the Master Strategist can be thrown onto any other gloves you want for less than 5K GP per glove and give you 2/day True Strike. A wand chamber plus 750 GP for a True Strike wand also works. You are now looking at +20 to your Attack Roll. That practically guarantees a hit.

Surge of Fortune guarantees you a natural 20 once.

One level dip in Factotum gets you +Int to AB once per combat.

Then there are the various other ways to make one attack more likely to hit or to reroll a miss. Most of which don't apply to TWF.

How many times you hit in a full attack routine really isn't what matters. First because Full Attacks are the exception and not the norm and second because if you are generally hitting on more than your second attack in a Full Attack routine then you should already be dealing enough damage to kill your enemy anyways.

What matters is how much damage you deliver to your enemies, how fast it is done, and how consistently you can do it; not how many times you land an attack. It's one reason that I'm in favor of the Factotum for faking TWF/lots of attacks. Yes you can deliver enough minimal damage in the surprise round to drop a Great Wyrm Red dragon (and do it twice over in the first round) but in the far more likely even that your foe is dead after two to three attacks you can then either stop or move on to do that again to another foe. You aren't wasting damage or attacks on enemies


This is true, and I did something useful (math proof) to help the OP comprehend that. Perhaps you could follow this example instead of shooting from the hip?

The math has been done, against a CR appropriate challenge (ECL+/-2) Two Handed wielding delivers more damage more consistently than TWF does and this applies across the entire level range.

Hell, a Warblade 13/Swashbuckler 3/Swordsage 2/ Warblade 2 can, every other round, whack home a guaranteed 700+ damage as a standard action. And that is practical optimization, TO get's you talking about single attacks that deliver in excess of a thousand damage every single round as a standard action and full attack routines that break the five digit mark.

[TuggyNE]

edit: TuggyNE, missing deals no damage.

Again, this is oversimplifying. It's technically true, but in practice does not tell you enough to actually make sensible decisions. Consider: if one character gets a single attack per round at +25 for 3d6+230 damage, and another gets three attacks per round at +23 for 1d6+10 damage, which one does more damage in an average round? It's sure not the one who misses less often.

[Slipperychicken]

Again, this is oversimplifying. It's technically true, but in practice does not tell you enough to actually make sensible decisions. Consider: if one character gets a single attack per round at +25 for 3d6+230 damage, and another gets three attacks per round at +23 for 1d6+10 damage, which one does more damage in an average round? It's sure not the one who misses less often.

Or could simply use math to compute average damage for each option, and compare them. Then if we were especially insane rigorous, we might model each build's damage performance at a number of "tests" at various levels (i.e. high AC, low AC, DR, move before attack, stationary attack, etc) and compare their performance.

IIRC average damage per attack is:
(probability to hit without scoring a critical)*(expected damage on non-critical hit) + (probability of critically hitting)*(expected damage on critical hit).

I bet I could write a code for anydice (http://anydice.com/) which could make a cool graph for damage distribution too... Maybe tomorrow.

[TuggyNE]

Or could simply use math to compute average damage for each option, and compare them. Then if we were especially insane rigorous, we might model each build's damage performance at a number of "tests" at various levels (i.e. high AC, low AC, DR, move before attack, stationary attack, etc) and compare their performance.

IIRC average damage per attack is:
(probability to hit without scoring a critical)*(expected damage on non-critical hit) + (probability of critically hitting)*(expected damage on critical hit).

I bet I could write a code for anydice (http://anydice.com/) which could make a cool graph for damage distribution too... Maybe tomorrow.

I actually have relatively standardized code I've reused a dozen or more times for that; the trick is getting a good selection of data to test, which always annoys me. So if you give me a set of attack/AC/bonus damage ranges, I can make a chart that includes natural 20s, natural 1s, crits of various multipliers, bonus damage dice, extra attacks, iteratives, and so on and so forth, summing it all up into a per-round average.

[MeeposFire]

I actually have relatively standardized code I've reused a dozen or more times for that; the trick is getting a good selection of data to test, which always annoys me. So if you give me a set of attack/AC/bonus damage ranges, I can make a chart that includes natural 20s, natural 1s, crits of various multipliers, bonus damage dice, extra attacks, iteratives, and so on and so forth, summing it all up into a per-round average.

This sort of thing was done a lot in 4e but it was a lot easier there due to the more standardized defenses. The rules actually told you what average expected monster defenses were for a given challenge so it made predicting DPR fairly easy.

Making out average defenses is difficult but not impossible in 3e though the hardest part is deciding what benchmarks are average and everybody agreeing with it.

[Greenish]

There was a table somewhere that listed the average stats by CR of MMI monsters. How useful such an average would be is another matter.

[Pickford]

It's all kinda irrelevant in the long run. The crit thing is nice, but average damage per round is average damage per round, and the average damage per round is generally higher with THF. The math changes in cases like this one, where the OP is pulling something like precision damage, which is why I told him to stick with it, but in the absence of that sort of damage, TWF suffers horribly under the weight of high feat cost, high GP cost, being tied to full attacks, and low damage. That's not even really all of it, with stuff like pounce and AoO's being better with THF. A buncha stuff, really.

And this pure bard is getting pounce how exactly? Not everyone is a Barbarian ACF.



That's also bad. You're still tying yourself to full round actions, effectively, and can't full attack as a result. The build still mires itself in piles of feats, and feinting doesn't work all the time. You're further limiting your sneak attack targets, and a high number of attacks is what lets precision damage compete. You could be doing a lot better where ensuring SA is concerned.

The extra 1d6 is better than any other options at 1st level.

Tippy: One can not guarantee a hit every single time. And even if you burned thousands of gold for the +20 to hit, you have no way of knowing that roll won't be a 20 anyway, defeating the purpose.

The point stands, on average a TWF feat user hits more per round than someone using a single weapon, in the exact same cases. It really doesn't matter if you can find a corner case, because the majority of the game isn't that case.

TuggyNE:

Consider: if one character gets a single attack per round at +25 for 3d6+230 damage, and another gets three attacks per round at +23 for 1d6+10 damage, which one does more damage in an average round? It's sure not the one who misses less often.

Presumably the TWF could also have the +230 damage (to each hit). There's no logical reason to assume not.

[Greenish]

And this pure bard is getting pounce how exactly? Not everyone is a Barbarian ACF.From a wand, I presume. UMD is a bard-y thing to do.

[eggynack]

And this pure bard is getting pounce how exactly? Not everyone is a Barbarian ACF.
I'm not really assuming a bard, because a bard with TWF is a thing I support. They get a source of what is effectively precision damage, and something to boost their attack bonus when using it, so they're cool. I'm just talking about a fightery guy versus a second fightery guy, and those guys are likely to pick up some sort of move+full attack, because that's important. The THF guy is better at pounce, because the barbarian thing works for them really well. Also, I listed a massive pile of other things. They don't all have to apply every time. They just sometimes have to apply some of the time, and the problems pile up if you don't deal with them somehow.


The extra 1d6 is better than any other options at 1st level.
Why're you figuring feint+sneak attack vs. no feint+no sneak attack? Folks get sneak attack without feint all the time, whether through marbles, or flanking, or a surprise round, or grease, or whatever. The extra 1d6 is really not better than much, given that you're spending two feats on it that will continually reduce in value as standard attacks become worse. Seriously, precision damage is at its best across a number of attacks, so cutting it down to this is bad news.

edit:

TuggyNE:
Presumably the TWF could also have the +230 damage (to each hit). There's no logical reason to assume not.
Except for the fact that THF tends to deal a lot more damage, because of power attack, and 1.5*strength mod, and shock trooper. THF tending towards far more damage is well documented, especially if you lack precision damage.

[TuggyNE]

TuggyNE:


Presumably the TWF could also have the +230 damage (to each hit). There's no logical reason to assume not.

Now we're getting somewhere! And you're right, I didn't specify why the disparity (which in most games would not be so severe). However, the secret is that those big damage numbers depend on multiplying Power Attack in various ways, and THF is far better at Power Attacking: it can take a larger accuracy ding to do more damage (without Shock Trooper, which makes "penalty to hit" a thing of the past), has double the bonus damage base, and so on and so forth.

[Spuddles]

Isnt all this pretty trivial and irrelevant?

A DFI bard is almost going to get 2x damage with TWF, thanks to all the bonuses to hit.

The only question is whether the bard wants to join melee with everyone with pretty much the single most efficient fear he could take, or do something else, like cast, sing, or skill monkey more effectively.

Another alternative would be to pick up a bow and rapid shot, or even better, dual wield throwing daggers & rapid shot.

[Emperor Tippy]

Tippy: One can not guarantee a hit every single time. And even if you burned thousands of gold for the +20 to hit, you have no way of knowing that roll won't be a 20 anyway, defeating the purpose.
Um no, one can guarantee a natural 20 whenever they want (limited to once per round). At least if you are willing to invest the resources.

Taking 11 on one attack roll per round only costs you like 11K GP iirc.

And anything that requires rolling a natural 20 as a standard part of the build is basically worthless. Again, yes you can make that happen once per round if you really want but absent doing that critical's are simply a nice bonus and not something that should be relied upon.


The point stands, on average a TWF feat user hits more per round than someone using a single weapon, in the exact same cases. It really doesn't matter if you can find a corner case, because the majority of the game isn't that case.
....the number of hits is irrelevant. What matters is the result of those hits. If my one hit consistently does five hundred damage while your ten hits consistently do 300 damage then my one hit is in every way better.


Presumably the TWF could also have the +230 damage (to each hit). There's no logical reason to assume not.
Then you should have no problem writing up an ECL 20 build that uses TWF and consistently deals 230 damage per hit.

[Greenish]

Then you should have no problem writing up an ECL 20 build that uses TWF and consistently deals 230 damage per hit.Revenant Blade Frenzied Berserker using normal charging tricks could probably come close. It'll miss the multiplier from a lance, but everything else should be fair game.

[Edit]: Though now that I look at it, Improved/Supreme Power Attack is iffy with Revenant Blade (and doesn't work with Exotic Weapon Master), by RAW.

[Firechanter]

Okay, I'm game. How does that mainly-Warblade PO character mentioned above churn out an Alpha of 700 as Standard Action?
Diamond Nightmare Blade will probably be involved, but ~175 regular damage is still no mean feat. A link would suffice. Thanks in advance!

[SowZ]

Um no, one can guarantee a natural 20 whenever they want (limited to once per round). At least if you are willing to invest the resources.

Taking 11 on one attack roll per round only costs you like 11K GP iirc.

And anything that requires rolling a natural 20 as a standard part of the build is basically worthless. Again, yes you can make that happen once per round if you really want but absent doing that critical's are simply a nice bonus and not something that should be relied upon.


....the number of hits is irrelevant. What matters is the result of those hits. If my one hit consistently does five hundred damage while your ten hits consistently do 300 damage then my one hit is in every way better.


Then you should have no problem writing up an ECL 20 build that uses TWF and consistently deals 230 damage per hit.

Not to mention that DR is often a factor. If a creature has DR/10 to your hits, 10 attacks at 15 damage a piece, (even if all hit totally up to 150 damage,) is worse than one attack at 75 damage, (half the total damage.) So damage in multiple, smaller chunks has the problem of overcoming DR. Of course, it is better in situations where you are outnumbered by large amounts of foes.

[Greenish]

Of course, it is better in situations where you are outnumbered by large amounts of foes.That is, if they're within reach.

[ahenobarbi]

There was a table somewhere that listed the average stats by CR of MMI monsters. How useful such an average would be is another matter.

Well, the link in my sig has some more data (this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=172050), average & max).

Still this will not be full comparisn, because TWF requires more resources (feats, money) than THF so THFing character can get better defenses (and it's quite hard to land hits when you're dead).

[Emperor Tippy]

Okay, I'm game. How does that mainly-Warblade PO character mentioned above churn out an Alpha of 700 as Standard Action?
Diamond Nightmare Blade will probably be involved, but ~175 regular damage is still no mean feat. A link would suffice. Thanks in advance!

Buy a Craft Contingent Surge of Fortune. You can expend that as an Immediate action to get a natural 20 on your attack roll. Confirm the critical (possibly with Aura of Perfect Order to take 11 on the confirmation roll). Use a Scyth or other x4 Crit weapon.

Use Strike of Perfect Clarity for +100 damage. Swashbuckler adds +13 from Int. Str add's +15. A +5 Collision weapon is another +10. That is +133. Drop the Swordsage for one level of Rogue and one level of Factotum and grab Craven for another +20 with Cunning Insight adding another +13. Power attack for another +15 or so damage (Shock Trooper to dump it onto your AC).

That gives you a standard action attack that does +744 damage and if you feel like it you can actually pull that off every other round for quite a while.

It's not as nasty as the Psion that gets Surge of Fortune once every round at no cost but it is still hideously nasty.

[Greenish]

I thought that by RAW, damage from maneuvers is not multiplied on a crit.

[Emperor Tippy]

I thought that by RAW, damage from maneuvers is not multiplied on a crit.

ToB says "You treat it just as you would extra damage from another special ability, such as sneak attack."

That means multiplied fixed damage numbers while not multiplying extra dice of damage.

So Strike of Perfect Clarity multiplies.

[Pickford]

Buy a Craft Contingent Surge of Fortune. You can expend that as an Immediate action to get a natural 20 on your attack roll. Confirm the critical (possibly with Aura of Perfect Order to take 11 on the confirmation roll). Use a Scyth or other x4 Crit weapon.

Use Strike of Perfect Clarity for +100 damage. Swashbuckler adds +13 from Int. Str add's +15. A +5 Collision weapon is another +10. That is +133. Drop the Swordsage for one level of Rogue and one level of Factotum and grab Craven for another +20 with Cunning Insight adding another +13. Power attack for another +15 or so damage (Shock Trooper to dump it onto your AC).

That gives you a standard action attack that does +744 damage and if you feel like it you can actually pull that off every other round for quite a while.

It's not as nasty as the Psion that gets Surge of Fortune once every round at no cost but it is still hideously nasty.

Insightful Strike doesn't apply to a Scythe.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Insightful Strike doesn't apply to a Scythe.

Yeah, and? Tippy never even mentioned insightful strike.

[Greenish]

Yeah, and? Tippy never even mentioned insightful strike.He means swashbuckler's int to damage with finessable weapon (and not the swordsage class feature or the Diamond Mind maneuver, all of which have the same name).

And, as mentioned, the swashbuckler's trick merely requires the weapon to be finessable. Feycraft scythe should work.

[MeeposFire]

I thought that by RAW, damage from maneuvers is not multiplied on a crit.

On page 43 it says this

"You do not multiply extra damage from a strike with a successful critical hit. You treat it just as you would extra damage from another special ability, such as sneak attack."

The first part is easy to see to say that it is no but the second sentence contradicts it if you see the first sentence as being absolute as sneak attack damage is not multiplied because it is dice but other types do get multiplied if they are just numbers.

On some maneuvers such as diamond nightmare blade it actually tells you how to handle the situation when you crit with the strike to deal with the bonus damage so it shows that they think you could on some strikes.

I think the first sentence is running on the assumption that all strikes did bonus damage dice unlike strike of perfect clarity or diamond nightmare blade. For the vast majority of strikes you can't multiply on a crit so the statement is mostly true. I thin that sentence was written before there non bonus dice strikes or without knowledge of them.

So there are probably a small subset of strikes that can get multiplied on a crit.

[Pickford]

He means swashbuckler's int to damage with finessable weapon (and not the swordsage class feature or the Diamond Mind maneuver, all of which have the same name).

And, as mentioned, the swashbuckler's trick merely requires the weapon to be finessable. Feycraft scythe should work.

Ok, but he didn't say that.

Also, isn't this what feycraft weapon does?


Weighs 10% less; dmg as one size smaller; treat as 1H; if light, use Dex

Nothing there makes it a light weapon. Is there more text that makes it a light weapon?

[ericgrau]

Isnt all this pretty trivial and irrelevant?

A DFI bard is almost going to get 2x damage with TWF, thanks to all the bonuses to hit.

The only question is whether the bard wants to join melee with everyone with pretty much the single most efficient fear he could take, or do something else, like cast, sing, or skill monkey more effectively.

Another alternative would be to pick up a bow and rapid shot, or even better, dual wield throwing daggers & rapid shot.
Or better yet javelins or darts or both (TWF thrown weapons here: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/specialAttacks.htm#thrownWeapons).