Double Slice Hate

[IronwolfXVI]

Basically I'm just curious as to why people hate on double slice, seems like a nice way for a two weapon warrior to get some extra damage independent from his damage roll. Especially if said character rolled an 18 for strength and was an orc. That a minimum of 14 damage at low levels. So why do guides seem to hate Double Slice?

[Extra Anchovies]

Getting +1/2 Strength to damage on half of your attacks, in a build that will likely be prioritizing Dexterity over Strength, is generally not much of a boost. Your 22-Strength orc would be getting +3 damage on their off-hand attacks, which averages to at most +1.5 damage per attack - less than Weapon Specialization. It can still be useful on Slayers and Rangers, because they can both get the TWF chain without needing to meet the Dex requirements; however, even they still need 15 Dexterity to take Double Slice if they don't get it from a combat style.

[AvatarVecna]

Basically I'm just curious as to why people hate on double slice, seems like a nice way for a two weapon warrior to get some extra damage independent from his damage roll. Especially if said character rolled an 18 for strength and was an orc. That a minimum of 14 damage at low levels. So why do guides seem to hate Double Slice?

Firstly, TWF is more for Dex builds; even rangers greatly benefit from having Dex for other reasons, even if they don't necessarily need it for TWF pre-reqs (things like AC/Initiative/sneaking/etc). Keeping two stats high is hard, so keeping Str high enough to make Double Slice a viable feat choice is difficult.

Secondly, let's say you've got an 18 Str; you just went from 2 points of damage from Str to 4 points of damage from Str; your net gain is +2 damage...which is just as awesome as Weapon Specialization. Except it's actually worse than that, because WS would apply to both weapons (assuming you're not a moron dual-wielding different weapons), so it's not even as good as Weapon Specialization, an often-reviled feat. Now, if your Str is higher than 18, and you've got enough Dex or Ranger levels to get good TWF, it becomes slightly more viable than WS.

Thirdly, you only get so many feats; regardless of how good or bad it may be considered in a vacuum, it's an inferior choice to several feats that guides tend to mention often.

[IronwolfXVI]

Alright that makes more sense, I guess for some reason I wasn't looking at it in comparison to weapon specialization, most everyone just says it's bad without a lot of explanation. A friend of mine just rolled an 18 and a 15 as his highest stats, it just gave me an idea I guess.

[LTwerewolf]

There are ways in both systems to get dex to damage on melee weapons (deadly agility or shadow blade), so you can dump str for other stats and get a similar return.

[IronwolfXVI]

I'm not terribly worried about dex to damage, it's not as easy as it was before some errata, the exception being agile weapons. The idea was to basically dual wield either bastard swords or katana and wreck face. Two weapon warrior alleviates a lot of the penalties at mid to higher levels.

[LTwerewolf]

If you're playing pathfinder you're going to have issues using bastard swords or katanas with two weapon fighting. In 3.5 you get an additional feat tax for almost no difference in damage. Go with a wakizashi instead and save a headache.

[IronwolfXVI]

If you're playing pathfinder you're going to have issues using bastard swords or katanas with two weapon fighting. In 3.5 you get an additional feat tax for almost no difference in damage. Go with a wakizashi instead and save a headache.

Two weapon Warrior is the exception if all you mean is the penalties. Because of improved balance treating an offhand weapon that is one handed as light for the purposes of twf.

[AvatarVecna]

Dual-wielding only gets really good if you have easy access to some seriously powerful damage bonuses, like rogues or gunslingers. Fighters can be alright at it, to be sure, but if I want to get lots of attacks with a katana, I go the Crusader's Flurry route; flurry gets as many attacks, and I can even flurry with the katana while two-handing it for more Str bonuses and better PA tradeoffs.

Two Weapon Warrior will work well enough though...it's just not what I would do.

[IronwolfXVI]

What if I used my full bab awesomeness to crit fish? It would have a higher chance than a rogue to critical. And strength is added on each damage roll for criticals.

Also thanks for all the input everybody, I appreciate the other points of view.

[AvatarVecna]

What if I used my full bab awesomeness to crit fish? It would have a higher chance than a rogue to critical. And strength is added on each damage roll for criticals.

Full BAB doesn't make your criticals any better, except that it makes you slightly more likely to hit if (for whatever reason) you needed to roll in your crit threat range to hit your target (ex: if both a rogue and a fighter dual-wielding katanas are attacking a creature the fighter needs a 19 to hit, the rogue will only hit on a 20, but the fighter will hit on a 19 or 20, thus hitting twice as often). That's a niche, though...and it's not the real problem fighters have: if the rogue is getting Sneak Attack, they will be doing more damage per round than you unless the foe you're fighting has a ridiculously high AC for your level...and getting Sneak Attack as a melee rogue isn't that difficult, it just requires one other non-friendly creature to be next to the enemy you're fighting. But hey, that only happens literally all the time in a standard party. Sure, there's some foes that are immune to SA, and the rogue is worse at that point, but that's not exactly a common immunity.

But let's say you're fighting an enemy with a super-high AC that the rogue can barely hit at all, who also happens to be immune to Sneak Attack; you'll be miles ahead of the rogue in DPR...but you'll still be lagging behind the dual-wielding gunslinger. Two Weapon Warrior isn't bad, it makes dual-wielding more viable for the Fighter, but dual-wielding is best when you have very big and very dependable damage bonuses...and crit fishing only carries you so far.

[LTwerewolf]

In the areas that sneak attack fails, crit fishing does too.

[AvatarVecna]

In the areas that sneak attack fails, crit fishing does too.

That's not entirely true; while most things that give immunity to SA also give immunity to crits, SA generally gives more damage than crits do. It's also worth mentioning that Improved Uncanny Dodge lets you ignore SA but not crits. Granted, anything screwing over SA is screwing over crit fishers almost as much almost as often, so it's pretty close.

[IronwolfXVI]

Thanks, I read a lot about pathfinder but find my knowledge of higher level combat lacking. My highest level character is 5 at the moment. So I appreciate your insight as to how this works in a practical sense.

[LTwerewolf]

This (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/path-of-war/prestige-classes/dragon-fury) is a pretty decent class for two weapon fighting if PoW is available to you. Still has the problem of MAD (str, minimum 15 dex, con for being a frontliner, AND your initiating modifier). Even with the MAD, it's not bad though. Under most circumstances dex two weapon fighters are easier to accomplish.

[AvatarVecna]

Thanks, I read a lot about pathfinder but find my knowledge of higher level combat lacking. My highest level character is 5 at the moment. So I appreciate your insight as to how this works in a practical sense.

One thing that'll really help you while learning to optimize is to understand opportunity cost: Double Slice does not literally penalize you, in that taking the feat makes you worse (it gives you half your Str mod as damage to one of your weapons), but because there's better options, you're losing out by spending resources on suboptimal options. Once you become more familiar with the system, these things become more obvious, easier to spot. And to be clear, taking worse options because you like the idea of them is totally fine; if you want to dual-wield katanas, Two Weapon Warrior is a great route to take. But accepting that there's better options available, whether it's as simple as "gunslingers are better for targeting Touch AC" or as nuanced as "wizards are better because they reshape the cosmos" is part of optimizing. If we just played the best option availabe, we'd all be full casters...but that gets boring sometimes. And when it does, learning to optimize helps you be the best katana-wielder you can be.