Making a two weapon fighting two-handed weapon build.

[Zellsantal]

Hey guys I'm hoping you can give me a hand here. I am trying to make a character who can use two two-handed weapons. From what I have gather so far I have the fallowing feats as a 7th level gestalt barbarian/fighter, I still have room for a few more feats I believe but I first want to know what would be the penalties for a "melee" two weapon fighter.

Monkey grip
Two weapon fighting
Improve two weapon fighting
Over size weapon
combat reflex's
Double hit.

That's what I have, now just wondering if I say I have two great swords would it be a -2 to all my base attacks? If I understand right with this level I would have about four attacks and three of them would be the same attack while the 4th be lower. I Str of 19 which gives me a +4 for Att, my Bab is +7 which adds to be +11. So with what I have would it be 11/11/11/5? or 9/9/9/3? or have I miss something?

[Mike Miller]

Over sized weapon is [epic] so you can't have that at level 7. Also, monkey grip says " You cannot wield a larger weapon in your off hand" so you can't duel wield two handed weapons as you are proposing.

[Zellsantal]

Oversized Two-Weapon Fighting
( Complete Adventurer, p. 111)

[Fighter Bonus Feat, General]

You are adept at wielding larger than normal weapons in your off hand.
Prerequisite
Two-Weapon Fighting (PH) , STR 13,
Benefit
When wielding a one-handed weapon in your off hand, you take penalties for fighting with two weapons as if you were wielding a light weapon in your off hand (see page 160 of the Player's Handbook).
Special
A fighter may select Oversized Two-Weapon Fighting as one of his fighter bonus feats.
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Monkey Grip
( Complete Warrior, p. 103)

[General]

You are able to use a larger weapon than other people your size.
Prerequisite
Base attack bonus +1,
Required for
Wield Oversized Weapon (CW) ,
Benefit
You can use melee weapons one size category larger than you are with a -2 penalty on the attack roll, but the amount of effort it takes you to use the weapon does not change. For instance, a Large longsword (a one-handed weapon for a Large creature) is considered a two-handed weapon for a Medium creature that does not have this feat. For a Medium creature that has this feat, it is still considered a one-handed weapon. You can wield a larger light weapon as a light weapon, or a larger two-handed weapon in two hands. You cannot wield a larger weapon in your off hand, and you cannot use this feat with a double weapon.
Normal
You can use a melee weapon one size category larger than you are with a -2 penalty on the attack roll, and the amount of effort it takes to use the weapon increases. A larger light weapon is considered a one-handed weapon, a larger one-handed weapon is considered a two-handed weapon, and you cannot use a larger two-handed weapon at all.


There is nothing saying I can't take oversize. By what monkey grip is worded it I can use a two handed weapon as if it was one handed I mean if I can use a large two handed weapon would it not stand to reason I can use two two-handed weapons?

Ok I see how that was miss leading forgot to put the 'two handed' part with the oversize. My bad.

[Menzath]

I've tried the same thing, and the build either will heavily rely on magic items or other cheese to function well.

The best case is taking Titan bloodline and using two gargantuan hammers.

Better off though using large+ sized light weapons. Or better yet if you want two two-handed weapons, get more arms. That way you still get the added str and pwr atk bonus, without getting a lot of attack penalties.

[gkathellar]

If you allow Dragon Compendium, there’s a race of insect-people (diopsid, I think) who seem to have been designed for this single, solitary purpose. They can skip the Dex requirements on TWF feats and hold two-handed weapons one-handed - explained as using their sixth pair of limbs to supplement their big ones. LA+1.

[ShurikVch]

And how about Thri-kreen in the Shining South? 2 HD and LA +1

[MaxiDuRaritry]

I did this with a thri-kreen, once. I envisioned him wielding a greatsword on both the left and the right pairs of hands, looking much like a human would wielding a pair of extremely large short swords, but the DM informed me that, no, I had to wield one weapon in my upper arms and one in my lower (the mental image of which looked unwieldy, unrealistic, and retarded), which of course meant I was constantly getting in my own way, and frequently had to drop a weapon so I wouldn't cut myself up with the too-large blades.

I hated playing under that moron of a DM. He was the one that wouldn't let most of the party have any magic items at all, while giving the party's pair of paladin brothers innumerable artifact weapons, armors, and shields that only worked for them, because "paladins are awesome." And said artifacts frequently split into clones of themselves, so both paladins eventually had dozens of the things that they couldn't use, just to taunt the rest of us. He got ticked off at me when I came in as a new player (never having played with them before) with a new cleric with full WBL, and immediately killed my character off because I broke the rules and had magic items (which he didn't tell me not to do).

I didn't stay with that group for long.

[Darrin]

By what monkey grip is worded it I can use a two handed weapon as if it was one handed I mean if I can use a large two handed weapon would it not stand to reason I can use two two-handed weapons?


Monkey Grip does not work that way. It says you can wield a weapon one size larger without increasing the handedness. This allows you to wield a larger-sized longsword in one hand, or wield a larger-sized two-handed sword in two hands. However, you still incur a -2 weapon size penalty. Normally, increasing a weapon's size means you have to increase the handedness: a larger-sized longsword requires two hands to wield, and a larger-sized two-handed sword cannot be wielded at all.

(That being said... many, many, many people think Monkey Grip works this way, allowing two-handed weapons to be gripped one-handed. Given how ineffective Monkey Grip tends to be for medium-sized characters, you could consider talking with the DM to allow Monkey Grip to work this way as a house rule.)

If you have a race/form with four or more arms, it is possible to wield a pair of two-handed weapons, but you couldn't use Oversized TWF in that case, because Oversized TWF only works with one-handed weapons. There aren't a lot of ways to treat two-handed weapons as one-handed, so in these cases your TWF penalties are going to be -4 primary and -4 secondary.

You can use Monkey Grip with Oversized TWF and EWP: Bastard Sword to wield a pair of oversized bastard swords: 2d8 damage, but you still have to take the -2 weapon size penalty. The average damage increase is only 3.5 (1d10 averages 5.5 damage, 2d8 averages 9 damage), so Monkey Grip is worse than just taking Power Attack for a -2 attack penalty, which gets you +4 damage, and you can choose when you want to take an attack penalty.

Now, if you do want to mix TWF with two-handed weapons, it's actually pretty easy to do that with only two arms: two-handed weapon + armor spikes, or Improved Unarmed Strike, or adding something like Dragon Tail + Prehensile Tail. Since most two-handed builds rely on Power Attack for bonus damage, you're ideally looking for some arrangement that allows you to add Power Attack damage to your offhand attack. Armor spikes won't work because they are light weapons. Improved Unarmed Strike works because there's an exception in Power Attack specifically for unarmed strikes. Dragon Tail + Prehensile Tail + Oversized TWF works because you can treat a one-handed weapon as light for attack purposes, but for damage purposes it's still treated as a one-handed weapon.

There are a few esoteric methods to wielding multiple two-handed weapons, but it's probably going to require some combination of template abuse with a little rules-wankery, and is unlikely to work with an uncooperative DM.