Bardblade: TWF worth it?

[Elves]

For a generic bard3-4/warblade16-17, is it worth dual wielding? I realize the answer depends on party comp, but what do you think the breakpoint is?

A TWF feat order would look like:

human: dragontouched
1st: draconic heritage (battle dragon)
flaw 1: dragonfire inspiration
flaw 2: TWF
3: snowflake wardance
6: song of the white raven
9, 12, 15, 18: some mix of words of creation, song of the heart, extra music, imp TWF and greater TWF, possibly melodic casting to use a wand of creaking cacophony while singing


The advantage of not TWFing would be that Extra Music could be taken as a flaw feat, then 9:WOC and 12:SOTH, with 15 and 18 used for or Melodic Casting and either something like Lingering Song or late-game TWF.

If TWFing, am I right in thinking that for 9-18, Inspire Courage boosters should still come before Imp&Greater TWF? Relevant as the game will focus on mid levels so the 15-18 feats might never come into play.

Thanks.

[liquidformat]

So you can get TWF from gloves, or ITWF if you already have TWF, So I would suggest getting the gloves and focusing on the bard side then take TWF at 15 and check with your dm see if they will let the gloves give you gtwf if you have itwf, if not stick with TWF and fill in the blank for the last feat.

[Battleship789]

I'm not completely sure about this, but I think Snowflake Wardance may not be compatible with TWF. My reading of the feat is that you can only use a single melee weapon, wielded in one hand. Though, if you/your DM have ruled that it works with TWF then I see no reason not to use liquidformat's idea.

[tyckspoon]

For a generic bard3-4/warblade16-17, is it worth dual wielding? I realize the answer depends on party comp, but what do you think the breakpoint is?


Personally I'd say it depends on how often you expect to be making a Full Attack/using a TWF-compatible Strike. If your first couple of turns are likely to involve mostly setting up buffs or casting a spell instead of attacking, I wouldn't bother investing in TWF - by the time you are ready to lay in with your own attacks your allies have probably done most of the work already on the back of the buffs you laid down.

Also, somewhat unrelated, but keep in mind you're going to be really hard up for Bardic Music usages - Song of the White Raven doesn't stack your levels for those, and you're looking at potentially 3 Bardic Music uses per fight (Snowflake Wardance, Dragonfire Inspiration, regular Inspiration if you need extra damage or want the to-hit bonus as well.) Although with near full Warblade progession I guess the plan could be to fight normally/with just maneuvers for most situations and crack out the Inspiration suite only when you ID something unusually tough? Spending a lot of resources into the trick for something you only do in rare fights, tho.. you might want to look into Extra Music for a feat choice.

[liquidformat]

From reading through Snowflake Wardance I don't see anything that rules out TWF, it says any one handed weapon, no shields and no medium or heavier armor.

I would agree with Tyckspoon, look at what you are wanting to do and how often, as is you will be Bardic Music starved. Also dreadful wrath might be a nice feat to look at, I always like it on my bards.

[Elves]

you can get TWF from gloves
Great, thank you, hadn't heard of these. So I'll take 1 TWF feat at most, get ITWF from these and just live without the last one.


If your first couple of turns are likely to involve mostly setting up buffs or casting a spell instead of attacking, I wouldn't bother investing in TWF - by the time you are ready to lay in with your own attacks your allies have probably done most of the work already on the back of the buffs you laid down.

Yeah, I guess by default it would be 2 rounds preparation. Though Creaking Cacophony could be substituted for Inspirational Boost:

swift: start music
standard: wand cast
immediate: badge of valor
(then pouncing charge next round)

Trading 2d6 (with WOC) damage for +50% sonic damage. Which would be a good trade except that Cacophony only affects an 80x80ft area, which isn't very hard to leave. I guess it would be situational.


Bardic Music usages

Good point. Extra Music definitely > Melodic Casting, which would only come up in rare encounters where the character is doing the 2-round prep routine AND maintaining IC longer than 1 round -- mass battles, or encounters with multiple waves, or whatever.


I just realized, I was assuming Song of the White Raven allows swift action sustain of Inspire Courage, but it seems like it only allows swift action activation:


While you are in any White Raven stance, you can activate your bardic music ability to inspire courage as a swift action.

If that's true, then for a snowflake bard, sustaining IC multiple rounds would be especially rare. (Or am I being thick and IC doesn't take "concentration" to sustain?)

[tyckspoon]

I just realized, I was assuming Song of the White Raven allows swift action sustain of Inspire Courage, but it seems like it only allows swift action activation:



If that's true, then for a snowflake bard, sustaining IC multiple rounds would be especially rare.

Maintaining Inspire Courage is a non-action - you just keep singing/doing whatever performance, as long as you aren't taking any other action that specifically interrupts it (basically anything that would normally stop you from acting, plus anything that would stop you from using your voice/hands/etc to do your particular kind of performance.) So you could, for example, be a percussionist and have one hand beating a rhythm on a small drum hanging at your waist while your other hand carries your weapon, and normal fighting and even talking wouldn't interfere with you performing.

[Elves]

Gotcha. Ty for the clarification. Melodic Casting does have some use then, but still less than Extra Music.

---

May just see if silverbrow human can be houseruled to work for draconic heritage (silver), do the rite of draconic affinity to switch it to battle dragon later and then spend the human feat elsewhere which solves the whole issue nicely.

[Darrin]

Bard 4/Warblade 16 is probably the better break. One more bardic music, 1st level spells, and your IL progression evens out.

The nice thing about Bardblade is it's a force multiplier, so it's not quite so important which feats you take and when. The bulk of your damage output is going to come from the rest of the party. So yes, party composition is important, but also not so important, because support PCs and even some of the squishy REMFs will be punching above their weight class.

Hmm. I might prefer Dragonborn of Bahamut over Silverbrow Human. You can trade one of your feats for Dragon Tail, add Prehensile Tail and maybe Oversized TWF, and you can wield three slashing weapons at once. However, you're most likely stuck with [fire] damage as the default, as it's more difficult to pick up Draconic Heritage.


I'm not completely sure about this, but I think Snowflake Wardance may not be compatible with TWF. My reading of the feat is that you can only use a single melee weapon, wielded in one hand. Though, if you/your DM have ruled that it works with TWF then I see no reason not to use liquidformat's idea.

It is compatible (each hand can wield a one-handed or light slashing weapon), but not nearly as effective as most people think it is because the damage output is so low. I usually recommend against Snowflake Wardance as a trap, because it doesn't add any bonus damage, which is where TWF tends to fall significantly behind THF. Dragonfire Inspiration fixes that, so I wouldn't mind it so much on a Bardblade. (It's also less important for SFWD to work well, since the rest of the party will be dishing out more DPS). The other problem with SFWD is it burns through your bardic music much faster, particularly if you're only getting 4 uses per day. Getting TWF, Extra Music, SFWD, and Words of Creation all into the same build is a bit much, so you have to do some pondering to prioritize what you want to focus on.

[Elves]

Hmm. I might prefer Dragonborn of Bahamut over Silverbrow Human. You can trade one of your feats for Dragon Tail, add Prehensile Tail and maybe Oversized TWF, and you can wield three slashing weapons at once. However, you're most likely stuck with [fire] damage as the default, as it's more difficult to pick up Draconic Heritage.

Dragonborn also gets a +10 racial bonus to Jump, which is great for a TWFer using Tiger Claw, but I lean toward sonic mattering more since fire resist screws everyone's DFI damage.


I usually recommend against Snowflake Wardance as a trap, because it doesn't add any bonus damage, which is where TWF tends to fall significantly behind THF.

I saw it as compensating for TWF's attack penalties. I know without PA that's less of an issue, but don't people using PA heavily take Shock Trooper anyway?

But dishing Snowflake would remove the music scarcity problem, freeing up the Extra Music feat slot as well. So you could be dragonborn and still get sonic DFI, or snatch song of the heart earlier, or take warblade 1 early, Song of the White Raven at 3, and have Words of Creation online at 6th instead of 9th. Not a bad idea.