Two handing with a buckler

[NineThePuma]

Hi! I'm very much not a Power Attacker, but I'm staring at a Buckler and wondering if it's feasible to put a Masterwork Buckler (which has no armor check penalty) on a two hander, with the intent to eliminate that pesky -1 for two handing with a buckler on. Thoughts?

[Claudius Maximus]

I don't think there's any way to get rid of the penalty, unfortunately.

One other thing you need to worry about is the fact that if you attack with your buckler arm, you lose the shield bonus it would normally give you. There is a feat that solves this, called Improved Buckler Defense is memory serves.

At higher levels, I would suggest just using an animated shield, unless you just like the idea of using a buckler more than anything else.

[Seffbasilisk]

There's a feat from Complete Warrior that does.

Edit: Improved Buckler Defense lets you keep the AC. Let me keep-a-lookin'...

[John Campbell]

Unlike the penalty for fighting with a shield you're not proficient with, the penalty for wielding a weapon in your buckler hand isn't the buckler's ACP; it's just a flat -1 penalty, so masterworking it doesn't gain you anything.

[NineThePuma]

I'm pressed for feats, even though I get a number of bonuses, though I CAN cash my flaws in to move some stuff around.

The build is intended for a one shot campaign using Psionic Weapon and Power Attack to deal an impressive ~30 on a single hit. Which is intended to be enough to off a zombie in a single hit, in the beginning. A two handed weapon boosts damage by about 5, plus whatever gets Power Attack'd out. But defense is pretty importanttoo, hence the shield.

[ericgrau]

~7(weapon) + 7(strength) + 7(psionic weapon)=21. I assume you're blowing all 5 BAB into power attack for the 30? Misses don't harm zombies. What's worse is you need to blow your psionic focus before making the attack, so that's two feats blown for one gigantic wiff. What you're looking for is shock trooper to cheese out free PA without losing AB. Otherwise PA is best done with 2-4 BAB, 4 BAB usually doesn't do much more than 2 (if it beats it at all) and even at 2 BAB most of that 4 damage is lost to missing. Once you add more damage from other sources losing that damage to missing can even mean PA makes your average damage go down.

If your group doesn't let you exploit obvious editing mistakes like shock trooper then you're looking at a minor benefit from PA which does not mix well with psionic weapon. There may be other options.

EDIT: In the case of a CR 3 zombie (4 make an EL 7 encounter) you're looking at 15 AC. 5 BAB + 5 str AB + 2 misc. (MW weapon, etc.) = 12 AB = hit 18 out of 20 times => 13 out of 20 => 27% of your 30 damage lost => 8.1 of your +10 damage lost. You still get +1.9, which is ok I guess.

[Coidzor]

If your group doesn't let you exploit obvious editing mistakes like shock trooper then you're looking at a minor benefit from PA which does not mix well with psionic weapon. There may be other options.

What's the editing mistake there?

[ericgrau]

1/3 of a feat that appears in most optimized builds, while the other 2/3 is totally ignored along with all the other tri-feats is obviously way too good of a thing which the editors missed. Even if it was a whole feat something that every competitive build has would be plenty reason to ban it in a more competitive game. All the 1/3rd feats surrounding it are obviously meant to be minor things (which is why each feat gives you 3 of them) and then bam there's shock trooper... or I mean 1/3 of it. It's utterly ridiculous.

[Eldariel]

1/3 of a feat that appears in most optimized builds, while the other 2/3 is totally ignored along with all the other tri-feats is obviously way too good of a thing which the editors missed. Even if it was a whole feat something that every build has would be plenty reason to ban it in a more competitive game. All the 1/3rd feats surrounding it are obviously meant to be minor things and then bam there's shock trooper... or I mean 1/3 of it. It's utterly ridiculous.

Just allow full attacking after moving and it's fine. There's absolutely no reason to gimp melee types by only allowing them to deal proper damage when standing absolutely still while others can move and fight with standard actions. Heck, if anything, it should be the other way around

[ericgrau]

Feat tax is not a fix. It's justifying a problem with another problem. Homebrew it if you want, don't let in wonky mistakes.

[Eldariel]

Feat tax is not a fix. It's justifying a problem with another problem.

Well, what's the alternative? It's simply bad business to say "Ok, we screwed up so here, let us modify the rules a bit." I mean, with Shock Trooper, Pounce for Barbarians, Bounding Assault-line, Travel Devotion, etc. it seems like they've been doing all sorts of stuff to fix that little issue. Looking at it, it seems like they've been trying "stealth fixes" just steering clear from modifying PHB.

[ericgrau]

Maybe that could be an argument for some things, but shock trooper is a joke. It's in a sea of minor things, including the other 2/3 of shock trooper.

Personally I've never seen issues with melee in civil games and people do just fine whether playing a caster or non caster... except when people accidentally break the system with such feats. Not everyone uses a paragraph from each book when making builds. Most people require a lot of help to find them so instead 1 or 2 might show up on rare occasion. Screwing up the system on purpose so that casters can only keep up if they break the system - which they can do 10 times harder if you're not being civil - is not the answer. "Civil" doesn't mean holding back either. It just means people who simply aren't trying to abuse the system, which seems to be 90% of gaming groups. Often they haven't even heard of a problem. Heck, in mine the monk and now the fighter are banned for abuse potential. Just recently I heard them say the sorcerer was obviously better than the wizard. It's highly amusing. Not that I believe any of it nor the opposite.

Anyway the OP should probably go for weapon focus + psionic weapon, at least over PA + psionic weapon. Or something else, but not that combo. Or if he's not going for high damage and goes for a mix of damage + whatever, then PA by itself (w/o other damage boosters) gives ~3.5 damage per hit after misses instead of 1.9 which would make it worth more.

[NineThePuma]

I'm using a gestalt Psionic Warrior (with Greater Psionic Weapon) and a home brewed Samurai (TG Oskar's) that pulls some cool stuff with Power Attack. I get 1d10 + 4d6 + 10 (5 from 'strength' and 5 free from an interaction with Power Attack) that gets pumped to an opponent in a single strike. While I acknowledge that full attacking is more valuable against most foes, DR makes things tough. I like that damage range.

Psionic Weapon adds 2d6, Greater adds 4d6. At the cost of focus. Psionic Meditation allows regaining focus as a move action. It's pretty good looking on paper. If I got a good sword for, say, acid or something...