What is the most effective TWF?

[Frosty]

I've looked over a few TWF builds, and for the most they just don't impress me compared to what two-handers can do with shock trooper. So far, this is the best build I've come up with to do a decent amount of damage with TWF. Are there any better ones out there?

If I were to ever do two weapon fighting, I'd do this if I could start at around level 10 or so.

Scout3/Ranger6/Barbarian1/Cleric1/Scout2/Ranger7

Do Lion Totem Barbarian to gain Pounce instead of fast movement. Also, use Unearthed Arcana to trade Rage away in return for an extra Favored Enemy.

Trade away one of the Evasions you get for Spell Deflection your Dex bonus/day.

Must have feats: Weapon Finesse, Travel Devotion, Swift Hunter, Improved Skirmish.

Domains to choose: Undeath (gain Extra Turning to fuel Travel Devotion), and Travel.

Swift Hunter lets your ranger and scout levels stack for Skirmish. Skirmish is easier to pull off than sneak attack because you only need to move 10 ft. In order to get a full attack while moving, your one barbarian level allows you to get Pounce, which means you can do a Full Attack in a charge. Travel Devotion allows you to move up to your speed as a swift action, so you can move away and charge on the same turn. The fability lasts one minute per use. Every use beyond the first in the day, you've gotta burn 2 turn attempts. That's where the cleric level and the bonus feat from Undeath domain comes into play.

Swift Hunter also allows you to crit and skirmish things normally immune to crit and skirmish, like oozes, constructs and undead. That is...if you have them as favored enemies. Guess what you'll be taking as your favored enemies? All the types that are immune to precision damage.

So there you go. You can now do 7 attacks a turn, each with an extra 5d6 damage for a total of 35d6 damage before any weapon damage or str bonus is applied. If using light maces for the Lightning Mace feat, with its 1d6 damage, that means if all your attacks hit, you'll do 42d6 + your str bonuses and all that. If you take Improved Critical, you've got a decent chance of getting an extra hit off because when you swing 7 times, there's a good change you'll score a critical threat, which allows you an extra attack.

I'm thinking Rogues can do more damage, but they can't do it as consistently because Sneak Attack is harder to pull off, and there are so many things immune to it.

[Grynning]

For a bit of extra damage, throw in the two-weapon rend feat from PHBII. Extra 1d6+ 1.5x str. every time you connect with both weapons.
I also really like dervish builds for TWF. If you were doing gestalt, something like Scout20//Ranger 6/Ftr 2/Dervish 10/Tempest 2 can be pretty disgusting. Thousand Cuts + Dervish Dance + Skirmish = buckets o' damage.

Edit: Actually, you could do your build on one side of the gestalt, since it involves no PRC's, then do a Fighter/Dervish/Tempest build on the other side. Fighter 5/Dervish 10/Tempest 5 is easiest.
Gods, gestalts are fun on paper, aren't they?

[Ganurath]

I like building toward Lightning Mace + Crushing Strike myself. Tack on Two-Weapon Rend, Improved Buckler Defense for AC... Is there any way to increase the light mace's threat range beyond 19-20?

[Chronicled]

I think we're needing Tome of Battle for this. The Tiger Claw discipline holds the answers to all your TWF wishes!

[Nebo_]

For a bit of extra damage, throw in the two-weapon rend feat from PHBII. Extra 1d6+ 1.5x str. every time you connect with both weapons.
I also really like dervish builds for TWF. If you were doing gestalt, something like Scout20//Ranger 6/Ftr 2/Dervish 10/Tempest 2 can be pretty disgusting. Thousand Cuts + Dervish Dance + Skirmish = buckets o' damage.

Edit: Actually, you could do your build on one side of the gestalt, since it involves no PRC's, then do a Fighter/Dervish/Tempest build on the other side. Fighter 5/Dervish 10/Tempest 5 is easiest.
Gods, gestalts are fun on paper, aren't they?

Tempest is a trap. Bloodclaw master 2 is much, much better.

[Grynning]

BOOO! TOB being brought up already...

And I really don't see tempest as a "trap". 5 levels, full BAB, reduces your twf penalties and gives you extra AC. Not every PRC has to come with flashing lights and a free cookie, y'know.

[Chronicled]

I like building toward Lightning Mace + Crushing Strike myself. Tack on Two-Weapon Rend, Improved Buckler Defense for AC... Is there any way to increase the light mace's threat range beyond 19-20?

Yes. Get Kukris (or any other 18-20 crit weapon), and give the +1 Adaptive Aptitude enhancement from Tome of Battle, which lets them count for any feats you have that apply only to a specific weapon... like Lightning Mace. Now your crit range can be 15-20 (using Keen or Imp Crit)!

[Nebo_]

Is there any way to increase the light mace's threat range beyond 19-20?

Use and aptitude weapon with 18-20 crit.

[Nebo_]

And I really don't see tempest as a "trap". 5 levels, full BAB, reduces your twf penalties and gives you extra AC. Not every PRC has to come with flashing lights and a free cookie, y'know.

Compared to what you should be taking, it sucks. Whoo, +2 to attack.

[Chronicled]

In a discussion about TWF, Person Man's advice proves super effective. Since I don't want to go forum stalk late at night, here's a recent post of his that some might find fun and relevant.

And I really don't see tempest as a "trap". 5 levels, full BAB, reduces your twf penalties and gives you extra AC. Not every PRC has to come with flashing lights and a free cookie, y'know.

If any of my PCs asked to take Tempest, I'd refuse their request since I'm not a sadist. That PrC sucks SO HARD.

SO HARD.

[Chosen_of_Vecna]

Swordsage 20 with Wisdom and Dex to damage is my favorite.

Though Warblade 20 With Int could be good.

Or for fun, Barbarian 1 (Lion Totem of course)/Swashbuckler 3/Warblade 16.

Int to damage twice. Get a decent Str, then pump Int and hope someone sets up to flank your charge.

[Fitz]

Surprised no one has mentioned oversize 2 weapon fighting, paired bastard swords would up the damage, you pump strength instead of dex, and get larger dice for damage.
of course that tails off at higher levels, but good for level 2 to about 4/5

Fitz

[Nebo_]

I hate the concept of dual wielding bastard swords. I see it so much and I can't understand what draws people to it. It's ridiculous.

[leperkhaun]

the revenant blade PrC from ebberon allows a vaalanor elf to wield a double simitar and add 1.5 str to both ends.

its pretty good for a TWF shock trooper build.

[Skjaldbakka]

Any build that gives you an extra move action or pounce is golden for this. I'm playing a 2WF pyschic rogue with hustle in a game starting up next week.

[sun_tzu]

What's wrong with Steel Tempest? It's served my human fighter well.

[Artemician]

I recall OneWinged4ngel was rather fond of that Bard 4/ Warblade 16 build with Dragonfire Inspiration and Song of the White Raven.

+15d6 Energy damage to every strike? Yes please!

[Nebo_]

What's wrong with Steel Tempest? It's served my human fighter well.

First where are you getting 'Steel' from? It's just Tempest. Second, it's abilities aren't any good, the pre-requisites are counter intuitive, it doesn't actually let you do anything you couldn't do before and it doesn't provide extra damage of any kind.

[Artemician]

First where are you getting 'Steel' from? It's just Tempest. Second, it's abilities aren't any good, the pre-requisites are counter intuitive, it doesn't actually let you do anything you couldn't do before and it doesn't provide extra damage of any kind.

It's not good but it ain't bad either. You take Tempest if you have nothing else better to take. It doesn't screw you over really. And it's better than Fighter at least.

[Jack_Simth]

For two-weapon fighting, I'm fond of a pure rogue using UMD and wands for touch spells at high caster level - a Druid's Produce Flame (Effect spell, doesn't vanish when you cast another spell, as you aren't holding the charge) and Chill Touch (Touch spell) being my favorites for melee range, dual Produce Flame spells for at range. Sure, it works out to 15 gp/attack, but a two-weapon full attack touch attack sneak attack on the first round will generally wipe out anything subject to it that's level appropriate.

One of the other effective two-weapon styles is the one that uses Armor Spikes (or a similar no-hand weapon) as the secondary weapon, and uses a normal two-handed weapon as the primary.

[Krelon]

Curious, since I seem not to possess all the material you take the feats and classes, I wanted to ask from which book is Lion Totem Barbarian, Travel Devotion and Swift Hunter?

Btw, is there a way to get pounce with a feat? I see it is quite powerful with TWF.

[Nebo_]

Complete Champion.

There is no way to get Pounce with a feat.

[Rift_Wolf]

If you cut off both your hands and use stump knives, the critical threat range goes up after three rounds from 18-20 to 17-20 (I think). Now add keen to both weapons. I think that means after 3 rounds against the same enemy you get a crit range of 14-20 on top of all that damage.
Of course, your build would suffer xp penalties, even if human.

[Tsotha-lanti]

I hate the concept of dual wielding bastard swords. I see it so much and I can't understand what draws people to it. It's ridiculous.

It's also a total RuneQuest thing, not a D&D thing. (In the sidebar story in Cults of Terror and Lords of Terror, the two heroes are even described as wielding iron bastard swords in both hands.)

[Azerian Kelimon]

Complete Champion.

There is no way to get Pounce with a feat.

Two. Weapon. Pounce. PHBII, I believe.

Touché.

[sun_tzu]

First where are you getting 'Steel' from? It's just Tempest.

Assuming we're talking about the prestige class from the Complete Adventurer, it was translated as "Tempete d'acier" in the French manual I got it from.
And really...with four levels of it, I got +2 to AC and +6 to AB. Not too shabby, IMO.

[SamTheCleric]

I'm a fan of Dervish dual wielding scimitars, personally... but that just may be me.

[Nebo_]

Two. Weapon. Pounce. PHBII, I believe.

Touché.

That's not real pounce, it only lets you attack once with each weapon.

[Darrin]

Surprised no one has mentioned oversize 2 weapon fighting, paired bastard swords would up the damage, you pump strength instead of dex, and get larger dice for damage.
of course that tails off at higher levels, but good for level 2 to about 4/5

I am the biggest fan of bastard swords, but it's not worth it. You have to burn two feats (EWP and OversizeTWF), and in a TWF build you don't have a lot of extra feats to burn. The extra damage of oversizing two bastard swords is minimal, +1 more than dual longswords, and only +2 more than dual short swords. Pumping strength instead of dex may lock you out of ImpTWF and GrTWF, and in order to match the damage payout of PA+LA you have to hit more than four times (only half str bonus on your offhand strikes).

A Swift Ambusher build can keep up with the UberPA junkies:

Scout 4/Ranger 6/Dragon Devotee 4/Unseen Seer 4/Highland Stalker 2 (you can squeeze Barbarian in there by dropping a level of Scout or Ranger, but you lose a bonus feat)

This gets your skirmish damage up to 8d6, 10d6 with Improved Skirmish+Travel Devotion. That's 35 bonus damage on average. To compete with PA+LA, at ECL 20 they can dump 20 BAB for 80 extra damage, so you've got to hit at least three times (35 x 3 = 105 damage) to keep up. But the build above uses every single feat plus bonus feats to pull that off. The PA+LA thug can get away with just two feats, or more likely just four: PA, IBR, LA, Shock Trooper. He has at least three more feats, plus fighter/PrC bonus feats to improve his damage or do something else.

[Darrin]

There is no way to get Pounce with a feat.

Careful, you're going to make the Snow Tiger Berzerkers and Lion Tribe Warriors cry:

http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-..._Berserker,Una
http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-...be_Warrior,ShS
http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-...folk_Pounce,RW