Quadruple-wielding?

[Admiral Squish]

Out of curiosity, is there a number of attacks that would make two-weapon fighting viable as an alternative to two-handed fighting? I ask, because rule of cool is seriously making me consider a dolgrim warrior quadruple-wielding longswords. Also, with the two 'primary' hands dolgrim get, does that mean two attacks on a standard action? And, finally, does quick draw work both ways, drawing and sheathing?

[The Necroswanso]

Are you talking about attacking with four hands? IE: Multiweapon fighting feat?

And to my knowledge regardless of how many primary hands you have, (see: Monk's Unarmed Strike) attacking more than once is always a full attack action. More primary hands just means more damage.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

The feat you're looking for is Multi-Weapon Fighting. I'm sure there's a point where it's viable, but I just don't know when without bonus damage.

[Dallas-Dakota]

Out of curiosity, is there a number of attacks that would make two-weapon fighting viable as an alternative to two-handed fighting? I ask, because rule of cool is seriously making me consider a dolgrim warrior quadruple-wielding longswords. Also, with the two 'primary' hands dolgrim get, does that mean two attacks on a standard action? And, finally, does quick draw work both ways, drawing and sheathing?

Quadruple-wielding is only available to mutated beings and monkeys and monkey-like beings.

[Xuincherguixe]

I suspect there might be some potential to this with Psychic Warrior. There are some powers that let you add extra damage to your weapons. The problem here is that it would take several actions on them all. Medium BAB is also a problem, but that can be fixed by going into Slayer.

[Admiral Squish]

Yes, I know all about the multiweapon fighting chain. That's what's written on the sheet, anyway. You know, now that I think about it, are there multiweapon equivalents to the rest of the two-weapon feats? I.E, multiweapon defense, multiweapon rend, multiweapon pounce, Oversized multiweapon fighting, etc, etc, etc?

And Dallas? Dolgrim pretty much are mutated little freaks of nature.

[Soup of Kings]

You know what's fun?
Get Multi-Weapon Fighting.
Get two dancing swords.
Get two other, similar swords.
Get two Gloves of Storing.
Store a mundane sword in one Glove and a Dancing Sword in the other. Sheathe thee other two swords.
When combat starts, draw a mundane sword from it's sheath and a Dancing Sword from a Glove, and command it to Dance.
Next round, draw the other Dancing Sword and make it Dance, then draw your other mundane sword from it's sheath.
Now you're a maelstrom of whirling death, and you only need two hands and two rounds for it.

For clarity, can a Dancing Sword attack on the round it's loosed? And does it use the PC's actions to attack? Because the way we play, it's yes and no, respectively, but I'm not sure how correct that is.

[ZeroNumerous]

Quadruple-wielding is only available to mutated beings and monkeys and monkey-like beings.

And Thri-Keen.

On 2H VS 2W: No. It never becomes 'better' to have Two-Weapon Fighting(or Multi-Weapon Fighting) over an ubercharger capable of dealing a thousand points of damage or more.

[SurlySeraph]

And Thri-Keen.

On 2H VS 2W: No. It never becomes 'better' to have Two-Weapon Fighting(or Multi-Weapon Fighting) over an ubercharger capable of dealing a thousand points of damage or more.

Unless you have obscene amounts of bonus damage. A Rogue that takes a few PrCs that give +1d6 Sneak Attack at 1st level can get +12d6 or more Sneak Attack at 20th level. Add in Craven (adds your character level to sneak attack damage) and a bunch of weapon enchantments that each add 1 or 2 d6s of damage (flaming, frost, shock, holy, etc.), and you can do lot of damage per attack. Extra attacks, obviously, makes this a lot stronger. No, it can't get to the same level of ridiculousness as a charge build with Pounce, but it can be very powerful.

Basically, if Shock Trooper and all ways of getting Pounce are unavailable, the two-weapon fighter may be able to keep up. If not, there's no way.

@V: Shock Trooper lets you take the Power Attack to-hit penalty to your AC instead. Therefore, you can power attack for full without reducing your chances of hitting. Since having a big penalty to your armor isn't a problem if everything around you is dead, it pretty much lets you power attack for full for free.

[Admiral Squish]

Hmm... Wait a sec. Leap attack doubles PA for anything but a two-hander, and triples for a two-hander. With Two-weapon pounce, you'd be eating another -2 penalty, but you'd get 4x the PA. Then bonus attacks from improved two-weapon, greater two-weapon, all that, and the damage applies to them all. Are we approaching competitive now? And with four arms, it's x8.

Forgive me, I don't really know what shock trooper does, so ignore this if shock trooper completely negates this idea.

[tyckspoon]

Yes, I know all about the multiweapon fighting chain. That's what's written on the sheet, anyway. You know, now that I think about it, are there multiweapon equivalents to the rest of the two-weapon feats? I.E, multiweapon defense, multiweapon rend, multiweapon pounce, Oversized multiweapon fighting, etc, etc, etc?

Written? No, but they're the easiest things in the world to homebrew. It's almost never more than a search-replace of things like 'off-hand weapon' with 'all your off-hand weapons.'

[Justyn]

And Thri-Keen.

The Insectile Template has six arms, unless you insist on a very literal interpretation of the rules as they are written.

On 2H VS 2W: No. It never becomes 'better' to have Two-Weapon Fighting(or Multi-Weapon Fighting) over an übercharger capable of dealing a thousand points of damage or more.

Not everyone plays the game to deal out 1337 damage. And some DMs are not too fond of overuse of curdled dairy products.

[Ecalsneerg]

Not everyone plays the game to deal out 1337 damage. And some DMs are not too fond of overuse of curdled dairy products.

Ok, let's even assume you're not really optimising. The 2HF beats the 2-4WF hands down.

[SoD]

And Thri-Keen.

And Chitines. Chitines actually get multiweapon fighting as a bonus feat.

I've always wanted to play a Thrikeen with 4 two-bladed swords. Just 'cos it'd look so cool.

[Azerian Kelimon]

You mean, two two bladed swords. It requires two hands to wield one of them.

[Moak]

Ok, let's even assume you're not really optimising. The 2HF beats the 2-4WF hands down.

2HF > 2WF

I don't know if 4WF>2HF...but I think that

4HF>4WF

I think that,speaking of 4 creature with 4 arms,they will probably wield the 2H weapon with 4 arms (adding 2.5 STR modifier IIRC)...

Sure,4WF is badass...but I think that 2WF with double weapons is even MORE badass...ore 2-wielding Greatsword...

I love Thri-keen and their Gythka. Or insectile 3-kreen

A question: a creature with 4 arms,can use 2 bows? or 4 crossbows?

[Duke of URL]

You mean, two two bladed swords. It requires two hands to wield one of them.

Well, there's always the abomination of Monkey Grip + Oversized TWF (modified for MWF)

Wouldn't be the most efficient thing out there, but it would look pretty scary (to anyone who didn't know better).

[AmberVael]

Brief, rough example to show what's better, and why.

Two handed weapon (we'll just say it's a greatsword):

2d6 + (1.5 * strength mod) + power attack penalty x 2 + extra weapon bonuses.

Two weapon fighting (we'll say, for simplicity, two short swords)

1d6 + strength mod + power attack penalty + extra weapon bonuses
1d6 + (.5 * strength mod) + power attack penalty + extra weapon bonuses


Now, we can see that, without taking anything other than damage into account (which is like suspending reality over a tub of lava) theoretically Two Weapon Fighting is minorly, marginally, better.
However...
You need to add in that you need the Two-Weapon fighting feat to do the above.
And that you get a -2 penalty to each attack.
And that you generally need a full attack to attack with both weapons (otherwise you need to spend a feat to ignore that).


Now something that people often bandy about is "You have to enchant two weapons." This, as odd as it may seem, is actually one of the benefits of two weapon fighting. You're probably going "whaaaa? You need to enchant them both, that means it costs more, right?"
Technically. Let me pull up the facts.

The point of having two weapons is that you, indeed, have two weapons. So when you attack, you get to deal damage with both, yes?
Thus, what makes it better to have both weapons in terms of enchantment bonuses alone is that you get the enchantment bonuses of two swords as opposed to the two-handed fighter's one.

This makes it more cost effective to deal more enhancement damage for a two weapon fighter, because the magic item pricing gets exponentially more expensive the higher of an enchantment you get.
For example: you can get a +5 and a +6 worth of a enchantments on two swords for almost the same price (actually a little less) as a single sword with +8 worth of enchantments.
Alternately, if lower level, you can get two +2 swords for less cost than a single +3 sword.
Etc.
Granted, this doesn't make two weapon fighting more viable and efficient overall than two handed fighting, but I did want to dispel that little myth. Generally, if you're smart and clever with your enchantment choices, you'll be able to get more out of two weapons than out of one weapon in terms of magic items alone.

However... the point of all this is certainly that 4 weapon fighting is going to be much more potent than using a single two handed weapon fighting. It's practically just multiplication. Sure you might miss a little bit more, but you have four chances to hit, and even if only two or three hit, you're dealing more damage than the single two hander.
Still, as its more feat intensive to do multi weapon fighting, so I might advise taking a class such as *gasp* fighter. At least for a few levels.


Presumably two two handers would similarly be more viable than four single handed weapons (just because, again, it's like the above formulas, except twice), but I don't feel like really looking into the math.

@ Duke:
To quote:

A creature wielding a two-bladed sword in one hand can’t use it as a double weapon—only one end of the weapon can be used in any given round.

So just use a long sword. =P

[Duke of URL]

So just use a long sword. =P

Should still be able to do MG + OMWF with greatswords. Now, why you'd want to do that is another story.

Oh, and the T/MWF guy typically isn't power attacking, because he's using light weapons in the off hand(s), unless he took OT/MWF

[Chronos]

A single big weapon also pulls ahead of multiple weapons as soon as you get iterative attacks. At first level, the two-sword guy gets two attacks each at 1d6, to the greatsword guy's one attack at 2d6, but at 6th level, the two-sword guy gets three attacks at 1d6, while the greatsword guy gets two attacks at 2d6. If the two-sword guy wants to keep up, he has to pour in yet more feats to get extra attacks with his other weapon, too.

On the subject of ubercharging, though, remember that Pounce will help both builds, and with enough hands or natural weapons, helps the multiarmed mutant freak of nature monkey more than the greatsworder. A thri-kreen totemist 2/rogue 10/warblade 7 with the right feats could charge with 16 attacks, each of them dealing 5d6+20 sneak attack damage, and I could probably optimize that further, except that I'm away from my books at the moment.

[Paul H]

Hi

Just a thought on a similar vein. What about Druids with Pounce feat wearing Rhino Hide armour? In Dire Ape form casts Girallon's Blessing & charges. Good chance of rend, plus extra 2D6 dam with each hit. (Plus any other bonus).

Even worse with Master Many Forms in Troll Form.

As I said - just a thought

Cheers
Paul H

[Silent Musician]

I want to wield three swords. Two in my hands and one in my mouth...

[Collin152]

I want to wield three swords. Two in my hands and one in my mouth...

Yes, don't we all want a blad in the mouth? I know I do.

But the idea you want is a prehensile tounge.

[Hadrian_Emrys]

I want to wield three swords. Two in my hands and one in my mouth...

Way to go "Zolo".

Collin: The concept of using a prehensile tongue to wield a sword is both really cool, and quite horrifying. Imagine the horror of having that weapon disarmed.

[Admiral Squish]

Wow, so there IS cheese for MWF.

Muahahaha.

[Vexxation]

Okay, I know what I'm about to ask isn't optimized... at all.

But what if I wanted to play, say, a Dolgrim Soulknife. The rules say the Mindblade is a "semisolid blade composed of psychic energy distilled from his own mind." And... Dolgrims have two minds, right? That's where the idea gets me interested. If they have dual conciousness, it's not a far stretch to say they could summon two Mind Blades, is it? And then, at Soulknife 5, make four Shortsword Mind Blades, and quadruple-wield. Or two short swords and a bastard sword.

Take multiweapon fighting (though no oversized needed) and that whole line, enchant each Mind Blade separately, so as to be able to utilize all the best enchantments. Splash Rogue or Assassin for flavor. Walk around "unarmed." When the time is right, call the blades and be a concealed whirlwind of death.

I like the idea, but is the dual-conciousness = 2 Mind Blades a viable idea? As a DM, would you allow it?

...not to mention allowing someone to play as a Dolgrim...

[Collin152]

Collin: The concept of using a prehensile tongue to wield a sword is both really cool, and quite horrifying. Imagine the horror of having that weapon disarmed.

Hmm...
Forget the sword, I just want that tongue.

[Jayngfet]

I can't believe you guys forgot Xill, they're even core with quad weapon fighting rules.

One hand counts as you're main hand, any others count as off hands.

[SoD]

And Chitines. Chitines actually get multiweapon fighting as a bonus feat.

I've always wanted to play a Thrikeen with 4 two-bladed swords. Just 'cos it'd look so cool.

You mean, two two bladed swords. It requires two hands to wield one of them.

It does not! I can play a giant bug with four two-bladed swords, one per hand:

Sword, Two-Bladed

A two-bladed sword is a double weapon. You can fight with it as if fighting with two weapons, but if you do, you incur all the normal attack penalties associated with fighting with two weapons, just as if you were using a one-handed weapon and a light weapon. A creature wielding a two-bladed sword in one hand can’t use it as a double weapon—only one end of the weapon can be used in any given round.

Not really that optimised, but wouldn't he look cool?

[Dyllan]

You guys are missing the real twinkie goodness of MWF.

First, if you really think THF wins, then do both - 4 arms with MWF can mean wielding 2 Greatswords, can't it?

If you really want to do multiple attacks though - get your cleric, druid, wizard or sorcerer to cast Girallon's Blessing on you (or GISH and do it yourself). Level 3 spell from Spell Compendium, gives you 2 more arms. Now you can wield 6 weapons (or 3 two-handed weapons if you prefer).

How long would it take the 2 armed fighter to catch up with THAT damage potential?

-Dyllan