Dervish Dance Question!

[Doran Blackdawn]

Hey all, quick question about Dervish Dance:

One of the prerequisites is Weapon Finesse, and you're obviously required to use a Scimitar with the feat, so what is the ruling on using Weapon Finesse with a Scimitar? It isn't light, but wouldn't the fact it's a prerequisite for Dervish Dance imply that you could use a Scimitar with WF? I mean, why have a prerequisite feat that would be useless to your character, right?

Anyway, some clarification would be great! Thanks a lot for any replies!

[R. Doyle]

Dervish dance lets you treat the scimitar as a light weapon, so then weapon finesse applies to it (and it also lets you use it with Duelist...)

[James Jacobs]

Doran Blackdawn wrote:

Hey all, quick question about Dervish Dance:

One of the prerequisites is Weapon Finesse, and you're obviously required to use a Scimitar with the feat, so what is the ruling on using Weapon Finesse with a Scimitar? It isn't light, but wouldn't the fact it's a prerequisite for Dervish Dance imply that you could use a Scimitar with WF? I mean, why have a prerequisite feat that would be useless to your character, right?

Anyway, some clarification would be great! Thanks a lot for any replies!

Dervish Dance is a VERY good feat, and in this case, as far as scimitar use is concerned, the Weapon Finesse prerequisite is almost a tax. You can still use Weapon Finesse on other legal weapons, of course, but Weapon Finesse NEVER directly helps you with a scimitar. Dervish Dance is the only feat in that short chain that actually helps you with scimitar fighting.

Weapon Finesse isn't useless to your character, since you can still use it on things like daggers or rapiers or other Weapon Finessable weapons, but yes, it's no use for your scimitar fighting at all other than to help you qualify for the feat you want.

[thepuregamer]

sadly, raw, weapon finesse is a tax feat as the james just said. Dervish dance basically gives it back to you though since once you have dervish dance, you can add dex to attack and damage.

but sadly, there will be 2 dead levels while you wait to get dervish dance.

on a side note, since you will likely want to power attack with your scimitar, you will still have 13 or 14 strength to qualify for power attack. thus those 2 levels will not be horrible.

[Pirate]

Yar.

1: Scimitar is not a finesse-able weapon (until you get Dervish Dance).

2: Weapon Finesse may not be useless to your character as sometimes (or many times, depending) characters will have more than one type of weapon on them to use.

3: Weapon Finesse is also on the list of pre-reqs because thematically you are combining two things that normally don't combine: Scimitars and Weapon Finesse. If you want to learn a unique fighting style that melds two different things, you need to able to do those two different things competently first.

4: And then, the balance lawyers out there will also say that Dervish Dance is really powerful, and thus needs more pre-reqs than other feats, thus weapon finesse is a feat tax.

(imo) point 3 is the most important one.

~P

EDIT: semi-ninja'ed. But I will point out again that my point #3 (which hasn't been mentioned by the others) is (imo) a really good and important point to consider.

[Doran Blackdawn]

James Jacobs wrote:

Weapon Finesse isn't useless to your character, since you can still use it on things like daggers or rapiers or other Weapon Finessable weapons, but yes, it's no use for your scimitar fighting at all other than to help you qualify for the feat you want.

So to be completely clear, a Dervish Dancer with a 16 DEX would get +3 to Damage and +0 to hit while using a Scimitar?

Thanks a lot for the prompt reply! :D

[Edgar Lamoureux]

Doran Blackdawn wrote:

James Jacobs wrote:

Weapon Finesse isn't useless to your character, since you can still use it on things like daggers or rapiers or other Weapon Finessable weapons, but yes, it's no use for your scimitar fighting at all other than to help you qualify for the feat you want.

So to be completely clear, a Dervish Dancer with a 16 DEX would get +3 to Damage and +0 to hit while using a Scimitar?

Thanks a lot for the prompt reply! :D

No, a Dervish Dancer with 16 DEX would get +3 to hit and damage.

[thepuregamer]

Doran Blackdawn wrote:

James Jacobs wrote:

Weapon Finesse isn't useless to your character, since you can still use it on things like daggers or rapiers or other Weapon Finessable weapons, but yes, it's no use for your scimitar fighting at all other than to help you qualify for the feat you want.

So to be completely clear, a Dervish Dancer with a 16 DEX would get +3 to Damage and +0 to hit while using a Scimitar?

Thanks a lot for the prompt reply! :D

no that is not correct.

If you ignore weapon finesse for a second. You will see that dervish dance says you add your dexterity mod to both attack and damage. So once you pick up dervish dance, you will get your dex to attack.

But you will not be getting your dex to attack from weapon finesse. Thus before you pick up dervish dance, you will be using strength on both to hit and damage with a scimitar even if you have weapon finesse.

[Pirate]

Yar.

Doran Blackdawn wrote:

James Jacobs wrote:

Weapon Finesse isn't useless to your character, since you can still use it on things like daggers or rapiers or other Weapon Finessable weapons, but yes, it's no use for your scimitar fighting at all other than to help you qualify for the feat you want.

So to be completely clear, a Dervish Dancer with a 16 DEX would get +3 to Damage and +0 to hit while using a Scimitar?

Thanks a lot for the prompt reply! :D

Dervish Dance tells you exactly what you gain from taking it. You add you Dex modifier to both attacks and damage rolls with the scimitar.

If you have a Dex of 16 and Dervish Dance, you will get an extra +3 to hit AND an extra +3 to damage (due to your dex).

Just before taking dervish dance (Dex 16 character that has weapon finesse and is using a scimitar but does not have dervish dance) you get +0 to hit and +0 to damage (due to dex not applying to anything with the scimitar, even with weapon finesse)

~P

[Doran Blackdawn]

Oh, herp derp, I read that feat like six times and I missed "melee attack and damage rolls" every time.

Well how silly I feel.

Still, thanks a lot everyone! :p

[Doran Blackdawn]

Pirate wrote:

Yar.

3: Weapon Finesse is also on the list of pre-reqs because thematically you are combining two things that normally don't combine: Scimitars and Weapon Finesse. If you want to learn a unique fighting style that melds two different things, you need to able to do those two different things competently first.

EDIT: semi-ninja'ed. But I will point out again that my point #3 (which hasn't been mentioned by the others) is (imo) a really good and important point to consider.

This is true, and I do also think it's an important point. I also agree that it makes sense feats like Combat Expertise require 13 INT. :)

[James Jacobs]

thepuregamer wrote:

sadly, raw, weapon finesse is a tax feat as the james just said. Dervish dance basically gives it back to you though since once you have dervish dance, you can add dex to attack and damage.

but sadly, there will be 2 dead levels while you wait to get dervish dance.

on a side note, since you will likely want to power attack with your scimitar, you will still have 13 or 14 strength to qualify for power attack. thus those 2 levels will not be horrible.

Not sadly at all... again, allowing a melee character to concentrate ALL of his mojo on Dex rather than splitting that between Dex and Str is relatively huge. A feat like this NEEDS to have a price, in other words.

And remember, you can still use rapiers and daggers and stuff while you're waiting to be able to be better at using your scimitar.