Double Weapons and Strength / Power Attack Bonuses


Rules Questions


I know this topic has come up before in many other posts, but I would like to ask it anyway. My group has some confusion on how double weapons are treated and the strength/power attack bonuses they should get when using a double-weapon.

1. When two-weapon fighting with a double-sword, do you add strength-and-half to the primary attacks and just strength to the off-hand atacks?

2. Or do you add strength to the primary attacks, and half-strength to the offhand attacks? (like normal TWF)

The reason this came up is because some in our group claim that a Paizo developer responded to a similar post about this issue, claiming that the first answer above was the correct way it was supposed to work.

That didn't make sense to me, to allow double weapons to essentially be wielded like a 2H + 1H weapon. I always thought they were treated like normal TWF, i.e. 1H + light weapon.

Now, it does make sense to me that if the fighter only makes primary attacks (forgoing offhand attacks) he would use strength-and-half bonuses because the double weapon can be wielded like a 2H weapon in this instance.

Regardless, if anyone has a link to this developer who responded to a similar post, please post it. If you do not, tell me your opinion on the matter.


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Quote:
Double Weapons: Dire flails, dwarven urgroshes, gnome hooked hammers, orc double axes, quarterstaves, and two-bladed swords are double weapons. A character can fight with both ends of a double weapon as if fighting with two weapons, but he incurs all the normal attack penalties associated with two-weapon combat, just as though the character were wielding a one-handed weapon and a light weapon.

A double weapon when used to two weapon fight functions mechanically in the exact same way that two weapons do. So, you get strength on the primary, half strength on the secondary.

If the wielder doesn't use two weapon fighting to increase the number of available attacks they could instead wield the weapon two handed and get 1.5 strength and 3:1 power attack ratio.


With a double weapon, I'm pretty sure you have the option of treating it as if it were a 2 handed weapon: 1 attack only with +3 on Power Attack and 1.5 X St bonus


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Scott Wilhelm wrote:
With a double weapon, I'm pretty sure you have the option of treating it as if it were a 2 handed weapon: 1 attack only with +3 on Power Attack and 1.5 X St bonus

Yes, so long as you aren't two weapon fighting with it. But you can do that with any one-handed weapon already as well. It just uses up both of your hands.

Silver Crusade

I strongly believe Claxon is correct.


Scott Wilhelm wrote:
With a double weapon, I'm pretty sure you have the option of treating it as if it were a 2 handed weapon: 1 attack only with +3 on Power Attack and 1.5 X St bonus

Thus is the beauty of double weapons. It gives you the option to do that when you do things like move more than a 5' step. Thus, it solves the primary problem of TWF of 'what to do when you can't full attack?'

You can just switch between TWF and 2 handing due to whatever the situation asks for.

It is a perfect tool for rangers and slayers who can get TWF feats without dealing with dex prerequisites and just focus on strength instead (although it is possible to balance strength and dex on a decent 20 point buy and still qualify for all the good TWF feats with no problems).


I also found this.

Double-Axe Fury Orc Barbarian.

Checking his attack ratings would seem to confirm your assessment. I noted that both his TWF attacks use full strength, but then I noticed the Double Slice feat.

My only question then, is there a post from a Paizo developer that says otherwise? That was how this argument initially started in my group: supposed word from a developer in a post. I've been looking over Double Weapon posts in the search bar, and have yet to see any official ruling from a developer thus far.


I've never seen anything to say it works differently to how Claxon and others have said.

The bolded section in Claxons post seems to remove any ambiguity. I can't imagine getting dev reply with something this clear cut.

I'd be asking the person who raised it to supply the supposed post when the rules are this clear.

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