TWF with different weapons.


Advice


is there a way to make an effective TWF build with different weapons. like a Longsword and Shortsword or Saw-tooth Sabre and Bladed Scabbard. I had an idea for a TWF samurai, Katana and Wakizashi but every time I look at effective TWF builds they always seem to be two of the same light weapons.

can you build an effective TWF build with two different weapons?


Pathfinder Lost Omens Subscriber

depends what you mean by effective.


The answer is yes as long as you gain attack bonuses from stuff outside feats.


For weapon agnostic two weapon fighting, the Slayer Dirty Tricks build is my favorite. While it's merely good at damage, it's great at locking down slippery enemies very quickly.

Scarab Sages

If you don't take any weapon-specific feats, it doesn't matter at all. The problem is that you usually want weapon focus at minimum to offset the TWF accuracy penalty. You probably want improved critical as well, because paying for two keen weapons is expensive. And if you are a fighter you'll want weapon specialization to bump of that static damage.

All together, it means that two identical light weapons, or a double weapon are more efficient.

That said, if you are a ranger and getting free TWF feats, and you don't mind being slightly less accurate you can make it work. Just not quite as well as someone who picks a single weapon type.


okay cool, thanks guys. really helpful. I'll have to look into the dirty trick slayer build some time.


One effective method is Butterfly Sting feat. Generally speaking one uses a kukri in the off-hand (with improved critical) and passes crits to the main hand which contains a scythe (or another x4 critical weapon).

Scarab Sages

Claxon wrote:
One effective method is Butterfly Sting feat. Generally speaking one uses a kukri in the off-hand (with improved critical) and passes crits to the main hand which contains a scythe (or another x4 critical weapon).

Which annoys the hell out of me and I ban in home games. Butterfly's Sting is one feat where it doesn't make sense for you to be treated as your own ally.


Eh, we have had people in our group use it in one shots, but everyone recognizes that it's kind of not the intended way to use the feat and doesn't use it in such a way in a long term game.

Were more open to stretching the rules in a short "one-shot" because we will probably only play one or two sessions.


Blackjack, just enjoy the freedom and flexibility of getting an extra attack for the cost of -2 to hit with both attacks. The maths is still very favourable even with half strength bonus to damage. Don't feel the need to constrain your creative impulses just to get an extra +1 to hit with your off hand weapon. Also, not every attack has to be keen. Rangers have been fighting with a longsword and shortsword for as long as there were Rangers.


Not exactly useful for the samurai originally mentioned, but you can do something extremely effective with two different weapons- allow yourself to 2hand.

With a 1 handed wepaon and a cestus/gauntlet type weapon, you can do 2 handed attacks when you can't full attack (standard action attacks, charges, AoOs, etc.)

This tends to work best with rangers/slayers, since they can more easily do strength based TWF (which is useful sinc you are using 1 handed weapons).

You can do similar things with double weapons (which are more friendly with weapon focus)...but the gauntlet method means you don't need to get EWP for something decent.


If you want to have two "different" weapons for flavor but still want the efficiency of using the same weapon-specific feats on both, there are a couple of oddball options to consider.

Two Scorpion Whips
The latest FAQ on this weapon lets you use this in two ways: "light mode" where it uses the table description for Scorpion Whips, and "one-handed mode" where it largely acts like a standard Whip. So you could dual-wield two of these with both in "light mode," or you could use a different mode for each hand. In the latter case the two weapons would behave very differently, but feats like Weapon Focus (scorpion whip), and Weapon Specialization (scorpion whip) would work for both weapons.

Trident and a Fighter's Fork
The Fighter's Fork is one of my favorite magic weapons. It's not really powerful, but it is incredibly versatile. You can brace it, throw it as a trident, throw it as a javelin, shorten it until it is a light weapon, wield it as a one-handed weapon, wield it as a two-handed weapon without reach, or lengthen it into a two-handed reach weapon. And any feats that apply to standard tridents will work in any of its forms. With a regular trident in your main hand and Fighter's Fork (in light weapon mode) in the other, you would have two weapons that look different, but share feats.

Edit: The rules for the Shrinking Special Ability are really unclear, but you might be able to use a shrunken weapon like the Fighter's Fork. If a longsword, for example, is a light weapon when reduced to the size of a dagger but still counts as a longsword for the purpose of feats, then you could easily dual-wield a pair of longswords as long as one or both were shrunken. Expect a lot of disagreement where this special ability is concerned.


Thunder and Fang build (with shield TWF feats). You can even use a Ranger or Slayer to bypass the Shield Slam feat if you don't want it. Using a class with enough bonus feats (like the aforementioned Ranger or Slayer) you can manage to get Bashing Finish, Greater Two-Weapon Fighting, Hammer the Gap, Thunder and Fang, Power Attack, and Two-Weapon Rend (with their prerequisites, of course). By the way, if you're wondering, Shield Master makes it so your shield attacks take absolutely no penalties as long as you're also wielding another weapon (even if you're using Greater TWF and PA) and saves you money and effective bonus by making your shield's enhancement bonus as a shield also count to it as a weapon. The only real problem is having both enough Str and enough Dex, and making sure your Earth Breaker can hit reliably (your Klar obviously won't have an issue). If you drop Hammer the Gap, Two-Weapon Rend, and Bashing Finish you could do it with a Barbarian.
You could also make a Weapon and Shield build more easily with Unchained Rogue, though obviously not using Thunder and Fang. At 11th level you'll have Dex to damage on both your weapon of choice and your light shield (a light shield with or without spikes counts as a light weapon, so you can finesse it, which makes it eligible for UnCh Rogue's Finesse Training). Imagine doing a full-attack with sneak attack damage with 6 attacks plus getting another free shield hit for any of those that crits, with at least half of those attacks being near-guaranteed hits (no penalties, likely a flanking bonus, and enemy reduced AC from Debilitating Injury, and that's not counting any other bonuses, buffs, or debuffs). It's also less MAD than the first build I mentioned.
Oh, and yes, both these builds require Improved Shield Bash, so they still keep their Shield bonuses to AC when they attack using them.

Scarab Sages

Bloodrealm wrote:
By the way, if you're wondering, Shield Master makes it so your shield attacks take absolutely no penalties as long as you're also wielding another weapon (even if you're using Greater TWF and PA)

Expect severe table variation on this. It's pretty clearly intended to only negate the -2 penalty for two weapon fighting, not penalties for power attack, or the iterative penalties for ITWF or GTWF.

Bloodrealm wrote:


You could also make a Weapon and Shield build more easily with Unchained Rogue, though obviously not using Thunder and Fang.

Actually, you can if you go Str-based. You can get Earthbreaker and Klar proficiency via the Shoanti Tattoo trait.


Probably not what you were thinking of, but two-weapon fighting with a pistol and a cestus can be pretty effective.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

I like two-fighting with a dwarven war axe and a throwing axe. I have the option to throw the throwing axe and then two-hand the dwarven war axe. It may not be optimized, but it can be fun. And you can carry a couple spare throwing axes if you want.

Obviously, this works best with a dwarf, and possibly a multi-class ranger/fighter if you don't have the Dex for Two Weapon Fighting.


SmiloDan wrote:

I like two-fighting with a dwarven war axe and a throwing axe. I have the option to throw the throwing axe and then two-hand the dwarven war axe. It may not be optimized, but it can be fun. And you can carry a couple spare throwing axes if you want.

Obviously, this works best with a dwarf, and possibly a multi-class ranger/fighter if you don't have the Dex for Two Weapon Fighting.

That sounds like a fun character. FYI, Slayers can get the TWF Ranger and avoid the Dex prerequisites.


So long as you don't have weapon-specific feats, or you have martial mastery, two-weapon fighting works fine with multiple types of weapons.

If you want to use two of the same type of one-handed weapon, try effortless lace.

Sword and board actually happens to be a decent TWF style.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

Gisher wrote:
SmiloDan wrote:

I like two-fighting with a dwarven war axe and a throwing axe. I have the option to throw the throwing axe and then two-hand the dwarven war axe. It may not be optimized, but it can be fun. And you can carry a couple spare throwing axes if you want.

Obviously, this works best with a dwarf, and possibly a multi-class ranger/fighter if you don't have the Dex for Two Weapon Fighting.

That sounds like a fun character. FYI, Slayers can get the TWF Ranger and avoid the Dex prerequisites.

I played a dude like this in 3.5, and another PC was a fighter/rogue who use rapier and whip and was pretty much the ultimate swashbuckler. And my platemail-wearing dwarf ranger 2/fighter 5 tried to co-swashbuckler with him. With hilarious results. I ended up in platemail and not two-weapon fighting eventually. But it was fun.

I think the PF fighter lets you use Weapon Training (axes) on both war axes and throwing axes.


SmiloDan wrote:
Gisher wrote:
SmiloDan wrote:

I like two-fighting with a dwarven war axe and a throwing axe. I have the option to throw the throwing axe and then two-hand the dwarven war axe. It may not be optimized, but it can be fun. And you can carry a couple spare throwing axes if you want.

Obviously, this works best with a dwarf, and possibly a multi-class ranger/fighter if you don't have the Dex for Two Weapon Fighting.

That sounds like a fun character. FYI, Slayers can get the TWF Ranger and avoid the Dex prerequisites.
I played a dude like this in 3.5, and another PC was a fighter/rogue who use rapier and whip and was pretty much the ultimate swashbuckler. And my platemail-wearing dwarf ranger 2/fighter 5 tried to co-swashbuckler with him. With hilarious results. I ended up in platemail and not two-weapon fighting eventually. But it was fun.

About 35 years ago, I had a 1st Edition Ranger who fought with a pair of axes. I can still remember his name, background, and the character sketch that I drew. Good times. :)

SmiloDan wrote:
I think the PF fighter lets you use Weapon Training (axes) on both war axes and throwing axes.

It does. As of UC, the Axes Weapon Group consists of: bardiche, battleaxe, dwarven waraxe, greataxe, handaxe, heavy pick, hooked axe, knuckle axe, light pick, mattock, orc double axe, pata, and throwing axe. That's a nice range of weapon types.


My Self wrote:
So long as you don't have weapon-specific feats... two-weapon fighting works fine with multiple types of weapons.

Really, the statistical penalty for not having the small stuff on your offhand isn't that much more relevant than the bonus damage from a larger die on the mainhand; it's all pretty minor. The major annoyances are not automatically getting quickdraw with both, and not getting Improved Critical with both unless spending another feat; but even that isn't a major difference.

That being said, the Samurai theme is pretty solidly two-handed anyhow, with wakizashi as a backup weapon. For creating a daisho master, things like Fighter or Guide Ranger or Slayer would tend to work better.


One often overlooked version would be using an asymmetrical double weapon. It's not quite "two different weapons" but it almost works that way for weapons like the dwarven urgosh. You can use it two-handed on charges, AoOs and single attacks and just switch to "axe-and-spear-mode" for full attacks. It has the big advantage of using just one weapon focus for all kinds of attacks.


Where do we post a question about TWF with a dagger pistol or sword cane pistol? They're one-handed DOUBLE weapons. 0.o Do you still incur the normal TWF penalties? One-handed + light? Double one-handed?

P.S. There's an /amazing/ Vital Strike build that can be done with a dagger pistol and the Ustalavic Duelist.

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