Two-Handed Vs Two-Weapon VS One-hand+Shield Fighting Styles


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

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Didn't follow this thread the whole way through but...

Two weapon fighting is viable in specific instances, for certain classes. But isn't a good generic tactic for anyone.

To make the best use of it you need to have things that increase your to hit and damage values on each attack.

An example that's new to most people is fighters can be good at TWF.

Thanks to Trained Finesse the fighter can be dex based and get double his weapon training bonus on his damage.

Start with 17 dex, and put a fair amount into strength and con. With your damage bonus being increased you can stand not to have a high starting strength. For bonus points you can go mutation warrior to have extra bonus to dex so you have a higher to hit.

Rangers can also do this insanely well once they hit level 10 and start using Instant Enemy. You had to invest all your FE into one type, but suddenly you have a +6 or more on all attacks and damage.

Dark Archive

You would think the concept was pretty simple: Two handed weapon gives you more damage but less defense, one handed weapon with shield gives less damage but added defense, while fighting with two weapons would offer less damage and defense but extra attacks.

Why is D&D or Pathfinder unable to make these three styles of play equally useful and balanced against each other? Surely this isn't too hard to do, or is it only video games that can balance these concepts?


one v two is losing out on .5 str and .5 power attack and base damage die of weapon.
At ~lv1 that is about 4~5 damage a hit. scales at 1 damage a hit missing every 4 bab and 1 for every 4 str. So at max it's missing like 16 damage per hit it think? But times that by 3~4 hits and that's 48-64 damage a round you're missing out on.

And because a lot of play boils down to "rocket tag" or kill it before we die, AC is merely a help, not a plan. So comparing how different the damage is for one handed compared to two handed the damage loss isn't worth the survivability increase that a shield offers. taking 3 rounds instead of 2 to kill something isn't worth the AC.

Now this isn't all or the only way to play. Just a fairly common way. If you reach mega AC values then it doesn't matter if it's 3 rounds or 10 as the damage received is still 0.

EDITED


it all depend on the buffs you have.
after level 11, with a bard adding good hope and bard song for +5\+5,
a 2 weapon build can easy pass a 2 hander.
critical feats, like bleeding critical, shaken, sicken and more - allow a great offence out put.

also, weapon and shield (scimitar and shield) can add a lot of attacks with bashing finish . and if the party have many front liner, adding a greater bull rush several times a round, with all provoking - generate more total damage than any full attacks.


Claxon wrote:

Didn't follow this thread the whole way through but...

Two weapon fighting is viable in specific instances, for certain classes. But isn't a good generic tactic for anyone.

To make the best use of it you need to have things that increase your to hit and damage values on each attack.

An example that's new to most people is fighters can be good at TWF.

Thanks to Trained Finesse the fighter can be dex based and get double his weapon training bonus on his damage.

Start with 17 dex, and put a fair amount into strength and con. With your damage bonus being increased you can stand not to have a high starting strength. For bonus points you can go mutation warrior to have extra bonus to dex so you have a higher to hit.

Rangers can also do this insanely well once they hit level 10 and start using Instant Enemy. You had to invest all your FE into one type, but suddenly you have a +6 or more on all attacks and damage.

bard 4 \ cavalier 1, battle herald also add a lot of bonuses.

at level 12, you add +6\+6 ALL the time (dervish of dawn= X2 bard boosting), with BAB of -1 from a full one.


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JonathonWilder wrote:
Why is D&D or Pathfinder unable to make these three styles of play equally useful and balanced against each other? Surely this isn't too hard to do, or is it only video games that can balance these concepts?

Basically, because someone at WotC thought that extra attacks were the most powerful things ever and thus almost nerved them to death. Look at the retarded prereqs for Whirlwind Attack!

Paizo were rather conservative when they made Pathfinder, so the problems didn't get changed/fixed. And since the problems lie in the very foundation of PF, it's hard to fix them now.
The Unchained Action Economy does buff TWF significantly, but that system isn't widely used because it has weird interactions with swift actions. If we ever see a PF 2nd edition, I expect UAE to be the blueprint for the action system.

Claxon wrote:

Thanks to Trained Finesse the fighter can be dex based and get double his weapon training bonus on his damage.

(...)
Rangers can also do this insanely well once they hit level 10 and start using Instant Enemy.

And that's the thing: You need to be pretty high level to see a gain from your investment. Trained Finesse is not better than Weapon Spec until you get Gloves of Dueling (ca. 11th level). Two-Weapon Rend requires BAB +11.

Meanwhile, you have to suffer through a lot of levels where you will be significantly weaker than others.


The beautiful thing about fighters though is you can pretty easily grab weapon focus, greater WF, weapon spec, greater WS, and pickup trained finesse because you have a large number of feats to work with.

You are right it isn't very useful until you can pickup gloves of dueling, but you don't need to wait until 11th level. At least with ABP it's the first magic item I buy when playing a character with weapon training, which is 8th level.


lv9 should start with about 46,000 gp gloves of dueling are 15,000 gp. You gain 13,000 gp going from 8 to 9. So if you save all of your gold for lv8 and had some left over you can afford them once you hit 9, and they'd be 1/3 of your total wealth.

SO yes you can get them sooner, but without ABP, it's hard to afford them till closer to 10.

Dark Archive

Actually, compared to the versatility and powers of spells, combat feats really are much more frustrating as well sometimes limiting. Sure fighters get a ton of feats but cannot do as much with the, as wizards. My thoughts are that feats, especially combat feats, need to be streamlined and better able to work with what should be fairly basic concepts. Learning how to use both a sword and shield should be easier then learning power magic or spells.


JonathonWilder wrote:
Actually, compared to the versatility and powers of spells, combat feats really are much more frustrating as well sometimes limiting. Sure fighters get a ton of feats but cannot do as much with the, as wizards. My thoughts are that feats, especially combat feats, need to be streamlined and better able to work with what should be fairly basic concepts. Learning how to use both a sword and shield should be easier then learning power magic or spells.

I disagree. A 10th level fighter isn't Joe Blow with a sword, He's Sulu, or Captain America. He's the epitome of his craft as opposed to some tavern brawler or peasant conscript.

Liberty's Edge

I can understand why they nerfed Two Weapon Fighting. Yet they nerfed it too mcuh imo. It makes no sense how they did it. The better one gets at their fighting style the less chances they have to hit their target. It's like saying the martial artist who has a black belt becomes less effective as he trains to get his black belt.

In my experience I have seen people rarely take Improved two weapon fighting. The Great version maybe once. I would have put the penalties for both at -2 and -5. at -5 then a -10 penalty it's no worth it imo. Which defeats the person of taking two weapon fighting. The other two fighting styles have their disadvantages yet not as bad.


Bandw2 wrote:
ChaosTicket wrote:
While its an awesome part of fiction for people to be able to dual-wield weapons in reality its less effective. Using both hands ona single weapon is more effective rather than divide your strength and concentration.

in reality, almost all fighting styles that used 2 weapons were intended for bodyguards or personal defence.

In europe there are records of two weapon fighting tournaments. It seemed to be a generally impressive feat to fight with 2 separate weapons.

the point is, while not great for battlefield conditions with several hundred adversaries, two weapon fighting historically has happened but is rare due to it's difficulty and focus on single combatant fighting.

Yeah when I sword fight I prefer florentine style myself. generally though it is 1 v 1 when we do more chaotic group fights I try to make them one v one. I adopted a technique from reading the book of 5 rings. Where you hold your swords out and spread to kind of funnel enemies at you so you can fight multiple one at a time. If it gets to chaotic and a lot of people around I prefer sword and board so I can think more about defense while 1 v 1 its more about offense to me. I have a much easier time getting past a shield with two weapons Throw a strike to knock the shield away then move in with other something like that.

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