One handed weapons still get the shaft as all off hand weapons power attack as light weapons no matter what.Light weapons make no difference in Pathfinder any longer for Power Attack
Power Attack in Pathfinder is now balanced between Two-Handed fighters and Two-Weapon Fighters as they both receive the same total Power Attack bonus to damage (+150%). When someone is using a one-handed weapon and a shield, well they are gaining the benefit of their shield. So balanced there as well.
The only difficulties that might creep up on TWF is the split damage and DR on creatures.
so..... Power Attack is supposedly equal between two-weapon fighting and two-handed fighting, when the person using 2 weapon fighting is, just by using 2wf, taking a 10% cut in average damage (accuracy), and ontop of that, has DR applied twice?
Oh, and he has to take 3 feats, and still doesn't get to apply it on his charge attacks, standard action attacks, or attacks of opportunitie.
Granted the AoO part was fixed by the Miniatures Handbook with yet ANOTHER feat, but wait, most people in wouldn't even allow said feat because the bulk seem to automatically hate splats as broken monstrosities rather than useful tools for character design.
The first step to bringing two weapon fighting into parity, is to allow it any time a two-handed swing could happen. You determine how many feats that takes yourself, depending on what you feel is appropriate, but until that happens, two-weapon fighting is not equal.
Edit: Sorry for the rant, build parity is something important to me, and it really makes me sad to see problems like that. I mean come on, the twfers are thematically supposed to be the mobile agile ones, but they give up more by moving. They can't even get a full double-swing out of spring attack, and the feat screams 2wfing combat dancer.
Well first I want to say wooptie ding. Fighting with two weapons at once is NOT EASY and I'm fine with the game mechanics and balance taking a back seat to logic on this one. Damn you R.A. Salvatore for making everyone want to dual wield scimitars!
However I will concede on the AoO front. In fact in my game here's how I will fix it: TWF also allows you to make one additional attack of opportunity against an opponent, even if that action already provoked, with your off-hand weapon.
Truth be told TWF is still an inferior way to go unless you're using precision damage (sneak attack) and then when you're flanking that +2 balances your penalty. I'm fine with that personally.
So you deal 1:2 ratio with primary, and 1:1 ratio with off hand, which is about the same as a two handed weapon at 1:3, and you take a -2 (or -4) to hit, and DR applies twice. Total horrible combination of a feats. In 3.5 you got a 1:2 ratio to start no matter what, but had to take a -4 to hit with TWF. Things though got better in most situations with ratio modifiers from splat books. Also add in the fact that full...
Few things. In 3.5 you got a 1:1 ratio with your MH and if you were wielding a light weapon in your off hand (to mitigate your penalties to hit) you got 1:0. I think the PF version is better for that. However my real point is: maybe TWF build isn't good for fighters. If it's a bad feat for fighters then fighters shouldn't take it. Rocks for rogues though, and as the math has shown is strangely good for Paladins.
Also PF PA works better with iterative attacks. Your single attack/single action/AoO damage cap is lower, yes, but you are FAR FAR FAR (etc.) more likely to hit with that last attack that is a piddly +1. Like 70% more likely.
Well first I want to say wooptie ding. Fighting with two weapons at once is NOT EASY and I'm fine with the game mechanics and balance taking a back seat to logic on this one. Damn you R.A. Salvatore for making everyone want to dual wield scimitars!
However I will concede on the AoO front. In fact in my game here's how I will fix it: TWF also allows you to make one additional attack of opportunity against an opponent, even if that action already provoked, with your off-hand weapon.
Truth be told TWF is still an inferior way to go unless you're using precision damage (sneak attack) and then when you're flanking that +2 balances your penalty. I'm fine with that personally.
You may want to read the two really long (ok, really ridiculously long, I know) posts I put up on this on the last page. If it helps, there's a summary at the top of each that tells you all you really need to know, the rest is just the written out proof that what I posted in the summary is accurate.
The short a dirty version is: At least in Pathfinder, due to some subtle and not so subtle changes to feats and melee class mechanics, Two Weapon Fighting is not in fact numerically weaker than using a two handed weapon. In fact, for most levels you'll deal significantly more damage with two weapon fighting, with two exceptions, opponents with significant DR (10+) and fights that require you to move between each attack, forcing you to use a standard action to attack. Two weapon fighting will limit your feat selection however, and keep you from splurging on other useful abilities like Disruptive and Spellbreaker.
If you're going to do something to up the power of Two Weapon Fighting, you might want to just combine a few of the weaker feats into single feats, to give the Two Weapon Fighter more room for other useful abilities without outright upping their offensive power. (Double Slice and Improved Two Weapon Fighting, for instance, and maybe Greater Two Weapon Fighting and Two Weapon Rend, it would give those feats more interesting benefits than "hey, I get another attack, that kind of sucks because it's at -10" and cut down on the number of feats a Two weapon fighter has to take).
Increasing their damage, or giving them more attacks will only make them even more of a specialist than they already are.
Few things. In 3.5 you got a 1:1 ratio with your MH and if you were wielding a light weapon in your off hand (to mitigate your penalties to hit) you got 1:0. I think the PF version is better for that. However my real point is: maybe TWF build isn't good for fighters. If it's a bad feat for fighters then fighters shouldn't take it.
It's actually a pretty rocking feat for fighters, because of the much larger flat bonuses to attack and damage they get now. Between weapon training and greater specialization adding a +4, you're talking about a serious bump to the damage of each attack, which is significantly multiplied by two weapon fighting. Really it's only Barbarians that are.. meh.. with two weapon fighting. Which sort of makes sense.