Just a little thing, really, but traditionally TWF is considered to be a bad choice for melee unless one has significant damage adders for each blow. Thus, fighters weren't really considered a good choice for a TWF fighter, outside a dip for gaining the feats.
I wonder if it's still so?
I'm going to give a very very basic feat chain:
Power attack, TWF tree, Weapon focus+specialization line.
A PF fighter gets this little thing where they gain a total of +4 to hit and damage. With power attack and TWF, this puts them at -1 hit chance from full BAB, thanks to weapon focus. Each primary hit gets a +3 from power attack, while off-hand attacks get a +1. This is, in fact, one point less damage than a 2-handed weapon using fighter would get.
However, they would also only get a total of 32 points of damage from weapon specialization and weapon training, while a twfer gets a total of 56.
On weapon size, the 2-hander probably wins by 1d6, or average 3.5.
So far, the twfer is ahead by 19.5 points of damage.
The 2-hander does win for 0.5xSTR bonus in damage, though.
Other factors - weapon enhancements - While it costs double, a twfer will get 3x the potential weapon enhancement to their damage, meaning an extra 15 points of damage, for an example. As said every point of extra damage on every hit, helps the twfer ahead.
Also, things that launch on every hit help here - such as criticals. Weapon Mastery supports us directly, here, so critical focus, critical mastery and two critical feats might be a decent set of picks.
At this point, we've spent a grand total of 11 feats, meaning only a fighter can really get all this, with any amount of leeway.
With a 25% crit chance, and three extra crits, you're pretty much guaranteed to crit. ( which always makes me lust for Blood in the Water stance. )
So... presuming a STR score of 24, full power attack and boring +5 weapons, we're looking at a haste-less damage output of dice + 33 on primary hand, and dice + 24 on off-hand, for a total of 7xdice + 204 damage per round, with a rather high yield of criticals with additional effects. This is at least average damage for a damage-dealing character, with 6 free feats yet unused.
That is, presuming my math is correct.
Senevri wrote: Just a little thing, really, but traditionally TWF is considered to be a bad choice for melee unless one has significant damage adders for each blow. Thus, fighters weren't really considered a good choice for a TWF fighter, outside a dip for gaining the feats.
I wonder if it's still so?
I'm going to give a very very basic feat chain:
Power attack, TWF tree, Weapon focus+specialization line.
A PF fighter gets this little thing where they gain a total of +4 to hit and damage. With power attack and TWF, this puts them at -1 hit chance from full BAB, thanks to weapon focus. Each primary hit gets a +3 from power attack, while off-hand attacks get a +1. This is, in fact, one point less damage than a 2-handed weapon using fighter would get.
However, they would also only get a total of 32 points of damage from weapon specialization and weapon training, while a twfer gets a total of 56.
On weapon size, the 2-hander probably wins by 1d6, or average 3.5.
So far, the twfer is ahead by 19.5 points of damage.
The 2-hander does win for 0.5xSTR bonus in damage, though.
Other factors - weapon enhancements - While it costs double, a twfer will get 3x the potential weapon enhancement to their damage, meaning an extra 15 points of damage, for an example. As said every point of extra damage on every hit, helps the twfer ahead.
Also, things that launch on every hit help here - such as criticals. Weapon Mastery supports us directly, here, so critical focus, critical mastery and two critical feats might be a decent set of picks.
At this point, we've spent a grand total of 11 feats, meaning only a fighter can really get all this, with any amount of leeway.
With a 25% crit chance, and three extra crits, you're pretty much guaranteed to crit. ( which always makes me lust for Blood in the Water stance. )
So... presuming a STR score of 24, full power attack and boring +5 weapons, we're looking at a haste-less damage output of dice + 33 on primary hand, and dice + 24 on off-hand, for a total of 7xdice...
have you considerd weapon finesse and using a rapier with high dex character as main and poss kukri as off hand weapon, both have high crit ranges and if you get keen weapons coupled with feats above, possible havoc. just a thought
al
A PF fighter gets this little thing where they gain a total of +4 to hit and damage.
At level twenty, sure. We call it Weapon Training.
With power attack and TWF, this puts them at -1 hit chance from full BAB, thanks to weapon focus.
.. What?
Weapon training: +4
Weapon Focus: +1
G Weapon Focus: +1
Two-Weapon Fighting: -2/-2
... or Two-Weapon Warrior's Perfect Balance: -0/-0
I don't see how they end up with a hit chance of "one from full bab" or +19 at level 20. Closer to +37-40, which is 17 up from full bab.
Each primary hit gets a +3 from power attack, while off-hand attacks get a +1.
No. Primary hits get +2 and off-hand attacks get +1. He's not wielding a one-handed weapon in two hands with his primary attack, so the power attack bonus is not increased by 50%.
This is, in fact, one point less damage than a 2-handed weapon using fighter would get.
+15 on damage versus +10/+5. Nope... that's the exact same damage.
However, they would also only get a total of 32 points of damage from weapon specialization and weapon training, while a twfer gets a total of 56.
Strength of at least 8 or 9 at level 20 for both sides.
Two-hander: 2d6 + 15(PA) + 12(str) + 5(enh) + 4(wt) +4(ws) + 2d6(holy)
Two-weapon fighter: 1d8+ 10 + 9 + 5 + 4 + 4 + 2d6 and 1d6/1d8 + 5 + 9 + 4 + 4 + 5 + 2d6
Average for a 2H fighter - 54 or so per hit
Average for a 2W fighter - 47 or so per hit and 42 or so per hit.
Also, things that launch on every hit help here - such as criticals. Weapon Mastery supports us directly, here, so critical focus, critical mastery and two critical feats might be a decent set of picks.
You don't critical on every hit at level 20-- only those that are 15 and above, assuming you're using kukris, which are light weapons and take the worse damage bonus from PA. You do, on the other hand, hit on pretty much every full-BAB attack you throw. Yes, critical feats are good.
At this point, we've spent a grand total of 11 feats, meaning only a fighter can really get all this, with any amount of leeway.
Yes.
With a 25% crit chance, and three extra crits, you're pretty much guaranteed to crit. ( which always makes me lust for Blood in the Water stance. )
Unlikely. If you don't 15 or above on the first TWF swings, it's likely that your other swings may miss on 15 or above. I wouldn't call it guaranteed and I wouldn't take greater TWF for that reason.
So... presuming a STR score of 24, full power attack and boring +5 weapons, we're looking at a haste-less damage output of dice + 33 on primary hand, and dice + 24 on off-hand, for a total of 7xdice+ 204 damage per round, with a rather high yield of criticals with additional effects. This is at least average damage for a damage-dealing character, with 6 free feats yet unused.
STR of 24 at level 20? Pretty low.
204 isn't average damage for him, especially since he swings at +38/+38/+35/+35/+30/+30 against monsters that will likely have ACs over or close to 50. That's why Greater Two-Weapon Fighting is a crapshoot and isn't really recommended.
That is, presuming my math is correct.
This is my favorite part-- what math? You didn't show us any, so we don't know if it's correct or not. I'll assume you did your math with your character getting +3 on PA, so it's actually kind of low after looking at your off-hand strikes.
I guess that yeah, the TWF is viable. It's actually the premier damage-dealing build for the fighter, right next to archery. I don't know the purpose of this post. I was kind of disappointed when I clicked on it and you were talking about Core rules only stuff instead of the Advanced Players Guide's archetype.
Alistair MacDonald wrote: have you considerd weapon finesse and using a rapier with high dex character as main and poss kukri as off hand weapon, both have high crit ranges and if you get keen weapons coupled with feats above, possible havoc. just a thought
al
Kukri/kukri so you can benefit from Weapon Mastery and Weapon Focus with all of your attacks. Weapon Finesse on a fighter is generally damage suicide, don't know why you would go there. You're giving up a good +10 on damage later on and your normal non-mithral full plate has a max dex of +5, easily attainable with a belt of physical perfection, so it's not like dex will be doing you any good. You'll just be doing 1/3rd less damage on every single strike.
Keen is also a little unnecessary. May as well just take improved critical so you don't have to spend the extra enhancement bonus.
You might want to have a look at the dpr olympics and in particular the various incarnations of falchion fred and tempest ted
Ice Titan wrote:
With power attack and TWF, this puts them at -1 hit chance from full BAB, thanks to weapon focus.
.. What?
Weapon training: +4
Weapon Focus: +1
G Weapon Focus: +1
Two-Weapon Fighting: -2/-2
... or Two-Weapon Warrior's Perfect Balance: -0/-0
I don't see how they end up with a hit chance of "one from full bab" or +19 at level 20. Closer to +37-40, which is 17 up from full bab.
-5 from power attack, -2 from TWF, so at -1, actually. I'm not calculating ability and weapon bonuses yet.
Quote:
Each primary hit gets a +3 from power attack, while off-hand attacks get a +1.
No. Primary hits get +2 and off-hand attacks get +1. He's not wielding a one-handed weapon in two hands with his primary attack, so the power attack bonus is not increased by 50%.
I misspoke, or rather miswrote. I think I calculated by by +2/+1 later on, so it's still okay.
Quote:
This is, in fact, one point less damage than a 2-handed weapon using fighter would get.
+15 on damage versus +10/+5. Nope... that's the exact same damage.
A 2-hander gets 4 hits. a twfer gets seven hits. So it's actually 5 points less. Don't know what I was thinking.
Quote:
However, they would also only get a total of 32 points of damage from weapon specialization and weapon training, while a twfer gets a total of 56.
Strength of at least 8 or 9 at level 20 for both sides.
Two-hander: 2d6 + 15(PA) + 12(str) + 5(enh) + 4(wt) +4(ws) + 2d6(holy)
Two-weapon fighter: 1d8+ 10 + 9 + 5 + 2d6 and 1d6/1d8 + 5 + 9 + 5 + 2d6
Average for a 2H fighter - 54 or so per hit
Average for a 2W fighter - 39 or so per hit and 34 or so per hit.
You're rushing. Ignore STR for now. That being said, I know I was off by at least 4 points already.
Quote: You don't critical on every hit at level 20-- only those that are 15 and above, assuming you're using... I wrote badly, I probably got myself confused at some point, too. Regardless, what I meant was that things that apply on a hit - LIKE a 25% crit chance - are better the more you hit. obviously. Wounding enhancement, if it still exists, would naturally be awesome. In addition, you'll very likely have at least one critical hit during every full attack with seven hits, or perhaps even two.
Math in this case, was basic addition, and I probably got it wrong. I haven't read APG.
I guess what I was looking at was, if weapon training is enough to make TWF viable for fighters. Answer was, more or less, 'yes', although all the new crit effects help, too.
Senevri wrote: I guess what I was looking at was, if weapon training is enough to make TWF viable for fighters. Answer was, more or less, 'yes', although all the new crit effects help, too. One thing you might wish to ask yourself, is what could the fighter get instead of all of those feats he is using here to TWF?
Now the high DEX requirement for these feats is mitigated a bit by the increased DEX cap via armor that high level fighters enjoy, but it is still an issue of investment.
So with this additional investment in many, many feats, spending twice for weapons used, and a DEX requirement to use the feats.
I would posit that the TWF needs to demonstrably beat the two handed fighter in damage, which he does not.
The TWF tree is a feat sink, and arguably should just be one feat instead of multiple ones.
A small note: one could elect to use armor spikes or the like as the secondary weapon and use a two-handed weapon as the main weapon. This does suffer a bit from certain bonuses not accruing to the armor spikes.
-James
Ice Titan wrote: assuming you're using kukris, which are light weapons and take the worse damage bonus from PA.
This part is incorrect. Light weapons get the same x2 that one handed weapons do unless used in the off hand (and all off hand weapons only get the x1 modifier on damage).
Also:
Power attack at level 20 for a fighter is a -6 to hit:
-1 base + -1 per 4 points of BAB.. he has 20 bab 20/4=5
-1 + -5 = -6.
I see some people throwing around -5.
Ah. So it is.
The thing is, it very nearly is -5 at max... it's easy to think "for the first four level it's -1, then -2" and so forth, when in actuality, the level ranges are 1-3, 4-7, 8-11, 12-15, 16-19, and finally 20.
It's true, armor spikes work. They're just so... stupid, I always immediately erase them from my mind.
Sadly, the Haste spell and feats like slashing flurry (phb2) favor the 2-hander. Anything that adds an unconditional attack favors the 2-hander, anything that adds an on-hit effect favors the twfer. This includes anything that triggers on a crit.
By default, the twfer gets 7 hits vs. 4. With haste, it's 8 vs. 5 and so forth. Of course, at level 1 to 8 the ratio is much more favorable, but damage adder sources are scarce.
Bard song is very useful here as are spells that add an elemental die to the weapon, as do various cleric boosts. However, unless you put ranks in UMD and get the necessary wands or somesuch, this isn't going to help you all that much.
It's things like AoOs and other extra attacks which kill TWF for anything but the rogue and the status effect fighter (at high level the critical focused fighter can still benefit from TWF).
The new TWF archetype should solve those issues since he can nkw TWF as a standard action or AOO. Doesn't do much for the other classes though but 3.5 has TW pounce feat for rangers and the rest.
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