Yet another attempt to fix TWF...


Homebrew and House Rules

Dark Archive

Right. upcoming game in september. I'm looking to boost twf to be as good as thf, in terms of damage output. Ideally it would be similar on a standard attack and on a full attack, but at least should be similar on a full attack.

Things that make twf weak:
1. Steep feat requirements just to try to keep up with damage (let alone extra stuff like tw defense, etc.)
2. dpr is still lower than the equivalent thf fighter that spent less (potentially 0) feats on it.
3. double enchantment costs
4. DR hurts more.

I'll be going the route of giving inherent bonuses by level to cut down on the xmas tree effect, and I'll be giving out equivalently less loot to compensate. In that sense, it should reduce the problems of #3, since They'll only have to pay for the named enhancement bonuses, such as flaming, etc.

I'm looking for some suggestions on boosting it to be more in line with thf in terms of dpr, and make the number of feats to get there more equivalent as well.

Can I get a hand with this?


Condense the TWF feat chain into one feat. Double Slice and Two Weapon Rend make up for the -2 to hit. EWP (any double weapon) lets the TWFer apply 1.5x strength mod on charges, standard action attacks, and attacks of opportunity. That leaves you with a 4 feat tax, but weapon plusses they don't pay for also favor the TWFer. They get the same amount of improvement to their hit chances, but twice as much improvement to their damage.


Straight from my houserules, inspired by someone's comments during the beta (wish I remembered who):

Evil Lincoln's Houserules wrote:

Ambidexterity (Combat)

You wield weapons with equal precision in both hands.

Prerequisite: Dexterity 13+

Benefit: When wielding a weapon in your off-hand, you may deal precision or other bonus damage with offhand attacks. Additionally, you deal your full strength damage (rather than 1/2) with off-hand attacks.

Normal: Any character can make an additional off-hand attack as part of a full-attack action, plus one additional off-hand attack at BAB +6, +11, and +16. All attacks made during the round suffer a -2 penalty when fighting with two weapons.

Off-hand attacks receive 1/2 strength as bonus damage, and any inherent weapon damage such as bonus dice from magic effects (Flaming, etc). Precision, feat or class ability bonus damage including Arcane Strike, Favored Enemy, Smite Evil, Sneak Attack, Weapon Specialization, etc. does not apply to off-hand attacks.

The advantage is the simplicity. It's really, really hard to abuse this version (so far as I've seen) because you need to pay the fee to do anything worthwhile DPR-wise. However, that only costs you one feat, not three.

My favorite part (and the reason I chose this method) is that it doesn't penalize everyone for fighting with an offhand weapon just because some classes can double up on special damage. If a player wants to do something cool like wave a torch at some zombies, he shouldn't have to suck at that just because rogues can sneak attack.

Dark Archive

Very interesting Evil Lincoln. I think I like it. I like the combine the original feats option as well, but this one I really do like. How does the DPR compare to a TWFer?


Make the two-weapon fighting feat chain a game mechanic or give the feats for free for anyone who wants them. Then allow one attack with each weapon as a standard action. You're done.

Sure, it might not still be optimal and still has certain weaknesses but that's the nature of the game. Your players will be happy to get four feats for free.

.
EDIT:

Actually, here was my proposed fix from a while ago.

It's a little more elaborate.


I'd just remove improved and greater TWF, and give off-hand itterative attacks as normal. This will simultaneously lower the dexterity requirement, making it more viable without heavily investing in dexterity perse.

I actually like Evil Lincoln's suggestion in that, SA and the like do not automatically benefit from TWF, I'd wrap it in with double slice though and keep a single feat requirement for the TWF chain.

To mediate the TWF enhancement cost you might consider an additional option :

Twinned - these weapons come in either pairs or double weapons, the weapons are always enchanted with identical enhancements and function as plain masterwork weapons if ever they get separated more than 10' from eachother, for this reason it is more commonly used to enhance double weapons but twinned weapons have been known to be wielded by brothers in arms fighting side by side. The weapons always appear similar in construction and are always made of the same material.

The particular enchantment while limiting itself to identical enhancement makes it less costly than imbueing two magical weapons separate from eachother, the marketprice of twinned weapons is the base cost of the weapons, but only counting 75% of the enhancement cost, making it significantly cheaper to create.

In theory Twinned weapons can be made in more than one pair, and even an entire company can be made to wield enchanted weapons that function as long as they are within 10' of another weapon it is linked to at creation.


I have already combined TWF, iTWF, and gTWF into a single feat that scales. I might add a bonus to TWF that at +11 BAB, you can make an attack with both weapons as a standard action.

Two-weapon Defense feels lacking. I am really thinking that a +6,+11, and +16 BAB the shield bonus needs to increase by 1.

Double Slice and Two-Weapon Rend should probably be combined into a single feat.

That brings it down to 3 feats.


Basic question: How do you picture TWF? Given a hollywood movie crew that should capture a scene of a guy doing TWF against some baddies, how does he fight?
I'm asking because in my mind, a TWFer is some kind of "blade dancer", a high mobile guy who dances over the battlefield. A d20 TWFer is the opposite, if he moves too much, he sucks.
I'd introduce something like: "make the attack of one hand, move at your regular speed, make the other attack" or even "you may move BETWEEN your attacks to a total of your regular speed"


I cannot give you mathematical analysis of my solution, although I would be interested to see some. I'm more of a "feel it out" person. I'd be disappointed to find out that it is easily abused, but that's not really something I have to worry about with my group.

Anyway, the person I ripped it off from said something about TWF with all the feats being close in DPS to a basic power attack two-hander build. This feat does nothing to mitigate the effects of DR, etc, so I figure it's still pretty comparable, albeit much, much cheaper than the old feats.

The best part is definitely that it doesn't penalize people from just using an offhand weapon if they're not trying to game it with special damage. You should try to include that kind of feature in whatever method you settle upon.

Silver Crusade

Darkholme, Two Weapon Fighting should never have the same Damage out put as 2-handed weapon fighting.

Two weapon fighting gives more attacks at a lesser damage out put as oposed to the burley 2-handed fighter who is using a larger heavier weapon that packs a huge punch.

There is no way a Rapier and main gauche figher to deal as mch damage to a target with an equal number of attacks as a fighter weilding a great ax or great hammer. Larger heavier weapons do more damage to a target than a single handed weapon or a weapon weilded in a off hand.

TWF is also a harder fighting style to learn as it reuires a much higher dexterity to master using a weapon in each hand and cordinatiting the attacks opposed to a single large weapon that depends on strngth and mass to deal damage.

You should not try to fix somethng that is not broken.

The game mechanic is not broken you are trying to nerf a balance issue.

The way you should do this is not by breaking feats but instead creating magic items that benift TWF.

Intelligent parieed weapons wold be a good idea. On of my fav magic items from another game system were Gauntlets of the Fencing master
in PFS they woudld grant you 1 extra hasted attack at highest BAB for both weapons and +4 to dexterity. Cost 50k gp

Grand Lodge

Just out of curiosity - does a main Gauche do anything special for the two weapon fighter?

Dark Archive

Lou Diamond wrote:

Darkholme, Two Weapon Fighting should never have the same Damage out put as 2-handed weapon fighting.

Two weapon fighting gives more attacks at a lesser damage out put as oposed to the burley 2-handed fighter who is using a larger heavier weapon that packs a huge punch.

There is no way a Rapier and main gauche figher to deal as mch damage to a target with an equal number of attacks as a fighter weilding a great ax or great hammer. Larger heavier weapons do more damage to a target than a single handed weapon or a weapon weilded in a off hand.

TWF is also a harder fighting style to learn as it reuires a much higher dexterity to master using a weapon in each hand and cordinatiting the attacks opposed to a single large weapon that depends on strngth and mass to deal damage.

You should not try to fix somethng that is not broken.

The game mechanic is not broken you are trying to nerf a balance issue.

I agree with your statements about this with regard to real life. TWF is much more difficult to learn in real life than attacking well with a single weapon. it involves dividing your focus and well, any time you need to focus on multiple things you are doing at once, it makes things harder.

However, as an in-game option, the overall payoff for one fighting style should be around the same as another fighting style at the top tier (in this case, lets say a well built fighter). Sword and board may be a different beast, due to the much better defense; but TWF isn't getting anything to compensate for the high feat cost. It does crappier damage than THF without any feats invested.

While I agree with you that a TWFer should not do the same number of damage in one attack, or in an equal number of attacks, if you count ALL of the twfer's attacks, and compare those to ALL of the THFer's attacks, either the damage should be roughly even, or the TWFer should be getting something equally good to compensate (with the base rules, they don't.) I'd say the base damage should likely be a little higher to compensate for lost DR, but at the very least, if its left as is for penalties/benefits, the feat cost should be reduced/dropped.

You can manage with a TWF build, but a THF build will ALWAYS be better. In real life thats just the way things work sometimes. In a game, I'd like to have my options be more competitive with eachother so I have a whole bunch of equally good options to choose from, and not have one that's clearly better.

@Ksorkrax,I agree with you, but I see that as a problem with D&D Melee as a whole, rather than a problem that specifically applies to TWFers. It's something I'd like to address, but when I go at it, it'll be a system wide change, or some new feats that apply to all the meleers, and not just twfers. I want to see less "I stand still and full attack", and make mobile options be better than they are. One thing I'm contemplating is rolling Vital Strike into Iterative Attack progressions. And then maybe for feats, either making a new feat specifically for or rolling into another twf feat to allow for twf as a standard attack, or an off-hand attack as a swift option that you can make when making a standard attack or some such. Ideally, either twf = thf in terms of damage, or twf gets something else to make up for it.

So far I've seen a few options for a TWF Alternative.

Evil Lincoln's System:
Ambidexterity (Combat)
You wield weapons with equal precision in both hands.

Prerequisite: Dexterity 13+

Benefit: When wielding a weapon in your off-hand, you may deal precision or other bonus damage with offhand attacks. Additionally, you deal your full strength damage (rather than 1/2) with off-hand attacks.

Normal: Any character can make an additional off-hand attack as part of a full-attack action, plus one additional off-hand attack at BAB +6, +11, and +16. All attacks made during the round suffer a -2 penalty when fighting with two weapons.

Off-hand attacks receive 1/2 strength as bonus damage, and any inherent weapon damage such as bonus dice from magic effects (Flaming, etc). Precision, feat or class ability bonus damage including Arcane Strike, Favored Enemy, Smite Evil, Sneak Attack, Weapon Specialization, etc. does not apply to off-hand attacks.


Frogboy's System:
Everyone who qualifies for the feats is treated as though they have them. You get to use them for free if you qualify (at least the base twf, imptwf, and gretwf).
You don't get precision damage on your extra attacks unless you burn feats for each extra attack. through the following three feats. If you're not a rogue, you get twf basically the same for free. if you ARE a rogue, the feat costs are the same if you want the same benefits.
Off-hand Precision: You are treated as being proficient in all martial weapons only for the sake of meeting the prerequisite to fight with two weapons. Also, you may make precision damage with your first off-hand attack if applicable.
Off-hand Precision, Improved: Gain precision damage with your second off-hand attack
Off-hand Precision, Greater: Gain precision damage with your third off-hand attack

TOZ's Houserule:
Two Weapon Fighting [Combat]

When armed with two weapons, you fight with two weapons rather than picking and choosing and fighting with only one. Kind of obvious in retrospect.

+0 BAB: You may make an extra attack with your offhand weapon for each attack you are allowed by your BAB. All attacks take a -2 penalty.

+1 BAB: While armed with two weapons, you gain an extra Attack of Opportunity each round for each attack you would be allowed for your BAB, these extra attacks of opportunity must be made with your offhand.

+6 BAB: You gain a +2 Shield Bonus to your armor class when fighting with two weapons and not flat footed.

+11 BAB: You may Feint as a Swift action.

+16 BAB: While fighting with two weapons and not flat footed you may add the enhancement bonus of either your primary or your off-hand weapon to your Shield Bonus to AC.


One thing I've seen done (it's a houserule in one of the campaigns I'm in) is that if you are carrying two weapons, you can attack with both as a standard action.

This eliminates the screw of TWF whenever you move. We've been playing with it for awhile now, and it seems to work pretty well.


In my "redesign the game" phase (way back when Pathfinder was in Beta), I made the following combat changes:

Secondary Attacks
You may make an additional attack with a different weapon from your first weapon. All attacks this round have a -4 to attack. If the second weapon is considered a light weapon, the penalty is only -2. Strength damage is reduced by one half on this extra attack.
The point being that you can make this extra attack with any weapon, natural attacks, etc. This includes Twohanders + armor spikes.

Feat: Improved Secondary Attack
Dex 15
You may make additional secondary attacks for having high base attack bonus, equal to your normal iterative attacks.
Additionally, you may forego the damage from this extra attack to cause a single target to provoke an Attack of Opportunity from others.

Feat: Two Weapon Fighting
Dex 15
When holding a light weapon in your off hand, you may add the weapon damage magical effects to your main hand attack. You do not add any additional weapon enhancement, strength modifiers or precision damage.
Alternatively, you may forego the extra damage and instead gain a shield bonus to AC equal to 1 + the weapon's enhancement bonus (if any). This bonus is increased to 2 + enhancement when fighting defensively or using the total defense actions.
When using an off hand weapon with this feat, you may not use it for secondary attacks.
Yes, this works on standard attacks too. Yay charge, spring attack or even AoO!

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My reasoning..
I disliked the idea that the main rules for making extra attacks with extra weapons were from the point of view of the off hand.
I'd rather a general rule for attacking with a second weapon other than the first (no matter where you got it from), and then made unique options that made using a weapon in the off hand more thematically how I see it in movies and books.

A twohander gets the damage without burning a feat, but the TWFer burns a feat (and some cash) to get potentially slightly higher damage (from magical effects) and has versatility in the ability to apply their weapon towards defense.

On the flipside.. ANYONE can kick with a foot, or shoulder check (my unarmed strike doesn't require "off hands" for anyone), no matter what weapon they are wielding, or how full their hands are. Burning a feat gives you more attacks (considering the diminished returns for iteratives, I still think only one extra feat is needed.. just add more if you think non-casters don't deserve nice things.. j/k ;).

Caveat: I have not had a chance to actually playtest this. My groups tend to be fairly "close to core as possible" type of gaming.
I have no clue if this can be broken or if balance flies out the window.

Sovereign Court

My changes are simple

Two Weapon Fighting Unchanged

Improved Two Weapon FightingIn addition to the standard single extra attack you get with an off-hand weapon, whenever you get an iterative attack you gain an additional off hand attack with it, albeit at the same attack bonus as the iterative attack that it coincides with.

Greater Two Weapon FightingWhen you make an attack as a standard action you may make an additional attack with your off hand weapon albeit both attacks suffer the two weapon fighting penalties.

This makes traditional TWF only take two feats rather than three and gives the TWFer who goes all in (or the TWF Ranger who skips improved TWF) a major boost.


Well, you need weapong tha deal a lot of damage and you want to use thar weapong in each hand. so you can use the two weapon figther archetype from advancd player guide. so in 15th level yyou can use a long sword in each hand with no penalty, besides double strike and equal oportunity are great.

if you don`t have a fighter or don`t want to take the archetype, then i suggest you try to convince your Dm to let you take overzised twf from 3.5 and exotic weapong proficiency (bastard sword) suddenly the 2-12 damage from 2 short sword becomes 2-20 damage. or if you dont wan`t the bastard swords take a scimitar and take the critical focus chain


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I condense it all down into one auto-scaling feat, and let you attack once with each weapon as a standard action. Simple.


From a simulationist standpoint I think TWF as it now exists isn't a style the game should support at all.

The real two weapon schools I'm aware of do not use nearly as many off-hand strikes as on-hand. For them there would be nothing but the first two weapon fighting feat, a worthwhile version of two weapon defense, and the ability to sacrifice the off-hand attack to feint in a full attack action.

Double weapons are a different kettle of fish entirely. They seem closer to the blender style TWF that the current rules support. They also, because they're two handed, don't suffer from the weak standard attacks and AoOs that TWF currently suffer from. I would suggest just mitigating the feat tax. I don't think double weapons need any other help. With double slice they do 33% more strength damage than a two hander in a full attack and twice as much damage from weapon specialization, favored enemy, smite, sneak attack, cavalier's challenge, and bardsong, while being behind only by having one handed damage dice and no double scimitar when used for standard attacks and AoOs.


Atarlost wrote:

From a simulationist standpoint I think TWF as it now exists isn't a style the game should support at all.

The real two weapon schools I'm aware of do not use nearly as many off-hand strikes as on-hand. For them there would be nothing but the first two weapon fighting feat, a worthwhile version of two weapon defense, and the ability to sacrifice the off-hand attack to feint in a full attack action.

I completely see your point. I think a better and simpler way to translate this is to dropped the damage from both primary and secondary to 1/2 strength, but instead grant a +2 to strike, and fold all TWF tree into one.


Atarlost wrote:

From a simulationist standpoint I think TWF as it now exists isn't a style the game should support at all.

The real two weapon schools I'm aware of do not use nearly as many off-hand strikes as on-hand. For them there would be nothing but the first two weapon fighting feat, a worthwhile version of two weapon defense, and the ability to sacrifice the off-hand attack to feint in a full attack action.

I agree on the defense. Generally, when one weapon attacks, the other defends. However, if the weapons are the same (two sabers, for instance), one full "blossom" rotation presents 6 strikes--3 right and 3 left. Of course, this would be akin to dual wielding scimitars, and this maneuver can't be done with double-edged weapons, so it doesn't make sense in game terms. But multiple strikes can easily be generated from real life TWF.

Dark Archive

I think I mentioned this upthread; I agree that its a difficult fighting style in real life, but I'm not interested in making it more difficult than other fighting styles to learn unless the end result is considerably more powerful. And since it's *not* more powerful, either it should be as easy to be good at as any good fighting style with a similar or better damage output/defensive capability, or it should be buffed to be substantially more powerful than those other fighting styles.

That said, I think it is easier to leave the usefulness around the same and just make it cheaper.


Darkholme wrote:

I think I mentioned this upthread; I agree that its a difficult fighting style in real life, but I'm not interested in making it more difficult than other fighting styles to learn unless the end result is considerably more powerful. And since it's *not* more powerful, either it should be as easy to be good at as any good fighting style with a similar or better damage output/defensive capability, or it should be buffed to be substantially more powerful than those other fighting styles.

That said, I think it is easier to leave the usefulness around the same and just make it cheaper.

TWF is a difficult fighting style in real life so it should be a difficult fighting style in pathfinder, but it should be a rewarding style (you are spending a lot of feats).

there should be feats that

1) permit a double attack in a standard action (the weakest part o twf)

2) permit other thing beside do damage (shield slam permit a bull rush), 3,5 have some good feats in that regard.

NOTE: i am not a english native speaker, sorry for any mistake

Dark Archive

Nicos wrote:

TWF is a difficult fighting style in real life so it should be a difficult fighting style in pathfinder, but it should be a rewarding style (you are spending a lot of feats).

there should be feats that

1) permit a double attack in a standard action (the weakest part o twf)

2) permit other thing beside do damage (shield slam permit a bull rush), 3,5 have some good feats in that regard.

NOTE: i am not a english native speaker, sorry for any mistake

The way I see it; if I drop 4 feats on TWF, I should be just as good as the guy who THFs and fropped 4 feats into focusing on it. I shouldn't be dropping more feats into it to keep up with what the THF guy gets at no cost.


Darkholme,I'm no game design genius, but I think hear that what you want is a "balanced" less feat heavy version of TWF that does more. Well, I will attempt to deliver.

Two Weapon Fighting:
This feat grants an offhand attack during a full attack action and an additional attack for every iterative attack at the same bonus. When two-weapon fighting during a full attack action, all attacks suffer a -2 penalty to hit, and all offhand attacks only receive half the strength bonus to damage.

Double Slice:
When two-weapon fighting, the offhand weapon deals full strength bonus to damage instead of half. In addition, a character wielding two weapons is capable of performing an attack with both their main hand and offhand weapons as a standard action albeit at a -2 penalty to both attacks.

Two weapon rend:
If you hit an opponent with both your primary hand and your off-hand weapon, you deal an additional 1d10 points of damage plus 1-1/2 times your Strength modifier. Calculate the damage from both the qualifying attacks and the rend together before applying the opponents damage reduction. You can only perform a two weapon rend once each round.

Also, a magic weapon special quality.

Twinned:
A twinned weapon only benefits when wielded as an offhand weapon. When used in the offhand, a twinned weapon is considered to have the magical enhancement bonus and special abilities of the weapon being wielded in the primary hand. A twinned weapon does not take on any other properties of the primary hand weapon. Price +1 bonus

Warning, this can give you an awesome blender TWF. However, beware sword and board users taking advantage of this to completely dominate with these rules. It may be wise to rewrite Improved Shield Bash or some other feat to limit shield bashing so as not to benefit from all the new TWF feats. Also, the twinned magical property should not be allowed on shields as well.

Dark Archive

pobbes wrote:
Darkholme,I'm no game design genius, but I think hear that what you want is a "balanced" less feat heavy version of TWF that does more. Well, I will attempt to deliver.

That's exactly what I wanted, and you definitely delivered. That's pretty damn good!

Thoughts:

TWF: I think I'd use the standard penalties and whatnot, so if the off-hand weapon isn't light, they take -4/-4

Double Slice: We run VitalStrike as doable on a charge and on a spring attack (as the author intended, instead of as the errata says.) I'm thinking maybe allowing this with VitalStrike; or at least allowing it on a charge as well. Any thoughts on that idea?
- They are now getting full STR on their off-hand. Here's the logical conclusion I get from this; let me know if you see my point:
If your off-hand is as good as your main hand, it's not really an off-hand anymore. Therefore, Maybe ditch the light weapon in the off-hand requirement here (as opposed to in the main twf feat where you had it). Perhaps I would move the additional attack as a standard into the regular twf feat... hmm. not sure.

Rend: I like it. But I dont recall what rend normally does at the moment. lol.

Twinned: I can see some shenaniganry coming from this. But it definitely gives me an idea.

What do you think of this?

Twinned: Twinned weapons are masterwork weapons made specifically to function as a pair. They take more work and cost a little extra, but are specifically designed to work together.
A set of twinned weapons costs an additional 300gp (including the required masterworking for both weapons, that comes to a total of 900gp).
Any two light or one-handed weapons (they have to be two of the same kind of weapon) can be made twinned while being crafted.
When only one weapon from a twinned set is wielded, the wielder suffers a -2 penalty on attack rolls with its use, and any bonuses on the attack roll from magical enhancements (such as from an enhancement bonus) do not apply.
The benefit of a twinned weapon is this: Twin weapons are enchanted as a pair. The cost of magical enhancements is paid once, but applies to both weapons.
- Perhaps twinned weapons don't suffer the -2/-2 when being dual-wielded... Though if thats the case, perhaps they should cost more.

Paired: Paired weapons are similar to twinned weapons in that they are designed to function as a pair, but they are two different weapons.
Paired weapons function the same as twinned weapons.
A set of Paired weapons costs an additional 500gp (for a total masterworking cost of 1100gp). It is more difficult to pair different weapons than like ones.


And you give monks another bonus feat at 1, 6, 11, 16?

What about 2WF rangers? What are they doing about it?

Balance one, balance all.

Dark Archive

Purplefixer wrote:

And you give monks another bonus feat at 1, 6, 11, 16?

What about 2WF rangers? What are they doing about it?

Balance one, balance all.

... Did you post in the wrong thread? Because I can't figure out what youre talking about in the context of this thread....


Darkholme wrote:
The way I see it; if I drop 4 feats on TWF, I should be just as good as the guy who THFs and fropped 4 feats into focusing on it. I shouldn't be dropping more feats into it to keep up with what the THF guy gets at no cost.

As i said twf should be dificult(how many famous twf swordman can we find in history? very few) but in the end should be rewarding.

You don`t like core twf, so you should not find problem using feat from complete warrior and complete adventurer. for example

Oversized Two-weapon Fighting

Type: General, Fighter
Source: Complete Adventurer

You are adept at wielding larger than normal weapons in your offhand.
Prerequisite: Str 13, Two-Weapon Fighting.
Benefit: When wielding a one-handed weapon in your offhand, you take penalties for fighting with two weapons as if you were wielding a light weapon in your offhand (see page 160 of the Player's Handbook).
Special: A fighter may select Over-sized Two-Weapon Fighting as one of his fighter bonus feats

High Sword Low Axe

Type: Style
Source: Complete Warrior

You have mastered the style of fighting with sword and axe at the same time, and have learned to use this unusual pairing of weapons to pull your opponents off their feet.
Prerequisite: Improved Trip, Two-Weapon Fighting, Weapon Focus (bastard sword, longsword, scimitar or shortsword), Weapon Focus (battleaxe, handaxe, or dwarven waraxe).
Benefit: If you hit the same creature with both your sword and your axe in the same round, you may make a free trip attempt against that foe. (If you succeed, you may immediately use your Improved Trip feat to gain an additional attack against your foe.)

Now, not only your weapongs do more damage that a two handed weapong, 2d8 vs 2d6 from a greatsword, but you can trip as a free action. You have to spend a lot of feat but you will be deadly triping for free every turn.


Is it possible that the TWF guy is balanced by being better in certain situations?

THF deals 2d6+9 with a -2 to strike.
TWF deals 1d8+4 and 1d6+2 with a -2 to strike.

They are attacked by a single bad guy with 10 HP and DR 5. THF kills on his first shot. TWF hits with both but the guy is still alive.

Second scenario: being attacked by half a dozen 4hp goblins. The THF kills one every round. The TWF kills 2 every round. They can both have cleave, so maybe its 3 and 2. Either way, the TWF is finished first.

Dark Archive

Nicos wrote:

As i said twf should be dificult(how many famous twf swordman can we find in history? very few) but in the end should be rewarding.

You don`t like core twf, so you should not find problem using feat from complete warrior and complete adventurer. for example
[3.5 feats from CW and CA]

Now, not only your weapons do more damage that a two handed weapong, 2d8 vs 2d6 from a greatsword, but you can trip as a free action. You have to spend a lot of feat but you will be deadly triping for free every turn.

Yeah, those feats would definitely help. But the more feats you have to take, the better the payoff needs to be. If I dump 5 feats into a single thing, I should be doing much more damage than the basic guy with a greatsword. The trip option is pretty cool, but with all the requirements, your level will be monstrously high before you ever qualify. New feats are nice, but I definitely feel the need to buff the existing feats as well. Each feat should be worth the effort, it shouldn't take every feat slot I get to make it pay off. Though I definitely like the ideas; I'm thinking of rolling oversized into the main feats, for example. Could I get come comments on the potential change I came up with?

cranewings wrote:
Is it possible that the TWF guy is balanced by being better in certain situations?

Possible, but that has not been my experience.

Being attacked by half a dozen 4hp goblins. The THF kills one every round. The TWF kills 2 every round. They can both have cleave, so maybe its 3 and 2. Either way, the TWF is finished first.

If you use cleave, you just lost all benefit from your twf; Cleave is a special kind of standard action in Pathfinder, so you cant do it with a regular attack routine or on a charge, and therefore cannot receive the benefits of both feats at the same time. In D&D 3.5? maybe.


Darkholme wrote:

That's exactly what I wanted, and you definitely delivered. That's pretty damn good!

Thoughts:
*edited for space*

You ask, I deliver. Let me reply to the things you wrote -

TWF- Yes, this is basically the same as the whole TWF chain. You get an attack with your offhand every time you get an attack with your main hand. And, yes, the -2, -4 penalties apply, but I didn't want to type that much.

Double Slice- Not intended to work with vital strike. So, I would make double slice it's own standard action. I also wouldn't make it usable on a charge, I mean we want the THF to have their own thing, and charging is a great thing to give them. Also, the changes I made to the rend feat make this action more powerful, so vital strike isn't necessary. Ultimately, vital strike stacks poorly with TWF anyways. Just leave it out.

Rend- Yeah, I just copy pasted the rend feat from the prd and added the part about pooling the damage from the two attacks and rend before applying damage reduction. I did this in answer to your request for a way around damage reduction. Note: I intended to follow the feats existing pre-requisites which for this feat included a BAB of +11.

Twinned- This is your game, so use whatever system you'd like. Your seems to be a way of making weapons more like double weapons, and make them cheaper to enchant, which is fine if you want. Allow me to explain my reasoning. My enchantment was designed with flexibility in mind. One of the advantages of TWF is the ability to utilize two different sets of enchantments on the weapons, and my system allows for a TWF to have two separately powerfully enchanted weapons if they want them. This twinned property also allows for "cheaper" enchantment, because a +1 twinned weapon is all you ever need for your offhand. Once you can afford the 3000 gp the twinned weapon always acts like the main hand weapon. This can provide that cheap option albeit after a slightly higher level. In addition, it doesn't penalize for changing weapons. A TWF can always pick up a new weapon for the main hand without worrying that it has to be part of a set. Also, a TWF can have a signature weapon that he never has to part with which just has the twinned property (think Zydane from FFIX). To reiterate, flexibility and simplicity was my goal. Note my description was three sentences, and if I wanted to make it any clearer all i had to add was four words, "instead of its own" to the end of the second.

Ultimately, what you want is up to you.

@PurpleFixer - I know this is not balanced to Pathfinder, and I understand what you are saying. I am just delivering what was asked, and I consider this homebrew not system fixes. In that vein, I did work on a homebrew monk which was a melee disabler and combat maneuver king. Creep and balance only matters to me in published systems, otherwise, "give the gamer what she wants" is my philosophy.


the only thing I think should be change to the core twf, is leting the get to atk as standar action, an maybe to opportunity atk. and maybe the numbers of atk with the off hand weapong be equal to the main weapong for free ( or just one more feat)


Darkholme wrote:


cranewings wrote:
Is it possible that the TWF guy is balanced by being better in certain situations?

Possible, but that has not been my experience.

Being attacked by half a dozen 4hp goblins. The THF kills one every round. The TWF kills 2 every round. They can both have cleave, so maybe its 3 and 2. Either way, the TWF is finished first. If you use cleave, you just lost all benefit from your twf; Cleave is a special kind of standard action in Pathfinder, so you cant do it with a regular attack routine or on a charge, and therefore cannot receive the benefits of both feats at the same time. In D&D 3.5? maybe.

Which would be perfectly fine. TWF=1feat can kill 2 goblins. Cleave = 1 feat can kill 2 goblins. (TWF probably taking power attack also so disregarding it for the cleave requirement)

Problem is when ac is included. TWF takes an attack penalty. TWF has the potential to hit more per round, over a THF, and against same ac opponents will probably hit more often. But actually has a decreased chance for any particular hit to land, and so will usually do less damage.


One of the common problems I am seeing people not noticing or clarifying, what about TWF with rogues? Do we really want to make them do better in combat?


Captain Sir Hexen Ineptus wrote:
One of the common problems I am seeing people not noticing or clarifying, what about TWF with rogues? Do we really want to make them do better in combat?

My method places the burden of feat investment on the classes that derive the most benefit from it, and gives everyone else the option for free (more or less). That's what I like about it.

But yeah, Rogues can do with a little boost, IMO. They're clearly not dominating, and if you let a rogue SA it should be extremely dangerous.


Captain Sir Hexen Ineptus wrote:
One of the common problems I am seeing people not noticing or clarifying, what about TWF with rogues? Do we really want to make them do better in combat?

Man, I would give you a 9 out of 10 for trolling, but I am afraid you are serious......

Currently, rogue are sitting well behind fighters on damage, and that assumes the rogue is using TWF. All these rules do is lower the feat cost, and make it more viable for a rogue to use TWF.

At level 10, and two-hand fighter is +10 BAB with a 24 strength, weapon spec, weap focus, greater weap focus, weapon training, power attack, improved crit, and a +3 weapon is looking at a +21/+16 to hit for 2d4 + 26 damage. That is about 62 damage per round against an AC of 24 with an AC of around 28 in full plate and loads of hp.

If we use the rules here that allow a TWF rogue to only need 13 dex. A level 10 rogue has a +7 BAB, 24 strength, weapon focus, TWF, double slice, TW Rend, a +3 weapon, and a +1 mirror weapon(see above enchanement idea). The rogue is still spending 8000 more gold on weapons than the fighter. The rogue is +16/+16/+11/+11 for 1d4 + 10. Against AC 24, that is 29 damage per round. If the rogue gets a flank, they would be hitting at +18/+18/+13/+13 for 1d4 + 5d6 + 10. That gives them 81 damage per round against AC 24, if and only if they get a flank. The rogue would have an AC of around 22.

A finesse rogue would have an AC closer to the fighter, but their damage when flanking will go down by about 25(which puts them right on par with the fighter). So they match the fighter pretty closely, but spend more on weapons, and have less HP.

So, the rogue spends more on weapons, has a lower AC, less HP, but yay in certain spefic instances they do 20 more damage per round.


What about attacking the weapon problem from the other side?

Make one handed weapons and light weapons cost less to enchant.

PRD:
Weapon Size: Every weapon has a size category. This designation indicates the size of the creature for which the weapon was designed.

A weapon's size category isn't the same as its size as an object. Instead, a weapon's size category is keyed to the size of the intended wielder. In general, a light weapon is an object two size categories smaller than the wielder, a one-handed weapon is an object one size category smaller than the wielder, and a two-handed weapon is an object of the same size category as the wielder.

Let medium weapons pay full price to enchant and each size category down pays 2/3 as much and each category up pays 1.5 as much. Boosting small martial adventurers is a side effect, but probably not enough to make up for a -2 strength penalty and at least -1 average damage on any weapon doing 1d6 or more as medium. Giants with two handed weapons would find themselves above appropriate wealth for their challenge level and need some sort of adjustment. Small creatures would find themselves below their target wealth.

Maybe 2/3 is too much and will kill two handed weapons in favor of weilding one handed weapons two handed (and certainly this is another change that requires banning the Falcata, which seems to be a common requirement of my ideas) Maybe 3/4 is a better ratio. Maybe no ratio that makes TWF viable doesn't make scimitars superior weapons to falchions and longswords to greatswords.


Atarlost wrote:

What about attacking the weapon problem from the other side?

Make one handed weapons and light weapons cost less to enchant.

** spoiler omitted **

Let medium weapons pay full price to enchant and each size category down pays 2/3 as much and each category up pays 1.5 as much. Boosting small martial adventurers is a side effect, but probably not enough to make up for a -2 strength penalty and at least -1 average damage on any weapon doing 1d6 or more as medium. Giants with two handed weapons would find themselves above appropriate wealth for their challenge level and need some sort of adjustment. Small creatures would find themselves below their target wealth.

Maybe 2/3 is too much and will kill two handed weapons in favor of weilding one handed weapons two handed (and certainly this is another change that requires banning the Falcata, which seems to be a common requirement of my ideas) Maybe 3/4 is a better ratio. Maybe no ratio that makes TWF viable doesn't make scimitars superior weapons to falchions and longswords to greatswords.

I like the twinned enchantment idea because it works extremely well with double weapons.


Charender wrote:
Captain Sir Hexen Ineptus wrote:
One of the common problems I am seeing people not noticing or clarifying, what about TWF with rogues? Do we really want to make them do better in combat?

Man, I would give you a 9 out of 10 for trolling, but I am afraid you are serious......

Currently, rogue are sitting well behind fighters on damage, and that assumes the rogue is using TWF. All these rules do is lower the feat cost, and make it more viable for a rogue to use TWF.

At level 10, and two-hand fighter is +10 BAB with a 24 strength, weapon spec, weap focus, greater weap focus, weapon training, power attack, improved crit, and a +3 weapon is looking at a +21/+16 to hit for 2d4 + 26 damage. That is about 62 damage per round against an AC of 24 with an AC of around 28 in full plate and loads of hp.

If we use the rules here that allow a TWF rogue to only need 13 dex. A level 10 rogue has a +7 BAB, 24 strength, weapon focus, TWF, double slice, TW Rend, a +3 weapon, and a +1 mirror weapon(see above enchanement idea). The rogue is still spending 8000 more gold on weapons than the fighter. The rogue is +16/+16/+11/+11 for 1d4 + 10. Against AC 24, that is 29 damage per round. If the rogue gets a flank, they would be hitting at +18/+18/+13/+13 for 1d4 + 5d6 + 10. That gives them 81 damage per round against AC 24, if and only if they get a flank. The rogue would have an AC of around 22.

A finesse rogue would have an AC closer to the fighter, but their damage when flanking will go down by about 25(which puts them right on par with the fighter). So they match the fighter pretty closely, but spend more on weapons, and have less HP.

So, the rogue spends more on weapons, has a lower AC, less HP, but yay in certain spefic instances they do 20 more damage per round.

IMHO (which can be wrong) rogues are not supposed to be effective in combat, just menacing from time to time. They are supposed to be about skills. I am afraid if we make TWF too good for when they use it, they would be made too good; probably not too powerful, but more than they are supposed to be.


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TWF is underpowered. But bear in mind that "fixing" it messes with the balance of the monk, ranger and TW fighter archetype. If changes are to drastic as to how the feats work, those classes should be boosted acordingly.

And one of the main issues I have with TWF (beside the feats) are the fact that you end up being worse if you don't use the same weapons, specially if you are a fighter, and that's just wrong.


Well, the rogue may have less AC, HP, and more spent on weapons, but to me that makes it fair. The rogue is the exciting class. It gets to use all those skills and chances are, you get first look at the treasure, so you probably have more money than everyone else.

The ability to use Bluff, Diplomacy, and Stealth to set up situations where you are not only doing 20 more damage than a fighter, you are probably doing it against an unprepared opponent, is awesome.

In my games, the rogue is the most powerful class. The guy playing the rogue never loses because he proactively hunts the bad guys and unless he can get an easy shot, he runs away. He's hard to pin down, quick to make allies, and the bad guys have to take off their armor and go to bed sometime.

I get that in some people's games rogues need a boost compared to the fighter and paladin. Walking 2x2 through a cave fighting jellies and dragons is a terrible place for a rogue - but that's the players fault for picking a class for a campaign that doesn't play to his strengths. Fill the game with investigations, man hunts, traps, competing factions populated by characters of reasonable level and so on, and the rogue is the all star.


Any change to TWF in general has the same effect on the two weapon archetype because he's not getting free feats. Monks are uneffected because they get all the feats free with no choices. They lose ground compared to other dual wielders who are using fewer feats than previously, but the standard by which melee is judged is still Falchion Fred, who hasn't changed. As long as the changes to the two weapon fighting feats don't outperform the two handed weapon path the monk-fighter damage gap is uneffected. The monk's other stuff is either worth that gap or it's not.

Rangers pick their style feats and there aren't that many for each style. They need a fix, possibly allowing them some more generic options in the TWF style group like Improved Sunder is on the two handed style list because there aren't enough two handed weapon feats to go around.

I'd add this and put it on the ranger style list at level 6.
Two Weapon Feint:
requires two weapon fighting, improved feint
you may sacrifice your highest BAB off-hand attack to make a feint within a full attack.

And maybe this at level 10
Distracting Strike:
requires two weapon fighting, BAB +9
when you critical with a weapon while two weapon fighting your next attack with the other hand is automatically treated as a critical threat. (or increase the threat range if that's too potent)

Then the two weapon ranger has enough feats to take even with the TWF tree condensed.


Captain Sir Hexen Ineptus wrote:
Charender wrote:
Captain Sir Hexen Ineptus wrote:
One of the common problems I am seeing people not noticing or clarifying, what about TWF with rogues? Do we really want to make them do better in combat?

Man, I would give you a 9 out of 10 for trolling, but I am afraid you are serious......

Currently, rogue are sitting well behind fighters on damage, and that assumes the rogue is using TWF. All these rules do is lower the feat cost, and make it more viable for a rogue to use TWF.

At level 10, and two-hand fighter is +10 BAB with a 24 strength, weapon spec, weap focus, greater weap focus, weapon training, power attack, improved crit, and a +3 weapon is looking at a +21/+16 to hit for 2d4 + 26 damage. That is about 62 damage per round against an AC of 24 with an AC of around 28 in full plate and loads of hp.

If we use the rules here that allow a TWF rogue to only need 13 dex. A level 10 rogue has a +7 BAB, 24 strength, weapon focus, TWF, double slice, TW Rend, a +3 weapon, and a +1 mirror weapon(see above enchanement idea). The rogue is still spending 8000 more gold on weapons than the fighter. The rogue is +16/+16/+11/+11 for 1d4 + 10. Against AC 24, that is 29 damage per round. If the rogue gets a flank, they would be hitting at +18/+18/+13/+13 for 1d4 + 5d6 + 10. That gives them 81 damage per round against AC 24, if and only if they get a flank. The rogue would have an AC of around 22.

A finesse rogue would have an AC closer to the fighter, but their damage when flanking will go down by about 25(which puts them right on par with the fighter). So they match the fighter pretty closely, but spend more on weapons, and have less HP.

So, the rogue spends more on weapons, has a lower AC, less HP, but yay in certain spefic instances they do 20 more damage per round.

IMHO (which can be wrong) rogues are not supposed to be effective in combat, just menacing from time to time. They are supposed to be about skills. I am afraid if we make TWF too good for when they use...

In that case, I feel sorry for your rogues. A rogues job is to be the party skill monkey AND deal damage. Why else would rogue have an ability like sneak attack unless they were supposed to be able to deal damage?

The TWF rogue build that beats the fighter in DPR is a glass cannon.
A. At 22 AC and 70ish hp, it could not survive a full round attack from most CR 10 monsters.
B. Only outdamages the fighter if it can get a flank. If you can't get a flank or the creature is immune to sneak attack, the rogue is doing half the damage of the fighter.
C. I didn't calculate how much damage the fighter gets from having a flank. The fighter likely gets 6-8 more DPR from having a flank, so the rogue is only beating the fighter by 10 DPR when flanking. The TWF finesse rogue is 10-15 DPR behind the fighter, even with a flank.

In short, I would never actually play the strength rogue in a real campaign as the odds of getting turned into a pasty goo are way too high.

PS - Don't look at the Alchmist(Vivisectionist) with feral mutagen. You avoid the TWF rules entirely by having lots of natural attacks(bite, 2 claws, tentacle), and sneak attack. In the DPR thread, I have a Ranger 2/Alchmist 8 that can easily break 100 DPR with a 38 AC while being able to cover most of the same skills that a rogue can, but yeah rogue's can't have nice things....

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