Hi,
I am doing up a Guide to two weapon fighting for the Two Weapon Warrior Archetype. I’ll be using my Ranger TWF Guide as a skeleton and a bit of Rogue Eidolon’s Guide to fighters.
The issues I’m running in to is what feats to fill in between the TWF feats to make a build REALLY awesome. Unlike a Ranger who uses Most of his feats to master the style and buff his trip buddy and teamwork feats for Outflank, (for +4 to hit, incidentally worth the same as Twin Blades+4) and Coordinated Charge, the fighter still has quite a few feats to spare.
I’m looking for REAL good combinations to add to the Base Skeleton:
1-TWF, Weapon Fcs: Scimitar, Iron Will
2-Bravery, Quickdraw
3-Defensive Flurry +1, Power Attack
4-Weapon Specialization: Scimitar
5-Twin Blades +1,
6-
7-Defensive Flurry +2, ITWF
8-Gtr Wpn Fcs: Scimitar, Retrain Quickdraw for Doubleslice
9-Twin Blades +2, Double strike,
10-
11-Improved Balance (-1/-1), Defensive Flurry +3, Improved Iron Will
12-Dazing Assault (swap a feat for TWR
13-Twin Blades +3, Equal Opportunity, Gtr Weapon Spl
14-Penetrating Strike
15-Perfect Balance (0/0), Defensive Flurry +4,
16-Stunning Assault, (retrain Dazing Assault for Gtr Penetrating Strike
17-Twin Blades +4, Deft Double strike GTWF
18-
19-Deadly Defense, Defensive Flurry +5,
20-Weapon Mastery,
Now obviously with Dazing/Stunning Assault being available, I won’t be recommending the Critical feats. They need a dead preq and don’t help really pin a foe till 17 when you get Stunning Crit. A TWF needs to make full attacks to be awesome so Dazing Assault is better.
Improved Critical is a Good feat and will be recommended.
Good chains will be :
Stepup, Following Step, Stepup and Strike
Combat Exp, Improved Disarm, Breakguard and Gtr Disarm
Anything else that looks particularly awesome? (This was easier in 3.5 with things like Leap Attack and Martial Study: Martial Spirit and the Combat Focus tree,)
It doesn't have to add to DPR, maybe add to survival etc, just as long as it's awesome
I know you said no, but it the bleed stacks, and most monsters don't have people around to heal them, even the BBEG's don't. I have also missed enough crit confirmations, but 1 or 2 that critical focus may be looking better than it is, but I have seen bleeding critical, and it is annoying as a GM.
Regeneration and fast healing won't stop bleeding either unless a GM makes a house rule.
Critical Focus
Bleeding Critical--Whenever you score a critical hit with a slashing or piercing weapon, your opponent takes 2d6 points of bleed damage (see Conditions) each round on his turn, in addition to the damage dealt by the critical hit. Bleed damage can be stopped by a DC 15 Heal skill check or through any magical healing. The effects of this feat stack.
The "assault" feats end up being better for the other ones though.
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Combat Reflexes works well with
Equal Opportunity (Ex): At 13th level, when a two-weapon warrior makes an attack of opportunity, he may attack once with both his primary and secondary weapons. The penalties for attacking with two weapons apply normally. This ability replaces weapon training 3.
and
Deadly Defense (Ex): At 19th level, when a two-weapon warrior makes a full attack with both weapons, every creature that hits him with a melee attack before the beginning of his next turn provokes an attack of opportunity from the warrior. This ability replaces armor mastery.
I'm considering it, along with the Dawnflower Dervish archetype as well.
They present a small problem in that they have different class abilities and thus have different interactions with certain feats.
Any SUPER combos you can think of would be appreciated.
I'll check it out. The skeleton build still has quite a few feat slots open.
Buuttt.
The fighter has no innate class abilites to stop a foe moving. As was mentioned before he doesn't come with a wolf trip buddy so stuff that can stop foes moving away is valuable.
What's the name of that new feat from UC? Sorta like Standstill?
Found it. Pin down.
This is real good with Dazing Assault.
I.E. If a for moves 5ft step or Withdraw (2 actions that don't normally provke) you can take an AOO to stop them moving. Nice.
then if a foe was to simply make a normal move away (which is not covered in the feat.) You would get a regular AOO, which you could use dazing assault with and force them to become dazed and stop them from acting for 1rd.
My current Two Weapon Warrior build has the Step Up and Strike chain. Since TWF relies so heavily on full attacks, any sort of mobility you can get without spending an action on it is a VERY good thing.
..and as someone else said, with the crazy AoO goodness the TWW gets and the huge dex requirements for the TWF feats, there's really no reason not to grab Combat Reflexes.
Found it. Pin down.
This is real good with Dazing Assault.
I.E. If a for moves 5ft step or Withdraw (2 actions that don't normally provke) you can take an AOO to stop them moving. Nice.then if a foe was to simply make a normal move away (which is not covered in the feat.) You would get a regular AOO, which you could use dazing assault with and force them to become dazed and stop them from acting for 1rd.
Sweet. I was looking for something like this in case I decide to use a lockdown build.
It's damn good. Standstill is actually made redundant by Dazing assault, so that's not needed.
Breakguard is pretty sweet as.well.
Use your last iterative to make a disarm check (the flat CM is actually more likely to hit since it adds your full BAB rather than BAB -10, likeyour last iterative would be.) and if it hits get a swift action extra attack with the other hand (at full bab). Not only does this impede your foe (who needs to use at least 1move action to recover his weapon or draw another (which provokes a Dazing assault AOO), you are also getting your attack back at a better bonus.
It's damn good. Standstill is actually made redundant by Dazing assault, so that's not needed.
Breakguard is pretty sweet as.well.
Use your last iterative to make a disarm check (the flat CM is actually more likely to hit since it adds your full BAB rather than BAB -10, likeyour last iterative would be.) and if it hits get a swift action extra attack with the other hand (at full bab). Not only does this impede your foe (who needs to use at least 1move action to recover his weapon or draw another (which provokes a Dazing assault AOO), you are also getting your attack back at a better bonus.
CMB attack rolls are based off of BAB so if you use the last attack for a CMB check then you have to use the BAB associated with that attack.
The CMB check is CMB = Base attack bonus(not highest BAB) + Strength modifier + special size modifier.As an example your BAB is 10 at level 10 it is 10/5. In short you have one BAB for you first attack and other BAB's for the later attacks.
Ah well, still a nice feat.
REALLY TICKED OFF. Had the guide1/2 done and windows closed and I hadn't saved!
I had been putting some thought into a defensive two weapon warrior build using a shield off hand for extra ac and damage.
With the tww changes the fighter would be able to make an attack with both his main hand (rapier/scimitar) and shield as a standard action or part of a charge, then with the bull rush feat chain to make the opponents movement from your bullrush provoke attacks of opportunity you can enter into a constant chain of AoO's until you run out of movement or AoO's.
Just as a quick example: at around 15th level with just the key feats listed
two weapon fighting, improved shield bash, combat reflexes, shield slam, improved bull rush, greater bull rush, improved critical (main hand), bashing finish
charge, doublestrike causes an attack with main hand (if crit attack with shield due to bashing finish) then an attack with shield once or twice depending on crits (shield hit initiates bull rush attempt with shield slam), bull rush opponent 5 feet (provokes AoO's from movement due to greater bull rush), due to equal opportunity you then restart your loop until either you fail to bull rush 5 feet, you run out of movement to follow your target up or you run out of AoO's.
if you run out of space your target gets knocked prone, you also have the slight control element of being able to move your target around at your whim depending on the battlefield your fighting on, the free sunder/disarm attempt from deft doublestrike is also more likely to come online at 17th level due to the number of extra attacks you can generate.
on a full attack its just as scary as a normal tww with twin weapons as you can use a heavy shield as a light weapon due to improved balance and the stacking enhancement bonuses from shield master can result in a huge ammount of extra to hit and damage which will more than make up for the lack of weapon focus/specialisation in the shield itself.
bashing finish also works in the middle of your full attack actions as well, unlikely as it is having 3 main hand attacks generate 3 crits and then generate 3 off hand attacks on top of your normal 3 off hand attacks with the potential for using a single shield hit to bull rush your opponent again into a 5 foot step to receive and extra main hand attack with another potential crit and a potential 2 off hand attacks.
this results at 15th level in +15/+15/+10+/+5(plus other modifiers) attacks with your main hand while hasted and an extra +15/+10/+5(plus other modifiers) attacks with your off hand as a base with an almost gauranteed additional +15(plus modifiers) attack with your main hand and off hand from the bull rush AoO then depending on your random crits from your main or even your shield hand you can have up to 9 additional attacks at +15(plus mods) with your shield from bashing finish, on top of that all of the extra shield attacks which you generate from you main attack criticals still have a chance to crit and then provide you with another attack at your highest bonus from bashing finish.
obviously this is just a thought experiment and the equation to work out its potential dpr is so complicated its effectively impossible due to the 1 to the nth power possibility of an infinate loop of attacks and damage but i thought it was worth while sharing. sorry for the long post.
Ah well, still a nice feat.
REALLY TICKED OFF. Had the guide1/2 done and windows closed and I hadn't saved!
I don't know if you use MSword or openoffice, but they both have auto-save features. I was typing a paper up in college a few years ago when it happened to me. I think both programs have it in the tools section.
With openoffice if your PC shuts down between saves it will try to recover the document so you get a type of double protection.
Idk he seems like a cool character with lots of attacks. And fighters always hold a special place in RPGs.
But the problem will be as you get higher in lvl, Fort Saves and CMD go through the roof. Things stop even having weapons, and become immune to crits.
Sure you will have magic weapons/items i am sure, but will it be enough to counter immunities and natural attacks.
(Am a fan of the dirty trick still vs CMD but its going to happen like it or not)
There are not a lot of things immune to crits even at high levels, but the fort saves are an issue. The advantage the critical feats have is that even on a failed save the monster may be stunned or staggered.
With the Assault feats you have to depend on multiple rolls to force a really low roll.
Ok what about 50+ CMDs?
A well built NPC can do get that, but a monster with natural attacks can't be disarmed so he does not even have to worry about that, which I do think you already mentioned.
Most high level games have you fighting monsters more than people so I would not focus on disarm unless I knew the GM like humanoid type games.
I find that the really crit immune monsters are at relatively low levels 6-10, its only really oozes and elementals that have immunity.
Fort saves are a probem but even in published adventures you tend to find the higher end bbegs are casters of one form or another, casters tend not to have huge fort saves and even when your facing up to an npc cleric their base stats tend to be lower than a similar level of pc.
As well as that as you start to get past level 13 every encounter cannot be against an appropriate cr foe from a bestiary as nearly all your encounters would be outsiders, dragons or aberitions. I find when running or writing for higher level games humanoids with class levels and minions make the best antagonists with the odd powerful creature thrown in, so while you may feel that equipment gets less common i would argue npc's with gear get more common.
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Whenever I have a character with some extra feat slots, I usually look at Toughness or the Dodge chain-- both are just universally useful. Of course, Toughness you really want to take at level one, and you don't appear to have a free feat slot that early. I don't know how much you want to look into Mobility and the later feats in the Dodge tree, but Dodge itself you'll never regret. Everyone wants a higher AC, right?
Most TWF users also look at Weapon Finesse, since they had to stack DEX anyway and are wielding at least one light weapon. I'm guessing you didn't go with Finesse because you've chosen scimitars, and I'm not questioning the decision, but you may at least want to acknowledge the existence of Finesse and its pros/cons versus your build.
The CM are definately the best option for the TWW archetype.
It has the worst DPR for moving (2attacks, vs Rapid Attack which scales better) and because of equal oppourtunity, should emphasize pinning and AOO's
Best Methods appear to be the Scimitar/Shield Line- to provoke AOO's by bashing and better AC.
or
Going the Improved Disarm/Breakguard route which not only means they provoke by picking up or drawing another weapon but ecnourages them to not move since either of those actions will chew thier move action. Leaving them with a standard to hit you once or move away which provokes again.
The feats do lose potency past level 13 when landing bullrushes becomes harder and you encounter less armed monsters.
Which is ok since they should take pin down around 11 or 12 and Dazing Assault as well.
Fort saves are getting higher but remember, you can force Multiple saves a round.
1from your full attack
1from any AOOS you can generate (via Breakguard or Shieldslam)
1 from any AOOS they are stupid enough to generate.
I'll likely reccomend retraining out Dazing assault for Stunning at 16 (which means they drop thier weapon anyway) and train out Breakguard at 20 (since the level17 ability replicates it)
Now I'm also including the Dawnflower Dervish and Moblie Fighter Archetypes.
They won't be needing Lockdown feats once they get rapid attack.
What looks real potent for them?
I'm already mentioning Dodge, Mobility.
Improved Initiative. You don't have to worry about AoO's to get inside the reach of monsters with really long reach if you can act first. I don't think a lot of monsters have combat reflexes.
Improved Initiative. You don't have to worry about AoO's to get inside the reach of monsters with really long reach if you can act first. I don't think a lot of monsters have combat reflexes.
Going first does tend to help, i've not done much research into the subject of monsters with combat reflexes however when i run for my group its one of the first things i swap in to help single large creatures continue to be a threat outside of action economy. Most low level encounters with humanoids, animals or undead won't have it but the higher you get the more common it will become on outsiders etc.
I think the initiative depends on your group, if you need to grab somethings attention you need to go first. If you have a controller to disrupt the opponents actions your feats probably better spent on bolstering your will save or in the case of AoO avoidance the dodge, mobility chain, more feats but works all the time and sometimes you will want to provoke.