so i want to make a two weapon barbarian. can you give me any advice or point me somewhere where it can give me good advice for this. Im new to pathfinder and want to do something different then my standard paladin build.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I suppose you would want to go unchained for this.
The problem with the regular barbarian and TWF is that prettymuch ALL of the barbarian's damage bonuses rely on strength and power attak. Those are the bonuses that help the least with TWF.
TWF works best when you have a static bonus to every hit. With str and power attack...it is like seperating your 2 handed weapon into two attacks, and then putting a -2 to your attack rolls.
Unchained barbarian is different though- it gives bonuses to attack and damage directly, rather than giving a bonus to strength. Thus, it would help with TWF...to an extent.
Depending on your point buy, a 2 level dip in Ranger or Slayer could help you get the feats without meeting the Dex prerequisite.
Another option to consider is a natural weapon build, which can be pretty sweet for a Barbar, especially at early levels when you are getting more attacks than normal.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
True, natural weapon builds work similarly to TWF builds (lots of attacks) without many of the set backs (full str and power attack on every primary natural attack).
And if we are discussing how dips can help...brawler might be good. The brawler's flurry specifically states its works as TWF, and you can take TWF feats to improve it. So a 2 level dip gives you an improved version of TWF (full str on every hit, full power attack..I think).
With brawler's flurry, you can even wield a weapon 2 handed for all your attacks adn get x1.5 power attack, and still get full str.
On a discussion of point buy... I won't entirely say it requires you to have TOO high a dex. On a decent 20 point buy, you can easily pull of a str based TWF build. The key here is that you only need 17 dex, and that can be obtained later on. The only main TWF feat that needs more is greater TWF....and that is an attack at BAB-12.... Not worth it.
So you could easily start off with 16 dex, and then use your 4th level ability score adjustment to increase that to 17. On a 20 point buy, your stats would most likely look like this:
STR: 16 DEX: (16) 14 CON: 14 INT: 10 WIS: 10 CHA: 10
You can fiddle with that as you like. The mental stats are untouched, and you can adapt this a bit for other races. But Typically, as long as you don't have a penalty to str/dex, you are fine with just about whatever race.
|
It's a 2 level dip into medium to get the +3 to damage. You don't get seance boon til second level. Personally I think natural weapon builds are better for both Barbarians and Mediums. Though a 1 level dip isn't bad either, if you take the spirit focus feat it's a +2 to attack, damage and fort saves.
|
You can make decent Core Barbarian just by taking TWF feat with 16 Str and 15 Dex. It doesn't really need much beyond that. Improved TWF isn't necessary. Elemental Rage Powers that add energy damage on weapon attacks complement him a lot since you can add a wide array of elemental damage almost like a magus at higher levels. Grab a high crit weapon for off-hand and main damage weapon for main-hand and it should be sufficient.
Adam
As others have mentioned, the prerequisites for two weapon fighting are steep, both in terms of feats and stats. Everything is easier if you have a higher point buy, or you can find a workaround have others have suggested.
Another option would be to focus on dexterity to damage and take the archetype "urban ranger" - their controlled rage can add to dexteriy. Unchained rogue barbarian, perhaps, or getting the Agile property (+1 modifier, does dexterity to damage) on both weapons.
Another exotic option is one (or two) levels of martial artists (a monk archetype from Ultimate Combat), the rest barbarian and flurry with monk weapons. People may give you strange looks at the table. This is similar to the ranger option suggested above, although it also gives you a free Double Slice feat too (also lose a bab, gain lots of saves...). Of course, you don't get to wear armor with this path :P
Depending on GM interpretation, you can use brawling weapons (cestus, brass knuckles) and then take the brawler and greater brawler rage powers, which give you improved unaremd strike and then two-weapon fighting for unaremd strikes. Depending on how you read things, those types of weapons work with unarmed strikes.
In general, since you'll usually do decent static damage, a high crit range weapon is desirable (at least 19-20, 18-20 is better).
Oh, another option- if you just go with normal TWF, but still have a strength based build (based off the stats I mentioned earlier), you would really want to use a double weapon.
The advantage of double weapons is that you can choose to use it either a 2 handed weapon, or a 1 handed/light combo. So you can 2 hand it for standardaction attacks/ AoOs, and use it as two weapons when you get a full attack.
You could also use a cestus and 1 handed weapon combo.
While there might be some disagreement, it is generally accepted that you can wield weapons in the same hand as a cestus (and if not, you could downgrade to a spiked gauntlet). This means you can 2 hand a weapon while wearing it.
This gives you similar options to double weapons, although it is less friendly to feats like weapon focus (which really helps with TWF due to your attack penalty, obviously). There are various factors that can make it more attractive
-higher crits (cestus is 19-20, and you can grab a nice 18-20 scimitar and most double weapons that do not cost a feat are just x2 or x3)
-if you are not playing a half orc, dwarf, etc. with a racial double weapon, and if you do not have melee tactics toolbox (which has a decent enough simple double weapon), then most double weapons will cost you a feat in exotic weapon proficiency. You can technically get the cestus/1 handed combo working with simple weapons alone (although you obviously want to use something martial like a scimitar for crits)
|
|
@ Markov Spiked Chain: you appear to be right about that, I've even built a couple mediums and glazed over that every time, I'm assuming it's a combination of working on these really late, my brain going into tl:dr mode, and it not appearing on the character advancement table like spirit bonus does. So one level of medium is a pretty good dip for both damage and wand activation.