Improved Balance (Ex): At 11th level, the attack penalties for fighting with two weapons are reduced by –1 for a two-weapon warrior. Alternatively, he may use a one-handed weapon in his off-hand, treating it as if it were a light weapon with the normal light weapon penalties. This ability replaces armor training 3.
Perfect Balance (Ex): At 15th level, the penalties for fighting with two weapons are reduced by an additional –1 for a two-weapon warrior. This benefit stacks with improved balance. If he is using a one-handed weapon in his off hand, treating it as a light weapon, he uses the normal light weapon penalties. This ability replaces armor training 4.
Emphasis mine. Improved Balance now lets me wields 2 one-handed weapons as I would with a one-handed weapon and a light weapon... but am I to understand that I get the exact same bonus with Perfect Balance? I'm having trouble with this, because it feels like I should be able to use 2 one-handed weapons at no penalty at all, but it's so confusing.
Do I get the -1 reduction to attack rolls, regardless of the weapons I use? Do I literally ignore that ability if I'm using 2 one-handed weapons?
Let's say I'm playing a 15th-level Dwarven Fighter with a battleaxe and a warhammer, do I even benefit from those abilities?
Improved Balance gives you a reduced penalty -or- the ability to use a one handed weapon as if it were light. Perfect Balance further
eliminates the penalty, if you are not using 2 one handed weapons, or reduces the penalty by one if you are using 2 one handed weapons.
So, if you have a 15th Dwarven Fighter with a battleaxe and a warhammer, you would only take a -1 to your attacks. If you had a battleaxe and a short sword, you would take no penalty for 2 weapon fighting.
Thank you for your answer, because it's weirdly written right now.
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the two weapon warrior is a terrible archetype in my opinion. losing weapon training and armor training is a very poor tradeoff for what you get in return.
Their Twin Blades ability should be better than Weapon Training if you want to wield two different weapons while Two-Weapon Fighting. You're shoe-horned into lighter armors, but it's one of the only archetypes that gets a TWF dealing damage comparably to a THF.
The biggest problem is the fact that the Archetype specifies that you're only getting the Twin Blades bonus on a full attack making it incompatible with his Doublestrike ability, which is really just stupid considering what the archetype gives up.Twin Blades should read "Twin Blades (Ex): At 5th level, a two-weapon warrior gains a +1 bonus on attack and damage rolls when making an attack with two weapons or both ends of a double weapon. This bonus increases by +1 for every four levels after 5th. This ability replaces weapon training 1" as opposed to "Twin Blades (Ex): At 5th level, a two-weapon warrior gains a +1 bonus on attack and damage rolls when making a full attack with two weapons or a double weapon. This bonus increases by +1 for every four levels after 5th. This ability replaces weapon training 1" as it currently does.
This is how I read it:
Improved balance allows you to treat a one-handed weapon in your off hand as though it was a light weapon (using those penalties for twf) -OR- it reduces the penalty for fighting with an off-handed light weapon by 1 (to -1/-1).
Perfect balance has no further effect of you are using a one-handed weapon in your off hand, but further reduces the penalty for fighting with an off-handed light weapon by an additional point (to -0/-0).
Therefore, while improved balance will help all twf builds, perfect balance is designed to benefit only those characters who might otherwise lose damage for using light weapons by increasing their chance to hit.
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This is how I read it:
Improved balance allows you to treat a one-handed weapon in your off hand as though it was a light weapon (using those penalties for twf) -OR- it reduces the penalty for fighting with an off-handed light weapon by 1 (to -1/-1).
Perfect balance has no further effect of you are using a one-handed weapon in your off hand, but further reduces the penalty for fighting with an off-handed light weapon by an additional point (to -0/-0).
Therefore, while improved balance will help all twf builds, perfect balance is designed to benefit only those characters who might otherwise lose damage for using light weapons by increasing their chance to hit.
I don't know that that's correct. Perfect Balance isn't an either/or ability like Improved Balance, so the "normal" penalties for wielding one-handed weapon as a light weapon should be -1, the new normal for light weapons based on your choosing to treat one-handed weapons as light for Improved Balance and reducing the penalty by 1 with Perfect Balance.
Look at the bolded text in the description of Perfect Balance in the OP.
It plainly says that using a one-handed weapon in your off hand as a light weapon uses "the normal light weapon penalties", not the reduced penalties for using a light weapon in your off hand provided by Improved Balance and further reduced by Perfect Balance.
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Look at the bolded text in the description of Perfect Balance in the OP.
It plainly says that using a one-handed weapon in your off hand as a light weapon uses "the normal light weapon penalties", not the reduced penalties for using a light weapon in your off hand provided by Improved Balance and further reduced by Perfect Balance.
Perfect Balance makes the "normal" penalties for using TWF with a one-handed and a light weapon -1/-1. Those are the Two-Weapon Warrior's "normal" penalties since he has Perfect balance.
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the two weapon warrior is a terrible archetype in my opinion. losing weapon training and armor training is a very poor tradeoff for what you get in return.
Their Twin Blades ability should be better than Weapon Training if you want to wield two different weapons while Two-Weapon Fighting. You're shoe-horned into lighter armors, but it's one of the only archetypes that gets a TWF dealing damage comparably to a THF.
The biggest problem is the fact that the Archetype specifies that you're only getting the Twin Blades bonus on a full attack making it incompatible with his Doublestrike ability, which is really just stupid considering what the archetype gives up.Twin Blades should read "Twin Blades (Ex): At 5th level, a two-weapon warrior gains a +1 bonus on attack and damage rolls when making an attack with two weapons or both ends of a double weapon. This bonus increases by +1 for every four levels after 5th. This ability replaces weapon training 1" as opposed to "Twin Blades (Ex): At 5th level, a two-weapon warrior gains a +1 bonus on attack and damage rolls when making a full attack with two weapons or a double weapon. This bonus increases by +1 for every four levels after 5th. This ability replaces weapon training 1" as it currently does.
Using two different weapons with a TWF is far less effective than using two identical weapons or a double weapon. if you use two different weapons you have to spend twice as many weapon feats to keep up with to-hit and damage (focus/specialization/critical). Without weapon training you can't use Dueling Gloves (fighters who don't take these are silly), which, among other things, add +2 to the fighters weapon training. That makes up for the two-weapon fighting penalties and then some. And I believe TWF can get better damage then THF's any day, and the reason is pretty simple, you basically get twice as many chances for crits. Plus, if you're a Double weapon user (as my PFS Barbarian2/Fighter15 is) you have the option of using it two handed if you like, like for a standard action attack. Or if you only have Holy on one end and you need a good aligned weapon to beat DR.
The ability that replaces weapon training is fantastic if you're doing Sword n' Board.
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my 17th level barb/fighter
STR 25 (29 rage) DEX 20 CON 20 (24 raging)
Weapon of choice : +1 Adamantine Holy Ghost Touch / +1 Holy Mithral Two-bladed sword.
Raging & Power Attacking, his two-hit is +31/+26/+21/+16 & +31/+26/+21, including a Greater Magic Weapon +4 buff on both ends from our party's Staff of Bolstering.
Damage is D8+32 & d8+26, and a d10+13 Rend, not including criticals or Holy damage.
Typical party buff is Haste for another attack at +31 to hit.
Weapon crits on a 17-20 thanks to improved critical.
Feats:
Exotic Weapon Prof., Two Weapon Fighting, Weapon Focus, Double Slice, Dodge, Blind Fighting, Step Up, Following Step, Improved Two Weapon Fighting, Improved Critical, Weapon Specialization, Power Attack, Two-Weapon Rend, Step up and Strike, Combat Reflexes, Greater Two Weapon Fighting, Greater Weapon Focus, Greater Weapon Specialization.
He can tumble in his +4 Ghost Touch Full Plate at +30 and has a jump check of +46 when hasted.
AC 39 (shield spell from wand into Ioun stone, +4 Full Plate, +2 Ring, +2 from barkskin potions if time)
CMD +44 (+53 vs disarm and sunder, +2 when raging)
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Using two different weapons with a TWF is far less effective than using two identical weapons or a double weapon. if you use two different weapons you have to spend twice as many weapon feats to keep up with to-hit and damage (focus/specialization/critical). Without weapon training you can't use Dueling Gloves (fighters who don't take these are silly), which, among other things, add +2 to the fighters weapon training. That makes up for the two-weapon fighting penalties and then some. And I believe TWF can get better damage then THF's any day, and the reason is pretty simple, you basically get twice as many chances for crits. Plus, if you're a Double weapon user (as my PFS...
All of that is entirely dependent on build. A sword and board or Thunder and Fang style fighter gets more out of an ability that applies to non-similar weapons like Twin Blades. This also allows you to overcome a greater amount of damage reduction.
Your assertion that TWF deal more damage than THF because of more crit chances only applies on full attacks. Maybe your GM runs all of your encounters as though the bad guys are brainless idiots, but in my experience it's difficult to get full attacks with melee characters, and only gets more difficult as the game progresses. It's why Double Strike is so important, because without it you can't even hope to compete with a THF. Your assertion that they're getting twice as many crits only applies to a Full Attack or an ability like the TWW's Double Strike. The rest of the time, the THF is dealing as much damage as 3 or more of their attacks thanks to his bonuses to STR and Power Attack, particularly if said THF is using the fighter archetype or playing a barbarian. Plus, he'll have more feats available for pumping his crits and other abilities.|
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my 17th level barb/fighter
STR 25 (29 rage) DEX 20 CON 20 (24 raging)
Weapon of choice : +1 Adamantine Holy Ghost Touch / +1 Holy Mithral Two-bladed sword.
Raging & Power Attacking, his two-hit is +31/+26/+21/+16 & +31/+26/+21, including a Greater Magic Weapon +4 buff on both ends from our party's Staff of Bolstering.
Damage is D8+32 & d8+26, and a d10+13 Rend, not including criticals or Holy damage.
Typical party buff is Haste for another attack at +31 to hit.
Weapon crits on a 17-20 thanks to improved critical.Feats:
Exotic Weapon Prof., Two Weapon Fighting, Weapon Focus, Double Slice, Dodge, Blind Fighting, Step Up, Following Step, Improved Two Weapon Fighting, Improved Critical, Weapon Specialization, Power Attack, Two-Weapon Rend, Step up and Strike, Combat Reflexes, Greater Two Weapon Fighting, Greater Weapon Focus, Greater Weapon Specialization.He can tumble in his +4 Ghost Touch Full Plate at +30 and has a jump check of +46 when hasted.
AC 39 (shield spell from wand into Ioun stone, +4 Full Plate, +2 Ring, +2 from barkskin potions if time)
CMD +44 (+53 vs disarm and sunder, +2 when raging)
How many levels of Fighter vs. how many levels of barbarian did you go with?
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Actually, more crit chances don't mean more damage unless you're already doing more damage because they simply act as a multiplier.
TWF uses two kukri for 2d4+1.5x strength (because getting one of them bumped to scimitar is not worth needing twice as many feats for focus and specialization)
THF uses one falchion for 2d4+1.5x strength.They both add 15% in crits. The TWF is a little smoother because it has more attacks, but the average damage is the same.
It's not until the on-crit feats rooted in critical focus that more crits from more, smaller attacks are better.
And the THF will have at least 3 more feats to spend on critical feats since he doesn't have a 4 feat minimum investment just to stay competitive.