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Hello there!
For a high Level campaign I built a Trapsmith Rogue. He's kinda great at doing his job disabling traps and so on.
The GM bought the equipment for me. For meele now I have +3 Dancing Short Sword and a +3 Defending Dagger.
Now I saw, that Dancing is a +4 Enchantment - so it must be great I thought... but I just dont get, what to do with it.
Am I missing something special? Maybe flank with myself or such things?
I feel, spending the +4 for agile, heartseeking or just flat out damage/hit would have been better.
Any ideas?
Greetings!
Play some music. :)
Seriously. The GM just gave you two weapons good for doing work under fire? I'd be more worried about the ideas HE has for them!
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When I think about using the weapon it's like the following:
Activate as a Standard action and draw a new weapon or run to enemy as move action.
Next round run to enemy or draw new weapon and do a single attack.
Then next round I can Full attack.
It just feels, attacking straight is superior... 'cause I can full attack earlier.
Do you have Two Weapon Fighting? How about Improved Unarmed Strike? I can see an attack routine that features you two weapon fighting first with the short sword and then an unarmed strike and using the dagger as your off hand weapon with the short sword dancing. Or maybe use a spring loaded wrist sheath dagger once the sword is dancing.
How to best use them depends on how your character is built. Being a high level Rogue who can disarm traps doesn't tell me anything about how the character functions in combat. Maybe you set the sword dancing and use the dagger as a thrown weapon with a blinkback belt to make sure you have it back in hand for AoO.
The thing with a Dancing Weapon is that it's more or less a supplement property. I'm going to copy and paste my thoughts on it for, say, a Fighter class, which can easily be said for any Martial character:
One of the things that a player can undermine with this weapon property is that they believe that they should only be using or carrying a single weapon, using said weapon as their primary (and only) means to attack. Wrong. Applying this property to other secondary melee weapons makes this ability a significantly powerful and handy property to apply, allowing your other weapons to be used at the same time, making you a much larger threat in melee combat; although pricy, consuming a +4 Bonus for cost and Enhancement Capacity, it will definitely make use of secondary weapons in a given round, and makes you that much stronger with weapons that are inappropriately-sized (since you don’t include those penalties with its attacks, but still retain the increased damage dice), though it is not something you should apply to your primary weapon (because you’ll be using it while the other weapons are ‘loosed’).
Some fights require us to both play the defense and the offense at the same time, or to deal with both ground and flying creatures, or some other task requiring us to do two things at once during combat. Sure, Fighting Defensively accomplishes this for some concepts, but also does so quite poorly, and would not encompass the entire spectrum of things. Another alternative that people may overlook is the Dancing Property for weapons. When encompassing a fight that requires what is expected from us above, this allows us to essentially use two weapons at the same time, and is doubly more effective for two-handed weapons. So while we have our off-hand weapon swinging away against the Big Bad’s minions, we can then have our bow to shoot against the Big Bad himself flying across the room, or have our main weapon focus on the Big Bad going after our party members. When the weapon falls, you can always call it back (thanks to the Called Property) and send it back on the minions (or have it help you take down the Big Bad once all the minions are gone), making victory and slaughtering that much more effective, efficient, and enjoyable.
As far as I can tell, you should be using the Dancing Shortsword at the start of combat, letting the Shortsword make attacks as if you were wielding it, as well as drawing out and equipping a Quickdraw Shield and using the Dagger for your other attacks.
Although the Dancing property only lasts a few rounds (and yes, it's forced to be stuck in your square), if you have the Called Property placed on it (later down the road), you can loose it in the first round and move with weapons drawn, proceed with combat as normal, and when the weapon falls to the ground, Call it back as a Swift Action, loose it again as a Standard Action, and rinse/repeat until the combat is over.
It also gives you the opportunity to go full-defense while still maintaining an offense, a subject that is greatly enforced with your +3 Defending Dagger.
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So thank you for the replies!
Do you have Two Weapon Fighting? How about Improved Unarmed Strike? I can see an attack routine that features you two weapon fighting first with the short sword and then an unarmed strike and using the dagger as your off hand weapon with the short sword dancing. Or maybe use a spring loaded wrist sheath dagger once the sword is dancing.
How to best use them depends on how your character is built. Being a high level Rogue who can disarm traps doesn't tell me anything about how the character functions in combat. Maybe you set the sword dancing and use the dagger as a thrown weapon with a blinkback belt to make sure you have it back in hand for AoO.
Your right, maybe I should have given more info. I just thought there was a general use I didn't recognize.
The character is a Human Rogue (Trapsmith) with the Two-Weapon-Fighting stuff down to the Greater Feat. The other offensive Feats are Shadow Strike and Weapon Finesse (via Talent).
My DM gave me equipment and I cant get anything magical by myself at the moment.
My weapon are the Dancing Shortsword +3 and the Defending Dagger +3, also 2x a Returning Dagger +2 and a Seeking Comp. Shortbow +2.
The other equip is stat improving stuff and utility things like bag of holding.
For combat I picked the offensive defense Talent, also got Fast Tumble/Stealth to sneak easier.
€DIT:
Does the Dancing Weapon use Weapon Finesse with my DEX and is it able to Sneak? Does it proc my Offensive Defense Talent and so on...?
Yikes, I sure wouldn't have bought 5 different magic weapons. You should be fine though, just get 2 spring loaded wrist sheaths for the returning daggers, you are high level and they cost 10gp. You can ask about how dancing works with your feats and abilities in the rules forum or ask your GM how it is gonna work in this specific campaign. Between 4 magic melee weapons (2 returning) and a magic bow you should always have a good option for the situation.
Let's see what the Dancing Property has to say:
As a standard action, a dancing weapon can be loosed to attack on its own. It fights for 4 rounds using the base attack bonus of the one who loosed it and then drops. While dancing, it cannot make attacks of opportunity, and the activating character it is not considered armed with the weapon. The weapon is considered wielded or attended by the activating character for all maneuvers and effects that target items. While dancing, the weapon shares the same space as the activating character and can attack adjacent foes (weapons with reach can attack opponents up to 10 feet away). The dancing weapon accompanies the activating character everywhere, whether she moves by physical or magical means. If the activating character has an unoccupied hand, she can grasp it while it is attacking on its own as a free action; when so retrieved, the weapon can't dance (attack on its own) again for 4 rounds. This special ability can only be placed on melee weapons.
It doesn't really elaborate on it. The closest subject matter is that it uses your BAB when you loose it, and it only treats you as wielding/attending it for effects that target items. It's otherwise technically its own entity, since it says it attacks on its own, though there is language that implies it can choose to attack or not attack adjacent enemies, which is weird...
As always, I'd talk to your GM about how he would run the item, since it seems he might have a completely different idea in mind if he bought you a weapon with a property primarily for a secondary/tertiary weapon of choice.
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Alternately, you can add "defending" to it later as well, since defender bonuses to armor stack with all other bonuses, in theory you could get a +10 armor bonus this way (with 2 weapons, 15 with a third, off hander). Personally, as a higher level rogue, I like the "twice as many sneak attacks". Nothing like having 3 more attempts at strikes with 7d6 added to them.
Also, a scabbard of keen edges is nice for it to be drawn from, so you don't need to pay for keen (thus allowing the +1 for something else, maybe even "throwing", and then another +1 for "returning" so collecting it is a free action and you increase its range 10'). Dancing Rapiers with this combo are critical poking machines.
Quick draw becomes a necessary feat, almost, imho. But then, it might have already been in your arsenal.