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More of a spin off from the strength buids a are to good thread.
I am fine with a two handed strength build dealing more damage than a weapon and shield build or maybe dual wielding.
Where I disagree with this is the strength build is dealing double, triple or quadruple damage and in 3.5 and Pathfinder you really only need two feats to do this (power attack, cleave) and have a very basic and very effective PC.
This is before you pile on any other feats or archtypes. THis is becuase the strength based character gets to triple dip the strength score.
1. Two handed weapons deal more damage
2. Power attack rewards two handed weapons more than 1 handed weapons
3. 50% or 100% bonus to strength scores when using a two handed weapon.
Now it was not always this way. Druing 3.0 power attack scaled at the same rate for everybody, -1 to hit, +1 damage. During 2E the high damage builds were dual wielding fighters (or rangers RAW) and sword and board was very good as well.
5E rewards two handed weapons a bit as well and to deal more damage you need to suck up a -5 to hit +10 damage bonus and you suffer no penalties on multiple attacks. In AD&D you ponly suffered penalties to hit dual wielding i and in 2E you could offset that and in 1st Edition you could play a row I suppose as dual wielding was not a great idea.
This leaves the mega damage of a two handed weapon more or less unique in D&D so I do not regard it as a sacred cow as such. This has come as a bit of a shock to PFS players I have run 2E with.
So do people agree in theory that 2 handed weapons should deal more damage the trade off is you do not get to use a shield. In its current state martials in PF need that extra damage I suppose. Any overhaul of this would have to wiat for a new 3.5 or PF2 type game but one can change the current game in various ways.
But how would you feel if say they made feat trees that negated the penalty to hit for sword and board fighitng styles or whatever so at level 6 for examplema sword and boardd PC got 2 atacks at no penalty while the two handed weapon user got two attacks at +6/+1.
For dual wielders they could make a feat that lets you move and full attack. Now I am sure this may break the game with various add on classes I know nothing about but I am more concerned with just the core rule book as all the martial types I see in PF usually are using 2 handed weapo9ns or archery for obvious reasons.
Duel shields with Shield Master
Sure the shield bonuses do not stacks, but you can get two shields for the price of one weapon. You also will suffer NO twf penalties. A more stricter RAW of the feats has it saying that you ignore ALL penalties when wielding another weapon, which would include things like combat expertise, power attack, iterative penalties, ect. THAT is a little absurd.
Regardless, dual shields is the best melee build.
As a note, I have never ever seen cleave be useful, so you just need one feat.
Maybe in other games enemies like to stand beside each other?
Also, you are wrong about 3.0. In 3.0, power attack was a flat damage bonus based on your strength. For example, if you had 18 strength and power attack, all your attacks would do +4 damage with no penalty
Nope page 84 3.0 PHB. The ratio is -1/+1 hit/damage up to your BAB, 3.5 buffed it and Pathfinder buffed it again.
I remember playing 3.0 and Power Attack was good enough to use in that edition so not sure why it was actually buffed again unless they were doing a stealth buff to martial types.Back then were were using it with improved critical+keen scimitars.
Hence things like PF Paladin falchiopn high crit builds. Same basic idea of mega crits.
Two-Handing deals the most damage. Sword and Board is the toughest to hurt. Two-Weapon makes the best use of riders to damage (I.E., Sneak Attack) and is the best at mookslaying. I'm really not seeing the problem on a conceptual level, to be honest.
If Sword & Board-- and even general TWF-- gets a buff, it should be easing up on the feat taxation involved. Because that's the bigger problem. To be an effective Two-Hander, you need... Power Attack, and that's basically it. The Two-Weapon Fighting chain (TWF/ITWF/GTWF, Double Slice, TWRend) is five feats long, which is kind of ridiculous by comparison.
S&B varies a lot more because there are a lot of shield feats that aren't necessarily good... but you generally want at least TWF/ITWF/GTWF to start, and Improved Shield Bash/Shield Slam because they're eventually a pre-req for Shield Master. A strong case could be made for Double Slice and TWRend at that point too.
Add in the weapon enhancement costs on top of that-- it's a lot easier to boost up one weapon than two, or a weapon and a shield.
The solution is not a new feat tree, because that's just making the issue worse. If I'm shelling out /that/ many feats, I might as well just learn to shoot you.
Also, move + full attack is what every martial on the planet begs for. Give TWF that and you'll see Two-Handing disappear for everyone but those martials that can get Pounce.
I'm fine with move+full attack but the problem is how it interacts with everything else innPF. As I said 3.x type games are kind of the odd one out here if you can get multiple attacks.
5E everyone gets pounce for free and no penalties on multiple attacks so the theory is fine in concept. 4E was the same, BECMI and AD&D mostly the same although it could vary in AD&D depending on the effect. The problem in 3.x is that it doesn't play nice with everything else in the game.
Dual wielding in those games being limited to 1 extra off hand attack not an extra 3 or 4 attacks.
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3.5 Power attack heavily rewarded full BAB.
Power attack now also heavily rewards full BAB as 3/4 BAB can't afford the penalty to accuracy.
3.5 Power attack in general was a bit weaker than the Pathfinder version (only at all worth it for THF who had the same ratio that everyone else has now) but in 3.5 it was gross when one used Power Attack in conjunction with True Strike.
Back to the point at hand - sword & board is a great style for someone who's primary job isn't to deal damage. (a melee bard etc) The extra survivability is very much worth the reduced damage in such a case.
Frankly - for sword & board (sans TWF) to be an optimal choice, they'd need to add some feats which let the shield boost saves somehow.
And, my pet project - a feat chained off of step-up which allows a character with a shield to 5-foot-step into the path of a foe instead of an AOO, forcing the foe to either stop of attempt to bull-rush/overrun them. It would allow a sort of 'tanking' other than the controversial & limited Antagonize feat.
3.5 Power attack heavily rewarded full BAB.Power attack now also heavily rewards full BAB as 3/4 BAB can't afford the penalty to accuracy.
3.5 Power attack in general was a bit weaker than the Pathfinder version (only at all worth it for THF who had the same ratio that everyone else has now) but in 3.5 it was gross when one used Power Attack in conjunction with True Strike.
Back to the point at hand - sword & board is a great style for someone who's primary job isn't to deal damage. (a melee bard etc)
Frankly - for sword & board (sans TWF) to be an optimal choice, they'd need to add some feats which let the shield boost saves somehow.
And, my pet project - a feat chained off of step-up which allows a character with a shield to 5-foot-step into the path of a foe instead of an AOO, forcing the foe to either stop of attempt to bull-rush/overrun them. It would allow a sort of 'tanking' other than the controversial & limited Antagonize feat.
Sword and board could get pounce or no penalty on multiple attacks. The dual wield shied thing is a bit silly IMHO. Never seen it in my games, probably would not allow the feats that enable it to be used.
Just been playing OSR type D&D for a couple of years, 5E and PF occasionally now and you notice how different things are.Teo handed weapons are the weakest in 2E as most of them deal around 1d10 damage not 2d6 or 1d12 (which they should do IMHO AD&D not being perfect).
Sword and board could get pounce or no penalty on multiple attacks. The dual wield shied thing is a bit silly IMHO. Never seen it in my games, probably would not allow the feats that enable it to be used.
Seems counterintuitive to disallow CRB options while adding house-rules to buff the options you just nerfed.
I would instead buff shield master. Let it confer the weapon training and feat bonuses on the main weapon to your shield in addition to it's current effects (also eliminating the TWF penalty for the main hand). That way sword and board is MORE effective than dual wielding shields (but unfortunately still more expensive).
Power attack now also heavily rewards full BAB as 3/4 BAB can't afford the penalty to accuracy.
Unless of course they can cast Divine Favor/Power or use Flurry or Oracle Wood Bond or whatever else out there to compensate.
The Two Weapon Warrior, Guide Ranger and Warpriest are three possible candidates for getting the most out of a shield with TWF as things are now. Getting dexterity up to 17 is enough for everything but the last crappy shield iterative.
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Buffing Shield Master would make sword & board better. However, when I make a sword & board character, I don't do it because I want higher offense. I think they should instead add feats which only work with a shield to allow you to interpose yourself between your foes & your squishy allies.
Consider me in this camp as well, like something in the Step Up family to get in the way of a charge.
Sword and board could get pounce or no penalty on multiple attacks. The dual wield shied thing is a bit silly IMHO. Never seen it in my games, probably would not allow the feats that enable it to be used.
How is it that real world fighting styles are considered silly?
How is it that real world fighting styles are considered silly?
I'm interested. What "real world fighting style" are you thinking of that eschews an actual weapon in favor of twin shields? Even sword-and-board was a relatively uncommon style in Europe once decent armor was available (e.g., 14th century and beyond).
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I'm interested. What "real world fighting style" are you thinking of that eschews an actual weapon in favor of twin shields? Even sword-and-board was a relatively uncommon style in Europe once decent armor was available (e.g., 14th century and beyond).
How is it that real world fighting styles are considered silly?
From the context - it looks like Zardnaar meant TWF when using a shield at all and I believe Anzyr was commenting on that reading of Zardnaar's post.
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-1 to hit +3 damage is always a DPR increase until specific breakpoints (When 5% average damage>3 damage + Some iterative math) at which point power attacking is an actual DPR loss. BAB just effects if you're a step ahead.
And 3/4 BAB classes are less accurate, and therefore don't hit their targets as easily even without power attack. Hence my statement.
Sword and board could get pounce or no penalty on multiple attacks. The dual wield shied thing is a bit silly IMHO. Never seen it in my games, probably would not allow the feats that enable it to be used.Seems counterintuitive to disallow CRB options while adding house-rules to buff the options you just nerfed.
I would instead buff shield master. Let it confer the weapon training and feat bonuses on the main weapon to your shield in addition to it's current effects (also eliminating the TWF penalty for the main hand). That way sword and board is MORE effective than dual wielding shields (but unfortunately still more expensive).
Shield bashing is fine, dual wielding 2 shields not so much. I had shield bashers in 2E, 3.5 and 5E.
How is it that real world fighting styles are considered silly?
Sword and board could get pounce or no penalty on multiple attacks. The dual wield shied thing is a bit silly IMHO. Never seen it in my games, probably would not allow the feats that enable it to be used.
It was the dual wielding shields I thought was silly.
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Shield bashing is fine, dual wielding 2 shields not so much. I had shield bashers in 2E, 3.5 and 5E.Sword and board could get pounce or no penalty on multiple attacks. The dual wield shied thing is a bit silly IMHO. Never seen it in my games, probably would not allow the feats that enable it to be used.Seems counterintuitive to disallow CRB options while adding house-rules to buff the options you just nerfed.
I would instead buff shield master. Let it confer the weapon training and feat bonuses on the main weapon to your shield in addition to it's current effects (also eliminating the TWF penalty for the main hand). That way sword and board is MORE effective than dual wielding shields (but unfortunately still more expensive).
My bad on translating the context of what you said before.
And I do agree on dual wielding heavy sheilds, despite a recent trait making it viable. Dual wielding light shields don't bother me though, as the one time a co-player did so, he had them mechanically be spiked light shields, but in the fluff they were a sort of fist guard covered in spikes - almost oversized/spiked brass knuckles.
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Well, it is a false statement. You can try it yourself if you think we are lying to you-1 to hit +3 damage is always a DPR increase until specific breakpoints (When 5% average damage>3 damage + Some iterative math) at which point power attacking is an actual DPR loss. BAB just effects if you're a step ahead.And 3/4 BAB classes are less accurate, and therefore don't hit their targets as easily even without power attack. Hence my statement.
It's been proven a bunch of times. Look it up. I'm not going to bother doing the math again here.
The harder a target is to hit, the less valuable Power Attack is. 3/4 BAB classes have a harder time hitting. Therefore Power Attack is less valuable for them.
"Game Theory" is completely unrelated to anything discussed in this thread. Just saying.
It was the dual wielding shields I thought was silly.How is it that real world fighting styles are considered silly?
Sword and board could get pounce or no penalty on multiple attacks. The dual wield shied thing is a bit silly IMHO. Never seen it in my games, probably would not allow the feats that enable it to be used.
I could not quick google search a two shield, but I did stumble upon this
Loving this quote, "Dual wielding is using two weapons, one in each hand, during combat. It is not a common combat practice, since it does not offer much advantage."
Haha, what if dual wielding was suppose to be a "water balloons" options?
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It doesn't favor full BAB classes any more than the levels where there is a progression disparity(Which is my point). It's the exact same DPR increase per point of progression until you need a 20 to hit or a 2 to hit. Hitting on a 15? Still power attack for -2/+6. Hitting on a 3? Power attack for -2/+6. It's the exact same DPR increase going from need a 3 to a 5 and from 13 to 15.
I'm sorry - but you are wrong. And you are bad at math.
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I'm sorry - but you are wrong. And you are bad at math.
It doesn't favor full BAB classes any more than the levels where there is a progression disparity(Which is my point). It's the exact same DPR increase per point of progression until you need a 20 to hit or a 2 to hit. Hitting on a 15? Still power attack for -2/+6. Hitting on a 3? Power attack for -2/+6. It's the exact same DPR increase going from need a 3 to a 5 and from 13 to 15.
That's a pretty bold statement to stand all by itself, Perhaps you should back up your claim with the actual math involved or a link to it. I personally could care less, have never been much of a fan of 2 handers, dual-wielding or casting all the way for me. But I don't particularly care for these sorts of comments without at least seeing the Empirical evidence to back it up.
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That's a pretty bold statement to stand all by itself, Perhaps you should back up your claim with the actual math involved or a link to it. I personally could care less, have never been much of a fan of 2 handers, dual-wielding or casting all the way for me. But I don't particularly care for these sorts of comments without at least seeing the Empirical evidence to back it up.I'm sorry - but you are wrong. And you are bad at math.
It doesn't favor full BAB classes any more than the levels where there is a progression disparity(Which is my point). It's the exact same DPR increase per point of progression until you need a 20 to hit or a 2 to hit. Hitting on a 15? Still power attack for -2/+6. Hitting on a 3? Power attack for -2/+6. It's the exact same DPR increase going from need a 3 to a 5 and from 13 to 15.
I've done it before - but sure. I won't do a full #'s thing - but I'll go ahead and poke holes in Undone's example of 3 to a 5 vs from 13 to a 15.
For example - say you do an average of 18 damage on a hit (for this example I'm ignoring crit - as it'd be a wash since it'd be a 10% increase to every damage #). If you can hit on a 3, you hit 90% of time, 18*.9= an average 16.2 damage a swing. If you power attack while two-handing a weapon, add +6 damage, you then average 24 damage on a hit, you hit on a 5, or 80% of the time. 24*.8 = You then average 19.2 damage a swing. This is a total of a 18.5% average increase in damage per swing.
However, if you can only hit on a 13 without power attack, that's only 40% of the time for 18 damage, 18*.4= an average of 7.2 damage per swing without power attack. With power attack, the average damage per hit goes up to 24 again, and you now need a 15 to hit, or a 30% chance. 24*.3 = an average of 7.2 damage per swing with power attack. In this case there is no increase in average damage per swing.
As the base damage is higher and targets become harder to hit, power attack becomes less & less valuable. If targets are easy to hit and your base damage is low, power attack becomes more valuable.
It comes down to the Power Attack penalty being a % decrease, and the benefit is a static boost (hence more base damage making PA less valuable) and that a -2 to hit isn't just a 10% decrease in accuracy, it's anywhere from 10%-50%. In the above example, from 3 to 5 to hit is a 11.11% (80%/90%) decrease in accuracy while going from a 13 to 15 to hit is a 25% (30%/40%) decrease in accuracy.
Using the above at level 3 with an 18 str and a +1 weapon yields a +7 vs +8 respectively. +6 and +7 with PA.
Using the above site altering the to hit by 1 point always results in an identical differential.
Using 17 as the average damage (2d6+10) the differential is static based on how much hit is gained or lost.
I'm afraid I'm not fully following what you're saying. Could you possibly rephrase, or maybe just explain in more detail?
From a mathematical perspective, it's fairly simple.
Without power attack, if your chances to hit are h and your expected damage per hit is d, your expected damage per swing is hd.
With power attack, your expected damage per swing is (h-0.10)(d+6), barring edge cases.
It's fairly easy to set up a spreadsheet to compare these two numbers and see the difference, and I have done so. Using d=20 for a starting comparison, if you need a 13 (or higher), to hit, you actually lose damage by using power attack, and the higher the number you need to hit, the more damage you lose. Conversely, if you need a 12 (or less) to hit, you gain damage from PA, gaining more, the lower your attack number is.
(The actual profile varies from "if you need an 18 to hit, you lose (1.7) points of expected damage" through "if you need an 11 to hit, you gain 0.4 points of expected damage" to "if you need a 2 to hit, you gain 3.1 points of expected damage.")
This varies somewhat with the base damage -- in general, the less damage you do normally, the more significant the +6 becomes. If you're doing 100 points of damage, the 10% penalty to your chance to hit costs you more than 6 points of damage, so (barring the edge cases) it's never in your best interest to PA. Similarly, if you do only one point of damage, you always want to PA.
But the overall pattern is the same -- you get more benefit (or less penalty) the larger your attack bonus is. This means that high BAB characters will always get more benefit from power attack, which in turn means that full BAB characters will always benefit more from PA than 3/4 BAB characters like rogues.
As the base damage is higher and targets become harder to hit, power attack becomes less & less valuable. If targets are easy to hit and your base damage is low, power attack becomes more valuable.
+1. CLH has the right of it in this instance, as can be easily confirmed from the formulae posted above.
Two handed should be able to get more damage per swing yes. TWF should get more attacks yes. Sword and board should be the best group/army tactic on the whole. Mostly the game follows this though I do believe that power attack is where it goes wrong. The requirements force a character into semi MAD territory if they seek to be none two handers. TWF has the DPR but has many feats cost and attribute loss. Sword and board is good for extra defense but the game is built on offense not defense (so you lose more often than not).
How are you building the sword and board fighter?
If you were building him for a group battle, you should look at the teamwork feats, which are actually much more powerful than normal feats if you assume that you can pull them off.
For example you can get a +4 to your attack and +4 to your armor class very easily with 2 feats if you have allies with the same ones. A sword and board fighter is not just a TWF with a subpar weapon but is often built that way.
All true. But in the absence of teamwork feats you usually get what you describe a subpar weapon. So from the perspective of the OPs question, in a vacuum a character on his own isnt going to gain as much as a two hander would with as little effort.
Not to mention that since shield-bashing is fairly feat-intensive, and sword-and-board doesn't have any advantage with teamwork feats over other styles.
A greatsword user gets just as much benefit out of teamwork feats, and has easier access to them since he'll have more feats to spare.
All true. But in the absence of teamwork feats you usually get what you describe a subpar weapon. So from the perspective of the OPs question, in a vacuum a character on his own isnt going to gain as much as a two hander would with as little effort.Not to mention that since shield-bashing is fairly feat-intensive, and sword-and-board doesn't have any advantage with teamwork feats over other styles.
Shield bashing is not a good use for sword and board. The shield is there for a huge AC bonus, which enhances survivability.
As soon as you use a shield to bash, you've changed yourself into a poor TWF wannabe.
Look at the shield wall feat....
I'm not sure I agree with that - if you have enough feats then shield-based TWF can combine the advantages of both combat styles and even solve the WBL problem traditional TWF faces. It is quite feat intensive though.
I don't find two handed build doing double or tripple. I find two handed weapons do about equal to twf. Sword and board is twf basically other wise it's not very good. You can't keep you AC high enough to make it work.
. Sword and board is twf basically other wise it's not very good. You can't keep you AC high enough to make it work.
You can easily get +9 AC bonus out of a shield, plus a large number of other defensive buffs that the TWF and THF fighters can't get.
I disagree. But you have to invest in survivability.
TWF aside, the biggest long-term advantage available to other sword and board characters is the ability to get two different sets of armor special abilities. The straight AC boost does drop off noticeably in attractiveness at higher levels, for very obvious reasons, though it does remain a perk to some extent.
(On the other hand, the biggest negative tradeoff to sword and board that has yet to be mentioned here - particularly for Orfamay's heavy shield user - is in action economy. So I'm not sure about 'easily' - +9 AC requires major sacrifices)
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One option that no one has mentioned as of yet is using a tower shield.
It does reduce you offense quite a bit, (especially vs TWF) but you don't only get the extra AC. The full cover option is a great utility. Not just for you, but for your allies.
For example - when I was playing a tower shield user (back in 3.5) a blue dragon was circling us from above. Instead of using a rather weak ranged option, I simply had my shield in full-cover mode, and readied an action to move to block the dragon's breath weapon. It totally neutralized the dragon, forcing it down into melee. (it wasn't old enough for significant spellcasting)
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One option that no one has mentioned as of yet is using a tower shield.
It does reduce you offense quite a bit, (especially vs TWF) but you don't only get the extra AC. The full cover option is a great utility. Not just for you, but for your allies.
Am I the only person in support of a feat that lets you use a Tower Shield without the -2 penalty to attack rolls? Yeah it's a huge shield but Furious Focus lets you swing a scythe or a reach weapon as hard as possible once per round with no penalty to your attack roll and those seem like tricky weapons to go all gung-ho with.