TWF Question

[Brian Turner 355]

I have always wanted to play a Half-Elven Two weapon warrior. I always imagine her as using acrobatics to getting into the best tactical positioons and causing massive amounts of damage. But i know TWF's need a full round for both blades. Now is this possible to do all this moving with a TWF or should i just stick to a single weapon, basically an elven Curved Blade, and do massive amounts of damage that way. Also is there a way to apply dex to dmg. i know weapon finesse can apply des to atk but is there anyway to apply dex to dmg. Also can anyone give me a link to Dawnflower Dervish. I hear lots of good things about it but i cant find a link to it anywhere. Or perhaps what book its in. Thanks for all the help.

[lemeres]

Ok.

A. You would likely need a good way to move and full attack. You would like to look into the various pseudo pounces.
B. Even a nice two hander prefers full attacks, but it suffers less from doing standard action attacks.
C. For TWF? Other than unchained rogue- no. Most other forms of dex to damage are VERY focused on trying to exclude TWF.
D. HERE...I think? It is "a" dawnflower dervish (names are changed to protect the innoc...I mean copyright). This is the fighter archetype one with one of the various pseudo pounces.

There is also the bard archetype of the same name HERE. It is also rather TWF friendly, mostly because it gives up buffing other people with inspire courage to give itself double bonuses (so it starts off on par with a barbarian rage, and eventually gives you enough bonuses that you are basically a full martial character). It is TWF friendly because it add a static damage bonus to every hit, which is great for a hit heavy build like TWF. Add on some arcane strike, and you can do fine.

Yes, the TWF bard would lead you to abandon the dervish dance feat you get for free. It is dex to damage feat...but as I said- most dex to damage options don't work with TWF. Dervish dance encourages 1 weapon/1 handed, which is one of the weakest styles in the system. Only swashbucklers can pull that off well.

[Brian Turner 355]

Wow honestly i never thought of Bards as being good Two weapon fighters but with the dervish archetype there pretty bad ass. Id be starting at 6th level so just with inspire courage on me I would be getting a +4 atk and a +4 damage thats pretty good.

[RealLifeCorn]

5th Level Swashbuckler and 3rd level unchained rogue would be your best bet. If you want to be able to always do all your attacks each turn then look into a ranged thrower or simply look into magic items that make 5-foot steps bigger (wait, can you do a 5-foot step in a full-round action if you don't move?)

[Brian Turner 355]

Yes you can take a 5ft step and still take a full round action. I was wondering if there anyway to make a scimitar be considered a light weapon when its i your off hand. Well i geuss i could do two short swords.

[Lady-J]

if path of war is allowed you can dip 2 levels into a class from there and get pounce then go tempered champion paladin be a bit less feat starved and still murderize everything in melee with twf

[lemeres]

Brian Turner 355 wrote:

Wow honestly i never thought of Bards as being good Two weapon fighters but with the dervish archetype there pretty bad ass. Id be starting at 6th level so just with inspire courage on me I would be getting a +4 atk and a +4 damage thats pretty good.

And the damage goes up another +2 if you have arcane strike.

Honestly, it does well enough for itself that I question the necessity for dex to damage. At its peak, between the inspire courage and arcane strike, it gets +13 damage.

The only downside is that most forms of TWF do not play well with spellcasting. The cestus, and other forms of glove type weapons, can do it fine though. At least as the offhand weapon.

I find it funny that the archetype designed to spin around with swords works best as either a boxer or an archer.

[Brian Turner 355]

I've just realized that Kukri even though they only do 1d4 for medium creatures if i get them keened than their crit range goes from 18-20 to 15-20 which means whenever it crits it does 2d4 damage which isn't too bad. Especially if both crit at the same time that would be 4d4 damage.

[lemeres]

Brian Turner 355 wrote:

I've just realized that Kukri even though they only do 1d4 for medium creatures if i get them keened than their crit range goes from 18-20 to 15-20 which means whenever it crits it does 2d4 damage which isn't too bad. Especially if both crit at the same time that would be 4d4 damage.

That fighter arhcetype, the dawnflower dervish, keeps weapon training, so discussion over the damage dice is far less of an issue.

This is because the weapon master's handbook provided some great options to mess around with the fighter's weapon training. This includes an option to improve you will saves, as well as an option to give your weapons scaling damage dice based off of warpriests.

So by level 10, your kukri are dealing 1d10's, which is quite the noticeable increase in average damage (1d4=2.5, 1d10=5.5). By level 15, it hits like a greatsword.

Obviously, both this option and the warpriest class highly encourage high crit weapons since you can replace the other main stat of the weapon.

[Brian Turner 355]

Thas sounds pretty cool. But unfortunately i cant afford the book right now. If i do the bard dervish archetype can i use Chord of Shards when i use bardic performance on myself. And thanks for all the help.

[MageHunter]

Warpriest are pretty nice for TWF. They replace their BAB prerequisites with level for bonus feats, letting them grab Improved TWF at 6th level. Plus Sacred Weapon boosts the damage significantly making kukri even betr. And fervor doesn't require free hands so you can simultaneously fight and cast with swift actions.

Pretty neat.

[ChaosTicket]

Pounce is something similar is a major advantage for any melee build, but essential for a two-weapon fighting style.

Avenger speciliazed Vigilante can take mad Rush at level 12 which is worse. Barbarian can take Great Beaster Totem at level 10 to gain Pounce.

Two-weapon fighting is cool, but a two-handed weapon is better in most situations. You wont even reach something close to equality without a large number of feats.

[Kazaan]

An alternate approach is to use a double weapon. Double weapons can be used for either TWF or 2H based on the circumstances. So, if you can make a full-attack, you TWF. If you need to make a standard or the enemy is hard to hit, you forego TWF and two-hand it instead.

Also, you need to consider the certain archetypes are better for certain types of TWF. TWW gets more defensive bonuses and not so much in way of offense, so they are best as a zoner, planting themselves in a certain spot and playing defense. To that end, having a source of Enlarge Person to expand your threat range and Combat Reflexes for more AoOs is important. Even that can be expanded upon by your actual choice of weapons. If you wield, say, a 1-h weapon and a free-hand weapon (eg. Cestus, Unarmed Strike, Armor Spikes, etc.) then you have the option to easily two-hand your main weapon if TWF would be inopportune and you have throwing easily available. Carry a few thrown weapons for use in a pinch. Alternatively, go for matched 1-h weapons to consolidate your weapon-specific feats (eg. Weapon Focus, Improved Critical, etc). TWW eventually lets you use them with reduced penalties. But, for the most part, you'll be a stand-still defender that forces enemies to decide between taking the long way around or walking straight into your punishment. One important thing to note for TWW is that their primary boosters, Defensive Flurry and Twin Blades, only activate on a Full-Attack in which you use both weapons. This means that if you use both weapons, but it isn't a full-attack (doublestrike or equal opportunity), you don't gain these benefits. But it doesn't necessarily mean you need to use TWF rules; you could use both weapons on normal iterative attacks and still gain the bonuses.

On the other hand, if you want to actually be a damage dealer, Mobile Fighter was probably the best Fighter archetype for TWF before advanced weapon training options came out. You never need to worry about movement limitations once you get Rapid Attack. But, with the advent of advanced weapon training, losing the Weapon Training feature is a big drawback now. If you have some way of coping with that loss, then go for it.

Another less used option is the Thunderstriker. It focuses on hot-swapping 2-h/sword-and-board twf using a 1-h weapon and a buckler.

Weapon Master is very nice for wielding a pair of light weapons, especially ones that would be commonly faced. But, again, it loses out on advanced weapon training.

Also, if you're looking to leverage Acrobatics against an enemy, Canny Tumble is very nice. Moreso if you can get some source of sneak-attack.

[Saethori]

For the record, there is a way to use both blades after moving, and it is Weapon Trick (Two-weapon). The requirements for the specific trick of using both hands is prohibitively steep, though, so it is very likely not worth it, but I felt I should mention the option.

[Charon's Little Helper]

Frankly - what you described in your OP sounds like you'd like playing an Unchained Monk to me. It doesn't actually do TWF well, but it gets lots of potent attacks, and does very well with a sword. In addition, they're highly mobile with Flying Kick, which lets them full attack at increasing greater distances as they level.

They don't get Dex to Damage (though you could wield an Agile weapon) but with getting their Dex & Wis to AC, with extra AC as they level their AC will be just fine without wearing any armor at all.

[CBDunkerson]

lemeres wrote:

C. For TWF? Other than unchained rogue- no. Most other forms of dex to damage are VERY focused on trying to exclude TWF.

The Whirling Dervish swashbuckler archetype can do TWF with Dex to damage using any light/one handed piercing weapon(s).

[KainPen]

what you want to play is Mobile fighter archtype. it give you the ability to move and full attack. I seen someone play one using kukri they where devastating. you get plenty of feats, and you get bonus to hit and damage when ever you move more then 5ft, with any weapon you use. This allows you to be good with bows also for when you have to do ranged attacks.

[Brian Turner 355]

I want to thank everyone for their help. I think i have it narrowed down to three possabilities. A Dervish Dancing Bard, A Mobile Fighter or a WArpriest. The bard because the dervish doubles songs he sings for himself so at 17th level my atk will be at +18, The mobile fighter so taht i can move and hit hard and the warpriest because my sacred weapon can get some pretty awesome atks and its damage is higher.

[SheepishEidolon]

Brian Turner 355 wrote:

The bard because the dervish doubles songs he sings for himself so at 17th level my atk will be at +18

There is another bard archetype providing this kind of boost: Sorrowsoul

[Diachronos]

There are a number of ways to get Dex to damage, but the biggest roadblock is going to be finding something that works with TWF. Normally I'd recommend the "Grace" feats (Fencing/Slashing/Starry Grace, or Dervish Dancer for scimitars), but they all explicitly state that they don't work without having one hand free.
Unchained Rogue gets Dex to damage with one type of weapon automatically at level 3 and starts with Weapon Finesse, so that's always an option. You'd also get Acrobatics as a class skill, 2d6 sneak attack, and a slight buff to your Reflex save, but you're going to be behind a pure fighter in terms of things like weapon training.
You could also get two weapons that are enchanted with the agile quality. Expensive, but it removes the need to take levels in multiple classes.
If you're not dead-set on getting Dex to damage, there's also the Trained Grace advanced weapon training option. You'd be using Weapon Finesse to attack and your Strength for damage, but your weapon training bonus would be doubled.

[Letric]

The only way with Official content is

Unchained Rogue
Agile Weapons

There are no other ways for 2 weapon fighting. I'm ok with this because DEX is already super strong choice for your character, thought some other classes like Wizard have the 1 attribute that can pump and ignore all others.

Also keep in mind you can take most of the Rogue Archetypes, so you just need to look around.

Scout bring SA on a Charge and at level 8 SA if you move at least 10 ft.

[Chess Pwn]

4 levels of a certain swashbuckler archetype can do it.

[Diachronos]

Chess Pwn wrote:

4 levels of a certain swashbuckler archetype can do it.

Whirling Dervish still requires you to have your off-hand free.

[Chess Pwn]

At 1st level, a swashbuckler gains the benefits of the Weapon Finesse feat with light or one-handed piercing melee weapons

At 4th level, a whirling dervish can use her Dexterity modifier instead of her Strength modifier on melee damage rolls when using her swashbuckler finesse.

I don't see needing your off hand free.

[CBDunkerson]

Letric wrote:

The only way with Official content is

Unchained Rogue
Agile Weapons

There are no other ways for 2 weapon fighting.

Again, Whirling Dervish swashbuckler.

Diachronos wrote:

Chess Pwn wrote:

4 levels of a certain swashbuckler archetype can do it.

Whirling Dervish still requires you to have your off-hand free.

No. Whirling Dervish only requires a free hand to get Dex for damage with a >scimitar<. Any light/one-handed piercing weapon can be used without requiring a free hand, and thus works for TWF.