I have a GM baby that I an building. I'm putting together a duel wielding gunslinger swashbuckler that will sometimes go sword and pistol. I know, mechanically it's a terrible idea, but what the heck, I have the GM credit.
One of the problems of this build is that he is wielding a 1 handed weapon in each hand. This results in a -4 to all attacks. If a small rapier counts as a light weapon (not certain about this) my character could take the -2 penalty on inappropriately sized weapons for the rapier and be at a total of -4 for that weapon while dual wielding. So no difference for the off hand weapon. But the primary weapon, the pistol, is now only at a -2 on attacks.
Now that I think more about it, could I do this while duel wielding pistols? Could I wield a small pistol in the off hand and just take the penalty for an inappropriately sized weapon?
This is for PFS, so the rules are a bit more sticky.
Considering it's PFS, it's unlikely to get small-sized pistols. Well, you could, but then again ranged weapons don't have Light/One/Two-handed denominations, they simply take one or two hands to use (depending on which weapon it is), and they add a modifier (if any) based on any abilities or innate effects of the weapon (such as Composite Bows adding Strength).
So, you couldn't do this with a Pistol. But with a Rapier, you could. And to be honest, I do like the ability to use a one-handed ranged projectile weapon while having a melee weapon out; it's cool flavor, and can offer you some versatility. The problem is that in a lot of cases, there is way too much investment required to make it simply function (Sword and Pistol feat is a pain to get, as well as trying to stack Ranged feats on top of it).
On top of that, if you were to get things like Weapon Focus, you'd have to get it for each separate weapon (which is probably why you're trying to dual-pistol, but you wouldn't be able to reduce TWF penalties).
My suggestion for if you are going to stick with the Rapier is to purchase an Effortless Lace for it, so that it counts as a Light Weapon for effects reliant on Light Weapons, and thus you're only getting -2 across the board.
Unfortunately effortless lace is not PFS legal.
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Unfortunately effortless lace is not PFS legal.
And that's why I think PFS is pretty lame.
Actually, wielding a rapier and a pistol at the same time doesn't cause you any problems at all - if you are not trying to get any extra actions out of it. Sure, you take the -4/-4 when you try to get TWF-linked extra attacks. But if you just alternate between the weapons using your reegular iterative attacks, or your single standard-action attack, there are no penalties at all.
So, say you have a BAB of +6. You can
1) shoot the pistol at +6 and then stab with the rapier at +1, or
2) stab with the rapier at +6 and then shoot the pistol at +1
Probably better than, say:
3) stab at +2, shoot at +2 and stab again at -3
Although of course you will still be adding your normal bonuses from STR, DEX, feats, magic and so on, so it wouldn't be quite so bad.
And of course if you have to move and only get a standard-action attack, you can only make one attack with one of the weapons anyway, so no penalties are involved.
Regarding off-sized weapons: PF is really screwy in the way it deals with off-sized weapons. I suggest houseruling to have most weapons simply qualify as a normal-sized different weapon: a small rapier becomes a normal shortsword or dagger; a large longsword becomes a greatsword. Best solution: just don't use off-sized weapons.
YMMV.
Mr. James T. Donkey, you have hit the nail on the head. I knew there was something wrong about using the undersized weapon. I checked under swashbuckers finesse, but didn't look in the general section about finesse. Thank you.