This subject came up after my regular weekly game last night, where we were discussing the 'Fighter that has a weapon for every occasion'. Now we know that with Bags of Holding etc it is quiet possible to carry around an arsenal with you but, what if you didn't, and instead had to select from just a handful of weapons. What would you carry?
1. We unanimously settled on a Sap - Non lethal damage - Easy choice, not much competition
2. You want to carry a Trip, and Disarm weapon
3. You want a Slashing, Bludgeoning, and Piercing Weapon
2.1&3.1 - You want these weapons at both reach and close
4. You want a Crit Fishing Reach, Two-handed, and one-handed weapon
5. You want a highest base damage Reach, Two-handed, and one-handed weapon to use when you face crit immune monsters
Then there are the questions
Do you double up on selections, or do you only select weapons for a singular purpose. How many Exotic Weapon Proficiency are you willing to invest.
Well I had a shot at it myself
- Sap
- Cat-o’-nine-tails
- Flailpole
- Horsechopper
- Ranseur
- Bill
- Light Flail
- Halberd
- Monople
- Falcion
- Greatsword
- Longsword
- Hooked lance
This doesn't even cover ranged weapons or weapons for mounted combat (yet) but, I really want to hear your thoughts or even your own lists for the perfect Fighter Arsenal
That is way too many weapons. Having every possible type of special weapon is not really that important.
You can perform combat maneuvers with weapons that don’t have the relevant special ability. All trip and disarm do is give you a bonus to the maneuver, and in the case of trip allow you to drop the weapon if you fail. Even with a weapon with the relevant special ability you still provoke AoO unless you have the improved maneuver feat.
Having the weapon that overcomes damage resistance is good, but often times it is easier just to suck it up and do slightly less damage. For most martial classes the damage comes not directly from the weapon, but rather from class abilities feats and magic items. These are often weapon specific so most of the time you actually do more damage by using your best weapon. Take a 5th level fighter with +1 greatsword, weapon focus, weapon specialization with the great sword and power attack. Assuming an 18 STR I have a +10 to hit and do an average of 23 points of damage. The same character wielding a light flail is +7 to hit and does an average of 12.5 damage. If I am fighting something with DR 10/ Bludgeoning I still do about the same damage with the greatsword and have a much better chance to hit. At higher levels the extra damage is going to be even greater so I will end up doing less damage and have even less chance to hit.
Carrying around a hundred pounds of weapons is absolutely ridiculous especially if you don’t have a bag of holding. Once you throw in armor, ranged weapons and other gear you are going to be at heavy encumbrance without even carrying any loot.
My list of weapons would by a main weapon and a backup weapon in case something happens to it. A ranged weapon and ammunition. A dagger for close combat, and general utility is always useful. Probably want a hand axe for the same reason. A sap for non-lethal damage is not a bad idea. That would be about it. If I had an efficient quiver or a bag of holding I may be tempted to bring a few more, but not anywhere near the list that was posted.
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The fewest is 0, an unarmed fighter does not need weapons.
Beyond that, any answer is going to depend on the character and how it is built.
Maybe my explanation was poor in which case I apologize.
My thought was that "The Fighter who has the perfect weapon for the occasion" what would their repertoire be.
So without carrying around every type of weapon how concise of a collection could you make to cover as many conceivable situations.
Just the weapons as a stand alone thing. Without taking into consideration feats. If they were solely studying fighting style
"When fighting X you need a A, and when fighting Y you need B"
For Ranged Weapons, you just need a Bow. I like Orc Hornbows.
There are a variety of arrows that do piercing, slashing, and blunt damage. You can get cold iron and silver arrows. You can get adamantine arrows, but it would be cheaper and almost as effective to get adamantine weapon blanch.
You can take Feats that let you use your bow in melee and make attacks of opportunity with it (Snapshot Feats). Another option would be to gain a Natural Attack for when you are in melee.
There are Feats for ranged disarm or tripping, and the Archer Fighter Archetype gains Class Abilities to Feint, Disarm, Sunder, Grapple, Trip, and Bull Rush with arrows.
the rich fighter would go with bow that has str setting (or adaptable) cost him a few hundreds of gp (or more). for the low level fighter (or poor one) id advice to pick up chakram. it's 1 gp each. does slashing damage (and can be somewhat wielded in melee as well) and for a thrown weapon (that let you add your str to damage) it has a nice range of 30 ft increment.
at low level i usually go with a morning star (1d8, b+p) chakram and a kunai (also p\b, for ranged in case s is bad. and can be used as piton or crow-bar)
Don't double up on crit-fishing and higher base damage. Just get the crit-fishing weapon, because the lower base damage won't hurt you appreciably unless your campaign is practically all elementals and plants.
(I want to play in your campaign.)
Trip and Disarm are... pretty irrelevant, I think. If you have the Feats, you don't need the weapons, and if you don't have the Feats, the weapons won't matter.
I would say you don't need a sap. Your Rogue needs a sap.
You need a shield and a one-handed weapon, and you need a polearm... I'd argue it's probably better if you have two Fighters, though. These roles work better in concert.
Going to say heavy shield, heavy mace, scimitar, longspear, short bow.
Multiple daggers. You can wield them while you're grappled. You need to be able to reach them while you're grappled.
The rules of Fighters and Weapons are the same rules as Gamers and Dice. You can never have enough. There is no minimum.
You take every weapon you find starting at level 1 until you've reached your max encumbrance, then you get a wizard to cast Ant Haul on you, and then collect weapons until you reach that max encumbrance, and then find hirelings and enchant them with ant haul tool and continue to collect weapons until they reach their max encumbrance, and then once you can afford a wagon and a couple of horses to pull it, you fill that wagon with bags of holding full of more weapons.
Good general advice on this topic:
https://paizo.com/threads/rzs2uqp6?PFS-special-material-weapons#6
PFS Legal Melee contingency kit
Source Melee Tactics Toolbox pg. 20
Price 150 gp; Weight 14 lbs.
Category Kits
Description
This kit contains items necessary for a melee combatant to overcome the most common forms of damage resistance. The kit includes a cold iron morningstar, a silver sickle, two flasks of acid, two flasks of alchemist’s fire, and two flasks of holy water.
Add in:
* a sap or whip, so you don't have to take -4 to do nonlethal or provoke with unarmed attacks
* an adamantine weapon that you plan to use into higher levels, after enchanting it
* a masterwork bow [the best type that you're proficient in, generally composite longbow or orc hornbow] that you plan to use into higher levels, after enchanting it to +1 and adding Adaptive
A bag of holding or handy haversack only has so much capacity, and filling it with bulky reach weapons prevents you from filling it with gold :)
Minimum weapons for most* characters (IMO):
1) Bow, crossbow, sling, or thrown weapon (javelins, shuriken, etc.). Bows, crossbows, and slings should have cold iron arrows/bolts/bullets treated with weapon blanch (silver), cheap at 12 gp per 20 arrows/14 gp per 20 bolts/10 gp and 4 sp per 20 bullets, and a handful of durable adamantine arrows/bolts/bullets (7 gp each).
2) Primary melee weapon(s). Whatever makes sense for the character; two-handed weapon, double weapon, one-handed weapon, two weapons or weapon/shield (if going TWF with weapon/shield bash), etc. When affordable, probably adamantine; unless focused on specific opponents (a demon-slayer will probably want cold iron, etc.).
3) Secondary melee weapon. The most useful choice is probably an alchemical silver battle aspergillum (25 gp); silver and blunt to penetrate some common DR types, can be filled with holy water for extra damage vs. undead and to affect incorporeal undead. Alternately, gauntlets or spiked gauntlets are decent choices (no need to draw them for use, or drop them to use hands for something else).
4) Back-up weapon. Probably a cold iron dagger (4 gp) for general utility (as a tool to cut rope, skin game, etc.) and to penetrate some common DR types (piercing, slashing, material).
*- Depending on the character, they may not find a primary or secondary melee weapon useful; or their primary melee weapon may also be their thrown weapon (starknife, dwarf with a dwarfbond hammer or dwarven thrower, etc.).
Your premise is flawed. Weapons are tools to overcome obstacles. If you cannot use the tool effectively having it does you no good. To use a weapon effectively you usually need to invest in feats, enchantments and other abilities to maximize its efficiency. This is kind of like asking what instrument a musician should carry. If the drummer does not know how to use a guitar than carrying one does him no good.
Any weapon can be useful in certain circumstances so basically the answer to your question would be every weapon that has a unique set of attributes. Very few weapons have identical game stats. The only one I can think of offhand would be the cutlass and scimitar.
1) Main Weapon
2) Grapple Weapon/Swallowed Weapon/Hidden Weapon (Light)
3) Ranged Weapon
4) Ghost Touch Weapon
I think you can get all the DR types in as well, depending on main weapon. DR bypassing isn't as important as having something you can use in a grapple, cut yourself out of a monster, dealing with ghosts, dealing with people on the other side of a ravine, etc.
Usually, you don't want to carry more than about 2-4 different weapons, including ammunition/batches of thrown weapons as a single weapon and possibly not including a shield. However, as I posted about 5 years ago, sometimes a "golf bag of weapons" may be appropriate to a character.
Uses the dragon's doom against dragons, the dwarven thrower against constructs and giants (or as a ranged option), the spirit blade against incorporeal opponents or to cast dispel magic, the summoner's sorrow against outsiders or summoned/illusionary creatures, the sun blade against undead (or evil creatures and/or to penetrate DR X/good), the +3 cunning huntsman hooked lance against just about everything else, and the javelins of lightning as an area attack. Essentially, the character is ready to fight just about anything.
Your premise is flawed. Weapons are tools to overcome obstacles. If you cannot use the tool effectively having it does you no good. To use a weapon effectively you usually need to invest in feats, enchantments and other abilities to maximize its efficiency. This is kind of like asking what instrument a musician should carry. If the drummer does not know how to use a guitar than carrying one does him no good.
Any weapon can be useful in certain circumstances so basically the answer to your question would be every weapon that has a unique set of attributes. Very few weapons have identical game stats. The only one I can think of offhand would be the cutlass and scimitar.
This is a character idea, not an optimization build but, if you really must think of it in those terms think of it for a Martial Master who can switch feats on the fly.
This is solely a thought experiment, so what in reality it has no basis, it does not mean it shouldn't be examined.
If you have ever done any amount of DIY and tried sawing something with the wrong kind of saw you will know how awkward it is. But when you use the correct tool for the job, everything becomes easier.
The cost to enchant weapons is also a cost. And using unenchanted weapons is a cost of a different kind.
Still, if you're trying to find reasons to have multiple weapons:
A primary weapon, probably two-handed. Going down TWF or other feat chains tends to narrow down your weapon options rapidly.
A backup primary weapon. Not exactly the same since you're not doing weapon-specific feats. One which covers the damage type(s) your primary weapon doesn't.
A ranged projectile weapon for long ranges.
A couple of thrown weapons (chakrams?) for when you only have one hand free but want a ranged option anyway.
A sap for nonlethal occasions.
A dagger as a tool, or for when you're caught in a grapple or need to smuggle a weapon somewhere.
Reach, disarm, trip etc. are only useful properties if you build around them at least a little. Which, obviously, you're not.
With the exception of my natural weapon builds, I've always given them 2 melee weapons - a main weapon and a backup that's either a dagger or kunai depending on the damage type of the main weapon. I also give everyone a bow or a sling if I can't afford a bow.
If a campaign is such that different special materials are needed to get past DR, then the backup weapon can be made out of the one that's not needed as much. And if you really need different types of elemental damage, you can slap Flaming or Frost on it.
Kunais can also be used as pitons or crowbars so that saves room in your bag for other things.
I have refined my list a bit more
Non-Lethal
Bludgeoning - Sap
Slashing - Cat-o’-nine-tails
Reach & Trip
Piercing and Slashing - Horsechopper
Reach & Trip & Disarm
Bludgeoning - Flailpole
Reach & Disarm
Piercing and Slashing - Kyoketsu shoge
Non-Reach One Handed Trip and Disarm
Bludgeoning - Flail, light
Piercing - Ankus
Slashing - Shang gou
Non-Reach Two Handed Trip and Disarm
Bludgeoning - Flail, heavy
Piercing - Chain, spiked
Slashing - Scarf, bladed
Reach Damage Dealing
Bludgeoning - Longhammer, dwarven
Piercing -
Slashing - Longaxe, dwarven
One-handed Damage Dealing
Bludgeoning -
Piercing -
Slashing -
Two-handed Damage Dealing
Bludgeoning -
Piercing -
Slashing - Axe, Butchering
Reach Crit Fishing
Bludgeoning -
Piercing -
Slashing - Fauchard
One-handed Crit Fishing
Bludgeoning - Cestus
Piercing - Estoc
Slashing - Katana
Two-handed Crit Fishing
Bludgeoning - Flail, heavy
Piercing & Slashing - Nodachi
The cost to enchant weapons is also a cost. And using unenchanted weapons is a cost of a different kind.
It's paid in hit points.
I don't understand why you think you need such a big arsenal of weapons.
Because I am incapable of articulating what I mean, don't worry I give up. I will keep this thought experiment to myself
I really don't want you to give up.Because I am incapable of articulating what I mean, don't worry I give up. I will keep this thought experiment to myself
I don't understand why you think you need such a big arsenal of weapons.
Last attempt, and if it doesn't work, I will let this topic fade into the archive to never be seen again.
First remove the character entirely from the equation (I will bring them back in in a bit). Mechanically we know that any weapon can perform any combat maneuver but, you do gain a small benefit from using a weapon suitable to the job.
Now what is the best reach disarming bludgeoning weapon? The Flailpole is the only weapon that qualifies
Now what is the best reach disarming piercing weapon? It is either the Ranseur or the Kyoketsu shoge (Which one is better is a DPR debate and out of the equation).
Meet Mr.Joe Commoner with no feats who is about to fight X that has DR 5/Bludgeoning. They know that the Flailpole will perform better so takes that out of their collection. Mr.Joe commoners collection of weapons is vast but, everyone has its place, and its purpose. Some weapons even have multiple purposes, and that helps bring down the required space needed to store all of it.
The Flindbar is their favourite as it covers one handed, trip, disarm, bludgeoning, and piercing roles. Four combinations with one weapon, that is a flexible weapon indeed.
Bringing back in the Player Character. Imagine a fighter who instead of altering his style or proverbially hitting his head against the brick wall when he comes up against a foe with which his current weapon is limited, they instead go to their wagon or whatever it may be and pulls out a better weapon and proclaims "this is the one".
A Wizards toolbox is in their spellbook and in their head. Why can't a Fighter who understands the weapon in their hands in the same vein a wizard understands their spells, have their toolbox of precision implements
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A level 5 fighter can apply Warpriest Sacred Weapon Damage to a Whip to make its Damage respectable.
Actually...How do you achieve that?
Edit: No, nevermind, I figured it out
Maybe my explanation was poor in which case I apologize.
My thought was that "The Fighter who has the perfect weapon for the occasion" what would their repertoire be.
So without carrying around every type of weapon how concise of a collection could you make to cover as many conceivable situations.
Just the weapons as a stand alone thing. Without taking into consideration feats. If they were solely studying fighting style
"When fighting X you need a A, and when fighting Y you need B"
The perfect weapon for all occasions requires only a single weapon; one with Greater Transformation. It can be everything from brass knuckles to a railgun.
Bonus points if the the character has arcane pool and/or spirit warrior.
For a Gloomblade, the answer is still 0