Weapons for TWF?


Advice


Hey guys,

I am currently making a character that Is going to utilize two weapon fighting. I think I may make the character also a two weapon warrior fighter archetype. I was trying to figure out what I should use as my weapons? I was thinking of using the Elven Thorn Blade and Elven Leaf Blade combo. And then I could also grab the crit feats. I was also tempted to grab 2 Thorn Blades and have one welded to an Effortless Lace so I could get a higher damage die. And to add onto that I was gonna get the critical feats to make that even better. My other option is to do the same thing with the effortless laces but instead of the elven blades, I use two Bastard Swords . So I would alot less crit range, but I would have a lot larger damage die... so yeah, what do you guys think I should use? And I can add more about the build if you ask (trying my best not to write a book..) and if you have any sort of suggestions with this build I would love to hear some feedback

Thanks,
Mchawi


I like Thunder and Fang, which lets you fight with an Earthbreaker hammer in 1 hand and a Klar shield in the other. I have a build in mind for this. You would take Shield Slam and Greater Bull Rush, so you would give out Attacks of Opportunity to all your allies. I would get Paired Opportunist through levels in Inquisitor, so you could get an AoO, too.

There is a Tactical trick I've been wanting to try. If you get a Flanking buddy, you can Bull Rush him into your Ally, giving both of you Attacks of Opportunity. You AoO will be another Shield Bash/Bull Rush, triggering another round of AoOs. You keep doing this, looping AoOs until your Combat Reflexes runs out. Klars don't do a lot of Damage on your own, so when you are doing this, put Bane on your Klar and do an extra 2d6 Damage.


Out of your three ideas, I'd use two Thorn Blades (or simply two Leaf Blades).

The idea of Sword n Dagger is thematically cool, but you'll be forced to double up on all weapon-specific feats for an average increase of +1 dmg on your main weapon.
And while two Bastard Swords with a lace would net you +1 more damage per hit than if you used Thorn Blades, the lowered crit chance will result in less damage.

For TWF, you want to focus on one light weapon with a good crit range. Elven Leaf Blade is a great choice.


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Morning Star and Shield. You 2 weapon fight with Morning Star and Armor Spikes.

Take Hamatula Strike. Hamatula Strike gives you a free Grapple Attempt with every attack with a Piercing Weapon, and Armor Spikes do extra damage with every successful Grapple Attack. This effectively gives you 4 attacks/round, and you get the added AC bonus of the Heavy Shield!

You could use a Light Shield, and Shield Bash with a Light, Spiked Shield. You could take Shield Slam and Greater Bull Rush like I described with T&F. Since the Spiked Shield is a Piercing Weapon, and a Shield, you would be simultaneously Bull Rushing and Grappling them, and just rip them all apart, with multiple looping, cascading attacks.

A variant on Morning Star and Shield would be Halberd and Shield. To do this, you would take either the Shield Brace Feat or 3 or more levels in the Phalanx Soldier Fighter. If you go this way, you also could use a Reach Pole Arm such as a Lucerne Hammer. Either of these options gives you Brace. If you take Quickdraw, making your shield a Light, Spiked, Quickdraw Shield, you can lure your opponents into charging you by shooting arrows at someone, then whip out your Pole and shield as Free Actions, attacking them for Double Damage with an Immediate Action, then Double Damage them again as an Attack of Opportunity as they leave your Threatened Square. You could also take Great Cleave, hitting everyone adjacent to you with your Armor Spikes, and everyone 10' away with your Leucerne Hammer.


I was thinking a good option for a critting, 2 weapon build would be 2 Kukris, and be a Warpriest. Kukris have a Threat Range of 18-20, and you won't do the Kukri's 1d4 Damage: you will do Warpriest Sacred Weapon Damage 1d6 at level 1, higher at higher.

A lot of people like Arsenal Chaplin giving you +1s to Attack and Damage instead of increased Damage Dice, but I like Increased Damage Dice because I like to increase my size through Righteous Might or maybe Enlarge Person by dipping into Living Monolith. Also, for this build, there is an Archetype that gives you a Teamwork Feat and Tactician to give it to your friends. I think it's Divine Tactician or Holy Commander or something. Since you would be Crit-fishing, you can take Outflank or that other one, granting Attacks of Opportunity to your Allies with every successful Crit.

Wonderstell, tell him about your Urumi/Curling Wave build.


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Let's start with the basics - extra attacks are awesome, so why doesn't everyone use TWF?

Well, there's five downsides to TWF.
1) Feat requirement - you need the TWF feat, and will want followups.
2) Dex requirement - TWF requires Dex 15, Improved TWF requires 17, Greater TWF requires 19.
3) Weapon cost - you either pay twice as much, or have a lower bonus.
4) More reliance on full attacks - needing to move hurts you even more than others, as it also shuts down your combat style.
5) More problems with damage reduction - DR applies to each attack, and #3 means that you can ignore fewer cases of DR than others.

If you can't get help on some of these, TWF is just not a viable fighting style. So, let's see what we can do to lessen those downsides!

Brawler or Monk remove the need for #1 and #2, but then again, they don't have any reason to use two weapons.

1) Nothing much you can do, except get bonus feats: Fighter, Vigilante, Ranger/Slayer most notably.
2) Ranger/Slayer can ignore prereqs via the Ranger Combat Style, Vigilante can ignore prereqs via the Shield of Fury talent, as do Brawling Blademaster Samurai and the Sanguine Angel Prestige class. Of course, it's possible to go dex-based, most notably with Rogue.
3) Gloomblade Fighter can create double weapons at full bonus, and Handwraps allow TWF with unarmed strikes at the price of a single weapon.
4) Pounce or something similar helps a lot. Characters who gain pounce et al.: Mounted Sohei Monk 1 via the Mounted Skirmisher feat, Synthesist Summoner 1, Rageshaper Shifter 4, Beastkin Berserker or Flesheater Barbarian 8, Metamorph Alchemist 9, Barbarian 10 via Greater Beast Totem rage power, Medium 11 via Champion spirit, Vigilante 12 via Mad Rush talent, Pummeling Charge @ BAB 12. Probably more that I've forgotten. For low levels, a double weapon helps (you can two-hand it when moving/charging).
5) Pummeling Style.

I would strongly advise against Two-Weapon Warrior, straight Fighter is just way better.


Wow thanks for all suggestions and information!! I never really thought about using shield with twf... huh. And the build I'm making it a fighter that focuses on the blind fight feats (because I'm playing a blind character). And before you guys say "why are you blind?!?" And the answer is, why not? Its definitely a downside, but I've been playing pathfinder for 7 years and I enjoy having a downside especially if it works well. I dont NEED to be a fighter, but it's just easier using the fighter's bonus feats to acquire the blind feats at level 5 (oh yeah probably should have meantioned that).

Ps: I'm not too afraid being too weak or underpowered, I'm not really the type of person that specifically goes to a class because it's the best meta or something. (Haha you probably can tell because I'm blind)


Mchawi wrote:
Wow thanks for all suggestions and information!! I never really thought about using shield with twf... huh. And the build I'm making it a fighter that focuses on the blind fight feats (because I'm playing a blind character). And before you guys say "why are you blind?!?" And the answer is, why not? Its definitely a downside, but I've been playing pathfinder for 7 years and I enjoy having a downside especially if it works well. I dont NEED to be a fighter, but it's just easier using the fighter's bonus feats to acquire the blind feats at level 5 (oh yeah probably should have meantioned that).

How are you sorting out fighting while Blind? What Blind countermeasures are you taking?

If you are going to be a Blind fighter already, maybe you should carry around an Eversmoking Bottle, and make everyone else Blind, too.


Scott Wilhelm wrote:

How are you sorting out fighting while Blind? What Blind countermeasures are you taking?

If you are going to be a Blind fighter already, maybe you should carry around an Eversmoking Bottle, and make everyone else Blind, too.

It's actually quite easy, there is a feat chain that focuses around fighting blind, and the final one give you blind sight 30ft. It is called Blinded Master

And I could definetly get the Eversmoking Bottles! It's a little pricey at character generation, but that could defiently help, especially if my party is down to get some sort of smoke vision goggles or something


Mchawi wrote:


Scott Wilhelm wrote:

How are you sorting out fighting while Blind? What Blind countermeasures are you taking?

If you are going to be a Blind fighter already, maybe you should carry around an Eversmoking Bottle, and make everyone else Blind, too.

It's actually quite easy, there is a feat chain that focuses around fighting blind, and the final one give you blind sight 30ft. It is called Blinded Master

And I could definetly get the Eversmoking Bottles! It's a little pricey at character generation, but that could defiently help, especially if my party is down to get some sort of smoke vision goggles or something

I was just clued in to a Character Trait called Wolf Cub, which gives you the Scent Ability. The Scent Ability lets you find the direction of an opponent within 30' as a Move Action and Pinpoint the location of your opponent instantly within 5'. The Blind Fighting Feat lets you navigate and keep your Dex Mod while Blinded or vs and Invisible opponent, and it lets you re-roll your Miss Chance due to Total Concealment or Concealment--and everything has Total Concealment when you are Blind. You effectively reduce a 50% Miss chance to 25%, and you reduce a 20% Miss Chance to a 4%. Between the Trait and the Feat, you can be almost completely functional while Blind at level 1.

A Half Orc can get Scent as a Racial Feat. Catfolk can get Scent as an Alternate Racial Trait. There is a Alchemist Archetype--Tomb Raider or something--that has an altered Mutagen that grants Scent and other things (level 1). Dwarves can get Tremorsense--like Scent but works on anything on the ground--at the cost of 3 Feats. You can also gain Scent through Alter Self or Bloodhound (a level 2 Ranger Spell). There is a level 3 spell, Echolocation, which gives you proper Blindsight.

There is a Bard Archetype called Flame Dancer. With 3 levels of Flame Dancer, you and your whole party gain the ability to see through Fire and Smoke.


Scott Wilhelm wrote:


Dwarves can get Tremorsense--like Scent but works on anything on the ground--at the cost of 3 Feats.

Wait what?? What feat chain is that?! I only know about the oread feat Mururs of Earth . What's the dwarf feats called?


Mchawi wrote:
Scott Wilhelm wrote:


Dwarves can get Tremorsense--like Scent but works on anything on the ground--at the cost of 3 Feats.
Wait what?? What feat chain is that?! I only know about the oread feat Mururs of Earth . What's the dwarf feats called?

Stone Sense

Silver Crusade

@OP: Ya know, since you already plan to invest character resources in blindfighting (awesome sauce!), you might consider a less feat-intensive fighting style. As in, maybe either burn feats on sub-optimal two weapon fighting or burn feats compensating for blindness. Trying to do both will stretch your build resources thinly.

I have practical martial arts experience training and fighting with a blind martial artist. Blind fighting really works in real life! Dan, who was blind from birth, became quite an effective martial artist. Arts in action included judo, jiujutsu, fencing, kenjutsu, karate, and silat. He fenced quite effectively with his cane but specialized in grappling. As a capable sighted fencer I could often, but not always, defeat him when I was equally armed. Sight matters not one whit at grappling distance. That's why Dan specialized in grappling.


Magda Luckbender wrote:

@OP: Ya know, since you already plan to invest character resources in blindfighting (awesome sauce!), you might consider a less feat-intensive fighting style. As in, maybe either burn feats on sub-optimal two weapon fighting or burn feats compensating for blindness. Trying to do both will stretch your build resources thinly.

I have practical martial arts experience training and fighting with a blind martial artist. Blind fighting really works in real life! Dan, who was blind from birth, became quite an effective martial artist. Arts in action included judo, jiujutsu, fencing, kenjutsu, karate, and silat. He fenced quite effectively with his cane but specialized in grappling. As a capable sighted fencer I could often, but not always, defeat him when I was equally armed. Sight matters not one whit at grappling distance. That's why Dan specialized in grappling.

I don't think it is very expensive all to become good at fighting while Blind: 2 Feats, a Feat and a Class Ability, a Feat and a Level 2 Spell, or a Feat and a Trait. One more Feat or a Spell makes you perfect at it.

But it is solid advice all-around that you consider the price of the cool class features you are building up towards and consider how they interact.

And I do hope you savor your experience with that awesome sensai.


Mchawi wrote:
...And the build I'm making it a fighter that focuses on the blind fight feats (because I'm playing a blind character). And before you guys say "why are you blind?!?" And the answer is, why not? Its definitely a downside, but I've been playing pathfinder for 7 years and I enjoy having a downside especially if it works well.

heh. i'm playing an evil Daredevil build right now in Hell's Vengeance AP. Brawler/Monk and i love it.

as for two-weapon fighter, try using two Rat Poniard's. Appears in Player's Guide to the Crossroads
(PARRYING DAGGERS like the Main Gauche)
Crit Range 18-20; Crit Multiplier is a whopping x3
Special Feature: Injection, to deliver poison or as i have done against undead, deliver a potion of cure serious, no saving throw, to a vampire, surprising it and the DM.

P.S. I'd like to see the breakdown of your build so far.


Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber
Derklord wrote:
2) Dex requirement - TWF requires Dex 15, Improved TWF requires 17, Greater TWF requires 19.

IMO, Greater Two-Weapon Fighting is not worth it. Two-Weapon Rend is a more consistent way to add damage than a third attack at -10 (plus the -2 or -4 for two-weapon fighting) and only requires the 17 Dex for Improved Two-Weapon Fighting; besides, Double Slice is worth it on its own, unless you never improve Str beyond 15.


I am Nemesis wrote:

as for two-weapon fighter, try using two Rat Poniard's. Appears in Player's Guide to the Crossroads
(PARRYING DAGGERS like the Main Gauche)
Crit Range 18-20; Crit Multiplier is a whopping x3
Special Feature: Injection, to deliver poison or as i have done against undead, deliver a potion of cure serious, no saving throw, to a vampire, surprising it and the DM.

What is the base damage for these?

Exotic Light Weapon, I presume.


@"VoodistMonk"
the following appears in Player's Guide to the Crossroads (PARRYING DAGGERS like the Main Gauche)

Rat Poniard
Base Damage: 1d4 PIERCING
Martial Weapon: Light Melee
Crit Range 18-20
Crit Multiplier: x3
Special Feature: Injection, to deliver poison or as i have done against undead, deliver a potion of cure serious, no saving throw, to a vampire, surprising it and the DM.
Cost: 4gp
Weight: 1 pound


I am Nemesis wrote:

@"VoodistMonk"

the following appears in Player's Guide to the Crossroads (PARRYING DAGGERS like the Main Gauche)

Rat Poniard
Base Damage: 1d4 PIERCING
Martial Weapon: Light Melee
Crit Range 18-20
Crit Multiplier: x3
Special Feature: Injection, to deliver poison or as i have done against undead, deliver a potion of cure serious, no saving throw, to a vampire, surprising it and the DM.
Cost: 4gp
Weight: 1 pound

I smell third party. Is the "no saving throw" aspect built into the weapon?


Sandal Fury wrote:
I am Nemesis wrote:

@"VoodistMonk"

the following appears in Player's Guide to the Crossroads (PARRYING DAGGERS like the Main Gauche)

Rat Poniard
Base Damage: 1d4 PIERCING
Martial Weapon: Light Melee
Crit Range 18-20
Crit Multiplier: x3
Special Feature: Injection, to deliver poison or as i have done against undead, deliver a potion of cure serious, no saving throw, to a vampire, surprising it and the DM.
Cost: 4gp
Weight: 1 pound

I smell third party. Is the "no saving throw" aspect built into the weapon?

Kobold Press, in 2012.

So yeah, that funky smell is indeed third party.


Wonderstell wrote:
Sandal Fury wrote:
I am Nemesis wrote:

@"VoodistMonk"

the following appears in Player's Guide to the Crossroads (PARRYING DAGGERS like the Main Gauche)

Rat Poniard
Base Damage: 1d4 PIERCING
Martial Weapon: Light Melee
Crit Range 18-20
Crit Multiplier: x3
Special Feature: Injection, to deliver poison or as i have done against undead, deliver a potion of cure serious, no saving throw, to a vampire, surprising it and the DM.
Cost: 4gp
Weight: 1 pound

I smell third party. Is the "no saving throw" aspect built into the weapon?

Kobold Press, in 2012.

So yeah, that funky smell is indeed third party.

18-20/x3 is atrocious.


Sandal Fury wrote:
Is the "no saving throw" aspect built into the weapon?

nope, that was an action i took in game. Our DM ruled that since potions don't normally have saving throws, the vampire took full dice-rolled damage.


Potions do have saving throws, it's just that you usually use the "choose to automatically fail" option. And yeah, that weapon is pretty obviously third party. Not only are 19-20/x3 weapons already super rare, it's basically a kukri with better crit stats and a special feature, and yet still a martial weapon.


You know for fun you could make a Cayden Cailean build and use a weapon and tankard. It would probably work best as a drunken monk


Cestus and scimitar is a neat combo, allows 2H attacks for AoO and single attacks, no exotic profs needed, can have a free hand without dropping a weapon.


Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber
Temperans wrote:
You know for fun you could make a Cayden Cailean build and use a weapon and tankard. It would probably work best as a drunken monk

The Divine Fighting Technique of Cayden Cailean's Blade and Tankard already exists. A CG fighter or swashbuckler probably has the easiest way to qualify, but an alchemist might actually work the best. Especially with a Cailean fighting tankard.


Well I said drunken monk cause they get the most benefit from drinking. And the do get "two-weapon fighting". The divine technique is still useful.

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