So I originally built a warpriest that uses a heavy shield in his main hand (because we found this really amazing +5 shield), and he had a more basic +1 type weapon in his off-hand while I saved up the gold. Now, however, I've managed to come across a very nice weapon that I would really like to wield in my main hand.
The weapon is a sawtoothed sabre, and as such is treated as light because I took Exotic Weapon Prof in it. Here's my current feats:
Toughness
Improved Shield Bash
Two-Weapon Fighting
Shield Slam
Shield Master
Exotic Weapon Prof: Sawtooth Sabre
Weapon Focus: Shield
Weapon Focus: Sawtooth Sabre
Double Slice
Two-Weapon Rend
Combat Reflexes
I am usually the tank (high AC, dwarf, etc) but I think I could sacrifice the 13 hp from Toughness for a retrain. I also don't get much utilization out of Combat Reflexes - I mostly took it thanks to a higher-than-I-anticipated Dex (to meet the feat reqs). I've got a 22 STR and 18 DEX.
From what I can tell, there's not a lot of options to get them switched over without taking a -4 to hit.
So far I've found:
1. Take Additional Traits - Shield-Trained
2. Take Martial Focus (Shield Group) then take Advanced Weapon Training: Effortless Dual-Wielding
3. Get an Effortless Lace, freeing up the Exotic Feat to retrain as one of the two options above. (If only effortless lace worked for bludgeoning weapons)
Third party is not allowed, so no Lighten Weapon feat.
I have zero interest in dual wielding shields. I really want to get the most out of this sword (trust me when I say that it is substantially more lethal than the shield).
What exactly do you get out of it from it being your main hand attacks? Your strength bonus and Power Attack and all that will be reduced for your offhand one way or another, so it's not like it's affecting your damage total.
When you can only make one attack, make it with the sword. When you can make a full attack, lead with the shield and follow with the sword.
Quixote wrote: What exactly do you get out of it from it being your main hand attacks? Your strength bonus and Power Attack and all that will be reduced for your offhand one way or another, so it's not like it's affecting your damage total.
When you can only make one attack, make it with the sword. When you can make a full attack, lead with the shield and follow with the sword.
Good point. Sorry, I should have been clearer.
The sword is a +2 Axiomatic weapon. It has two special abilities:
1. It gets +1d6 sneak attack, even if you don't have it.
2. When you strike something, you can choose to have bane against that creature type for 10 minutes. This is once per day.
So it would be nice to have those benefits on 2 attacks (3 with haste) instead of just the 1. Coupled with the fact that as a 13th level NG Warpriest, I can put holy and keen on it with my sacred weapon ability.
I also didn't use the Effortless Lace originally because, quite honestly - I forgot it existed until I decided to look into ways to use the sword more.
So yeah, my goal is to get potentially three hits with the sword vs three with the shield, as the shield has more raw bonus (+5 vs +2) but lacks axiomatic and the bane ability, as well as the sneak attack.
So if I'm reading this correctly the benefits of the sword over the shield are:
1. +1d6 sneak attack
2. +2d6 damage against chaotic creatures (vs. +3 more attack and damage against everything with the shield)
3. "you can have bane" - Is this "you" or only attacks with the sword? It makes a big difference.
I kinda agree with Quixote. Running the numbers in my head I'd probably keep using the sword off-hand most of the time. If you happen to come up against a chaotic creature you can choose to use the sword as your main hand and not to TWF if the attacks are missing too much.
Alternatively - you're 13th level and probably have a decent amount of money. You could sell your +5 heavy shield and buy a +5 light shield. You'd lose about 12,500 gp on the deal but it might be worth it.
Alternative 2 - you could put the greater transformative property on your shield and command it to be a light shield. That would cost 17,000 gp (since you will need to make it a magic weapon as well). This gives you some more options down the road as well.
Alternative 3 - if it's a heavy steel shield and you have a party member who's one size category smaller than you, buy some Iron Lord's Transforming Slivers and have her apply them to the shield. Assuming you are medium, this would make the shield a one-handed small weapon - usable by you as a light weapon. You would take an additional -2 penalty on attacks with the shield for inappropriate size, but the shield would be light for TWF penalties.
Belafon wrote: So if I'm reading this correctly the benefits of the sword over the shield are:
1. +1d6 sneak attack
2. +2d6 damage against chaotic creatures (vs. +3 more attack and damage against everything with the shield)
3. "you can have bane" - Is this "you" or only attacks with the sword? It makes a big difference.
I kinda agree with Quixote. Running the numbers in my head I'd probably keep using the sword off-hand most of the time. If you happen to come up against a chaotic creature you can choose to use the sword as your main hand and not to TWF if the attacks are missing too much.
Alternatively - you're 13th level and probably have a decent amount of money. You could sell your +5 heavy shield and buy a +5 light shield. You'd lose about 12,500 gp on the deal but it might be worth it.
Alternative 2 - you could put the greater transformative property on your shield and command it to be a light shield. That would cost 17,000 gp (since you will need to make it a magic weapon as well). This gives you some more options down the road as well.
Alternative 3 - if it's a heavy steel shield and you have a party member who's one size category smaller than you, buy some Iron Lord's Transforming Slivers and have her apply them to the shield. Assuming you are medium, this would make the shield a one-handed small weapon - usable by you as a light weapon. You would take an additional -2 penalty on attacks with the shield for inappropriate size, but the shield would be light for TWF penalties.
The sword gets bane, not me.
The heavy shield is nicer than just that (it's the one that gives light fortification, spell resistance, always-on prayer and bless, and once-per-day fire shield).
I definitely could get a +5 light shield and potentially give the heavy shield to someone else. I cannot recall who else in the party can use it - probably our brawler.
I guess another thing is that we do have a crafter in the party - I could see about improving the weapon. It's +4 total bonus now; it'd be 9,000 more to get it to a +3 to hit/damage or 20,000 to get it to +4. Until then, stick with your suggestion of wielding it and not swinging the shield when I can bane and/or axiomatic (and especially when I can do both) and keeping it off-handed for other situations.
For your second point, that sounds like it would work - where's the extra 2,000 cost coming from? I'm not terribly familiar with this part of the rule set.
It's a wooden shield. Sadly no filings for this one.
I added alternative 2 and 3. Three is particularly appealing to me.
Belafon wrote: I added alternative 2 and 3. Three is particularly appealing to me. Edited my response to include those :)
Skrayper wrote: Belafon wrote: So if I'm reading this correctly the benefits of the sword over the shield are:
1. +1d6 sneak attack
2. +2d6 damage against chaotic creatures (vs. +3 more attack and damage against everything with the shield)
3. "you can have bane" - Is this "you" or only attacks with the sword? It makes a big difference.
I kinda agree with Quixote. Running the numbers in my head I'd probably keep using the sword off-hand most of the time. If you happen to come up against a chaotic creature you can choose to use the sword as your main hand and not to TWF if the attacks are missing too much.
Alternatively - you're 13th level and probably have a decent amount of money. You could sell your +5 heavy shield and buy a +5 light shield. You'd lose about 12,500 gp on the deal but it might be worth it.
Alternative 2 - you could put the greater transformative property on your shield and command it to be a light shield. That would cost 17,000 gp (since you will need to make it a magic weapon as well). This gives you some more options down the road as well.
Alternative 3 - if it's a heavy steel shield and you have a party member who's one size category smaller than you, buy some Iron Lord's Transforming Slivers and have her apply them to the shield. Assuming you are medium, this would make the shield a one-handed small weapon - usable by you as a light weapon. You would take an additional -2 penalty on attacks with the shield for inappropriate size, but the shield would be light for TWF penalties.
The sword gets bane, not me.
The heavy shield is nicer than just that (it's the one that gives light fortification, spell resistance, always-on prayer and bless, and once-per-day fire shield).
I definitely could get a +5 light shield and potentially give the heavy shield to someone else. I cannot recall who else in the party can use it - probably our brawler.
I guess another thing is that we do have a crafter in the party - I could see about improving the weapon. It's +4 total bonus now; it'd be 9,000 more to get it to a +3 to hit/damage or 20,000 to get it to +4. Until then, stick with your suggestion of wielding it and not swinging the shield when I can bane and/or axiomatic (and especially when I can do both) and keeping it off-handed for other situations.
For your second point, that sounds like it would work - where's the extra 2,000 cost coming from? I'm not terribly familiar with this part of the rule set.
It's a wooden shield. Sadly no filings for this one. So, yeah, I just looked up that shield. That's an artifact. You probably can't craft any additional properties. Unless your GM is really nice. (Which I assume he is since he gave you something that is broken and scattered in canon Golarion lore.)
The extra 2000 was assuming it was just a normal +5 shield. You could add shield properties to it as usual but to add weapon properties (like greater transformative) you would first have to make it a +1 weapon (which costs 2000 gp).
Belafon wrote: So, yeah, I just looked up that shield. That's an artifact. You probably can't craft any additional properties. Unless your GM is really nice. (Which I assume he is since he gave you something that is broken and scattered in canon Golarion lore.)
The extra 2000 was assuming it was just a normal +5 shield. You could add shield properties to it as usual but to add weapon properties (like greater transformative) you would first have to make it a +1 weapon (which costs 2000 gp).
He's nice, but I'm not the kind of player to push my luck. So I'll presume that adding stuff to the shield is absolutely out of the question.
Operating under that assumption, it seems I should stick with what you guys say (keep it as my off-hand except in situations where we are dealing with chaotic creatures or when the bane will affect most of the battle field), and then work on improving the weapon. Having a crafter in the party means that boosting the weapon won't break the bank, so to speak. Couple that with the Effortless Lace and Additional Traits, and then it will be worth it to have the shield in the off-hand. For now though, I think you guys have made the very solid point that the sword's bonus damage options are too situational to rotate the build around.
|
