Loophole - Emulating Shadow Blade

[GhostwheelX]

Shadow Blade from the 3.5 book Tome of Battle was a feat that allowed you to add your Dexterity to damage when wielding specific weapons. It was awesome on dex-based characters, especially rogue-ish types that used two-weapon fighting.

Pathfinder has given us the slightly-less-awesome feat, Dervish Dance. For the longest time I, like I think most of you, didn't think it would help the TWF rogue too much. But then I had a thought. Armor spikes.

Using the feat and armor spikes, you get your dex modifier to damage (debatable whether it's full or half due to the armor spikes counting as an off-hand weapon), while at the same time being able to use two-weapon fighting! This is due to the fact that despite making TWF attacks, you do not actually possess a weapon or shield in your off hand, since armor spikes don't actually fill your other hand.

I'm not sure if it's kosher by the spirit of the rules (though I'm pretty darn sure it doesn't actually break the game in any way), but it's a nice way to let rogues and similar dex-based characters who rely on two-weapon fighting to have a small boost to damage, even when not dealing sneak-attack damage. Again, note that the actual text states that "When wielding a scimitar with one hand, you can use your Dexterity modifier instead of your Strength modifier on melee attack and damage rolls." It says nothing about the attacks having to actually be made using the scimitar.

[Torbyne]

The wording of the feat seems fairly specific that it only applies to the scimitar but your table may vary. On armor spikes, i seem to remember they were brought up in a few threads before about trying to TWF with them while leaving the off hand open or on a two handed weapon. The consensus was attempting to use armor spikes to get in any attacks beyond what you get with BAB/Haste moves you into TWF land and you count as employing your off hand. It ruled against any combination of crane style plus armor spikes or two handed weapon plus spiked gauntlet.

[GhostwheelX]

Read again--I stated it in the original post, but I'll repost the relevant text so it can be clearer.

d20PFSRD wrote:

When wielding a scimitar with one hand, you can use your Dexterity modifier instead of your Strength modifier on melee attack and damage rolls.

It says nothing about only applying to a scimitar. The only prerequisite is that you have no weapon or shield in your off-hand, and that in the other you wield a scimitar. As long as these two conditions are met, all melee attacks you make use Dex instead of Str. It doesn't make a distinction in there between attacks made with other weapons as long as your off-hand is empty. Heck, you could even substitute in headbutts or kicks or other unarmed attacks as long as you left your off-hand empty in order to use two-weapon fighting along with the feat.

[Treefolk]

What I did to optimize this was make a kobold magus with the Reach Tail Weapon, the spell enlarge tail and Dervish Dance. At level 5, he had 15ft reach, dex to hit/damage with his tail weapon and threatened at 5 to 15ft (and had Piranha Strike to boot).

[Joanna Swiftblade]

Now that I read that, Dervish Dance is broken RAW, but I'm pretty sure 99% of GMs would rule in favor of RAI.

Also, RAW you could still go two levels of Alchemist and get the Vestigial Arm discovery and TWF with Scimitars while still retaining a free hand. You wouldn't even lose out on sneak attack damage because you could use the Vivisectionist archetype.

[Talcrion]

I believe your issue here is with the world Wield, it's not the same as holding.