What hammer for a 1h fighter?


Advice


This is my first experience playing Pathfinder. I am a lvl 4 Dwarf Fighter with Beastmaster archetype. I like the 1H playstyle so I can grab and trip. If I wanted to go with a HAMMER, which should I choose?
Warhammer or Earthbreaker
I think the average damage is better for the warhammer, but the Earthbreaker has the option to use 2H to start a battle, plus I can use it as a P weapon (will I even do that ever?), and it has Raze (again will that be a factor?)


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1. No, you will pretty much never use the P option. Honestly, I have to stretch and search for situations where it can come up other than "underwater when you are doing one of the pirate campaigns". I usually just ignore the P on versatile weapons.

Raze is similarly specific. I won't say you will never had to destroy items, but it is usually not a popular option since that could damage loot.

2. You are already aware of the trade offs of these two weapons. I think the consistent damage might be better if you are the main melee character in the party. The lower one handed damage might be fine if you are setting things up for a barbarian or something that can get big hits in.

I assume that you won't have the actions to mess around with regripping your weapon since you have a pet. Although you might also use your pet for set up, and then you get to do the big beefy blow.

So it up up to you how you see your usual fights going down. They are all pretty much valid your attack bonus. The gunslinger gets by with less on the same crit fishing theory.

3. I will also suggest an odd ball answer: light hammer so you can have a side helping of a throwing build.

Damage is about the same as the earth breaker one handed. Fighters have great attack bonus, so they can pull off a switch hitter build fairly well despite being str focused. Returning is a dirt cheap rune to put onto you weapon (a flat 55 gp). Having the option to do ranged stuff doesn't interfere with your main gimmick.


I would go with Earthbreaker and fight with two-hands most of the time. Grab in general is only good if your are facing a spell caster or if you want to prevent someone to flee. So when you will need to grab you can free one of your hand as a free-action and use athletics to try to grab.

Trip for other side is better agains non-casters opponents and as a fighter you can use Knockdown without worry to get a free-hand and Strike without MAP and with your full two-handed damage.


Personally I'd go with the WarHammer out of those. If one handed is your preference and you really are going to grab and trip a lot then you will normally prefer the larger dice size.
Hammers have good critical hits and the Shove can be useful too.

Typically I prefer Dwarven WarAxe or Bastard Sword for this fighting style, just so I can go two handed when required.

One handed fighting can be really good if you are party of a team and you are trying to set up allies by grabbing and tripping. This is important if you have things like archers and blasters who can't easily get flat footed by flanking.

If you can get flanking anyway by just moving then you are better of with other fighting styles.

Sovereign Court

I've used the light hammer on my wanna-be-dwarf goblin fighter and it's worked really well. He's got good dex so the thrown is only -1 to hit behind str melee strike. Which means that I often get choices like "I could take a -1 to hit to not need an action to move into melee" which is interesting. Could also be nice if you're also using some of your actions to command your companion.

Also, the light hammer is agile which is a very good trait.


If you are going to focus on trip, and if you have access to "treasure vault" I would recommend the Long Hammer , since you are level 4 you should have it as a +1 weapon.
The long hammer has the trip trait which allows you to add the +1 item bonus from your weapon to the trip check. It also has reach for those instances where the enemy is just out of reach. It's also a d8 weapon, the same as a warhammer.


For a one-handed fighter with a hammer I would absolutely go with the Earthbreaker and use its synergy with Dual-Handed Assault.


I got a bastard sword for my 1h and a half ranger and planned all the build around it. At level 2 i remade the build ground up because i literally never used it one handed because BIG NUMBERS. So I would suggest to use the regular warhammer to avoid temptation xD


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I did forget to mention, if a weapon has the trip or shove trait that means you don't need a free hand to use those action, the weapon counts for that.


just get maul and use knowdown

much better than just trip

earthbreaker can be pretty good with two hand d10 and versatile p


25speedforseaweedleshy wrote:

just get maul and use knowdown

much better than just trip

earthbreaker can be pretty good with two hand d10 and versatile p

if a weapon has the trip trait, wouldn't the item bonus you get effect knockdown?


Dragonhearthx wrote:
25speedforseaweedleshy wrote:

just get maul and use knowdown

much better than just trip

earthbreaker can be pretty good with two hand d10 and versatile p

if a weapon has the trip trait, wouldn't the item bonus you get effect knockdown?

correct


RaptorJesues wrote:
Dragonhearthx wrote:
25speedforseaweedleshy wrote:

just get maul and use knowdown

much better than just trip

earthbreaker can be pretty good with two hand d10 and versatile p

if a weapon has the trip trait, wouldn't the item bonus you get effect knockdown?
correct

While this is correct, you can also just get any other item that grants you a general athletics bonus for the same bonus.


I think you should go earthbreaker. It is a free action to take your hand off the hammer, and dual handed assault adds awesome damage. I think you'll find that unless you're focusing on combat grab or snagging strike that you'll quite often be defaulting to the higher damage. Piercing won't generally matter but it doesn't hurt either.

That said, combat grab and snagging strike are pretty great feats if you have ranged allies who need help inflicting flat-footed. If you want to lean into that, the war hammer may ultimately be more reliable.


Joabe wrote:

This is my first experience playing Pathfinder. I am a lvl 4 Dwarf Fighter with Beastmaster archetype. I like the 1H playstyle so I can grab and trip. If I wanted to go with a HAMMER, which should I choose?

Warhammer or Earthbreaker
I think the average damage is better for the warhammer, but the Earthbreaker has the option to use 2H to start a battle, plus I can use it as a P weapon (will I even do that ever?), and it has Raze (again will that be a factor?)

I think the most important question to ask here is "What do you plan to do with your second hand?"

Are you going to be using Snagging Strike and similar "free hand" fighting style feats? Be aware that tripping for a fighter is probably best accomplished with Knockdown and Improved Knockdown, which don't require you to use only 1 handed weapons or have a free hand.

"Grabbing" can be accomplished via Snagging Strike or Combat Grab.

If you intend to go with the free hand fighting style, I would probably go with the Warhammer between the options you've presented because you're just not going to 2 hand an earthbreaker enough for it to matter.

If you change your mind on free hand vs two handed I'd probably switch to the long hammer for reach, trip, and versatile piercing.

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