Well I guess one of us should leave some sort of comment on here. As you've probably figured out already I obsess about builds and numbers and have been thinking about my build since last friday :). I've been looking at 2 weapon fighting and can't for the life of me figure out why anyone would take it over 2-handed weapons since those as easier to use, do the same or more damage and can cleave. After much thought I realized that the big advantage to my dex based 2 weapon build is that my ranged shots can be pretty decent too, so I decided adding that component to my build would make more sense. So I'm planning to make a few minor changes to my character to add more of a bow component to my build. As a side note I also noticed that weapon focus/specialization applies to a type of weapon not to a specific weapon. What that will allow me to do is switch out my kukris for piercing weapons so my piercing specialty will apply to both melee and ranged attacks. Ok, I need to stop obsessing now. Carry on.
I think you're touching on a few ideas here. Let me begin by saying kind of the most obvious. First off, two weapons means more crits which double your strength damage as well as the weapon's damage. With the Kukris, you crit a lot (18-20). With a two handed sword, you'd crit less.
You're wrong about the specialization. It's on a certain weapon type (greataxe is their example).
I think though that whatever option you pick, it ends up balancing itself out so long as you stick to the conception of your character. If you're a knife thrower, then attempt to make the best knife thrower possible and you'll probably do about as much damage as the guy with the two handed sword.
Couple of other things, short swords and long swords are more socially acceptable. In a law abiding Dungeons and Dragons society, people will probably let you wear such weapons in town where as a Glaive or a Poleaxe might be illegal.
Also, magic weapons come in the standard sizes and varieties more often than the exotic or oversized. Very few +4 Halberds out there.
Lastly, tight quarters and grappling are better for light weapons than for two handed weapons.
Ok so I decided to do some empirical testing on the 2-weapon specialization thing and have built a simple spreadsheet model to compare melee combat performance for my 2 weapon build using either Kukris, shortswords or rapiers, and comparing them to a build where I switched out my dex for strength and had a flachion, great-sword, or a single longsword in one hand. The tests show that things are even worse than I expected. The high crit weapons (like the kukri) underperform across the board even if I test using the skill that doubles the range under which they crit and use brian's more favorable auto critting policy (i.e. when you roll a crit you don't have to roll again to see if its really a crit). For a dual weilder 2 shortswords are better than kukris (and better than rapiers due to the added attack penality except under very rare circumstances and even then not by a large margin). However 2-handed weapons do about half again as much damge (almost double damage really if you include the power attack skill, and thats not even considering the fact that you miss your offhand attack when you move, you need two feats just to get to this level, and the damage potential for cleave that you miss out on)and so blow dual weilding out the water, the number aren't even close. Worse still, is that a single longsword in one hand outperforms dual weilding almost across the board and even under conditions very favorable for the dualweilding weapons (there are a few rare conditions where dual-rapiers can inch ahead but it has to be on a very low AC creature, you need to have the double crit skill and use the power attack skill). Dual kukri or shortswords NEVER do more damage than a single longsword.
Given how horribly poorly the two weapon build has proven to be, I think I'm gonna abandon it. The highest damage fighter I can think of making would be a half-orc that is a level 1 barbarian/level 4 fighter wielding a great-sword, but my concern is that he will be dangerously close to Lynns character which may be boring roleplaying wise. The second alternative is to go with a human or dwarven fighter (with or without that single barbarian level or a half-orc that is a pure fighter) that uses the greatsword or focuses on a shield and longsword with a higher constitution for more hp and a high ac (possibly taking a pally in that case) but really shields add so little it doesn't really make sense to focus on them (there are feats that can give the same AC bonus without need for using one) and if you're not gonna dish out the damage as a fighter why be one.
So now I'm am either considering a half-orc, dwarf or human fighter maybe with a single barbarian level weilding a greatsword or moving onto something completely different like a sorcerer or druid or working towards one the more different prestige classes.
I'd like to hear what people think the group needs most (or I guess if only Brian reads this what he thinks :) ).
Aversill has kind of died. This blog now describes larger issues I have in playing Dungeons and Dragons while my other blog presents new stuff to introduce into your adventures.
3 comments:
Well I guess one of us should leave some sort of comment on here. As you've probably figured out already I obsess about builds and numbers and have been thinking about my build since last friday :). I've been looking at 2 weapon fighting and can't for the life of me figure out why anyone would take it over 2-handed weapons since those as easier to use, do the same or more damage and can cleave. After much thought I realized that the big advantage to my dex based 2 weapon build is that my ranged shots can be pretty decent too, so I decided adding that component to my build would make more sense. So I'm planning to make a few minor changes to my character to add more of a bow component to my build. As a side note I also noticed that weapon focus/specialization applies to a type of weapon not to a specific weapon. What that will allow me to do is switch out my kukris for piercing weapons so my piercing specialty will apply to both melee and ranged attacks. Ok, I need to stop obsessing now. Carry on.
I think you're touching on a few ideas here. Let me begin by saying kind of the most obvious. First off, two weapons means more crits which double your strength damage as well as the weapon's damage. With the Kukris, you crit a lot (18-20). With a two handed sword, you'd crit less.
You're wrong about the specialization. It's on a certain weapon type (greataxe is their example).
I think though that whatever option you pick, it ends up balancing itself out so long as you stick to the conception of your character. If you're a knife thrower, then attempt to make the best knife thrower possible and you'll probably do about as much damage as the guy with the two handed sword.
Couple of other things, short swords and long swords are more socially acceptable. In a law abiding Dungeons and Dragons society, people will probably let you wear such weapons in town where as a Glaive or a Poleaxe might be illegal.
Also, magic weapons come in the standard sizes and varieties more often than the exotic or oversized. Very few +4 Halberds out there.
Lastly, tight quarters and grappling are better for light weapons than for two handed weapons.
Ok so I decided to do some empirical testing on the 2-weapon specialization thing and have built a simple spreadsheet model to compare melee combat performance for my 2 weapon build using either Kukris, shortswords or rapiers, and comparing them to a build where I switched out my dex for strength and had a flachion, great-sword, or a single longsword in one hand. The tests show that things are even worse than I expected. The high crit weapons (like the kukri) underperform across the board even if I test using the skill that doubles the range under which they crit and use brian's more favorable auto critting policy (i.e. when you roll a crit you don't have to roll again to see if its really a crit). For a dual weilder 2 shortswords are better than kukris (and better than rapiers due to the added attack penality except under very rare circumstances and even then not by a large margin). However 2-handed weapons do about half again as much damge (almost double damage really if you include the power attack skill, and thats not even considering the fact that you miss your offhand attack when you move, you need two feats just to get to this level, and the damage potential for cleave that you miss out on)and so blow dual weilding out the water, the number aren't even close. Worse still, is that a single longsword in one hand outperforms dual weilding almost across the board and even under conditions very favorable for the dualweilding weapons (there are a few rare conditions where dual-rapiers can inch ahead but it has to be on a very low AC creature, you need to have the double crit skill and use the power attack skill). Dual kukri or shortswords NEVER do more damage than a single longsword.
Given how horribly poorly the two weapon build has proven to be, I think I'm gonna abandon it. The highest damage fighter I can think of making would be a half-orc that is a level 1 barbarian/level 4 fighter wielding a great-sword, but my concern is that he will be dangerously close to Lynns character which may be boring roleplaying wise. The second alternative is to go with a human or dwarven fighter (with or without that single barbarian level or a half-orc that is a pure fighter) that uses the greatsword or focuses on a shield and longsword with a higher constitution for more hp and a high ac (possibly taking a pally in that case) but really shields add so little it doesn't really make sense to focus on them (there are feats that can give the same AC bonus without need for using one) and if you're not gonna dish out the damage as a fighter why be one.
So now I'm am either considering a half-orc, dwarf or human fighter maybe with a single barbarian level weilding a greatsword or moving onto something completely different like a sorcerer or druid or working towards one the more different prestige classes.
I'd like to hear what people think the group needs most (or I guess if only Brian reads this what he thinks :) ).
Slash
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