Cutting the two-weapon fighters some slack

[Lothoir]

I have a two weapon ranger. He has 11 ranger, 2 fighter, and 7 weapon master. Of course being a ranger, he can't wear anything above light armor so he has absolutely no AC to speak of. I don't consider him underpowered though, he just requires a different playstyle than run in and smash everything.

[Kaeldorn]

Only downside is that the AI has a tendency to attack lowest AC targets first.

[Thief Of Navarre]

I dont suppose you've realised you can add improved favoured and favoured power attack to the equation?

Start as a level 1 wood elf fighter, change to ranger after the initial level and buy your improved favoured: human, favoured power attack: human and you already net yourself D8+15 against humans (+5 imp, +6 fpa, +3 str) and a little bit less in your off hand. You can always level fighter a bit higher later on if you want specialistion and dont mind an xp penalty (assuming you didnt pick wood elf, human, dwarf or halfelf).

[Root]

I have a two weapon ranger. He has 11 ranger, 2 fighter, and 7 weapon master. Of course being a ranger, he can't wear anything above light armor so he has absolutely no AC to speak of. I don't consider him underpowered though, he just requires a different playstyle than run in and smash everything.

Unless you're a Ranger / Frenzied Berserker.

THEN you can run in and smash all your favoured enemies happily with Improved Supreme Favoured Power Attack Deluxe Mega Edition.

[Thief Of Navarre]

Unless you're a Ranger / Frenzied Berserker.

THEN you can run in and smash all your favoured enemies happily with Improved Supreme Favoured Power Attack Deluxe Mega Edition.

Tested it. the double or triple damage for favoured enemies only works up to the base damage for power attack so you dont get the FB power attack on favoured enemies. Otherwise I would have a two handed style ranger berserker getting +72 on his greatsword strikes

*edit* Would still be cracking good fun to play one though. shame you get toughness twice -.-

[Kaeldorn]

You don't have difficulty hitting your enemies with power attack up? Those stacking penalties accompanied with a lower strength gave me some trouble..

The favored power attack worked pretty well against enemies with particularly low AC though, that's true.

I know that a strength based two-weapon fighting build can work for a wood elf character.. but that's not how I roll

[BedlamX]

Ursus has every 2-weapon feat I could manage without completely FUBARing his STR. Had to get at least a 17 DEX to do imp 2-weapon defense. At level 20, his STR is a rather lowish 19 (quite low for a melee fighter), but DEX of 18 (for the feats)...and uses longswords. If not for hooking up with some pretty decent gear (made with the crafting system, so still not as good as a buffed EK and nowhere near the Stormlod's spear), he wouldn't be able to hit any of the NPC baddies and wouldn't damage many of them that he could hit (even with greater weapon spec and focus). If that baddie happens to be a cleric or vamp (or both)...he may as well just quit and lay down until dead. I love the look and idea of dual wielders. But I would never recommend one to anyone that isn't going dex-based with a high level mage to enchant their stuff. Just not worth the effort and constant beat downs to look cool.

[Zoberraz]

Well, in theory, you can make a ranger that's going to invest his abilities scores in Strength at the expense of dexterity.

You could keep your dex as low as 12 and chip away to get your heavy armor feats so to qualify for plate armor (though that's possibly a lot of feats to make up for the 3 point difference between mithral breastplate and fullplate). Detection skills and tracking would still work (skill points could still be distributed to useful venues), though stuff like Camouflage/Hide in Plain Sight would take a hit. Favored Enemies, if high accuracy can be manufactured for the many attacks, could end up weighting for a lot (I'd pick Improved Favored Enemies:X over Improved Power Attack:X).

Though that's sort of working against the grain, in the same way high-dex melee or ranged fighters would.

[BedlamX]

But, Zob, Ranger 2-weapon feats are not supposed to work in anything heavier than light armor, so the heavy armor prof is not going to help at all (unless there is a glitch where it does keep working in heavy armor). The mithral breast plate is good for the ranger dual wielder...if they can find a set. But you really need the extra DEX to keep the AC up even with that. I guess you could put 14 in DEX and burn cats grace potions every battle to get a good AC, though. Never really thought of that before. But, then again, a ranger misses out on the 2 AC feats available to fighters, so that also hurts the STR-based dual wielder in that regard.

All in all...STR-based dual wielders just have to understand they sacrifice AB and AC to look cool and get a couple extra attacks per round (albeit with a further penalty to hit) and look cool. Anyone planning on doing one should look REALLY hard at getting a buddy that is a high level mage, cleric, or (better yet) both.

[Zoberraz]

*forehead smack* You're entirely right BedlamX. I think I'm mixing up my 3.5 and 4th edition dual-wielding rangers here. Sorry. ^_^;

[Root]

I plan on adding some melee-centric gear for high-level non-casters.

Cornuto, he makes weapons and gets in fights.

[Thief Of Navarre]

Favoured enemies or SA are the way to go. Strength based just doesnt work unless you can be both strength and dexterity based ~ Wood elves or dopplegangers

Its not meant to be an easy path to walk, I dont think any amount of feat changing will alter things without unbalancing them IMO.

[Mournas]

First, I would like to point out that Perfect Two Weapon Fighting is 25 Dex requirement ... Thus you can only have someone with a 20Base Dex in Sundren to get this. So In my opinion the base races just do not cut it. Best for this would probably be a Yaunti ... Though there are some Pretty killer builds I have come up with that can dual weild and Have a pretty good AC with regular Items in Sundren, though however as far as weapons toss em aside as they are absolutely horrible for twf in Sundren, I don't care what anyone says here swinging at level 5 with a great ax and critting for like 70+ damage is retarded vs what 15 damage on a crit you get from the small weapons?

Something like Monk 3 Cleric 3 Sacred Fist 9 Invisible Blade 5 (Unarmed attacks can cause the bleeds) Can be considered "a Finesse fighter" . Oh and I hope you have RPOM and have access to Either Drow/DeepGnome/Yaunti or else this build is relatively weaksauce with out it due to the intensive stat spread. Also this build would need to be twinked cause you're not even a 5th level monk so you'll practically have no gear that you can even get.

Here is a twf build I threw together real fast put it up to level 21 for PTWF.

http://nwn2db.com/build.php?id=67785...n=1#highlights

You get 10 attacks a round + Bleed Damage (Gotta use Kamas) If you get a +3Nat AC +3Armor +3Deflection +3Dodge +3Dex +2Int +2Wis you have a 45AC ... Also you have really good saves + some minor buffs. 17BaB+9Dex+4Weapon+1Kama Focus-2 Dual Weild = 29 Non buffed AB

At first your Damage output will probably make you want to kill yourself ...

[Raksha]

Holy thread necro!

Worrying about getting PTWF by level 21 is like worrying about getting Epic Divine Might by level 21. Probably not going to happen, and trying to squeeze it into a 'build' is going to hurt you a lot more in the meantime.

My take on epic is that it's best to assume you'll never get there. Because 1) you probably won't, and 2) it makes it easier to enjoy the Nice Things you get in the meantime.

As for two-weapon fighting in general, it's not a great choice except for sneaks. But that's mostly just because fighting with a shield is so necessary at the moment.

[Root]

First, I would like to point out that Perfect Two Weapon Fighting is 25 Dex requirement ... Thus you can only have someone with a 20Base Dex in Sundren to get this. So In my opinion the base races just do not cut it. Best for this would probably be a Yaunti ... Though there are some Pretty killer builds I have come up with that can dual weild and Have a pretty good AC with regular Items in Sundren, though however as far as weapons toss em aside as they are absolutely horrible for twf in Sundren, I don't care what anyone says here swinging at level 5 with a great ax and critting for like 70+ damage is retarded vs what 15 damage on a crit you get from the small weapons?

Something like Monk 3 Cleric 3 Sacred Fist 9 Invisible Blade 5 (Unarmed attacks can cause the bleeds) Can be considered "a Finesse fighter" . Oh and I hope you have RPOM and have access to Either Drow/DeepGnome/Yaunti or else this build is relatively weaksauce with out it due to the intensive stat spread. Also this build would need to be twinked cause you're not even a 5th level monk so you'll practically have no gear that you can even get.

Here is a twf build I threw together real fast put it up to level 21 for PTWF.

http://nwn2db.com/build.php?id=67785...n=1#highlights

You get 10 attacks a round + Bleed Damage (Gotta use Kamas) If you get a +3Nat AC +3Armor +3Deflection +3Dodge +3Dex +2Int +2Wis you have a 45AC ... Also you have really good saves + some minor buffs. 17BaB+9Dex+4Weapon+1Kama Focus-2 Dual Weild = 29 Non buffed AB

At first your Damage output will probably make you want to kill yourself ...

GameType: RolePlay

Not to imply that RP and powerful characters are mutually exclusive, but when you're into the territory of picking a Deep Gnome wielding silly combinations of weapons and classes,any notion of RP is beginning to fly out the window.

Make the character concept, then the build that gives them a bit of power without comprimising this concept. Not the other way around.


....And I feel somewhat obliged to make this point (not entirely sure I'm right, but heck, I'll try anyway)


Monk 3 Cleric 3 Sacred Fist 9 Invisible Blade 5

2 AB from Monk, 2 AB from Cleric, 6 AB from SF, 4 AB from IB.

Total AB is 14.

You're only getting three attacks with your AB anyway.

Perfect Two-Weapon Fighting, as far as I'm aware, only improves on Greater TWF if you have four or more attacks (PTWF means you get the same offhand as you do mainhand attacks, whilst GTWF gives you three offhand attacks, whilst requiring a BAB of 11)

This massive dedication to dex, dumping of feats, changing of race, and overspecialisation means that at level 23-ish, you will have a SINGLE extra attack at a -15 penalty (unless I'm mistaken and for some ungodly reason PTWF actually negates attack bonus reduction for successive attacks)

Why not just accept not getting PTWF, and focus on making your previous 7 attacks hit more, do more, and not have the disadvantage of requiring you to be an ECL/RPoTM race just for the sake of a single extra hit?

( And why couldn't an Elf be used as the base race in your build, getting rid of the ECL penalty? )

( Answer: Because nobody likes elves )




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Personal opinion for a TWF build: Ranger, significant Str, minor Dex. Lumberjack. Personally would go for a base dex of either 12 (more Str and Con) or 16 (significantly more AC, better stealth). Go for low dex and high Strength, because you're a lumberjack.

Use Cats Grace at your nice Caster Level to keep a good high Dex, use Chainshirt if on low Dex for total of +7 from armour/dex, use Studded Leather if on 16 for slightly lower Dex Check penalty. Alternatively, use Studded Leather anyway, because you're a lumberjack, and chicks dig leather-wearing lumberjacks.

Wisdom 14, rest in Str. Some Con if you dumped Dex to make up for your hittableness, or just all-out Str to go for the barbarian method of kill them before they land a hit. Like a lumberjack kills trees. You get Toughness for free, that helps.

Use handaxes, because you're a lumberjack, and shortswords are for rogues, and battleaxes are for dwarves.

Drop your many tasty skillpoints into survival, stealth, spot, search, heal, and, of course, Woodcutting. Because you're a ... yeah.

Favoured enemies include elves, who get in the way of your tree-slaying, orcs, who sometimes get to trees before you and must be cut down, and undead, because there's so many on the server you might as well. Also you might find an undead treant and MUST BE PREPARED.

Result: Sneaking up to people then battering them to death with your dual axes. Wizards think immunity to criticals will save them from sneaky people! Then they get seven attacks of TWF backed with your 24 item-boosted Str into their backs before they can say Klatu Verata Nichto.

Also, get a pet boar. BECAUSE LUMBERJACK NEEDS BACON. And it will be dying for you and be being replaced by the great God Paul Bunyan so often you might as well have one that you can eat the remains of.

If absolutely a desperate munchkin, take Wood Elf as race, getting you 18 Str and 16 Dex without much sacrifice. If awesome, go human, because wood elf lumberjack is a stupid concept.