The Campaign Builder's Guild

Quote from: Xeviat TranionOh and PS: this debate is based on what I posted, not TWFing in general. Thus the debate is allowed, I want these to be balanced.

CYMRO, I'm confused about the penalties that each of your feats have. Are you implying that the bonus off-hand attacks are at anything less than -5 below the first off-hand attack? That just doesn't seem to flow with the current ruleset.

The current ruleset sucks, so I changed the base, as well as the featsies. :fish:

Every time I see that smily with the fish, I think of the Muppet Show...am I alone?

Wow ... I've never seen someone do that sort of rediculousness; how were you hitting with your lesser attacks when PAing all of your BAB away?

And 300 damage a round with a bow is pretty sick too. I'm afraid of your min/maxing skills my friend.

Equipment favors THFers to a point. If you're determined to attempt to stack things in the favor of the TWFer (such as with wounding and elemental weapons), give the THFer as many elemental enhancements, plus wounding (or greater wounding .. ehehe) as you can.

I've always loved semetry, so perhaps PA should be limited just like CE.

Quote from: Xeviat TranionWow ... I've never seen someone do that sort of rediculousness; how were you hitting with your lesser attacks when PAing all of your BAB away?

And 300 damage a round with a bow is pretty sick too. I'm afraid of your min/maxing skills my friend.

Equipment favors THFers to a point. If you're determined to attempt to stack things in the favor of the TWFer (such as with wounding and elemental weapons), give the THFer as many elemental enhancements, plus wounding (or greater wounding .. ehehe) as you can.

I've always loved semetry, so perhaps PA should be limited just like CE.

Heedless charge is busted. You take the power attack penalty to AC, rather than attack, so you can unleash doom! No penalty to attack rolls at all, despite a full 20 points of power attack. With lions charge you get a pounce attack (full attack after a charge) so you can use the heedless charge bonus on everything.

Archers are much harder to optimize. You don't have a power attack mechanic to bust open on people, so you have to rely more on your equipment. Splitting arrows are key to the 300-400 damage, without them you're limited to like 150-200 at best. But arrows are pretty cheep to make compared to other magic items.

Wiat until you see my shadowlord...mutliple dimension slides per round and thus multiple pouncing full attacks...it's just wrong. I've got him up to 3 full attacks in a round. Luckily this character is just a theoretical, and nothing I'd actually play in a real game. But what really comes in handy is that I can challenge any party no matter how well optimized, so I actually encourage optimization from my players...they really get involved, and interested. I also really encourage them to make their own magic items, becuase I won't spoon feed them the perfect equipment. it's awesome.

Wounding certainly favors the TWF to a point. Unless I drop them in a single round. Yeah my min/maxing skills are L33T. The funny thing is I go by standard wealth, and point buy...so often I'm more handi-capped than freeform gamers, but my characters still rock the hizouse.  

Believe me I know the best weapon enhancements for both styles. If I want my THF to rock, I'm getting him a wrathful healing collsion greatsword +5, and my TWF is getting two +5 scimitars with collision shocking burst and keen enhancements. But the point isn't to break them here it's to get a feel for an even playing field.

Yeah the symetry of combat expertise and power attack is really lacking, and balancing against each other is very much needed.

-Peace-


P.S. The warmind is a character I actually play. He's a human fighter 8 / exotic weapon master 2 / war mind 5 at the moment. Sweeping strike is the bomb, letting me hit two adjacent squares with the same charging death attack, and with my bastard sword I get str x2 to damage and I can make trip attacks too, thanks to EWM tricks! I often use domino rush to bull rush people into position to make my sweeping strikes hit up to three oppenents with a single trip attack! He's an awesome character.

I think this shows why I'm very against many PrCs, and why I'm warry of non-core things. Heh. I have an open night ahead of me, so I'll see about testing just how much damage a non-optimized TWFer deals vs. a THFer; I'm going to use my earlier 12th level characters and just increase the attack bonuses and slap full str and longswords into the hands of the TWFer; let's see what happens.

Nah optimization is just good fun. If I had only the PHB to work with, I could make a cleric or druid that wrecked any other class within the book.

Limitations still favor the optimizer, because the optimizer makes the most effective use of whatever resouces he has available. Just because I used a wopping three books (PHB, XPH, and CW) to make this warmind doesn't mean the character is broken. He's only broken when not paired against likewise optimized characters.

It all depends upon the mindset of your group. And don't think my stories are all hack and slash either, that would completely false. We almost never have combat-centric campaigns. Most are based on politics, diplomacy, mystery, and intrigue. It's just when we do fight, we bust out our minis and the game transforms into a mini wargame, all about strategy, tactics, and mechanics.

When the fights over we go back to our role-play, and all is well. The best of both worlds is really the way to go, and get the fullest out of the D&D system, which is comparatively rules heavy to other more freeform RPGs.

I like to challenge people both mechanically and in role-play.

-Nasty-

I've never made the distinction of roll-play vs. role-play, I find that to be elietism. I only start and join threads such as these because I believe that players should have an equal opportunity in power as long as they're using reasonable builds (I wouldn't change rules for a player playing a fighter but who spends all of their base feats on skill focusi, that's just bad design).

It just comes down to my experience of seeing TWFers not rewarded for all they've spent on their style.

Quite true, it takes waay more work to make a good TWF build. Here's a good theoretical one from my WotC sig. He's all mine too.

Note: not a playable character in any sane campaign world

Wood Elf Ranger 2 / Fighter 2 / Barbarian 1 / Revenant Blade 5 / Frenzied Berserker 10

Progression:
1 Ranger: Bladebearer of the Valenar, Track
2 Fighter: Power Attack
3 Barbarian: WF: Double Scimitar
4 Ranger: TWF
5 Fighter: Cleave
6 Revenant Blade: Destructive Rage
7 Revenant Blade
8 Revenant Blade
9 Revenant Blade: Intimidating Rage
10 Revenant Blade
11 Frenzied Berserker: Diehard
12 Frenzied Berserker: Improved TWF
13 Frenzied Berserker
14 Frenzied Berserker
15 Frenzied Berserker: Greater TWF (or Improved Bull Rush)
16 Frenzied Berserker
17 Frenzied Berserker
18 Frenzied Berserker: Extra Rage (or Shock Trooper)
19 Frenzied Berserker
20 Frenzied Berserker

Ancestral Guidance Feats:
1 Improved Critical: Double Scimitar
3 Weapon Specialization: Double Scimitar
5 Spring Attack

32 Point Buy

STR 50 (20 base, +5 Inherent, +5 levels, +6 belt of magnificence, +4 rage, +10 frenzy)
DEX 24 (18 base, +6 belt of magnificence
CON 20 (10 base, +6 belt of magnificence, +4 rage)
INT 14 (8 base, +6 belt of magnificence)
WIS 14 (8 base, +6 belt of magnificence)
CHA 14 (8 base, +6 belt of magnificence)

Notable Equipment
+6 Belt of Magnificence
+5 Double Scimitar (Earthbound, and Flaming Burst)

Full Raging Frenzied Attack w/ Supreme Power Attack (-14 to attack/+56 to damage)
+30/+30/+30/+25/+25/+20/+20/+15

Damage: 2d6+95 (15-20 x2)

Average: 816 damage/round (w/o taking critical hits into consideration)

Now if you add Bracers of Lions Charge (use activated 5/day & 72,000 gp) and heedless charge, which will require you to drop extra rage & greater TWF (for improved bull rush and shock trooper), you can do some really nasty damage. Also add the valorous enhancement to your weapon and you get this.

Full Heedless Charge
+46/+46/+46/+41/+41/+36/+31

Damage: 4d6+238 (15-20 x2)

Average: 1764 damage/round (w/o taking critical hits into consideration)

I'm sure it can still be improved upon, but see how feat intensive this gets. You're forced to pass on so many feats that you'd love to have like Karmic Strike and Double hit, or even skip G:TWF to get the most bang for you buck. Shock Trooper isn't really easy to squeeze in.

-Enjoy-

P.S. sorry to jack the thread, as you were...