character-creationpathfinder-1e
My stats are: Str 18, Dex 14, Con 13, Int 13, Wis 11, Cha 6.
Main Hand Weapon, Frost Bastard Sword
Off Hand Weapon, Flaming Bastard Sword
I am playing a Human, Fighter 7. I need to work out what my CMB/CMD is, also and my attack bonus. Thanks in advance!
Edit: My feats are:
I can have 1 more feat because I'm level 7.
Bonus question – What 1-handed weapons should I be using?
The TWF fighter does less damage than a two-handed fighter on a single attack action (about 35% less), but virtually ties with a full attack action. Letting the TWF fighter always get his full attack damage significantly unbalances the equation in the other direction.
The thing is, whichever configuration you take, you can work on infinitely twinking it out. Two-weapon fighting is better when you want many more attacks. Being a rogue with sneak attack is the number one example of this. Or if you bleed per attack (like with Bloody Assault). Or use poison. Or use the various critical effects from the critical feats. Or want to use some of those attacks for trip/disarm/sunder attacks. There's a bunch of ways to increase your TWF damage by stacking "per hit" things on top.
Two-handed is better when something has DR or you're only getting one attack action in. Per-attack damage plusses and minuses and additional conditions affect a two-weapon fighter much more than a two-handed fighter - a "bard bonus" is multiplied in value by number of attacks. And as you note, you have to get a full attack to get those other attacks... But that's the same thing with a L11 two-handed fighter, they lose out on a lot of attacks when they can't stick and hit.
A straight fighter will do more dps in an abstract sense with a two-handed weapon than two-weapon fighting, if all he does is straightforward hitting without any other interesting feats. But if you change the TWF rules, your player is just going to turn around and layer the other TWF twinks on top and suddenly it's the more powerful thing, and you have to start worrying about your two-hander player... Because he who inflicts the most damage wins the game, apparently.
Also, there's a difference between optimization and real play. Real adventurers find gear, they don't "have 32000 to spend on it." I've played and GMed a lot of Pathfinder, and players have run and enjoyed two-weapon characters as much as two-hander characters. (Sword and board, however, sucks.)
Since the peanut gallery demands "math," here's some reasonably maxed out L11 characters, using all the Paizoey goodness. Each has more special abilites than one can reasonably enumerate, but I tried to stick to "jack up the numbers" options as much as possible. Full builds are below, but the relevant stuff here is that:
Versus let's say AC 25, the average DPS (including crits and rend) for each is:
So yes obviously, in high mobility situations the 2WF guy loses out (though he does get two attacks, not one, from his archetype), but he's pretty much neck and neck in a full attack situation, any slight change to any of these numbers makes the winner of the full attack follies go back and forth. Both these characters have loads of other fun stuff to do, they have more feats than they know what to do with. The TWF guys is obviously much tighter on feats and stuff. Keep in mind this is a straight fighter compare, and there's other ways to fill out TWF and all those rogues with sneak attack can stack a lot of damage on... Go look at some build guides and there's plenty of L11 twf builds out there that do a lot more than this.
Does the TWF guy lose? Yes. But the question is, "is the answer to let him have his 81-point full attack with a standard action?" The answer to that is no, it unbalances it back the other way.
Because everyone has stat boost items I usually don't add them, but in this case I decided to make up the wealth differential caused by the weapons with a +4 belt of strength.
Human (Kellid) Fighter (Two-Handed Fighter) 11 (Pathfinder RPG Advanced Player's Guide 0)
N Medium humanoid (human)
Init +1; Senses Perception -1
Defense
AC 11, touch 11, flat-footed 10 (+1 Dex)
hp 114 (11d10+44)
Fort +10, Ref +4, Will +2
Offense
Speed 30 ft.
Melee +2 cruel flaming frost greatsword +20/+15/+10 (2d6+25/19-20 plus 1d6 fire plus 1d6 cold)
Special Attacks backswing, overhand chop, piledriver, shattering strike, weapon trainings (heavy blades +2, pole arms +1)
Statistics
Str 24, Dex 13, Con 16, Int 9, Wis 9, Cha 9
Base Atk +11; CMB +15 (+19 bull rush, +18 sunder); CMD 29 (31 vs. bull rush, 32 vs. sunder)
Feats Bull Rush StrikeAPG, Cornugon Smash, Dazing AssaultAPG, Dreadful CarnageAPG, Furious FocusAPG, Greater Bull Rush, Horn of the Criosphinx, Improved Bull Rush, Power Attack, Pushing AssaultAPG, Vital Strike, Weapon Focus (greatsword), Weapon Specialization (greatsword)
Skills Acrobatics +12, Intimidate +13
Languages Common, Hallit
Other Gear +2 cruel flaming frost greatsword, belt of giant strength +4, 150 gp
Special Abilities
Backswing (Ex) Attacks after the first in a full attack receive 2x STR bonus.
Bull Rush Strike Critical hit's confirmation roll is a Bull Rush maneuver check.
Cornugon Smash When you damage an opponent with a Power Attack, you may make an immediate Intimidate check as a free action to attempt to demoralize your opponent.
Dazing Assault (DC 21) -5 to all attacks and maneuvers but struck foes are dazed 1 rd (Fort neg).
Dreadful Carnage If you reduce an enemy to 0 or fewer HP, you can make an intimidate check to demoralize all enemies within 30' as a free action.
Furious Focus If you are wielding a weapon in two hands, ignore the penalty for your first attack of each turn.
Greater Bull Rush When bull rushing, foe's movement provokes AoO from your allies.
Horn of the Criosphinx Add 2x your Str bonus to damage rolls on charges while wielding a two handed weapon.
Improved Bull Rush You don't provoke attacks of opportunity when bull rushing.
Overhand Chop (Ex) Single attacks with two-handed weapons receive double STR bonus.
Piledriver (Ex) Standard action: attack with a two handed weapon, if successful, free bull rush or trip w/o AoO.
Power Attack -3/+6 You can subtract from your attack roll to add to your damage.
Pushing Assault If you are wielding a weapon in two hands, push the target 5' back instead of dealing power attack damage.
Shattering Strike +3 (Ex) +3 Sunder and damage vs. objects.
Vital Strike Standard action: x2 weapon damage dice.
Weapon Training (Blades, Heavy) +2 (Ex) +2 Attack, Damage, CMB, CMD with Heavy Blades
Weapon Training (Pole Arms) +1 (Ex) +1 Attack, Damage, CMB, CMD with Pole Arms
Human (Kellid) Fighter (Two-Weapon Fighter) 11 (Pathfinder RPG Advanced Player's Guide 0)
N Medium humanoid (human)
Init +5; Senses Perception -1
Defense
AC 16, touch 15, flat-footed 11 (+1 shield, +5 Dex)
hp 114 (11d10+44)
Fort +10, Ref +8, Will +2 (+3 vs. fear)
Defensive Abilities bravery +3, defensive flurry
Offense
Speed 30 ft.
Melee +2 agile flaming cold iron shortsword +15/+10/+5 (1d6+15/17-20 plus 1d6 fire) and
+2 agile frost mithral shortsword +15/+10/+5 (1d6+12/17-20 plus 1d6 cold)
Special Attacks doublestrike, improved balance, twin blades
Statistics
Str 13, Dex 20, Con 16, Int 9, Wis 9, Cha 9
Base Atk +11; CMB +9; CMD 27
Feats Bleeding Critical, Critical Focus, Double Slice, Greater Two-Weapon Fighting, Improved Critical (shortsword), Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, Piranha Strike, Two-Weapon Defense, Two-Weapon Fighting, Two-Weapon Rend, Weapon Finesse, Weapon Focus (shortsword), Weapon Specialization (shortsword)
Skills Acrobatics +16, Intimidate +13
Languages Common, Hallit
Other Gear +2 agile flaming cold iron shortsword, +2 agile frost mithral shortsword, 150 gp
Special Abilities
Bleeding Critical Critical Hits deal 2d6 bleed damage.
Bravery +3 (Ex) +3 to Will save vs. Fear
Critical Focus +4 to confirm critical hits.
Defensive Flurry +3 (Ex) +3 AC vs. melee when making a full-attack with both weapons.
Doublestrike (Ex) Standard action: Attack once with each weapon (normal two-weapon penalties).
Improved Balance -1 (Ex) Reduce the penalties for two-weapon fighting or count off-handed one-handed weapon as light.
Piranha Strike -3/+6 You can subtract from your attack roll to add to your damage with light weapons.
Twin Blades +2 (Ex) +2 to hit and damage when making a full attack with both weapons.
Two-Weapon Defense +1 to AC while wielding 2 weapons. +2 when doing so defensively.
Two-Weapon Rend Deal extra 1d10+(1.5x strength modifier) if you hit a foe with both main and off hand weapons.
RFC: I will make changes as @Josh provides more insight.
This depends more or less entirely on how awesome your DM is. Style feats are fantastic for the Ranger, but they tend to come at levels later than when you could normally pick up the feats by yourself. If your DM is cool with it, take the feats early, and then switch them out for other feats at later levels as you 'qualify' for them.
Here's a brief table for how I would go with them: # = level, C = class, F = feat from odd level
As you can see, you end up with a lot of extra feats to play around with (all of the starred ones ). If you choose effective Favored Enemies and Favored Terrains, you will gain great benefit from them as well. I would only take the Blind-Fight tree if you think you will fight in many encounters involving concealment. Improved critical if you don't want to worry about enchanting the sword or getting scabbards of keen edge.
Items: you'll probably want to tailor these a bit better to whichever campaign you're in. There are a couple of 'standard' items that pretty much everyone picks up as they go: Belt of stat +6 for physical trait bonuses, Headband of stat +6 for mental trait bonuses, ring ( or shield ) of Shield, etc. As you play you'll figure out what sort of item's you'll need.
Best Answer
Attack Routine
Dual-wielding two bastard swords with Two-Weapon Fighting and Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Bastard Swords) causes you to take a −4 penalty for wielding two one-handed weapons. If you were to wield a one-handed weapon in one hand and a light weapon in the other, you’d have only a −2 penalty.
In addition to these penalties, you have BAB +7/+2 (that is, two attacks, one at +7 and the other at +2), and a +4 Strength modifier. As a Fighter, you have Weapon Training, which is a +1 to attack and damage as long as you use weapons from the chosen group (which is another problem because you have to pick between Heavy Blades and Light Blades).
So as it currently stands (with the −4 penalty), your attack routine is this:
Dual-wielding Bastard Swords, Heavy Blade Weapon Training
If you had a bastard sword and a short sword, you’d instead have a −2 penalty, like so, but you’ll only get Heavy Blade Weapon Training on the Bastard Sword attacks
Bastard Sword and Short Sword, Heavy Blade Weapon Training
You lose an average of 2 damage on the second attack, but you are far more likely to hit with all three attacks.
If you swapped the Bastard Sword for a Longsword, saving yourself a feat, you would have
Longsword and Short Sword (+1 feat), Heavy Blade Weapon Training
On average, you lose 1 damage from each of your first and third attacks (2 damage less total), but you have another feat which may be able to give you more damage than that. A really simple example is to switch to purely Short Swords, and take Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization with them. This also allows the Light Blade Weapon Training to get the bonuses on all of the attacks.
Dual-wielding Short Swords, Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization (−1 feat), Light Blade Weapon Training
Note that this version has the highest attack bonuses and the same damage potential as the two bastard swords. Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization are not exactly high-power feats, but they’re better here than Exotic Weapon Proficiency in the Bastard Sword. (to be fair, I used two feats to do it, but Weapon Focus in Bastard Swords doesn’t really help much since either you’re taking huge penalties for using two or you’re only getting the bonus on two out of three attacks)
Alternatively, you could consider Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, either with Exotic Weapon Proficiency in Bastard Swords:
Bastard Sword and Short Sword, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting (−1 feat), Heavy Blade Weapon Training
Or with Weapon Focus (Short Sword)
Dual-wielding Short Swords, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting and Weapon Focus, Light Blade Weapon Training
Note that in the second case, you average 2 damage less on half your attacks, but have +1 on all attacks.
There are still better things you could probably do, these are just some simple, Core feat choices that you should consider without changing your existing feats too much.
Combat Maneuver Bonus/Defense
You don’t have a size bonus if you’re Medium (like Humans generally are), so ignore that. The Fighter’s Weapon Training also gives you a +1 as long as you’re using the right weapon, so +1 for that. Your BAB is +7 and your Strength modifier is +2, so your CMB is +10.
Again, size and misc don’t come into play. Weapon Training only helps against Disarm or Sunder, so I won’t include in the general number. So you have +7 + 2 + 2 = +11.