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
Bastard Sword +8, 1d10+5 (10.5)
other Bastard Sword +8, 1d10+3 (8.5)
Bastard Sword +3, 1d10+5 (10.5)
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
Bastard Sword +10, 1d10+5 (10.5)
Short Sword +9, 1d6+2 (5.5)
Bastard Sword +5, 1d10+5 (10.5)
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
Longsword +10, 1d8+5 (10.5)
Short Sword +9, 1d6+2 (5.5)
Longsword +5, 1d8+5 (10.5)
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
Short Sword A +11, 1d6+7 (10.5)
Short Sword B +11, 1d6+5 (8.5)
Short Sword A +6, 1d6+7 (10.5)
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
Bastard Sword +10, 1d10+5 (10.5)
Short Sword +9, 1d6+2 (5.5)
Bastard Sword +5, 1d10+5 (10.5)
Short Sword +4, 1d6+2 (5.5)
Or with Weapon Focus (Short Sword)
Dual-wielding Short Swords, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting and Weapon Focus, Light Blade Weapon Training
Short Sword A +11, 1d6+5 (8.5)
Short Sword B +11, 1d6+3 (6.5)
Short Sword A +6, 1d6+5 (8.5)
Short Sword B +6, 1d6+3 (6.5)
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
CMB = BAB + Str + size_bonus + misc
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.
CMD = BAB + Str + Dex + size_bonus + misc
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.
You are right,
Some first level spells are not (that) useful for first level characters
The combat rules for measuring the duration of effects (including spells) state:
When the rules refer to a "full round", they usually mean a span of time from a particular initiative count in one round to the same initiative count in the next round. Effects that last a certain number of rounds end just before the same initiative count that they began on.
(emphasis mine)
Unfortunately for our first level casters, this means that when they cast a spell which lasts only 1 round, it will fizz away immediately before they get a chance to use it.
So, why would something like this even be a Level 1 option?
First of all, there are several exceptions which makes such spells useful even for a first level character:
- Touch spells allow you to "hold the charge" until you successfully hit with them, and give you a "free" touch attack attempt as part of the action of casting the spell.
So you can attack on the same round you cast them, as well as keep trying to hit for as many following rounds as you need.
- The spell is still active during other combatants' actions on that round - both enemies and allies - this may come up when:
- Your spell can counter an enemy's action - for example, casting Unbreakable Heart on yourself will protect you from a Fear spell your enemy will cast during his action.
- You cast the spell to buff an ally (such as Sun Metal cast on your barbarian friend's axe or Unbreakable Heart cast on a confused ally, allowing him to take his turn normally)
- An enemy exposes himself to your attack of opportunity (your Sun Metal will be active and enhance your damage during his turn)
But, most importantly, some first level spells are mainly useful for casters of higher levels - but it is still better that they are first level spells, because:
- You can access them earlier - for example, Sun Metal may be cast by a 5th level ranger (caster level 2), if it was a second level spell, that ranger will have to be at least 7th level to cast it.
- You can cast them more times per day - sticking with Sun Metal as an example - a 7th level ranger can cast it 2 times per day, instead of just once if it was a second level spell.
- They don't "compete" for spell slots with the more powerful second level spells - at the end of the day, you probably wouldn't want to trade a casting of Brow Gasher or Wilderness Soldiers, just to gain the benefits of Sun Metal - it is not powerful enough to justify being a second level spell, and if it was, it probably would have never been selected by any ranger.
Hope this helps you making sense of it all...
p.s. - I'm not even trying to discuss whether casting Sun Metal is ever the optimal choice for a ranger of any level - you didn't seem to ask about that, and I normally don't care much about such issues myself, so I may not be the best user to tackle that...
Best Answer
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.
Full builds
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.
2HGuy
2WFGuy