I'm building a dual wielding+archery character as a "recommended" build for a friend. I don't know whether it would be better for him to build for handaxes/throwing axes or short swords.
I know this is probably a long asked question of higher critical modifiers or wider critical ranges, but I want to figure it out for THIS CHARACTER. I think that the character themselves are the most important thing for it, so here's his backstory he's told me.
"I lived a normal life until my father killed my mother when I was young. I ran into the forest to hide from my murderous parent. The only reason I survived (rather than dying from disease) was because I was found by a small clan of Druids. I learned the way of the predator in my years. I also made a connection with the spirit animals of the world, the wolf, eagle, and bear, from my time with the druids. I was found by (the other party members) the same day I learned my father was a member of a chaos cult that they (the other party members) were working to fight against. I now use my skills gained from my time in nature to fight the chaos cultists and hope to kill my father to avenge my mother".
level: 1
Race: Wood elf (+2 dex, +2 int +1 wis -2 con)
Class: Ranger/fighter
Feats: Able sniper and point blank shot.
available wealth: 99 gold
equipment already bought: leather armor and a longbow
Best Answer
Unless you have specific features that interact with one other other, it really does not matter. The difference in expected damage is absolutely minuscule; critical hits simply don’t happen often enough. Both 20/×3 and 19-20/×2 are close to meaningless.1 So unless you want to take some feat or class that says something special happens only when you wield one or the other, just take whatever you feel like.
Or, better, whatever the actual player feels like. You can just say to him, “so this character works equally-well with handaxes or shortswords; which would you prefer?” Don’t bother mentioning the mechanical differences; again, they don’t matter. Purely a matter of imagery and style.
In reality, the character sounds like a druid, and sounds like he’s going to prefer Wild Shape anyway; claws and fangs are likely to be his truly-favored weapons. Or if you were going for all-out power, spells.