what are the best weapons for TWF?

[Arakune]

I'm making a fighter with the Weapon Focus/Specialization tree for Short sword, and i want to give him the TWF and TWD (the other's are a redundant in my opinion, and I can buy then later).

It's a npc, but I wanted him to be usefull.

His primary weapons are two +2 short swords of wound (that one that make you lose one CON by sucefull attack), his family treasure.

[Were-Sandwich]

Something with a high crit range, like khukris.

[Viscount Einstrauss]

Short swords? Forget those! Take Oversized Two-Weapon Fighting and Exotic: Bastard Sword/Katana. Sure, the extra feat only increases your damage pool by d2 over the longsword, but you have to remember- your whole point to TWF is that you get lots of attacks per round (so the extra damage dice goes a long way) and it looks really cool.

Plus, do you show your players the character sheets for your NPC's? Go ahead and add in a feat or two above their cap just to let them do cool things. The players will never know the difference.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Can't use Monkey Grip in the offhand, so you'd be using a regular Bastard Sword there. Also, why take another -2 to attack for basically d2 damage?

Anyway, my answer is "anything that has bonus damage dice," like Flaming Shocking Weapons, or anything being wielded by a rogue. Wounding weapons are a good way to go, too, unless there's errata or a rule I don't know about saying the Con damage doesn't stack. The critical suggestion was also good, but suboptimal for an NPC, because he probably won't be "onscreen" enough for those criticals to add up. It's better to go with consistent damage like Elemental or Wounding.

Honestly, TWF is all you need in terms of feats (I'd buy Improved at around BAB 9 or so, but I'd stop there.) TWD isn't terribly optimal, but for a Fighter, you might as well. Note: if you want to suck, you could use the completely legal Animated Shield magic item and free up a feat slot. But Animated Shields always struck me as semi-broken. Divine Power kind of semi-broken.

In summary, to boost your damage, you want:
Elemental Weapon Properties
Rogue Levels
If you want to spend another feat, maybe OTWF and a pair of longswords. Spending two feats for that and EWP: Bastard Sword is only viable for a high-level single-class fighter, in which case you should probably be taking some of the high-end Weapon Spec. feats from PHB2 instead.

Okay, that wasn't a very good summary.

[Vazzaroth]

Double bladed weapons are under-estimated. They allow you to do the damage of a weapon larger than you can normally use in your off hand, since it's considered light. Also, for an NPC, it's kinda cool for PCs to see something out of the ordinary like that. I don't know if you want to use them, but just don't forget. It took me awhile to realize that they were actually worth the exotic feat to use.

[Arakune]

i don't have PHB2, where i can see a list of feats and such? ther is in the SRD some references of it?

[Thomas]

Short swords are a good choice. Any two light weapons are a good idea. You're not going to be using Power Attack, and if you're TWFing, odds are you're a rogue (and should therefore have Weapon Finesse). One-handed weapons are only necessary for (weak) Power Attack. The damage difference between light and one-handed weapons (1 point difference in damage averages) is insignificant, especially compared to the benefit of having each weapon-specific feat apply to both weapons.

Double weapons are a poor choice, because they don't offer any real advantage for most TWF builds, but require blowing a feat on EWP.

As a fighter, you're sort of screwed with TWF, but it can work if no one else is a combat monster and the DM doesn't expect you to be. Wounding weapons are a good way to compensate. Getting to apply the Weapon Spec tree (take it all the way to Weapon Supremacy) is a neat benefit.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Here is an excerpt of the PHB2 including summaries of the new feats (no technical rules text, though). Melee Weapon Mastery and possibly Slashing Flurry are the ones I was thinking of specifically, thought they're entirely dependent on level. Well, BAB.

[Viscount Einstrauss]

You don't need monkey grip to dual wield bastard swords/katanas. You need the exotic weapon proficiency.

Monkey grip could still be useful for dual wieldig large-sized bastard swords. Then you're dishing out some pretty heavy damage.

[Kantolin]

Double weapons are a poor choice, because they don't offer any real advantage for most TWF builds, but require blowing a feat on EWP.

First of all: Really? I suppose you're again getting to the 'spend a feat to raise a die code', but I thought double weapons were in the acceptable category. Plus that way you can utilize single feats to boost it unlike if you went One-Handed/Light, and they do significantly more damage/crit range than two lights.

Secondly: Does this include gnomish or dwarven two-weaponers, who don't have to spend the exotic weapon proficiency?

Thirdly: Pah, double weapons are cool looking. ^_^ Which is why my half-orc wizard uses an orc double axe regardless of mechanics involved (I mean, any time he has to use the thing, something is wrong. And he doesn't two-weapon with it even in those scenarios, as he is a wizard who does not have the feats).

[elwood j blues]

i know its a long shot that this npc would aquire such a weapon, but blow one EWP feat and take a gythka from the expanded psionics handbook. double wepaon, and each end deals d10 damage, sort of like dual katanas but better.
if you have aload of feats spare though, take a couple of kusari-gama from the DMG(basically spicked chain, but light and deals 1d6), then branch off into whirlwind attack. i had a memebr of my party do that once, killed many undead VERY quickly.
cus of the dex prerequisits to TWF and such, im willing to bet youve got a higher dex than strength. dont worry, weapon finnesse works with these.

[Thomas]

Monkey grip could still be useful for dual wieldig large-sized bastard swords. Then you're dishing out some pretty heavy damage.

Monkey Grip explicitly doesn't work for your off-hand. So it'd be one Large and one Medium bastard sword.

First of all: Really? I suppose you're again getting to the 'spend a feat to raise a die code', but I thought double weapons were in the acceptable category. Plus that way you can utilize single feats to boost it unlike if you went One-Handed/Light, and they do significantly more damage/crit range than two lights.

Secondly: Does this include gnomish or dwarven two-weaponers, who don't have to spend the exotic weapon proficiency?

Gee, does "spending a feat is a bad idea" apply when you don't have to spend a feat? I think you already figured that one out.

And the damage difference is, like I said, negligible. 1 point. That's not worth a feat. Use two light weapons, like I said in the post you partially quoted. (Not surprisingly, the different sentences were related to each other.) The criticals are the same (x3 or 19-20/x2), and a TWFer probably isn't using Power Attack anyway. (And it'd be silly with a double weapon, since only the one side would get the benefit, but both would get the penalty.)

[Kantolin]

Alright... that's what I generally figured, just was beginning to get the feeling that double weapons simply weren't worth it period.

[Thomas]

They really aren't. The advantages are pretty nonexistent. If you get free proficiency in a double weapon, it can be a fair TWF choice; if you don't, it's usually not. (Unless you want to go into Exotic Weapon Master, which does have some useful class features.)

[Viscount Einstrauss]

That's where Oversized Two-Weapon Fighting comes in. It lets you treat any weapon in your offhand as light, so long as you can wield it one-handed in the first place.

[Arakune]

hum... so no power attack? (at least not a very usefull use?).

he is some short of Fallen knight, that wants revenge on his last master.

CN, not a crazy one, but someone that will almost always come up with some weird way to resolve his problens. And is ALWAYS right. No matter how wierd his view point is.

He lost his left eye during a misson and put a magical eye that have dark vision but make him weak, so he almost always have a eye patch in the eye.
He uses a mask that resemble a mask of an Oni, like that guy in the Rurouni Kenshin episode, except for that, he is an all western knight.

can you guy figure out something optimal, deadly and that can fit in this guy? if you guys wants to make it magical, he can spare up two +5 enchantments on both weapons.

[Kantolin]

One could argue that a double weapon means you can power attack when it's useful, and two-weapon when it's not.

Of course, um. There aren't a lot of situations where it's not (So you'll hardly ever be two-weaponing there), and that's increasing your feat investment. But I guess that's something, at least.

[Quietus]

Is he going to fight alongside the PC's, or against them? If he's going to fight alongside them, then it's probably a better idea not to make him TOO optimized; You don't want your NPC's becoming cooler than your PC's.

[elwood j blues]

whats this guys class levels? i could get a better idea from that what he can afford aswell. i would guess form 2 +5 enchantments that he's pretty strong

[Central Dogma]

I'm a fan of the Dwarven Waraxe. Take TW Fighting, Ambidextarity, and Oversized TW Fighting and you will be hitting for 2d10 plus strength per round and it only takes 4 feats. And then you only take -2 to each.

[elwood j blues]

erm... you dont need to take Ambidexterity if your playin in v3.5, its been incorperated into TWF

[Ninja Chocobo]

OTWF, and EWP: Elven Quickblade.
Then get the -Burst enchantments on them.

[Zincorium]

Eberron, Revenant Blade prestige class. Treat both ends of a double scimitar as a two handed weapon for strength and power attack as it's fifth level cap ability. Everything that the two handed fighting builds are known for doing, you can do twice. Well, almost. And you can fit that and frenzied berserker into a single level 20 build for all the power attacking nonsense you could want.

[Person_Man]

Due to Power Attack, Two Weapon Fighting is mathmatically inferior to Two Handed Weapons in almost every way. Two Weapon Fighting is also more feat intensive then Two Handed Weapon fighting.

The exception is when you a bonus to damage that has no bearing on Power Attack, such as Sneak Attack damage.


Ambidexterity is no longer a feat in 3.5.


"Hand and a Half" weapons, like the Bastard Sword, usually only add an average of +1.5 damage per successful attack, far less damage then could be addded through other feats.


Gaining a higher crit range, while nice if you can do it with magic, is also mathmatically a poor way to add damage. A standard greatsword will have higher damage over the long run in most cases, since it deals 2-4 more points of damage on every attack, compared to most high crit weapons, which will only deal *2 damage on 10-20% more attacks.


Every feat a melee combatant takes should either scale with levels (Power Attack, any feat that adds an attack) or grant you a special ability you can't gain through magic (Elusive Target, Shock Trooper).

[elwood j blues]

hmmm... western caharcter... that rules out teh kusarigama...
i myself would fancy going a few levels as fighter, and taking the bonus feats for EWP:gythka, and the TWF feat tree, but that rules out any form of weapon finnesse, which would help greatly.
if your willing to say something like this character spent several years of his life in an exotic area of the western wrold, ortrained in a few years as a monastary, then take EWP: kusari-gama, TWF, weapon-finnesse for your first level feats(if your a fighter), and go on to dodge, mobility, spring-attack, and whirlwind attack afterwards. thats by 4th level if you have the prereqs, and thats two attack against everyone within a 10feet range, dealing d6 each, and with weapon finnesse for your attack bonus, youde be hitting often.
magics... well... keen would be great on both, giving you more chances for a criticle, firey, icy, or shocking are good for damage, and the classic enchantment bonus wopuld let you hit so much more often. i would say +2 enchantment bonus, keen firey-burst on one, and +2 enchantment bonus, keen, icy-burst on the other if for nothing but style.

[Viscount Einstrauss]

Human Fighter 15 (32 point buy)
Str: 18
Dex: 19
Con: 10
Int: 10
Wis: 8
Cha: 10
Feats (in no particular order): Two-Weapon Fighting, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, Greater Two-Weapon Fighting, Oversized Two-Weapon Fighting, Exotic Proficiency: Bastard Sword, Two-Weapon Defense, Improved Two-Weapon Defense, Weapon Focus: Bastard Sword, Weapon Specialization: Bastard Sword, Greater Weapon Focus: Bastard Sword, Dual Strike, Power Attack, Improved Bull Rush, Storm of Flying Strikes.
Attack: 19/14/9 for 1d10+4 damage, 19/14/9 for 1d10+2 damage. This is assuming he's wielding two completely normal bastard swords (which he won't be).
Tactics: Begin each battle by charging your enemy with maxed power attack. With Dual Strike, you can attack twice at 14/14 on this charge. If both hit like this, you deal 2d10+16 and have a chance at knocking your enemy prone (DC 16 Fortitude to negate it). A prone enemy is a screwed enemy, especially if you have backup capable of delivering a coup de grace. Continue your next round, assuming you HAVE a next round, attacking everything around you with maxed power attack. You can get that DC up to a 20 if every single attack hits in one round (not likely except against squishy targets or if you've got some good equipment, but hey) or if you increase your strength (much more likely, and it makes the whole build even better anyway). Best of all, you can wear medium armors and actually get relevant benefits off of them.

[LotharBot]

A prone enemy is a screwed enemy, especially if you have backup capable of delivering a coup de grace.

Being "prone" is not the same as being "helpless".

[Viscount Einstrauss]

Huh. So it does.

But still, that's either a full wasted turn or a -4 to attacks and melee AC. I'd say that at least qualifies for "very nasty".

[Arakune]

nice, but... i don't have these feats, i just have the stardart PHB 1, and the DM's guide, on PDF.

i'm making my own feats and using some of this forum feats, but for him i want to use something... official and from the core books. I mean, i can't affort a $19~$22 a book! (that's a R$64~R$70, too damn expencive!)

he is a pure fighter, tough.

oh, and just asking: TWF (dagger) + Sneak attack = ?
how much damage i whould deal?
Just 1d6 + str + 1d6+ str/2 + sneak attack?

Oh, i almost forgot, he will be someshort of hunter. I want him to take the track feat too, Since he is a lone fighter. He will be sometimes an antagonist (bodyguard of someone that the players must defeat or are in guarding duty for a evil sorceross and only the players know the truth) and a very rare ally ("the dragon are too strong! wer..." KRAAA "what happened?" - 'hey guys, you're really professional adventures?')

[elwood j blues]

lots. 1d6+any other amount of d6 from your sneak attack per hit i belive
if your looking for phb feats, my suggestion with the kusari gama dont have any non-phb feats... i think. personaly i think its up to you.