Does Weapon Finesse force you into Two Weapon Fighting?

[KindaNice]

I am working on a build for a tiefling rogue 1/swordsage 4, and I've gone down a rabbit hole from trying to figure out how weapon finesse fits into any melee character's overall build.

If you are playing a point-buy game and you have access to general markets for magic items, taking Weapon Finesse means you are planning to make the commitment to benefit from taking this feat because every class in the game has been described as 'feat-starved'. Therefore

1. you have high dexterity, otherwise you wouldn't benefit from the feat
2. you are plan to use one of the weapons which benefits from the Weapon Finesse feat, otherwise you wouldn't benefit from the feat
3. you have low strength, because a major benefit of Weapon Finesse is that it lets you reduce MADness

Spike chain is the only 2-handed weapon that benefits from that feat (I'm aware of the builds that use it, but for my concerns I'm calling it a unique exception to this problem). Otherwise, taking Weapon Finesse means you need to use at least one weapon that's one-handed. I don't have much experience playing as a melee character in 3.5e, but my limited experiences does match what I see generally posted online which is using a sword and shield is weaker than other melee options, and once you have access to the Animated enchantment it seems hard to justify occupying a hand that you don't need to. It seems like shields just don't provide a high enough AC bonus to justify them, and your high dexterity should get your AC high enough that you can stay in melee combat.

If you take Weapon Finesse, unless you will use a spiked chain do you have to fight with two weapons? Or are there other one-handed or two-handed options I'm missing?

[Crake]

Martial initiators are pretty much the exact circumstance where weapon finesse is completely viable without twf. Just take standard action damaging maneuvers and go ham, feel free to equip a shield and youre fine.

[Anthrowhale]

There's the Elven Courtblade (RotW) and the Chain Lash (Savage Species).

[AMFV]

I don't think it forces you into Two Weapon fighting it's more that if you're going that route you tend to already be making the choices that you would make for a Two-Weapon Fighter. You're using Light weapons (or finesse weapons). You're focusing on your dexterity which is required for Two-Weapon Fighting. It's somewhat difficult to get damage boosts from Dex, so the route you usually go to increase damage is Precision damage and with that route you want to be making as many attacks as possible and two weapon fighting lets you make more attacks so that synergizes well (well reasonably well).

I mean there are other routes you could go. Initiating being the big one. But basically because you're already committing to a thing that requires the same stuff as TWF it will generally work well together.

[Saintheart]

There's a few more weapons other than those mentioned in Weapon Finesse which are valid for the feat. Thurbane made a list of them here. There are a few two-handers in there, but more significantly, many one-handed weapons are on the table. Indeed pretty much any one-handed Feycraft (DMG 2) weapon can be used with Weapon Finesse.

This is significant because Weapon Finesse by RAW can be used with a one-handed weapon used in two hands, so long as the one-hander is itself a finessable weapon. Weapon Finesse does not say you have to wield a weapon in a single hand; it only says that for certain weapons, you can use your DEX instead of STR for the attack roll. Therefore: Weapon Finesse can be legitimately used with Power Attack for full doubling of bonus damage, so long as it's a one-handed weapon used in two hands. It's not "optimal" because you're using DEX for your attack rolls and still relying on STR for bonus damage, when the more optimal approach is just to pump your STR sky-high. But it can be done that way, and it might be worth considering if you're going with an AoO-based build -- which benefits from high DEX.

This approach is also available for natural weapons or unarmed strikes, because these are deemed light weapons - and thus work with Weapon Finesse - but they also work with Power Attack (no other light weapons do). The only difference is that natural weapons and unarmed strikes only get a x1 in Power Attack bonuses, not the x2 with a two-hander or a one-handed weapon in both hands.

There's also Inlindl School that gets a little value out of shields and Weapon Finesse-type shenanigans, but it's not especially potent without a lot of magic or optimisation. My little hobby study of the feat is here.

That said, one respectful disagreement to one item said above: don't use Weapon Finesse while carrying a shield. The shield's Armor Check Penalty applies to your attack rolls, the feat says so explicitly. Bucklers I think get around this, but it's something often overlooked about Weapon Finesse.

[Maat Mons]

You can get the armor check penalty of a shield down to zero. A masterwork light shield or a darkwood heavy shield would be the usual options. For casters I like a mithral gauntlet shield (RoS). Don’t bother with proficiency. No armor check penalty means no drawback for nonproficiency.

[St Fan]

There are a few feats/abilities/tactics that favor fighting with one weapon while keeping a free hand.

Notably the Quick Draw/sleight of hand trick from Complete Warrior, the Einhander and Single Blade Style feats, or the Precise Strike for a Duelist.

Duelist is one prestige class depending on Weapon Finesse which, overall, clashes much with having a shield.

Admittedly, those techniques doesn't prevent still using Two-Weapon Fighting if you have Improved Unarmed Strike and punch with the free hand.

I have a build for a character relying on the above techniques, who is a Southpaw generally keeping her right hand free in a fight, but will use it sometime to quick-draw a dagger, plant it in the enemy, and let it go immediately so as to still benefit of her single-weapon style. (Because of this, most of her daggers have the fleshgrinding property.)

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Having synergy is important for building a mechanically strong character, so it makes sense that a Dex-focused melee character would use TWF. There's also the feat Shadow Blade in ToB, which allows you to add your Dex bonus to damage instead of Str, but only with certain weapons. There's also Gloves of the Balanced Hand, a relatively inexpensive item that grants TWF, or if you already have that it grants ITWF instead. It's generally accepted that GTWF isn't worth taking, so having that in place of a mid-game feat tax is usually worthwhile.

You can use a two-handed finesse weapon and armor spikes and still benefit from TWF.

As others have said, there are a few other two-handed finesse weapons. There are several exotic elven swords, in the two-handed, one-handed, and light varieties, in RotW which can be used with Weapon Finesse. If you want to use one or more of those, consider asking your DM if you can trade some of an Elf's racial weapon proficiencies with weapon familiarity in as many exotic elven weapons.

Feat-starved builds benefit greatly from taking flaws for up to two extra feats. Flaws must be taken at character creation, but if creating a character above 1st level your flaw feat can fall on any of your starting levels. This would allow a character who doesn't have the +1 BAB required for Weapon Finesse at 1st level to still gain that feat from a flaw.

Consider replacing the Rogue dip with Spellthief. This allows you to activate wands of any spells that class can eventually cast, namely a Wand of Wraithstrike in a wand chamber of your weapon. The Rules Compendium says spell trigger and spell completion items such as wands take the same action to activate as the casting time of the spell being used, so activating that wand would be a swift action.

Consider that Swordsage has a misprint in its skills that hasn't been updated by the errata. It states that a Swordsage gets x6 skill points at 1st level instead of the standard x4, so if your DM is strict about RAW, take Swordsage at 1st level to benefit from that.

[Inevitability]

Builds that make lots of attacks against singular enemies (with efficiency stemming from trips/debuffs/bonus damage), like Whirlwind Attackers, Paimon Knights of the Sacred Seal, Great Flyby builds, AoO fishers, all those don't have that much to gain from TWF but can often make Weapon Finesse work.

Spring Attack builds might want to be dexterity-based, though spring attack is of course a tricky feat to optimize.

Decisive Strike monks only make one attack on their turn, so obviously TWF does nothing for them.

Any caster who wants to keep a hand free (including half-casters like rangers and hexblades) would presumably be hesitant to TWF.

My Gronk Tongle build was based around Umbral Disciple's Soulchilling Strike, which triggers only on the first hit each combat. It's strength-based, but something similar could be dexterity-based just as easily.

Also, cheating a little bit, but there's non-weapon users that still want weapon finesse. Lots of precision-based natural weapon builds for one; a number of casters highly reliant on melee touch attacks may also find it pay off.

[KindaNice]

TY everyone for your responses, I'm glad to be wrong and appreciate the variety of suggestions. Couple things I'd like to respond to:

Martial initiators are pretty much the exact circumstance where weapon finesse is completely viable without twf. Just take standard action damaging maneuvers and go ham, feel free to equip a shield and youre fine.

That's what I was assuming I would have to do, but I guess I just didn't realize what would make it good. Swordsage has enough maneuvers prepared that there probably won't be too many turns spent on just standard melee or full round attacks, not to mention the Adaptive Style feat. Sword & board still sounds kinda boring but the maneuvers probably will make up for it.

Consider replacing the Rogue dip with Spellthief. This allows you to activate wands of any spells that class can eventually cast, namely a Wand of Wraithstrike in a wand chamber of your weapon. The Rules Compendium says spell trigger and spell completion items such as wands take the same action to activate as the casting time of the spell being used, so activating that wand would be a swift action.

I hadn't thought of this and generally like the idea, but there are already 3 characters with arcane spells in the party and I play a wizard in another campaign so Spellthief just doesn't appeal to me right now. Maybe if this campaign runs long and circumstances change I'll think about adding that multiclass.

This is significant because Weapon Finesse by RAW can be used with a one-handed weapon used in two hands, so long as the one-hander is itself a finessable weapon. Weapon Finesse does not say you have to wield a weapon in a single hand; it only says that for certain weapons, you can use your DEX instead of STR for the attack roll. Therefore: Weapon Finesse can be legitimately used with Power Attack for full doubling of bonus damage, so long as it's a one-handed weapon used in two hands. It's not "optimal" because you're using DEX for your attack rolls and still relying on STR for bonus damage, when the more optimal approach is just to pump your STR sky-high. But it can be done that way, and it might be worth considering if you're going with an AoO-based build -- which benefits from high DEX.

This just seems unavoidably inefficient - I'm having a hard time imagining a high STR build that relies on Weapon Finesse which couldn't be improved by lowering DEX and/or dropping Weapon Finesse. Though if a counterexample exists it'd probably be somewhere on this forum.

There are a few feats/abilities/tactics that favor fighting with one weapon while keeping a free hand.

Notably the Quick Draw/sleight of hand trick from Complete Warrior, the Einhander and Single Blade Style feats, or the Precise Strike for a Duelist.

I also hadn't considered those, and I'm pretty sure after reading through the rest of these responses that I was too narrowly focused on the character I wanted to make now. Thanks for the suggestions!

Also, cheating a little bit, but there's non-weapon users that still want weapon finesse. Lots of precision-based natural weapon builds for one; a number of casters highly reliant on melee touch attacks may also find it pay off.

"Melee touch attack full caster" sounds like the ultimate glass cannon and I hadn't realized the Weapon Finesse synergy. I'm definitely not playing that for this campaign but I think I'm gonna have to try that at some point.

[Saintheart]

This just seems unavoidably inefficient - I'm having a hard time imagining a high STR build that relies on Weapon Finesse which couldn't be improved by lowering DEX and/or dropping Weapon Finesse. Though if a counterexample exists it'd probably be somewhere on this forum.

Depends what you mean by "high STR" and what tradeoffs you're willing to wear for a build concept.

Power Attack doesn't key off STR as such; indeed STR's only involvement with it is that you need STR 13 - a +1 stat. That's a comparatively low number, even the elite array for NPCs can pull that and Weapon Finesse doesn't have a prerequisite ability score at all.

The reason Power Attack synergises better with high-STR two-handed weapon wielding is because the weapon and the feat both grant you a bonus in that scenario: Power Attack gives you x2 bonus BAB sacrificed to damage when wielding two-handed, and a two-handed or one-handed weapon gives you x1.5 STR bonus to damage when wielded in two hands. And high STR mathematically counters the BAB hit you take when applying Power Attack.

If you're relying on STR specifically to deliver a lot of bonus damage, or you're determined to be Single Ability Dependent as possible, then yes, as I originally said, Weapon Finesse + Power Attack isn't optimal. But if you aren't going with high STR Power Attack shouldn't necessarily be dismissed out of hand if you're going to wield a one-handed, finessable weapon in two hands. It depends on the weapon and how you're planning to do damage.

If you are looking for DEX to damage, there's a few common ones:

Shadow Blade (feat) (ToB): DEX added to damage, but only when you’re using Shadow Hand weapons and in a Shadow Hand stance. For our purposes, the short sword is the most significant Shadow Hand weapon, because it’s light, does 1d6 damage, and doesn’t require another feat to use. (The others are dagger, sai, siangham, spiked chain, and unarmed strike.) Shadow Blade can be taken in place of Weapon Finesse for prerequisites. A generous DM would allow you to use an Aptitude weapon to apply this feat to other weapons, but it would be stretching it.

Hit And Run Tactics (Fighter ACF) (DoTU): It’s frequently misunderstood as a drow-only ACF, but by RAW it isn’t. Give up your heavy armor and tower shield proficiency, and when attacking a flat-footed opponent within 30 feet, add DEX to damage as a competence bonus, i.e. it stacks with other iterations of DEX to damage.

Champion of Corellon Larethian 2 (PrC) (RoTW): DEX to damage – specifically in addition to STR bonus – but only on certain weapons: Elven Courtblade, Elven Thinblade, Elven Lightblade, Scimitar, Longsword, or Rapier. Elven Lightblade is basically an exotic shortsword, and Elven Thinblade an exotic rapier.

Corsair 9 (Dragon 321, p. 72): DEX to damage … although possibly more, which is what makes it tempting in an otherwise pedestrian PrC. It doesn’t just substitute STR for DEX as such, it says you can use DEX ‘to determine bonus damage’ on a light weapon. Corsair 8 already treats certain one-handed slashing weapons as light, so arguably your damage rolls with a one-handed slashing weapon wielded in two hands get damage at DEX x1.5.

[Darg]

I am working on a build for a tiefling rogue 1/swordsage 4, and I've gone down a rabbit hole from trying to figure out how weapon finesse fits into any melee character's overall build.

If you are playing a point-buy game and you have access to general markets for magic items, taking Weapon Finesse means you are planning to make the commitment to benefit from taking this feat because every class in the game has been described as 'feat-starved'. Therefore

1. you have high dexterity, otherwise you wouldn't benefit from the feat
2. you are plan to use one of the weapons which benefits from the Weapon Finesse feat, otherwise you wouldn't benefit from the feat
3. you have low strength, because a major benefit of Weapon Finesse is that it lets you reduce MADness

Spike chain is the only 2-handed weapon that benefits from that feat (I'm aware of the builds that use it, but for my concerns I'm calling it a unique exception to this problem). Otherwise, taking Weapon Finesse means you need to use at least one weapon that's one-handed. I don't have much experience playing as a melee character in 3.5e, but my limited experiences does match what I see generally posted online which is using a sword and shield is weaker than other melee options, and once you have access to the Animated enchantment it seems hard to justify occupying a hand that you don't need to. It seems like shields just don't provide a high enough AC bonus to justify them, and your high dexterity should get your AC high enough that you can stay in melee combat.

If you take Weapon Finesse, unless you will use a spiked chain do you have to fight with two weapons? Or are there other one-handed or two-handed options I'm missing?

You don't actually have to fight with two weapons. One thing that gets overlooked a lot is that thrown weapons are ranged weapons. Which means they benefit just as much from point blank shot and rapid shot in melee as projectile weapons do. Thus you can get your "extra attack" without TWF.

The druid's flame blade spell or the cleric's ice axe spell make great use of weapon finesse as they don't benefit from the strength bonus to damage. One of my favorite characters was a druid that used TWF flame blades, finesse, and improved critical (scimitar) to great effect.

As you've already figured out, late game you shouldn't be using a shield without the animated property. There's just simply no reason not to. It's the only way in core to get a reliable 3rd hand and really the only way to make the PHBII shield feats worth while.

ToB maneuvers basically negate any real need for TWF as there are many options that are competitive without it.

Hit And Run Tactics (Fighter ACF) (DoTU): It’s frequently misunderstood as a drow-only ACF, but by RAW it isn’t. Give up your heavy armor and tower shield proficiency, and when attacking a flat-footed opponent within 30 feet, add DEX to damage as a competence bonus, i.e. it stacks with other iterations of DEX to damage.

When the advice to DMs is that it's designed for drow characters and the section itself mentions that ACFs are a way to reflect racial choice and character concept, it's as much of a leap as stepping over a crack in the sidewalk.

[AvatarVecna]

I am working on a build for a tiefling rogue 1/swordsage 4, and I've gone down a rabbit hole from trying to figure out how weapon finesse fits into any melee character's overall build.

If you are playing a point-buy game and you have access to general markets for magic items, taking Weapon Finesse means you are planning to make the commitment to benefit from taking this feat because every class in the game has been described as 'feat-starved'. Therefore

1. you have high dexterity, otherwise you wouldn't benefit from the feat
2. you are plan to use one of the weapons which benefits from the Weapon Finesse feat, otherwise you wouldn't benefit from the feat
3. you have low strength, because a major benefit of Weapon Finesse is that it lets you reduce MADness

Spike chain is the only 2-handed weapon that benefits from that feat (I'm aware of the builds that use it, but for my concerns I'm calling it a unique exception to this problem). Otherwise, taking Weapon Finesse means you need to use at least one weapon that's one-handed. I don't have much experience playing as a melee character in 3.5e, but my limited experiences does match what I see generally posted online which is using a sword and shield is weaker than other melee options, and once you have access to the Animated enchantment it seems hard to justify occupying a hand that you don't need to. It seems like shields just don't provide a high enough AC bonus to justify them, and your high dexterity should get your AC high enough that you can stay in melee combat.

If you take Weapon Finesse, unless you will use a spiked chain do you have to fight with two weapons? Or are there other one-handed or two-handed options I'm missing?

The correlation tends to be the other way around. Some people who take Weapon Finesse will also take TWF. But basically everybody who takes TWF will take Weapon Finesse, because that feat tree requires very high Dex if you're not a Ranger. Also, frankly, I don't think finesse characters are generally pushed into TWF, because TWF kinda...sucks really hard? You get more attacks, in exchange for either an enormous penalty to-hit, or spending yet another of your precious feats. Every extra attack costs yet another feat, and you'll never get the penalty smaller than -2. As you climb in levels, your accuracy will fall even further behind because where most meleers only have to keep one weapon competitive, you'll have two that have to stay competitive.

Wielding a one-handed weapon is fine if your damage/effectiveness is mostly coming from something else (Sneak Attack, something that delivers a condition on any hit, etc), and it leaves a hand open for fetching scrolls, potions, wands, carrying a shield for extra defense, or even casting spells if you're built for that sort of thing. As others have mentioned, maneuvers barely care about what weapon you're wieldling, and some styles are far more suited to finesse characters than others.

[AMFV]

That's what I was assuming I would have to do, but I guess I just didn't realize what would make it good. Swordsage has enough maneuvers prepared that there probably won't be too many turns spent on just standard melee or full round attacks, not to mention the Adaptive Style feat. Sword & board still sounds kinda boring but the maneuvers probably will make up for it.

Swordsage generally has a lot of things to do and you can build it to do several different things. Sure the recovery system means that you're often doing things once or twice a combat but when you have half a dozen things to be doing, usually you'll get at least a unique thing every single turn. You could also take EWP Spiked Chain... which is a feat, but it gives you a nice little weapon to work with that's not exactly a TWFing friendly deal.

I also hadn't considered those, and I'm pretty sure after reading through the rest of these responses that I was too narrowly focused on the character I wanted to make now. Thanks for the suggestions!

As I was saying the thing with TWFing and WFing is that they seem to work really together, so when you're looking at options those are immediately apparent as good as good options. As AvatarVecna points out TWFing actually benefits more from Weapon Finesse than the other way around.

"Melee touch attack full caster" sounds like the ultimate glass cannon and I hadn't realized the Weapon Finesse synergy. I'm definitely not playing that for this campaign but I think I'm gonna have to try that at some point.

It's actually not. Casters get a bunch of defensive boosts that they don't have to spend a lot on. Scintillating Scales if they've got Natural Armor of any kind (which with Alter Self they might). Mirror Image. Adding miss chance. Abrupt Jaunt. Luminous Armor (if they're good) which swings melee hit values by a TON. They're not completely unbeatable, but they have a lot more defensive options than martial characters do at this point.

[Inevitability]

Also, it's a bit of a weird example (TWF is literally a prerequisite) but the Spellrazor feat from RoS should count. It allows for combining a melee touch spell with an off-hand gnomish quickrazor attack as a full-round action, so you're technically not TWFing while still potentially benefitting from weapon finesse.

[AMFV]

Also, it's a bit of a weird example (TWF is literally a prerequisite) but the Spellrazor feat from RoS should count. It allows for combining a melee touch spell with an off-hand gnomish quickrazor attack as a full-round action, so you're technically not TWFing while still potentially benefitting from weapon finesse.

OOoh, that sounds fun! Has anybody done any work to optimize that one or anything? That fixes the issue with Gishy characters where they basically get to either do spells (worse than a full caster) or do martial stuff (often better than most martial builds)

[Anthrowhale]

Great Flyby builds

This was mentioned, but let me explain. If you change your build slightly to:

Hengeyokai[Sparrow] Swordsage 1/Exoticist[Hit and Run Tactics] 1/Swordsage 3

With Feats:
Flaw 1: Flyby Attack
Flaw 2: Great Flyby Attack
1: Shadowblade
Exoticist 1: EWP[Spiked Chain]
Exoticist 1: Weapon Finesse
3. Power Attack? Combat Reflexes? Improved Initiative?

Then you can use Great Flyby Attack with a +1 spiked chain against <dex bonus> opponents with <dex bonus> to attack and deal <dex bonus> extra damage or 2x <dex bonus> damage vs. flat-footed creatures. Your dex bonus is 18+2(racial)+2(item) so that's 6 attacks/round dealing 2d4+6+1+Str x 1.5 or 2d4+12+1+Str x1.5 damage. The damage is against distinct creatures, so this is sort of like Wings of Flurry. If you eventually get Great Cleave you can further punish a boss for having minions.

[Saintheart]

OOoh, that sounds fun! Has anybody done any work to optimize that one or anything? That fixes the issue with Gishy characters where they basically get to either do spells (worse than a full caster) or do martial stuff (often better than most martial builds)

First kneejerk thing that occurred to me is Decisive Strike Monk plus Unorthodox Flurry from Dragon Compendium. A single light weapon becomes a special monk weapon for you, thus qualifying the Quickrazor for Decisive Strike use. However, it probably won't work because Unorthodox Flurry requires that you have a Flurry of Blows class feature, which Decisive Strike does force you to give up. Then you've got double damage on the one strike you combine with the spell, since Decisive Strike and Spellrazor seem to slide neatly together.

Second kneejerk thought is that you can just pick up an Aptitude weapon and use Spellrazor on it, since Spellrazor relates to the use of only one weapon type - the gnomish quickrazor - and is therefore valid for Aptitude weapons the same way Lightning Maces doesn't have to be used on Light Maces. Fun possibilities include the Khopesh and Tigerskull CLub for this, though you'd be sucking up harder offhand penalties since these are one-handed weapons, not light.

Third kneejerk thought: Ordained Champion could use it - move action channel a spell into the quickrazor, then take the full-round action using Spellrazor to hit the target with another melee touch spell and then hit with the channelled OC spell on the offhand attack. Say two iterations of Shivering Touch: first one drops the target's DEX and consequently its AC, thus offsetting the -2 from the Quickrazor being in the off hand, then the Quickrazor hits channelling the OC's spell for another 3d6 of Dex damage. 6d6 Dex damage on one full-round action. Hell, Lesser Shivering Touch would deliver 2d6 Dex damage for the cost of 2 x 1st level spells.

Or if we want to beef it up a bit, take Residual Magic and channel a Maximised Shivering Touch into the OC's quickrazor in the move action. Next round your melee touch attack under Shivering Touch gets Maximised for free. 2 x 18 DEX = 36 DEX damage in one pass. As my friend Anthrowhale once said in another thread, nothing vulnerable to ability damage will walk that off.

[Elkad]

Don't forget Sun Blade.

Sure, you could use two, but you can also use 1, finesse it two-handed, and apply bastard sword power attack bonuses.

[St Fan]

Another one-hand-focused feat I didn't mention earlier:

Graceful Edge [General]
Choose one type of one-handed slashing melee weapon, such as a scimitar or longsword, for which you have already selected the Weapon Focus feat. You wield this weapon with an almost unnatural grace.

Prerequisites: Weapon Finesse, Weapon Focus (any one-handed slashing weapon), base attack bonus +1

Benefit: If you do not wield a shield or weapon in your off hand, you treat your chosen weapon as a light weapon.
If you do not wield a shield or weapon in your off hand, you also gain a +1 shield bonus to your AC while wielding your chosen weapon. When you are fighting defensively or using the total defense action, this shield bonus increases to +2.

Special: A fighter may select Graceful Edge as one of his fighter bonus feats. You may take this feat more than once each time you do, it applies to a new one-handed slashing weapon you have Weapon Focus in.

While I'm at it, here's a quick review of the other feats I mentioned:

Einhander [Tactical]

You excel at wielding a one-handed weapon while carrying nothing in your off hand.

Prerequisite: Tumble 6 ranks, base attack bonus +6

Benefit: If you are fighting with a one-handed weapon or a light weapon and carrying nothing in your off hand, the Einhander feat grants you access to three special tactical maneuvers.

Narrow Profile: You can tuck your arm behind your back and offer a narrow profile when you concentrate on defense rather than offense. You gain an additional +2 dodge bonus to AC when fighting defensively or using the total defense action.

Off-Hand Balance: You use your off hand to balance yourself while performing acrobatic maneuvers. After you successfully strike an opponent, you gain a +2 bonus on Tumble checks to avoid his attacks of opportunity until the start of your next turn. When you flip and roll out of harm's way, you use one hand to keep your balance and your other hand to keep your weapon trained on your foe.

Off-Hand Swap: With a flourish, you flip your weapon into the air, catch it in your off hand, and continue to press the attack. When you use this maneuver, you must first take a full attack action to strike an opponent at least twice. On your next turn, you can make a special feint as a free action, using Sleight of Hand rather than Bluff. Your opponent uses the standard rules for resisting a feint. Once you use this maneuver against a particular opponent, whether it succeeds or fails, you cannot use it against him again.

Special: A fighter can select Einhander as one of his fighter bonus feats.

Single Blade Style [General]

You wield a single weapon well.

Prerequisite: Combat Expertise, Weapon Focus, INT 13, base attack bonus +10

Benefit: When fighting with a weapon you have chosen for the Weapon Focus feat, wearing light armor or no armor, and with nothing in your off hand, you gain a +2 dodge bonus to your Armor Class.

Special: A fighter may select Single Blade Style as one of his fighter bonus feats.

[pabelfly]

So I've been reading this thread, and I've got to ask... what's a one hand, one weapon build look like, if we're not using a Tome of Battle class? No specific level, no specific class requirements, just one hand with one weapon and the other hand free. Preferably mundane, but if you can't make it work, a gish is fine too (and probably makes sense given we have a free hand to access a spell pouch). I just want to get an idea of how we'd be doing decent damage with such a build.

[Anthrowhale]

So I've been reading this thread, and I've got to ask... what's a one hand, one weapon build look like, if we're not using a Tome of Battle class? No specific level, no specific class requirements, just one hand with one weapon and the other hand free. Preferably mundane, but if you can't make it work, a gish is fine too (and probably makes sense given we have a free hand to access a spell pouch). I just want to get an idea of how we'd be doing decent damage with such a build.

Hengeyokai Sparrow Lightbringer Rogue 3/Hit&Run Exoticist 2
With Feats:
Flaw 1: Flyby Attack
Flaw 2: Great Flyby Attack
1: Craven
3. Combat Reflexes
Exoticist 1: EWP[Kusari-Gama]
Exoticist 1: Weapon Finesse
Exoticist 2: Improved Initiative

Initiative is 6+Dex and Hengeyokai Sparrow has +2 to Dex. Great Flyby Attack allows you to hit <dex> opponents. So, the general plan is to go first and do ~22 = 1d6+Str+Dex[Hit&Run]+2d6[Sneak Attack]+5[Craven]+1(enhance) damage to Dex bonus opponents and then follow up with Combat Reflex attacks. In later rounds, getting sneak attack is more difficult, but potentially viable via flanking. As soon as you can (level 9), it's helpful to pick up Double Team with another party member.

[Darg]

So I've been reading this thread, and I've got to ask... what's a one hand, one weapon build look like, if we're not using a Tome of Battle class? No specific level, no specific class requirements, just one hand with one weapon and the other hand free. Preferably mundane, but if you can't make it work, a gish is fine too (and probably makes sense given we have a free hand to access a spell pouch). I just want to get an idea of how we'd be doing decent damage with such a build.

Depends on what you think of as decent. Finesseable weapons in core are notoriously not quite great with charge builds so they rely more on other sources of damage like sneak attack. And you might not want to use TWF against a high AC opponent because it imposes a -2 to all your attacks. If your benchmark for good is Uber charger levels of damage, you're just out of luck.

If you aren't using dragon compendium (I don't), this is one of the situations where spring attack is actually worth it to give you easy access to flanking and therefore sneak attacks without exposing yourself.

[RNightstalker]

I am working on a build for a tiefling rogue 1/swordsage 4, and I've gone down a rabbit hole from trying to figure out how weapon finesse fits into any melee character's overall build.

I don't have much experience playing as a melee character in 3.5e, but my limited experiences does match what I see generally posted online which is using a sword and shield is weaker than other melee options,

Swordsage gets a Wisdom bonus to AC that functions like the Monk's ability of the same name except you can use light armor, so doing the sword and shield will make you lose that.

You can get the armor check penalty of a shield down to zero. A masterwork light shield or a darkwood heavy shield would be the usual options. For casters I like a mithral gauntlet shield (RoS). Don’t bother with proficiency. No armor check penalty means no drawback for nonproficiency.

You learn something new every day.

There are a few feats/abilities/tactics that favor fighting with one weapon while keeping a free hand.

Notably the Quick Draw/sleight of hand trick from Complete Warrior, the Einhander and Single Blade Style feats, or the Precise Strike for a Duelist.

Duelist is one prestige class depending on Weapon Finesse which, overall, clashes much with having a shield.

Admittedly, those techniques doesn't prevent still using Two-Weapon Fighting if you have Improved Unarmed Strike and punch with the free hand.

I have a build for a character relying on the above techniques, who is a Southpaw generally keeping her right hand free in a fight, but will use it sometime to quick-draw a dagger, plant it in the enemy, and let it go immediately so as to still benefit of her single-weapon style. (Because of this, most of her daggers have the fleshgrinding property.)

Bladesingers get a bonus when wielding only a longsword or rapier.

Builds that make lots of attacks against singular enemies (with efficiency stemming from trips/debuffs/bonus damage), like Whirlwind Attackers, Paimon Knights of the Sacred Seal, Great Flyby builds, AoO fishers, all those don't have that much to gain from TWF but can often make Weapon Finesse work.

Spring Attack builds might want to be dexterity-based, though spring attack is of course a tricky feat to optimize.

Whirlwind doesn't get alot of attacks against a singular enemy. There are feats to increase the number of attacks for AoO fishers and the number of attacks you can make during those or Spring Attack.

TY everyone for your responses, I'm glad to be wrong and appreciate the variety of suggestions. Couple things I'd like to respond to:

That's what I was assuming I would have to do, but I guess I just didn't realize what would make it good. Swordsage has enough maneuvers prepared that there probably won't be too many turns spent on just standard melee or full round attacks, not to mention the Adaptive Style feat. Sword & board still sounds kinda boring but the maneuvers probably will make up for it.

This just seems unavoidably inefficient - I'm having a hard time imagining a high STR build that relies on Weapon Finesse which couldn't be improved by lowering DEX and/or dropping Weapon Finesse. Though if a counterexample exists it'd probably be somewhere on this forum.

I imagine most DM's would rule that even an animated shield would negate the requirement of the Swordsage's (and Monk's) Wisdom to AC bonus. You could also save the build for a DM that runs a power campaign that will lead to higher stats.

The correlation tends to be the other way around. Some people who take Weapon Finesse will also take TWF. But basically everybody who takes TWF will take Weapon Finesse, because that feat tree requires very high Dex if you're not a Ranger. Also, frankly, I don't think finesse characters are generally pushed into TWF, because TWF kinda...sucks really hard? You get more attacks, in exchange for either an enormous penalty to-hit, or spending yet another of your precious feats. Every extra attack costs yet another feat, and you'll never get the penalty smaller than -2. As you climb in levels, your accuracy will fall even further behind because where most meleers only have to keep one weapon competitive, you'll have two that have to stay competitive.

Wielding a one-handed weapon is fine if your damage/effectiveness is mostly coming from something else (Sneak Attack, something that delivers a condition on any hit, etc), and it leaves a hand open for fetching scrolls, potions, wands, carrying a shield for extra defense, or even casting spells if you're built for that sort of thing. As others have mentioned, maneuvers barely care about what weapon you're wieldling, and some styles are far more suited to finesse characters than others.

There are a couple of ways to reduce the TWF penalty to 0: Tempest and Bloodclaw Master class features come to mind.

So I've been reading this thread, and I've got to ask... what's a one hand, one weapon build look like, if we're not using a Tome of Battle class? No specific level, no specific class requirements, just one hand with one weapon and the other hand free. Preferably mundane, but if you can't make it work, a gish is fine too (and probably makes sense given we have a free hand to access a spell pouch). I just want to get an idea of how we'd be doing decent damage with such a build.

The aforementioned duelist would follow that style and a Bladesinger (especially one off of a Duskblade build) would do quite well.

[Darg]

I imagine most DM's would rule that even an animated shield would negate the requirement of the Swordsage's (and Monk's) Wisdom to AC bonus. You could also save the build for a DM that runs a power campaign that will lead to higher stats.

I wouldn't. The animated special ability only forces you to still take penalties which is a defined term (negative modifier). On top of that, Monk's AC bonus mentions that you only lose the bonus if you carry the shield. The shield is floating and acting under it's own power; you aren't carrying it at all. Animated is a one and done action so even the "using a shield" limitation under their proficiencies doesn't work because the monk isn't using the shield anymore just like you wouldn't say that you are still using a single potion of mage armor a few hours into the effect. Not allowing the effect to work causes their AC to fall behind other characters.

[pabelfly]

Depends on what you think of as decent. Finesseable weapons in core are notoriously not quite great with charge builds so they rely more on other sources of damage like sneak attack. And you might not want to use TWF against a high AC opponent because it imposes a -2 to all your attacks. If your benchmark for good is Uber charger levels of damage, you're just out of luck.

If you aren't using dragon compendium (I don't), this is one of the situations where spring attack is actually worth it to give you easy access to flanking and therefore sneak attacks without exposing yourself.

Let's say that, for the purposes of this discussion, "decent damage" means you can generally take at least half the health of an opponent of the same CR in a turn.

[Darg]

Let's say that, for the purposes of this discussion, "decent damage" means you can generally take at least half the health of an opponent of the same CR in a turn.

Well, a 13th level wizard has a CR of 13. With 13 HD and lets say 14 con for the heck of it, that averages 60 HP. Vs a fighter with 16 Con that's 115 HP. A young adult dragon averages 214.

If we assume 13 levels of rogue with rapid shot and haste/speed weapon, that's 4 attacks with up to 32d6 + 4 damage from point blank shot (116 avg) with 2 feats and a spell. Obviously AC and other factors come into play, but the threshold you need to reach for different creatures is different. But there are other ways to increase the damage, like craven or dragonfire strike + energy vulnerability.

Another easy one is a less than optimized str monk with some flaming gauntlets. At 13 the monk could easily get a permancied +3 enhancement and have 20 str. Being enlarged brings fist damage to 3d6 with +8 from the enhancement and str. With flurry of blows, the flaming enhancement, haste, and snap kick that's 24d6 + 48 (132 avg).

It doesn't actually take that much to optimize full attacks to be huge chunks of health a lot of the time. It's honestly overkill. Take that dragon for example, if we optimized the starting stats of the monk to be 20 str, with +2 from levels and +4 from enhancement, you get +8 AB from str. Imbibe a heroism potion and join a flank, you get +23 to your attack roll. That dragon only has 26 AC without any help from the DM. You literally only fail on a 1 or 2. Your damage also got increased by 18 too.

[Anthrowhale]

Let's say that, for the purposes of this discussion, "decent damage" means you can generally take at least half the health of an opponent of the same CR in a turn.

Average stats seems relevant.

The big issue mundane types face is penetrating escalating AC (and secondarily DR) since iteratives are harsh on AC. The standard answer to that is Master Thrower 5. So, something like:

Strongheart Halfling Hit & Run Fighter 5/Master Thrower 5/Fighter 10

With feats:
Strongheart: Point Blank Shot // +1 to attack/+1 to damage within 30'
1. Weapon Focus[Dagger] // +1 to hit with daggers
Fighter 1: Deadeye // +dex (circumstance, precision) to damage within 30'
Fighter 2: Quickdraw //free action ready dagger
3. Rapid Shot // +1 attack @ -2 to attack
Fighter 4: Precise Shot // remove -4 to attack into melee
6. Weapon Specialization[Dagger] // +2 to damage with daggers
MT 1: Quickdraw // free action draw, again. If possible, retrain the previous Quickdraw as per PHB II.
MT 1 Ability: Palm Throw // throw 2 daggers at a time.
MT 3 Ability: Defensive Throw // concentration check to avoid AOOs on throw
9. Windup // Dragon #304, trade BAB for damage 1-for-1 with thrown weapons
MT 5 ability: Weak Spot // All attacks are touch attacks, lose Str to damage vs Small+ size opponents
MT 5: Improved Critical[Dagger]
Fighter 6: Improved Initiative
12. ??
Fighter 8: Ranged Weapon Mastery[Slashing] //+2 to damage, +2 to attack, +20' to range increments with slashing ranged weapons.
15. ??
Fighter 10: Greater Weapon Focus[Dagger] //+1 to attack with daggers
Fighter 12: Greater Weapon Specialization //+2 damage with daggers
18. ??
Fighter 14: ??

So, at level 20 your adjusted dexterity might be 36 with an intiative check of +19(=+13(dex)+2(Hit&run)+4(improved initiative)) and an adjusted attack roll of +19 (=+20(BAB)+1(PBS)+1(WF)+1(GWF)+2(RWM)+13(Dex)+1(en hance)+1 (size)+1(halfling)-20(Windup)-2(Rapid Shot)). You deal damage on hit of: 56~=(1d3+20(Windup)+13(Competence=Dex, Hit&Run vs. Flat-footed)+13(Dex, Dead Eye shot, precision)+1(PBS)+2(WS)+2(GWS)+2(RWM)+1(enhance)). Palm throw adds a second instance of damage except that Dead Eye damage is lost, so 43 damage. In total, that's 99/attack. This declines by 26 to 73 against opponents who are not flat-footed.

The attack routine is 18/18/13/8/3. The average touch AC at CR 20 is 9 and damage is doubled on a critical hit, so the expected damage is x5.6(=1.15+1.15+1.15+1.15+1) implying expected damage of 554 or 409 if the opponent is not flat-footed. We overshot the mark a bit which deals with damage reduction the hard way, or we could back off a bit on the damage sources and have a mixture of daggers to deal with a rainbow of damage reduction flavors.

Edit: I made a few tweaks to fix things and looked into intermediate numbers---this seems to be a viable 1-20 build damage-wise meeting the benchmark at all levels although at level 4 note that you need masterwork daggers.

[Saintheart]

15. ??
Fighter 12: Greater Weapon Specialization //+2 damage with daggers
18. ??
Fighter 14: ??

Level in Warblade + Ironheart Aura + Ranged Threat (Dragon 350) + Stormguard Warrior seems nice: threaten everything within 15 feet with your thrown daggers. As something comes charging in at you, pick up about another +8 to attack and damage to all attacks next round from foregoing the AoO Ranged Threat gives you.

[Anthrowhale]

FYI, I made a few tweaks to fix issues and so that the build meets the CR/2 benchmark at all levels.

Level in Warblade + Ironheart Aura + Ranged Threat (Dragon 350) + Stormguard Warrior seems nice: threaten everything within 15 feet with your thrown daggers. As something comes charging in at you, pick up about another +8 to attack and damage to all attacks next round from foregoing the AoO Ranged Threat gives you.

Since we're blowing past the damage benchmark at level 6+ it's not clear that more damage is actually meaningfully beneficial.