Parry skill

[God_of_Awesome]

I took a crack at it but I don't have a great track record for success and I'm okay with that. However, it shows how I feel a THF should be about status affects, not damage output.

[Red_Rob]

I think that the argument is not that the guy who spends nothing is outclassed by the guy that has invested resources, it is that the guy who invested nothing has nothing comparable to invest in.
If you want to be a THF guy in Tome, you just get outclassed by the guy that is TWF. He can give more status effects by hitting more people, he can deal more damage by attacking more times, he has more AoOs, and everything just gives more benefits to him. So if you want to do damage, you TWF; if you want to inflict status effects, you TWF; if you want to do battlefield control, you TWF. The only reason not to TWF is if you cannot afford it. So THF is literally the poor kid's style.

This is pretty much my entire argument, and has been from the beginning. Saying that TWF costs a Feat and a slot is kind of disingenuous. I would say that TWF gives you the opportunity to trade a Feat and a Slot for a vertical power increase in the form of more attacks. Now, pretty much every character wants as much vertical power as possible, so for any serious Melee combatant who wants to spend their Feats and slots on increased Melee potential TWF is the best choice.

What i have been saying is that if you give other fighting styles the opportunity to spend a similar amount of resources for similar but different benefits you will see more viable builds than "Guy with two swords again".

Getting a second weapon is not as hard as Frank makes out. Because of Magic Item costs, you can get two +2 swords for the cost of one +3 sword, and we all know 2 attacks at +2 beats one attack at +3. The fact you get to double all your other bonuses this way pushes it over the edge. Frank also puts forward the slot cost as a factor, but a second weapon isn't pushing out your second best item. It's pushing out your seventh best item. And I would wager that anyone who engages in melee combat would be hard pressed to find a better use for that seventh slot than doubling their attacks.

Could you just do a monk reskin like GoA did to get his Paladin?

I'm thinking this could be the best way to go here. The Monk already has the whole "no armour" thing, is a melee specialist and does something other than just churn out damage, which Frank is quite right in saying is the TWFer's "thing". Most of the flavour fits too - The Wis focussed powers represents a Barbarians reliance on instinct rather than intelligence, Spell resistance is his innate savagery countering the wiles of spellcasters, whilst the Fighting styles represent his awesome weapon skill. Some of the abilities might need re-thinking (leaping 50' in the air doesn't really fit), but currently the biggest hurdle is that if you choose to be a weapon wielding Monk its still better to pick up TWF as soon as possible to double all your "effect on hit" powers rather than use anything else.

[Username17]

I think that the argument is not that the guy who spends nothing is outclassed by the guy that has invested resources, it is that the guy who invested nothing has nothing comparable to invest in.
If you want to be a THF guy in Tome, you just get outclassed by the guy that is TWF. He can give more status effects by hitting more people, he can deal more damage by attacking more times, he has more AoOs, and everything just gives more benefits to him. So if you want to do damage, you TWF; if you want to inflict status effects, you TWF; if you want to do battlefield control, you TWF. The only reason not to TWF is if you cannot afford it. So THF is literally the poor kid's style.

Or am I just wrong?

I have seen no actual evidence that this is the case.

THF is an upgrade to a one handed weapon that provides additional damage and costs nothing. So on the one hand, it's pretty obviously pretty compelling when you are just starting out and you don't have resources to spend on other stuff, but it also is pretty compelling when you're filthy rich and have other things you want to do. The other fighting styles cost at least your extra hand slot and one of your item slots. They may cost feats as well. Item slots can do amazing things. Belts of super strength, boots of super speed, helmets of super vision, and so on and so forth. Hand slots can be committed to spellcasting without using up any magic item slots at all. So a guy who spams wraithstrike can get the bonus from THF and still have gauntlets that provide various awesome defenses on top of that.

THF pays off in a lot of instances:

• On-hit effects are not always positive. Some enemies have DR or Fireshields. Or both. And against such enemies, doing more damage per hit with less total hits is a raw advantage even if the base damage on the less hits adds up to substantially less than the base damage on the more hits option.
• Sometimes you are afforded a singular bonus attack, such as from an Attack of Opportunity or snake strike. And in those instances, getting a bonus per attack (such as the THF bonus) matters and a bonus to your number of attacks (such as from TWF) does not.
• Sometimes you have totally awesome rings or pants available, and using one big weapon is totally sweet.
• Sometimes you're a spellcaster, so anything that uses up your offhand is a priori worthless. So the damage bonus from THF is free money from the sky.
• Sometimes you have limited uses (either per day or per round) on a damage multiplier (such as free crits or spirited charges). In these cases having any kind of per-hit bonus (such as the THF bonus) is going to get multiplied and thus be disproportionately awesome.

But the big thing is that we've been over these. We've been over them a lot. And the people whining about THF still do not actually engage with any of these facts when they are talking about how THF is underpowered. Even though these have been brought to their attention repeatedly. Because they are not honest. They are not making a balance argument. They are whining for more power for their own characters. They are arguing against balance on the grounds that someone else has spent resources on being good at something in a particular situation, and they want their character to be just as good at that thing in that situation without having spent anything.

-Username17

[Red_Rob]

And I also have another proposal. Two-handed weapons take up two slots. They are held in two hands, ergo, two slots.

That has a bunch of problems right off the bat. If you want to try and work around them or solve them then go for it, just be cognizant of the issues. First off, if it takes two slots it has to be twice as good and twice as expensive. Honestly, that's really awful thing to do, so I would recommend against it.

You just described the existing paradigm for Two Weapon Fighting.

[virgil]

[*] Sometimes you are afforded a singular bonus attack, such as from an Attack of Opportunity or snake strike. And in those instances, getting a bonus per attack (such as the THF bonus) matters and a bonus to your number of attacks (such as from TWF) does not.

They way you designed RoW makes that particular advantage nonexistant for THF, because any additional attacks automatically include the off-hand weapon. And you can still use a 2H weapon and armor spikes in order to retain a free hand.

And it does look like at worst the goalpost was moved to be that Tome doesn't offer any resources to spend to allow THF to be competitive; so it's not a matter of wanting power for nothing, but wanting the ability to spend resources to equal TWF. This is all assuming a noncaster, of course.

[Jilocasin]

And I also have another proposal. Two-handed weapons take up two slots. They are held in two hands, ergo, two slots.

That has a bunch of problems right off the bat. If you want to try and work around them or solve them then go for it, just be cognizant of the issues. First off, if it takes two slots it has to be twice as good and twice as expensive. Honestly, that's really awful thing to do, so I would recommend against it.

You just described the existing paradigm for Two Weapon Fighting.

Except that two-handed weapons are a single item and automatically requiring that they be twice whatever is not a change that works out very well.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Nice straw mans, Frank. You're too busy read posts, so I'll simplify:

1) Rogue wears
[*] boots of speed
[*] cloak of displacement
[*] second magic weapon
[*] armor (maybe magic)
[*] three other magic items

2) Some people want to play this:


That is all.

[God_of_Awesome]

Mmmm, burly muscley shiny man.

No! Bad GOA! You're a heterosexual!

Maybe!

This is your waifu!:

This!

Mmmm, burly muscley shiney woman.

Yes...

[angelfromanotherpin]

2) Some people want to play this:

Two simple solutions exist:
1) Houserule in Bracers of Armor. Or Fur Loincloth of Armor, whatever.
2) Realize that Conan actually wore armor whenever it was practical, and that most art of him is just fan service.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Two simple solutions exist:
1) Houserule in Bracers of Armor. Or Fur Loincloth of Armor, whatever.

That's a great option. Frank mentioned it after a fashion (as a real option in 1e and 2e). You're right; it's probably the best spot fix.

2) Realize that Conan actually wore armor whenever it was practical, and that most art of him is just fan service.

I call bullshit. Conan the Destroyer did not wear armor once in the movie. The closest he got was pants and a vest.

[Leress]

Maybe you should read the books then, Catharz, since there were more of them than movies.

[Username17]

People don't wear face covering helmets in movies because they can't act. Like, not even in space.

-Username17

[CatharzGodfoot]

Maybe you should read the books then, Catharz, since there were more of them than movies.

I don't give a shit about the book Conan. Didn't I make that clear?

[Username17]

Maybe you should read the books then, Catharz, since there were more of them than movies.

I don't give a shit about the book Conan. Didn't I make that clear?

Yes you did. You also made it clear that you have not in fact done a coherent balance analysis about what you're even asking for. If you aren't going to bother to fill out a magic item roster before checking to see what you can get by pulling something off and adding something else in instead, then your statements about what is and is not a balance concern are at best hopelessly uninformed.

But if you really want to play a two handed fighter with no pants, I suggest going Samurai Ronin and then running around with leaping Banzai charges that auto-crit. You'll be insta-gibbing things right and left and setting your AC to negative five regardless, so not wearing pants will not be a sacrifice. Further, I submit that this is so fucking obvious that it was dismissively suggested by ROY several pages ago.

Fucking hell, what is wrong with you great sword fetishizers? The bottom line is: if you're too fucking lazy to write down 8 magic items, and then write down 8 magic items where one or more of them has been replaced with a different one - then you are not competent to talk about balance or to write new material to interact with balance issues in a positive manner. And the more you keep pressing he point, the more I will tell you to go fuck yourself. THF fetishizers are pathetic and insulting, and I will insult them because their methodologies are so offensive.

-Username17

[CatharzGodfoot]

Frank, a character who wants to cut down on her magic item count doesn't forgo armor. She forgoes magic armor.

[Judging__Eagle]

Fair enough, but I feel that your argument is a tad disingenuous. After all, a rogue will be wearing boots of speed, a cloak of displacement and wielding a second weapon (and possibly wearing magical armor as well).

An arcane spell caster is likely to be wearing light or no armor, carrying a two-handed weapon, and kicking ass--but an arcane spell caster is probably the last thing that someone who wants to play this is looking for.

Actually....

I'll be honest, I have no respect for people that can't re-skin things to make them perform the way they want to in their game.

Movie Conan in D&D is a wizard that casts stuff like Stoneskin, Blur and Displacement; and stuff like "Rawr, beeg str-boosts".

Book Conan is a sheild and sword Fighter/Barbarian.

It's not about "class", it's about results.

I always ask what the player wants their character to do, not what class do you want to play. Because frankly, people have no idea what a class can do most of the time. However, they know what they want to do with their characters.

If you want to play a non-shitty soulknife, you play a Ranger. Not a soulknife

If you want your character to be a Shadowrun Street Samurai, you just reskin all of your magic items, or make them grafts. Seriously, easy fix.

If you want to play D&D Warhammer 40k; you use Koumei's work. Partly b/c it's awesome, partly b/c it's a big fuck you to the shitty attempts to play a 40k game in a P&P format.

That's all that there is to it. Results focused gaming is what people should play, not "what I want is what I want" focused gaming; because what you want already exists. If you just don't want to use it, then you need to rethink what you want.

[CatharzGodfoot]

It might be about results, but the Conan I'm talking about distrusts magic users, and should not be completely debuffed for the day by dispel magic.

Hence the Goddamn Barbarian.

[virgil]

Are you seriously making your character role decisions based off of what Frank describes as fanservice pictures? Howard's Conan most definitely wore armor, has on occasion dual-wielded, cast spells, moved stealthily, knew an inordinate number of languages, and the only distrust he had towards magic users was believing their inflated ego boasts; because most muggles assumed the wizard was invulnerable, where Conan more accurately knew that they weren't and would ambush the fvck out of them if they had insta-kill powers.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Are you seriously making your character role decisions based off of what Frank describes as fanservice pictures?

You're goddamn right I am.

[Red_Rob]

But the big thing is that we've been over these. We've been over them a lot. And the people whining about THF still do not actually engage with any of these facts when they are talking about how THF is underpowered.

Okay then, since Frank has repeatedly stated we have not examined these points lets go through them.

On-hit effects are not always positive. Some enemies have DR or Fireshields. Or both. And against such enemies, doing more damage per hit with less total hits is a raw advantage even if the base damage on the less hits adds up to substantially less than the base damage on the more hits option.

DR is common, Fireshields are not. So, lets see, most monsters have a DR of either 5 or 10. Lets take a Bone Devil with DR10. This is a CR9 foe so we'll have a level 9 character take one on, firstly with 2 weapons and then with one two-handed weapon. We'll assume full BaB and 3 Feats, magic weapons and armour, scaling Str booster and boots of Haste along with some defensive items.

2 Weapons: I'll make these a Medium and a Lesser item as per Book of Gears, so we'll have a Lifestealing Bastard Sword +3 and a Bastard Sword + 3 of Shock. Feats are TWF, Blitz and Combat School. Str is 18 + 3 (item) +2(levels). To hit bonus is +9 BaB, +6 (Str) +3(Weapon) +2(combat School) +1(Haste) for a +21/+21/+21/+19/+19 attack routine. Damage is D10 + 6(Str) +2(Combat School) +9 (Blitz) +3(Weapon) +D6 (Shock) on the second sword for an average damage of 25.5 Primary and 29 Secondary.

The Bone Devil is AC25 so we are hitting on a 4 with our primary attacks. If we Power Attack for +4 damage on our primary attacks we are hitting on a 6+ for a 75% hit rate. So, our average damage over the round is (25.5+4-10)*.75 on Primary and (29-10)*.75 on secondary, for a 14.5/14.5/14.5/14/14 damage spread, or total average damage of 71.5, plus a save vs. Daze and Level loss.

Now, I'm a little hazy on criticals but I'll guess that as 10% of attacks are critical threat, 75% of these hit and additional damage for a x2 weapon is equal to base damage, that the math would be .75*.1*damage? That adds 1.6 average damage per hit (after DR) for +8 average damage from criticals.

Now, a 2 Handed Weapon user, with a LifeStealing Greatsword +3. Feats are Blitz, Combat School and Insightful Strike. To hit bonus is +9 BaB, +6 (Str) +3(Weapon) +2(combat School) +1(Haste) for a +21/+21/+19 attack routine. Damage is 2D6 + 6(Str) +2(Combat School) +9 (Blitz) +3(Weapon) for an average damage of 27.

The Bone Devil is AC25 so we are hitting on a 4 with our primary attacks. If we Power Attack for +4 damage on our primary attacks we are hitting on a 6+ for a 75% hit rate. So, our average damage over the round is (27+4-10)*.75 on Primary and (27-10)*.75 on secondary, for a 16/16/13 damage spread, or total average damage of 45, plus a save vs. Daze and Level loss.

Criticals with Insightful Strike would be 20% of attacks, so .75*.2*dam? Thats 3.5 dam from Primary and 2.8 from Secondary. Thats an extra 10 points average.

So, the average damage would seem to be 79.5 for a Two Weapon guy, versus 55 for a Two Handed Fighter. Now, I expect I went wrong somewhere with the Math or my choices but it seems to confirm my expectation that more attacks is better against the kind of DR you are likely to be facing. I made the assumption here that Blitz only provokes one AoO for attacking, not one per attack, which would reduce its effectiveness for TWFers but also make it useless at higher levels. If anything here is screwy please let me know, I was a little unsure of some aspects.

So, we are left with Fireshield style "you hit me I hurt you" powers that a Greatsword is better against. That is a very specific type of enemy, and this relegates Two-Handers to being like Silver Weapons - used against one type of opponent and then put away until next time.

Sometimes you are afforded a singular bonus attack, such as from an Attack of Opportunity or snake strike. And in those instances, getting a bonus per attack (such as the THF bonus) matters and a bonus to your number of attacks (such as from TWF) does not.

If you're going with attacks of opportunity you want a Reach Weapon, not a 2-handed Axe or Sword, otherwise you won't have enough reach to provoke AoO before you are engaged. Snake Strike I am unaware of, unless you mean the Knight of Cydonia ability, which is a bit obscure. Singular bonus attacks just don't seem to happen often enough to make it worth crippling all your other attacks by not taking TWF. If there is some kind of 1 attack build that pwns with a 2 handed axe, by all means let me know.

Sometimes you have totally awesome rings or pants available, and using one big weapon is totally sweet.

Melee Warriors want to be better in Melee. That's what they do. They will naturally take items and powers that increase their Melee ability over other things. If there was a ring that increased your attacks you can be damn sure every warrior would get one. TWF is currently the most cost effective way you can choose to devote more of your slots to increased melee potential. I would ask anyone who says that the slot cost is a big deterrent to using TWF to come up with 7 items they would rather have for a Melee Warrior than an extra weapon and the bonuses it provides.

In addition, not every slot will be filled for some time. Thus, during the early part of the game - the very time that Frank states a Two-Hander is a good deal - the so-called biggest disadvantage of TWF isn't an issue.

Sometimes you're a spellcaster, so anything that uses up your offhand is a priori worthless. So the damage bonus from THF is free money from the sky.

We know that drawing a weapon is a free action with a rank in Sleight of Hand, so Gish can TWF without too much hassle. Sheathe one weapon as part of a move action, cast and draw again. If quickened or swift spells are important to you, Combat Looting will let you sheathe for free aswell, but I will accept that 2 feats to use TWF is a pretty hefty investment. I'd still argue its worth it for a Melee Gish though. Now, it is a fair point that mages can more easily use Two Handers than other styles, but its more an argument for making sure any bonuses you give reward Warriors more than Spellcasters than saying its balanced as a weapon choice.

Sometimes you have limited uses (either per day or per round) on a damage multiplier (such as free crits or spirited charges). In these cases having any kind of per-hit bonus (such as the THF bonus) is going to get multiplied and thus be disproportionately awesome.

Whilst a damage multiplier is better with a higher damage die, TWF gets a damage bonus all the time due to having more attacks. The damage multiplier has to contribute more damage than the second attack to make it worth while. Lets look at the samurai Kiai power, for example, used by my example THF above. Using 2 heavy picks a Kiai attack deals (D6+20)*4 +(D6+20) for 118 dam, whilst a War Scythe deals (2D6+20)*4 for 108 damage. A Two Weapon fighter also has the option of burning more of their limited use effects in a single round to take down a dangerous foe, which a THF cannot do. Frank also seems to be making the argument here that THF can compete with TWF on raw damage, something he previously discounted.

I'm not asking for a Two Hander to be some kind of God Weapon, but currently I can't see a situation where they have any kind of advantage. The only argument seems to be that you don't have to invest anything in them, but any Melee focussed build currently has to make the investment in TWF or fall behind.

[Kaelik]

Red Rob:

Blitz only provokes one AoO anyway, since Bone Devils (like 90% of monsters) don't have Combat Reflexes anyway. Now, probably Tome wise, he would get a whole second AoO, but whatever.

[Utterfail]

According to Frank (and rightly so) Two Weapon Fighting with the Two Weapon Fighting feat makes you better than Big Weapon Fighting because you've expended less character resources.

The same thing applies to Two Weapon Fighting without the Two Weapon Fighting feat.

Two weapons taking up two slots truly doesn't matter, even though you have limited magic item slots (8) in reality all of your item slots are geared towards stabbing fools in one way or another.

The real problem is that there is currently no way to expend limited resources to specifically increase the Big Weapon Fighting style.

The solution to this problem (which it barely is) is to make a Big Weapon Fighting feat (also, make sure it sucks for casters) so that both the Two Weapon fighter and the Big Weapon fighter have the same chance to expend feats on their style. Just go out and make feat and it'll all be ok. In fact, I'll try and help.

Reposted from another thread hardly anyone looked at:

Two-Handed Figthing [Combat]
"You honestly thought you could just walk up to me while I was holding this?
+0:Bigger is Better - You get a +3 bonus to trip and disarm attempts while wielding a two-handed weapon.
+1:Follow Through - While wielding a two-handed weapon, you may make an extra attack action on any opponent you successfully bullrush or trip.
+6:Lunge - While wielding a two handed you may make an attack at up to double your normal reach as an immediate action. Doing this counts as an attack of opportunity.
+11:None Shall Pass - Any creature you strike with an attack of opportunity with a two-handed weapon must make a fortitude save (DC 10+ 1/2 level + your Strength bonus) or be considered checked* until their next turn.
+16:Much Better - While weilding a two handed weapon your reach is doubled, you may still strike adjacent opponents.

[*]Checked is a mostly unused condition, it means they're prevented from forward movement. I'd never seen any ability use the 'checked' condition. Figured it needed some love.

It makes you trip and disarm better (fuck you status effects), lets you deal a bit of damage to people you fuck up, lets you fuck people up on their own turn without them being able to retaliate much, prevents people from fucking up your friends, and then lastly helps you fuck people up from that much further away. And, most importantly, gives you options without massively increasing vertical power.

Note that disarms and trips are attack actions.

On Unarmored Oily Men: The trope exists, and it's popular. This trope is best supported by a new class if you don't think the existing ones cover it.

On Parrying: FFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

[Judging__Eagle]

I'm pretty sure that Blitz provokes an AoO every time you use it's effect for each attack.

It's how I've always played it myself. The end result being that most Barbarians I play stack Constitution, over Strength. Since they just need to be able to hit; and Str adds not much to damage.


In any case, really it comes down to this:

Frank,

If someone wanted to set a feat on fire to be "better with beeg swordz"; what would that feat look like?



I tend to see it as a 'reach' and 'extra AoOs on people walking past you', or 'people trying to attack you' type of feat; since that's usually what longer weapons allow over shorter ones.

I could also see a case for Knife Fighter to be a feat; that gives you the edge on people with larger weapons than your own, and lets you use a Katar to turn a Halbeard user's lungs into feta cheese. As you once described so succinctly.


[Size] Weapon User

You use weapons of a particularly unusual size. Either 'large' weapons, or light weapons.

+0 You have the edge when you face enemies who use weapons not like your own. This does not apply to creatures with natural weapons.

+1 You can use your weapons in a grapple if light; you can AoO enemies who attempt to grapple you, even if they are Juggernauts [large and small weapons]. Your weapons grant you an additional +5 of reach if 'large'.

+6 Something level six appropriate, you can make critical hits on targets immune to Critical Hits.

+11 Who knows?

+16 You turn your enemies lungs to Feta cheese, when an appropriate event occurs. I don't really care

[Utterfail]

A "Light weapon feat" is a bad idea if you want to put the two weapon fighter and the big weapon fighter on par in terms of ability to spend feats on their chosen schtick, light weapon fighting is just something a TWF guy would pick up too. Besides, TWF is the knife fighter feat.

Light weapons already have the distinction of being able to be used in a grapple, so optimally a good "knife fighting" feat would be one that enhances grappling ability. You run up, grapple 'em, trip 'em, and start stabbing.

[Username17]

Two weapons taking up two slots truly doesn't matter, even though you have limited magic item slots (8) in reality all of your item slots are geared towards stabbing fools in one way or another.

This is complete bullshit. First of all, a good deal of magic item slots go into "not getting stabbed." But secondly, you don't always have 8 magic items, and you pretty much never have 8 magic items of the same tier.

When you have 1 magic item and the THF guy has a magic sword and the TWF guy has a magic sword, it doesn't go well for the TWF guy. But when you have 2 magic items spent on attacking and the TWF guy has two swords and the THF guy has a sword and a belt of strength that stacks with that sword, it still doesn't go well for the TWF guy. And when you only have one Medium Magic Item spent on attacking, and when you only have one Major Magic Item spent on attacking, and when you only have one Artifact spent on attacking.... the guy with a two handed sword is always ahead of the game at every single level of play. Unless the TWF guy is getting a large per-attack damage boost.

So, Rogues excel at TWF, and it's seriously not worth it for other people. And every time people hand wave spending an extra magic item on the style as a pittance, it makes my blood boil. Because that's not good analysis.

The real problem is that there is currently no way to expend limited resources to specifically increase the Big Weapon Fighting style.

Big Weapon Fighting has more than plenty of support. Try actually fucking using it, before lecturing the world that your powers aren't over nine thousand.

-Username17