Help with making 2WF work. The age-old struggle.

[Its me Sidney]

So I'm a slave to style.

I'm pretty sure that is why people want to play 2WF characters in the first place, right?  Otherwise no one would put up with the headache of this feat hungry style of play.  Anyway, I love the idea of a flashy warrior dashing around the battlefield, cutting down foes in a flurry of slashes and ripostes.

I'm in love with Tome of Battle. I think that it has many answers to solving 2WF problems, with tons of damage output from standard action maneuvers that alleviate the need to constantly be standing still, making full attacks.  And as an added bonus, the moves are just cool as hell.

So, here it is.  Has anyone successfully made a 2WF build that is effective in combat but not crazy optimized. I want to avoid Fighter 2/Rogue1/4 Swashbuckler/Blah blah blah...   builds like the plague. 

2-3 Base classes, or 2 Base classes and 1 PrC.  I have put together one that seems like, at least on paper, would work. Which I will put up here soon, but for now I need YOUR help!

Things to keep in mind:
1. No more than +1 LA
2. No reliance on items (obviously I will obtain them later)
3. No cookie cutter builds
4. No more than 2 or 3 classes

Thanks for the input!!!

[Raineh Daze]

Only two things matter:

1) Offsetting penalties

2) Bonus damage to ALL attacks.

[ketaro]

I play TWFers a lot. It just tends to happen lol.

For a non-optimized build that works great as both a tank and a dps I've got a kickass dwarf named Axejack Jackfist. He's all about axes and bears.

Arctic Dwarf (UA alternate version has huger Con boost, a Str boost, but a massive Dex penalty at -6  )
Ranger 6 (TWF/Improved for free because I do not have dex on this build and the race has a kickass penalty to Dex)
Deepwarden 2 (For Con to AC)
Fighter 2 (For feats)
Barbarian 1 (For rage. I'm a STR focused TWFer and I get Con to AC. Hell yeah I'ma dip barbarian. Totem for bonus points)
Beastmaster 1 (Optional. I wanted more pet after I awakened my wolf, gave it Totemist levels (Incarnum) and wanted another bear when said wolf became my Leadership cohort)
Great Rift Skyguard for the rest (because jumping off the back of an airborne hippogriff and Pouncing from hundreds of feet in the air and then not taking any damage from the fall and screaming "AXES FROM ABOVE!!!!")

Most important feat in this was Oversized Two Weapon Fighting to run with TWFing Dwarven Waraxes cause 1d10s
But really, I imagine most TWFing builds get a lot better damage output if you pick up Oversized TWF. And Pounce is just bonus points on top. Any means to get TWF for free (I'd say at least Ranger 2 then toss Gloves of Balanced Hand for Improved for free without losing out on better class options from whatever else you're gonna throw into the build).

[Amechra]

Duel-wielding heavy picks is actually a pretty neat thing to do, if you're playing a TWF Ranger. Why?

One word: Stone Breaker. Stone Breaker lets you Rend an opponent as a Swift action on any round in which you hit someone with both of your picks in one round, dealing the pick's base damage plus 1-1/2 Str. Now, unlike Two-Weapon Rend, this feat:

a. Can be picked up as soon as you get its prereqs; considering that those prereqs are all feats you were going to be getting anyway (TWF, Power Attack, Improved Sunder..., as well as Weapon Focus in some sort of picks, which is trivial to pick up.)
b. The feat doesn't have the language from Two-Weapon Rend that limits the number of Rends you may make each round to 1.
c. It explicitly calls the rend an "attack"; thing is, a rend doesn't have an attack roll. In other words, you get a swift action auto-hit attack.

[ketaro]

Duel-wielding heavy picks is actually a pretty neat thing to do, if you're playing a TWF Ranger. Why?

One word: Stone Breaker. Stone Breaker lets you Rend an opponent as a Swift action on any round in which you hit someone with both of your picks in one round, dealing the pick's base damage plus 1-1/2 Str. Now, unlike Two-Weapon Rend, this feat:

a. Can be picked up as soon as you get its prereqs; considering that those prereqs are all feats you were going to be getting anyway (TWF, Power Attack, Improved Sunder..., as well as Weapon Focus in some sort of picks, which is trivial to pick up.)
b. The feat doesn't have the language from Two-Weapon Rend that limits the number of Rends you may make each round to 1.
c. It explicitly calls the rend an "attack"; thing is, a rend doesn't have an attack roll. In other words, you get a swift action auto-hit attack.

Mentioning Rend as being an autohit dmg isn't really a bonus over TWRend because that also is an autohit dmg.

TWRend stating you can't do the rend more than once per round isn't much different from Stone Breaker requiring a swift action to rend. It's not exactly easy to get more than one swift action a round altho I don't actually know of any way to get more than 1 swift action per round now that I think of it.

Stone Breaker has a huge list of prereqs which includes not only Weapon Focus but also Improved Sunder. Those two feats aren't exactly thought of as being much helpful in a general TWF build, no? Maybe Weapon Focus though because bonus to hit when you're getting all those TWF penalties, but still Improved Sunder is a loss here. The only real benefit of Stone Breaker over TWRend is that you can use one of your picks' base damage dice+1.5 STR instead of the static 1d6+1.5 STR of TWRend. But at the cost of 1 not helpful feat and 1 kind of helpful feat but could be spent on a more helpful feat probably and then Power Attack which probably won't be used as often until mid to late probably as you likely can't afford adding more penalties to hit early game on top of your TWF penalties.

Edit: How is being able to pick up the feat after you've met the prereqs also stated as a pro for Stone Breaker, btw? The Special note says a two weapon combat style Ranger can select the feat and ignore the Dex requirement but does not say they get it for free.

[Raineh Daze]

I thought TW Rend was an epic feat? >_>;

[ketaro]

I thought TW Rend was an epic feat? >_>;

It's in PHB2
It is also in the Epic book as an (I imagine) older version.

[Raineh Daze]

I thought TW Rend was an epic feat? >_>;

It's in PHB2
It is also in the Epic book as an (I imagine) older version.

I know the EHB far better than I know PHB2.

[xzyx]

If your DM is cool with pathfinder, you could try the Piranha Strike feat. It's not amazing, but goes a long way to increasing damage. Also, consult the X stat to Y bonus guide to see if you can hook up on anything that adds an ability to damage. Key in making TWF work is extra damage and offsetting penalties.

[Amechra]

Duel-wielding heavy picks is actually a pretty neat thing to do, if you're playing a TWF Ranger. Why?

One word: Stone Breaker. Stone Breaker lets you Rend an opponent as a Swift action on any round in which you hit someone with both of your picks in one round, dealing the pick's base damage plus 1-1/2 Str. Now, unlike Two-Weapon Rend, this feat:

a. Can be picked up as soon as you get its prereqs; considering that those prereqs are all feats you were going to be getting anyway (TWF, Power Attack, Improved Sunder..., as well as Weapon Focus in some sort of picks, which is trivial to pick up.)
b. The feat doesn't have the language from Two-Weapon Rend that limits the number of Rends you may make each round to 1.
c. It explicitly calls the rend an "attack"; thing is, a rend doesn't have an attack roll. In other words, you get a swift action auto-hit attack.

Mentioning Rend as being an autohit dmg isn't really a bonus over TWRend because that also is an autohit dmg.

TWRend stating you can't do the rend more than once per round isn't much different from Stone Breaker requiring a swift action to rend. It's not exactly easy to get more than one swift action a round altho I don't actually know of any way to get more than 1 swift action per round now that I think of it.

Stone Breaker has a huge list of prereqs which includes not only Weapon Focus but also Improved Sunder. Those two feats aren't exactly thought of as being much helpful in a general TWF build, no? Maybe Weapon Focus though because bonus to hit when you're getting all those TWF penalties, but still Improved Sunder is a loss here. The only real benefit of Stone Breaker over TWRend is that you can use one of your picks' base damage dice+1.5 STR instead of the static 1d6+1.5 STR of TWRend. But at the cost of 1 not helpful feat and 1 kind of helpful feat but could be spent on a more helpful feat probably and then Power Attack which probably won't be used as often until mid to late probably as you likely can't afford adding more penalties to hit early game on top of your TWF penalties.

Edit: How is being able to pick up the feat after you've met the prereqs also stated as a pro for Stone Breaker, btw? The Special note says a two weapon combat style Ranger can select the feat and ignore the Dex requirement but does not say they get it for free.

Whoops; should've mentioned that I was thinking of a TWF Charger w/ Combat Brute. Yeah, otherwise...

[ketaro]

Heh, yeah, that helps

[kitep]

I was looking through TOB, and I bet the Bloodclaw Master PRC (TOB, p96) would help a lot.
 

[Amechra]

If you dip Monk, then Flying Tiger is great; you have a choice of TWF with 1d8 base damage weapons, or linking them so you can dual wield a pair of 1d6 reach weapons that threaten adjacent to you.

And its a Monk weapon, so Flurry of Blows/Decisive Strike works with it.

[Hades]

Another thing from Tome of Battle: shadow blade feat.

Full Dex bonus on damage. And unlike swashuckler or CoC abilities, creatures immune to critical hits, sneak attacks, etc are NOT immune to the bonus damage of Shadow Blade.

Another thing is the multiclass "warblade/revenant blade". Tiger claw discipline + TWF treating both ends of the Valenar double scimitar as two-handed weapons. Basically, all the joy of TWF and 2-handed weapon at once. And since we're talking about Valenar double scimitar, with a prc that can give us free Improved Critical, even the "crit fisher" aspect that's so nice with blood in the water is here.

[Its me Sidney]

Another thing is the multiclass "warblade/revenant blade". Tiger claw discipline + TWF treating both ends of the Valenar double scimitar as two-handed weapons. Basically, all the joy of TWF and 2-handed weapon at once. And since we're talking about Valenar double scimitar, with a prc that can give us free Improved Critical, even the "crit fisher" aspect that's so nice with blood in the water is here.

Ooooh, I really like that PrC.  The flavor is awesome, not to mention 1 (3 at lvl 5) free feats that you can change! 

The question then becomes: Do I take ranger levels (gross) or Warblade levels?  Or both?

[Amechra]

Depends on whether or not you have access to Dragon Magazine; Mystic Rangers get a sizable bonus to their spellcasting.

If not, Warblade all the way.

[Its me Sidney]

I need to read up on 2W Rend.  Could that be used in a Warblade/Revenant Blade build?

I play TWFers a lot. It just tends to happen lol.

For a non-optimized build that works great as both a tank and a dps I've got a kickass dwarf named Axejack Jackfist. He's all about axes and bears.

Arctic Dwarf (UA alternate version has huger Con boost, a Str boost, but a massive Dex penalty at -6  )
Ranger 6 (TWF/Improved for free because I do not have dex on this build and the race has a kickass penalty to Dex)
Deepwarden 2 (For Con to AC)
Fighter 2 (For feats)
Barbarian 1 (For rage. I'm a STR focused TWFer and I get Con to AC. Hell yeah I'ma dip barbarian. Totem for bonus points)
Beastmaster 1 (Optional. I wanted more pet after I awakened my wolf, gave it Totemist levels (Incarnum) and wanted another bear when said wolf became my Leadership cohort)
Great Rift Skyguard for the rest (because jumping off the back of an airborne hippogriff and Pouncing from hundreds of feet in the air and then not taking any damage from the fall and screaming "AXES FROM ABOVE!!!!")

Most important feat in this was Oversized Two Weapon Fighting to run with TWFing Dwarven Waraxes cause 1d10s
But really, I imagine most TWFing builds get a lot better damage output if you pick up Oversized TWF. And Pounce is just bonus points on top. Any means to get TWF for free (I'd say at least Ranger 2 then toss Gloves of Balanced Hand for Improved for free without losing out on better class options from whatever else you're gonna throw into the build).

Haha I like that idea. Too many classes for me, but cool none-the-less.

If your DM is cool with pathfinder, you could try the Piranha Strike feat. It's not amazing, but goes a long way to increasing damage. Also, consult the X stat to Y bonus guide to see if you can hook up on anything that adds an ability to damage. Key in making TWF work is extra damage and offsetting penalties.

No Pathfinder 8(

[Its me Sidney]

I'm fairly certain we are allowed to use dragmag. But the addition of 0 and 5th lvl spells isn't enticing enough for me to go ranger, I just love having an animal companion.  But alas, Warblade is just way cooler and more effective.

So I would need to offset penalties and make sure to have bonus damage.  I don't think manuevers/stances would be enough, or would they?  I might need to dip into rogue, but then the problem of losing BAB raises it's ugly head.

[Its me Sidney]

Some options come up off the top of my head:

Warblade up to 5, then Revenant Blade for 6, 7, and 8.  Dipping into Swordsage at 9 and 10 to get Assassin's Stance.  I would need 2 levels to get the pre-req for the stance.

-or maybe-

Warblade up to 5, then Revenant Blade.  Taking Martial Study for a shadow hand manuever, then Martial Stance to grab Assassins Stance.  But thats 2 feats for 1 stance, which is needed for the build, but still... I'm feat starved already.

[Keldar]

Revenant Blade won't work with Shadow Blade, they use different weapons.  But since Revenant Blade 5 lets you abuse power attack as a dual wielder, you'd be pretty good on bonus damage.

Its worth mentioning, Mystic Ranger gets spells almost as fast as a Sorcerer.  (Till 10th anyway.) And Revenant Blade improves your Ranger caster level (and Animal Companion for what little its worth, but not spells per day).  Going this route has the advantage of eliminating the need for a high Dexterity.  Mystic Ranger 5 into Revenant Blade 5, back to Mystic Ranger til 12th (for Greater TWF), then finish out with 3 of anything like Exotic Weapon Master or Tempest.


If you want to use Shadow Blade, then Diaposid from Dragon Compendium is neat at LA 1, it lets you dual wield two handers.  In this case Spiked Chains.  And you wouldn't even need good Dexterity for the TWF chain thanks to a racial ability, and could just stay a single classed Warblade (or dip Swordsage as usual).  Of course, you'd be a giant glowing bug, but you'd be a giant glowing bug swinging around a pair of spiked chains 'o doom.