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

[Gazzien]

Seconding Staggering Strike and Craven.

Knowledge Devotion is good, too. If anyone read my stub, they would know Teleportron the Second gets most of his damage from Full Channeling spells (which may actually lead to multiple spells on each hit).

Isn't there already a Nightcrawler build with telflammar shadowlord? I don't remember where, but iirc they already made it.

Shadowlord's prereqs require at lest 2 more levels, which means you get Shadow Pounce soon with Shadow Marauder.

If you can find somewhere to get the feats, you could theoretically get them both.

So, you know... two full attacks each time.

[Unbeliever]

Isn't Duskblade only 1 spell per target per full attack?  Meaning you Vampiric Touch a single target only once on a full attack, for instance.

That's also a really late-game trick, you need 13 levels of Duskblade alone to get the full attack off, and that's before laying on Shadow Pouncing.

[Snowbluff]

Isn't Duskblade only 1 spell per target per full attack?  Meaning you Vampiric Touch a single target only once on a full attack, for instance.

Targets aren't targets for spells after they hit, they are subjects.

Each attack is targeted seperately, anyway.

It is a crazy late-game build, though. There is no denying that.

[SorO_Lost]

So, what's the easiest way, that is the cheapest in terms of character resources, to pump the damage?

Bands of Blood Rage are super cheap, 2~3/day you can enter a "blood rage", +5 moral to damage  but you lose 5hp/rnd. Quite worth it normally, TWF & multiple Full-Attacks just make it all that much better.

Cave of Gems is a magical location that bestows Frost, Shock, and Flaming for 6,000gp. Their normal all together +3 price doesn't even start that low and due to the nature of scaling, can save you 102k.

[Unbeliever]

I have no idea where I got that each spell only targets a single target idea.     It doesn't seem like the sort of thing I would make up, since I can't imagine caring.  If anything it's more along the lines of the Sage ...   I'll assume it was some fever dream until someone tells me otherwise, which is nice since it makes the class more exciting.

And, the Cave of Gems is really handy in this kind of build, at least until Energy Resistance comes online and becomes standard issue.

[SolEiji]

Cave of Gems is a magical location that bestows Frost, Shock, and Flaming for 6,000gp. Their normal all together +3 price doesn't even start that low and due to the nature of scaling, can save you 102k.

I'mnot familiar with that one, where is Cave of Gems from?

[Hades]

Seconding Staggering Strike and Craven.

Knowledge Devotion is good, too. If anyone read my stub, they would know Teleportron the Second gets most of his damage from Full Channeling spells (which may actually lead to multiple spells on each hit).

Isn't there already a Nightcrawler build with telflammar shadowlord? I don't remember where, but iirc they already made it.

Shadowlord's prereqs require at lest 2 more levels, which means you get Shadow Pounce soon with Shadow Marauder.

If you can find somewhere to get the feats, you could theoretically get them both.

So, you know... two full attacks each time.

Iirc another way to (ab)use shadow pounce is with shadow hand maneuvers: theoretically, in a round you can use shadow jaunt (standard action), shadow stride (move action) and shadow blink (swift action), and have 3 full attacks per round. And swordsage is already "2wf friendly", thanks to shadow blade feat, so those attacks deal worthy damage.

[kitep]

I have no idea where I got that each spell only targets a single target idea.     It doesn't seem like the sort of thing I would make up, since I can't imagine caring.  If anything it's more along the lines of the Sage ...   I'll assume it was some fever dream until someone tells me otherwise, which is nice since it makes the class more exciting.

It was probably from one of the threads where me and NunoM talked about the duskblades we were playing.  We got it from the FAQ

    At 13th level, the duskblade’s arcane channeling class
feature (PH2 20) says “you can cast any touch spell you
know as part of a full attack action, and the spell affects
each target you hit in melee combat that round.” If you hit
the same creature more than once during the full attack
action, does the spell affect it each time you hit?
    No. The spell affects each target only once.

So Vampiric Touch would only affect the target once even if you hit him multiple times.

[Unbeliever]

Thanks Kitep.  I thought I wasn't exactly crazy.  And, as I noted, it had that kind of ass-pull quality I've come to expect from WotC. 

[SorO_Lost]

Thanks Kitep.  I thought I wasn't exactly crazy.  And, as I noted, it had that kind of ass-pull quality I've come to expect from WotC.

Actually it's in good quality and maintains consistency.

If you're facing a single opponent than chances are it's unique in some form, a BBEG, a plot element, a high level opponent, etc. Being able to deal +60d6 off a 4th level Slot can single handedly destroy your unique opponent with little to no effort unless your DM purposely tailors the Encounter to countermand. Such as total immunity to your Spell. But then you start getting into the problem of penalizing the player. Like throwing Undead Encounters at the Rogue because you're sick of his Sneak Attack or because you read Fell Drain wrong and your Wizard is Magic Missile'ing four or five negative levels (sic, consistency).

WotC gives you a bonus, instead of working once and only once, it works against multiple targets. The reason for this has two points to it, the first is to feel like a badass. You're facing 12 Goblins, and rawr you just f'ing dropped four of them on turn one. You are level 8 baby, bask in the glory of how tough you are now. The other is prolonged combat becomes boring after a certain point. D&D is not a very good meat grinder game, after 20 rounds I'd be making jokes about stabbing my self just to end the Encounter already. Hell, in the Phantasy Star PbP we just had that going on, and the Encounter only lasts like 4 rounds. But after we killed the Drake eight times over we were bored, we just wanted it dead so we could move on.

[Unbeliever]

Take the above as true.  My complaint was more that it's an errata rather than a FAQ.  There's very little in the text to lead one to that rules conclusion  The ability says "At 13th level, you can cast any touch spell you know as part of a full attack action, and the spell affects each target you hit in melee combat that round."  They really want to insert "only once" in there. 

So, it might be a perfectly good house rule.  It might even be a great official modification to the rule.  But, it should be labeled as such and put in PHB II's errata.  Not secreted away in an FAQ.  The latter implies that somehow everyone who didn't make a pretty big leap was reading it wrong. 

I'm also not entirely convinced that it's as great a house rule as you suggest.  I'd want to compare it to uberchargers and buckets of dice bonus damagers and see what the numbers look like.  That could go either way.  Maybe I'm slow, but it's not obvious to me it's any more zomg! broken than a lot of other things. 

I'm not really sure what the last paragraph is supposed to indicate.  If you're 15th level and you're fighting 2 or fewer tough opponents, or there are only 2 tough opponents within reach, a bunch of your extra attacks are wasted for spell channeling purposes.  All the more so if you've got extra attacks from, e.g., two weapon fighting, AoOs, shadow pouncing, and so forth.  So, this rule modification isn't brilliant for shortening combats against a relatively small number of tough opponents. 

On the other hand, if there are a horde of weak opponents, like your 12 goblins example, then there are tons of ways to wipe them off the board more easily.  That 13 level commitment you made to Duskblade, not to mention whatever you have to do round up 4 of them within easy reach and get 4 attacks, could have been more easily taken care of by any one of a number area effect attacks that also do roughly 10d6 damage and come standard issue on virtually all arcane casters.

[Snowbluff]

The FAQ wasn't RAW, so I don't have to agree with it. 

I had a wizard version if your DM doesn't agree with my interpretation.

Iirc another way to (ab)use shadow pounce is with shadow hand maneuvers: theoretically, in a round you can use shadow jaunt (standard action), shadow stride (move action) and shadow blink (swift action), and have 3 full attacks per round. And swordsage is already "2wf friendly", thanks to shadow blade feat, so those attacks deal worthy damage.

Yep. Unfortunately, the recovery for Swardsages is awful, and their BAB puts them behind on TWF feats and attack values.

[linklord231]

The FAQ wasn't RAW, so I don't have to agree with it. 

I had a wizard version if your DM doesn't agree with my interpretation.

Iirc another way to (ab)use shadow pounce is with shadow hand maneuvers: theoretically, in a round you can use shadow jaunt (standard action), shadow stride (move action) and shadow blink (swift action), and have 3 full attacks per round. And swordsage is already "2wf friendly", thanks to shadow blade feat, so those attacks deal worthy damage.

Yep. Unfortunately, the recovery for Swardsages is awful, and their BAB puts them behind on TWF feats and attack values.

On the contrary, this is precisely the time when the FAQ is RAW.  If there are two equally valid interpretations of the text (and yes, having each individual be effected by the spell only once is a valid interpretation), then the FAQ has the authority to clarify which interpretation is correct. 

[SorO_Lost]

Take the above as true.  My complaint was more that it's an errata rather than a FAQ.

No. There is no nice way to say this so let's just get it out of the way. You're arrogantly wrong and need to deal with that ego.

Now that you're blood pressure is through the roof, I'll try to explain things out of personal boredom. First off, the stupid basics. Yeah, I'm taking you back to those 12 years of English class you were put through in school. Words are a means to communicate an idea, the idea is encoded into words by the writer and in turn decoded by the reader. You need to understand this. Period.

"At 13th level, you can cast any touch spell you know as part of a full attack action, and the spell affects each target you hit in melee combat that round." Isn't ambiguous. I'll admit it could use more words to help the impaired, but in more words is always more helpful since it allows you to better shape an idea so don't put too much value into that. Plain and simple this is a singular selection. Secondly, you have interpreted it to mean "this spell affects the target each time you hit." which the printing in no way says. Thirdly, your concept is akin to saying Fireball can strike 15 creatures at once, damage stacks, if there is only one target we should hit it multiple times. To reiterate, you have failed to read the words, you came up with an unsupported idea, you never allowed context to help you shape your idea. You were wrong, end of story.

Now go back and read that until you don't feel like hitting reply and screaming at my deaf ear. Because the same error you committed there is the same error you are committing with the Errata/FAQ. You have taken the word "Errata" and translated this per English to mean a correction to an error in printing and you have taken the word "FAQ" and translated it into it's wrong. As part of a self-inflated ego you have concluded you did not make any sort mistake and the text was written incorrectly, therefor any "corrections" need to be called "Errata". Well, as noted there is no error in printing and the error is your interpretation.

Another thing is your concept of the Errata is also incorrect. Per WotC it's more accurately described as it's a list of wrong things people bitched about since less than 1% of erroneous findings actually make it into the Errata. Most rule corrections are actually done through rule updates and are spotted through out the supplements. In fact, the RC holds priority over any previously posted errata documents. So the very idea that the "Errata" is your go to rules update is highly incorrect to start with. Likewise, WotC prints the "FAQ" under Game Rules and they are the official answers to a number arguments that appeared on the forums. Basically, WotC got sick of the PMs and would issue an official STFU updates. And this harks back to the super-ego found before. You, as a perfect divine being, did not make any sort of mistake and therefor when the FAQ's literately says you were wrong it can only be in fact WotC's error and not yours. This is why "FAQ" translates to it's wrong, why you bash it, why you undermine it, and why you refuse to deal with it. It is a reminder of your mistake, that you committed an error, and by golly you just can't stand that.

TL;DR: You f'ing hate me. Flame away.

[Unbeliever]

...
On the contrary, this is precisely the time when the FAQ is RAW.  If there are two equally valid interpretations of the text (and yes, having each individual be effected by the spell only once is a valid interpretation), then the FAQ has the authority to clarify which interpretation is correct.

EDIT:  more important question, is there a general sense that FAQ is authoritative?  My group tends to be pretty ... ummm lax about such things and go with our own sensibilities.  I seem to recall the Sage Advice columns being notorious for kind of random, often contradictory rulings. 

I had a more elaborate post here a little while ago, but I realized I was getting slotted as the defender of some rule that I don't even use and I was the one who had originally brought up this limitation, so it seemed pretty pointless in retrospect. 

Isn't Duskblade only 1 spell per target per full attack?  Meaning you Vampiric Touch a single target only once on a full attack, for instance.
...

[Unbeliever]

TL;DR: You f'ing hate me. Flame away.

I already dislike you b/c you routinely make comments in this way. 

For the benefits of others, and perhaps my own ego after being called a fucktard for 5  paragraphs and being psychoanalyzed by some random dude on the internet: 

...
WotC gives you a bonus, instead of working once and only once, it works against multiple targets. The reason for this has two points to it, the first is to feel like a badass. You're facing 12 Goblins, and rawr you just f'ing dropped four of them on turn one. You are level 8 baby, bask in the glory of how tough you are now.
...

Emphasis added.  On the corrected reading of the Duskblade's ability you get to pepper each of your melee targets in a single given round.  The example in the above post was doing 10d6 damage.  I was pointing out that spreading 10d6 damage among multiple targets was not all that impressive an ability.  It's called, e.g., Fireball.  Though trading the Reflex save for the attack roll, etc.  But, still, not all that impressive an ability.

That's almost exactly what I wrote in my earlier post, condensed. 

[SorO_Lost]

The example in the above post was doing 10d6 damage.  I was pointing out that spreading 10d6 damage among multiple targets was not all that impressive an ability.  It's called, e.g., Fireball.

A melee warrior dealing melee damage + 10d6 to multiple targets isn't impressive compared to a Sorcerer using Wings of Flurry to Dazelock on top of 20d6 damage to multiple targets isn't impressive I know.

But your point is Mr Half-Spellcaster isn't as good as Mr Full-Caster and that's D&D in a nutshell. Do you really think anyone cares if you came up with yet another example of caster supremacy or are they too busy listening to the part about the McFighter gish that deals an extra dozen dice per round while beating faces in with a pickaxe?

[linklord231]

EDIT:  more important question, is there a general sense that FAQ is authoritative?  My group tends to be pretty ... ummm lax about such things and go with our own sensibilities.  I seem to recall the Sage Advice columns being notorious for kind of random, often contradictory rulings. 

As far as I'm aware, the general consensus is that the FAQ is a useful resource for interpreting how certain rules work, but it doesn't have the authority to actually contradict what the books say when it's unambiguous.  In this way, it functions similarly to the judicial branch of US government - it can interpret what the rules mean, but it can't make up new rules wholesale or "interpret" them to mean something entirely unrelated to what they actually say. 

Of course, there are some here *cough SorO cough* who would say that the FAQ is 100% authoritative, and should be considered RAW even when it contradicts the text of the things it's ruling on.

Really though, it's those "Rules of the Game" articles that you have to watch out for.  Those things, in my experience, are notorious for making entirely unfounded claims about how the rules work, and are often just plain wrong. 

[Snowbluff]

But your point is Mr Half-Spellcaster isn't as good as Mr Full-Caster and that's D&D in a nutshell. Do you really think anyone cares if you came up with yet another example of caster supremacy or are they too busy listening to the part about the McFighter gish that deals an extra dozen dice per round while beating faces in with a pickaxe?

It pretty much nerfs Duskblades into the ground. You should never go past level 13 with them, since you have a huge opportunity cost for a rather poor ability.

Anyway, I suggest doing a wizard version of the shadow pouncer instead. You would have more spell slots and the option to use weapon form spells like Flameblade and all of the other ones with easily confused names (Thunderlance? Sand Scimitar, right?).

[SorO_Lost]

Anyway, I suggest doing a wizard version of the shadow pouncer instead.

The ACF out of the PHB2 is perfect for this, immediate action teleport X times per day.