Arelith

Can't dual weapons be buffed as a single weapon while offering the perks of dual-wielding?
Sounds like something that characters who rely on weapon buffs might appreciate.

Baseili wrote: Tue Aug 24, 2021 12:24 pm You're trying to compare a 2 handed weapon to a double weapon, I'm comparing dual wielding medium weapons to a double weapon.

Your numbers are flawed since you using both bonus long since removed from double weapons, and a small lower damage weapon to try and make a point. I'm illustrating that flaw by showing what the penalty would be for dual wielding two medium weapons, given that double weapons are two mediums bolted to a quarterstaff I think my comparison is fitting.

As for dual wielding feats, well thats dependent on the class.

*sighs*

I’m not really interested in arguing this with you, but what the heck.

The proposition of dual wielding two medium weapons as a medium sized race as a baseline for balance is the most flawed argument I have read on this thread. In no world should balance be based on a terrible /mechanical/ choice. Dual wielding two medium weapons on a medium race is /dumb/ and not worth mentioning in the game of number balancing.

Thanks. I’ll leave this thread to the people being productive.

As someone who made their first ever ranger recently, I gotta say I was impressed by the weapon stats on double weapons. I mean, there were some discrepancies...such as dire mace seeming to have somewhat worse stats than double axe despite doing the same role (likely done to compensate for bludgeoning being a damage type that is less often resisted by PvE and gear), and Two-Bladed Sword having the base stats of a scimitar, while the other two have weapon stats roughly comparable to a Heavy Flail and Greataxe respectively (Despite the better crit stats, this seems like a clear loser with respect to the other two, EXCEPT for the fact it is finesse-friendly, which is likely the explanation for it [that, or, making it less of a monster in the hands of a weird dual wielding weaponmaster build or something]).

Overall, considering the LAST time I looked at these weapons they all seemed really bad, a few years ago, I was pleasantly surprised by the current state of them. Dire Mace and Greataxe feel like having LARGE weapons wielded in each hand!

I agree that more enchanting slots would be really nice. Not super familiar with martial builds before now, I played around with various bronze weapon enchantments in PGCC and was a little surprised to see that a masterwork rune COULDN'T be added to a double weapon with vamp regen, +1d4 ele damage, and keen already on it. Isn't the rule that masterwork runes are allowed for 4 qualities or less on the item?

TL;DR

1. Double Weapons are neither outdated nor underpowered
2. Double Weapons were overperforming and will overperform again if we give it any form of free +AB
3. Dual-wielding as a whole (including ranger) needs a review and adjustment, not just double weapons alone

Arelith's Current Design:
-2 AB for DW with 3-feat investment and 13-dex requirement (Dex prereq circumvented by Half-Orc or 9+ Ranger)
-0 AB for DW with 9+ Str Ranger with 1-feat investment
+0 AB for 1H/Shield or Parry
+2 AB for 2H with 0 feat investment (only Str builds)

Ranger's +2 DW AB serves as a good reference and testing bed for a general change to the AB culture surrounding dual-wielding vs two-handing.

Data (courtesy of Cast_No_Shadow on Discord, this is his graph)
Orange is Falchion, Blue is double-sword, both share the same Str modifier (high str builds)
The y-axis is average damage per round, the x-axis is target AC
Delta-2AB (ranger DW vs 2H)


Google sheet for everyone else to play with (copy it to your own google drive and play with the green numbers)
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... 1708822527

Weapons for comparison are 18-20 x2 double-sword vs 18-20 x2 Falchion. (20 x3 double-axe on the google sheet)

Data analysis
When the delta AB is 4:
Double-sword performs better when vs opponents with AC equal to or lower than AB.

When the delta AB is 2:
Double-sword performs better at pretty much everywhere except for when the difference in between AC and AB is from 11 to 19. When both are fishing for 1s (AC is 20 beyond AB), double-sword performs slightly better.

Falchion in this case presented a niche scenario where it still performs better (but not by much, maybe 2% to 5% extra damage) than double-sword.

We can extrapolate from these results that it is likely the Falchion will perform better than double-sword when vs EDR opponents (less damage reduced overall in a round with less APR)

Mechanics
We first look at builds, the main ones that can make double weapons competitive are the Ranger builds. Any non-ranger builds will have to rely on True Strike potion or any Divine Champion variant of builds. 8 Fighter 7 WM 15 CoT comes to mind, but the 4 AB difference between 2H and DW can still be too great at times without other means of increasing the AB. This leads to the next part-

We look at interactions with Disarm and Improved Disarm. A Large Weapon can Improve Disarm the following weapons with a bonus to AB:
Large vs Medium: +0 AB
Large vs Small: +4 AB
Large vs Tiny: +8 AB
Large vs Large: -4 AB (But this just means the opponent isn't wielding a shield unless it's a Large PC)

Another question is: can't 2H weapons do the same and get bonus AB? The increase in average damage won't be as large as the gain for dual-wielding as the delta in between AC and AB closes. Shown in data above.

The catch is dual-wielding is already a 3-feat investment, another 2 will be hefty for any builds that aren't Rangers or Fighter/CoT, doubly so for any WM builds since that has feat tax of its own.

Discussion
Given the bonus AB from improved disarm and how prevalent medium or smaller-sized weapons are, this means that only a select few builds can utilize double weapons to their fullest extent.

My personal take on things:

• We should reward builds that invest in dual-wielding by closing the AB gap of dual-wielding as a whole, not just double weapons alone.
• Ranger will need to have its monopoly on DW Mastery feat given to all (they can keep the AC, though) or have it removed before any relevant changes can be made (as AstralUniverse stated earlier)
• Maybe Ranger's DW AC can be turned into a feat for other builds to take, as well, or maybe we allow Parry to provide a minute amount of shield AC for dual-wielders as there are enough feat tax as is

Edit: grammatical and numerical corrections

Is your common everyday 24 rogue 6 fighter not dual wielding anymore? I know they’re not part of the double weapon discussion but surprised there’s so much repetition of rangers being the only viable dual wielders now.

Duchess Says wrote: Wed Aug 25, 2021 6:36 pm Is your common everyday 24 rogue 6 fighter not dual wielding anymore? I know they’re not part of the double weapon discussion but surprised there’s so much repetition of rangers being the only viable dual wielders now.

This really went away when they grouped weapon categories and rogues lost that big buff of getting multiple proficiencies.

Duchess Says wrote: Wed Aug 25, 2021 6:36 pm Is your common everyday 24 rogue 6 fighter not dual wielding anymore? I know they’re not part of the double weapon discussion but surprised there’s so much repetition of rangers being the only viable dual wielders now.

Viability on Arelith and PvP competency are two different bars to reach.

In the case of a dedicated rogue, while it is just as capable, it's held to a different standard of comparison here.

Dedicated rogues don't rely solely on dual-wield's damage capabilities alone. Dual-wielding oftentimes serves as an enabler for more sneak attacks per flurry, of which sneak attacks don't scale with critical multipliers. The above data doesn't necessarily concern dedicated rogues as much as toe-to-toe melee classes such as fighters, rangers, barbarians, swashbucklers, and etc.

Rogue's otherwise poorer base AB often requires flat-footing opponents through various means and fight opponents by utilizing grenades and setting traps. These are beyond fighting with dual-wielding which aren't fully in the scopes of the aforementioned discussion. Dual-wielding stats aren't as relevant for rogues.

Kenji wrote: Wed Aug 25, 2021 4:29 pm My personal take on things:

• We should reward builds that invest in dual-wielding by closing the AB gap of dual-wielding as a whole, not just double weapons alone.
• Ranger will need to have its monopoly on DW Mastery feat given to all (they can keep the AC, though) or have it removed before any relevant changes can be made (as AstralUniverse stated earlier)
• Maybe Ranger's DW AC can be turned into a feat for other builds to take, as well, or maybe we allow Parry to provide a minute amount of shield AC for dual-wielders as there are enough feat tax as is

Well written post - my only thought would be: please don't make dual wielding require even more than 3 feats by 'allowing' them to pick another feat that is basically necessary for it to be viable.

We'll have to nerf CoT next after this is over. You heard it here first.

AstralUniverse wrote: Wed Aug 25, 2021 11:56 pm We'll have to nerf CoT next after this is over. You heard it here first.

wait, that is going to come after this? i thought we were already there