Bladestorm: A Fighters Guide to TWF

*Before we begin- I’d like to thank Treantmonk for his own guides that inspired me to write this one. Note I have copied his Guide style and borrowed some text to make this a style we are familiar with. Also to Rogue Eidolon for his excellent Fighter Guide.

The Reason for the Guide:

Often TWF is seen as a substandard build for a Pathfinder Character. Most critics site the fact it takes 5 feats to master, makes you MAD, splits weapon enchant wealth and requires constantly full attacking to outdo your 2handed buddies. For MOST classes this argument is valid.

Some of us still love the idea of TWF and certain Classes (Paladin, Rogue, Ranger, Cavalier, Samurai) are able to do it well enough to justify the feat cost. Fighters in particular have 4 archetypes that work brilliantly with it.

Only Archery has the potential for more damage and it is even more feat intensive.

 So WHY TWF over Two handed? Well, firstly TWF is mostly worth it if you have some sort of free damage bonus you can apply to all your attacks. Fighters, between Duelist Gloves, Weapon Training and Gtr Weapon Specialization can add 10 damage per strike and with 7attacks for Gtr two weapon fighting and a high likelyhood of landing most of them TWF becomes worthwhile. Extra chances for burst damage via critical hits are tough to calculate but are a huge boost if you fight with High Crit weapons. These things coupled together can have turn your Fighter into a death machine.

How do we eliminate the problems with TWF?

TWF’s suffer from the same problem as Monks. They NEED to be full attacking nearly all the time to be good, but poor tactics and smart enemies force movement which takes away your full attack. Thankfully, with the release of the APG, UM and UC these problems have been minimized for us. You just need to know where to look.

Make enemies come to you. If you can make enemies close with you, do it. They don’t get to full attack and you do.

Plus the 4 Fighter Archetypes I will discuss have class abilities that fix the usual problems.

What type of TWFér are you?

There are 2 kinds of Two Weapon Fighters: POUNCERS and LOCKDOWN specialists.

They are so named because their class abilities lend themselves to one ‘best’method or the other for getting their Full Attack on.

POUNCERS have some ability to move and full attack or pseudo full attack their targets so spend their feats on remaining mobile. The two archetypes described in this guide that do this are the Dawnflower Dervish and the Mobile Fighter. Their advantage is they full attack more often and so overall DPR for an entire combat is a little higher than a Lockdown fighter.

Their disadvantage is they have little incentive to take lockdown feats so they have little ability, besides being a threat to stop enemies from going after the squishy party members.

LOCKDOWN specialists are my favorite kind of Two Weapon Fighter. They are so called because they do the most damage when full attacking and their class abilities make them better at stationary full attacks and pinning foes. The two archetypes described in this guide are the Two Weapon Warrior and the Brawler. These two archetypes do their most damage when full attacking (TWW gets Two Weapon Training and better AC only on full attacks and the Brawler gets an improved weapon Training to account for smaller weapons and a cool debuff ability that requires he keep enemies in his threatened area.). These guys are harder to hit than pouncers (due to higher AC’s). Their advantage is because they need to pin foes in place to get their full attacks on, they restrict enemy freedom of action to harm allies. Their disadvantage is when they HAVE to move to close their DPR drops considerably. If built well though, they should only have to close ONCE and then the enemy is pinned/screwed.

Ratings:

RED-This is a choice I don't recommend – Waste of a feat.

ORANGE- This option is good in the right circumstance, but not always useful.

GREEN-  I recommend this option

BLUE- This is AWESOME! Pretty Much an auto selection.

Simple enough, like a movie review. So lets move into the Archetypes skills and abilities that will help you become a Master TWFer.

Brawler- This is one of the few fighter types that actually gets an untyped, mundane debuff to enemy hit. This effectively improves the whole parties AC when the fighter is adjacent to the enemy. Flank partners will love the ‘free AC’ this fighter effortlessly grants.

Close Control: A nice bonus to CMB if you want to focus on maneuvers and green because the extra defence comes up more often than Bravery.

Close Combatant: An improved version of Weapon Training with the close group. Sweet. Use a shield and cestus. Both get the bonus, the shield ups AC alot and you can two hand the shield when you have to move.

Menacing Stance: This is your debuff power. Better than weapon training since your dex dictates medium armor anyway and by lowering the enemy to hit to whole party is granted more protection, rather than you simply being able to move in fullplate, the extra 3 points of AC you get back via sucking their attack.

No Escape: Now 5ft steps, withdraws and normal moves out of your area all provoke AOO’s. Doesn’t actually STOP them moving away but you get free hits. Combines well with stepup and following step. Or maybe use that AOO to trip them?

Standstill: Now you can use No Escape to actually STOP them from moving away at all. Nice!

Armour Mastery- Standard Ability Here. Pretty good but doesn’t stack with adamantine, but you’ll be in Mithral anyway.

Weapon Mastery- Standard Fighter Capstone here but a good one. Auto confirm all crits and an increased multiplier? Oh Hell Yeah!

Two Weapon Warrior- A fantastic Archetype that does more damage per full attack, if done right, than any other. They get the ability to TWF when they move but most of it’s class abilities center around Full Attacks and AOO’s, so we need to build it to pin down foes and create AOO’s to reach it’s full potential.

Bravery**- Not a useless ability, but for a class that has a Weak Will save and no reroll class ability, it could have been so much better. Still, fear is a common effect so it does stop you from Wussing out when a dragon shows up.

Defensive Flurry- You lose armour training and the ability to move at full speed in heavy armour. Mithral Breastplate is the heaviest you’ll go. A nice AC boost, but it only applies when you full attack. You’ll need to build your warrior to be good at pinning foes.

Twin Blades- In some ways better than Weapon Training, since you get the full bonus regardless of what you fight with, even a pair of chair legs in a barfight will get the job done. Only applies when you full attack :( but it does make Quickdraw TWF Throwing Chakrams a decent ranged option over actually moving till level 8 when you can swap it for something better.

Doublestrike- At level 9 you can TWF as a standard action. Now moving to close doesn’t suck anymore and gets better when feats like TWR and Dazing Assault come online.

Improved Balance/Perfect Balance- Gradually eliminates the penalty for TWF. This ability means you will be getting your 7(8 Hasted) attacks without penalty with Kukri’s or suck a -1,-1 and dual wield Falcata’s if you want.

Equal Opportunity- Make 2attacks instead of 1 when you AOO. Awesome, now your AOO’s outdo a 2handed guy and you get another chance to crit. We need to create more chances to use this so trips and disarms are pretty good for this archetype.

Deft Doublestrike- Nice. A FREE CM attempt whenever you hit with 2 weapons (which is pretty much all the time). Comes in late, but pretty sweet since it will let you trade out Breakguard for another useful feat at 16.

Deadly Defense- Now when you full attack, foes that hit you provoke TWF AOO’s (lay Dazing Assault on it for pure win)

Weapon Mastery- Standard Fighter Capstone here but a good one. Auto confirm all crits and an increased multiplier? Oh Hell Yeah!

Mobile Fighter- Not as good on a full attack as the Two Weapon Warrior but better mobility. You don’t need to specialize in lockdown with this Archetype.

Agility- A little better than bravery. The bonus now applies to conditions that impede movement and the Archetype relies on that.

Armour Training1,2- You have kept the most important part of this ability. You can still Move at full speed and tumble in heavy armour.

Leaping Attack- In some ways better than Weapon Training, since you get the full bonus regardless of what you fight with, even a pair of chair legs in a barfight will get the job done. Only applies when you move at least 5ft but that is easy to do almost every round and it does make Quickdraw TWF Throwing Chakrams a decent ranged option till level 8 when you can swap it for something better.

Rapid Attack- This is Sort of a Pounce type ability, letting you take a full attack (minus your first iterative) when you move. You have no need for lockdown feats now since you are essentially full attacking all the time.

Fleet footed- Kinda cool if a bit underpowered for a late ability. You shouldn’t be failing acrobatics checks with this and the speed boost is nice.

Armour Mastery- Standard Ability Here. Pretty good but doesn’t stack with adamantine, but you’ll be in Mithral anyway.

Whirlwind Blitz- It supersedes Rapid Attack, but in terms of Damage? One more attack is not gonna turn a BBEG 2 round kill into a 1 round kill. Whirlwind as a standard action is also ok, if you found room for the 5 feats needed on top of your TWF feats.

Dawnflower Dervish- This IMHO, is even better than the Mobile fighter. It plays pretty much the same but with nicer tradeoffs for Amour Training.

Bravery- Not a useless ability, but for a class that has a Weak Will save and no reroll class ability, it could have been so much better. Still, fear is a common effect so it does stop you from Wussing out when a dragon shows up.

Burst of Speed- Losing Armour training bites. Negating the AC penalty for charging is useful though, since this Archetype should be charging as often as possible.

Weapon Training- Identical to the Normal class ability. It locks you into your main weapon group (But thankfully Scimitars, Falcatas, Katanas and Chakrams are all in the same one)

Desert Stride- This is very good. 10ft is enough room to charge and difficult terrain is a huge problem on a class that relies on movement.

Rapid Attack- This is Sort of a Pounce type ability, letting you take a full attack (minus your first iterative) when you move. You have no need for lockdown feats now since you are essentially full attacking all the time.

Lightning Strike- Functionally similar to the Mobile Fighter’s Capstone ability but you get it 5 levels earlier. Sweet.

Armour Mastery- Standard Ability Here. Pretty good but doesn’t stack with adamantine, but you’ll be in Mithral anyway.

Weapon Mastery- Standard Fighter Capstone here but a good one. Auto confirm all crits and an increased multiplier? Oh Hell Yeah!

Traits: Fighters unfortunately don’t get alot of skills. Some traits can expand their out of combat options, skills or shore up that will save.

Good Traits are: Defender of the Society, Reactionary, Blade of Mercy, Missing Sibling, True Believer, Ancestral Weapon (+2 to a CM)

Skills:

Handle Animal : You can use this mostly for training dogs or avoiding combat with animals. Probably too small a payoff for the skill points.

Perception ****: Simply the most used skill in the game period. Stops bad guys getting the drop on you and makes you semi useful searching for things.                                                                                                                                                           Ride  This is a definite maybe. Most things you ride will die, but it helps to have a point or two in it.                                          Stealth: Since all 4 Archetypes have a high dex and wear medium or light armor, you can be good at this. At least enough to back up the rogue.                                                                                                                                              Survival: Get along in the wild. Includes all your MAN skills.                                                                          Intimidate: Cha is not your strong suit, but you are a fighter, so knowing how to bully people is helpful.

Race:

When choosing Race you want something that is going to boost your your Strength, Dexterity or Wisdom (since fighters will save blows). A movement score of 30 is definitely a primary, because we need to close and stay close so we can Full Attack more (TWF remember). Access to Racial Double Weapons is great too.

Half Elf : The ability bonus can be put in STR, and low light vision is good for Scouting. The skill focus feat is nice for stealth or perception (if you put it in perception that will stack with the racial +2 bonus). The elven immunities are decent as well. The multiclass bonus may be helpful too depending on your build. Alternatively the APG weapon Prof feature is nice to get either a Katana, Falcata or Double Longsword Prof (since TWF’s count on crits to boost damage)

Half Orc: The ability bonus can be put in STR, and Darkvision is very helpful (better than low light in dungeons when scouting). This would be green, but access to the Orc Double Axe Makes it blue, just a bit behind Half-Elf.

Elf : The Dex and INT bonus is nice. The Con penalty sucks, since we like melee. Low Light vision is very helpful, as are the bonuses to Perception and vs enchantment (the school with those nasty dominate effects). The Spellcraft and Spell DC bonuses don’t do squat for you. Not Bad.

Human +2 goes into STR, and the bonus feat is very handy, especially at low levels. The extra skill point will come in handy. Having no special vision type hurts, but it isn't the end of the world. Given the feat intensive nature of the TWF chain, possibly the best choice.                                                                                                                                                Dwarf: The Bonus to WIS and CON is great for saving on a Point Buy, and saves. We don’t care about CHA. +2 vs spell saves rocks, as does the Dwarven Urgosh Prof. BUUUTT the speed penalty is a big deal. If you wanna play a dwarf closing and Pinning a foe is Vital so you need to get boots of speed ASAP.

Gnome/Halfling: Small Size, Small Weapons, low speed and no stat boost to anything we care about (besides Dex). NO.

Feats:

Well, naturally you are going the TWF route, so some of your feats will come from that, but beyond the combat style feats, we need to find ways to full attack more often. Fortunately, there are plenty of choices:

Iron Will/Improved Iron Will- Absolute MUST, for any fighter. Nothing worse than getting dominated and killing your party.

TWF: The Start of your TWF journey. Take it, love it, live it.

Doubleslice: This feat kinda sucks. You need a MASSIVE strength score to see more than one or two points of Damage increased to your offhand attacks only. The only reason a TWF’er takes this is as a Preq for Two Weapon Rend. Learn it later (8-11) to qualify for Two Weapon Rend.                                                                                                          Quickdraw Depends on build, never a bad feat to take, since it saves action economy for pulling potions or weapons and it makes throwing viable for you at low levels. Meaning you don’t cripple your DPR by moving. Throw and let them come to you.                

ITWF: Next step in the TWF chain. Still fairly likely to hit and at the level you take it, it’s what makes your full attacks better than the 2handed guys.

Two Weapon Defense: Not a great feat. Gives a +1 Shield AC and there are better feats in the chain to take. Even Dodge is better.

Two Weapon Rend: Now We’re talking. 1d10 plus 1 ½ your Str bonus when you full attack is great. Needs the Crappy Doubleslice but if you were smart you got that via retraining. Take it at 12th level.

Gtr Two Weapon Fighting: Completing the TWF chain. Taken at 16th level or later when you can stack enough to hit bonuses to make it stick. This is red for others classes but for a Fighter who gets more mundane to hit bonuses and a couple of friendly buffs, can be worth it.

Big Game Hunter: This feat is an Awesome feat. Check the Bestiary, the majority of foes CR9 or above are large or bigger. This is basically Wpn Fcs and Wpn Spl for Both Weapons you wield regardless of type and stacks with those feats.

Weapon Focus/Gtr: We are gonna have a lot of attacks. Let’s make them all hit shall we?                            

Stepup: If an enemy 5ft steps away from you, then you can 5ft step next turn and still full attack. However it’s use in threatening casters IS useful.

Following Step: A better feat. If an enemy moves more than 5ft away, they burned a move action and provoked an AOO for leaving a square you threaten. If they only moved 10ft away, you can still full attack next round or 5ft step then full attack, if they moved 15ft. Also good for staying close to a polearm user or inside a big creatures reach.

Improved Critical If your wielding 2 of the same weapon (and you should) this is awesome. By the time you are high level and wearing boots of speed, that’s 8 chances to crit.

Critical Focus : By itself nothing special, but it opens up all the nice critical options.

Staggering/Blinding/Sickening Crit: You’ll be Critting a lot, so adding a Status effect is nice, but guess what? Only Stunning Critical stops foes from Moving/acting. That’s not available till the game is nearly over. You need to PIN foes to full attack every round. I usually stop at staggered, if I take it at all.

Dazing Assault: Now THIS is a feat. -5 to all your attacks in exchange for a always on save or lose effect. And it’s available from level 11! Yes please. Note- most people rule 1 save per attack action.

Full Attack- 1 save

AOO- 1 save                                                                                                                                                                         Standard Action Attack- 1 save        (The DC is only moderate but the trick is to force multiple saves per round!)                                                                                                                                                                              Gtr Weapon Specialization- Stack it with your weapon training and Duelist Gloves for +10 to damage on every attack you make. (Note some DM’s are picky with this. The item description says they work for WEAPON TRAINING and the archetypes get a similar ability of a different name.)

Hammer The Gap: This is JUNK. Looks  good on paper, but relies on consecutive hits to work. You need to land 5 hits in a row to add 10 damage. Worth as Much as Doubleslice. A critcial feat is a much better investment.

Deadly Aim: Their will be times when you simply cannot close with the enemy. A backup ranged weapon is essential, and you are still a Full BAB char. With a friendly buff or two you can still be an ok archer.

Blindfight: Between darkness, blur, fog and a ton of other things that grant miss chance I find this to be a great feat. Concealment comes up in nearly every time I have played in.

Skill Focus : Intimidate/Dazzling Display/Cornugon Smash: Intimidate is one of the few class skills you have. This chain let's you lay an area debuff as a full round action OR auto check vs a foe you Power Attack for free. You party will like the enemy not hitting them and the wizard will love you lowering thier saves. This is ultra blue for a Brawler, since it stacks with Menacing Stance and a CRUEL Weapon which drops a total of -7 to thier hit, -5 AC and -4 to saves.

Teamwork Feats: Needs an ally to take them as well, but some good payoff.

Coordinated Charge: OK for the TWW, useless for the Dervish/Mobile Fighter. You and your buddy get this and you get free immediate action moves around the battlefield, when it’s not your turn. This allows you to use your buddies charge to let you close. Then you full attack when it’s your turn.

Outflank***: TWF carries a -2 to hit, so grabbing a +4when you flank is great and the extra AOO’s are awesome.

Precise Strike: OK effect, but there are better teamwork feats above.

Other Chains you may want to consider for your Archetype:

Improved Initiative/Dodge/Mobility- Great for the Mobile or Dervish Archetypes. They get Rapid Attack, so go first and get killing when you close. Dodge/Mobility should be an auto select for classes that focus on moving alot.

Pin Down/Combat Expertise/Imp Disarm/Breakquard- Awesome for the Two Weapon Warrior. Lets you hit them with AOO’s to stop them moving away. Breakguard gives you your attack back if you succeed on a disarm and the enemy provokes TWF AOO’s from you. Disarm is a great debuff that makes the enemy waste actions getting a weapon back. Make a foe drop his Magic Sword? Great. Or make the wizard drop his staff? Cool.

Improved Shieldbash/Shieldslam/Shieldmastery/Imp Bullrush/Gtr Bullrush/Bashing Finish-: With this build instead of Debuffing via Disarm your allies are getting AOO’s Via Gtr Bullrush. Doesn’t make the enemy drop his weapon but your AC is a heap better. Bashing Finish grants an extra attack when you crit.

Combat Exp/Improved Trip/Gtr Trip/Felling Smash- Pretty Sweet use of a standard action, knock a foe prone, hit him when he falls and again when he stands. Felling smash means you can hit a foe 3 times with a standard action. But only orange since all archetypes but the brawler eventually get the chance to make 2 or more attacks anyway.

All maneuver methods become less effective Past 13, because you encounter less foes with manufactured weapons (for Disarm) and bigger foes to effect with bullrush or trip. That’s ok though, because smart enemies will use 5ft steps or withdraw to move away normally. Guess what Pindown does? Retrain out the feats at 16 and 20 for something better when they aren’t effective anymore.

Blindfight/Combat Expertise/Moonlight Stalker: This is green because the end effect of moonlight stalker is the same as Wpn Fcs/Wpn Spec/Gtr Weapon focus. +2 to hit and damage and works with any weapon. Plus you deal with concealed/invisible foes much better and can pump your AC higher if you wish. This is blue for Magus or Inquis, since they have class abilities that grant concealment. Only green for fighters, because the payoff is there, but you need to rely on magic to make it álways on’(Cloak of Lesser displacement)

Build Suggestions: A Brawler would look something like this:

Build Suggestions: A Two Weapon Warrior would look something like this:

Tactic:

Basically, the idea is to throw chakrams at low levels till the enemy closes with you. Then quickdraw your scimitar/kukri and full attack. I doesn’t really matter if you go first (because you want enemies to close with you, so you can full attack them). You can also trip a foe and smack them 2 handed with the Scimitar going down and coming up.

By 9th level, you have stopped throwing and are Doublestriking with your move. You can improved trip as part of a full attack.  Prone is a nasty condition and foes provoke for standing up. Two handed AOO. Felling Smash is not needed for the TWW since you can Attack with the primary and trip with the second. Triggering the AOO's.

 Equal opportunity makes AOO’s awesome and you are getting plenty of those from your trip attempts and foes moving.

Pin down is great since it lets you use an AOO on 5ft steps and withdraw actions (which normally do not provoke) to stop your foe moving away. By now anything you can close with is pretty screwed by being unable to move away, since moving provokes your two weapon attack and trip combo.

All while eating bucket loads of damage. While Trip is less relevant, Pin down keeps working- you only goal is to stay adjacent to full attack.

Later your critical feats come online as trip works on less foes. You still debuff the crap out of foes while killing them.

The ORC Blooded!!!

Now  give special consideration (if you can afford the point buy) to the Eldritch Heritage feats (orc Bloodline)

Example:

Skill fcs: Survival

Eldritch Heritage

Quicken SLA: Touch of Rage

Improved Eldritch Heritage

Lunge

Gtr Eldritch Heritage

Sure the feat investment is MASSIVE but so is the payoff.

+6 inherent bonus to STR, which is +3 to all attacks, CM's, CMD's, damage, strength checks and boosts TWR and carrying capacity.

Lunge lets you perform ALL CM' s without provoking.

Quicken SLA will let you use Touch of Rage on yourself for big attack and and damage bonuses 3/day.

Power of Giants is an awesome buff.

Note: The alt human ability to swap your bonus feat for 3 skill focuses is a nobrainer for an eldritch heritage build. You were going to take Skill Focus: Survival anyway. And it means you are a bit better at two other skills of your choice. I recommend UMD and Perception.

Name: Xavier Longsaddle

Build: Fighter 20 (Two Weapon Warrior)

Race: Human    Alignment: Neutral Good

Ability Scores:

STR 17 (20)

DEX15 (17)

CON14

INT 10

WIS 8

CHA 15

Favored Class: Fighter (+1 skills)

Skills: Class (2), Human (1),+ Favored (1)= 4 per level

2 Traits- Defender of The Society- +1AC in Med Armor

, Optimistic Gambler- Morale effects persist 1d4 rounds.

Feats/Special

Ftr1

TWF, Weapon Fcs: Scimitar, Skill Fcs: Perception

Ftr2

Bravery, Quickdraw

Ftr3

Defensive Flurry +1, Iron Will

Ftr4

Weapon Specialization: Scimitar

Ftr5

Twin Blades +1, Skill Fcs: Survival

Ftr6

Power Attack

Ftr7

Defensive Flurry +2, ITWF

Ftr8

Gtr Wpn Fcs: Scimitar, Retrain Quickdraw for Lunge

Ftr9

Twin Blades +2, Double strike, Eldritch Heritage-Orc Touch of Rage

Ftr10

 Doubleslice

Ftr11

Improved Balance (-1/-1), Defensive Flurry +3, Quicken SLA- Touch of Rage

Ftr12

Dazing Assault, Retrain Lunge for TWR

Ftr13

Twin Blades +3, Equal Opportunity, Improved Eldritch Heritage-Strength of the Beast +2

Ftr14

Combat Reflexes

Ftr15

Perfect Balance (0/0), Defensive Flurry +4, Gtr Wpn Spl, Strength of The Beast +4

Ftr16

Pin down, Retrain Dazing Assault for Stunning Assault

Ftr17

Twin Blades +4, Deft Double strike Eldritch Heritage-Power of Giants, Strength of the Beast +6

Ftr18

 GTWF

Ftr19

Deadly Defense, Defensive Flurry +5, Quicken SLA-Power of Giants

Ftr20

Weapon Master, Feat.

Any Suggestions for a 3.5 Game?

Sure- PHB2, TOB, Complete Warrior

Melee Wpn Mastery, Melee Wpn Supremacy, Combat Focus, Stability and Vigor, Martial Study: Defensive Rebuke, Martial Stance: Martial Spirit, Leap Attack, Rolibars Gambit

Creates a build that while not being great at Combat Manuveres, instead has Fast Healing 4, +8CMD, Will +4, Can interrupt enemy attacks, generate heaps of AOO’s and heals another 2hp per strike.

Sources: CRB

APG

UM

UC

Seekers of Secrets

Still need to read- ISWG, ISM