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Bastard Sword and Fighters

   
Bastard Sword and Fighters

Hello all! Newbie to 3.5e DnD here, and I had a question I was hoping to get answered.

Would a Fighter need to take EWP (Bastard Sword) in order to pick up Weapon Focus (bastard sword)?

Or can I interpret the blurb about how bastard swords can be wielded two-handed as a Martial weapon to mean that a Fighter has enough proficiency with it to merit a purchase of Weapon Focus?

...don't hate me for this...but...

Fighter 4/Samurai 10/Ronin 6 was the progression that I was planning for a 3.5e campaign. I know Samurai's a horribly under-powered class, but the Mass staredown at 10 seems like it'd work so well with an AoO-centered character.

In 3.5, by the time you hit Level 14 (assuming you take class levels in the order you list), your party's wizard can do it better.

EWP is only required if you want to use a bastard sword one-handed. As noted above, if you're going to do that, just use a greatsword.

I think he wants to use it for flavor and fluff to be honest, I do that aswell, there is a reason I usually always ask for longswords to be houseruled in under weapon finesse.

Anyway, as the ones before me stated, you don't need EWP if you use it in two hands.

I'm not seeing how mass staredown really helps with AoOs. It makes enemies shaken, which, while useful, isn't that great a debuff in the grand scheme of things. Certainly not worth ten levels of samurai.

Please forgive the unsolicited advice, but it may be possible for us to build a character able to do what you want a bit better, and still be able to contribute to the party reasonably well (while sticking to your concept of a samurai). If you'd be willing to accept some advice, please tell us how far you're currently invested in the build (i.e. how much is your DM likely to let you change), and what sources are open to you?

I'll go a bit further and state that shaken is a terrible condition to be inflicting at level 14. Especially since you have to sacrifice your attacks to impose it and it only lasts one round. Most beatstick enemies will still hit you easily, those that won't probably weren't that much of a threat anyhow. And caster enemies will be completely unaffected, unless they are seriously into touch attacks, in which case they'll probably still be unaffected, because they won't miss even with the -2 penalty. And I completely fail to see any synergy between making people shaken and AoO's. The only possibility I could see is if you have one of the tricks that gives you AoO's against people that miss you, and even then, you'd be better off fighting defensively.

And on the topic of flavor, just call a greatsword a nodachi and be done with it. If you want to be focused on AoOs, grab EWP: Spiked Chain and go from there. Are spiked chains overused? Possibly, but there's a reason for that; they're one of the very few Exotics worth spending a feat on.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cheshire Cat View Post
Ignore the people telling you to munchkin out. You have a vision, go for it and have fun with it.
I would say ignore people along these lines, where any form of optimization (or synergy) is "munchkining".

You really will want to rethink your build because it just doesn't do what you want it to do. I assume you wanted to run up to people, scare them, then hit them as they ran away from you.

The problem is that you can't make them run away from you, not with the Intimidate skill (which is what Mass Staredown works off of).




 

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