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Two Weapon Fighting

   
Also, my dm is obsessed with using the builder rather than filling all the stuff in ourselves via books. He wants us to always use the builder which I think also keeps me from understanding how I'm getting some of the stats I have. The builder gives more options in some ways because we have access to things from books that we don't have, but at the same time the choices I am given for feats and features etc. seem to be more limited than I would have thought. And as for my powers, I was given two options (may have been build options but im not sure) and each had a set of three powers, I liked one or two from one but not the third, and only liked one from the other option. I eventually chose my option that gave me the two powers I wanted, but it forced me to have a power I don't want or think I would use. That is just one example of the limited choices I have in 4.0 as opposed to 3.5.

Does your DM have an alternate way of dealing with starting equipment? Because standard for D&D 4e at 5th level would be a magic items of levels 4 5 and 6 and gold equal to the cost of a 4th level magic item. What race is your character, so I can get your build down.

Oh, and what poisons?

*will edit later on, or just add it in on another post, because I am REALLY good at maximizing the damage dealing potential, as well as defences, of a character.

The executioner is a different build for the assassin, which grants different powers and a different overall feel The assassin is good at dealing damage and lays down "shrouds" on their targets, which, when activated, deal more damage. An executioner specializes in poisons (for attacking during role play, out of combat situations, or in combat), and uses several different weapons. The reason you've been given your powers is because the executioner is an Essentials build; the Essentials line is designed for complete newcomers to D&D, and does a lot of the work for you. If you have experience with 3.5, this could be part of the confusion.
Try going back into the builder and see if you can switch to just Assassin. I don't use the online one myself, so I can't tel you how you could do that, but the option should be there somewhere. Then you can pick your at will powers, and you're only using one weapon so you don't need to continually switch around. I'd recommend using the assassin on it's own, as I think it's a bit easier. Also, with the executioner, your expertise feats won't work for all your weapons, so you'll either need to spend more feats to cover everything, or you have one great weapon and a few not so great ones. (For example, Flail Expertise gives you a +1 to hit with flails like the bola, but not for anything else...like the dagger or blowgun, which your other powers use).

You might also want to consider a different class. If you want to be stealthy and hit hard, maybe try the Rogue. Their Sneak Attack feature is strong, and coupled with the feat Nimble Blade, you can be hitting an awful lot. One of the build features of the rouge lets you gain concealment with a stealth check after a move action--I think it's called Cunning Sneak.
There's also the warlock. They fight at range, but have a great feature called Shadow Walk; whenever you move more than three squares, you automatically gain concealment. I'm playing one currently, and am having a lot of fun.

At any rate, Cnyprios has the right of it: if you're starting at level 5, you should also be starting with some magic items, as well as more than enough gold to buy a couple more. If your DM is starting you of with 100 god (which is for first level characters), you can't afford any of the stuff that you're supposed to have by level 5. The system is designed with a certain scaling of damage/ac/etc. If you don't have magic, you'll be very easy to hit, and it'll be very hard for you to hit monsters.

For example, the average to hit bonus of a Brute monster at level 5 is around +8. When they roll a d20, they add 8 to the result and balance that against your AC. Which means to hit you, they only need to roll a 9 or higher to hit you--they'll hit more often than not. Likewise, their AC is going to be around 17; if you're not using a magic item, your attack bonus should be about 7, meaning you need to roll a 10 or higher to hit; you'll hit them a little more than half the time. This all may sound balanced, but what it amounts to is that you're going to have some difficult encounters. The way the system works, you should be hitting more often than not, so no encounter should have only a 50% chance of winning; you should be winning most of the time.

But, if your DM doesn't want to use magic items, there's the Inherent Bonuses rule--which basically does the same thing. It gives you bonuses depending on your level so your character can keep up with the math. Otherwise, you're going to be failing encounters and dying a lot.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cnyperos View Post
The Two-Weapon Fighting feat adds extra damage to your offhand attack
I thought that there was an Errata recently that changed TWF to just add 1 damage all the time?

I have a female drow. I may very well change her to a rogue though. Just thought the assassin would do more damage.

Not nessissarily. There is a build for the plain assassin were you basically always deal poison damage no matter immunities or resistances, spiderkissed weapons ftw, but yeah, rogues can put in a decent amount of damage.

Apparently so.

Two-Weapon Fighting
Page 201: The feat now grants a bonus to damage
rolls with both your main weapon and your off-hand
weapon.


(Although even in its original incarnation, it was +1 to your main weapon, not your off-hand weapon.)

LadyJ, I very much agree that using the character builder when you haven't built any characters by hand is going to be confusing. I've never used the builder myself, but I - and I'm sure the rest of the people posting here - are quite familiar with manual character creation. Would you like someone to walk you through a character from the beginning?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cnyperos View Post
How equiping weapons works:
Two-handed weapon:Requires both hands, cant be used by Small creatures.
Versitile weapons:Can be used both one handed and two handed, but if your small it is required to be used two-handed
One handed:Used in one hand, can be duel weilded if meduim sized, can't be used if small (I think).
Light one handed:Used in one hand and can be duel weilded. Can be duel weilded by small creatures.

Ranged Weapons:
All ranged weapons are considered two-handed except for Hand crossbow, which is a Light one handed ranged weapon (and thus can be duel weilded by small creatures, otherwise my kobold rogue I have on the back burner wouldn't be able to use the two-fisted shooter feat.)
Although it's somewhat off-topic, I'd also like to correct this. The weapons can be divided as follows:
  • Two-handed: Can only be used with two hands.
  • One-handed with Versatile property: Can be used with one or two hands. If used with two hands, you get +1 damage.
    (You can think of this like the majority of 3.5e's one-handed weapons.)
  • One-handed: Can only be used with your main hand.
    (You can think of this like the rapier in 3.5e, which was a one-handed weapon but which didn't give you any benefit for using two hands. But in 4e many weapons fall into this category.)
  • One-handed with Off-Hand property: Can be used with your main hand, or can be used with your off hand while you're wielding another weapon in your main hand. There's no penalty for doing so, but it doesn't inherently give you any extra attacks either.
    (You can think of this like 3.5e's "light weapons".)

There's also double weapons, which are singular weapons which take up both hands, but work just like wielding two one-handed weapons (one end has the Off-Hand property). tobiasosir's earlier post got slightly confused between double weapons and two-handed weapons.

As has already been well explained by several people, some classes have powers that can only be used with two weapons, and these powers often have two attacks in them. Also, even if you're not in such a class, you can have feats which are triggered by wielding two weapons.

Small characters cannot wield two-handed weapons (except for two-handed weapons with the Small property), and if they wield a versatile weapon, they have to use both hands but don't get the damage bonus (except for versatile weapons with the Small property). All other weapons can be wielded normally.

Many ranged weapons are two-handed, but not all. Just from the Player's Handbook, there's the hand crossbow, the sling, and the shuriken. Also, the shortbow is two-handed but has the Small property, so small characters can still wield it.

Quote:
Originally Posted by LadyJ View Post
I have a female drow. I may very well change her to a rogue though. Just thought the assassin would do more damage.
Quote:
Not nessissarily. There is a build for the plain assassin were you basically always deal poison damage no matter immunities or resistances, spiderkissed weapons ftw, but yeah, rogues can put in a decent amount of damage.
I'll have to look at that assassin build. Sounds nice...always loved poison damage.

LadyJ, if you're looking for doing the most damage you can, you're on the right track: you want to be a striker. The Strikers do more damage because each of them have a class feature that gives them an opportunity to deal extra damage when they make an attack, under certain conditions. For the assassin, you get the Assassin's Shroud I mentioned earlier--but you only get that extra damage when you invoke your shroud, which you can't always do depending on the situation (i.e. if your shrouded target dies before you get the chance).
An executioner has Assassin's Strike, which apperently only works once per encounter, though it's a heavy hit.
The Rogue has one of the best extra damage features, Sneak Attack. It only works with a light blade, but you can use it every round, as long as you've already hit the target and have combat advantage against it. With the Nimble Blade feat, that'll happen more often than not.

The feat build is as followed:
This is if choosing Human
Assassin(both variants works with this)
1st level:Venom Hand Master
1st level(If human):Venom Hand Assassin
2nd level:Venom Hand Killer
4th level:Weapon Focus: Heavy Blade
6th level:Weapon Expertise: Heavy Blade
8th level:Brutal Shroud
10th level:Cruel Shroud
Paragon Path:Take Venomed Soul Paragon Path
11th level:Killer in the Crowd

Thats your chain up too 11th level. At 11th level you'll most likely have to settle with a spiderkissed longsword +2 until you hit 13th level I think, but spiderkissed lets you turn all your weapon damage from the longsword into poison damage, meaning weapon damage gets the +3 to damage from Venom Hand Killer. Venom Hand Master means you can deal poison damage to EVERYTHING. Orcus and his variable resistances? No problem. Undead and their poison immunities? No problem. And, because you use your longsword as your impliment, Vemon Hand Killer should work with your impliment powers too (I think), but Assassins can also use Ki focus's so I don't know.


Killer in the Crowd gives you a really good reason to be in the thick of it with your defender because with Inescapable Blade(or any ranged/reach assassin power), you'll have a reach of 3 and normally your enemies have cover if they are behind one of their allies but with Killer in the Crowd their allies give YOU cover and not them. Brutal shroud lets you re-roll ones on your shroud damage and Cruel shroud means you will always have combat advantage as long as you are able to place a shroud.

At 12th you'll pick up vexing flanker and after that it's all dump feats after that so go crazy.




 

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