She's already a bit on the weak side for a fighter, because of the choice of two-weapon fighting with light, exotic weapons, and feats taken to qualify for two different prestige classes.

In a full round, a two-weapon fighter can outdamage a large-weapon fighter by a little bit, but in rounds with a single attack, the edge goes to large-weapon fighters. Large-weapon fighters also do better with attacks of opportunity and enemies with damage reduction, and can concentrate enchantments and feats on a single weapon.

Marabi more or less held her own in the party anyway because of Power Attack. In 3.5 Edition, Power Attack favors large weapons (+2 damage per -1 chance to hit) and penalizes small ones (+1 damage per -2 chance to hit). Thus putting two-weapon fighting clearly in the hands of... well, Rangers can do it, but will they? Maybe Ranger-Rogues who want to maximize Sneak Attacks or something. I don't know.

I have some options. One is to keep things pretty much as they are and just suffer the sucky Power Attacks. At next level (12) Marabi would get Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, Weapon Specialization, another +1 BAB, a third standard attack, and +1 Dex bonus, so we're talking 2 more chance to hit, 2 more damage per hit, and two more attacks per full round. A nice boost there, but still, a good deal behind what a large-weapon fighter would be capable of at that level.

Another option is to dump the fans but still basically keep her as Marabi. I'm not sure how well I can pull that off. The whole backstory is kind of blown at that point. Rapier and war fan is an okayish combo but doesn't seem characteristic. Quarterstaff is probably a little closer, though still behind a large weapon in effectiveness. Spear is cool but at that point I might want a more barbaric character. Spiked chain should be quite effective (as a Large yet finessable weapon) but doesn't quite fit the character concept either.

Or I just make a new character. Something a little more tankish than Marabi since that's what the party lacks.

Or drop out of the campaign, but I like it too much for that.

Posted 10:34 PM CST [Link] [Archives] [Index]

Oh yeah... a large-weapon fighter, on a critical hit, has a decent chance of doing over 50 points of damage in a single hit, triggering the fort-save-or-die thing. Two-weapon fighters aren't going to do that.

Or... now that I have the Arms & Equipment Guide, wherein there are rules for alternate sized weapons, I could maybe switch to a Medium size war fan in the on-hand.

Hmm, it sucks that your character might be weakened with the new rules Wizards is releasing. :/ I should probably check my D&D character and see if any of the new rules apply to him. I bet they do.

Granted, I haven't played since last year, but I'm hoping to start up again this year. ;)

I've gotten back into Magic: The Gathering a bit (which I guess is somewhat related, since Magic and D&D are made by the same company), and I've pulled out my old cards (I made a promise to myself that I wouldn't spend more money on them, but I'll admit I've bought a few single cards that I wanted to complete a few of my decks).

The new expansion for Magic, called Scourge, is really disappointing though. It seems like Wizards of the Coast doesn't even have a glimmer of what balanced cards SHOULD be like. They introduced a new card ability, called Storm, that effects spell cards. Practically, for each spell played on that turn, the card with Storm copies itself that many times.

Now, this may not seem like a huge deal, but when you create a deck specifically to take advantage of Storm cards, things can get hairy. Especially when someone plays 11 spells in one turn (using a bunch of nasty little tricks), casts a spell called "Brain Freeze" (which makes target opponent discard 3 cards from the top of his/her deck, and it has Storm), you end up discarding 33 cards.

In a game where most players use 60 card decks, that really defeats a player in one turn. Then, after that, it's possible to play a card called "Hunting Pack" (which summons one 4/4 creature into play, and the card has storm), so thats twelve 4/4 creatures you've got to deal with.

Anyway, I just had to rant about that a bit to get that out of my system (sorry to have to do it here). :)

Ew, that's nasty.

I gave up on Magic early on, mostly because I couldn't afford to keep up. But I do think it's interesting as a game with a handful of rules and a hundred thousand exceptions. :)

It's akin to the way GemStone III was originally designed -- the game mechanics were built into the engine, and GMs wrote "exception scripts" for everything else. Over the years, as the game expanded and the scripting language got more powerful, the exceptions became the rules. :)