What are the best/worst weapons for Weapon Focus/Specialization

[Winterclaw42]

The first character I made for P:K was a paladin, and knowing how important hitting things is, I gave that character both the exotic weapon mastery and the weapon focus for bastard swords, so I could sword and board. Then the other day I was reading on the boards how there weren't really any good bastard swords in the game or long swords for that matter.

That got me to wondering, what are the best and worst weapons in the game for picking a weapon focus or specialization for? Unlike a PnP game where a GM might let you switch weapons on a level up, you are kind of locked into your choices with no idea if those choices are going to pay off in the end.

[chaylafaysky]

Originally posted by wulfster42:

I'll touch on this really quick. :snip: So consider that before choosing your weapon to specialize in.

{I'm not sure if you meant the Falchion or the Fauchard, so I included them both}
As I see it, it boils down to raw numbers, not percentages... In the hands of a fighter with Sword Mastery:

A masterwork Fauchard would be: 1d10 +1 x3 = 6-33 damage on a roll of 15to20 (or 2-11 on a roll of 1-14)

A masterwork Falchion would be: 2d4 +1 x3 = 9-27 damage on a roll of 15to20 (or 3-9 on a roll of 1-14)

A masterwork scythe would be: 2d4 +1 x5 = 15-45 damage on a roll of 19or20 (or 3-9 on a roll of 1-18)

Your argument has certainly merit, especially when including multiple attacks per round... rolling a 15 to 20 will happen a lot more than rolling a 19 or 20. Something to think about.

[a weird person]

Originally posted by chaylafaysky:

Originally posted by wulfster42:

I'll touch on this really quick. :snip: So consider that before choosing your weapon to specialize in.

{I'm not sure if you meant the Falchion or the Fauchard, so I included them both}
As I see it, it boils down to raw numbers, not percentages... In the hands of a fighter with Sword Mastery:

A masterwork Fauchard would be: 1d10 +1 x3 = 6-33 damage on a roll of 15to20 (or 2-11 on a roll of 1-14)

A masterwork Falchion would be: 2d4 +1 x3 = 9-27 damage on a roll of 15to20 (or 3-9 on a roll of 1-14)

A masterwork scythe would be: 2d4 +1 x5 = 15-45 damage on a roll of 19or20 (or 3-9 on a roll of 1-18)

Your argument has certainly merit, especially when including multiple attacks per round... rolling a 15 to 20 will happen a lot more than rolling a 19 or 20. Something to think about.

nothing to think about, he is right xD 25% of hits are crits makes up for low modifier.

[Sportacus]

Due to the massive crit rating, i would suggest taking a close look at the scimitar. The small amount of dice damage less is absolutely neglectable. Your bonus damage through strength is more important and the massive crit range really makes it a blast.

It's your call, a good feat set is more important than the weapon.

I would suggest 1h weapon and shield though.

[FemKUltra]

It depends on what youre looking for in a weapon. In general the best 2H weapon is a greatsword (or an elven curved blade if you want the 18-20 crit range and dont mind dropping the proficiency feat), the best 1H weapon is a longsword (or again a scimitar if youre a magus or something and want the 18-20 crit range for whatever reason)

However that being said it depends what weapons are available in the endgame, if the best 2H weapon you can find in the game is an earthbreaker than you should go earthbreaker, we just dont know yet.

[chaylafaysky]

Originally posted by ShokTherapy:

It depends on what youre looking for in a weapon. In general the best 2H weapon is a greatsword (or an elven curved blade if you want the 18-20 crit range and dont mind dropping the proficiency feat), the best 1H weapon is a longsword (or again a scimitar if youre a magus or something and want the 18-20 crit range for whatever reason)

However that being said it depends what weapons are available in the endgame, if the best 2H weapon you can find in the game is an earthbreaker than you should go earthbreaker, we just dont know yet.

Exactly... you get it, perfectly. There are no lists of the weapons (with their enchantments) in this game... we do not know what the best weapon for our characters are... and that SUCKS...

The devs should include an equipment list with the game... that way, I won't have to restart later if I find a +5 agile holy keen ultrasonic ghost touch flaming shocking defender rapier... just sayin'.

[wulfster42]

Well, just like in a real campaign, that is the draw back to specializing. If you don't specialize, you can just use the best weapon that comes along.If you do, then you get a bonus all the time, but you might get stuck using a +3 warhammer instead of a +5 shocking Longsword that you happen to find in a dungeon (or the longsword may be so good that it compensates for you having specialized in the warhammer even!).

Specializing is only +2 to hit and +4 damage and you can choose multiple weapon sets for the fighter bonuses to weapon damage. It is a factor certainly and it take a much better weapon to make it worth it to ignore your weapon specialization, but that is the pay off.

Some weapons just plain out get more from weapon specialization and improved crit etc then others. Heck, to the point where a Keen weapon might not even be better then a non-keen weapon (usually requires an extra feat for exotic weapon but it happens).

I tend to try not to min/max too much when making my real DnD characters, and build them around a theme. in a game like this though, i aim to min max a decent amount as it is not the same roleplaying experience (for me, might be for others). i just imagine all of my characters are Monty Python Kniggets that use composite bows and run away if the enemy gets past their animal companions (wish horses was an option.....or coconut shells).

[FemKUltra]

Originally posted by chaylafaysky:

Originally posted by ShokTherapy:

It depends on what youre looking for in a weapon. In general the best 2H weapon is a greatsword (or an elven curved blade if you want the 18-20 crit range and dont mind dropping the proficiency feat), the best 1H weapon is a longsword (or again a scimitar if youre a magus or something and want the 18-20 crit range for whatever reason)

However that being said it depends what weapons are available in the endgame, if the best 2H weapon you can find in the game is an earthbreaker than you should go earthbreaker, we just dont know yet.

Exactly... you get it, perfectly. There are no lists of the weapons (with their enchantments) in this game... we do not know what the best weapon for our characters are... and that SUCKS...

The devs should include an equipment list with the game... that way, I won't have to restart later if I find a +5 agile holy keen ultrasonic ghost touch flaming shocking defender rapier... just sayin'.

Personally Im fine with it atm, Im expecting a patch to add a retraining option in the near future and I plan on restarting on hard at some point to try out some different builds anyway.

[Triple G]

Originally posted by chaylafaysky:

At the moment there are no lists of weapons (with properties) included in the game, anywhere... I've asked already... so it's nearly impossible to say...

You'd have to play through the whole game... find what weapon you think is best, then create a new character, and specialize that character with that weapon in mind.

The best weapon that I currently know of, is a +5 holy ultrasonic glaive... it's in Pitax though, so takes a while to get to it.

I believe there are some +5 weapons, but also consider the following:

- If you manage to start with a strength of 20 and use all your stat boosts to get your score to 25 this gives you +7 from strength to hit.

- Afterwards take weapon focus, greater weapon focus and weapon specialization and you'll have a +15 (+7 Strength, +3 from feats and +5 from the weapon weapon) to hit.

- By level 20 a fighter gets +20 BAB.

- This all translates to +35 cumulative to hit.

- In game this currently translates to a roughly 1 in 1,000,000,000,000 chance of actually hitting an enemy. Have fun!

[wulfster42]

Lol a +35 to hit is plenty if you don't have the scaling set to above normal. The problem is if you don't go custom, and go with harder difficulties, it's set to above normal and it's currently bugged (giving double bonuses). Straight normal settings on enemies is fine, They don't get +15 to AC and +20 to attack bonus etc. The problem is people using the non-custom option. Hopefully the bugs will get fixed so you can do so, but if you want a harder difficulty just set it to slightly stronger etc and because of the double bonus...it actually is the eqiuvalent of hard.

[Grymm]

Originally posted by chaylafaysky:

I'll touch on this really quick. If I remember right keen and improved crit do not stack, and both double the initial crit range, so the bigger the crit range initially the better.

Don't know if this is correct, at least from what I'm used to. Normally they do stack, but not multiplicatively. Eg Rapier, goes from 18-20, then keen 15-20, keen + crit 12-20. That might be a D&D thing, not a PF thing, so feel free to correct me.

Another thing to keep in mind are the oddball scenarios, like a Magus. They use their weapons Crit Range to determine Spell criticals, but will only do *2. So an 18-20 is a huge advantage to a 20*4.

[Cain]

Well, I think the question is more complex than "which is the best weapon in the endgame". Maybe there is a good glaive in the later chapters, but can you have useful/level apropiate glaives on every chapter ? Not sure about that.

There is a +1 flaming bastard sword, and a +1 cold iron longsword relatively early available in the game at merchants, and a +1 agile rapier as loot. Also lootwise, there are multiple great greataxes and bows even early on.

[chaylafaysky]

Originally posted by Grymm:

Don't know if this is correct, at least from what I'm used to. Normally they do stack, but not multiplicatively. Eg Rapier, goes from 18-20, then keen 15-20, keen + crit 12-20. That might be a D&D thing, not a PF thing, so feel free to correct me.

I can say for certain in Pathfinder, they do not stack...

"James Jacobs
Creative Director
Apr 20, 2010, 04:41 pm

The basic idea for threat ranges is that nothing can ever expand the range beyond the 15–20 range. We haven't, to my knowledge, introduced any official effects that break this barrier yet, and I'm pretty sure we don't intend to.
11 people marked this as a favorite. "

That's a quote from one of the top guys who implement the rules at Paizo...

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2kqd1?Maximum-critical-threat-range

I don't know about D&D 3.5, but, in Pathfinder Improved Critical and Keen do not stack... Personally, I think it's a stupid rule... if a person has imp crit, they have learned to use a weapon in some new fashion... it's a skill... a keen weapon on the other hand, is not a weapon that grants new skills to its user... it's the weapon itself... so they should stack... but that's just an opinion... by the RAW, they do not stack, but, then again, any GM can always Rule Zero it.

[chaylafaysky]

Originally posted by Cain:

Well, I think the question is more complex than "which is the best weapon in the endgame". Maybe there is a good glaive in the later chapters, but can you have useful/level apropiate glaives on every chapter ? Not sure about that.

There is a +1 flaming bastard sword, and a +1 cold iron longsword relatively early available in the game at merchants, and a +1 agile rapier as loot. Also lootwise, there are multiple great greataxes and bows even early on.

If I was going to have a character specialize in a weapon for the early game, it would have to be Trollreaper (+1 Acidic Greataxe)… it's VERY, VERY useful in the early game...

[Evalle]

I guess that topic starter was not about theorycrafting, but asked what weapons are available in the game. Cant say about lategame. But i hope my list of early-mid game decent weapons will be useful. What i've seen so far and found noteable:

Endless War: +5 Greatsword (around lvl10). Although it has Vicious ability, means it adds +2d6dmg to enemy and d6 to self. Not sure if barb (or late fighter) DR can negate self dmg.

Mallet of Woe: +3 Mace (around lvl 5-6) dealing 2d6 instead of usual mace 1d8. Also has permanent Freedom

Grim Finale: +2 Club (around lvl 6-8, there's 2 of em), casts Vampiric Touch each strike.

Decapitator: +2 Falcata (Furious, Keen) (around lvl8). Could be good for crit builds.

Royal Gift: +3 dueling sword (Keen) (around lvl11)

Arcane Enforcer: another +3 dueling sword (around lvl 11) (with extra 1d6 dmg this time)

Hand of Damnation: +2 Scythe (Keen, Death Reservoire) (around lvl 11). Extra 4d6 AoE on crit (friendly fire included)

Devourer of Metal: +1 (around lvl 5-6) oversized longbow with extra 2d6 acid

Mother's Care: +2 kukri (Keen, +1d6 cold) (around lvl 8)

Beastrender: +2 Falchion (Animal Bane), (around lvl 8)

[Evinthal]

Originally posted by AzureTheGamerKobold:

2: Falacha: this one is new to me, but it's got a 1d8 19-20 x3 crit range but is an exotic weapon but the fact it has a good threat range AND x3? that's crazy good

Oh my sweet summer child...

When the Falcata first came out in the Pathfinder Tabletop RPG it was an 18-20 3x crit weapon, if you had improved critical (falcata) or keen weapon enchantment on it you threatened criticals on 15-20. It was hillarious, until you were on the recieving end of it.

As to the original poster, as others have said, there isn't really a "best" weapon for weapon focus, or specialization. The size of the weapons damage dice don't really matter in the long run, it is the static modifiers to the damage dice that make the biggest diference. Then it comes down to personal preference on wether you want to crit MORE often, but for LESS damage, or if you want to crit LESS, but for MORE damage

If you want to crit more often but for less damage pick a weapon with 18-20 critical range (Kukri's are great for this, especially if you are dual weilding them)

If you want to crit less but for more damage go for weapons with 3x or 4x damage multipliers (Earth breakers, Great Axe, Scythe)

Ironically enough the Falcata is pretty much the best of both worlds as it has a 3x crit with a 19-20 crit range. If you have a fighter with improved critical (falcata) or the falcata is keen it ends up being 17-20 crit range (and a 4x crit with the 20th level fighter thing, but that is 20th level...)

And no, Improved Critical and Keen weapon enhancement DO NOT stack with each other. I mean, they used to wayyyyyyy back when D&D 3rd edition first came out (and up until 3.5 or shortly before that) and it was just silly.