Bard Weapon q's

[AaronB]

Everyone says Khopesh's are the best, but it's hard to spare the feat (plus another for otwf). So, other than Khopesh's, is it better to take piercing or slashing? I've seen puncturing weapons as rapiers and daggers, which sound really cool, and rapiers have that great crit range. On the other hand, there seems to be a bigger overall selection of slashing weapons including vorpals, eventually. There's also wounding kukri's.

I plan on being a human twf warchanter 16/3/1 bard rogue fighter if it matters.

[Krag]

Drop OTWF, tweak your class split 16/2/2 and suddenly you have enough feats to spare on Khopeshes.

[honkuimushi]

With that set up you can skip OTWF and take khopesh. If the penalty to hit is too high at lower levels, just use a kukri in your off-hand. Scimitars and rapiers are also only a bit behind khopeshes, especially if you're an elf.

Also, as a Bard, you're not really married to one weapon. Don't be afraid to switch weapons if you find another one is best for a specific circumstance.

[Vint]

I Like Heavy Picks myself. Just a thought

[Rav'n]

What Race is your Bard? I tend to run the Racial Enhancements for Weapons on my Bards. +2 to Hit and +2 to Damage is like getting +4 to Strength!!

[Scalion]

If you care about crit (which is what the khopesh is all about) then picks are the next best thing, followed by axes.

[AaronB]

Thanks for the replies. My bard will be human for the extra feat, skill points, and hv. Even with that, and even if I did take 2 lvls of fighter, khopesh is tough. What would I drop out of:

2wf (x3)
Toughness
Weapon focus (warchanter prereq)
Power Attack (warchanter prereq)
Extend
Improved Crit
Empower Healing
even if I had another feat slot, Quicken
and if I took ftr 2, Stunning Blow (I'll be str-based, should have decent dc's)


It's possible I could switch out improved crit for khopesh at end-game after I had crafted keen ones. However, doesn't the constitution damage (off of a 15-20 crit range) from puncturing weapons make up for the lower multiplier compared to khopesh? And if I took 2 lvls of fighter, I'd have fewer skill points for the rogue skills. Do DD, Search, and Open lock have to be near max, or can I get away with lower if I don't plan on being the primary rogue in harder difficulties?

[Krag]

What Race is your Bard? I tend to run the Racial Enhancements for Weapons on my Bards. +2 to Hit and +2 to Damage is like getting +4 to Strength!!

+4 Strength applies to ALL weapons. Vorpals, weighted and other situational choices included.

[Scalion]

Thanks for the replies. My bard will be human for the extra feat, skill points, and hv. Even with that, and even if I did take 2 lvls of fighter, khopesh is tough. What would I drop out of:

2wf (x3)
Toughness
Weapon focus (warchanter prereq)
Power Attack (warchanter prereq)
Extend
Improved Crit
Empower Healing
even if I had another feat slot, Quicken
and if I took ftr 2, Stunning Blow (I'll be str-based, should have decent dc's)


It's possible I could switch out improved crit for khopesh at end-game after I had crafted keen ones. However, doesn't the constitution damage (off of a 15-20 crit range) from puncturing weapons make up for the lower multiplier compared to khopesh? And if I took 2 lvls of fighter, I'd have fewer skill points for the rogue skills. Do DD, Search, and Open lock have to be near max, or can I get away with lower if I don't plan on being the primary rogue in harder difficulties?

If bards don't get the heal spell, I imagine you'll get more benefit out of using heal scrolls on party members than having empower healing. Swapping out improved crit for khopesh means you might as well swap out the idea of khopeshes for axes.

Also, stunning blow is a nice time saver, but very rarely is a win or loss of a fight going to be determined on whether you get a stun off.

I'd say go with piercing.. picks for pure dps and rapiers for stat damage.

[Anthios888]

Re: Heavy picks. Khopeshes are more than big crits. Khopeshes are your best bet followed by rapiers & scimitars (or dwarven axes if you are a dwarf with enhancements). Heavy picks are much lower. It's about how often you crit, not for how much.

As per other comments, you can afford to drop oversized two weapon fighting. Khopeshes are fun to use and will be a very noticeable difference in the DPS you put out on a bard. Bards favor the two weapon fighting style due to their bard songs being applied evenly to every swing.

Here is a sample build of a two weapon fighting khopesh pure bard

Re: Puncturing weapons. DDO has changed a lot. It used to be that wounding of puncturing was really sick and con damage would kill monsters faster than DPS. I used wop rapiers and shortswords on my bard and it was extremely successful -- I used piercing for w/ps and other effects, and slashing for mineral II dps khopeshes. But, times have changed. Even with w/p icy burst rapiers, I'm more effective with a mineral II or lightning II khopesh. Many of the most important monsters have immunities to con damage (epic, reaver's refuge, shavarath). It's disappointing, but at least with a strength build & bard songs, you have the ability to convert to DPS relatively easily. It's the finesse builds that really suffered that change.