Polyarmoury

Choosing your Weapon in Pathfinder 2e

 

Introduction

One of Pathfinder Second Edition’s biggest strengths is the dizzying array of choices you get to make for your character. Paizo have gone to great lengths to ensure that every character gets to make interesting decisions at every level. Between your ancestry, background, class, feats, skills, and archetypes, the possibilities are nearly endless. 

Nowhere is this philosophy more apparent than in your choice of weapon. Gone are the days of simply picking a rapier for Dexterity characters or just grabbing the highest possible damage dice for Strength. Now you have a wide variety of arms, all with their own traits, abilities, damage dice, handedness, and other factors to take into consideration. 

But how do you choose? With over 200 weapons to pick from, selecting just one or two might seem overwhelming. That’s where this guide comes in. By breaking down the massive list of choices, explaining their use cases, and categorising them by type and fighting style, the aim is to make that decision as easy as possible, without simply telling you what to pick.

This guide should be useful for anyone considering making a martial character, although you might find it useful even if you’re one of those magical nerds and you want to pick up a side weapon for emergencies.

 

About the Author

Hi. I’m Cassie, long-time Pathfinder Second Edition player and occasional GM. I am a martial nut, so getting a system where martials are not only powerful but exciting and interesting to play was a dream come true (at least since D&D 4th Edition).

I previously wrote Fantastic Snares and Where to Place Them, a guide to maximising your use of Snares, which you can find here. Give it a look if you’re interested!

If you have any feedback or comments, please feel free to let me know at wealthbeyondmeasure on Discord.

 

Glossary

2e: Pathfinder 2nd Edition, the world’s greatest roleplaying game, and the system for which this guide was made.

5e: Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, the world’s oldest roleplaying game. As many new 2e players are converts from 5e, we will mention it occasionally throughout this guide as an easy point of reference.

ABP: Automatic Bonus Progression, an optional rule introduced in the Gamemastery Guide. This rule negates the need to regularly upgrade your fundamental weapon and armour runes, instead baking them into your character’s innate stat progression. It also removes item bonuses. Primarily designed for low-magic campaigns, some GMs find it helpful in other types of campaign to make progression more smooth and straightforward.

AC: Armour Class, the number you need to meet or beat to land your Strikes.

dX (d4, d12, d20, etc.): This is used to denote a dice with a certain number of sides. A d12 is a twelve-sided dice. Dices of all sizes between d4 and d20 are commonly used in 2e.

GM: Game Master, the term 2e uses for the person who runs the game (as opposed to DM, or Dungeon Master, as used by 5e).

MAD: Multiple Attribute Dependent, used to describe a character who needs lots of different abilities at a high level to be fully effective. Contrast with “SAD”, or Single Attribute Dependent, used to describe a character who only needs one high stat to be effective.

MAP: The Multiple Attack Penalty, a key balancing factor in 2e’s three action system. If you make multiple Attack actions in a turn, the second takes a -5 penalty, and the third onwards takes a -10 penalty.

 

The Anatomy of a Weapon

The first step to choosing a weapon is understanding how they are put together. Let’s break down what might be the most vanilla weapon out there: the Longsword.

Name: Every weapon has a name, obviously. No particular mechanical effect other than being referred to by other features (for example, feats that grant you training in specific weapons).

Source: No mechanical effect, but this might matter for your campaign, such as if your GM only wants to allow options from the Core Rulebook.

Favoured Weapon: This indicates which deities have this as their favoured weapon, which is only relevant for Clerics and Champions. Clerics usually only have Simple weapon training, but they are always proficient in their deity’s favoured weapon, even if it happens to be Martial or Advanced. Champions are proficient with all weapons, but always have access to their deity’s weapon even if it’s Uncommon, and they get to increase the damage dice if it’s simple. 

Flavour-wise it can be pretty fun to roll a religious character who zealously uses their deity’s favoured weapon, even if they’re not one of the two classes above. 

Price: With a few exceptions, most weapons don’t cost so much that you won’t be able to afford them at character creation. Just make sure to check so that you’re not accidentally taking a 550gp Clockwork Macuahuitl at level 1.

Damage: Here we come to the first really important stat. Every weapon has a single damage die ranging from d4 at lowest to d12 at highest. No weapon can go above or below these dice; if you increase the damage die of a d12 weapon it doesn’t go to 2d6, it simply stays where it is (sorry, 5e greatsword fans). As a rule, the higher a weapon’s damage dice, the less traits it offers. 

Bulk: Bulk ranges from Light for small weapons to 2 for the largest stuff (plus the Backpack Catapult with 3). In general, if you’re wielding a big weapon you probably have good Strength, so you don’t need to worry too much about this. The exception is Heavy Crossbow users, who will probably be Dex-based with little Strength, so try and secure a Bag of Holding or a Lifting Belt as soon as you can!

Hands: Another vital consideration when picking a weapon. We’ll talk about the distinction between 1- and 2-handed weapons in the Fighting Styles section later. Note that the Two-Hand trait is not the same thing as being a two-handed weapon.

Some ranged weapons, mostly bows, are listed as requiring “1+” hands. This means you get to hold the weapon in one hand most of the time, leaving the other available for whatever you like. However, that hand needs to be free in order for you to make a Strike as you nock and fire the ammunition. 

Category: All weapons fall into one of three proficiency categories: Simple, Martial, and Advanced. Almost every class is trained in an entire category rather than particular weapons, so make sure to check this to ensure you’re able to wield your chosen weapon.

Group: Weapons groups are important for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it determines your critical specialisation effect. You cannot use a crit spec effect by default; you need to gain access to them via a feat or feature. Martial classes gain these at level 5, usually in a manner tied to their main class feature. For example, the Barbarian’s Brutality feature at level 5 allows them access to the crit spec effect of melee attacks while they are in a Rage.

Secondly, until level 19, Fighters only gain their high proficiency bonus in one particular group of weapons. Usually this just means you pick whichever group your favourite weapon belongs to and stick with it for the rest of your career.

Traits: Probably the most important part of this whole statblock. Traits grant a wide range of effects and abilities to a weapon, from longer range, to access to maneuvers, to numerical bonuses in particular situations. Alongside damage die, this should be the first thing you consider when you’re trying to pick a weapon.

 

Analysis

We’ve taken a look at all the different parts; now let’s put them back together again. What does it all mean?

Firstly, weapons have budgets. That is to say, there’s only a certain amount of total power a particular weapon is allowed to have; when it gains something in one area, it has to lose something in another as a tradeoff. You don’t get to have a weapon that hits extremely hard and offers lots of utility. This is a smart decision by Paizo that largely prevents any obvious “best in class” options from cropping up.

Secondly, the budget depends on the category. In other words, a Simple weapon has less of a total budget than a Martial weapon, and a Martial weapon has less than an Advanced weapon. As a result, if you have training in Martial weapons, they should almost always be your go-to option. There might be exceptions if you have particular feat/feature support (e.g. Crossbow Ace offers benefits for simple crossbows over martial ones).

Thirdly, the budget also depends on handedness. One-handed weapons have less of a budget than two-handed weapons because they inherently have a huge gain in versatility due to having an extra hand. There are also certain restrictions placed on them. For example, very few one-handers go above a d6 damage die, and they absolutely never get more than d8. If you’re trying to make a homebrew weapon, rules like these are important to keep in mind to maintain balance.

 

A quick comparison of four different weapons will hopefully help illustrate the above points.

The Mace is a one-handed Simple weapon with a d6 damage die and the Shove trait. As a Simple weapon it has a limited budget, most of which is taken by the d6 dice and then finished off by Shove. 

The Warhammer is a one-handed Martial weapon with a d8 damage die and the Shove trait. As you can see, this is conceptually a very similar weapon, but gains a full damage die increase just for being Martial. 

The Maul is a two-handed Martial weapon with a d12 damage die and the Shove trait. Even though it’s in the same proficiency category as the Warhammer, it’s a two-handed weapon, and that means it gets to get a full two damage die increases. 

The Butchering Axe is a two-handed Advanced weapon with a d12 damage die and the Shove and Sweep traits (plus Orc and Uncommon, but those don’t matter in this instance). Because it’s Advanced, this weapon gets to have a full extra trait compared to the martial Maul.

 

The main thing you should take away from all of this is that you’re going to be making tradeoffs. You need to decide what is important for your character, and that will help guide you to your final selection of weapons.

 

Weapon Types

Weapons in 2e can be broken down into a few broad categories. Although the mechanics are largely the same, there are particular considerations to make depending on which type you’re looking at.

 

Melee Weapons

By far the most varied category, melee weapons have a wide range of traits and options to pick between.

As part of the overall balance of 2e, melee damage is superior to ranged damage. This extends to both the mechanics of melee weapons, and the weapons themselves. For example, Strikes with melee weapons always add your Strength to the damage dealt, and the average damage die of melee weapons is higher.

Of course, there’s a price to pay. You will spend more actions running in and adjusting your position, and you will normally be in more danger in melee, since monsters also follow the “melee is stronger” rule. You can only reach things that are adjacent to you, or a couple of squares away if you’ve picked a Reach weapon (and then you’re giving up something to get that reach). If you pick up a Thrown weapon for a bit of versatility, then you pretty much have to splash out on a Returning rune. And so on.

 

Ranged Weapons

There’s a little less decision making to be made about ranged weapons, but that’s not to say there’s not plenty of thought you can put into your choice.

Ranged weapons obviously require some sort of ammunition. This quickly becomes trivial as campaigns go on, and many GMs (myself included) consider exact mundane ammunition tracking to be tedious bookkeeping, but it is a consideration. Firearm ammo, like the firearms themselves, is Uncommon, so your GM may rule that it’s harder to get hold of – in these instances as a Gunslinger, consider taking the Munitions Crafter feat so that you can make batches of ammunition each day.

Ranged weapons like crossbows or firearms may also need to be reloaded. Reloading takes at least one action, sometimes two for the heavier weapons, and is an Interact action. As Interact has the Manipulate trait, this means you are going to provoke an Attack of Opportunity if you reload within the reach of an enemy with that feature. Thankfully not every creature has such a reaction, but it’s an important consideration – even a purely ranged character will need some sort of mobility in these situations.

Unlike melee weapons, and unlike 5e, Strikes with ranged weapons usually don’t add any modifiers from ability score. For example, a Longbow has a d8 damage die, so on your basic ranged Strikes you’re going to do a grand total of 1d8 Piercing damage, with no bonus from your Strength or Dexterity. This goes back to the melee vs. ranged balancing we mentioned earlier. (There are traits that can modify this, which we’ll examine later).

Finally, ranged weapons have a Range Increment. This is not a maximum range, but rather the range at which your accuracy will begin dropping off. For every increment beyond the first, your attacks take a -2 penalty, which starts off manageable but quickly becomes heavily penalising. You can’t fire beyond 6 range increments at all. For example, a Longbow has a 100 foot Range entry. If you fired at a target 150 feet away, that would fall within the second range increment (100-200) and therefore take a -2 penalty. The true maximum range of a Longbow is six range increments, or 600 feet, at which point you would be taking a -10 to your attack. 

Does all this mean that ranged weapons aren’t worth it? No, not at all. The absolute freedom of being able to hit enemies anywhere on the battlefield at will is worth the price you pay, and all these little restrictions and nerfs are what keeps melee and ranged on par as fighting options.

One firearm-specific quirk to keep in mind is the chance of misfire. If you don’t clean your gun during your daily preparations after using it, you have a 20% chance of your gun breaking, causing an automatic critical failure, and needing an extra action to unjam. This obviously sucks if it happens. By default, it won’t come up very often – how often do you go multiple days without a break? – but there are some feats and traits that can increase the chance of, or directly cause, misfires, so it’s worth remembering.

 

Combination Weapons

Can’t decide between taking a gun or a sword? ¿Porque no los dos? 

Combination weapons are essentially two separate weapons stapled together. One is always a ranged weapon, and the other is always a melee weapon of some description. Each form has its own separate damage, traits, and statistics, and you swap which “mode” of the weapon is active with an Interact action. For example, the melee form of the Axe Musket is a d8 Axe; you can spend an action to swap modes and now you’re wielding a d6 Musket instead.

If you land a melee Strike with your weapon, you can then choose to make your next Strike that round with the ranged portion without having to switch modes – flavour-wise, you’re pulling the trigger right as your melee attack lands. 

You can always reload a combination weapon even if it’s in melee mode, which is nice.

Most combination weapons have the Critical Fusion trait on the melee portion, which means you can pick your critical specialisation effect. We’ll discuss this a little later in the Traits review.

Whatever runes you put on your combination weapon will apply to both modes as long as they’re compatible, so they can also save you money on having to deck out two separate weapons.

Combination weapons are a little clunky, mostly because of the action economy – you need to spend actions to swap modes and to reload, if it has that trait – and in terms of raw power they’re generally not quite as good as other weapons to make up for their inherent versatility. However, they do have plenty of uses. If you’re wielding a one-handed combination weapon like a Mace Multipistol, you effectively have two weapons at once while still retaining the versatile power of a free hand. Being able to change your crit spec effect around also helps to avoid immunities, like the bleed from Knife against undead foes.

It’s worth pointing out one specific feat, Stab and Blast, which is insanely good for combination weapon users. You essentially get two attacks, the second having enhanced accuracy, for a single action. This is Flurry of Blows on crack. Anyone using combination weapons, even non-Gunslingers, should multiclass into Gunslinger around level 12 so that they can pick up this feat at 16 (after getting Basic Shooting at 14).

With the advent of Impossible Lands and the Triggerbrand way for Gunslingers, it’s easier than ever to get access to this; if you pick Triggerbrand as your multiclass Way, you can grab Triggerbrand Salvo, which is literally just Stab and Blast but at a lower level (the tradeoff being that it only works with combination weapons rather than attached weapons). Since this arrives at level 6, you can multiclass into Gunslinger at 8 and have it at level 12.

Overall, combination weapons are decent enough that you can pick them for the awesome flavour without having to worry about nerfing yourself too much. Gunslingers are obviously one of the best candidates here, but try thinking outside the box. Investigators, for example, can roll with a Rapier Pistol, making most of their attacks in melee as normal – but as soon as they confirm a critical hit with their Devise a Strategem, they can swap to the Pistol portion to take advantage of that tasty Fatal d8 trait. Play around and see what you can come up with!

 

Unarmed

What? I thought this was a guide to weapons?!

Well, yes. And unarmed strikes do not count as weapons for most purposes. For example, you can’t use Double Slice with an empty hand because you’re not wielding two melee weapons. This is true of all unarmed attacks, even fancy ones you might unlock.

However, the way their stat block works is just like a weapon’s; they have damage die, traits, and even weapon groups (usually Brawling, but there are exceptions). If you have a choice between multiple unarmed attacks, like if you’re a Monk trying to pick between stances, you’re going to be comparing and contrasting the different options just like you would with picking a weapon.

Every player character has a basic Fist unarmed attack. It has very poor statistics, as you may expect, so anyone who wants to use unarmed as their main attack style needs to find another option or enhancement ASAP. 

The biggest source of new unarmed attacks, other than Monk’s options, come from ancestry feats or heritages.

Unarmed attacks can never be disarmed. If they’re attached to your hands (like claws) they operate just like a Free-Hand weapon in that you can’t use it if your hand is occupied. Despite the name, you use the Fist statistics for any basic unarmed attack with your body parts, so you can actually have both hands occupied and still use your Fist attack by kicking or headbutting or whatever.

Unarmed attacks are melee by default, but there are a few ranged unarmed attacks such as the Kitsune’s Foxfire or the Automaton’s Energy Beam. These work with anything that cares about unarmed attacks, so go ahead and make that Automaton Monk who Flurries with eye lasers.

 

Weapon Traits and You

As mentioned previously, traits are probably one of the most important factors to consider when picking a weapon. Below we’ll consider each one and what it brings to the table compared to other traits, as well as which characters might appreciate it more or less. Remember that every extra trait on a weapon has an implicit cost in terms of damage die or other traits, so you should carefully consider whether aiming for a particular trait is worth it.

Rather than going through every single one individually, we’ll group some of them into categories to make things easier.

 

Finesse

We’re starting with an important one here. Used to represent light-weight weapons where precision matters more than brute force, Finesse weapons give you the option to use your Dexterity modifier for attack rolls rather than Strength. Note that this only applies to attack rolls – unlike 5e, you still use Strength for the actual damage roll. The only exception to this rule is for Thief Rogues. This helps prevent Dexterity from becoming the god-stat that it is in many other systems. 

It should be noted that Finesse does not allow you to use Dexterity for Athletics maneuvers like Trip if the weapon has those traits.

In terms of weapon selection, Finesse is probably one of the biggest filters: if you’re primarily a Strength character, then you will probably ignore all Finesse weapons, and vice-versa for Dexterity characters. It’s not that you can’t use Finesse weapons as a Strength character (the Dexterity replacement is optional), but it’s essentially a dead trait for you that eats into the total budget. Compare, for example, the Falchion and the Elven Curve Blade. In exchange for losing the Finesse trait, the Falchion gains an entire damage die and the Sweep trait. You’re essentially just taking a worse weapon for no reason if you’re not utilising the Finesse aspect of the Curve Blade.

 

Better for: Martial classes with Dexterity key ability; any class that specifically wants a Finesse weapon for their features; non-Martials dumping Strength who want a backup weapon

Worse for: Anyone with low Dexterity

 

Agile

Agile weapons suffer less MAP on successive attacks in the same round, going 0/-4/-8 rather than 0/-5/-10. Agile is very often paired with Finesse on weapons, and there are many features that require them interchangeably. Rogues, for example, get to make Sneak Attacks with Agile or Finesse weapons. 

Agile is obviously very good for any character who wants to be making multiple attacks in a round. Rangers with the Flurry Hunter’s Edge are probably the most obvious example, gaining massive benefits for using Agile weapons, but any class with a flat bonus per attack (such as Rogues with Sneak Attack) will benefit from the enhanced hit chance. Barbarians are an exception, as Agile weapons specifically halve the damage bonus from your Rage. No big raging brutes wielding dainty little letter openers here.

 

Better for: Flurry Edge Rangers; other characters aiming to frequently make multiple attacks a turn

Worse for: Barbarians; characters who care about making one big hit per round; people using Reload weapons

 

Semi-Agile (Backswing & Sweep)

Both of these are essentially nerfed versions of Agile.

Backswing offers a +1 bonus to your next attack roll after you miss an attack with the weapon. Sweep, meanwhile, offers a +1 bonus to your attack roll if your last attack this turn was against a different target. This obviously makes it difficult to focus fire on one target. Note that it doesn’t care that your last action was a Strike, so you can swing against one target, Stride over to another, then attack again to get the bonus. 

Sweep is probably overall better; having to rely on a whiff to get one of your weapon’s traits is unreliable, whereas you have much greater control over when Sweep kicks in. Sweep also features on weapons with better damage die, all the way up to d12, compared to the d10 maximum on Backswing. If you have a choice between the two, go for Sweep unless your class specifically discourages you from swapping targets (e.g. Thaumaturge).

These do stack with Agile. That means particular builds, like a Ranger with the Flurry Hunter’s Edge, can actually get to the point where their second attack is equally as accurate as the first.

It’s also worth noting that unlike Agile, Rage has no penalty for using these sorts of weapons, so they’re a kind of “Barbarian’s Agile” for the large and angry among you who want to keep on swinging. In fact, Barbarians (and Fighters) have a special feat that interacts with Sweep, called Swipe, so it’s clearly intended to be a good trait for them.

 

Better for: Multi-attack focused characters who want a better damage die; Barbarians who want to multiattack; Backswing on Flurry Rangers; Agile Grace Fighters

Worse for: Characters who require Agile for their class features (Rogues, Swashbucklers, Investigators); Sweep if your class has single-target attack enhancers that aren’t easily swappable (Thaumaturge, Ranger until they get Double Prey)

 

Forceful

Forceful is also a multiattack enhancer, but instead of boosting your accuracy, it boosts your raw damage. Your second attack with the same weapon in a turn gains a damage bonus equal to the number of damage dice (i.e. between +1 and +4) and your third onwards gains a bonus equal to twice this (i.e. between +2 and +8).

Given that +1 is roughly equivalent to increasing the damage die by one step, this is mostly a compensatory trait for weapons with poor base damage. If you have the choice between, say, a d6 with Forceful and a d8 without, go for the d8. However, particular builds that can attack 3 or more times in a round can eventually outpace the raw damage die, so if you’re very specialised in multi-attacking and can consistently hit those strikes, then it might be worth it. 

There is one particular synergy that makes Forceful decent, and that is the Certain Strike feat for Fighters. Certain Strike is a Strike that, on miss, still deals all your flat damage bonuses – which includes the circumstance bonus from Forceful. This is nearly guaranteed damage for situations where your second or third Strike is unlikely to land, making you reliable even against higher level foes.

Note that Forceful only works with multiple attacks with the same weapon, so it doesn’t work with feats like Double Slice. Since dual-wielders are often multi-attackers, this means you need to think carefully about which trait you want. Consider Twin, coming up next, instead.

 

Better for: Dedicated multi-attackers; Fighters with Certain Strike

Worse for: Characters who aren’t reliably going to make 3 attacks or more a turn; dual-wielders who won’t be attacking with the same weapon

 

Twin

Twin primarily features on weapons designed to be dual-wielded as a pair. The wording is slightly confusing (what is a “weapon type”?), but to make it simple: you get a bonus to your damage roll if you attack with two different weapons with the same name. For example, if you’re dual-wielding Hook Swords, you can Strike with the one in your main hand, and then you will get a damage bonus if you Strike and hit with the one in your offhand. You can’t activate this bonus by attacking with the same weapon multiple times.

This does trigger on multi-attacking activities with different weapons, like Double Slice, so it’s a nice pickup for dual-wielders to compensate for the lower die of single handed weapons.

The downside is that you now have to use two identical weapons, which means you lose out on the versatility of dual-wielding different weapons for different situations.

Technically speaking, you don’t actually have to dual-wield to get the bonus. You can attack with a Hook Sword, drop it as a free action, then Quick Draw and attack with another Hook Sword you had sheathed and this will still trigger. Why you would do that is another question…

 

Better for: Dual-wielders who want to increase their DPS

Worse for: Dual-wielders who want a variety of traits and damage types; characters who don’t dual-wield

 

Reach

Reach is, simply put, one of the best weapon traits in the game.

To understand why, we need to think about what exactly it does. 

Our Barbarian friend Nox here is wielding a Greataxe, giving him normal reach.

He is currently covering 8 squares of the battlefield, not including his own.

Let’s swap his Greataxe out for a big Halberd with Reach instead.

The amount of spaces he can affect has tripled from 8 to 24. This offers a whole host of cascading benefits:

• Action economy. If you have an enemy sitting 10 foot away from you (perhaps they Stepped, or they Strode away with 5 foot more speed than you and you followed) then you save an entire action not having to move any closer to them to Strike. There aren’t many weapon traits that will save you so many actions so consistently, and in 2e, action economy is key.
• Battlefield control. People, as a rule of thumb, do not like to be stabbed. If your enemy is looking at a man with a knife strapped to a long stick, they’re probably not gonna want to go near him. Those 24 squares are an enormous amount of space for enemies to try and avoid to get to your backline. In the smaller maps that are typical in Adventure Paths, you can basically cut off entire chokepoints just by standing there, making your entire party safer. And this only gets better with…

• Attack of Opportunity (AoO). Really, this is just an expansion on the above point, but it’s valuable enough to be worth repeating. All of the above becomes much, much better when you get to make reaction attacks against anyone trying to move through those 24 squares. Any melee enemies without Reach of their own have to eat an AoO to get within Striking distance of you as well. Because AoO also triggers on any action with the Move trait, this means you get to bully enemies trying to stand up from prone, making it an excellent combo with Tripping or allies with other knockdown options.

• Trait combinations. This might be where Reach goes from “great” to “amazing”, because Reach also makes a lot of other weapon traits better. The Guisarme, for example, has Reach and Trip – and Reach applies to all the maneuver traits attached to your weapon. That means you can now knock someone down from 10 foot away instead of just adjacent to you – suddenly you’re knocking people down across 24 squares and not just the basic 8.

Although not strictly a weapon, an Animal Barbarian taking the Deer option gets Reach and Grapple at level 7, letting them grab enemies from 10 foot away and keeping them pinned in a place where they can’t do anything but struggle to escape. As a result, Deer is probably the very best option for most animal barbs.

Hopefully that illustrates the raw power of Reach. It is a highly valued trait, so you usually won’t get tons of other traits on top, but even still it’s always great to have on a weapon.

 

Better for: pretty much everyone, actually; characters with Attack of Opportunity or similar reaction attacks; anyone who wants to control large swaths of battlefield

Worse for: Characters who rely on keeping enemies directly adjacent for particular abilities or feats

 

Maneuver Traits (Disarm, Grapple, Shove, Trip, Ranged Trip)

We’ll group all five of these together because they all do very similar things. Firstly, they allow you to use the relevant maneuver even if you don’t have a free hand. This is great for most characters except those who already fight with one or both hands empty – although even then it might be worth it due to the below points.

Secondly, it allows you to add your weapon’s Item bonus to attacks to your Athletics roll. Depending on which level of Potency rune you’ve got on your weapon, this means you’re getting between +1 and +3 to the check, which is not insignificant. However, this does not stack with other Item bonuses to Athletics. If you’re focusing on that skill and already using something like a Lifting Belt to enhance it, this does nothing for you. It’s worth noting that you should get weapon potency runes at an earlier level than the relevant skill-boosters (i.e. a Weapon Potency +1 is level 2 while the Lifting Belt is level 4), so perhaps you’ll get use for a level or two before it becomes obsolete.

Thirdly, it allows you to ignore critical failures on the relevant maneuver by dropping the weapon instead. How useful this might be depends on the situation. For example, a critical failure on Disarm makes you flat-footed until the start of your next turn. Is it better for you to be weaponless or to be more vulnerable defensively? That’s up to you.

The critical failure effects on Grapple, Shove, and Trip all knock you prone, so you’re spending an action to stand up or an action to grab your weapon either way. In these cases, especially if your maneuver was the last action of your turn, it’s probably better to have no weapon than to be prone right next to an enemy. At level 7, if you’re a Master in Acrobatics, you can grab the Kip Up feat to stand up for free without triggering reactions, so you’re almost always gonna want to fall over instead of dropping your weapon.

Ranged Trip is a slightly odd fish. For the most part it works just like Trip, but it only appears on two weapons, both of which are Thrown, and it allows you to Trip enemies up to the first range increment of that weapon (20 foot for both existing options). However, you eat a -2 circumstance penalty on that check, essentially knocking you down a proficiency tier. It’s probably not worth building around, but I suppose a backup knockdown for fleeing enemies is nice. Note that this is a different effect than a weapon with Reach + Trip.

 

Better for: Characters specialising in maneuvers with both hands occupied; characters with high Strength trying to get maximum value out of their Athletics skill with item bonuses; characters using Reach weapons or reach-enhancing effects like Enlarge

Worse for: Low Strength or low Athletics characters; characters with good Acrobatics who will take Kip Up

 

Crit Enhancements (Deadly and Fatal)

Deadly and Fatal both serve a similar purpose: making your critical hits better.

Deadly adds extra dice of the listed size when you score a crit. As with other effects specifically caused by critical hits, this dice is not doubled. For example, a crit with a basic Katana (d6 die with Deadly d8) will deal (1d6*2)+1d8 Slashing damage. An extra die gets added for every Striking rune past the first, so Deadly will scale into the later game; that same Katana at level 19 with a Major Striking Rune will do (4d6*2)+3d8 damage instead.

Fatal is Deadly’s big sister. It adds one extra die of the listed size (this does not scale with Striking runes), but more importantly upgrades all of the weapon’s damage dice to that size as well. For example, a basic Pick (d6 die with Fatal d10) does 1d6 Piercing damage on a normal hit; on a critical hit, that becomes (1d10*2)+1d10. Yes, that’s as insane of an increase as it sounds.

Both these weapons obviously reward critical hits. Smarter people than I have calculated that Fatal always scales better than Deadly, but this comes at the cost of a higher portion of the weapon’s budget. Melee weapons with Fatal, like the Pick family, rarely come with any other useful traits, whereas weapons with Deadly often have other features that make them worth using (Katana’s Two-Hand trait, for example). In other words, you’re basically sacrificing utility to go all-in on your crits with Fatal. Depending on your class and build, this could be quite worth it.

Another note about Fatal is that it is in many ways the “signature” trait of Firearms that separates them from bows and crossbows. Firearms generally have worse damage across the board, but in exchange have much better crit damage (which coincidentally synergises with the Gunslinger’s bonus accuracy). 

No weapons come with both Deadly and Fatal by default, but options do exist to add Deadly to a weapon… so if you wanted to triple down on your crit investment, you could make it happen. Gimmick? Perhaps. Hilarious when your Assassin Magus crits on a Spellstrike and turns that goblin into a fine pink mist? Definitely.

 

Better for: High accuracy classes who will be critting often (Fighters, Gunslingers); characters who want to land one large, powerful strike (Investigator, Magus); characters in parties with strong setup capabilities

Worse for: Low accuracy classes who won’t be critting very often (Inventors, Thaumaturges, non-martials)

 

Two-Hand

If you’ve played 5e, this is essentially the Versatile trait (not to be confused with 2e’s own Versatile trait, which we’ll come to shortly). Two-Hand weapons are always one-handed by default, but can be wielded in a second hand to increase their damage die, either by one or two steps depending on the trait’s value. For example, a Bastard Sword deals d8 slashing damage by default, but because it has Two-Hand d12, it deals d12 slashing instead if you wield it with both hands.

This is a nice option for anyone who regularly has a free hand, such as if you’re using the one-handed fighting style we discuss later. Swapping to two-handed grip for some extra punch, then letting go later for maneuvers, gives you some killer versatility and helps makes up for the generally low damage die of single-handed weapons.

Keep in mind that it does take an action to grip a weapon with a second hand, so you’re not swapping between the two modes completely freely. It might be a good idea to stay in two-handed grip by “default” and then release one hand’s grip, which is a free action, if you ever need that off-hand for something.

There are also a number of feats which synergise directly with the Two-Hand trait, which again we’ll discuss later in the Fighting Styles section.

 

Better for: Characters specialising in maneuvers who want a high damage option; characters with the Dual-Handed Assault feat

Worse for: Characters with tight action economy who can’t afford to keep re-gripping their weapon; characters who need their other hand for other things (e.g. shield users, Thaumaturges)

 

Free-Hand

Continuing with the theme of handedness, Free-Hand weapons do what they say on the tin: the hand that wields them remains free for all other purposes. You can only have one free-hand weapon in a hand, and you can’t use it as a weapon while the hand is otherwise occupied, but otherwise there aren’t any restriction on how you can use it. For example, you can wear a Gauntlet and a Buckler together.

The Free-Hand trait itself is expensive in terms of power budget, which makes sense for something with such a low investment. No Free-Hand weapons have more than a d4 damage die and they very rarely have other useful traits except Agile. In most regards they’re barely better than your default Fist attack.

However, it does allow you to effectively dual-wield and have a free-hand at the same time; feats like Double Slice that require you to be wielding weapons in both hands explicitly do not work with unarmed strikes, but Gauntlets and the like are just fine. 

It’s worth noting that you get a free pair of Gauntlets with any set of heavy armour, so there’s basically no reason for a Strength character to ever not wield one on their off-hand. At the very least, it means you can do lethal damage. Characters using bows that can’t have attached weapons might also appreciate this, as a Gauntleted hand still qualifies for using 1+ Hand weapons.

 

Better for: Any character using a free-handed fighting style; dual-wielders who don’t mind giving up weapon power for the versatility of a free hand; anyone using Heavy Armour; Dexterity characters as most Free-Hand weapon do not have Finesse

Worse for: Characters who want to wield good weapons; dual-wielders who don’t care about doing maneuvers beyond what their weapon traits offer

 

Attached

This trait covers weapons that have to be combined with something else. You can’t use Attached weapons by themselves; they have to be on the specified object to function. In all other respects they function like normal weapons (such as being able to etch runes onto them). There are three main types at present: shield attachments, ranged weapon attachments, and wheelchair attachments. 

Shield attachments – the Shield Boss and Shield Spikes – give you a basic attack with a shield hand that’s better than the garbage default shield bash. They also mean you’re now wielding weapons in both hand, enabling you to use dual-wield techniques like Double Slice with a weapon and shield, which is nice.

Ranged weapon attachments – currently the Bayonet and Reinforced Stock – are attached to either crossbows or firearms. These are obviously most useful for anyone using two-handed types of these weapons so that you’re not stuck using the default Fist attack to defend yourself in melee. Note that attached weapons don’t inherit the runes of the weapon they’re on, which may be a good or bad thing depending on how much you can afford to spend on customising two weapons.

Wheelchair attachments like the Wheel Blades are attached to a particular wheelchair and can be used by anyone sitting in the chair. Each of the wheelchair attached weapons has Free-Hand as well, so they’re effectively free. (On a related topic: shout out to the Dislocating DM, who wrote the original combat wheelchair supplement for 5e and was responsible for the wheelchair rules in 2e’s Grand Bazaar. They rock.)

None of these weapons are very good, which, much like Free-Hand weapons, is by design. They’re mostly there for emergencies rather than as a weapon you rely on, although the shield ones do open up some interesting playstyles.

 

Better for: Two-handed ranged weapon users who want an emergency melee weapon; shield users who want to dual-wield; characters in wheelchairs

Worse for: Characters without damage buffs to compensate for poor damage die; characters who can’t afford extra weapon runes

 

Damage Swappers (Versatile & Modular)

Versatile weapons have, well, versatile damage types. Every time you make an attack, you get to pick which damage type you’re using for that attack, between the default type and the type listed in the Versatile trait. For example, a Shortsword does Piercing damage by default as you stab with the point of the blade, but because it has Versatile S, you can instead choose to make it Slashing with a swing instead. Most versatile weapons offer one alternate physical damage type, although a Summoner’s eidolon can get Versatile for any energy damage type by using Dual Energy Heart.

Modular is a slightly more complicated version of Versatile. Instead of choosing which damage type you’d like to use per attack, you need to spend an Interact action to change modes, which then affects all attacks until the mode is changed again. In exchange for this clunkier requirement, Modular weapons can usually swap between all three physical damage types, making them more adaptable overall. In very specific cases – at the present moment, this is only featured on the Switchscythe – Modular can also be used to swap out weapon traits.

How much does damage type matter? The answer is, unhelpfully, “somewhat”. There are a lot fewer monsters that generally resist physical damage than there are those that resist specific physical types. Out of the physical damage types, Bludgeoning is the least often resisted, and Slashing is the most common weakness. 

Unless you’re using ABP rules, the nature of runes means it’s expensive to invest in more than a couple of weapons, so you’re probably not going to be carrying around a weapon for each damage type. Versatile and Modular can represent a decent damage boost if you do come up against something that resists your normal weapon or if you can find a weakness.

 

Better for: Two-handed weapon users; parties with good Recall Knowledge capability who can identify weaknesses and resistances; 

Worse for: Dual-wielders who can already have access to multiple damage types at once; campaigns using ABP; campaigns where you’re mostly fighting one enemy type with consistent weaknesses or resistances; characters starved for actions who can’t afford the Modular switch cost

 

Backstabber

A sort of “baby sneak attack”, Backstabber offers a +1 to your damage when you’re hitting a flat-footed enemy, going up to a +2 at around max level. As previously noted in Forceful, a +1 to damage is roughly equivalent to a damage die increase, so this is strictly worse than just getting a better die. Of course, it doesn’t take up as much budget.

One thing to note is that, like Sneak Attack, the extra damage is precision damage and so won’t work on particular enemies (skeletal creatures, oozes, or anything else that lacks vital organs).

The most obvious candidates for Backstabber weapons are Rogues, who want to be attacking flat-footed targets as often as possible anyway. There are a number of ancestral weapons for Goblins and Kobolds, both natural Rogues anyway, that also feature the trait, so you can definitely build around it if you’d like.

There’s also an Assassin archetype feat, Expert Backstabber, which increases the bonus to +2 (or +4 at level 19); this goes a long way to making up for the lower damage die of these weapons if you can regularly flat-foot enemies. Of courses, Assassins’ Mark for Death adds Backstabber to an Agile or Finesse weapon anyway, so you don’t necessarily want to pick something that already has the trait.

 

Better for: Rogues; Assassins; other character with consistent access to flat-footed

Worse for: Ranged characters who can’t easily flank; campaigns where you’re regularly fighting enemies immune to precision damage

 

Parry

Parry effectively turns your weapon into a buckler; while wielding a Parry weapon, you can spend one action to raise it, gaining a +1 circumstance bonus to your AC. 

The most obvious use case here is for two-handed weapon users and dual-wielders, who usually can’t use shields or even bucklers. You can’t Shield Block or use any other shield feats with your weapon, so it’s not quite as full a defensive boost as a real shield, but it does help patch a hole. Since these builds are so focused on offense, the ability to get a modest amount of survivability for sticky situations is nice.

There are also a number of feats, such as Twin Parry or Defensive Armaments, that either add the Parry trait to a weapon or enhance an existing Parry bonus to +2 to match a full shield.

 

Better for: Characters using two-handed weapons or dual-wielding who want some survivability

Worse for: Shield users

 

Nonlethal

Most weapons are lethal by default, meaning that whatever you reduce to 0 hit points with them will die (or at least enter the Dying state if the GM deems them important). If you want to knock someone out, you have to take a -2 to your attack rolls to make your damage nonlethal.

Nonlethal weapons flip this rule around – by default, they will knock enemies out safely, and you have to take -2 to your attacks if you want to make them lethal to foes.

Technically speaking, you could consider this a strict upgrade, because once you’ve knocked enemies out you can always execute them afterwards if you don’t want to interrogate anyone. However, there are a number of enemies with complete immunity to nonlethal damage, so you’ll have to eat an attack penalty or swap weapons in these instances. Consider what’s going to come up in your campaign and plan accordingly.

Otherwise, this is almost entirely a roleplay benefit. There is one deity (Qi Zhong) who prohibits ever dealing lethal damage unless it’s part of a medical treatment, making this pretty much mandatory (although funny enough, the deity’s favoured weapon does not have this trait). Followers of other deities with an emphasis on mercy or redeeming enemies could also find a use for it.

There are a few feats, like Nonlethal Takedown or Takedown Expert, which allow you to make your attacks nonlethal for free. Consider sourcing one of these feats so you can easily switch between modes as required rather than having to deal with nonlethal-immune enemies.

 

Better for: Followers of particular deities; campaigns where taking prisoners or interrogating enemies is important

Worse for: Campaigns where nonlethal-immune enemies are common; blood-and-death murderhobo campaigns where you’re just carving swaths through your foes without a care as to who they are

 

Critical Fusion

A trait inherent to the melee usage of all Combination weapons, Critical Fusion effectively allows you to choose from 3 different critical specialisation effects when you score a critical hit. You can use the regular crit effect of the weapon’s normal group, you can choose to use the Firearm crit effect (save vs. Class DC or be Stunned 1) instead, or you can forego both to add 2 extra damage per die.

However, using the extra crit spec options also discharges your firearm, so you’ll have to reload afterwards.

This is some nice versatility for an already versatile weapon group. There are a number of critical specialisation effects that won’t do anything versus particular enemies or in certain situations (e.g. trying to bleed undead with Knife or knock someone prone that’s already on the floor with Hammer), so still being able to swap it out for a chance at Stunned 1 or just some extra raw damage is good. 

This isn’t exactly a trait you pick specifically, more like a perk of picking up a Combination weapon, so you’re never going to be weighing it up against another potential option if you’re set on that category of weapons.

 

Better for: Classes with broad access to critical specialisation effects

Worse for: Classes that have no, or very specific, access to critical specialisation effects; classes without efficient reload options

 

Resonant

Can you tell we’re starting to get into the weird options here?

Resonant only features on the two Geniekin weapons, the Wish Blade and the Wish Knife. While you’re wielding one of these, you get a special free action you can use after any other action with the Acid, Cold, Electricity, Fire or Sonic trait that boosts your Strikes with between +1 and +4 damage of the appropriate type until your next turn starts.

This is a pretty nice damage boost, and one of the few ways outside of runes for martials to add consistent elemental damage to their attacks, which can be extremely valuable against the right foes. Of course, there’s an activation cost, and the value of Resonant will largely depend on how often you can get it up and running.

Note that the action needs to have the appropriate elemental trait; just dealing that damage type isn’t sufficient to qualify. For example, you can’t just put a Flaming rune on your sword to add the Fire trait to all your Strikes to turn it on for free.

The most obvious choice is cantrips, but since the majority of cantrips take two actions to cast, that means you’re dedicating your entire turn to the cantrip + Strike, so you’re likely to get turned into chunky salsa before your next turn starts. 

One interesting option is the Discordant Voice feat for Bards, which adds the Sonic trait to your Inspire Courage as well as providing a small amount of extra Sonic damage to everyone in your aura. As far as spammable single actions go, this is up there. While most Bards aren’t the best frontliners, a Warrior Muse Bard might enjoy this synergistic and flavourful combo.

Take some time to look through the actions available to your ancestry and class before you pick a Resonant weapon, and if you think you’ve got enough, go for it. I think it’s a fun and interesting build-around.

 

Better for: Martial classes with easy access to elemental actions (Inventor, Magus); Ancestries and Versatile Heritages with elemental actions (Geniekin); Discordant Voice Bards

Worse for: Anyone without consistent access to the above

 

Hampering

Hampering features on only a few weapons, although Inventors can also put it on their weapon innovation. By spending one action, you can thrash the weapon around in a square within reach, turning it into difficult terrain for a turn or until you move or attack again.

This is… a gimmick, I’ll be honest. You should really have something better to do with the last action of your turn than creating a single temporary square of difficult terrain. The best use case here is that you put it in a narrow doorway that several enemies will be moving through and that it costs them exactly enough movement to require an extra Stride to reach anyone. In this one, very specific scenario, you might be able to cost a couple of enemies an extra action, once. Outside of that, it’s pretty useless, especially if you use your weapon innovation to put it on a weapon without reach. Sorry, Luis.

 

Better for: Campaign that constantly have narrow chokepoints

Worse for: Most other situations

 

Climbing

Another single-weapon trait (from the Boarding Axe), and another one that Weapon Inventors can add to their innovation if it’s a ranged weapon. It’s fairly straightforward – you treat the hand as if it was empty strictly for the purposes of the Climb action.

The usefulness of this really depends on your campaign and the sorts of encounters that your GM likes to run. If they constantly use enemies on high ground and provide crevasses, cliffs, rigging etc. then you will probably get quite a bit of use out of this, and it’s a very nice reduction in the action tax required to put your weapon away then retrieve it after every climb. It also means that you can roll initiative with your weapon in hand if you start off an encounter as you come over the lip of a cliff or something.

If, however, encounters are mostly just flat battlefields or small rooms, this trait has very little use. If you’re a dual-wielder, both your weapons need Climbing or else it’s useless (Climb requires two free hands). There’s a low level Athletics skill feat, Combat Climber, that solves this issue, but that’s quite a bit of investment for what is a fairly modest weapon overall. 

 

Better for: Inventors using two-handed ranged weapons; campaigns with lots of vertical encounters

Worse for: Anyone who has Combat Climber or a similar ancestry feat; campaigns with lots of flat encounters

 

Injection

The two Injection weapons (Umbrella Injector and Injection Spear) are both specifically designed to support poison-using characters. Ordinarily, Injury poisons are applied to a weapon and attempt to take effect against the first target you Strike. If you critically fail your Strike, you also lose the poison. The Injection trait gives you a much greater degree of control; instead of applying it directly to the weapon, you fill a reservoir in the weapon, and can then spend an action after any successful hit to automatically expose the target.

Note that the injection needs to take place on the same turn, so it can’t be used if you attack with your third action.

There is a bit of a tradeoff here, as you exchange an action tax to gain better target selection and a decreased chance of wasting your poison entirely. Using poisons is a bit tricky anyway – either you’re a martial with good accuracy but weak poisons (from manual crafting or the Poisoner archetype), or you’re an Alchemist with great poisons but awful weapon accuracy. 

The best use case here is building in tandem with another player, where you roll a martial with an Injection weapon and have a Toxicologist Alchemist buddy who hands you poisons throughout the adventuring day. Might be fun if you’re rolling with a partner. 

 

Better for: Parties with a dedicated Toxicologist Alchemist; characters with the Poisoner archetype 

Worse for: Anyone without consistent access to cheap poisons; campaigns with lots of poison-immune enemies

 

Concealable

A trait for the aspiring secret agents among you, Concealable grants you +2 to Stealth checks and DCs to hide your weapon. It mostly features on weapons that are disguised in some way (like a Stiletto Pen) or that are simply small and easy to conceal (like the definitely-not-a-derringer Coat Pistol).

Although cool and flavourful, the usefulness of this trait will vary wildly based on your campaign. If you’re running an intrigue game in the heart of Absalom, where you need to attend high society balls and the political games are as deadly as the assassins, then having the ability to smuggle weapons wherever you go might be super handy. If you’re just running a megadungeon like Abomination Vaults, there aren’t exactly going to be bouncers on the doors patting you down before you go delving.

+2 might not seem tremendous, but it does represent a fairly substantial increase in your chances of success equal to an entire extra proficiency tier. 

 

Better for: Intrigue campaigns; Characters with the Dandy archetype

Worse for: Characters with no Stealth training; campaigns where hiding objects never comes up

 

Jousting

Featured on two weapons, the Lance and the recent War Lance, this is one for the mounted combat enthusiasts. The trait has two benefits. Firstly, if you’re mounted and you move at least 10 feet with your last action before a Strike, you get between +1 to +4 damage if you hit, based on your number of damage die. Keep in mind that this is a circumstance bonus and so won’t stack with, for example, the bonus damage from Forceful.

The second benefit works something like a reverse Two-Hand. While you’re mounted, you can wield the weapon in a single hand instead of the usual two, which shrinks the damage die to the specified value. The usefulness of this will vary based on your build, so you need decide if you’d prefer a higher damage die or a free hand or shield. 

 

Better for: Mounted characters, obviously; campaigns with lots of open spaces where you can stay mounted and mobile

Worse for: Characters without mounts; dungeon crawl campaigns where your Mount won’t fit; campaigns where lots of enemies have Attack of Opportunity to punish you for moving before attacking

 

Thrown (and Tethered)

As we move into the ranged weapon traits, let’s consider one that bridges the gap between melee and ranged.

Thrown weapon attacks always use Dexterity, like ranged weapons, but always add your Strength to the damage, like melee weapons. When you throw it, it’s treated as a ranged weapon in all respects (for example, you can use it with the champion’s Ranged Reprisal feat).

The Thrown trait on a melee weapon will have a range increment attached (e.g. “Thrown 10 ft.”), which operates just like the range increments of dedicated ranged weapons. This range is always short, 20 foot at most, so you will rapidly become inaccurate at longer ranges. There are a number of feats scattered across different classes and archetypes, such as the Rogue’s Strong Arm, which can increase this range increment.

If a ranged weapon has the Thrown trait, it instead denotes that it can only be thrown and has no melee use. For an example, see the Javelin. Rather than the range being included in the trait, it’s included in the weapon’s stat block.

Once you’ve thrown your weapon… well, you’ve just thrown your weapon away, and it’s going to be laying around on the floor for anyone to pick up. This necessitates at least a couple of actions to Stride over and grab it. Since individual upgraded weapons are so valuable, and because at high levels unenhanced weapons are so weak, the Returning property rune is basically mandatory for any weapon you’re going to be throwing regularly.

But wait! With the release of Treasure Vault, there’s an alternative that doesn’t eat one of your rune slots: the Thrower’s Bandolier. You can etch runes onto this item as if it’s a one-handed thrown weapon, and then store up to 4 of those types of weapons in it. Whenever you draw a weapon from it (including when using feats like Quick Draw) it gets those runes. This makes a particular weapon throwing fantasy much easier to achieve for anyone who doesn’t want their weapon to warp back to their hands after every throw.

The Tethered trait also helps with this somewhat, allowing you to pull a weapon back to your hand with a single Interact action from any distance. Even then, the Returning rune or Bandolier might be worth removing the constant action tax. Alternatively, if your campaign is using ABP rules, you can ignore this and just carry around a quiver of javelins or whatever instead.

 

Better for: Campaigns with ABP; campaigns with nice GMs who give you Returning runes (or the gold for them) very quickly; switch hitters who want to fight from behind the frontlines; classes with specific thrown weapon support (Rogue, Swashbuckler, Fighter, Champion)

Worse for: Characters before level 3 when you get Returning; characters who can’t afford to pump both Dexterity and Strength

 

Propulsive

The first of the purely ranged weapon traits, Propulsive helps bridge the gap with melee attacks by allowing you to add half of your Strength modifier to attacks (or your full modifier if it’s negative). This trait only appears on bows and slings at present.

Note that you always round down in 2e, so this has no effect until you have at least a +2 Strength modifier. Across the course of most campaigns this means the trait will be giving you between +1 and +3 damage on each hit assuming you’re investing into Strength at every opportunity. 

It’s not a tremendous bonus, and it does ask you to invest heavily into Strength on top of Dexterity, but it can add up on multiple attacks. It’s also just an addition to the damage roll, rather than being a circumstance bonus, which helps it stack with other buffs.

It goes without saying but you should absolutely avoid this trait if you have negative Strength. The nice thing is that this trait is sort of “opt in” for bow users – if you want to use a Longbow you can take the Composite version if you have decent Strength or the base version if not. They even work with all the same features and feats because of the special clause in the Composite’s rules. 

 

Better for: Characters with both high Strength and Dexterity who want to uses bows or slings; ranged multi-attackers

Worse for: MAD characters who can’t afford both Dex and Strength; characters with a negative Strength modifier

 

Kickback

Kickback only appears on firearms at present, and offers a flat +1 damage with all attacks. However, you are punished with a -2 attack penalty, which can only be negated with 14 Strength or the use of specialised equipment like tripods. This is again an untyped damage bonus and so stacks freely with any other bonuses you might acquire.

You can think of this as “mini Propulsive”, imposing a smaller Strength requirement in exchange for a smaller bonus that doesn’t scale. Instead of having to sink points into Strength, which might otherwise be largely useless for your build, you have the option of purchasing a tripod (or a similar item like a Monopod). This exchanges the ability score requirement for an action tax: one action to set up, and a second action later to fold it away and retrieve the firearm.

There are a few different characters who might like Kickback. Dex/Str hybrids like Way of the Vanguard Gunslingers will easily meet the requirements anyway, so it’s basically just a free damage buff. Low Strength, low mobility builds like Way of the Sniper Gunslingers who just want to set up and fire from a long distance won’t mind the action tax on Tripods as much. Alternatively, you could create a pretty convincing mounted firearm build using a Gunner’s Saddle, using your mount’s movement and size to compensate for your own immobility.

There’s also a specific firearm customisation, the Large Bore Modifications, which adds an extra point of damage but increases the Strength requirement to 18 (essentially doubling its effects). For specific builds like Vanguard or Triggerbrand this might be worth it.

 

Better for: Characters with both high Strength and Dexterity who want to use firearms; mounted gunners with Gunner’s Saddle; low mobility characters who can eat the action tax

Worse for: Low Strength characters with tight action economy; campaigns with smaller battlemaps where enemies can easily close the distance and force you to move

 

Volley

Volley operates as a sort of “minimum range” penalty – if you attack a target within the range listed in the Volley trait, your attack takes -2. For example, a Longbow has 100 foot range and Volley 30 ft., so your attacks within 30 feet take a -2, your attacks between 30-100 feet have no penalty, then attacks beyond 100 feet start taking progressive -2s.

Volley is a tradeoff for powerful weapons with high ranges. A Volley weapon will suffer in a typical room-to-room dungeon crawl and excel in open fields. Most of the official APs feature smaller battlemaps where this might kick in more often.

There is one option to negate Volley, and that is the Point Blank Shot feat for Fighters (and the Archer archetype). If you have a Volley weapon, it removes the -2 penalty. If you’re not using a Volley weapon, it instead grants a +2 circumstance bonus to damage within 30 feet.

That circumstance bonus falls off at higher levels, but at low level it’s a really tasty incentive to take the feat even if you’re not using a Volley weapon. In fact, it can be a good idea to roll with a Shortbow for the first few levels, then swap for a Longbow as soon as you get your first Striking runes. 

 

Better for: Campaigns with frequent outdoor combats, large rooms, or big battlemaps, Fighters or Archers

Worse for: Campaigns with frequent dungeons or small battlemaps; characters who want to stay closer to enemies (e.g. Demoralise users)

 

Concussive

When shooting an enemy with a Concussive weapon, you check both their Piercing and Bludgeoning resistances and immunities, and only apply the lowest. For example, a Skeleton Guard has resistance 5 versus Piercing, but you would also check their Bludgeoning resistance (which is 0) and therefore do full damage against them even with a Piercing firearm.

This seems to be a common source of confusion, so to clear things up: 

• This doesn’t change the actual damage type of the weapon. Nearly all Concussive weapons do Piercing damage, and this does not change even if you use the Bludgeoning resistance. A Concussive Piercing weapon never deals Bludgeoning damage, and therefore you can’t install a rune that cares about that damage type, like Crushing, on the gun.

• This does not care about weaknesses, only resistances. A creature’s weakness is never checked, and a creature with Weakness to Bludgeoning will not take any extra damage due to the Concussive trait.

Putting the rules aside, the ability to check different resistances on a weapon type that is nearly universally Piercing is a nice perk. Resistance to one physical damage type is much more common than universal physical resistance, so you’ll get a lot of value from this in the right situations. However, if you never fight anything that resists Piercing, this is a dead trait.

 

Better for: Characters that can’t do diverse damage types with their strikes

Worse for: Characters who can already modify their damage type (Magus, Eldritch Archer); campaigns with few enemies who care about physical damage types; weapons that already have Modular or Versatile

 

Reload Modifiers (Capacity, Double Barrel, Repeating)

All of these traits change the way in which a weapon is reloaded, and usually feature on firearms.

Capacity comes with a number, which indicates how many loaded chambers the weapon has. After each shot, rather than needing to Reload normally, you can take a special Interact action that doesn’t require a free hand to load the next chamber. Once the chambers are emptied, each one requires Reloading individually like a normal firearm.

Does this seem redundant? Sort of; it doesn’t save you any actions compared to normal Reloading. This is really designed for characters who are dual-wielding (or otherwise don’t have a free hand). Any non-Gunslinger class will find it useful; Gunslingers can get Dual-Weapon Reload instead, but that bars them from using their Way-specific reload, so it’s still handy for anyone whose gameplan revolves around that ability.

With Treasure Vault, this trait has been reprinted to clarify that it can be used with any abilities that mention Reloading (such as Running Reload).

Double Barrel weapons have, well, two barrels, which are each loaded separately. This doubles your number of shots between reloads, which is a nice benefit. You can also choose to discharge both barrels at once on a Strike to increase the damage die by a step – which also works if you trigger Fatal. Coincidentally, that trait features on both of the current Double Barrel weapons.

Repeating indicates a weapon that uses a modern-style magazine. The capacity of each magazine is indicated in its ammunition entry (for example, here’s the Repeating Hand Crossbow magazine, which holds 5 bolts). While your magazine has ammo, you use the Reload entry of your weapon, which is usually 0, but can be more, as in the case of the Repeating Heavy Crossbow. Once your magazine runs out, you have to spend 3 actions reloading it, although you don’t have to take them all at once if you don’t want to blow a whole turn.

Repeating is a great action saver right up until it’s not. Those three actions are painful to throw away on effectively nothing, and you don’t seem to be able to use special Reload actions like Running Reload. You might consider keeping a backup weapon and simply dropping your empty Repeating weapon once the magazine’s out. Alternatively, don’t rely on it as your main weapon and only fire off shots if you can’t get in range with your melee weapon. 

If you’re tracking ammo, Repeating magazines are also considerably more expensive. For example, a normal pack of 10 crossbow bolts costs 1sp; a 5 shot Repeating Crossbow Magazine costs 9sp. This can be a bit of a tax at low levels but rapidly becomes trivial to afford at higher ones.

 

Better for: Classes without specialised Reload support; switch-hitters

Worse for: Classes who already have Reload solutions (Gunslinger, Ranger)

 

Scatter

Scatter weapons are essentially miniature bombs; on top of its normal damage, every attack deals between 1-4 splash damage to everyone in the listed radius. Note that this also applies to the primary target, so Scatter also operates as a flat damage buff per attack.

Scatter is distinct from the Splash trait that features on alchemical bombs, despite dealing the same type of damage. The Splash trait means you get the listed splash damage even on a miss, which does not apply to Scatter. Scatter can also do damage in a larger area than just the 5 foot of Splash.

The biggest issue you will need to solve is friendly fire. Scatter doesn’t care about allegiance, so you will constantly be chipping health off your allies, not to mention yourself if you’re fighting in close range. Your best bet is to purchase Backfire Mantles for yourself and as many party members as you can afford (yes, this has been confirmed to work by a developer – the black powder of firearm ammunition comes under alchemical items).

Once your party is protected, Scatter is pretty good. Extra damage on your primary is never bad, and if you ever run into swarms or troop enemies, you’re one of the only consistent sources of splash that isn’t an Alchemist. You’re probably not killing any enemies with scatter damage alone, but that chip damage might add up to carve a turn off an enemy’s kill time.

The Large Bore Modifications mentioned above in Kickback also interact with Scatter; the radius of your Scatter is boosted by 5 foot, but in exchange it imposes a Kickback-like requirement of 14 Strength to avoid an attack penalty. 

 

Better for: Parties with few melee characters; parties at slightly higher levels where everyone can easily afford a Backfire Mantle; battles with lots of swarms, troops, or lots of low level enemies (warfare campaign?)

Worse for: Melee heavy parties; parties with lots of squishies who can’t afford the chip damage; close-ranged characters; characters who want to use their worn cloak slot for something else; low magic campaigns where the Mantle might be difficult to come by

 

Cobbled

Cobbled is pure downside, used to represent the slapdash nature of Goblin engineering. Cobbled guns always have a 20% chance to misfire on every missed shot, even if they’ve been cleaned.

This is pretty rough. Even high accuracy classes are bound to miss every now and then, and having to unjam your gun and reload it for no benefit is a massive pain in the ass. You probably shouldn’t rely on a Cobbled gun as your main firearm.

That being said, some of the guns it comes on are pretty cool. The Big Boom Gun is a one handed pistol with Fatal d12, well above what a one-handed weapon should be able to achieve. The Liar’s Gun is a level 7 specific magic item, and so not exactly a normal weapon choice, but still allows you to make four MAPless attacks in a cone, which would frankly be bananas without the Cobbled trait. It’s up to you if that tradeoff is worth it.

 

Better for: Higher accuracy classes who can avoid the downside more often

Worse for: Everyone else

 

The Rest (Ancestry, Monk, Rarity)

This is a collection of various traits that don’t do anything by themselves and won’t be a huge part of your build choice, but might be worth understanding anyway.

Rarity tags – Uncommon, Rare, and Unique – are used by the Rarity system to determine which weapons are easily available versus those that are more exotic. Anything with a rarity tag (i.e. that isn’t Common) requires either GM permission or a feat or feature that grants Access to that option. For example, the Fighting Fan has the Uncommon trait, which means by default you can’t take it at character creation or find it in shops. However, Champions get the Deific Weapon feature, which means they gain access to their deity’s favoured weapon. This means that a Champion of Lady Jingxi could take the Fighting Fan with no special permission needed.

Ancestry feats indicate that a weapon is created or used primarily by a particular ancestry. They only appear on Uncommon weapons and are used by the Rarity system to gate access. Note that being a member of an ancestry does not automatically grant you access to that ancestry’s weapons – there’s usually a level 1 ancestry feat for that. For example, the Elven Curve Blade is Uncommon and also has the Elf trait. You wouldn’t get access just by being an elf, but an elf could take the Elven Weapon Familiarity ancestry feat to get it instead.

Note that members of other ancestries are perfectly able to use these weapons if they can get their hands on them – your goblin can totally use a Dwarven Scattergun if they can find one.

The Monk trait operates a bit like an ancestry trait, but is specifically for the purpose of the Monastic Weaponry feat, which allows Monks to use those weapons for features which usually require unarmed attacks.

None of these traits are mechanically important, so they shouldn’t really be a consideration when you’re deciding between weapons, but they can be a guide for fun flavour. Who wouldn’t want to make a build around the Explosive Dogslicer?

 

Treasure Vault Traits

For ease (and for anyone revisiting the guide after the release of TV) I am going to gather the new weapon traits from Treasure Vault here, rather than scattering them throughout the other traits.

 

Brace

When you Ready a Strike against an opponent moving into reach with this weapon, it deals between 2-8 extra Precision damage on Strikes before the start of your next turn.

This is an interesting one with some unexpected interactions. At first glance, it’s most useful at the start of a combat; instead of rushing in and getting surrounded, you Ready in place, forcing the monsters to waste actions coming to you and getting smacked for the trouble. In this regard it’s a nice little reward for tactical play.

However, as you level up and start to fight a wider range of horrible beasties, Readied Strikes become more and more useful. Battling a Giant Fly that loves to hit-and-run through the air? Struggling to deal with that Bullette that keeps diving back underground? Ready is your friend, and Brace is there to make the most of those opportunities.

Another interesting interaction is that the damage bonus doesn’t only apply to your Readied Strike, but to all the Strikes you make before the start of the next turn. This means that you don’t have to use your Readied attack to get the bonus, so if you choose to use it on an Attack of Opportunity instead, you still get the buff. Once you start getting multiple reactions from feats like Divine Reflexes or Combat Reflexes, the damage buff applies to each one of them. If you get off two reaction attacks, you’ve just doubled the value of this trait, and that’s quite a bit of extra damage.

 

Better for: Fighters, Champions, or anyone else who can access multiple reactions; higher level fights where you have those extra reactions; encounters with enemies who are tough to pin down

Worse for: Characters with tight action economy who can’t afford to Ready; characters who already have options for dealing with hard-to-reach enemies (e.g. Felling Strike); characters who have other more valuable non-Strike reactions; lower level fights before you can get multiple reactions

 

Razing

Razing weapons do between 2-8 additional damage to objects, structures, and vehicles.

This includes shields, making it an excellent buster versus heavily armoured humanoid enemies. How often you’re going to run into those depends on your campaign. If you’re in a warfare campaign, or you’re playing a bunch of thieves who have regular run-ins with the city guard, this might be more useful than for your typical dungeon-delving, beast-battling adventurer.

Most of the listed targets have a Hardness value, so you can consider the bonus to be a reduction to that. If we take a look at the Material Statistics, +2 damage is enough to deal with materials up to thin ropes, leather, and thick glass; +4 deals with thick ropes and leather; +6 gets you up to wood and thin stone or iron; +8 beats out thicker stone and almost all of iron or steel objects (but not walls). In other words, you’ll be able to shatter typical wooden doors with ease starting at level 12 and cleave anvils in twain at 19. Even for objects where you don’t beat out the hardness, it’s still a helpful reduction. 

Note that not all constructs are “objects”, even the animated objects specified in the text. This doesn’t do anything versus a golem, for example, but will help against an Animated Statue.

 

Better for: Campaigns with plenty of armoured humanoid enemies; parties with poor Thievery who need ways of dealing with hazards, doors, and other obstacles; campaigns where you fight a bunch of animated objects constantly (rogue wizard hunters?)

Worse for: Campaigns without the specific enemy types this is useful against; parties who have other methods of dealing with obstacles

 

Recovery

The Recovery trait goes on thrown weapons like the new Boomerang and returns them to your hand on a missed Strike. That’s it.

It’s not a bad compensation for a whiff; if you’re planning on using thrown weapons as your main strategy, you probably want a bit more than this, unless you’re planning on constantly missing for some reason. I suppose it could work if you’re carrying around a thrown weapon purely as a “one and done” combat opener. If you’re using a Thrower’s Bandolier, it saves you from having to use the 2 action recall ability to get your weapon back.

That being said, this seems like a rather minor trait in the power budget, so you’re probably not sacrificing much if you grab something with this on.

 

Better for: “One hit wonder” thrown weapons; characters using a Thrower’s Bandolier

Worse for: Characters using a Returning thrown weapon

 

Training

Only currently on a single weapon (the Combat Lure), hitting with a weapon carrying this trait grants your animal pal a +1 on their next attack on that target.

Note that this only specifically works for animal companions or bonded animals (which appears to refer to an animal from the Bonded Animal feat specifically), so you can’t use it to buff your eidolon or summoned creatures. It also doesn’t work for party members’ companions, only your own.

The Combat Lure itself is a 1d6 two handed weapon, so terrible damage, but can be thrown, has tethered, and is finesse. It’s also in the Flail group, so it knocks down on crit if you have the specialisation, which is pretty spicy on a 20 foot thrown weapon. 

I’m honestly struggling to evaluate this thing because it’s just so weird. I think the idea is that you’re giving up some of your own damage to make your animal companion better, which is a cool concept. Critting with the Lure will knock the enemy prone, so now they’re at -3 versus your companion’s first attack, which is pretty hefty.

Is this worth it versus just critting enemies to death with your own weapon? I’m not sure. Animal companions usually don’t have amazing crit effects or anything, and at the highest levels they do fall off a bit compared to a real character, but it’s still a cool and interesting option for any character who wants to primarily focus on their companion. It might be an interesting build for a “semi martial” like a Warpriest or Warrior Bard who picks up Beastmaster, where your own attacks won’t be that crazy strong, but you can enhance your companion’s.

 

Better for: Classes that come with animal companions (Rangers or Druids); Beastmasters; “Support” martials

Worse for: Characters who don’t want to be near the frontlines; characters without companions, obviously; characters who would be better off just kicking ass with a better weapon

 

Vehicular

This functions a bit like Attached, but instead of being stuck on a wheelchair or weapon, it’s mounted on a vehicle or mount. Whoever’s driving gets to use the weapon without having to take their hands off the controls of the vehicle. This is slightly weird because so far absolutely nothing has indicated that you need to use your hands to ride your mount, so I’m going to assume this is meant to effectively be Free-Hand while it’s attached.

Currently there’s just the one, the Battle Saddle, which is specifically for mounts. This one has the special rule that it can use its Parry trait to protect either itself or the mount.

Are you doing a lot of vehicle or mounted combat in your games? This could be really helpful. Are you not? Then it’s not. Simple as that, really. This one will probably get more useful as more and more vehicular weapons are added to the game over future rulebooks (mounted turrets, anyone?)

 

Good for: Vehicle heavy campaigns; mounted characters

Worse for: Campaigns where mounts and vehicles go unused

 

Critical Specialisations

As mentioned in the Anatomy of a Weapon section above, every weapon has a Weapon Group that determines its critical specialisation effect. These can be pretty impactful, so it should be a factor in your decision making for any character who can use them.

 

Access to Crit Specs

The following classes gain critical specialisation effects as part of their normal progression:

Class	Level	Requirements
Barbarian	5	Melee and unarmed while raging
Bard	11	While a Composition is active
Champion	3	If Blade Ally is chosen and being used
Cleric	7/11*	While using deity’s favoured weapon
Fighter	5	All Master weapons and unarmed attacks
Gunslinger	5	Firearms and crossbows
Inventor	5	If using Weapon innovation
Ranger	5	Against Hunted Prey
Rogue	1/5**	Sneak Attacks
Swashbuckler	5	Expert weapons
Thaumaturge	5	If using a Weapon Implement

* Depending on choice of Warpriest (7) or Cloistered Cleric (11) Doctrines.

** Ruffian Rogues gain access to crit specs at level 1 against flat-footed targets.

 

There are also a number of other options you can opt in to. Monks, as well as the Bullet Dancer and Martial Artist archetypes, can take Brawling Focus to gain the crit spec effect for all Brawling weapons. Maguses (Magii?) can also get it on brawling attacks by taking Arcane Fists. The Mauler archetype grants it for all two-handed weapons, while Archer grants it for bows. And so on. There are tons of random feats scattered around that grant this effect, so explore your options and see what you can come up with.

 

The Effects

Some of these are very similar or duplicates of each other, so I’ve grouped them together where applicable. One thing to remember is that you never have to apply an effect if you don’t want to.

 

Axe

Pick someone else within reach; if your attack would also have hit their AC, you do your weapon’s damage die to them as well.

Sometimes useful, sometimes pointless. The nice thing about this is that in situations where you’re facing hordes of enemies, they’re more likely to be lower level than you, and so you’re more likely to hit their AC with the secondary damage.

 

Bow

If the target is adjacent to a surface (e.g. basically any enemy that isn’t flying) you pin them to the spot, immobilising them until they spend an action on a DC10 Athletics check to pull the ammo out. 

Absolutely fantastic. You might consider the DC10 check pointless – even at low levels it’s not that tough to pass, and many monsters have Athletics – but the check isn’t the point, the action is. This is effectively Slowed 1 with no save, except there’s a very small chance you waste multiple actions. It’s also an Interact action, so if you have a friendly melee nearby they can Attack of Opportunity as they try to escape. It’s really just a complete package of nastiness to get stapled on top of your critical hits.

However, an enemy who doesn’t care about moving (snipers or enemies with long reach) might simply ignore the pin and keep fighting, in which case this didn’t do very much.

 

Brawling, Firearm, Sling

The target has to make a save against your Class DC (note: not your Spell DC for casters) or be either Slowed 1 (Brawling) or Stunned 1 (Firearm, Sling).

The Slowed version is a straight downgrade from the Stunned one. It’s also a pain that the target can save out of it, wasting the effect. Despite all that, though, this is decent, because even inconsistent action denial is strong.

Most of the time, the Bow one will serve a similar purpose. However, for enemies that don’t care about moving, or if they have nasty reactions that you want to turn off with Stunned, these can be good.

 

Club

Knock an enemy up to 10 feet away from you.

Pretty straightforward. This is obviously at its best when you have vertical encounters with lots of ledges or pits to throw enemies off. For this purpose it’s a little inconsistent, though, as it’s hard to know when you’re gonna crit. Moving enemies out of melee range can often be useful even without environmental hazards, though – forcing an enemy to Stride to be able to hit you is also action denial, of a sort.

 

Dart, Knife

Deal 1d6 persistent bleed damage, with up to a +3 bonus depending on your item bonus to attacks (i.e. which level of potency rune you have).

Persistent damage can be pretty strong or pointless, depending on how long your target lives for. A roughly 25% chance of recovery means it should last for around 3 turns, which is quite a bit of damage to add on. However, if the target dies (because you just critically hit it, or because a party member stabs it, or because it bleeds out immediately…) then that “extra” damage goes to waste.

That being said, it’s free, so you’re not exactly spending a lot of resources to get this effect. Enjoy it when it happens.

 

Flail, Hammer

Knock your target prone.

Probably a competitor for the strongest crit effect if you build for it properly. The key is that this applies to any crit, even those that happen outside of your turn… such as, say, from the Attack of Opportunity reaction. That they provoke by standing up. Because you knocked them prone with your crit effect.

Fighters obviously love this, as does any other martial with access to the same or similar ability. Even without that, this is another good action denial option.

 

Pick

Deal between 2 and 8 additional damage (not doubled) depending on your number of damage die.

The Pick family of weapons is all about massive crits, and this only adds to the pain you can dish out. Who needs pansy stuff like “action denial” or “forced movement” when you can just kill whatever you’re fighting? It’s low in utility, but high in fun!

 

Polearm

Move the target 5 feet in any direction.

One for the tacticians among you. The versatility in directional options helps you set up flanking, break enemy flanks, open up chokepoints, push enemies off narrow walkways, and more. If you fight on a lot of boring, flat, square battlemaps, then this might be a tad less useful. 

 

Shield

Push the target 5 feet away.

As befits their status as pseudo-weapons, the Shield’s crit effect is a strictly worse version of the Club’s. It’s harder to aim and harder to get them off an edge. Still, it could be helpful if you’re trying to hold back a horde.

 

Spear

Inflict Clumsy 1 on the target until your next turn starts.

This is a pretty decent debuff, reducing AC as well as Dexterity attacks. Unlike Prone, the target can’t do anything about this, so you’re guaranteed to get a round of value out of it. Note that this expires at the start of your next turn, so it’s hard for you to take advantage of this yourself unless you crit with your first action.

 

Sword

Inflict flat-footed until the start of your next turn.

This is a pretty basic effect. Your party’s ranged Rogue might appreciate it. One issue is that prone enemies are also flat-footed, so this isn’t quite as good as other crit effects, although the fact that it lasts through the round might help if you hit an enemy who’s going right after you.

 

Choosing a Fighting Style

There are four main ways to use weapons in Pathfinder 2e: one-handed with a free hand, one-handed with a shield, two-handed, and dual-wielding. All of these have their own use cases, and which one you pick will help narrow down the list of viable options for your weapon. Let’s walk through each one.

 

One-Handed with Free Hand

This is what you might call the “thinking person’s option”. Picking this style means you have complete access to any action which requires a free hand. The most obvious is the full range of Athletics maneuvers, making this an excellent choice for anyone who wants to grapple, trip, and shove their way through the frontlines without having to dedicate to a weapon with those traits. 

But there are plenty of other options that you can take advantage of if you’re feeling creative. Maybe you want to be a Fighter who uses magical scrolls and the Skim Scroll feat to quickly throw out unexpected spells on the battlefield? Or maybe you’re specced into the Medic archetype and want to be able to patch people up with Battle Medicine at a moment’s notice? All of this and more is possible if you just keep one hand empty.

The other thing that this playstyle unlocks is the use of some excellent feats, such as the Fighter’s Dual-Handed Assault. This particular feat is probably good enough to justify picking the one-handed fighting style all by itself, especially if you pair it with a Two-Hand weapon. There is also a lot of good feat support for the Disarm action in particular, which may or may not justify the use of this generally weak maneuver.

Of course, there are downsides: you’re stuck with a single one-handed weapon, and unlike wearing a shield, you’re not getting any defensive bonuses to make up for the lower weapon budget. It also makes weapon maneuver traits a little bit (but not entirely) redundant, which might feel bad if you’re aiming to use a particular weapon for flavour reasons. 

 

Better for: maneuvers, especially Disarm; creative options that need a free hand; particular feat builds

Worse for: Raw weapon power; defensiveness without feat investment; anyone using a weapon that already has lots of maneuver traits

 

Relevant feats and options:

• Dual-Handed Assault (Fighter)
• Dueling Parry (Fighter/Swashbuckler) and subsequent feats
• Snagging Strike (Fighter)
• Disarming Twist (Fighter)
• Disarming Stance (Fighter)
• The Duelist archetype which offers access to the Fighter feats above, along with a few other flavourful options.

 

One-Handed with Shield

Sword-and-board is a classic option for a reason. Shields in 2e are a powerful option that not only gives better AC, but the ability to carve damage off dangerous hits to keep you going for longer. Raising a Shield is an action tax, of course, but it’s not unusual to find yourself wanting for something to do with your third action anyway, so why not spend it on something that’ll keep you standing? 

An obvious problem with wielding a shield is that, much like the free-hander, you only get the stats of a single one-handed weapon. However, it is possible to convert a shield into a usable, if not particularly effective, weapon through the use of attachments like the Shield Boss. These attachments are awful Martial weapons, but it does allow you to effectively dual-wield while still retaining the defensive benefits of a shield, so it’s worth considering. 

Another issue is that you now have no free hands, so maneuvers are off the table unless you pick a specific weapon that features the trait you want. Shields have no maneuver traits by default, although with the release of Grand Bazaar you can use Shield Adjustments to add your choice of Disarm, Trip, or Shove to your shield. Of course, you can only pick one of these, and if you do so you are also barred from adding a Shield Boss or Shield Spikes, but the option does exist if you’re desperate.

Another thing to consider is that your shield will take damage unless you’re never using Shield Block. You, or someone in your party, will need to be trained in Crafting to conduct regular repairs or else you risk losing one half of your main equipment. This becomes less of an issue if you pick up a Sturdy Shield, but then you’re spending a chunk of gold buying and then upgrading it over time. Champions with the Shield Ally feature can also improve their shields, making them particularly good users.

 

Better for: survivability; using that tricky third action; pseudo-dual-wielding while remaining defensive

Worse for: raw weapon power; your coinpurse; if you want to use a weapon with no maneuver traits; classes with tight action economy who can’t afford to raise their shield regularly

 

Relevant feats and options:

• Reactive Shield (Fighter)
• Agile Shield Grip (Champion/Fighter)
• Shield Wall (Champion/Fighter)
• Shield Warden (Champion/Fighter)
• Quick Shield Block (Champion/Fighter)
• Shield of Reckoning (Champion)
• Mirror Shield (Fighter)
• The Bastion archetype offers most of the good Champion and Fighter shield feats, plus a few great exclusives of its own. Any dedicated shield user should seriously consider this archetype.
• The Viking Archetype also has some relevant shield feats.

 

Dual-Wielding

The choice of edgy rogues and anime fans the world over. If you’re coming from 5e, it’s worth noting that dual-wielding doesn’t have any explicit benefit; you don’t get to make any extra attacks by default.

What it does offer you is offensive versatility. Two weapons means two completely different sets of damage die and traits you can use at will. A classic and simple option is to take a high-damage, low trait weapon like a Longsword in one hand and a weapon with Agile and some useful traits like a Main-Gauche in the other. This means you can open up with a big hit, but still get the benefit of Agile on your follow-up strikes. But feel free to get creative! There are a lot of possibilities that arise when you start combining two different weapons together, so play around and see what you can come up with.

The other big benefit of dual-wielding is access to feats. Most feats related to dual-wielding revolve around making extra attacks or giving you defensive actions to compensate for your offensive bias. We’ll list some of them below, and they can be truly frightening in their damage output.

The downside is, well, you’ve got two hands for stabbing and none for blocking. Unless you invest feats in defensive options, you’re going to have to adopt a more hit-and-run playstyle to avoid getting cut down before you can use your fancy multiattacks. Fortunately, dual-wielding feats are pretty good at giving you an improved action economy.

Another issue for dual-wielding firearms or crossbows is that you need a free hand to reload, so you will need to either invest in a feat like Dual-Weapon Reload or pick a weapon with an appropriate trait like Capacity.

You also need to rune out twice as many weapons, so dual-wielding is tighter on your budget. There are two magic items designed to solve this problem. Doubling Rings copy the runes from the melee weapon in one of your hands to a melee weapon in the other, although only the fundamental runes until you get the level 11 version. This doesn’t function with throwing attacks because you need to be holding both weapons for the copying to function.

The other item is the Blazons of Shared Power. These work like Doubling Rings, but are specifically attached to two weapons, so unlike the Rings you can’t change around which weapon is in the offhand. In exchange, the Blazons work with ranged weapons.

Despite their cost, these items will end up being significantly cheaper than etching two weapons separately. However, they also come at a cost in versatility if you take the level 11 version; you’re giving up the ability to have two different sets of property runes, which is one of the nice perks of dual-wielding (such as having different elemental damage runes to help cover weaknesses).

 

Better for: Multi-attackers; classes with flat damage bonuses per hit; characters who want access to lots of traits at once; campaigns using ABP

Worse for: Characters with tighter build budgets who can’t afford to take the defensive feats; Reload weapon users who don’t have handless reload options

 

Relevant feats and options:

• Double Slice (Fighter)
• Twin Takedown (Ranger)
• Twin Feint (Rogue)
• Twin Parry (Fighter, Ranger, Swashbuckler)
• The Dual-Weapon Warrior archetype, which features many of the above options as well as excellent unique feats like Flensing Slice

 

Two-Handing

Walk heavily and carry a big stick. Two-handed weapons have a much better budget than one-handed weapons; they are the only ones allowed to go above a d8 in damage, and are often the only type that can have a good damage die on top of a powerful trait like Reach.

In exchange, you’re losing out on that free hand. Unlike dual-wielding, you can’t pick an offhand with the extra traits that you want; you’re stuck with whatever you get from your single weapon. This means it’s probably the worst type for maneuvers unless you’re just focusing on a single maneuver.

Unlike shields, you have little defensive power, and there aren’t many feats to add defensive abilities for two-handers. You’re going all-in on offense here, so you better hope you kill whatever you’re fighting before it kills you.

It is possible to get a free hand in emergencies by releasing one hand’s grip on your weapon (which is a free action), and unlike dual-wielding or using a shield you’re not at risk of having your weapon stolen if you do so. It’s not ideal for your action economy because of action spent on regripping, but if you really need to chug a potion or use a maneuver that’s not on your weapon, it’s an option.

Despite the downsides, the raw damage potential is high enough to make up for it. This is especially true if you have methods of adding extra weapon damage die, such as by using Power Attack, or as you level up and get extra Striking runes. Who needs fancy traits and defensive abilities when you can just reduce enemies into a pink smear on the ground? Death is the best debuff there is, after all.

 

Better for: Offensive powerhouses; characters who want Reach; classes who can add weapon damage die

Worse for: Cowards who want defence; characters who want versatility in traits and maneuvers; frequent consumable users

 

Relevant feats and options:

• Power Attack with Furious Focus (Fighter)
• Brutal Finish (Fighter)
• Advantageous Assault (Fighter, gets a buff if two-handed)
• The Mauler archetype. Unlike the other fighting styles, there aren’t all that many feats locked specifically behind using a two-handed weapon. The ones that do exist are mostly in here.

 

How to Make a Decision

Now we’ve covered pretty much everything there is that goes into a weapon, the time has come to actually decide. What are you gonna pick?

Maybe that’s a bit too broad of a question still – you still have over 200 choices, after all – so let’s walk through a step-by-step method that will help narrow things down to a manageable number.

As we go, we’ll use an example character, Valeros the Fighter, to illustrate. You can follow along with this exercise by opening the Weapons page on Archives of Nethys and using the filters along the top of the table to exclude options at each step. (May not work on mobile.)

• Ranged or Melee? This will basically cut the potential weapon list in half. Our friend Valeros wants to be able to fight on the frontlines, so he’s going to pick Melee. This reduces the range of possible choices from 244 to 165.
• Strength or Dexterity? Only really a choice for melee weapons. Dexterity characters should use Finesse weapons and Strength characters should not. Valeros has chosen to pump his Strength, so he’s going to opt for non-Finesse weapons. We’re down to 101 options.

• What are you trained in? With a couple exceptions, you should aim to use the highest category (Simple, Martial, or Advanced) that you have training in, because that’s where better weapons will be. As a Fighter, Valeros is going to use a Martial weapon, because it’s his best trained category by default and he wants to invest his feats in something other than getting Advanced weapons. 71 weapons remain.

• One or two hands? This is where we’re starting to focus on a fighting style. You might already have a fighting style in mind, which would dictate this choice, or you might make this choice and then go from there. Valeros wants to be a frontline tank who uses a Shield, so he’s going to opt for a one-handed weapon. 41 left.

• Damage or traits? “Do you want to hit very hard?” might seem like an obvious answer, but as discussed above it comes with a price. You can’t get tons of fancy maneuvers and do a buttload of damage on every hit, you need to choose what’s important to you. If you want high damage, filter by a particular damage die. If you want certain traits, filter by that trait. Valeros wants to be a threat so that enemies don’t ignore him, so he wants a d8 weapon, the highest possible die for a one-hander. We’re now down to only 8 options!

• Do you have access? Of the remaining options, some of your choices will be Uncommon or even Rare. You might have access to some of these via ancestry feats. Valeros is from the Inner Sea and hasn’t taken any ancestry feats that would give him access to fancy weapons, so he’s just going to look at the Common options. 5 remain.

• Make a decision! At this stage, you hopefully shouldn’t have too much to pick between and can start deciding what you want. Valeros has been left with the following options:

He doesn’t care about the Two-Hand trait because he wants to keep his shield on at all times, so the Bastard Sword’s off the table. He also doesn’t have very good Dexterity and doesn’t want to have to keep running over to grab his weapon, so he decides not to take the Trident with Thrown 20ft. He’s left with three options: the Battle Axe for Sweep, the Longsword for Versatile P, or the Warhammer for Shove. After some thought, he decides that he likes the Hammer group’s critical specialisation effect of knocking enemies down, as well as the ability to push enemies around without a free hand, so he opts for a Warhammer.

 

And there we have it! Hopefully this illustrates how the initially intimidating range of weapon choices can quickly and easily be reduced to something quite simple.

You can find this process boiled down into a simple infographic here.

 

That’s Way Too Much Information, Just Tell Me What To Pick

That’s a reasonable reaction. 

Given the diversity of weapons in 2e, the goal of this guide is to give you all the details you need to make an informed choice. But I can appreciate that you might also just want to read a menu of Good Things and pick one. If you’d just like some straightforward recommendations, hopefully this section can help.

This part aims to highlight some good, Common options that will be at least decent for your chosen fighting style. This is definitely not a be-all-end-all recommendation, and you should look through all your available options if you have a very particular playstyle in mind, but hopefully this is a good starting point for inspiration.

 

One-Handed with Free Hand

• Bastard Sword (d8 Slashing; Two-Hand d12): A very straightforward option for anyone who wants to deal damage. A d8 is the best you can get for a one-handed weapon, and d12 is the highest die for two-handed, so you’re always going to be hitting hard in either mode.

• Katana (d6 Slashing; Two-Hand d10, Deadly d8, Versatile Piercing): A little more complicated in terms of traits, but all this really means is that it’s gonna be better on crits and a little worse off the rest of the time. A good pick for parties with lots of setup or classes with high accuracy (or both). Versatile is never bad either.

One-Handed with Shield

• Shield Boss/Spikes (d6 Bludgeoning/Piercing; Attached to Shield): There’s little reason not to get one of these on your shield; it can be a source of an extra damage type and a useful backup weapon if you ever get disarmed.

• Longsword (d8 Slashing; Versatile Piercing): The classic sword’n’board actually works very well as a build. The damage die is good, and combining a Longsword with a Shield Boss means you have access to every physical damage type on demand.

• Whip (d4 Slashing; Disarm, Finesse, Nonlethal, Reach, Trip): Although the damage is poor, the Whip gives you the Trip maneuver with Reach, which can be excellent for controlling enemies and reducing the damage both you and your allies take.

Dual-Wield

• Rapier (d6 Piercing; Deadly d8, Disarm, Finesse) + Main-Gauche (d4 Piercing; Agile, Disarm, Finesse, Parry, Versatile S): A flavourful and effective combo for Dexterity characters, the Rapier offers powerful crits for your first strike, while the Main-Gauche gives you Agile followup strikes and Parry for sticky situations. There’s a little bit of overlap with the Disarm trait, but that’s not the end of the world.

• Dual Hatchets (d6 Slashing; Agile, Sweep, Thrown 10 ft.): Strength characters might enjoy the double Hatchet build. You still need a splash of Dexterity for your thrown attack rolls, but you can hack at one guy in melee and then throw your axe at another to trigger Sweep, which will help make up for it. A good candidate for Blazons of Shared Power to copy your Returning runes.

Two-Handed

• Greataxe (d12 Slashing; Sweep): About as straightforward as a weapon can get, the Greataxe is nevertheless extremely effective. The high damage die means you will hit like a truck, and Sweep helps keep you accurate on multiple attacks.

• Guisarme (d10 Slashing; Reach, Trip): Reach and Trip is an extremely potent combo, and unlike the Whip you keep a very solid damage die on top. Great choice for anyone who wants to bully enemies on the frontline.

Ranged

• Shortbow (d6 Piercing; Deadly d10)/Composite Shortbow (d6; Deadly d10; Propulsive): A shortbow is probably the most straightforward weapon for ranged combat in 2e, with decent range and no Volley trait to worry about. Choose Composite or not depending on how much Strength you can fit into your build.

• Crossbow (d8 Piercing; Reload 1) + Reinforced Stock (d4 Bludgeoning; Attached, Finesse, Two-Hand d6): For those that want to use a Simple ranged weapon with a melee backup. One nice thing is that, because the Crossbow is two-handed, the Reinforced Stock Two-Hand bonus will always be in effect.

 

Thanks

And that’s it.

Just another note to say thanks for reading! I hope you find this useful the next time you roll a character. More importantly, I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I liked writing it. See you in the next game.

• Cassie

 

Changelog

May 2023

• Moved to the website! Please let me know if anything broke in the transition.

February 2023

• Added the new Treasure Vault traits!
• Updated crit spec comparisons between Bow and other groups (thanks to u/rodruby)
• Added Ruffian Rogue note to crit spec table (thanks to u/terkke)
• Reworked combination weapon suggestions in light of Triggerbrand (thanks to u/RayAles)
• Updated Volley to mention Point Blank Shot interactions (thanks to u/kastreim)
• Updated Capacity to mention interaction with Gunslinger way-specific reloads (thanks to u/Sear_Seer) as well as the Treasure Vault reprint clarification
• Mentioned Swipe under the Sweep trait (thanks to u/Cold_Ankles)
• Clarifications on the Thrown trait (thanks to u/Outlas) and added mention of the new Thrower’s Bandolier
• Clarification on Ranged Trip vs. Reach + Trip (thanks to u/TaranTatsuuchi)
• Updated Scatter & Kickback to mention the Large Bore Modifications feat (thanks to a redditor)