Can I make my fighting characters (Barbs, Fighters, Paladins, Rangers) completely well rounded without focusing on a single weapon? I prefer to be flexible with equipment. Will it make a significant difference if I don't have them acquire weapon specific feats?
You certainly do not need Weapon Focus/ Specialization, in fact, they're actually pretty weak feats overall. You can easily do without, and as you continue to level up and get better gear, the rest of your stats will improve, and the bonus from the feats will become comparatively less and less. You're better off taking things like Power Attack (Gets better as your BAB increases, just remember things like Flanking and making your opponents Flatfooted can let you land really strong Power Attacks with ease) Cleave, Combat Reflexes (expands what you can do) and Improved Initiative (gives a large bonus to something hard to raise).
I'd agree with Alex- Weapon Focus gives you +1 to hit, which is nice, but other things are nicer and are useful for longer. As you suggest, it's hard to know what weapon to focus on early innyour career when you don't know what goodies the magic item fairies have for you. Power attack is a bit of a trap early on, but is required for Cleave. Those planning to use ranged weapons need Point Blank and Precise Shot asap. Combat Reflexes and Imp Initiative are worth having on any warrior type. I'd also give a nod to Quick Draw, which lets you swap weapons in combat without wasting your attack- useful early on when you are fighting skeletons and zombies (which have resistance to non-bludgeoning and non-slashing weapons respectively), or when you find you want to switch between bow and blade. Save boosters ( iron will in particular) are also worth having before Weapon Focus. As a postscript, I notice from a different thread that you have 'standard' rather than New Content 8.1 activated. If you are still struggling with the early stages of the game I'd advise considering restarting with NC- it'll give access to the Welkwood Bog quest as an alternative to the Hommlett village 'FedEx' quests and significantly expands the game (up to 20th level). If you're well into the game, or don't want to restart, bear in mind that NC dramatically increases replay value and have a go at it aftr you finish this time. If you are playing NC, it's worth noting that some classes (notably barbarian) don't gain class features 'by the book' beyond 10th level- so once you hit Barb 10 you're better off multiclassing into something else (fighter has the same BAB progession and gets more feats, rogue loses some BAB but gains sneak attack damage).
If you are powergaming the pure/multiclass fighter, ime it's typically better just to get whirlwind asap. Wit combat reflex as a second priority, if you have feats in between. I really don't understand why Wizard would took out weapon proficiency from Adnd, I myself quite liked it.
For whirlwind attack you first must have Combat Expertese, Mobility, Spring Attack and a BAB of at least +4, I'm not sure just how soon you can actually get whirlwind attack. Myself when I'm building a fighter I usually picture him/her with a specific weapon type ie ... a big dumb two handed war hammer swinging Halforc or such.
A human could conceivably get to Whirlwind Attack at 5th level, but it wouldn't be easy. The trick is making sure you get feats at both 4th and 5th level. 1st Level (non-fighter, full BAB class): Dodge, Mobility 2nd Level (non-fighter, full BAB class) 3rd Level (non-fighter, full BAB class): Combat Expertise 4th Level (1st fighter level): Spring Attack 5th Level (2nd fighter level): Whirlwind Attack And don't forget minimum DEX and INT of 13 each.
Personally I would separate the weapons specialization by weapon style, and not each weapon type itself. It will also solve alot of the redundant problems within ToEE. (This begin that alot of the weapon stats/feel are more or less the same, because the developer planned all the samey weapon perks so that no weapon would seem to feel at a disadvantage, which in reality sadly isn't really true) Something like small swords, medium swords, blunt weapon, whips etcetc. would allow more focused and diverse feats. And maybe even special weapon attack feats, for each different weapon types. Just an thought, nothing more
Well I'll be... I'd always ignored the longer feat chains on the assumption that they took so long and early feat taxes were useless, but Whirlwind before your first iterative attack is pretty awesome. Some combo of barb, ranger and figuter with this would be awesome.
