is quarterstaff really a double weapon now?

[cladwig1]

if thats the case,i dont like that :(

[Divine Intervention]

Yes.

[TheMacPanther]

It's great! :)

[The Beggar]

The change: It ranks right up there with cholera and malaria.

[Kinslayer988]

Opinions opinions. I remain anonymous.

[Wafflecone]

Indeed.
Quarterstaff a double weapon.
Not an update I like.
Indeed.
 
This has been debated endlessly, it's fine.

[el groso]

This has been discussed over and over. And I really don't like it as well. It makes it look cool and all ... The very idea is cool... But it's really gimpy and I doubt it's any better in any way. Maybe if all staves came with the feats on it, or (and) the damage on the off hand was 1d6 as well. That would make it a bit better, but still, I would prefer the vanilla.

[Relinquish]

I have a PC who uses the staff, and fairly effectively.

[Portal Rat]

I thought they got changed back!?

[Ideal]

I'd just wonder why it's not as effective as a pair of short swords.

[TheImpossibleDream]

The benifits of double sided weapons are only requiring one weapon buff or enchantment to effect both weapons.

In addition the base damage of a double weapon is generally disregarded as the amount of damage you deal will be based upon the number of attacks and buffs you have at the time. Flame weapon and greater magic weapon combined with improved two weapon fighting and haste results in an opponent who can drink 2 potions for every 6 of your attacks, even if you deal 15 damage per hit on average (very very very easy with buffs) you'll effectively be able to negate all healing they recieve and then some provided you've the proper buffs. The same effect can come from dual wielding 2 seperate weapons, but you need to get buffs placed on both amounting to 4 spells instead of 2.

Not to mention quarterstaff is a simple weapon granting any class an easy to access double weapon with no feat investment required.

[Underbard]

The key to your reasoning though, is "with improved two weapon fighting", a feat that didn't need to be taken before the change.  Not that the stave was widely used before the change, mind you, but now, it requires extra feats to use it efficiently.
  Doesn't really matter much either way once you know what is going on, but for a new player who actually wants to use it for some reason, it sorta bites to find out, only after you have built your PC, that the staff has been changed.

[Ideal]

I've never liked to rely on buffs to do my damage. It's probably why I'm not a great fighter, though. That said, taking the idea that dual wielding is a matter of buffs over base damage, and double weapons help with buff economy to heart, I'm going to try and figure out good reasons to go dual quarterstaff. Because I like them.

Most arcane casters never cared about weapon properties to start with, so they'll probably continue to be the premier holders of staff-related objects, if only for the spell slots. Rogues don't tend to rely on damage buffs when they've already got sneak, and dual weapons seem an iffy choice on a mid-AB class anyhow, even without the common ones leaving you with crazy penalties for lack of feats. Fighters have feats to spare for their style of choice, so the investment in a permanent +1d2/+1d5 buff to damage power is a bit more appealing. How much more I'm not too sure, but among the many options Fighters have, Two Weapon seems to be a bit of a wash to start with. As for Barbarians, that +4 strength seems to suit a two hander more than two weapons.

So where does that leave us? Divine casters? -2 to a middling AB again, but if anyone would appreciate buff conservation, it'd be a caster, right? Paladins? Monks got unarmed AB for quarterstaff in PnP, if I recall, but I don't think that's likely here. Bards don't need to worry about effectiveness, maybe they can pick up the slack? Rangers, of course, already get dual weapon feats, leaving them one feat away from that +1d2/+1d5 goodness.

Okay, so I can't really come up with a solid reason to go for Quarterstaff over other dual weapons in a mechanical sense besides the provided 'save buffs or a feat on what you would do anyhow'. So I'd argue people who want to use it as a signature weapon. Everyone's got their greatswords and greataxes, but great just isn't enough. You want awesome. And a quarterstaff is awesome. Beating your enemies with a stick is beyond great. But there's just one problem there. You can't beat your enemy with just any stick anymore. You can't figure out how to use the stick right without a slew of feats. If you found a better stick out somewhere else, then maybe you'd be better at swinging it. But every quest you spend searching for loot is a quest you're not awesome, and meanwhile Joe Fodderbuild over there is swinging his Stick: Bigger and Also Spiky Edition, and he doesn't need to go wandering around for one. It's just that much easier. And once you finally find your awesome stick, you may find it was built with spindly wizard wrists in mind, and doesn't actually help all that much, and actually does pretty lame damage. Of course, you're crazy, because sticks are awesome, but that's what the tiny imperfections staring at you every time you're awesome do. Drive you crazy.

Now, naturally, a DM will wander along, and see you being so awesome you threaten the fabric of reality itself, and with reverent hands they will craft you a stick befitting your awesomeness. And then you will go and find Joe Fodderbuild and smack him upside the head with it, just because you can. And then you'll do it again, because that's what dual weapons are for. But before that, you will start your life not using the weapon you want to use, and as weapons are a bit part of your character when you're fighting every ten minutes, you won't be able to play the character you want to play. Once you quest enough with that character, you will be permitted to find a proper stick, and then mostly you will be able to play who you wanted, being awesome all over the place and trying not to care that you'll have to rely on some DM intervention before you can stand up to the mechanical might of Joe Fodderbuild and his one stick wonder. You might even succeed, and become loved and accepted for what you really are. An awesome person who beats things with a stick.

Of course, you may know all the mechanical tricks of the trade to put up a fight. You might be too focused on role playing and plotting to care that you can't stand up to generic builds and crush quests. You might know just where to go to get a sweet staff loot, and you and your buddies can all go out and get you geared up in no time. But here's the thing: You weren't you. You weren't a GM-wowing god of plot, you weren't an elite crushbot or part of a ground-floor concept. You were Joe Everyplayer, and you just decided that it was too much effort for too little reward. All you wanted was to do cool things while trying something new, and like the Iron Will Lionheart paladin, you decided a few feats were a fair price to pay to make your character's signature trait a bit stronger.

In short, you aren't likely to see many quarterstaff focused builds. Even with perfect balance, there are lots of options, and many are much easier and provide more gratification. But some people will want them. And to those people, there are some problems with the current implementation. I think the process could be eased in two ways, maybe more.

One, give every staff Two Weapon Fighting and Ambidexterity. Vanilla, random wizard staff, random stick, all of them. Seriously, it's the simplest polearm there is. It shouldn't take longer to learn to manage a stick than it does to manage double swords, giant one handed axes and swords, shurikens, kukris, kamas, whips, and war scythes combined. And if there are plenty of loot staffs with the feats, there's no point in leaving it off of the shop staff selection. It's either OP or it's not.

Two, revert it. Because one might be too much work for too little reward.

[Egon the Monkey]

I'd agree. Previously it was the weapon of choice for grumpy old men, ascetics, PCs who liked the idea of a nonlethal weapon etc. Now it requires 15 Dex and 2 feats or a Ranger level in order to use.

Ideal sums up perfectly why "go impress the DMs and lead will turn into gold" is a broken argument. Not every concept is made with grabbing attention in mind, especially staff concepts that for whatever reason are wielding a cheap, simple, humble weapon. Not to mention that I used to enjoy my wizards walking up and clobbering something with their staves.

I wonder if there's any way to give PCs the Dual Wield feat automatically when using staves? To use them without heavy armor would be easy for a commoner, but you'd need expert training to use them while weighted by mail or encased in plate. Alternatively, they could be given Ambidexterity on as many as possible. That way, you'd still need to use one feat to use a double weapon, but it would be Two Weapon Fighting, and that has no attribute requirement. Staves with both feats would still be more valuable.

[TakenByVisions]

In the toolset there are both "Magical Staff" and Quarter Staff. The magical version is typically sparkly and given out as DM loot, yet can easily be designed to not be anything like that and replace most of these quarter staves that are in game representing some low magic staff.

It can easily be left as is if the DMs decided to use the magical staff template for all of those wizard focused staves we find in game now rather than quarter staff.