Is there a way to do slashing damage with a mace?

Question

I play a double light-mace fighter, and I want to make a lot of attacks every turn. I took a look at the dervish (CW 25) prestige class, and they can take a full attack action and move up to their Speed while they're dancing. So...

• They need light armor or no armor to dance. Solved. Fight naked.
• They need ranks in dance and tumble. Solved. Have them.
• They need to use two slashing weapons. Not solved. A problem in need of a solution.

I was thinking of using the Craft (weaponsmithing) skill to create some light maces with blades on the top so they inflict slashing damage when I hit, but my DM (who is negative about my character even when he shouldn't be) says, "Sorry, but there's nothing about slashing maces in any book I've read."

So even if it's logical, he refuses. The key here is something he has not read before. Any help? Does it seem legit what I'm saying and trying to do? Does it seem fair?

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The facts:

1. My char is fighter 2 / warblade 3.
2. I'll take levels in the prestige classes dervish and disciple of Dispater (BV 60).
3. I've got feats Lighting Mace (CW 113) and Power Critical (CW 103).
4. With the prestige class disciple of Dispater and the feat Lighting Mace, I can do a lot of attacks
5. With the tiger claw stance blood in the water (ToB 86) of the warblade, I gain a +1 attack +1 damage every time I hit a critical hit.
6. We're playing a homebrew rule where the threat and critical roll is the same thing, so you roll just one time to see if you hit, miss, or critically hit.
7. To use the dervish dance, I need light or no armor and slashing weapons (but I need to use light maces in order to become effective with the Lighting Maces feat)
8. So I was thinking of a weapon like Ragnarok Online's sword mace. It's the perfect thing, but how to import it to D&D?
9. All other ways to take a move action and make a full-attack neither suit my character nor my fighting style.

Answer 1

I’m going to answer “how do I combine Dervish with Lightning Maces,” rather than specifically how to get a slashing mace.

Aptitude Special Ability

The aptitude special ability from Tome of Battle can be applied to a weapon to cause feats that are specifically for another weapon to apply to the weapon with aptitude. It is likely that the designers meant just to let you switch Weapon Focus (dagger) to your aptitude longsword and similar, but the wording of the feat allows even feats where you never had a choice about the weapon type to apply to the aptitude weapon. This is frequently quite powerful, and occasionally completely nonsensical.

If you really want to use maces specifically, you could have an aptitude light mace, and then apply the Versatile Unarmed Strike feat to it. This is probably going to fall into the latter category for most groups, but it’s RAW-legal.

Alternatively, you could use an aptitude slashing weapon, ideally one with a large threat range (the kukri is almost certainly your best bet here: light slashing weapon with a large threat range), and then let Lightning Maces apply to it.

In either case, the Roundabout Kick feat works similarly to Lightning Maces, but for unarmed strikes: once again, aptitude can allow you to take the extra attack with your mace or kukri.

Combined with Disciple of Dispater, the kukris are looking at enormous threat ranges, which means you’ll score a critical on very-nearly every single attack that successfully hits. The maces are only somewhat smaller. Combined with Lightning Maces and Roundabout Kick, every critical triggers two attacks. Your number of attacks is thus more likely to increase rather than decrease; if you hit on the first two or three, you are statistically unlikely to stop attacking until the target is dead.

This is, of course, broken.

Were I your DM, I would allow you to have your slashing mace or allow Dervish to use non-slashing weapons without a second thought. On the other hand, Lightning Maces already is on my banlist. I also consider any combination of aptitude with a feat that couldn’t normally select the weapon in question to be something to be adjudicated by me, on a case-by-case basis.

Answer 2

An unbalanced weapon (like a mace, top-heavy) with enough blade to do slashing damage is basically an axe or a splitting maul. "How do I make a slashing mace?" begs the question of what weapon with mace-like qualities would do slashing damage - and the answer to that is an axe, a top-heavy weapon that actually does slashing damage. By recasting what such a weapon would look like, perhaps it might inspire approaching the solution differently and successfully? A character with two light axes in his hands - top-heavy slashing weapons - might be a different way to approach the same level of awesome.

One more consideration abut the weapon itself: perhaps consider a mace/axe combination like this example of a medieval war axe (or this fancier one), which can smash as a mace on one end, and cut like an axe on the other. This would be an alternate take on the real-world warhammer, which is usually a mace on one side, a pick on the other, and occasionally a thrusting spike on the tip.

Answer 3

I will attempt to answer how to get the maces. Slashing Maces sounds pretty darn cool I can definitely see how it would work and its pretty logical. As far as how to get them when your DM is being an ...

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This is what I would try first take a couple ranks in weapon smith then write up a stat table for these bladed maces make them have the same stats as a light mace simply change the damage type from bludgeon to slashing. Then Tell your DM that you have invented a new weapon and your going to attempt To craft it. Alternatively if you don't have weapon smith or don't want spend ranks on it you can pay a weapon smith to do the work for you. I honestly can't see why a DM would say no to something awesome like this then that's baffling to me I mean it is a simple change, it's not overpowered in any way!

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Well thanks for the awesome idea! Good luck with your Dungeon Master let me know how it goes. I will look in the books for slashing maces.