[Gimli]

Here's something that might work, as there is really only one other offhand mace item before DE for fighters/lords (the plain hammer from Antone in Arnika).

Why not start off dual wielding mace character as a Ninja? Have them build up dual mace skills from Arnika on with dual nunchuckas, Antone also sells them. That is the other offhand mace choice (not open to fighters/lords though). For that phase of the game they're pretty powerful, they have I think a 20% chance KO value. Then after you get DE and the Mauler later on, switch to Fighter or Lord. Probably Fighter is better since you'd be able to beserk, Lord would just give you the +25 dual wield, but the +25 close combat from the Fighter will help. Plus you'd have built up alot of stealth and critical strike to boot.

You could also switch to Ranger, they can dual DE and the Mauler as well, and if you build up Bow while a Ninja instead of throwing, you'd crit with both melee and ranged weapons (also both classes build Alchemy so you could work on that too).