Mearls House Rule: Two-Weapon Fighting
ClaytonCross
Kinder reader Inflection wanted
Ah, perhaps something like "When you receive an action you may make one attack with your offhand weapon as a free action" , So when you get an attack action as an opportunity you get one off hand attack because you only get one attack action, but when you get multiple attack actions as a result of the extra attack feature you would get one free action off hand attack for each attack action.
Maybe that's clearer. Concise is not my thing, lol.
Hawk Diesel
Adventurer
Ugh... I posted this in the other thread meaning to post it in this one. It's a little disorienting having two such similar conversation threads here. Anyways, here is what I posted in the other one.
***
So seeing this conversation has got me to thinking about Two-Weapon Fighting. I know it is a common house rule to allow for the extra attack as part of the attack action, and I've vacillated back and forth about that. But as I said, this thread got me thinking. What if we changed TWF into the following:
Two-Weapon Fighting
When you take the Attack action and attack with a light melee weapon that you’re holding in one hand, you can use a reaction to make an additional attack with your off-hand. This additional attack must be with a different light melee weapon that you’re holding, an unarmed strike, or a natural weapon. You don’t add your ability modifier to the damage of the bonus attack, unless that modifier is negative.
If either weapon has the thrown property, you can throw the weapon, instead of making a melee attack with it.
Ways this changes current Two-Weapon Fighting
-Allows more wide use of the reaction. In my gaming experience, reactions are seldom used except by Polearm Masters, Sentinels, or specific kinds of magic users. This widens their use.
-Opens the door to unarmed strikes or natural attacks with TWF. Seems silly that 5e makes a distinction between these attack modalities, but apparently it does. This also means it is a tactic monsters can easily use against the party, even if they don't have melee weapons per se.
-Reduces the competition for bonus action abilities such as Cunning Action, Hex/Hunter’s Mark, Flurry of Blows, ect
-Opens the door for a different kind of Duelist. Now, if you choose not to wield a shield, you can make an unarmed strike and add your duelist damage to it. Or a Champion fighter that takes duelist and TWF, and can add the STR mod and damage bonus to his unarmed strike (especially useful if feats are not in use). I think that is kind of interesting.
-Increases the number of attacks a monk can make. A low-level monk can now make 3 attacks with their martial arts ability, or four with Flurry of Blows. This increases to 5 attacks by level 5. Not sure if this is good or bad.
***
So seeing this conversation has got me to thinking about Two-Weapon Fighting. I know it is a common house rule to allow for the extra attack as part of the attack action, and I've vacillated back and forth about that. But as I said, this thread got me thinking. What if we changed TWF into the following:
Two-Weapon Fighting
When you take the Attack action and attack with a light melee weapon that you’re holding in one hand, you can use a reaction to make an additional attack with your off-hand. This additional attack must be with a different light melee weapon that you’re holding, an unarmed strike, or a natural weapon. You don’t add your ability modifier to the damage of the bonus attack, unless that modifier is negative.
If either weapon has the thrown property, you can throw the weapon, instead of making a melee attack with it.
Ways this changes current Two-Weapon Fighting
-Allows more wide use of the reaction. In my gaming experience, reactions are seldom used except by Polearm Masters, Sentinels, or specific kinds of magic users. This widens their use.
-Opens the door to unarmed strikes or natural attacks with TWF. Seems silly that 5e makes a distinction between these attack modalities, but apparently it does. This also means it is a tactic monsters can easily use against the party, even if they don't have melee weapons per se.
-Reduces the competition for bonus action abilities such as Cunning Action, Hex/Hunter’s Mark, Flurry of Blows, ect
-Opens the door for a different kind of Duelist. Now, if you choose not to wield a shield, you can make an unarmed strike and add your duelist damage to it. Or a Champion fighter that takes duelist and TWF, and can add the STR mod and damage bonus to his unarmed strike (especially useful if feats are not in use). I think that is kind of interesting.
-Increases the number of attacks a monk can make. A low-level monk can now make 3 attacks with their martial arts ability, or four with Flurry of Blows. This increases to 5 attacks by level 5. Not sure if this is good or bad.
ClaytonCross
Kinder reader Inflection wanted
I agree with 90% of what your doing here. You have one think I like better and one I don't like as much as the ideas by me and 77IM.
I really like this:
"-Opens the door to unarmed strikes or natural attacks with TWF. Seems silly that 5e makes a distinction between these attack modalities, but apparently it does. This also means it is a tactic monsters can easily use against the party, even if they don't have melee weapons per se."
I think the idea of using to off hand to engage is something that has been missing that I had not even considered until I saw your post but as a matter of coincidence I was fighting yesterday and one guy dropped his shield to practice fighting rapier and short sword separately using the off hand to hold the sword/arm, grapple, and disarm and he was actually ... attempting .. to follow some moves from an old manual. While he didn't do well yesterday, I have seen it happen and had it used on me by others so I would love to see it added to the game. I don't know that giving monks another strike is in combat is really a good or a bad thing ether however both my way and 77IM's would do the same thing. 77IM's would add two as a single class monk which might be pushing it.
I disagree with this:
-Allows more wide use of the reaction. In my gaming experience, reactions are seldom used except by Polearm Masters, Sentinels, or specific kinds of magic users. This widens their use.
Almost every class has some sort of reaction defense and I really don't like the co-oping of reactions as substitute actions. Doing it as free action as a result of using your action on your turn to make a make a melee attack does the same thing without switching the lost of a bonus action to a the lose of a reaction which is very close to a net zero gain. Other fighting styles don't have to take a reaction or bonus action lost to function normally and two-weapon fighting is not inherently any stronger than they are so their is no point in taxing it. If we are talking about encouraging its use we should make it tax free.
With that in mind here is my adjusted suggestion:
"Fighting with two light weapons and you are able to effectively attack and defend in melee switching roles between the two weapons. As a result when you are fighting only one opponent in melee within 5ft, you gain +2 AC vs Melee attacks only and you make your standard attacks with advantage. When you make a hit you may choose which weapon does the damage. Alternatively if you are fighting with one light weapon and nothing in the other hand vs a single opponent in melee within 5ft you may attempt to make unarmed strike a free action before rolling a melee weapon attack. If the unarmed strike is successful make your melee weapon attack at advantage. Once you take this free action you can not use it again until the start of your next turn."
It now allows your off hand strike with one weapon but limits it to once per turn to prevent monk/Fighter abuse, since its and extra attack and the possibly of advantage.
Ok I've been following the thread and I suppose my question is, if twf doesn't take up a bonus action, would there ever be any reason to play a rogue with a single weapon?
As it stands, I'm fine with there being ways to improve the utility of the style but I'm not sure if I like making a traditional iconic build obsolete in the process.
As it stands, I'm fine with there being ways to improve the utility of the style but I'm not sure if I like making a traditional iconic build obsolete in the process.
ClaytonCross
Kinder reader Inflection wanted
yes, ranged weapons generally hand crossbow with crossbow expert. Also, generally speaking the melee weapon they actually use matters very little to a rogue other than finesse since the majority of their damage comes from back stab not the actual weapon. As it is right now Rogues are the only class I have ever actually seen use TWF because it gives them a second chance to trigger back stab that they don't actually already get and it doesn't matter if it sucks as long as they hit once on their turn. If they trigger on the first hit they simply use the bonus action for cunning action instead. So why would a rogue use a single weapon now unless its ranged?
As far as I can see this change does not effect rogue hardly at all. It would have a much larger impact on melee classes with fighting styles & extra attack with which I also include monks with martial arts.
ClaytonCross
Kinder reader Inflection wanted
I really don't understand why you bothered to read the thread or post when the entire topic is house rules and your stance is you don't care about house rules. Kind of seems like a waste of effort and time unless you just generally want to run around post some objection to every post in order to push buttons and spread blind hate. So weird to me to post, like going from thread to thread saying "don't post" or coming to a D&D thread to say you don't like talking about D&D.
Yep. I think single weapon rogues need an extra benefit more than dual wielders need extra benefits. Twf not the most damaging option if you crunch the numbers on paper but it comes with other multiple benefits, including more versatility, splitting attacks, extra opportunities for a critical, extra chances for sneak damage, extra opportunities for combat manoeuvres, magical effects etc.
I suppose -4 to a rogue's attacks with two weapons would be a big disincentive for a rogue to dual wield but I never really thought rogues needed that sort of 'help'. I suppose it would help a melee Rogue who can see in the dark to gain advantage every round against an opponent who can't see in the dark... Or a halfling the opportunity to withdraw to hide behind an ally every round? These sound pretty lame and mechanical to me.
I'm not seeing anything to inspire me to incorporate this house rule so far...
ClaytonCross
Kinder reader Inflection wanted
These changes for TWF are NOT for rogues but a change for characters that actually fight with their weapons instead of using them to deliver a special ability like backstab. If your looking at it for a rogue your not looking where its needed but looking where its not needed and wondering why someone would want to change it. The reason this interests me is the total lack of non-rogue duel wielding because despite the advantages you note they come at a cost of bonus action and the other fighting styles have their own advantages ...at no coast. May classes simply have extra attack for the ability to attack twice at higher damage making lowering the damage for all their attacks for finesse weapons a lose not a gain. This is not to raise two weapon fighting above other styles where it already works but to level it with them where it fails and provide it with a niche so people will actually use it.. In most cases getting another attack with a one two-handed weapon is easier and cost less. Extra attack, Sentinel, pole-arm master, great weapon master, opportunity attacks and other class features like monks martial arts are very common and do more damage to begin with. That's why you see them all the time but only TWF on rogues who don't even care about their weapon as long as they hit something and get back stab.
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