D&D General What is two weapon fighting good for?

[Oofta]

The tremendous synergy between TWF and sneak attack is well known and I don’t think anyone will ever dispute it.
I’m more doubtful about the usefulness of TWF for everybody else, especially past 5th level. It just doesn’t scale well with extra attacks, and it eating a bonus action every round becomes more cumbersome at higher levels.

Increasing your damage by 50% [edit]for levels 1-4, 33% levels 5-10[/edit] is useless? When most campaigns don't get above 10th level, I think people underestimate the off-hand attack for fighters.

 

[Stormonu]

Increasing your damage by 50% is useless? When most campaigns don't get above 10th level, I think people underestimate the off-hand attack for fighters.

Unfortunately (as far as I can tell), you only ever get one additional attack with an off-hand weapon even if you're making 3 or 4 attacks through Extra Attack. So, possibly 50% extra at 1st-5th, 33% at 6th-10th, 25% at 11th-19th and 20% at 20th. Also, most abilities are keyed so you can only add extra damage on one attack a round, so you're usually only getting the weapon's base damage (not even ability mod, unless you have a feat - Dual Fighting). About the only exception I can think of is the paladin's smite and maybe battle maneuvers - but those have "charges" through which you'll basically burn through twice as fast.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Dual wielding. It’s not the greatest 5e combat style, but it clearly does have its niches, as is (rogues, for instance).

But everywhere I read that, historically, two weapon fighting wasn’t really useful. It generally wasn’t worth giving the defense of a shield (especially vs missiles) or the reach and anti-armor power of a two hander.
Even the few examples of duel wielding in fencing seem to relegate the off hand weapon to the role of a defensive implement, which is a far cry from the d&d incarnation of dual wielding, which is all about offense.

One of the only things that two weapon fighting seems to be historically good at (at least according to my limited research) is fending off multiple lightly armored opponents at once.
Because of that, I was considering to house rule TWF and make it all about attacking multiple opponent at once. It would become the AoE weapon style, so to speak.

What do you think? I’m specifically NOT making this a + thread, because I’m also interested in negative feedback about this.

Your research is technically correct but practically misleading. Historically melee weapons can be split into two types. Major nuisances and sidearms.

A major nuisance was normally a pointy thing on the end of a six foot or longer pole, but also covers a really large shield and zweihanders. And the point about major nuisances is twofold. Firstly that they were the best melee weapons and as such were everyone's choice for the battlefield, and secondly that if you weren't going into active trouble they were ... awkward. I mean do you want to try going about a normal day with a six foot long pole with a pointy bit on the end? You basically have to carry it around in one hand all day, and if you're e.g. going to have a pint you need to leave it in the corner of the room. These things (whether spears, halberds, bills, pikes, or other polearms) were battlefield weapons.

Meanwhile sidearms are designed so you can wear them and move around pretty freely with a bit of practice. Swords are the normal example here, worn at the waist or the hip - but belt knives also qualify, as do axes and maces and more. But the obvious thing about weapons that are short enough to wear is that they are short enough to be wielded in one hand in almost all cases. So the question is what you do with the second. You could keep it out of the way - or you could put something in it, whether a buckler, a dagger, an armoured gauntlet, a cloak, a second shortsword or whatever. All these give you extra options and are almost strictly superior to using just your main sidearm and having nothing in the other hand.

There's a reason soldiers carry rifles while people who just want to be ready to have a gun on hand without preparing for an actual warzone carry pistols despite rifles being better weapons in 99% of cases. And D&D doesn't make this distinction at all in its weapons table.

 

[kigmatzomat]

Attacking a single target is the most common scenario so removing it is far more of a penalty. In the action economy, an AC boost effectively gives you more actions before you fall down but they are at the end of the battle. An extra attack is more actions across the whole fight. Making those extra actions a low-occurence event devalues them.

In the grand context of a party, the "controller" caster is out to minimize enemy attacks (hold monster, entangle, Hypnotic pattern, banishment etc) or maximize ally attacks (invisibility/blindness, paralyzed, restrained, etc). The summoner adds more targets and bonus attacks and Ye Olde Evoker is reducing enemy attacks via the rapid depletion of hit points, often clearing out the weak foes.

Good tactics means the non-casters don't have to fight while double-teamed as often and when they do it is on purpose to get Opportunity Attacks or flanking.

if it helps you mentally, TWF does help a skilled fighter land more attacks on a single foe IRL as the opponent now has two weapons to defend against, increasing the odds of the TWFer landing a successful attack with either weapon.

 

[Olrox17]

Increasing your damage by 50% is useless? When most campaigns don't get above 10th level, I think people underestimate the off-hand attack for fighters.

Ok, let's ignore everything that happens above 10th level, for the reason you cited.

A 5th TWF level fighter (standard array) will have 16-17 STR or DEX, TWF fighting style and the dual wield feat. This fighter, using its attack and bonus actions, will make 3 attacks, with +6 to hit, each of them doing 1d8+3 damage. Against an average of AC 13, that's a DPR of 16,875.

Let's make a 5th polearm master level fighter (standard array). It will have 16-17 STR, defense fighting style (mostly chosen for ease of comparison) and the polearm master feat. This fighter, using its attack and bonus actions, will make 3 attacks, with +6 to hit, two of them doing 1d10+3 damage, one doing 1d4+3. Against an average of AC 13, that's a DPR of 16,875, the exact same of the TWF. They also have the same AC (dual wield vs defense style). The Polearm Master, however:

• has reach
• can make opportunity attacks when enemies enter its reach
• has a slightly more damaging opportunity attack, in general
• its action surge attack action does more damage
• if both characters find a single powerful magic weapon, the polearm master will benefit more from it

I'd argue the polearm master is ahead of the TW fighter, and would get more ahead if higher levels see play.

Let's try with an hypothetic greatsword user. It has have 18-19 STR (it picked ability score increase at 4th) and defense fighting style (again for ease of comparison). This fighter, using its attack action, will make 2 attacks, with +7 to hit, each doing 2d6+4 damage. Against an average of AC 13, that's a DPR of 17,6 slightly more than the TW fighter. They also have the same AC.
This Greatsword fighter, however:

• doesn't have to waste its bonus action every round. It can freely second wind without losing damage, for example
• has a substantially more damaging opportunity attack
• its action surge attack action does considerably more damage
• if both characters find a single powerful magic weapon, the greatsword user will benefit more from it

Only thing the TW fighter has over this greatsword fighter is, I believe, less wasted damage on overkills. I'd still pick this over the TW fighter everyday tbh (and so have all my players for almost 10 years of campaigns - rogue excluded ofc).


If I'm building the TW fighter wrong, please tell me, but what I'm seeing is it falling off as early as 5th level.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Two Weapon Fighting is basically competitive (a) from levels 1-4 or (b) when you have damage procs like Sneak Attack or Hunter's Mark that trigger on a hit. It just doesn't scale with the second attack, and there are a lot of fighter subclasses that shouldn't be using it anyway because they have other uses for their bonus actions (Rune Knight I'm looking at you in particular).

And this is without getting into optimisation - either spear, shield, duelist fighting style, and PAM or Great Weapon Master with an accuracy buff (GWM on its own is fine; it's when you have easy access to Advantage or something like a Battlemaster's Precise attack that it breaks).

 

[kigmatzomat]

Two Weapon Fighting is basically competitive (a) from levels 1-4 or (b) when you have damage procs like Sneak Attack or Hunter's Mark that trigger on a hit. It just doesn't scale with the second attack,

To add to that list, our paladin leverages TWF as it gives more opportunities for smite. And Improved Smite does make the offhand more useful with the extra d8 radiant.

 

[Olrox17]

Here's the new iteration of my TWF house rule. All critiques and opinions are welcome!
First, a change to the Fighting Style itself:

Two-Weapon Fighting
When you engage in two-weapon fighting, you can add your ability modifier to the damage of the second attack. Also, Whenever you are wielding a melee weapon in one hand and a different melee weapon in the other hand, you gain a +1 bonus to AC.

And now for the TWF rule proper:

Two-Weapon Fighting
When you take the Attack action and miss an attack with a light melee weapon that you’re holding in one hand, you can immediately make a second attack against the same target with a different light melee weapon that you’re holding in the other hand. You don’t add your ability modifier to the damage of this attack, unless that modifier is negative.
If you have the Extra Attack feature, any further attacks you make as part of the Attack action also gain this benefit.
If either weapon has the thrown property, you can throw the weapon, instead of making a melee attack with it.

The idea/intent here is:

• with this version of the fighting style, you get a defensive bonus for fighting with two weapons. The bonus isn't as good as a shield, unless you also invest into the Dual Wielder feat, but it should be nice to have
• you can no longer stab your opponent with both your weapons at once, but if your main weapon misses, you get a second chance with your off-hand. This should play nice with rogues and their sneak-attacking needs
• this should scale well with Extra Attack, potentially turning TWF into an high-accuracy style. You don't do as much damage as with a two hander, and you don't have the AC of shield+defense style, but you have some defense and are very likely to actually land hits
• also, no bonus actions required anymore. Should be nice for rogues, but also other classes I bet

 

[the Jester]

Since skill checks don't cost you anything to use during a fight, you could make an Intimidation check to put your opponent at a Disadvantage while using two weapons.

Skill checks in a fight generally cost an action, at least in my experience.

 

[Corinnguard]

Skill checks in a fight generally cost an action, at least in my experience.

Plus you'll be pitting your Intimidation check against your opponent's Wisdom check.