D&D 5E Is the Rogue the only reason TWFing needs a Bonus Action?

Hi everyone. TWFing has to be my favorite Fighting Style in D&D. Not because all of my favorite characters have used it (I DM far more than I play), but because it was the first rule I saw as underpowered in 3E and sought to fix. And now, we're at a similar situation in 5E.

I don't want to debate if TWFing is bad or good here. We've had that debate. But brought on my Mike Mearls's talk on removing bonus actions and our almost monthly threads here about the subject, I want to simply talk about one aspect:

Does the Rogue and their Cunning Actionability serve as the primary reason TWFing needs to keep its bonus action? Is a melee rogue relegated to TWFing to get the most bang for their buck? Their bonus action for a second attempt at sneak attack is statistically similar to a ranged rogue's ability to use their bonus action to Hide to gain advantage (and thus two chances to hit).

But does this rob us of swashbuckling rapier/empty hand rogues? That second chance boosts a 65% chance to hit to an 87.5% chance to hit at least once, which is a big boost to damage. At least now it is a trade off between using withdraw as a bonus to get out a bit or trying for that second attack.

It would be a huge buff on the Rogue to remove the bonus action. Then, could it just be baked into the Fighting Style? Would that overly empower the hunter's marking ranger? Who has played without bonus actions on TWFing?


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Xeviat said:

Hi everyone. TWFing has to be my favorite Fighting Style in D&D. Not because all of my favorite characters have used it (I DM far more than I play), but because it was the first rule I saw as underpowered in 3E and sought to fix. And now, we're at a similar situation in 5E.

I don't want to debate if TWFing is bad or good here. We've had that debate. But brought on my Mike Mearls's talk on removing bonus actions and our almost monthly threads here about the subject, I want to simply talk about one aspect:

Does the Rogue and their Cunning Actionability serve as the primary reason TWFing needs to keep its bonus action? Is a melee rogue relegated to TWFing to get the most bang for their buck? Their bonus action for a second attempt at sneak attack is statistically similar to a ranged rogue's ability to use their bonus action to Hide to gain advantage (and thus two chances to hit).

But does this rob us of swashbuckling rapier/empty hand rogues? That second chance boosts a 65% chance to hit to an 87.5% chance to hit at least once, which is a big boost to damage. At least now it is a trade off between using withdraw as a bonus to get out a bit or trying for that second attack.

It would be a huge buff on the Rogue to remove the bonus action. Then, could it just be baked into the Fighting Style? Would that overly empower the hunter's marking ranger? Who has played without bonus actions on TWFing?


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If I remember correctly, he was one of the reasons.

But if I interpret the mearls article right, removing bonus actions has no effect or rather a negative more balancing effect on the rogue.
He now just has two options:
TWF: make attacks with both weapons.
Cunning attack: in addition to the attack you may also disengage, dash or hide.

Fighters would have the doubleattack action: you may make two attackks with your main hand and if you wield an off hand weapon that is light x numbers of attacks with that weapon.

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Xeviat said:

Hi everyone. TWFing has to be my favorite Fighting Style in D&D. Not because all of my favorite characters have used it (I DM far more than I play), but because it was the first rule I saw as underpowered in 3E and sought to fix. And now, we're at a similar situation in 5E.

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I suppose you've been told how broken it was in AD&D?

Does the Rogue and their Cunning Actionability serve as the primary reason TWFing needs to keep its bonus action? Is a melee rogue relegated to TWFing to get the most bang for their buck? Their bonus action for a second attempt at sneak attack is statistically similar to a ranged rogue's ability to use their bonus action to Hide to gain advantage (and thus two chances to hit).

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IDK, on some level, any two things that require the same action would be a problem if you could just do them both freely, or they would have been given different actions. On another level, they were desperately trying for a veneer of simplicity in reducing jargon, and named action types certainly qualified.

The odd thing about Mearls' talking about removal of bonus actions is that it's essentially going back to the final playtest version of D&D Next. That version didn't have bonus actions - instead, the Attack action included potential dual-wielding (paraphrased, "when wielding two light weapons you can attack twice when taking the Attack action, once with each weapon, and you don't add your ability modifier to the second one."). The class ability Extra Attack would stack with this, as it gave you one more attack. Other things that now are bonus actions, that are in fairly common use:

* Cunning Action actually gave you an extra action that you could only use to disengage, hide, or hustle (=dash).
* Rage is just done as part of your action.
* Bardic Inspiration didn't exist. Bard buffs worked in a quite different way, more akin to the group buffs used in D&D3.
* War Priest said "once on your turn, you can attack one extra time when you take the attack action".
* Second Wind was an action, and gave you d6+fighter level temporary hp instead of healing d10+fighter level.
* Monks got two unarmed attacks "for free" as part of Flurry of Blows (three at 8th level), and could spend a ki for one more.
* Spells could have the "Swift" casting time, which allowed you to cast them as part of another action, and that action could not be casting another spell or using a magic item.

As I recall, the reason bonus actions were added to the game was that they wanted to avoid situations where you could stack different things that gave you extra attacks, particularly when multi-classing (e.g. a monk/war priest making 5 or 6 attacks by using Improved Flurry of Blows + spend ki for one more + use War Priest for one more + dual-wielding for one more (though that's iffy when combined with unarmed attacks...)). There was a Legends & Lore article on it, but since Wizards don't believe in keeping old web stuff around it's gone now.

I view the bonus action as an issue of time. It also keeps the rules simpler and helps keep things from stacking. In that respect, I view it a lot like the concentration mechanic.

The Thief has an extended list of options from its Cunning Action. Where do these go? Either they are lost, or they hang off another Action.

An extra attack from TWF as a bonus action allows you to just get in that extra swing from your second weapon. While that could be folded into the attack action, it has knock-on effects. In my last campaign we had a TWF Eldritch Knight. The Eldritch Knight also can make a bonus weapon attack when casting a cantrip. This could be written as an Eldritch Knight feature that modified the Cast a Spell action, but what about a Thief/Eldritch Knight multiclass? Now the Eldritch Knight can Cast a Spell, make a bonus weapon attack, and reach over and pick a lock.

It is cleaner to fold the extra attack for TWF and monks into a bonus action as this provides a simple way to limit all the "extra stuff."

I'd keep the bonus attack with 2WF and add an optional Combine Strike (Twin Strike) as an additional attack possibility when attacking with 2 weapons - 1 strike with the second weapon adding extra damage to the first attack (this was the 4th edition solution).

So either 2 separate attacks or 1 attack with more dice. Been experimenting with either just combining the dice or having the second weapon grant an extra 1 die lower (8d>6d>d4>d3). It combines better with Extra Attack or additional attacks and allows a combination of the extra damage from 2WF while using Cunning action.

But I'd still want the bonus action attack because of the things that let 2WF shine like Hex, Hunter's Mark, Sneak attack, magic weapons, Two Weapon Style, etc.

The bonus action offhand attack is one of those things that makes sense when you look back on the development of 5e. Late in the playtest, around the end of 2013, several things let you get an extra attack. And it was easy to stack them and get several extra attacks. This was problematic, and was one of the reasons they opted to introduce the bonus action. And once it was introduced, that became a bit of a crutch: anything they didn't want done more than once a turn but shouldn't take an action became a bonus action.

Staffan said:

There was a Legends & Lore article on it, but since Wizards don't believe in keeping old web stuff around it's gone now.

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I can't believe that. Nothing is ever removed from the Internet.

I fully expect someone to link to a complete L&L archive within hours of this post

I'm a fan of Bonus Actions and see it as a feature instead of a bug -- but then, I'm not a developer and paid to think about stuff like this for hours a day. however, whatever subsystems that replaced it would have to be damned good, because its very nature stops a lot of abuses as noted in the whole initiative discussion that the previous versions had. Right now, the reaction/standard/bonus system seems to be working really well; I'm all for improvement, let's just make sure it's an improvement instead of whatever replaces it breaking more than it fixes just because someone thinks its a great fix to one proud nail.

Jester David said:

The bonus action offhand attack is one of those things that makes sense when you look back on the development of 5e. Late in the playtest, around the end of 2013, several things let you get an extra attack. And it was easy to stack them and get several extra attacks. This was problematic, and was one of the reasons they opted to introduce the bonus action. And once it was introduced, that became a bit of a crutch: anything they didn't want done more than once a turn but shouldn't take an action became a bonus action.

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I might be wrong, but it sure sounds like you have an opinion on what "not more than once a turn" stuff you would have preferred not to use the bonus action mechanic.

I mean, your point is perfectly valid. Just because many things got shuffled into a bonus action doesn't mean there can't remain a few things that simply are not-an-action, yet limited to once/turn.