D&D 5E Improving Two-Weapon Fighting

FrogReaver · Jun 16, 2019

Suppose you remove the BA cost from TWF.

Now suppose you balance TWF and GWF such that TWF does equal damage to GWF no matter how many attacks are made (without buffs etc).

Now consider what happens when the TWF get's a per attack damage buff. He's making more attacks than the GWF so he get's 1 more use of the damage buff per round than the GWF. In short, by removing the BA and balancing the styles you have unbalanced the game.

But what if you balanced them around having hunter's mark? Well then you have unbalanced styles when you don't have hunter's mark.

The only fix is to keep the BA cost and have GWF and TWF balanced without any buffs. Then on the first turn you use your BA to cast hunter's mark you take a damage penalty knowing that if the fight goes as long as expected you will make up all the missed damage compared to the GWF (even if he also casts hunter's mark). The downside to this balancing act is that if bonus damage goes up significantly more than hunter's mark or hex can provide then that unbalances things pretty quickly.

FrogReaver · Jun 16, 2019

TwoSix said:
That makes sense in a theoretical context. But what BA currently exists in 5e that is better than a weapon attack with a -X/+X rider attached? (Specifically, for any class not a full caster?) The only optimized high level build in 5e that doesn't use it is a sorlock using Quicken.

My takeaway is a little different. The primary factor that keeps heavy weapons and archery above any other fighting style is that they have access to the key -5/+10 mechanic. This roughly doubles base damage per attack, and is easily mitigated by commonly available accuracy bonuses (advantage, especially.) Give every common fighting style access to this mechanic (as is the primary goal of my proposed feat in post 159), and the differences are small enough that class and subclass features become key in deciding which path to pursue (as well as aesthetic preference based on character concept, which is always important to prioritize!)

I'd be perfectly happy to run some numbers of suggested Tier 3-4 builds that have high-leverage bonus actions, looking at 3-5 round fight times specifically. I admit most of my examinations have been based on Tier 2 setups of 2 attacks and 1 BA per turn.

Yes and TWF isn't balanced out the gate. It's much to strong early and much to weak later. Fix both and you are a long way to having a fairly balanced TWF style.

CapnZapp · Jun 16, 2019

TwoSix said:
The primary factor that keeps heavy weapons and archery above any other fighting style is that they have access to the key -5/+10 mechanic. This roughly doubles base damage per attack, and is easily mitigated by commonly available accuracy bonuses (advantage, especially.)

What wouldn't I have paid to have this quote back during those lonely fights against the unwashed masses claiming GWF wasn't unbalanced...

CapnZapp · Jun 16, 2019

TwoSix said:
That makes sense in a theoretical context. But what BA currently exists in 5e that is better than a weapon attack with a -X/+X rider attached? (Specifically, for any class not a full caster?) The only optimized high level build in 5e that doesn't use it is a sorlock using Quicken.

The icing on the GWF cake is having the BA available for magic items or spells.

You are correct in assuming "an attack" is high on the list, but so is bonus dashes, teleports or whatnot.

Xeviat · Jun 16, 2019

It's starting to look like a rebalance of TWFing would require a redo of Hunters Mark and Hex. It can be balanced for the Fighter perfectly, and that's the part I need to see in any rebalancing. but balanced for the fighter ends up being too powerful for the ranger.

I'm a kit basher. I'm perfectly happy to tweak hunters mark.

Now, the idea of just making sure to balance the TWFing feat against SS and GWM is a good one, but because of the way Action Surge works, the fighter would still be weaker with TWFing than with Great Weapon Fighting.

CapnZapp · Jun 16, 2019

doctorbadwolf said:
You may have missed it, in the course of debating multiple people, but I already agreed with you about TWF. My disagreement was about Dex and strength.

You also seem seem to have misunderstood the particulars of what I was saying, so I’ll try one more time. Strength isn’t so far behind Dex that a significant # of players just don’t make Strength characters. OTOH, TWF does get left behind by non-optimizers, because it both is and feels less powerful for most characters. The only invested TWFER in my games is actually a Strength Paladin with a 10 Dex! She wanted the Fighting Style so I let her take it, but she’d be more powerful if she’d taken Defensive.

One day we will have to have a discussion about Strength and Dexterity. I'll show you the eleven ways 5E tilts the balance in favor of Dex at the expense of Str, and you can tell me which ones you feel constitutes improvements, which ones you feel are essential.

doctorbadwolf · Jun 16, 2019

CapnZapp said:
One day we will have to have a discussion about Strength and Dexterity. I'll show you the eleven ways 5E tilts the balance in favor of Dex at the expense of Str, and you can tell me which ones you feel constitutes improvements, which ones you feel are essential.

I vaguely feel like we *have* had that conversation. Possibly in a thread about...armor? Idk. Maybe a thread about rogues?

But hey, I remember the bad old days. While I’d love to see Strength get a little more attention in the 5e Rules, I wouldn’t support going back to literally any of the restrictions on Dex from old editions.

Last time we talked about this, I had some ideas for boosting Strength, but I don’t recall what they were.

Anyway, I just don’t think that the total package in 5e, which is all I beleive is relevant (old edition stuff is interesting at most), is especially imbalanced. If you want to make a big tough guy, you can easily do so and be very effective. Viable right alongside the Dex guys.

Im fine with discussing ways to make the game even more balanced, but I’m not gonna pretend that it isn’t balanced already.

Xeviat · Jun 16, 2019

Strength and Heavy armor, which requires an amount of strength, does allow for 1 AC higher than a Dex character.

doctorbadwolf · Jun 17, 2019

Xeviat said:
Strength and Heavy armor, which requires an amount of strength, does allow for 1 AC higher than a Dex character.

My wife’s dual wielding vengeance paladin with a 10 Dex has AC 20 (+1 armor), and makes 3 d8+str attacks per turn. Eventually, Improved Divine Smite will boost that damage, and she will be flying high.

Now, that doesn’t mean that TWF is where it should be, but it does help indicate that Strength builds are quite capable.

Xeviat · Jun 17, 2019

doctorbadwolf said:
My wife’s dual wielding vengeance paladin with a 10 Dex has AC 20 (+1 armor), and makes 3 d8+str attacks per turn. Eventually, Improved Divine Smite will boost that damage, and she will be flying high.

Now, that doesn’t mean that TWF is where it should be, but it does help indicate that Strength builds are quite capable.

Yeah, I've never been too worried about Str vs. Dex melee builds. Str builds that forgo Dex have lower initiative, Dex saves, and lower ranged range, but they have higher strength which helps with Pushes and Grabs and higher Str saves to resist monsters throwing them around, and higher AC.

I realized for the math for my earlier Fighter comparison, I didn't give them a subclass to compare side by side with the Ranger. A battle master fighter can be adding +4.5 damage per hit 4 times during a short rest, plus effects, which would have pushed their expected damage up quite a bit.