2 weapons vs. 2 handed weapon vs. weapon and shield

[Scipio202]

RE increased chance to knock one target prone with 2WF.

There is actually a fair bit of hidden damage there if you think of not just the fighter's damage but the rest of the party's damage too. The obvious one is an extra 15-25% chance to turn on the rogue's sneak attack dice, but also increase the chance for clerics to hit with crusader's strike and inflict wounds, or wizards/sorcerers to hit with ghoul's touch or vampiric touch.

 

[Sadrik]

All bonus damage is halved too. So sneak attack 2wf looks way sub optimal. I think 2 hander is the only way. Sword and board is weak too as the shield only gives +1. The +1 ac does not carry enough weight to the much larger damage boost. Also the other wacky weapon damage thing is the favored weapons of the non-humans. I conceptually do not like favored weapons hard coded in the race. Is it not enough to say that the DM could say dwarves use hammers and axes, elves use swords and bows, without the system coming out and requiring it. This does go a bit into the races ability to deal damage. These are sort of like the favored class restrictions of third edition. They're sort of like neat I get this bonus but really it is neat I get this penalty that I can't use any other weapons. Not down with that concept. So a dwarf does 1D12 with their halberd. I halfling with two weapon fighting does 1d8 with their short swords, halved round down.

 

[Scipio202]

What I meant was a 2WF fighter knocking an enemy prone can more often enable a sneak attack from any (presumably non-2WF) rogue in the party, which can be a lot of extra damage output overall.

 

[Sadrik]

Another strange consideration is two weapon fighting essentially gives all creatures you fight "resistance" to your damage. Not sure if I like that. Because when you go against something that already has resistance what do you do double resistance?

 

[marelion]

One advantage of TWF has not come up yet: It`s one more weapion enchantment slot. There is the problem with resistances, but when you are bringing two axes to the fight odds are better one of them IS going to hurt the bad guy. And I honestly do not see why fighting with two weapons should inherently create a better or equal damage output compared to twohanded weapons. You already get to roll twice for attack. I would consider this a major goodie of a TWF-style. TWF could indeed be a nichè for super-accurate characters who invest into abilities that trigger on a hit while the big bruisers bring the big weapons to the fight. I´m cool with the design deceission to turn the potency of dual-wielding down a bit. Curve out another nichè, the one of hyper-accuracy-dependant character builds and call it a day. Sword and Board for defense, Twohanders for damage and Dual-Wielding for accuracy, I like the sound of that It`s plain and it`s simple, just like it should be.

 

[Steely_Dan]

Necessary for dual wielding? No, but the core would have to swallow up the rules in the feat description, or it would need to become a class feature for e.g. Ranger.

Please, god, no.

I detest the dual-wileding, pigeonholing shtick of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Ed Ranger.