Archer and Dual Wielder Specialties: What am I missing?

[ComradeGnull]

I think that it is very clear that they are steering far clear of the TWF being the obviously superior damage style. Instead of making it compete with 2 handers or sword/boarders they tried to give it a unique purpose of it's own.

In my opinion this is a good springboard because if you make different styles compete for performing the same job then one of them is going to inevitably be better than the other. If you give them unique roles, however, then I can imagine there'd be less optimization squables.


Edit: what I am not sure about (rules as written) is the process of declaring these attacks. Let's say, for example, that you attack a monster, call it an orc, and do damage but don't kill it. This orc is looking at your scrawny dnd playing nerd ass thinking "I'm going to go Slab McBulkHuge on this kid." Can you then say "yeah so let's half that damage, I'm attacking again with my off hand and using my CS dice to try to knock him down."

If you could do this then it would provide some pretty cool reaction opportunities to try to make up for poor first attack attempts. Anybody have a ruling on this?

Typically you must declare your attacks for the round before resolving them. As a DM, I would no more allow a player to retroactively decide to switch from a single attack to double than I would allow a player to decide to use Combat Expertise after seeing the results of a hit roll.

 

[Bow_Seat]

Typically you must declare your attacks for the round before resolving them. As a DM, I would no more allow a player to retroactively decide to switch from a single attack to double than I would allow a player to decide to use Combat Expertise after seeing the results of a hit roll.

That makes sense. I DM 3E a lot and I agree with the sentiment. I just wasn't clear on how 5E had constructed the 'declare attack. make attack' progression of events.

Thanks

 

[Grydan]

Typically you must declare your attacks for the round before resolving them. As a DM, I would no more allow a player to retroactively decide to switch from a single attack to double than I would allow a player to decide to use Combat Expertise after seeing the results of a hit roll.

While I agree on no retroactive switching, some of the uses of Combat Expertise dice are quite explicitly for use after the to hit roll, and some are even for after the damage roll and the results thereof.

Cleave, for instance, can only be triggered after reducing an enemy to 0.

In fact, the only one that looks like it would need to be declared before you roll your attack is Precise Shot.

 

[ComradeGnull]

While I agree on no retroactive switching, some of the uses of Combat Expertise dice are quite explicitly for use after the to hit roll, and some are even for after the damage roll and the results thereof.

Cleave, for instance, can only be triggered after reducing an enemy to 0.

In fact, the only one that looks like it would need to be declared before you roll your attack is Precise Shot.

Talking about Combat Expertise the 3e/PF Feat, not Combat Supremacy the 5e Fighter Feature- in other words, no deciding to trade hit bonus for AC after you have already seen whether you hit or not without the bonus. Obviously on-hit effects like Cleave, spending CS dice, Sneak Attack, etc., can be decided after the attack is resolved.

What we were talking about is a player deciding to attack with one-handed or two-weapon fighting after seeing the first attack roll resolved.

 

[Grydan]

My mistake. Sorry about that.

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Sword and Board best for defense
Two handed weapons best for single target damage
Two weapon fighting best for wanton slaughter

also, at level 3 you no longer lose that defense bonus since you get the +1 AC that you were missing from not having a shield. It would look like it was a wasted feat, but when comparing to other feats it's about equal in the mix (no 1st lvl feats are that overwhelming)

To make it even clearer, remember that just because you have a weapon in each hand, you don't HAVE to attack twice every round, and after level 3 you'll still get the +1 AC even when you choose to use a normal attack. At that point, the only advantage of sword and board over TWF is that you're using a martial rather than finesse weapon (so d8 instead of d6). If you're a halfling with a shortsword, even that advantage is gone.

Of course, you've used 2 feats to get TWF this "good."

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Typically you must declare your attacks for the round before resolving them.

Are you speaking from a 3E perspective?

Because in 3.XE, you can declare a full attack and then retroactively change your mind after you see the results of the first attack and, additionally, you do not have to declare the targets of your 2nd (etc.) attacks until just before resolving them.

EDIT: The upshot being that I don't see a hard rule, necessarily, on how 5E handles this, since precedent is muddled.

 

[Celestian]

In summation, this keeps TWF from being outright better at dealing damage than two handed weapons, will providing utility and decrease in damage variance.

They could have just disallowed bonus damage for off-hand weapons and made the dual wielding option a lot less boring. Maybe even required smaller weapon in off hand and reduce damage by one damage dice size.

 

[MarkB]

The only benefit I can ascertain from making two attack rolls instead of one is that more rolls lower the variability of average damage. Is that really all? I know the math is flatter with bounded accuracy instead of level-based scaling, but is this a feat with no meaningful benefit? What am I missing?

If you particularly want to hit a single target, either to apply an effect or simply to inflict at least some damage, then using both attacks on that target effectively grants you Advantage against them at the expense of potentially halving your damage.

Better still, it stacks with actual Advantage.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I think it's a great change. TWF allows you to trade bigger shots for more consistent, smaller shots. You can take out more weak hp creatures in a round than you could if attacking with a bigger weapon, as well as potentially applying more conditions in a single round. On top of that, because TWF has double the chance to crit, it may see some added benefits when they get around to buffing crits.

As seen with Twin Strike, reducing the damage die or dropping your modifier would still lead to TWF being strictly better at higher levels than other styles of attack (which it would appear is what they are trying to avoid). IMO, halving the damage is the perfect solution because it scales very well (double the number of attacks but half the damage). You simply wouldn't have that with a subtractive damage penalty, because there are too many other variables in D&D that can potentially modify damage.