D&D 5E Concept for Dual Wielder feat revision

[Spohedus]

What if instead of +1 passive AC it gave you the ability to forego your OH bonus action in exchange for a bonus to AC equal to your Proficiency bonus until the start of your next turn? Now you have choices to make each round; do sub-par dmg and be harder to hit with attacks or do more damage. I like choices in game play.

 

[Xeviat]

What if instead of +1 passive AC it gave you the ability to forego your OH bonus action in exchange for a bonus to AC equal to your Proficiency bonus until the start of your next turn? Now you have choices to make each round; do sub-par dmg and be harder to hit with attacks or do more damage. I like choices in game play.

I'd feel odd if a TWFer could get higher AC than a shield user personally.

 

[clearstream]

I like dual wielding. It's great at low levels. The best at low levels when down right, but it's obviously lacking at high levels. I wish there was a way to have it scale better. I have house ruled a way for it to scale better in one of my campaigns.

Dual Wielding Master
Prerequisite: Dual Wielder

When you use your Bonus action to make an attack with an off-hand weapon you are holding, you can attack an equal number of times as your Attack Action.
When you use your reaction to make an AoO, you can make one attack with each weapon you are holding.
As you can see, my Dual Wielding house rule puts it square in the middle of the GWF with and without GWM's -5/+10. Of course this assumes all hits and we know the -5/+10 user will not hit quite as much bringing that 129 damage down a little bit but probably still keeping it above the 95 from having 8 attacks. This is the most extreme case for this Dual Wielder too.

This was another route I considered (although I didn't have the feat tax, I just included it in Dual Wielder). I think scaling DW is reasonable. I have an inkling though, that it would be more fun to do that specifically in Ranger.

Instinctive Strikes
Beginning at 11th level, when you engage in two weapon fighting, you can attack twice instead of once with the weapon in your other hand. When you take the Attack action and attack with a ranged weapon, you can use a bonus action to make an attack with that weapon.

The idea here would be to catch Ranger up a bit with Fighter, but only with TWF and Archery. The extra ranged attack deliberately doesn't stack with Crossbow Expert. The TWF extra attack would. The balance consideration is that TWF requires you make an attack with different weapons in each hand, while Crossbow Expert does not.

For the record, I don't think the Dual Wielding feat is THAT bad on it's own. It gives you +1 to AC, and basically +1 to damage per attack. That's not terrible on characters with the TWF style. Wouldn't even consider it for any other character though.

Well, it's strictly worse than +2 Dexterity, which gives +1 AC, +1 to attack and damage, and +1 to initiative, and +1 on Stealth. It is close to a wash with +2 Strength as that gives you +1 to attack and damage, and +1 to Athletics which can be important: and while +1 AC is more valuable than +1 attack, if you are using two weapons then hitting more often with each means your damage is better.

Depends how highly you rate being able to draw and stow two weapons, instead of one, in your turn.

 

[Horwath]

1st: off hand attack merged into Attack action from main hand Attack action by default. YOu can draw both weapons as one object interaction by default.

2nd: feat: two weapon fighting, you gain +1 str or dex. You can wield non light one handed weapons while dual wielding.

3rd: feat: two weapon defense, Requires two weapon fighting. You gain +1 str or dex. You gain +1 AC while wielding two different melee weapons.

4th: feat: improved two weapon fighting. Requires two weapon fighting, extra attack feature. You gain +1 str or dex. When you take Attack action and attack with your off hand weapon, make two attacks instead of one.

 

[Mephista]

DO people take Duel Weilder? I have never seen anyone do so.

 

[clearstream]

DO people take Duel Weilder? I have never seen anyone do so.

It was taken 8 times in a survey of 27 groups, where 154 feats and 85 ASIs were taken.

That put it equal 7th for feats taken, higher than many others. That's why my interpretation is that it is a panache pick, rather than a power pick, because I can't see it being taken on a power basis that many times.

 

[TwoSix]

So that was my thinking - panache.

I like the idea of dual-wielding being the offensive versatility and "style" pick, where GWM becomes the offensive "power" pick. I thought about this while driving to work, as a way to expand the options for dual-wielding, and one-handed weapons in general. This goes along with changes/removal to CE/SS.

Off-hand Weapon Wielder
While wielding a one-handed weapon, or a versatile weapon with two-hands, you gain the following benefits:
You gain a +1 bonus to AC.
Attacks you make with a melee weapon you’re holding in your other hand, as part of two-weapon fighting, don’t use your bonus action. You can use two-weapon fighting even when the one handed melee weapons you are wielding aren’t light.
When you take any action other than Attack or Cast a Spell to cast a cantrip, you may make a single melee attack (or a weapon attack with a thrown weapon) as a bonus action.
You can draw or stow two one-handed weapons when you would normally be able to draw or stow only one.

This would go along with the following change to GWM:
On your turn, when you score a critical hit with a melee weapon or reduce a creature to 0 hit points with one, you can make one melee weapon attack as a bonus action.
Before you make an melee attack with a two-handed heavy weapon (or a versatile weapon wielded in two hands) that you are proficient with, you can choose to take a -5 penalty to the attack roll. If the attack hits, you add +10 to the attack’s damage.

My goals here are:

1) Classes with Extra Attack and limited spell use, and supplementary bonus actions, will favor GWM. This allows martial damage to keep pace with caster damage.
2) GWM being the only source of the -5/+10 mechanism slows degenerate builds like Hand Xbow with CE/SS.
3) Encourage versatile weapon use, by allowing the weapon to be useful for two different feats, which have some complementary features. The goal here would be to allow a fighter with both feats to take a turn like Attack with one-handed longsword, throw a dagger (using two-weapon fighting, so no BA required), then take the second attack using the longsword two-handed with -5/+10.
4) A weapon feat for primary casters like clerics and druids, allowing spell casting + a weapon attack. Possibly near the OP end for melee clerics with Divine Strike, but 8+ level clerics aren't usually using melee at all, and this doesn't synergize with cantrip use or spiritual weapon. Still a concept I need to look for possible uses with.
5) Bonus action attack slightly devalues Rogue Cunning Action, but Rogues will still value a 2nd attack from two-weapon fighting or cantrip use from Arcane Trickster.
6) Allowing this feat with a shield might be too strong, with a Fighter/Paladin using Defensive Style could hit a 22 AC, Dodge, and still have one (fairly weak) attack. Debating whether to add (cannot be using a shield) to the requirements, or limiting the AC bonus to "wielding two one-handed weapons".

 

[clearstream]

When you take any action other than Attack or Cast a Spell to cast a cantrip, you may make a single melee attack (or a weapon attack with a thrown weapon) as a bonus action.

You mean to allow things like Hold Person + swing? Shield + swing? Fireball + swing? Gracious. That seems... fairly over-powered. I'd hesitate to overshadow the Eldritch Knight's signature 7th level feature this way.

Also, this doesn't feel like TWF so much as an Epic-tier fighting style.

This would go along with the following change to GWM:
On your turn, when you score a critical hit with a melee weapon or reduce a creature to 0 hit points with one, you can make one melee weapon attack as a bonus action.
Before you make an melee attack with a two-handed heavy weapon (or a versatile weapon wielded in two hands) that you are proficient with, you can choose to take a -5 penalty to the attack roll. If the attack hits, you add +10 to the attack’s damage.

Versatile weapons really do needs something, don't they. Maybe this could work!

 

[TwoSix]

You mean to allow things like Hold Person + swing? Shield + swing? Fireball + swing? Gracious. That seems... fairly over-powered. I'd hesitate to overshadow the Eldritch Knight's signature 7th level feature this way.

Also, this doesn't feel like TWF so much as an Epic-tier fighting style.

Pretty much, yes. It would actually be an overwrite of Valor Bard's 14th level ability, but it doesn't allow cantrips, and only allows a limited weapon set.

I'm pretty much querying whether it's OP. I mean, I don't see too many people rushing to take EK7 or Valor Bard 14 to gain access to those abilities. I'm curious as to where the synergies would be that I'm not seeing. Especially since you couldn't use it for Cantrip + Attack. Compared to Fireball's possible multiple hundreds points of damage, what's an extra 1d8+X damage?

Versatile weapons really do needs something, don't they. Maybe this could work!

I like this one even better, yes. The other idea I'm still toying with (because I think the idea of streamlining the action economy for TWF is an excellent one!) and I'd like to see some models as to how far it can be stretched.

 

[clearstream]

Pretty much, yes. It would actually be an overwrite of Valor Bard's 14th level ability, but it doesn't allow cantrips, and only allows a limited weapon set.

I'm pretty much querying whether it's OP. I mean, I don't see too many people rushing to take EK7 or Valor Bard 14 to gain access to those abilities. I'm curious as to where the synergies would be that I'm not seeing. Especially since you couldn't use it for Cantrip + Attack. Compared to Fireball's possible multiple hundreds points of damage, what's an extra 1d8+X damage?

OP of a level 7 feature can't be solely divined from people taking it. EK has other issues. Their magic advancement is pitiful, and Battlemaster overshadows both other Fighter sub-classes.

The EK feature is solid, it probably needs to come at 2nd level!

I haven't dug into it but my designer instincts say spell + free attack is over the curve.