D&D 5E Consensus about two-weapon fighting?

[FrogReaver]

This is why I think party rolls with the worst mod rolling works better, since you can help that guy. I only require multiple stealth rolls when the party has splt up. Not that you said differently.

I agree, but not how 5e stealth rules are written

 

[FrogReaver]

Use group checks, it's a great feature of 5e. Making everyone make a stealth check individually is almost always guaranteeing failure.

Yea. I've no idea why 5e didn't use group checks to determine surprise, but they didn't. Read the example in the PHB. Everyone rolls individually..

 

[FrogReaver]

I think if you are using group checks, all you need are more success than failures.

Surprise rules dont allow for group check. They say to check each character.

 

[FrogReaver]

If you want to house rule that way this is fine, but the group check is more generous than that - everyone checks using their own check, and if half the party succeeds, the party succeeds.

For determining surprise both ways would be house rules.

 

[Fenris-77]

I agree, but not how 5e stealth rules are written

This is why I treat the rules more as a series of suggestions. I'm not letting the rules lock me into something I think is stupid. That's probably the main benefit of forums like this one, to see how other GMs manage their big book of homebrew.

That said, I also tend to run campaigns that are either stealth intensive or not and characters are generate to match. In the former case I handle things a little differently. For a non-stealth heavy game the party roll is my fall back mechanic.

I do not use party rolls for surprise though. If you made a character designed to most often go first and generally not be surprised I'm not to wreck that by rolling a party roll, and I don't tend to differentiate there based on campaign feels. That's the same reason I don't use group stealth checks in a stealth heavy campaign but I do in other campaigns. When everyone has rolled up a ninja they can be that, but in a more normal party I'd rather roll group checks and allow the one or two stealth capable characters to help the party succeed (or they run out ahead all stealthy-like, whichever).

 

[FrogReaver]

This is why I treat the rules more as a series of suggestions. I'm not letting the rules lock me into something I think is stupid. That's probably the main benefit of forums like this one, to see how other GMs manage their big book of homebrew.

That said, I also tend to run campaigns that are either stealth intensive or not and characters are generate to match. In the former case I handle things a little differently. For a non-stealth heavy game the party roll is my fall back mechanic.

I do not use party rolls for surprise though. If you made a character designed to most often go first and generally not be surprised I'm not to wreck that by rolling a party roll, and I don't tend to differentiate there based on campaign feels. That's the same reason I don't use group stealth checks in a stealth heavy campaign but I do in other campaigns. When everyone has rolled up a ninja they can be that, but in a more normal party I'd rather roll group checks and allow the one or two stealth capable characters to help the party succeed (or they run out ahead all stealthy-like, whichever).

Right but this thread is about TWF fixes for the rules. Assuming a bunch of houserules - which are perfectly acceptable - doesn't really help reach any kind of consensus on the subject of TWF.

 

[Fenris-77]

Well, to be fair the last thread was about actual fixes while this one is ostensibly about consensus regarding the nature of the fix. Nor were we specifically, you or I, talking about TWF just now, but stealth and surprise. I'll put my hand up to acknowledge a yellow card for off-topic play, will you?

 

[FrogReaver]

Well, to be fair the last thread was about actual fixes while this one is ostensibly about consensus regarding the nature of the fix. Nor were we specifically, you or I, talking about TWF just now, but stealth and surprise. I'll put my hand up to acknowledge a yellow card for off-topic play, will you?

The whole discussion of surprise is related to TWF. I wasn't the one that brought surprise up. Someone else did.

So what I'm saying is that we can't truly evaluate TWF without accounting for surprise and we can't account for surprise by evaluating it's likelihood to occur based on house rules that make it easier to achieve.

 

[Ancalagon]

Getting back to two weapon fighting

The thing that bothers me is that the D&D idea of two weapon fighting (an extra weapon = an extra attack, although perhaps at a penalty to hit, depending on the edition) is NOT how two weapon fighting works in the real world.

The main goal of having two weapons was to have more options, more range (a long blade for more distant work, a shorter one for closed in range) and for defense (parry with one blade, strike with the other). It wasn't to attack twice as fast. Warhammer 2nd ed, for its imperfection, had a much more realistic take on two weapon fighting than D&D....

 

[Ancalagon]

This is why I treat the rules more as a series of suggestions. I'm not letting the rules lock me into something I think is stupid. That's probably the main benefit of forums like this one, to see how other GMs manage their big book of homebrew.

That said, I also tend to run campaigns that are either stealth intensive or not and characters are generate to match. In the former case I handle things a little differently. For a non-stealth heavy game the party roll is my fall back mechanic.

I do not use party rolls for surprise though. If you made a character designed to most often go first and generally not be surprised I'm not to wreck that by rolling a party roll, and I don't tend to differentiate there based on campaign feels. That's the same reason I don't use group stealth checks in a stealth heavy campaign but I do in other campaigns. When everyone has rolled up a ninja they can be that, but in a more normal party I'd rather roll group checks and allow the one or two stealth capable characters to help the party succeed (or they run out ahead all stealthy-like, whichever).

The thing that is very nice about the group check is that they are more accomodating of varied party composition. I remember this 3.X game we had an archer (dex fighter essentially), a fighter-rogue, a ranger-rogue, a very high dex mage, a bard and... me, the clucky low dex armored cleric. So everyone BUT one character was moderately (or very) sneaky. So I would have to stay behind, or the group couldn't sneak around (or maybe use a silent spell I suppose). The group check means it's "ok" to have a low stealth character, it doesn't ruin it for the whole party.

It also means that there is a benefit to being moderately stealthy, because those "somewhat stealthy" characters can really help the group pass a check.