D&D 5E Considering Dual Wielder Feat change proposals

[psychophipps]

Presumably, it just means you combine the damage die of each weapon for every iterative attack.

Compare to a maul user. Someone with a maul would do 2d6+Str bludgeoning damage with every hit, while someone dual attacking with say two maces would also do 2d6+Str bludgeoning damage with every hit. I'm not sure how it would work if you mixed damage types, nor how to prevent weapon combinations from doing more than 2d6 in total weapon die damage.

Why use twin maces in your example? Dual Wielder specifies they can be any one-handed weapon. Longsword, Battle Axe, and Warhammer all are 1d8 damage and Versatile in case you get one disarmed.

 

[Ganymede81]

Why use twin maces in your example? Dual Wielder specifies they can be any one-handed weapon. Longsword, Battle Axe, and Warhammer all are 1d8 damage and Versatile in case you get one disarmed.

Yeah, that's the issue I alluded to in the last sentence of my post. I only used maces to more easily explain how it might work.

If you make dual-striking default (by allowing characters to simply combine the damage dice of their weapons for every attack), you have to account for the fact that it would then directly compete with two-handed weapons on an apples-to-apples basis.

With that system, someone could end up with damage dice of 2d8, which is better than the 2d6 max of a great weapon. Likewise, even ignoring the implications of the Dual Wielder feat, someone proficient in only simple weapons could still accrue damage dice of 2d6 when they would ordinarily be limited to 1d8. How do you fix that?

 

[psychophipps]

Yeah, that's the issue I alluded to in the last sentence of my post. I only used maces to more easily explain how it might work.

If you make dual-striking default (by allowing characters to simply combine the damage dice of their weapons for every attack), you have to account for the fact that it would then directly compete with two-handed weapons on an apples-to-apples basis.

With that system, someone could end up with damage dice of 2d8, which is better than the 2d6 max of a great weapon. Likewise, even ignoring the implications of the Dual Wielder feat, someone proficient in only simple weapons could still accrue damage dice of 2d6 when they would ordinarily be limited to 1d8. How do you fix that?

By simply not allowing it. The ol' double-whammy looks great in an anime or on the comic/manga page, but you lose a lot of power by trying to do two weapons at once with anything but a simple thrust (and you still lose a bit from that). I would treat two weapons at once as requiring the same bonus action/extra attack and a separate roll to-hit as normal. Just because they swing both at once doesn't mean that the attacker automagically connects with both, after all.

 

[jodyjohnson]

Depends on what you want to accomplish.

Options seem to me (all of which are valid):
1. Do nothing
2. Change through feats, or spells, or class ability
3. Combine the two weapon dice (the most powerful, and keeps TWF's superiority across levels)
4. The +d4 method which won't work as well with allowing Longsword/Dagger or Rapier/Dagger (because it is back to just combining the two dice)
5. Go the Duelist style route and add a static bonus. Personally I prefer this because I'd like to see TWF be better than Duelist but not quite as high as GWF. So combined attack is main+3 (or main +2 with a 1d8/1d4 combo, or main+4 with Dual Wielder feat).

But that's just me.

 

[TwoSix]

Average damage is a much more valuable metric for determining the value of a bonus.

Sure, but the difference in average damage is close enough that other factors also carry weight. Given a choice, options which raise average damage by adding consistency cause less balance issues than those which grant infrequent but very large amounts of spike damage.

 

[jodyjohnson]

By simply not allowing it. The ol' double-whammy looks great in an anime or on the comic/manga page, but you lose a lot of power by trying to do two weapons at once with anything but a simple thrust (and you still lose a bit from that). I would treat two weapons at once as requiring the same bonus action/extra attack and a separate roll to-hit as normal. Just because they swing both at once doesn't mean that the attacker automagically connects with both, after all.

I can see your point from a simulationist viewpoint, but that's not what I imagine here.

So what is the +2 from Duelist style representing? You make all your weapons grow an extra foot so they do similar damage to Greatweapons?

It's mechanical, using both weapons makes more effective attacks.

Low level Fighters don't attack once and then stand around for the other 5.5 seconds.

A rogue is able to make extremely damaging single attacks - they aren't poking something an extra time for each Sneak dice.

Carrion Crawlers don't get 8 attacks because they have 8 tentacles.

Tridents don't do 3d4 versus Large opponents because it is 3 daggers on the end of a pole (see the 1e Trident).

I probably wouldn't use the combined dice option myself but if you wanted TWF to be the best - that would make it the best.

 

[TwoSix]

By simply not allowing it. The ol' double-whammy looks great in an anime or on the comic/manga page, but you lose a lot of power by trying to do two weapons at once with anything but a simple thrust (and you still lose a bit from that). I would treat two weapons at once as requiring the same bonus action/extra attack and a separate roll to-hit as normal. Just because they swing both at once doesn't mean that the attacker automagically connects with both, after all.

Looks cool > reality.

 

[Ganymede81]

Depends on what you want to accomplish.

Options seem to me (all of which are valid):

3. Combine the two weapon dice (the most powerful, and keeps TWF's superiority across levels)
But that's just me.

You could do this while also redoing the damage dice for different weapons. If you said all light/one-handed/two-handed simple weapons had base damage dice of 1d4/1d6/2d4 and all light/one-handed/two-handed martial weapons had base damage dice of 1d6/1d8/2d6, it could work.

 

[jaelis]

Option 1 would give monks another attack, right? Since they could use both TWF and martial arts.

 

[LapBandit]

Option 1 would give monks another attack, right? Since they could use both TWF and martial arts.

Hrmm, might have to require the Fighting Style. That said if the monk takes one level of a class with the Two-Weapon Fighting Style and then the Feat, they are welcome to do it IMO.