overgeeked
B/X Known World
The simpler the better. Advantage to-hit and advantage on damage. Done.
Does Dual-Wielding = Double Damage?
- Thread starter GMMichael
- Start date
Yes the lack of good shield rules is a major pet peeve of mine. D&D tends to treat shields mostly as this wall you strap to your arm. 2e at least gave you Shield-Punch, Shield Parries, and the Shield Rush. 3e allowed Shield Bashes (with Feats to improve them), and 4e had a few Shield Powers, as well as the ridiculous but fun Snapping Tetsudo Paragon Path (tangentially relevant to this thread, as it allowed you to, and god do I feel silly even typing this- dual wield shields!).
GMMichael
Guide of Modos
We use guns in modern fantasy RPGs, too. Does a dual-pistol-wielder damage twice as fast as a single-wielder? What if the latter bears a ballistic shield?
Good point. If you're wearing armor, it's probably: parry the heavy attack, ignore the light attack. If you have a shield, it's probably: block the more accurate attack, counterattack through the secondary weapon. . . ?
Can't your DM do this?
I have a rule: anything that could cause damage does at least a d4. A shield is not an ideal weapon, but it should do something. If you have weapon training, maybe it can do d6. Regarding the question @Bluenose touched on - what's a weapon - I'd say that the tool must be designed to injure or kill, which leaves shields out (of dual-wielding purposes). They can still do damage, but they're not "weapons."
Yeah, but he was mentioning D&D. I didn't want to go to apples and oranges.
Hm. If my post made it sound like I meant that the off-hand weapon was just for parrying, that wasn't my intent. I can restate: The basic point of having two weapons is that one of them can be used for feint and parry, while having the other than can strike.
If you always use one weapon for one use, that becomes predictable, and your opponent can use that against you.
Corinnguard
Hero
We're using D&D Beyond for our latest adventure campaign. As far as I can tell, there is no way to import 3pp or homebrewed material from outside D&D Beyond.
If there was a way, I would see about importing a double weapon from Level Up. Double weapons in A5e do 1d8/1d8 (Slashing, Piercing, or Bludgeoning) and have the following properties- Dual-Wielding, Parrying, Two-Handed.
FitzTheRuke
Legend
Firearms could absolutely do twice as much damage on two hits from two pistols. Unfortunately for the wielder, you'd have a heck of a time reloading with your hands full, though! (I'm thinking of flintlock-style pistols). Also - any kind of gun's accuracy would probably be thrown terribly out of whack by firing two of them.
Any DM can, but many don't feel comfortable doing it. Some because they don't fancy themselves designers; some because their players wouldn't go for it. It's a wide world out there.
Agreed. It's one of those strange artifacts of HP (in particular in D&D). It's theoretically quite easy to "rattle" your opponent with a shield. OTOH, it isn't very easy at all to KILL your opponent with a shield. Still, I'd rather they deal damage than not, myself.
mach1.9pants
Hero
I see your double axe, and raise you the double flail
It was most certainly dire.
It's interesting that most dual wielding is in dueling and unarmed combat IRL. The exact opposite of DnD combats
Corinnguard
Hero
Sometimes two weapon heads aren't better than one. 
FitzTheRuke
Legend
I mean, yeah, you're totally going to kill yourself with that thing but at least you could kind of paddle like a kayak with it and hit something.
Check this thing out! (This is actually from a PHB!)
What possible use could you have for this?
Speaking of paddles, during 3.5 I had a few people who wanted to use this thing...
Corinnguard
Hero
This two-bladed sword is detachable. https://www.karatemart.com/images/products/large/detachable-double-blade-slasher.jpg You could stow it away like you would with two ordinary swords. But when needed, you can put them together.
aramis erak
Legend
Generally, two weapons means no real change in attack paces in Rapier. It does require the defender to deal with those differently, and it's harder to hit a dual wielder.
BrokenTwin
Biological Disaster
I was persuaded to run a D&D 5e campaign for some friends after some time away from the system, and when I was reminded of this (they were fighting skeletons and the spear-wielding barbarian was not having a good time) I prompted went "screw that, that's stupid, I'm giving it weapon stats". Honestly, there's a lot of 5e rules I dislike as a matter of taste, but that's one of the few that I feel is outright bad design.
FitzTheRuke
Legend
I mean, I laugh, but I'd let them. I just would have to accept that the tone of the game is going to change.
BrokenTwin
Biological Disaster
I first started playing shortly after the prequel trilogy came out, and you bet your bippy I was ALL about that Darth Maul dual blading goodness. Add in Final Fantasy IX and Chrono Cross, it was a good while before I was willing to accept how inherently ridiculous the concept is.
FitzTheRuke
Legend
I mean, that's cool and all, but don't mistake that anything like that was used in battle in the real world.
There are two things we need to understand when thinking about "real" weapons (assuming that we enjoy that sort of pastime):
1) A LOT of weapons exist that were made purely for show. To hang on walls, to dance around with in front of spectators, to do mock-battles, etc. I've read that most of the craziest looking African weapons were made to sell to Europeans during colonial times, because the locals quickly realized that they could make money off the foreigners who were amazed by the novelty of their "weird" weapons. Sounds like humanity to me.
2) Gladiators and kung-fu pit fights were for show. In fact, almost all historical "dueling" was for show, even if it could result in the death of one or more participants. Therefore, people often invented and used weapons that were impractical for killing, but looked awesome while doing it. Don't get me wrong - this style of weapon worked (or no one would use them for long) but there's a big difference between them and a weapon built for WAR.
Now, I'm not remotely advocating for D&D to only use practical weapons. That would be silly. If anything, I wish the game opened its collective mind to weapons that actually existed and were crazy. It seems to me to often be the worst of what I would call "low-level weapon research". At the same time it tries to say, "nah, a net would be so difficult to use!" AND YET makes the double-axe or worse, the spiked-chain.
(My only problem with the spiked chain is, well, the art that makes the chains look like anchors, and the fact that in 3.5 it was by far one of the "best" (read: most powerful) weapons).
FitzTheRuke
Legend
I mean, it would actually work with something like a lightsabre where you don't need to put much force behind your strike to be able to cut. As long as you don't get yourself with the cutting bits, but then, that's true of all weapons. Try not to get yourself.
BrokenTwin
Biological Disaster
Most other weapons aren't 80% blade with the grip in the middle though. The angles you can point your blade in are SEVERELY limited by the fact you have another blade pointed back at you. Though with Maul's weapon (unlike the FFIX and Chrono Cross examples), you can at least turn the other blade on and off as needed. Downside is there's no safe place to touch your blade, which removes a lot of viable sword techniques from the equation.
Corinnguard
Hero
One advantage a duel-wielder has against an opponent using a single weapon is that the latter has to keep track both of your weapons during the fight. So your opponent constantly has to shift their attention from you to weapon A to weapon B and back again at all times. And people aren't very good at doing this in a fight.
FitzTheRuke
Legend
You're right, of course. I have retconned his sabres in my mind to be more staff and less blade. I was thinking more like four feet of staff and eighteen inches a side of lightsabre, but that's not what his staffsabre looks like at all.
