Houseruled Twin Strike

[buddhafrog]

We are using Twin Strike as thus:

BOTH attacks must be against the same creature. If you hit with both, you only get bonus damage once.

HOWEVER, if the first hit kills, your second hit may be against another creature and that second hit could also get bonus damage.

 

[SteveC]

In my campaign the group proposed the following change, which I adopted:

Twin Strike Ranger Attack 1
If the first attack doesn’t kill it, the second one might.
At-Will Martial, Weapon
Standard Action Melee or Ranged weapon
Requirement: You must be wielding two melee weapons or a ranged weapon.
Targets: One or two creatures
Attack: Strength vs. AC (melee; main weapon and off-hand weapon) or Dexterity vs. AC (ranged), make two attacks.
Hit: one hit causes 1[W] damage, two hits against a single target causes 2[W].
Increase damage to 2[W] at 21st level, and 4[W] for two hits against a single target.

It worked very well for us. It's basically just a rewording of an idea upthread, so I guess great minds think alike .

--Steve

 

[Destil]

I think the only clean way to address the critical issue is as such:

Twin Strike
Ranger Attack 1

At-Will * Martial, Weapon
Standard Action
Melee or Ranged weapon
Requirement: You must be wielding two melee weapons or a ranged weapon.
Targets: One or Two Creatures
Attack: Strength vs. AC (melee) or Dexterity vs. AC (ranged) one attack per target.

Hit: 1[W] damage per attack.
Special: If you target one creature and hit the attack instead deals 1[W] main hand + 1[W] off hand damage in melee or 2[W] with a ranged weapon.
21st: Damage increases to 2[W] or 2[W] main hand + 2[W] off hand damage melee or 4[w] ranged.


The cost, of course, is that your proficiency bonus with the second weapon in melee when you use both against the same target don't matter. Given the way weapon feats work I can't imagine this being a huge upside (you can't milk it for much without needing to double dip weapon feats), though some people may have issues with someone leading with a bastard sword and following with their war-axe (I think this actually seems like a cool enough problem to have, though).

 

[eriktheguy]

I basically agree that Str, Feat, and Item bonuses should only apply once, and that both enhancement bonuses should apply. Most of the solutions here don't achieve that completely without changing the power in other ways. The Crits are a problem. You could simply say

Special: If both attacks hit a single foe, damage modifiers are only applied once, but use the enhancement modifiers from both weapons.

 

[keterys]

Any particular reason to have enhancement bonus get the nod? What if they were two different weapons (axe and hammer, for instance) and you had weapon focus in both? What if one weapon is frost and the other is fire, and you've got syberis dragonshards that increase frost and fire damage in their respective weapons... apply one, both?

 

[BobTheNob]

Any particular reason to have enhancement bonus get the nod? What if they were two different weapons (axe and hammer, for instance) and you had weapon focus in both? What if one weapon is frost and the other is fire, and you've got syberis dragonshards that increase frost and fire damage in their respective weapons... apply one, both?

Very true.

I have been following this thread very closely, and even when we prevent multiple stacked bonus's (ignoring the problems that arise with different weapons offering differrent stacked bonus) we still have a power that, due to its ludicrous accuracy, outshines (albeit by a smaller margin) all other at-wills. No matter which nerf has been suggested, I ask myself "if I was playing the ranger, would I be willing to change?" and the answer is always no...stick with twin strike.

I think the heart of the problem here is that being able to hit a target twice with one attack is simply too much for an at-will.

Personally, I like what they did with dual strike errata in that you cant hit the same creature twice. Its not very "strikerish" (and therefore, arugably, not appropriate for a ranger) to do this to twin strike, but it does elegantly resolve the power as being a niche at-will rather than a for-gone conclussion.

 

[keterys]

The best thing about the dual strike change is that it lets them mark two targets, making them a better defender, without being an obvious damage outlet.

Twin Strike
Standard Action
Melee Weapon
Target: One creature
Attack: Strength vs. AC (Main Hand)
Hit: 1[W] + Str
Miss: Make a secondary attack with your off-hand weapon.
Attack: Strength vs. AC (Off Hand)
Hit: 1[W]

Or maybe add Str to the off-hand if the math works out that way, but I suspect it fits Piercing, Reaping, Careful a lot better this way.

 

[Mengu]

Twin Strike
Standard Action
Melee Weapon
Target: One creature
Attack: Strength vs. AC (Main Hand)
Hit: 1[W] + Str
Miss: Make a secondary attack with your off-hand weapon.
Attack: Strength vs. AC (Off Hand)
Hit: 1[W]

This is my favorite of the lot in this thread. Puts them more on par with other strikers on peak damage too. Need a ranged attack also, that doesn't overlap with Careful Attack/True Arrow Style.

Twin Shot
Standard Action
Ranged Weapon
Target: Two creatures
Attack: Dexterity vs. AC
Hit: 1[W] + Dex

 

[BobTheNob]

My favorite too. The form I am working with atm however includes ranged attacks but does NOT include the damage bonus on the first attack. It makes the whole thing like a low damage attack with "Elven accuracy" built into it. It makes Twin Strike into a low damage, extreme accuracy ability (as opposed to high damage, extreme accuracy), perfect for getting quarry. The fact you only get the roll on a miss also means its no longer a cheese favorite for crit fishermen.

The secret is second attack when first misses, thats what makes this work!

I typed up very similar to this except that I allowed for ranged attacks. Its a three page discussion document I am putting before our party ranger next we play(I dont cement any rule changes until I have clarified with others and got buy in). But hes a good easy going bloke, so he wont be devestated.

 

[ravenheart]

Inspired by this thread a few weeks ago, I came up with an idea yesterday at work. Here's my thoughts, transcribed from my hasty scribblings on a piece of paper:

Twin Strike - Ranger Attack 1

At-Will * Martial, Weapon
Standard Action
Melee or Ranged weapon
Requirement: You must be wielding two melee weapons or a ranged weapon.
Target: One or two creatures
Attack: Strength vs. AC (melee; main weapon and off-hand weapon) or Dexterity vs. AC (ranged), one attack per target.

Hit: 1[W] damage per attack. If you target a single creature, 1[W] + Strength modifier (melee) or 1[W] + Dexterity modifier (ranged).
Increase damage to 2[W] damage or 2[W] + ability modifier when targeting a single creature at 21st level.

A slightly modified Twin Strike, allowing a controller-ish aspect by spreading the damage output but not allowing for such incredible concentration as before. The wording is still a bit of a problem, but this should allow for mixing it up (deciding which weapon to attack with, potentially using a thrown weapon against one target while engaging another in melee etc.).

So far not so different from some of these suggestions. In fact, it seems weaker at first glance. That's because I've left out the key ingredient: Wisdom, the bastard tertiary ability score of all rangers. How could I make Wisdom a more suitable secondary score for all rangers, rather than a tertiary? I decided to begin with Twin Strike. What I originally went for was this:

Effect: The target takes damage equal to your Wisdom modifier.

I know, auto-damage is the devil. Yet this is a clean and effective way of securing the rangers damage capabilities without nerfing them all together. Strikers aren't meant to attack minions anyway, although this helps rangers (yet again) facilitate as the de facto "martial controller".

This seemed fine at first, but then I started getting into the real issues plaguing the ranger: the fighting styles. As it is, Two-weapon fighting style is generally considered better than any of the other options, regardless of build (unless you're a beast-master, which is more of a RP attraction really, in comparison). So how could these options become more balanced? Well, my initial reaction was that the styles were rather ugly remnants of 3.5 due to the free feats they gave (Toughness > Defensive Mobility). As the game has evolved, new ways of granting classes defensive boosts when suffering from MAD and more balanced build mechanisms have emerged. I came up with these changes to the fighting styles:

Archer Fighting Style
Because of your focus on ranged attacks, you gain the benefits of your Prime Shot class feature against your quarry on ranged attacks, even if any of your allies are nearer to your quarry than you are. In addition, you can add your Wisdom modifier to all defenses against opportunity attacks.

Two-Blade Fighting Style
Because of your focus on two-weapon melee attacks, you can wield a one-handed weapon in your off hand as if it were an off-hand weapon. (Make sure to designate on your character sheet which weapon is main and which is off-hand.) In addition while you are not wearing heavy armor, you can use your Wisdom modifier in place of your Dexterity or Intelligence modifier to determine your AC.

Now, this might actually be more unbalancing than balancing, but maybe someone better with numbers could check this out for me. I considered removing the long range penalties for ranged weapons for the Archer ranger, but that seemed less likely to occur regularly and felt a bit like overkill (scenario: quarry target, run away and gain prime shot 30 squares away :/).

To finish things off, I also created a subset of style-specific tweaks to Twin Strike as an alternative to the Wis-mod auto-damage I first came up with (added indented under the Hit line):

Two-Blade Fighting Style: If you targeted a single creature, you deal additional damage equal to your Wisdom modifier.
Archer Fighting Style: If you targeted a single creature, you can slide the target a number of squares equal to your Wisdom modifier.
Beast Mastery: If you targeted a single creature and miss, your beast companion can make a melee basic attack against the target as a free action.

This solidifies the two-weapon build as the heavy striker, the archery build as controller and the beastmaster gets some love for versatility. Now that I think about it, one might as well combine both of my options for Twin Strike. But as I said before, someone with better math skills than me should probably take a look at this.

Anyway, that's my two cents.