FrogReaver
The most respectful and polite poster ever
On a side note only allowing 1 smite a round doesn’t really hurt the crit fishing build much
D&D 5E Improving Two-Weapon Fighting
- Thread starter Xeviat
- Start date
TwoSix
Everyone's literal second-favorite poster
This is my current approach. In the interest of parsimony, I'm going to restrict changes to the dual-wielder feat, and not try to drop the bonus action. Instead, I've put scaling into the dual-wielder feat.
Dual Wielder changes
-Remove the +1 AC bonus.
-Add "Whenever you take the Attack action while wielding a separate melee weapon in each hand, whenever you miss an attack with a weapon in one hand, you may make an additional attack with the weapon in your other hand. You don't add your ability modifier to the damage of this attack, unless that modifier is negative. This attack does not trigger any other attacks if it also misses."
-Add "Before you make an attack with a one-handed melee weapon you are proficient with, you can choose to take a -5 penalty to the attack roll. If the attack hits, you add +5 to the attack's damage."
Checking against martials in the 11-13 range, it's competitive with PAM on classes with high bonuses on hit (like Divine Smite + Hunter's Mark, or a Hexblade), and it's competitive with GWM alone on classes with good accuracy and easy ways to gain advantage (like a barbarian), assuming a proc rate of about 1 in 3 for GWM's bonus action.
Dual Wielder changes
-Remove the +1 AC bonus.
-Add "Whenever you take the Attack action while wielding a separate melee weapon in each hand, whenever you miss an attack with a weapon in one hand, you may make an additional attack with the weapon in your other hand. You don't add your ability modifier to the damage of this attack, unless that modifier is negative. This attack does not trigger any other attacks if it also misses."
-Add "Before you make an attack with a one-handed melee weapon you are proficient with, you can choose to take a -5 penalty to the attack roll. If the attack hits, you add +5 to the attack's damage."
Checking against martials in the 11-13 range, it's competitive with PAM on classes with high bonuses on hit (like Divine Smite + Hunter's Mark, or a Hexblade), and it's competitive with GWM alone on classes with good accuracy and easy ways to gain advantage (like a barbarian), assuming a proc rate of about 1 in 3 for GWM's bonus action.
Quartz
Hero
That's a bit OTT. A first level PC with DW and TWF gets up to four attacks (Action, failed Action, Bonus, and Reaction). You might want to restrict the bonuses that can be applied, like Smite and Sneak Attack, or drop the last effect.
I'm not sure that this should be in the DW Feat - it doesn't fit. I do like the idea of extra damage and I think you might channel the Two Weapon Rend feat from 3E - something like "When you hit a target with two non-ranged weapons with which you are proficient in the same round and are using Strength as the modifier you do +5 damage." Only +5 damage and not +10 because there's no negative modifier (and you're getting double stat bonus damage anyway). And round, not turn as the Bonus Action from TWF can be separate from the Action, plus it allows the PC to get the bonus damage from using a Reaction.
It's not four attacks though, it's the same current three but with an additional chance for a lesser second attack should you miss the actual Attack action attack. The extra is a d6 with no stat mods, and all told it's probably less impactful than just having advantage on that first attack, and having advantage on your initial attacks greatly lessens the impact of TWF, whereas it makes the other styles straight up better. I don't see how it's OTT.
Xeviat
Dungeon Mistress, she/her
How so? If you have to spend a bonus action before making the attack, you can't really crit fish. It's not a bonus action after you hit. It's exactly like the smite spells.
The game went to lengths to avoid people using two spell slots in the same round, except for reactions.
"The game went to lengths to avoid people using two spell slots in the same round, except for reactions."
Csn you rlsboratebon thst claim?
As far as I know the only " length" they went to was the bonus sction rule - which allows two spells a turn but limits the one to csntrips.
Dmites from paladin allow you to spend one dpell dlot per hit, do easily up to three spell slots in your turn at fifth if you get a bonus sction swing.
The various effects that give you extra actions and turns would tend to slow extra spells - iirc like the fighter action surge.
Seems to me they have done more to restrict you from getting more than one sneak attack (other than reactions ) than yo stop you from spending more than one spell slot.
What are these lengths you mention thry have gone to?
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TwoSix
Everyone's literal second-favorite poster
Nah. I've run the numbers pretty thoroughly.
Factoring in Reactions is meaningless, as this doesn't impact them. A first level PC might get 3 attack "rolls", but since one of them can only occur on a miss, the amount of nova damage that could be applied via on-hit effects remains the same. A 5th level fighter with the Dual Wielder, Crossbow Expert, or Polearm Master all have the same number of possible hits.
Again, nah. Assuming a world in which martials have access to GWM and SS, the -X/+X mechanic is necessary. It lets attacks scale better with both accuracy and on-hit effects. (You could of course do a complete redux of feats, like [MENTION=12731]CapnZapp[/MENTION] did a few years ago, but one of my criteria was to keep the design as parsimonious as possible. So no GWM/SS fixes here.)
And +5 on a disadvantaged attack (since it requires two different attacks to hit) is absurdly weak. Assuming roughly standard hit rates, that's maybe a +2 damage bump per turn that doesn't scale with Extra Attack. Totally defeats the point of the design. One of my main criteria is that the feat redesign should sit on the safe shelf as GWM or PAM or SS. It needs to be competitive without blowing them away (<10% delta in either direction, ideally).
Now, running some numbers, I have some concerns about Tier 1 deltas for strong Tier 1 builds like VHuman Fighter 1/Barb2. The delta is about 1.6 DPR between someone taking Dual Wielder and GWM at level 3 (23.3 to 21.7, assuming point buy, Reckless/Rage, and a 1 in 3 proc rate on GWM). GWM/PAM pull ahead at level 6, though, even with the Dual Wielder bumping Str to 18. (42.2 to 40.7). I might need to make a little adjustment, but I think it's mostly fine.
Quartz
Hero
Note my suggestion about the Rend.
That's not correct: The PC gets an extra chance to hit with DW, so to not do damage, both must miss. For example, with a 50% chance to hit with each attack, you have a 75% chance of hitting with one. P(Do Damage) = 1 - (P(Miss) x P(Miss))
The minus is factored in by requiring two attacks to hit. Again, if you have a 50% chance to hit, then you only have a 25% chance of both attacks hitting. P (Rend) = P(Hit) x P(Hit). This is mitigated somewhat when you have more than one attack in your Attack action.
I would be interested in seeing your calculations because you seem to have made some basic probability errors with my suggestions.
Having what amounts to a reroll is categorically not the same thing as having a separate or additional attack. The number of 'attacks' I have in combat is the same as how many times can I possibly hit in combat. The TWF rule above is not adding an attack or the possibility of an additional hit. It's more like advantage really.
TwoSix
Everyone's literal second-favorite poster
I'm not sure what your "rend" suggestion is doing, or what your intention is as to how it coexists with my suggestion.
Are you stating it as "Once per round, if you have hit with at least two different weapons, the second attack does an additional +5 damage."? Or is it intended to be any two attacks while dual-wielding? That's the closest I can get to figuring it out.
Assuming low levels, and using the extant Two Weapon Fighting rules, the math isn't too bad. Assuming a baseline hit of p = 0.6, both hitting would be p^2, so 0.36. Times 5 for a 1.8 eDPR increase.
If reactions can trigger it, that'll bump it up some more. Calculations would be more difficult, since we have to estimate a chance to trigger an opportunity attack, and then do the 2 out of 3 probability calculations. Let's call oppo attack rate 50%, with same hit rate. That would make the overall hit rate (0.5x0.6^2)+(0.5x[(0.6^3)+3*(0.6)^2*(0.4)]) = 50.4% chance, so right about a 2.5 eDPR.
That's not bad, but it only scales with Extra Attack via the increased accuracy. If it was +5 for every attack after the first that hits, that would be an interesting mechanic to explore. I'm not a fan of making it rely on unreliably available reactions, though.
If my wording in the feat I posted was unclear, I apologize. But the intent was only for attacks made via the Attack action to qualify for the follow-up attack on an initial miss. The bonus action attack that is the PHB default would not qualify for the follow-up attack, nor would any reaction attacks, nor would a melee attack made via a spell (such as by Booming Blade).
I would certainly like to do some strict legalese in the wording, but that isn't really the PHB way.
Yea, I ran that one above. Assuming C = chance of having an opportunity attack, and a baseline of 2 attacks, the chance is p^2*[1+2c(1-p)].
Sure. Here's an easy one. VHuman Barbarian, level 5. Either Dual Wielder and +2 Str, or GWM and PAM as the VHuman/Level 4 Feats/ASIs.
Assuming a baseline accuracy of 65%, 70% for the +2 Str ASI (+6/+7 vs AC14). Ignoring crits for now, as the difference between them is close to a wash. Factoring in reckless attack and rage. Glaive for GWM, 2xlongswords for DW.
Advantage attack for GWM -5/+10 has an accuracy of 64%. (1 - (1-[0.65-0.25])^2)
Advantage attack for DW -5/+10 has an accuracy of 69.75%. (1 - (1-[0.7-0.25])^2)
GWM/PAM: 2 attacks x 0.64 hit rate x [5.5 (Glaive average) + 3 (Str) + 2 (rage) + 10 (GWM)] + 1 attack x 0.64 hit rate x [2.5 (butt end damage) + 3 (str) + 2 (rage) + 10 (GWM)] = 26.24 + 11.20 = 37.34 eDPR.
DW: 2 attacks x [ 0.6975 hit rate x [4.5 (LS average) +4 (Str) + 2 (rage) + 5 (DW)] + 0.3025 (chance to proc followup attack) x 0.6975 hit rate x [4.5 (LS average) + 2 (rage) + 5 (DW)] ] + 1 attack x [ 0.6975 hit rate x [4.5 (LS average) + 2 (rage) + 5 (DW)] = 2 x (10.81 + 2.43) + 8.02 = 34.50 eDPR.
DW has advantages (it will benefit more from a Fighter 1 dip), but PAM/GWM has more room to grow as Str increases. GWM is also pretty competitive on its own without PAM, assuming a decent proc rate on the bonus attack. (And with multiple attacks with advantage, it should have a decent proc rate.)
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