D&D 5E Improving Two-Weapon Fighting

[Mr. Spade]

First - what happens when you use your first attack to knock the enemy prone. Does your overall damage increase further?

Second - with feats your damage is still lower.

Third - action surge still greatly favors the gwf.

Also not assuming maxing stat isn’t realistic. That needs included for each

1. The same thing that happens for other styles
2/3. My purpose wasn't to be better than GWF, but to balance TWF where it should be, between S&B and GWF.

Also, seeing as I did not give the TWF additional attack rolls, the bonus given by stats would be pretty static. Yes their bonus action attack would grant them a slight boost but not enough to go over GWF.

The point was balance, I strongly feel I have found a balance, without breaking the game.
TWF should be capable of doing more damage than S&B at the cost of AC. But GWF should be the primary damage dealer in terms of physical melee damage.

I don't feel the change is too complicated to implement.

 

[Mr. Spade]

I want a fighting style many people enjoy to retain it's relevance beyond level 11.
If you look at my numbers, w/o using the bonus action attack it is even with S&B with the BA it is just below GWF, so assuming a TWF uses it once every 3 turns it should fall squarely in the middle on a damage per round average.

Thank you for your input I hope my explanation is helpful

 

[Mr. Spade]

Ability mod @+5
GWF
1-4: 8.33+5=13.33
5-10: 13.33×2=26.66
11-19: 13.33×3=39.99
20: 13.33×4= 53.32

S&B
1-4: 6.5+5=11.5
5-10: 11.5×2=23
11-19: 11.5×3=34.5
20: 11.5×4=46

TWF (RAW)
1-4: (3.5+5)=8.5 BA: 8.5+(3.5+5)=17
5-8: (8.5)×2=17 BA: 17+8.5=25.5
9-10: (8.5)×2=17 BA: 17+8.5=25.5
11-16: (8.5)×3=25.5 BA: 25.5+8.5=34
17-19: (8.5)×3=25.5 BA: 25.5+8.5=34
20: (8.5)×4=34 BA: 34+8.5=42.5

TWF (With my proposed change)
1-4: (3.5+5)+1=9.5 BA: 9.5+(3.5+5)=18
5-8: (8.5+1)×2=19 BA: 19+8.5=27.5
9-10: (8.5+2)×2=21 BA: 21+8.5=29.5
11-16: (8.5+2)×3=31.5 BA: 31.5+8.5=40
17-19: (8.5+3)×3=34.5 BA: 34.5+8.5=43
20: (8.5+3)×4=46 BA: 46+8.5=54.5

 

[FrogReaver]

1. The same thing that happens for other styles
2/3. My purpose wasn't to be better than GWF, but to balance TWF where it should be, between S&B and GWF.

Also, seeing as I did not give the TWF additional attack rolls, the bonus given by stats would be pretty static. Yes their bonus action attack would grant them a slight boost but not enough to go over GWF.

The point was balance, I strongly feel I have found a balance, without breaking the game.
TWF should be capable of doing more damage than S&B at the cost of AC. But GWF should be the primary damage dealer in terms of physical melee damage.

I don't feel the change is too complicated to implement.

Your response to 1 is untrue. TWF get's an extra attack and so gives up a lower percentage of it's attacks to attempt to prone an enemy. So the math there can make it better for TWF but not GWF...

I think your solution is fine if you don't wanna bother balancing with and without feats. I proposed something similar to what your proposing now quite a while back.

I also want to add that TWF can go dex which is quite different than the GWF. It's worth considering whether the benefits of dex over str should cause a DPR gap between TWF and GWF

 

[Mr. Spade]

Your response to 1 is untrue. TWF get's an extra attack and so gives up a lower percentage of it's attacks to attempt to prone an enemy. So the math there can make it better for TWF but not GWF...

I think your solution is fine if you don't wanna bother balancing with and without feats. I proposed something similar to what your proposing now quite a while back.

I also want to add that TWF can go dex which is quite different than the GWF. It's worth considering whether the benefits of dex over str should cause a DPR gap between TWF and GWF

Thank you
As for Dex or str twf I don't see it being an issue with damage, for the most part it just narrows your weapon choices, but Dex is the preferred option (but far from the only option) for TWF builds.

As for the feats: yes your TWF will begin to pull ahead of S&B with a d8 weapon, but S&B has more feats they can utilize such as shield master or heavy armor master that still do not cost BA to activate. Or take tavern brawler and treat shield as a improvised weapon.

Thanks for looking at it

As for prone, I meant that mechanic is still going to work the same as it did before just if the bonus damage applies it applies.

 

[Mr. Spade]

Your response to 1 is untrue. TWF get's an extra attack and so gives up a lower percentage of it's attacks to attempt to prone an enemy. So the math there can make it better for TWF but not GWF...

I think your solution is fine if you don't wanna bother balancing with and without feats. I proposed something similar to what your proposing now quite a while back.

I also want to add that TWF can go dex which is quite different than the GWF. It's worth considering whether the benefits of dex over str should cause a DPR gap between TWF and GWF

Where can I find your proposal? I'm trying to look at other options as well

 

[TwoSix]

Where can I find your proposal? I'm trying to look at other options as well

This thread has quite a few proposals, with a decent amount of math to back them up.

 

[Pauln6]

Basing this on pure maths is the common mistake. If the monster has 7hp, it doesn't matter if your great sword does 12 and your short sword does 7. Your TWF has a second attack to move to a different target. Your TH doesn't. Sometimes a single foe goes down faster, sometimes damage is wasted. When play testing numbers, only count damage that actually matters. Weapons don't need to be equivalent in every scenario.

I do think that the scimitar of speed should be nerfed so it's bonus action still allows an off-hand attack though if TWF.

 

[Mr. Spade]

Basing this on pure maths is the common mistake. If the monster has 7hp, it doesn't matter if your great sword does 12 and your short sword does 7. Your TWF has a second attack to move to a different target. Your TH doesn't. Sometimes a single foe goes down faster, sometimes damage is wasted. When play testing numbers, only count damage that actually matters. Weapons don't need to be equivalent in every scenario.

I do think that the scimitar of speed should be nerfed so it's bonus action still allows an off-hand attack though if TWF.

I get what you're saying, but at the same time that "extra attack" becomes obsolete once other class features become available, while the other fighting styles maintain their bonuses. My addition allows for a bit of flair without breaking the game. The player can get more out of it personally. Again, I have been a twf since forever, I love the style but the cost is two great to be anything beyond a catchy visual. Two weapon fighters are typically flash and speed, they find or make holes in defenses, or they dodge and parry till their opponents mess up. A S&B fighter gets +2 to damage and AC from the start, and still retains their bonus action for BMs or spells with the appropriate casting time.

If anyone gets a chance I would appreciate if someone could play test this and let me know how it feels. (I don't have a table currently due to my work schedule, but if it helps others enjoy the style better without alienating the other players. )

 

[Coroc]

Since the most silly thing about twf is assuming it being faster than single weapon fighting (IRL it is the opposite since you would have to change stances, try it out yourself, put yourself in an imaginary pose)
I am strongly against further powering its use. I normally houserule TWF can only be done with rapier dagger or maybe any combination of one or two daggers with shortswords

The only realistic approach is to allow a "two weapons at the same time but two attack rolls" attack, so that maybe justifies the additional attack.

Other than that, historically two weapon fighting was only done with rapier dagger, whereas the daggers main purpose was parrying, maybe get a lucky shot out of a weird position where the dagger is closer to the target than the rapier (which it normally never is)

Fighting with two longer weapons was mostly done as a show off with more disadvantages for real combat than advantage, as said before you would have to change your foot stance each time you alternate to hit and the weapons would get in the way of each other making this style further useless.