Mike Mearls: so here’s the first part of my two-weapon fighting house rule

[Satyrn]

Edit: Actually, this whole thing also get me thinking about that other thread using a shield as an improvised weapon. I am now thinking that allowing it to be used improvised and off-handed is too good. I think one would need the Shield Master feat to use a shield with proficiency as a weapon, and Dual Wielder since a shield should not be considered a light weapon. This helps ensure some kind of trade-off / balance between choosing a shield or a weapon for the off-hand.

I wound up deciding on pretty much the same thing. I'm not sure I'd allow an attack with the shield even with the Dual Wielder feat, except if a player really wanted to make that work I'd probably give in.

 

[Hawk Diesel]

Yeah, scrapping the bonus action requirement might have solved my only complaint about Two Weapon Fighting.

From my experience with a fighter, the only thing I didn't like about two weapon fighting was that it didn't play nice with Action Surge. That is, the benefits of Great Weapon fighting, Archery and Duelist styles all get used during that extra action, but TWF doesn't because it needs a second bonus action.

(Although really my preferred fix for that is top have Action Surge simply grant another turn)

I agree that it is frustrating when playing a fighter. But to be fair, it's not the only style that does not benefit from action surge. The Protection and Defense Styles do not benefit from Action Surge. So I'm not sure that is necessarily a problem, unless we are changing the design goal so that all fighting styles have some benefit when action surging.

 

[Satyrn]

I agree that it is frustrating when playing a fighter. But to be fair, it's not the only style that does not benefit from action surge. The Protection and Defense Styles do not benefit from Action Surge. So I'm not sure that is necessarily a problem, unless we are changing the design goal so that all fighting styles have some benefit when action surging.

I kinda view Protection and Defense as a separate group. The "stackables." Like, once I take TWF, Archery, Duelist or GWF, I'm not gonna take another of those 4. Once I have one of them, the next one I take is gonna be a stackable.

So I'd like those 4 to be roughly comparable. Since the only place I've found they aren't is when action surging, I'd adjust the surge.* (Others have problems with the feats, and I think they should change the feats instead of the styles)

*Plus, the occasional debates here about what is allowed during a surge make me want to simplify it down to "It's another turn, just do whatever you normally do on a turn."

 

[Hawk Diesel]

*Plus, the occasional debates here about what is allowed during a surge make me want to simplify it down to "It's another turn, just do whatever you normally do on a turn."

This does make Action Surge an even more powerful ability than it already is, and creates even more potential desire to dip fighter. Not necessarily a problem per se, but something to consider.

Of course, I have homebrewed the fighter to get something akin to a Rogue's Cunning Action at level 2 (except bonus action can be used for grapple, disarm, or shove attempts) and moved Action Surge to level 6. Reduces fighter dips and overall is a much cleaner version of the fighter (IMO). Also gives the 4th attack at level 17 (where it should be) and capstones based on your chosen fighting style.

 

[Pauln6]

I kinda view Protection and Defense as a separate group. The "stackables." Like, once I take TWF, Archery, Duelist or GWF, I'm not gonna take another of those 4. Once I have one of them, the next one I take is gonna be a stackable.

So I'd like those 4 to be roughly comparable. Since the only place I've found they aren't is when action surging, I'd adjust the surge.* (Others have problems with the feats, and I think they should change the feats instead of the styles)

*Plus, the occasional debates here about what is allowed during a surge make me want to simplify it down to "It's another turn, just do whatever you normally do on a turn."

I get nervous about allowing another bonus action as part of action surge because of possible multiclass stacking. That's why I think making an exception for a bonus action weapon attack would be safer. You could even throw a bone to multiclass fighter types to give them something at level 5 if one if their classes already has the feature.

 

[Azzy]

I'd consider dropping the AC bonus down to 1, because otherwise I don't see a reason for players to use a shield.

Ooh, good idea.

 

[WaterRabbit]

Wrong. When you factor it into your maths, it becomes a maths problem. [Data Entry problem is more precise.]

Wrong. Weapon I guess, sounds like you confused Greatsword and Greataxe. [As I stated, so just redundant and repetitive.]

Wrong. Since we need to compare it to TWF damage, not just it's own damage without the -5/+10.

Wrong, an Action Surging Archer applies the +2 seven times. An Action Surging GWF applies his feature 6 to 7 times. An Action Surging Duelist applies his feature 6 times. An action surging TWF applies his feature... once.
[So I finally caught onto what you were on about here as I was already considering Dual Wielder vs GWM/SS. Dual Wielder applies the bonus 7 times (d8 vs d6), so yes without DW TWF FS gives its feature only once. Still not sure how you are getting 7 attacks with an Archer or GWF. Multi-attack gives two additional attacks at 11th level. Action Surge gives an additional action, so 6 attacks total plus the Bonus Action. I only see the Samurai Rapid Strike feature allowing that -- but that would also apply to TWF.

Wrong.

Wrong. You only included high numbers, rather than "exceeding 75%".

Wrong. Three years of maths. I didn't spend three years learning how to perform exactly one operation. [*mathematics, though it is possible you spent three years repeating the same course.]

Wrong. I need a life.

Wrong. We're doing more than one operation, therefore we are doing maths.

Wrong. I could do that by the middle of primary school. [Sure]

Wrong. I am all of the chill.

Wrong. It is about many different games.

Wrong. And I wouldn't make an entire post just to invest more into it.

Wrong. That is what's happening.

Wrong. Which I shall prove when I get around to doing the -5/+10 for GWF.

Wrong. It definitely seems to need a boost given how often that comes up.

So none of the above was helpful in making your point. I rebuilt my spreadsheet and graphed the data. I think we are mostly in agreement here.

TWF with the Fighting Style and Dual Wielder are competitive for Tiers 1 and 2. However, by Tier 3 Great Weapon Master and Sharpshooter just outclass everything. Even in Tier 2 they have a large advantage at mid- to low target ACs. These feats probably need to be -5/+5 instead of -5/+10.

Since TWF really needs the light weapon restriction removed. It probably should just be made part of the Fighting Style; this would also address your concern about TWF not getting its bonus applies during an Action Surge.

For TWF to be competitive with GWM and SS, I am also of the idea that the Bonus Action restriction should be lifted -- probably could be incorporated into the DW feat.

Without GWM and SS, TWF w/DW mostly falls inline with expectations. GWF does the most damage, then TWF, then Dueling, then Archery.

What might make TWF appealing to classes that don't get fighting styles and/or multi-attack would be to allow TWF with a one-handed weapon and a light weapon as the default instead of just two light weapons. I need to mess with my formulas to see if that would be feasible.

I have been running 5e for about a year and half (almost all on Roll d20). Only at this point did I really decided to take a deep dive into the numbers. Mostly because my players are not the optimizer types, they just like to play the game with the character concept they like. However, last session a paladin character was fighting zombies and not using his GWM feat. I felt he might need some guidance about when GWM was a better choice than not using it, which is why I care about the inflection point and was trying to find a simple rule of thumb he could apply.

I also wanted to test some house rules to make sure that they didn't disadvantage anyone greatly.

Finally, you are incorrect about the usage of math. It is either math or mathematics -- maths is clearly wrong. (i.e., "I am working a math problem." or "Over the years I have taken a number of mathematics courses.") It doesn't matter how many mathematics disciplines one applies to a problem it is still just a math problem. Of course anyone with a brain knows that British and American English forked in the late 18th century (the Brits decided to double down on the French influence), so we all know these are just regional differences so deal with it.

 

[Pauln6]

It seems like the debate cycles back to the -/+ feats being overpowered rather than dual wielder being under powered.

So would an alternative minor tweak be to let the twf style also allow you to use a normal one handed weapon in your main hand and the dual wielder feat grants a second bonus action attack with an off hand weapon when you use action surge.

Finally, if someone gains extra attack twice through multiclassing when they use their bonus action to gain an off hand attack, they can attack twice.

Minor boosts but the fighting style really isn't that bad...

 

[Yunru]

So none of the above was helpful in making your point.

Sorry, that tends to happen when I make a post just to use "Wrong" every line

-5/+10 feats aren't great in isolation. At levels 1-3 they're objectively worse off than a BAA feat unless you were already hitting on a 7 (I believe it was, my maths is in another thread).
Of course, each time your to hit modifier increases, that AC goes up, and nothing is stopping you taking both, so...

I don't think the non-light restriction really needs lifting, if the Bonus action requirement is removed. It's powerful already, just not enough. Folding it into the regular action also means it works with Action Surge.

 

[TwoSix]

It seems like the debate cycles back to the -/+ feats being overpowered rather than dual wielder being under powered.

The general problem is that the -5/+10 feats are too good compared to other feats, but weapon using classes become less powerful as a group in their absence, compared to casters.

Ideally, the -X/+Y concept for weapon attacks would be added as some sort of general rule (possibly as -Prof, +2*Prof), and could then be removed from the two feats where it's present.