Removing the Bonus Action from Two-Weapon Fighting

[Lord Twig]

Don't be too blinded by pure mathematics. Run a playtest where you tot up the damage inflicted up to the point where the monster hits zero hit points and THEN do the mathematics. Player tactics and synergies will make a difference in practice that you won't see on paper. You also need to compare big bad monsters versus multiple lower hit point grunts as you would expect great weapons to be more effective against giants and TWF more effective against a horde of orcs.

I do think it's wise to compare class with the same class rather than comparing across classes.

You don't want to be blind to the math either. The math is telling me that two weapon fighting is in an acceptable range for the damage it does, except when a bonus action is required elsewhere. That is enough for me to propose my house rule and test it in my game.

You are correct that ultimately it isn't how much damage you do, but how many creatures you take out and how quickly you do so. Or really, how much fun you have taking out bad guys. That's harder to gauge, but that is what play testing is for.

So far in my games I have only seen people avoid two weapon fighting, except for once. In the one case where it was used, the player had some fun with the style along with frustration with the limitations. It made him regret going with two weapon fighting. That's not good.

So my rule removes the frustration.

 

[Corwin]

Not trying to be completely snarky, but why did you bring up this character who gets buffs compared to another guy who has terrible luck as if it was relevant when discussing implementing mechanics? Poor tactics, DM favoritism, bad player luck - these really arent things to primarily consider whether a house rule is balanced.

Here's an interesting (at least to me) thought experiment:

Imagine for a moment we flipped the script a little bit. Aaron had instead claimed TWF sucked, because his GWM fighter does a ton more damage than his friend's TWF fighter in the other campaign. I wonder how many around here would have batted an eye? I wonder if anyone would have requested more detained information? Would we have ever learned about the disparity in luck, buffs, synergies, and all that came after his initial comparison?

Just something to think about.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

That +30 damage means nothing to the two-longswords guy since he has multiple chances to kill his targets outright swinging those two vorpal swords...

But my dual wielder deals like a third of the damage of the GWM guy! Clearly this means we should triple the damage of dual wielders!


*Fails to mention character fights with two non-proficient turkey drumsticks, and spends an action eating one every other round of combat.*

 

[Vulf]

@shintashi Sorry, I don't see it. I am not changing the way the entire bonus action system works. I like what WotC has done with it honestly. I am just changing the second hand attack* provided by two weapon fighting so it doesn't require one. All other bonus actions are unchanged. I think you are way overstating the impact.

@Vulf Now you are actually increasing the damage done by two weapon fighting. If you look back through this thread I considered that as well, but decided it was not needed. And your change makes it even more costly to use the bonus action for something other than the second hand attack. The whole intention of my rule was to make it the same as fighting with any other weapon style.

@Horwath That is indeed what I initially proposed. I have since been convinced that it would be better to move it to the Two Weapon Fighter style so you actually have to focus on two weapons to be really good at it.

* There is no 'off-hand attack' in 5e, but you have to make the extra attack granted by two weapon fighting with your second weapon. I didn't want to call it an 'extra attack' because that is a class feature. So finally I decided that it might be best to just call it a second hand attack.

Note: Regarding the Lance. It is a two-handed weapon when you are not mounted (it's in the rules), so you can't dual wield them. If you are mounted you need at least one hand to hold onto your mount or you will go flying off as soon as you hit someone with your lance. Unless you seriously strap yourself in I guess. But by that point you can almost count on your horse getting cut from under you so that it rolls over on you. So yeah, good luck with that.

Removing the bonus action requirement increases the damage of the fighting style.

Hunters Mark, Hex, Divine Favor, Spiritual Weapon, Heat Metal.
You no longer need to give up an attack to reapply Hunters Mark and Hex to a new target, or to turn those spells on.
A net increase in damage for anyone able to use those spell.


Then there are abilities such as Cunning Action to gain advantage through stealth checks or Flurry of Blows to gain two extra attacks after the monk makes 3 with Extra Attack+TWF. Every monk is going to want 2 levels of fighter for that nova turn of 6 attacks at level 3... Even 1 level of monk 1 of fighter has the monk making 3 attacks + mod without spending any resources.

 

[Flamestrike]

Keep it as is, but at least one of the weapons must be light (instead of both).

Make the dual weilder feat remove that limitation and grant a second attack at 11th character level as part of the same bonus action.

TWF style remains the same.

 

[Lord Twig]

Removing the bonus action requirement increases the damage of the fighting style.

Hunters Mark, Hex, Divine Favor, Spiritual Weapon, Heat Metal.
You no longer need to give up an attack to reapply Hunters Mark and Hex to a new target, or to turn those spells on.
A net increase in damage for anyone able to use those spell.


Then there are abilities such as Cunning Action to gain advantage through stealth checks or Flurry of Blows to gain two extra attacks after the monk makes 3 with Extra Attack+TWF. Every monk is going to want 2 levels of fighter for that nova turn of 6 attacks at level 3... Even 1 level of monk 1 of fighter has the monk making 3 attacks + mod without spending any resources.

Yes, it is a damage boost for those that require a bonus action to use their class abilities, but that's to whole point. If you look at my post from the last page* I show how casting Hunter's Mark is actually a DPS loss for two weapon Ranger most of the time. Melee Rangers already lag behind archery Rangers, there is no need to make them even worse.

As for Cunning Action or Flurry of Blows, I'm fine with that. If a player wants to delay some level advancement for their primary class to get better at two weapon fighting, more power to them! I think it would be a wash, power-wise.

* http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...ghting/page8&p=6920840&viewfull=1#post6920840