Some ideas: Two weapon fighting

[Psionicist]

Okay, I am tired of all these two weapon fighting feats you need to fight with two weapons, so I've changed some things. COmments please:

1) The only feat you need is two-weapon fighting. If you have an off-hand (you don't have the ambidexterity feat), you will recieve a -3 attack penalty to that specific attack(s) and THAT'S IT.

However...

2) Shields are much more powerful and provide cover as well as an AC bonus. In real life, shields was god damn more important than the actual armors sometimes.

Think about it...

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Both of these rule changes taken together will dramatically reduce the relative effectiveness of two handed weapons. Personally, I think this is a bad thing since I rather appreciate that in 3e, warriors with greatswords are fearsome brutes capable of dealing out huge amounts of damage rather than fools who just don't realize that they'd kick twice as much [edited] dual wielding longswords or with bladesong (as it was in 2e).

Depending upon how you deal with the cover granted by a shield, it may not effect the balance between weapon and shield and two weapon styles. (Although the dual wield weapon and spiked shield model will become insanely effective). Having a shield grant cover could be a real pain if you give the enemy as much cover as the PC gets and even more painful if it is directional (thus allowing the enemy to get around it with his 5 foot step). Personally, I wouldn't want to deal with any more directional cover bonusses than I already have in the game (the shield spell and tower shield--at least tower shields don't see as much use).

Removing the to-hit penalty from the primary weapon will definitely increase the damage from dual wielding characters. If you remove the "2nd weapon must be light" and "1/2 str bonus to damage on 2nd weapon", you will create an environment where dual wielding bastard swords is clearly the best way to deal damage. (Which seems rather silly to me).

Perhaps most significantly, by increasing the damage dealing capabilities of your PCs, you will give them significant advantages against monsters of their CR. Trolls are supposed to dish out more damage per round than most PCs can. If PCs with an 18 strength, two bastard swords, and weapon specialization are dealing out 2d10+12 points of damager per round (or 3d10+18 at 6th level--more if Barbarian levels, rage and bull's strength are called in) then you will have to throw more or tougher foes at them in order to challenge them. This will really increase the deadliness of your campaign (for PCs and villains alike).

Of course, none of this will hurt your game if your players are the kind of players who play fighters with a 12 strength, 14 dex, and 8 con but a 17 charisma. If they're powergamers though be prepared for a dramatic increase in powerful dual-wielders--either that or a dramatic increase in the amount of shield facings you have to keep track of in combat.

 

[Lily Inverse]

Another reason to not replace all the dual-wield related feats is in ELH. The crown of the tree, "Perfect Two-Weapon Fighting" allows two full sets of attacks at 24th level (Not sure of the prerequisites, but I do know it requires all the other feats published so far except for Twin Sword Style.)

 

[Psionicist]

Point given, however I still belive my own system is much better. Not right now, but after a bit details it's all there. The keypoint in my thread was not exactly the two weapon fighting part, but the shield part. Imagine you are fighting an orc yourself. Would you rather fight without shield where ALL direct hits will hit your body, or with shield where you can easly dodge attacks with the shield. Personally i do think the "warriors with greatswords are fearsome brutes capable of dealing out huge amounts of damage" ARE fools. I have read some books on history, and unless you are extremely dexterous you cannot win a fight without a shield. The actual armor doesn't really matter, as long as you have a shield.

 

[Lily Inverse]

Point given, however I still belive my own system is much better. Not right now, but after a bit details it's all there.

What are those details, then?

The keypoint in my thread was not exactly the two weapon fighting part, but the shield part. Imagine you are fighting an orc yourself. Would you rather fight without shield where ALL direct hits will hit your body, or with shield where you can easly dodge attacks with the shield.

I'd rather use a single weapon like a rapier. Light, fast, typically punches through heavier armor on a good hit, it would probably go through a much thinner shield with no problems at all. Also, the greatsword came about to specifically defeat the heavily armoed knights. Once they were de-horsed, a slash from a greatsword would go cleanly through. Note how when rapiers and greatswords were showing up (along with firearms) armor started geting lighter so you could get the hell out of the way.

Personally i do think the "warriors with greatswords are fearsome brutes capable of dealing out huge amounts of damage" ARE fools.

Okay, you just called every Samurai who ever lived a fool. These people were FAST with what was basically a two-handed weapon. In fact, the whole point of fighting with a katana, a one OR two-handed weapon, was to strike FIRST. If a samurai failed to do that, they were expected to commit ritual suicide. Since they also didn't carry shields, what do you THINK they did?

I have read some books on history, and unless you are extremely dexterous you cannot win a fight without a shield. The actual armor doesn't really matter, as long as you have a shield.

You really need to get out there with some historical recreations and try it. Trust me, it is quite possible to win a fight without a shield. Moreover, against lighter weapons than those mentioned here armor makes a GREAT difference, otherwise nobody would ever have progressed past stuffing a suit of clothing really full and calling it armor.

 

[Psionicist]

Samurai's are indeed quite dexterous, unlike a Dex 8, Str 20 half orc barbarian.

 

[Lily Inverse]

Actually, no, they're not necessarily. Iaijutsu is all about reaction time. It requires STRENGTH to get the weapon moving quickly, and perception to see how your opponent is moving. Samurai DID NOT DODGE AROUND EACH OTHER. And they certainly didn't block one another's strikes. It was a simple "Who hits first."

Also, I'd like to see a reply to some of my other arguments.

 

[comrade raoul]

our rules

in the campaign i'm co-dming, our veiw is that fighting with two weapons is a bit underpowered for most characters; generally not worth the pair of feats. our rules are as follows:

Virtual Two-Weapon Fighting: All fighters, barbarians, and rangers gain a limited version of the Two-Weapon Fighting feat for free at 3rd level. This is exactly like Two-Weapon Fighting, but it applies only while in light armor. [edit: also note that we use an alt.ranger that doesn't grant virtual ambidexterity & two-weapon fighting at 1st level like the PH version]

two new feats:
Improved Ambidexterity [General, Fighter]
Your skill and focus allows you to maximize the effectiveness of both of your hands.
Prerequisite: Ambidexterity, Dex 15+, Expertise, Int 13+, Str 13+
Benefit: When wielding a weapon in each hand, your off-hand weapon is always treated as a light weapon for purposes of assessing attack penalties. Further, you may add your full Strength bonus to your damage rolls with your off-hand.

Twin Attack[General, Fighter]
You can use successful attacks with your primary hand to create openings for off-hand attacks.
Prerequisite: Combat Reflexes, Ambidexterity, Two-Weapon Fighting, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, Dex 15+, base attack bonus +9
Benefit: When wielding a weapon in each hand, you may declare any attack that is not part of a full attack action to be a "twin attack." You suffer the normal penalties for fighting with two weapons on that attack, but, if and only if you successfully hit your target with your primary weapon, you may make an additional attack, against the same target, with your off-hand weapon (again at the normal penalties).

The idea here is that fighting competently with a weapon in each hand isn't worth two feats except to very specialized characters (like sneak attacking rogues). So combat characters can do it for one feat -- only ambidexterity -- as long as they stick to light armor. Improved ambidexterity offers a much needed boost to the serious two-weapon wielder; the expertise prereq here is to limit the capability of characters tweaked for high strength choosing two-weapons a la 2e. twin attack enables high-level combatants to overcome some of the disadvantages that a two-hander has on a standard attack.

overall, the picture that emerges, I think, is of two-weapon combat as a specialized but potentially powerful combat style. there are still many reasons to fight with a shield or a two-handed weapon, but two-weapon-ing isn't blatantly suboptimal. yes, there's the "improved ambidexterity/two bastard sword" combo, but doing so requires unusually high int and dex for many fighters and three feats (four if you want to do it in medium and heavy armor) -- if a character wants to spend all of those feats, I think she's welcome to.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

I think that you'd do better to double the AC bonusses that shields give instead of using cover mechanics. It's much simpler that way.

So: Buckler still gives +1 AC
Small Shield=+2 AC
Large Shield=+4 AC

That makes shields an incredible advantage when combined with armor. It's even feasible to use a shield and no armor--you've still got the same AC as a fighter in scale mail. However, this method doesn't introduce directional mechanics or AoO negation to the combat mix.

As to the historical discussion, I believe that you're in the wrong. As full plate armor was developed, shields fell out of favor (they were no longer necessary as full plate provided sufficient protection--this is especially noticable in late tournament armors--where protection was most essential and one could afford to give up flexibility--which eschewed the use of shields). At the same time, weapons like pikes, bastard swords, greatswords, military picks, poleaxes, and maces began to replace one handed swords as the primary knightly weapons of war. (One handed swords no longer had the power to reliably penetrate fullplate).

As the penetrating power of firearms and crossbows improved, armor grew even heavier, and the less essential parts (greaves, sabatons, etc)were jettisoned so that it didn't grow too heavy to wear (that's the origin of half-plate). As firearms continued to improve, breastplates became even heavier until the only parts that remained were a leather coat, breastplate, helmet and guantlets. (Elizabethan/James I/English civil war era). Around this point, the shield came back into favor for a brief time when the spanish infantry (longswords, breastplates, and small shields) defeated French pikemen in Italy. It didn't last though. Later armies abandoned shields in favor of muskets (infantry) and pistols and sabres (cavalry).

Samuraii are another story entirely. My understanding is that they belonged to a much more tradition bound culture than medieval europe and were expected to use bows, naginatas, and katanas in battle. Seeing as two out of three of those are two handed weapons (and the katana was usually used in two hands) there's not a lot of room for a shield. I doubt that they allowed their tradition to dictate an inefficient form of combat to them though. More likely, their tradition crystallized an effective form of combat and held it in place for all sides. My understanding is that their armor was sufficient even without a shield.

Point given, however I still belive my own system is much better. Not right now, but after a bit details it's all there. The keypoint in my thread was not exactly the two weapon fighting part, but the shield part. Imagine you are fighting an orc yourself. Would you rather fight without shield where ALL direct hits will hit your body, or with shield where you can easly dodge attacks with the shield. Personally i do think the "warriors with greatswords are fearsome brutes capable of dealing out huge amounts of damage" ARE fools. I have read some books on history, and unless you are extremely dexterous you cannot win a fight without a shield. The actual armor doesn't really matter, as long as you have a shield.

 

[Lily Inverse]

Samuraii are another story entirely. My understanding is that they belonged to a much more tradition bound culture than medieval europe and were expected to use bows, naginatas, and katanas in battle. Seeing as two out of three of those are two handed weapons (and the katana was usually used in two hands) there's not a lot of room for a shield. I doubt that they allowed their tradition to dictate an inefficient form of combat to them though. More likely, their tradition crystallized an effective form of combat and held it in place for all sides. My understanding is that their armor was sufficient even without a shield.

I'll take over here since this is actually more my thing. Yes, it's largely as you described, except for a few points. There are only two times that I know of where a katana is NOT used in two hands. First is during an Iaijutsu duel. Because this is essentially a quick-draw with swords, the other hand must hold the sheath, and therefore cannot possibly hold a shield. In the other, it is when, post 1700's, the followers of Miyamoto Musashi's teachings fought with TWO katana.

A shield was considered cowardly and not worthy of a samurai. Even the rare fighter who only fought with one hand on a katana would never, ever lower himself to add a shield to his repertoire. Also, the Japanese abaonded armor much sooner than Europe did, as the three main Samurai weapons are all designed for going through such pitiful things anyway. The weapons of Masamune and Murasame are perfect examples of this, being legendary swords of incredible sharpness and lightness.