Trying to make dual-wielding a bit better

[Valiantheart]

I'm really surprised nobody has plugged Monte Cook's approach to two-weapon fighting in AU, which I think solves the problem (and is easily adaptable to D&D). Basically, he uses the following rules:

1. Two-Weapon Fighting reduces your total penalties by 4, on each hand (for a total of -0/-4 with a light weapon).
2. The Ambidexterity feat has been re-introduced, but as a "talent" that can only be taken at first level. Ambidexterity reduces your off-hand penalty by -4, for a total of -0/-0 with a light weapon.
3. A type of exotic weapon called "devanian" weapons exist that allow normally one-handed weapons to count as light weapons. Some classes gain proficiency with these weapons as part of their normal class abilities.

The result is that a character optimized for two-weapon fighting can spend two feats to wield a pair of longswords at no penalty by spending two feats (or at a -4 off-hand penalty for one feat). Even if he's not ambidextrous, he has a clear damage advantage over two-handed characters on a full attack, but he's still less effective than they are when full attacks aren't available. On the whole, I think this is an elegant and fair solution.

You lost me on step 3. So how does a character get the -0/-0 with 2 medium weapons? If so that does seem too powerful for 2 med weapons.

-0/-0 for med/light and -2/-2 for med/med is more balanced otherwise why use 2 different weapons and waste more feats on focus/specialization/etc.

 

[Uriel]

Two Weapon Fighting has gotten the shaft in 3.0/3.5

Not as lame as Double-Weapons, which require another Feat and give ( as I see it, correct me please, if possible, I think they look cool) no advantage.


One advantage to TWF (Yes, another Feat is needed) is that you can use Weapon Finesse with the smaller weapons. I tend to take this with smaller characters or those with high Dex as oppossed to big fighter types.
Yes, the greatsword tank is a monster (I'm playing one in the RL game that I am involved in), doing much more damage than the poor nimble (no Sneak-Attacking) TWFer.
Oh well, I play D&D now out of reminiscene, having refound my love for it with 3rd Ed, after abandoning it for systems that had more gritty and realistic combat systems. I don't really want to start playing Rolemaster again, though I miss a dagger being able to kill a high level bad-guy with a well-placed strike.

 

[FrankTrollman]

You lost me on step 3. So how does a character get the -0/-0 with 2 medium weapons? If so that does seem too powerful for 2 med weapons.

The part he's glossing over is that Devanian Weapons are exotic. So you pay 2 feats to fight at -0/-0 with two light weapons or 3 feats to fight at -0/-0 with medium weapons.

Not as lame as Double-Weapons, which require another Feat and give ( as I see it, correct me please, if possible, I think they look cool) no advantage.

The advantage is the same as that of the Devanian Weapons. You spend an exotic weapon proficiency and then you can dual-wield the equivalent of two medium weapons. The Darthmaulsword does the same damage with each end as a Longsword.

So essentially in either case you are spending 1 feat and a huge pile of money to do 1 extra point of damage per attack. If you have as many attacks with your off-hand as you do with your main hand (which you don't, but let's pretend) - it's the same total bonus that any normal fighter would get from Weapon Specialization except with a huge monetary cost.

Fundamentally, I'm not impressed with the worthwhileness of the final feat in this. I mean, TWF needs to get damage bonuses that are equal with each attack to pay off - getting smaller bonuses that combined are as big as the normal ones isn't really an advantage at all.

-Frank

 

[MeepoTheMighty]

The advantage is the same as that of the Devanian Weapons. You spend an exotic weapon proficiency and then you can dual-wield the equivalent of two medium weapons. The Darthmaulsword does the same damage with each end as a Longsword.

So essentially in either case you are spending 1 feat and a huge pile of money to do 1 extra point of damage per attack. If you have as many attacks with your off-hand as you do with your main hand (which you don't, but let's pretend) - it's the same total bonus that any normal fighter would get from Weapon Specialization except with a huge monetary cost.

Fundamentally, I'm not impressed with the worthwhileness of the final feat in this. I mean, TWF needs to get damage bonuses that are equal with each attack to pay off - getting smaller bonuses that combined are as big as the normal ones isn't really an advantage at all.

-Frank

But the TWF fighter can also take Weapon Specialization, and get twice the benefit that the greatsword fighter does. In addition, he can get twice the bonus damage from magical enhancement as his greatsword-wielding companion. At lower levels, it's cheaper to get two +n weapons than it is to get a single +(n+1) weapon. At higher levels, the TWF fighter has to pay more, but I think it evens out by potentially being able to do close to twice the damage of the single-weapon wielder.

The exotic double weapons are also nice because in those situations where you can't use a full attack, you can still use the weapon two-handed to get more damage than the guy wielding two shortswords. In addition, it's harder to disarm.

 

[Tywyll]

The part he's glossing over is that Devanian Weapons are exotic. So you pay 2 feats to fight at -0/-0 with two light weapons or 3 feats to fight at -0/-0 with medium weapons.

Not a problem for the Unfettered, who begin with Exotic Prof: Agile

Fundamentally, I'm not impressed with the worthwhileness of the final feat in this. I mean, TWF needs to get damage bonuses that are equal with each attack to pay off - getting smaller bonuses that combined are as big as the normal ones isn't really an advantage at all.

-Frank

So, out of curiosity, what's the answer? You obviously have a good handle on the math involved, so what is your houserule/patch/fix?

 

[Darklone]

I'm confused about your AU talk... IIRC you had Ambidex there, TWF, ITWF, and Massive TWF... the last one already allowed you to use bigger weapons in your offhand.

AU TWF is nice by it's own, but I miss the 3rd attack by GTWF and I don't really think it fixed everything... such as the "problem" of only one attack with standard actions and AoOs mainly discussed here.

 

[comrade raoul]

Not a problem for the Unfettered, who begin with Exotic Prof: Agile

Right; and so does the Snake Totem Warrior, for that matter. This is actually very important: the point is that if you've got the right character class for two-weapon fighting, you can do very well just by spending one feat (Two-Weapon Fighting).

I'm confused about your AU talk... IIRC you had Ambidex there, TWF, ITWF, and Massive TWF... the last one already allowed you to use bigger weapons in your offhand.

AU TWF is nice by it's own, but I miss the 3rd attack by GTWF and I don't really think it fixed everything... such as the "problem" of only one attack with standard actions and AoOs mainly discussed here.

I don't think including Greater Two-Weapon Fighting would break the AU system. In fact, (because I think GTWF is a little weak on its own; one attack at -10 isn't much of a marginal benefit for a feat), I include a stronger version as an AU house-rule:

Perfect Two-Weapon Fighting [General]
You have mastered the art of fighting with a weapon in each hand.
Prerequisite: Dexterity 19+, Two-Weapon Fighting, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, base attack bonus +14 or higher.
Benefit: When using the full attack action to fight with two weapons, you can make the same number of attacks with your off-hand, at the same base attack bonuses, as you would with your primary hand. Thus, a character with a base attack bonus of +17 and the Perfect Two-Weapon Fighting feat could make four attacks with her off-hand as part of a full attack action; her additional attacks would be at attack penalties of –5, -10, and –15.

And this does address the problem discussed, albeit by reconceiving it. The AU implementation of TWF is a trade-off: a character with Two-Weapon Fighting and a pair of devanian/double weapons will do more damage than a greatsword wielder on a full attack, but at the cost of reduced damage for standard attacks, attacks of opportunity, and so forth. I really like this solution because it keeps things interesting, and there's no "optimal" style if you spend enough feats. This is true whether or not the character has Ambidexterity.

Incidentally, I don't think it'd be broken for characters with Two-Weapon Fighting to make one more AoO each round, with their off-hand weapon; it'd be like a weaker version of Combat Reflexes built into the feat.

 

[FrankTrollman]

So, out of curiosity, what's the answer? You obviously have a good handle on the math involved, so what is your houserule/patch/fix?

There's a couple of workable answers:

1> Two Weapon Fighting is a feat to increase damage in a Full-Attack Action. In this model you are spending a feat to apply your static damage bonuses twice. From a proportionality standpoint, the single TWF feat should give you an extra attack with every single BAB granted attack you have - otherwise the proportionality is going to turn against you the instant you get a bonus attack and the style is going to suck. In this model you can suffer a penalty to-hit if and only if the expected damage bonuses being doubled are larger than the penalty involved. So if you just expect the character to have Weapon Specialization (which gets doubled for a total of +4 damage instead of only +2 for a character without TWF) - the penalty has to be smaller than -2. In practice, if the penalties are not exceeded by the doubled bonus by +3 or more it's simply not worth considering. It wouldn't be "good" unless the bonus was +4 or more.

So using a Full Attack and a feat and suffering -1 to-hit in order to get Weapon Specialization Twice is basically a feat and a full attack for -1 to-hit and +2 damage - which honestly pretty much completely sucks (but at least is pulling ahead). The bonus would have to be more than that before I could consider it to be a worthwhile expenditure of a feat. And remember, if you get any attacks that you don't get doubled they count backwards. You'd want at least basic damage bonuses of +4 being doubled to justify a -1 to-hit and a full attack and a feat expenditure.

2> Two Weapon Fighting is a feat to increase damage generally. In this model, you apply damage bonuses twice and simply get an attack with the off hand on every single attack you would normally get. That's two attacks of opportunity, two charge attacks, the whole thing.

You are basically running into the same math as above - but you count Attacks of Opportunity and Charges and such as neutral instead of negative. The minimum to make it worth while is a +3 damage bonus being doubled for a -1 penalty to-hit.

3> Two Weapon Fighting is an option to make damage more regular. In this model the goal is to have TWF do exactly as much damage as Two Handed Weapons. That means that characters will expect to pay zero feats for the priviledge. It also means that they should get one attack with each weapon for every single attack they ever get. It also means that the total penalties they suffer should be zero. It also means that any static damage bonuses should apply to only one weapon or be divided equally between weapons.

So in the 3rd edition model, TWF needs to beat Power Attacking by about 3 points (or more) to be worth it, and still needs to apply to iterative attacks and whirlwinding. In a model where you got off-hand attacks with charges and AoOs, it would only need to beat power attacking with a greatsword by 2 points to be worth it.

In a model where characters got off-hand attacks with all of their attacks and suffered no penalties and so on and so forth - it would be balanced at no feat cost if the static bonuses were divided between weapons.

As long as Two Handed Weapons apply double power attack bonuses and TWF don't get static damage bonuses at all - it's hopeless.

-Frank

 

[Tywyll]

There's a couple of workable answers:

As long as Two Handed Weapons apply double power attack bonuses and TWF don't get static damage bonuses at all - it's hopeless.

-Frank

I appreciate the greater discussion of necessities, but it still didn't really answer my question. What do you do in your game? Which of those three options do you use when a player wants to be a TWF?

 

[FrankTrollman]

I appreciate the greater discussion of necessities, but it still didn't really answer my question. What do you do in your game? Which of those three options do you use when a player wants to be a TWF?

Personally, I'm currently running a game which uses the first idea - one in which Two Weapon Fighting is coming in at -2 to-hit and doubles people's damage bonuses on a full attack (by giving them an attack for each iterative attack with each weapon with one feat).

The key here is that the player who does it is fighting Sword and Board with Shield Expert. He power attacks constantly for just about everything and jacks up expertise as far as it will go. His total damage output per round is low (one of the other characters is a Reach Fighter with Combat Reflexes and Great Cleave - they fight together, it's pretty cool), but his AC is huge.

This style puts characters into the position of the guy who stands in the middle of the battlefield and essentially attempts to draw fire. Two Weapon Fighting pays off for the character because he's already committed to taking massive to-hit penalties (and his static damage bonuses are big). This system does not support the double-dagger finesse fighter at all, really - and of course it required the addition of some extra to-hit bonuses that aren't Core, which in turn made power attacking for six a workable proposition.

But I did that because I wanted to salvage as much of the Core Rules as possible. If I was just going to write it from scratch I'd make it more like option 2 (and if I wasn't using our house-version of the defensive strike feat I'd have to). Of course, in the current campaign - the system he's using is grandfathered in.

-Frank