D&D 5E Two-Weapon Fighting alteration

[Xeviat]

I have made changes.

First, the base "Fighting with Two Weapons" is changed to the bonus action granting you equal attacks with your off-hand as your primary hand, but still no ability modifier to damage. 2d6+Str great sword is equal to 1d6+Dex+1d6 short swords, with the bonus action paying for the ability to split attacks.

Second, the "Two Weapon Fighting" style allows you to fight with one-handed weapons while two-weapon fighting. This is functionally +2 to damage, equal to Duelist. Two-Weapon Fighting is then, functionally, great weapon fighting for high Dex characters.

I'm not sure what to do with the feat. Adding ability score to off-hand damage would be too much with having extra off-hand attacks. I may have it get rid of the bonus action and allow two attacks on attacks of opportunity.

I especially like these changes because they make it so the Rogue uses small weapons and fighters and rangers use larger weapons when two-weapon fighting. Keeping the bonus action helps balance the Rogue.

 

[Xeviat]

Sneak attack likely wouldn't be affected with my change unless the rogue picked up 5 levels of a class that grants extra attack. At that point, I'm not sure the increased chance for sneak attack would be that significant. It would definitely provide an increase in chances to smite though, that's true.

I'm a more at the other end of the spectrum, I like rolling although I agree that there is definitely a point where there are too many and it can bog down the game a bit.

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I've just had another thought. How would this affect a monk player. If they have to spend ki to get their two attacks from a flurry of blows, how would they feel when a dual wielder gets two attacks without having to expend a resource. Would they feel that their monk ability is undervalued? They may even pick up dual wielder and get those two bonus attacks without having to spend ki, although they won't have the ability modifier added to their martial arts damage dice but they would still get their extra attacks.

Sneak attack won't me largely affected. With a 65% chance to hit, having two attacks increases your chance to hit with one to 87.75%. With three, it's 95.71% (and you've given up 2d6 or 3d6 sneak attack to get that jump), and with four it's 97.20%. The gain from 3 to 4 is minuscule. Even with 8d6 sneak attack on a 15 Rogue/5 Fighter, that's a gain from 26.8 to 27.2. Not a big deal.

Monks need to be reworked if you're modifying TWFing, you're right.


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[jaelis]

I have made changes.

First, the base "Fighting with Two Weapons" is changed to the bonus action granting you equal attacks with your off-hand as your primary hand, but still no ability modifier to damage. 2d6+Str great sword is equal to 1d6+Dex+1d6 short swords, with the bonus action paying for the ability to split attacks.

Second, the "Two Weapon Fighting" style allows you to fight with one-handed weapons while two-weapon fighting. This is functionally +2 to damage, equal to Duelist. Two-Weapon Fighting is then, functionally, great weapon fighting for high Dex characters.

I'm not sure what to do with the feat. Adding ability score to off-hand damage would be too much with having extra off-hand attacks. I may have it get rid of the bonus action and allow two attacks on attacks of opportunity.

I especially like these changes because they make it so the Rogue uses small weapons and fighters and rangers use larger weapons when two-weapon fighting. Keeping the bonus action helps balance the Rogue.

That seems balanced (though something would be needed for the monk). But I wouldn't be so keen to push non-rogues into the big weapons, I don't know.

 

[Horwath]

I would just put one off hand attack in the same action as main hand attack.

Attack action: 2 light weapons, with extra attack feature: 2 mainhand attacks, 1 offhand attack.

For fighter lvl11 and lvl20, you can add 1/2 extra off hand attacks. Lvl11 fighter 3 mainhand/2 offhand. Lvl20 fighter 4 mainhand/3 offhand attacks.

 

[DaviMMS]

My fix for TWF is this

Base TWF stays without changes

TWF Fighting Style = When you take the attack action while wielding one melee light weapon on both hands, you can make 1 additional attack with your other weapon for each attack you do as part of your action. The damage of the additional attacks do not add your ability modifier and is not affected by any extra damage or effects that could be triggered on hit.

Dual Wielder also stays the same way as in the base game.

This solves the problem of TWF taking your Bonus Action and not scaling well. In my calculations, the damage dealt by this style was lower that GWF but higher than Dueling in every level, which is exactly were it should be in my opinion, as TWF has the advantage of being able to better spread your damage between multiple attacks

It also makes Dual Wielder good as an option between full offence (two handed weapons) and full defense (sword and shield), as it would improve both your attack (d6s turn into d8s) and defense (1 in AC)

 

[DEFCON 1]

I have a Gunslinger fighter in one of my games, and while I didn't adjust 'fighting with two weapons', the 'two-weapons' fighting style or the 'dual wielder' feat... I did add a second off-hand attack for those with Extra Attack who dual-wield as one of the added bonuses to a pair of Boots of Speed. As a result, the 5th level Gunslinger is able to fire both of his pistols twice each round (at least until he runs out of ammo and has to reload.)

Thus far I haven't noticed any unbalancing problems with it... but then again this character doesn't have access to superiority dice, sneak attack dice or smite dice to add to the damage for the round. Were I to make a more general change to the dual-wielding rules it might change things more dramatically... but I don't know if it would from my POV. But then again... I tend to adjust specific rules to give bonuses to specific characters as rewards or because they are a little light-- not just change rules "campaign-wide" for the sake of it. The way I look at it... worrying about and thus feeling like I need to adjust rules which never actually get used because they don't apply to any of the PCs, is just wasting my time and energy.

If a specific PC could use something extra or feels like its missing something, I'll bend or adjust rules to give them something cool (either changing the actual mechanics of rules in play or by creating new feats, bonus features or magic items that give it to them.) But I'm not going to make a "This is how all of my campaigns are going to run now!" declaration for myself... because odds are good it's never going to ever come up again so why hold myself to things that are not needed?

 

[Xeviat]

That seems balanced (though something would be needed for the monk). But I wouldn't be so keen to push non-rogues into the big weapons, I don't know.

If they don't want a big weapon, they can pick up the Defensive style for +1 AC.

 

[Satyrn]

The only alteration I've made to two-weapon fighting is that any object in the off-hand, like a cloak, a torch or a dagger, can be used as an improvised shield for +1 AC, whenever the off-hand object is not used for attack.

I've considered changing the off-hand attack to only happen when the main hand weapon misses (and not requiring a bonus action), but haven't done so.

I don't think this is the direction you're going though.

Hmm, I'm thinking it might be most interesting if that +1 AC always applies (that way the player never needs to fiddle with his AC) and then add in that the off-hand attack to only happen when the main hand weapon misses. As a reaction instead of a bonus action.

 

[Ancalagon]

I I've added the Off Hand Property to several 1d4 weapons (dagger, club, etc.), which allows you to use it for TWF with a non-light weapon without penalty. Finally, I've added the ability to make two attacks with an Off Hand Weapon with your bonus TWF action if you have the Extra/Multi-Attack feature.

The first allows character concepts without using the TWF feat (which you might not have until level 4). The second allows for several classic combat styles (rapier & dagger) without needing the feat, as well as leveling out the damage better (1d4+2d8 balances better than 3d6 against 4d6 at level 5). The third allows the feat give you a small benefit to continue using a smaller weapon, rather than just dual rapiers/longswords.

I'm not sure I like the idea of extra-attacks, but yeah... dagger and long blade was a thing, and it's not allowed under the current system - if you have the feats, you're much better off going dual rapiers.

Now we know that historically, a few fencers did dual rapiers but it was exceedingly rare - the blades to in each other's way! Dagger rapier though, that was a thing.


Interestingly, in the warhammer system having a weapon in your off-hand didn't give you *any* offensive capacity, but it gave you a free parry (so you didn't have to sacrifice half your action to get one) so it was really useful.

 

[Xeviat]

An off-hand property is a great idea. Rapier/dagger should be possible.


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