D&D 5E Two-Weapon Fighting alteration

[Xeviat]

With extra attack 1d8+1d8+1d4 is better than 1d6+1d6+1d6, also AoO's are better at 1d8 vs 1d6.

Also, I agree that Dual wielder feat is bad. If it were "half-feat" that would be good.

But most of the TWF issues would be solved with off hand attack being part of the attack action.

OH, sorry, I meant as part of my alterations. Yes, Rapier/dagger would be better than duel shortswords in the standard rules with Extra Attack. I advocate for no ability modifier to off-hand unless attacks are split, and equal off-hand and main-hand attacks. I'm still waffling on if I think the bonus action should be required; because of the rogue, I believe it should be required, or else TWFing becomes the defacto rogue melee style (My fix for that is to offer a +2 attack bonus if you attack with a one-handed weapon and have an empty off-hand, which helps boost sneak attack damage to be more equal with a single rapier as two shortswords).

 

[Horwath]

OH, sorry, I meant as part of my alterations. Yes, Rapier/dagger would be better than duel shortswords in the standard rules with Extra Attack. I advocate for no ability modifier to off-hand unless attacks are split, and equal off-hand and main-hand attacks. I'm still waffling on if I think the bonus action should be required; because of the rogue, I believe it should be required, or else TWFing becomes the defacto rogue melee style (My fix for that is to offer a +2 attack bonus if you attack with a one-handed weapon and have an empty off-hand, which helps boost sneak attack damage to be more equal with a single rapier as two shortswords).

what else is for rogue in melee than dualwield?

There is no finesse 2handed weapons and they are not proficient with shields for swoard and board style.

Also anything in off hand is better than empty hand while fencing.

Empty hand is for grappling and climbing or holding a torch.

 

[Flamestrike]

Extra attacks with two weapon fighting is much to strong.

I already have a ranger 5/ battlemaster 4 who is spitting out insane damage.

1d8+6+1d6 and 1d8+6+1d6+1d8 and 1d8+1d6+6+1d8. At+10 to hit.

5d8+3d6+18 for a single sup dice. 51 DPR. Plus there is usually a riposte added in for off turn damage of 3d8+1d6+6 more.

Add on another to 2d8+2d6 +12 when he action surges.

As it stands at the moment two weapon fighting is situationally very good. Adding more to it makes it generally good and situationally broken.

 

[Mephista]

I blame the rogue for issues with TWFing. I feel like the entire rule set for two weapons is to make the rogue balanced, but we made them problematic for everyone else. Is that a fair assumption to make?

 

[Xeviat]

I blame the rogue for issues with TWFing. I feel like the entire rule set for two weapons is to make the rogue balanced, but we made them problematic for everyone else. Is that a fair assumption to make?

I believe that's fair. Again, though, if we kept ability bonus to damage off the offhand, it would have been fine. If we had an attack penalty when fighting with two weapons like in 3rd, it could have been balanced. 1 off-hand attack is considerably less balanced once Extra Attack comes into the equation, but not terribly so. It's the fighter's 3rd attack and action surge that shuts them out of TWFing. If someone wanted to make smaller modifications, maybe adding a 2nd offhand attack at Fighter 11 would be fair.


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[Mephista]

Ehh... honestly, I'd argue that everyone is really shut out of TWFing. Well, maybe not shut out, but really inefficent at least.

TWFing is crap with the extra attacks of the Fighter. Rangers use a lot of bonus actions for things like Hunter Marks and their pets. Rogues, without the two weapon style, actually deal less damage with two weapons than using Cunning Action to arrange for advantage*. Bards have a several bonus action spells and inspirations. Any heavy weapon class is better off with polarm or great weapon mastery feats. A lot of gishes have other bonus actions or restrictions on what they're holding. I can't really think of any class or situation where two weapon fighting is actually a decent option.

* if you can't get advantage, then its probably good to use a second weapon, but I've never had an issue with my playstyle/GM. Even if its using thrown sand to get it. You're rolling to hit with 2d20 in both cases, but that lack of ability modifier on TWFing's second hit is pretty harsh.

 

[jaelis]

A clever rogue wants to use TWF along with advantage

 

[Flamestrike]

Ehh... honestly, I'd argue that everyone is really shut out of TWFing. Well, maybe not shut out, but really inefficent at least.

No offence mate, but thats not true.

At 3rd level a Hunter ranger is dealing 1d8+1d6+3 with his main hand (hunters mark), plus 2d8+1d6+3 (hunters mark plus Colossus slayer) with his off hand. Its about the only thing that competes DPR wise with greatweapon fighters and sharpshooters.

3d8+2d6+6 damage on two attacks. You're shifting Hunters mark every three or so rounds (same deal with Hex).

What about a Vengance Paladin 11/ Fighter running hunters mark? His off hand is dealing 2d8+1d6+5 (plus a 3 smite Nova instead of a 2 smite Nova). More practically than the Nova, he gets 3 chances to land a Smite each round instead of 2.

As soon as you are adding bonus dice on the off hand attack, you start to pull in front. Superiority dice, Hunters mark or Hex, Colossus slayer, Improved divine smite and similar make TWF OK for corner cases, and very potent at low level.

Rangers use a lot of bonus actions for things like Hunter Marks and their pets.

Hunter rangers get the most oomph out of it, particularly at low level, and particularly with the new +2-4 damage to favored enemiws per swing, plus hunters mark.

Rogues, without the two weapon style, actually deal less damage with two weapons than using Cunning Action to arrange for advantage*.

Mathematically two attacks is better than one with advantage (one hit and one miss on the d20 = one hit for both advantage and two attacks, while two hits with advantage is still one hit, but it translates into two hits with two attacks).

Also you can get advantage and make two attacks. My personal favorite is convincing the guy playing the Barbarian to take the Wolf totem and living in his shadow

 

[Joshua Farley]

My own house rule

Two Weapon Fighting Fighting Style allows the use of non-Light one handed weapons, normally on the Dual Wielder Feat. Dual Wielder allows you to add your str/dex mod to the damage of the offhand attack(s).

I rewrote Fighter and Ranger(Hunter) a bit to accomodate the ability to gain a 2nd offhand attack.

Fighters gain a second offhand attack at 11th level as a part of Extra Attack(2), I bumped Extra Attack(3) down to 17th? level I believe, and gave them a capstone at 20th similar to the Barbarian, but allows you to choose any two between Str, Dex, Con, or Int.

Hunter Rangers gain a 3rd option instead of Volley or Whirlwind Attack at 11th level to get 2 offhand attacks, or an "always on" BA attack with a great weapon, so that there was plenty of options no matter how you choose to fight.

 

[CapnZapp]

Before level 11, you don't need to change anything. And even then, you don't need to change anything unless you have a fighter in the party.

If you have a lvl 11 dual-wielding fighter in your party I'd say his Extra Attack gives both his main hand and his off-hand an extra attack, for 3+2 attacks.

Yes this turns high-level dual-wielding from bad to good, but since you still can't benefit from GWM or PM feats, there's nothing to worry about.

Besides, he must take the crappy dual wield feat just to bring his dual-wielding up to par, so it's not that this makes dual-wielding into some sort of overpowered dream combo...

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