D&D 5E Two-Weapon Fighting Idea

[Gorgoroth]

...

Why not keep it EXTREMELY simple:

You have disadvantage with both attacks, but otherwise each attack is completely normally calculated. It means though, that you need 4 dice each round for a "twin strike".

But, I think a more workable option is just, no disadvantage but a flat -2/-2 to hit with two finesse weapons or 1 normal + 1 light, and no ability mod bonus to damage on either one.

DEFINITELY keep the magic bonuses both to hit and to damage on each one, plus perks. If you have a flame tongue short sword and an ice longsword, think about it...the various rules systems you guys have provided here do not allow magic iteams to do their thing in an elegant way. I should be able to freeze + burn you if I'm lucky enough to hit twice. In a flat math system, whatever penalty applied to each attack roll should be big enough to offset the statistical damage bonus. Just avoid the 4e mistake by adding tons of stackable flat damage bonuses and you're done.

If a DM doesn't want a dual wielder to get too powerful, just don't give him too many magic items. Why is this even an issue? Dual wielders are one way that those extra magic weapons that otherwise wouldn't see any use DO get used, rather than stored in someone's backpack until it can be chucked off at a pawn shoppe back in town.

two weapons = two attacks. This much is certain. If they keep the disadvantage on each roll, fine, but make up for it by making the max damage potential huger AND do not put any asinine restrictions such as you cannot remove the disadvantage. WHY add more special cases? You have disadvantage with each attack....but it should be cancellable by getting advantage.

I would say make getting advantage hard enough and not super consistent so you can't get it every single bloody round, and that's a great way to balance it. I want a paladin with two holy weapons to absolutely KICK BUTT against undead. Chop suey.

I did that once, using twin strike with my hybrid paladin + ranger and his double axe, when I popped Sacred Weapon utility and Snarling Wolf Stance...it was the one epic battle where we were all swarmed by an insane amount of skellies and I was dedding 'em so good. The party was like...whoah, you just opened a can of whoop asss on 'em. Good job. I couldn't do that every battle, but against these guys...it was rad. I waited, waited, waited till the right battle to pop my stuff and it paid off.

I want DDN to have those moments where someone like that can shine. You have two maces of disruption? throw'em to the paladin this fight b/c he will kick butt.

Dual wielding should provide between S&B and THF average damage, potentially more damage if both hits crit (and silly restrictions on no extra crits...just don't add any feats to increase crit range). I detested seeing so many kukri builds in PF. What a dumb looking weapon. Dual wielding should be statistically do-able at level 1, you trade off higher DPR for reliable DPR, and eventually with much training can get closer to THF dpr.

Don't forget, fighters now get two FULL swings at level 6. These TWF current rules need to be balanced against that. And what happens when a fighter that dual wields turns 6? Three attacks? I want all the attacks to have the same to-hit penalty, the same calculations. Special cases and iterative attacks made my head hurt in earlier editions and slowed down the game too much. Too many errors and too much time spent on the dual wielder guy when the numbers get too complicated.

Twin Strike could have been more balanced had they made it -2/-2 and had less stackable damage bonuses. But let's not make everyone a Whirling Barbarian. I HATED that rule. Fake double attacking via just some bonus to hit is not at all satisfying. And completely wipes out wanting to mix and match magic weapons to do cool combos by chaining effects together. Proc chaining is where it's at. And maneuver chaining too.

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

You may have missed the pages of discussion on probability distributions, but two attacks, with a penalty or not, can only be balanced against a single attack across a certain range of damage modifiers. If your modifiers are too low or penalties too severe then TWF will suck, and if they are too high or the penalties not severe enough it will be supreme. Sadly, since modifiers change as you gain levels in this game, the sweet spot moves.

 

[kerleth]

I'm sorry gorgoroth, but unless you have some new ideas on how to implement your solution, it just doesn't work. When you're talking about the potential to double any bonuses, even a small discrepancy goes a long way. The arguments are covered more than once in the thread, so I'm not going to repeat them here. I understand your concern about magic items, and would be tempted to allow two magic weapons to "break" the balancing rules, especially if they are going to be so dm dependent. As far as a second attack, this could be balanced by a slight tweaking of any given ruleset's language so that it could be used to make a "two-weapon attack". If the fighting styles are balanced properly that should not then be an issue. I'm going to repost my idea below. I think that for each fighting style a distinct specialty should be in the core rules to really help differentiate them, but they should be usable from the start without one (ideally).

RULES TEXT
When wielding a pair of finesse/light weapons or a dagger and any other weapon you may use an action to attack one creature with both weapons. Designate one weapon as your main weapon and the other as your off-hand weapon for this attack. Roll both attack rolls and the damage for your main weapon normally. The damage for your off-hand weapon does not gain any bonuses or penalties from your ability score, weapon enhancement, spells, abilities, or other effects. Neither does it deal additional damage on a critical hit, though a critical hit still yields a maximum on the damage die roll.
END RULES TEXT

Slight tweaking to the wording would account for bonus attacks allowing a person to use two weapons. On the other hand, magic weapons might be allowed to grant their bonuses to each weapon, but bonus attacks only allow an attack with a single weapon. I would be willing to use either method, myself.

Of course you would build a specialty for each of the 3 main fighting styles to allow for even further differentation for those who wanted it. This method was originally blackbrrd's idea, and so far it is the closest to satisfying all parties. I should note that to achieve perfect, no corner cases balance would require 1d12 weapons to become 2d6. I think this would be a good thing anyways, myself. Even without that, it seems to be the best system to date. (IMHO, obviously).

 

[nightwalker450]

I was looking a character I'm working on this morning. And I don't think I want a specialty for fighting styles. Due to us only getting feats every 3 levels (1,3,6,9), and each specialty filling all 4 of those slots. So once there's a dual wielding specialty, you can't have a dual wielding herbalist, or a dual wielding endurance specialist. Unless you end up playing in a house ruled dual specialty system.

I'd say we balance the 4 combat styles and just leave it at that. I don't think we should have to jump through hoops to get to a character we want to play. Feat Tree's, and ridiculous prereqs were one of the big turn-offs for me from 3rd. I like being able to see a viable caricature from level 1.

 

[kerleth]

A specialty is something you specialize in. Let anyone wield two weapons, but allow those who want to be even better in it, those who want it to really define their character, focus on that. Just cause a specialty exists to make you better at something doesn't mean you have to take it or you "don't count as a REAL two-weapon fighter".

 

[Salamandyr]

As it stands now though, some hypothetical specialty will be required just to use two weapons effectively.

If lacking the specialty means that a particular fighting style is completely inferior, then it pretty much means the specialty is required.

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

I would just say, for neatness, that half of all static modifiers on each weapon rather than all on one and none on the other would be.. tidier

 

[kerleth]

Agreed Salamandyr, that is one of the reasons that I started this thread. I thought you were refering to the hypothetical rules text I had reposted just a couple of spots up from you, not the current playtest rules. My mistake.

Chris, that might in fact be a lot tidier. It's just halfing the bonus that way instead of the entire damage roll like in my tweak to the previous playtest, so it's a lot less likely that people will have trouble doing it in their head.

I don't know about you guys, but 8 pages of discussion on a single combat style is about all I got in me. Even if it is a thread I started. I'll await to see what WOTC does, and make my complaints/suggestions then. Who knows, perhaps they will end up with something superior to all of our ideas in the next playtest. (Though I doubt it, MY IDEA, is pure genius ).

 

[ren1999]

After doing more play testing I will now say that two weapon fighting needs to either be a result of expertise dice or a main attack and an off-hand attack, but not both.