Two-Weapon Fighting Rules?

[FadedC]

Before everyone jumps on me for talking about fictional characters, just think on it, why only rangers, why not a two-weapon fighting fighter or rogue? Seems to me the guys who wrote the new rules didn't think on it very well, just my opinion on the matter, changing a pretty cool fighting style that other classes could have in older versions to only one class having or another mutli-classing into and not getting their other cool "powers".

You can be a two weapon fighting rogue. In fact almost every rogue in the game is likely to take two weapon fighting feats and fight with a weapon in each hand.

What you can't be (easily) is a rogue who attacks twice as often as normal. But that's not remotely the same thing as not being able to be a two weapon fighter.

I just wish they had made the two weapon fighting a strength or dexterity based skill, so it would be valid for multiclassing rogues to take it.

If they had made it strength or dex, then bow rangers would fight in melee almost as well as they shoot.

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

I understand your points. My point is that the Ranger class shouldn't be the only two-weapon fighting class with two-weapon fighting skills. The other melee classes should have this available to them without having to multi-class into a ranger. Why should the ranger be the ONLY class to be able to attack with two weapons with his powers? Who is to say a ranger is better with weapons than a fighter, a warlord, a paladin, or a rogue? These other classes are martial based as well and should have had some kind of two-weapon fighting powers available to them as well. They have presumably put in as many hours in training with weapons as a ranger has if not more (as classes and martial characters). I'm not "hung up" on a rogue being the only other class to be able to do the two-weapon fighting or getting two attacks in a single round, but if you think of it seriously why the ranger and only the ranger (I say only a ranger since you have to multi-class into ranger to get his abilities).

 

[Danceofmasks]

Sure you can attack with either weapon even if you're not a ranger.
If somehow you get more than 1 attack, you can attack with either in any order.

 

[Dalzig]

Sure you can attack with either weapon even if you're not a ranger.
If somehow you get more than 1 attack, you can attack with either in any order.

Good point. Passing Attack (Fighter 1), Rain of Blows (Fighter 3), Sweeping Blow (Fighter 3), Come and Get it (Fighter 7), etc. can all be used with multiple weapons.

 

[Danceofmasks]

Not with close burst attacks, though.
You get a single damage roll for those.

 

[Dalzig]

Ack, forgot about that...

 

[brainiac4]

Traveon, I think you're getting boxed in by the pre-4E mindset. If you want to be a guy who fights with two weapons and has attacks that use both, you're using the Ranger class. You may call it something else if you want for roleplaying purposes, but the rules framework says you're using a Ranger.

As pointed out above, there's nothing keeping you from using two weapons as another class, but if you start allowing multiple weapon strikes per turn for things that are not power-driven, then you're going to be messing with game balance. If you feel comfortable doing that, go ahead, but be aware that is what you are doing.

Consider this example: In the game I am running, one of the players is running a character who is a former hermit, devout worshipper of Gordo, He Who Smiteth. He could be doing this using Cleric, Paladin, Warlock or another class, depending on how he wants to interact with fight scenes. In the end, he wound up choosing Cleric, but there were other totally valid options -- if he was going to be in the thick of the fighting, he could have chosen Ranger, defining the "hunter's bonus" effect as the Will Of He Who Smiteth. Or Fighter, changing the power source from Martial to Divine. Or Warlord, again changing the power source to Divine.

Don't think of the classes as restrictions, think of them as templates for the way character interact with the game. Feel free to change the class title or power source if that makes it work for you.

 

[jimtillman]

I understand your points. My point is that the Ranger class shouldn't be the only two-weapon fighting class with two-weapon fighting skills. The other melee classes should have this available to them without having to multi-class into a ranger. Why should the ranger be the ONLY class to be able to attack with two weapons with his powers? Who is to say a ranger is better with weapons than a fighter, a warlord, a paladin, or a rogue? These other classes are martial based as well and should have had some kind of two-weapon fighting powers available to them as well. They have presumably put in as many hours in training with weapons as a ranger has if not more (as classes and martial characters). I'm not "hung up" on a rogue being the only other class to be able to do the two-weapon fighting or getting two attacks in a single round, but if you think of it seriously why the ranger and only the ranger (I say only a ranger since you have to multi-class into ranger to get his abilities).

I think you are looking at this the wrong way, rangers = fighters that can spec in 2 weapon.
if you want a diffrent class to spec in it they need to multiclass

 

[Gloombunny]

Now from what I understand each round is 6 seconds, I want someone to see how many punches they can throw at a boxing bag in 6 seconds, my guess is that it's many more than only 1 attack, hence the reason I don't care for only rangers having the skill to swing both their weapons in that 6 seconds, hopefully WotC fixes this rule with adding some more powers to other melee classes that allow the two-weapon fighting rule in new manuals that will be released within the next year or so.

Punching bags don't hit back. Get in an actual fight and see how well you do just trying to swing your arms as fast as you can.

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

I guess people just don't get my point that the Ranger class shouldn't be the only class to have the two-weapon fighting powers available to them w/o having to multi-class. I understand about game balance and whatnot, what I'm saying is that the game balance should have been looked at with all melee classes to allow all melee classes to have "powers" to two-weapon fight. The original two-weapon fighting came from fighters/warriors, not rangers. The only reason the ranger class is the only class which has two-weapon fighting is because of Drizzt's popularity as a two-weapon wielding ranger, even though he started out as a two-weapon wielding fighter/warrior of the Drow. Just seems to me that the 4th edition rules creators didn't take this into account. I'll stop here, because I'm just rehashing what I said previously and we all know the "rules" at this point and I know as the DM I can allow what I want or what I don't want and homebrew stuff.