D&D General What is two weapon fighting good for?

[Paul Farquhar]

I dual weld bats when playing table tennis.

 

[Olrox17]

Does Dual-Wielding = Double Damage?

It came up again: a PC with two weapons wants to do two-times the damage. This time, I didn't think about the rules-answer, I wondered about the real life answer. Is someone twice as likely to die when getting jumped by a thug with two knives? Twice as likely to get cut? What if the victim...

www.enworld.org

In case you missed it.

That was an extremely useful read, thank you. Based on the posts there, some of them coming from posters that seem to have fencing experience, I may pivot my HR from being defense/AoE based to being defense/feinting based.

 

[Stormonu]

Playing as a rogue in 5E and using 2 weapons I find that this style isn't so much about an increase in damage, but more consistently landing a blow (Advantage with perks). After all, rogue only gets to apply sneak attack 1x/round, so having that off-hand attack makes it more likely to land a SA blow (especially if you aren't using flanking rules).

I wouldn't mind seeing TWF allowing you to use the bonus action to make a single attack OR to allow you to use the Dodge action as a bonus action (where you're using the weapon defensively). If that's too powerful, maybe use the bonus action to give +2 AC (like an inferior shield) until the start of your next turn. Perhaps Two-Weapon Mastery would allow you to do both as a single bonus action.

(And why the hell do you need Dual Wielder to draw both weapons at once - that's something I did not know existed until I just looked the feat up and is absolutely stupid and punishing)

 

[Corinnguard]

And why the hell do you need Dual Wielder to draw both weapons at once - that's something I did not existed until I just looked the feat up and is absolutely stupid and punishing

I think it costs you a bonus action to draw one weapon or to change out your weapons (ex. switching out a longbow for a melee weapon). Since feats are a form of special training, taking up Dual Wielder means that you practiced drawing out both weapons at the same time.

Mind you, this particular aspect of Dual-wielding depends on whether or not your DM is a stickler for rules.

 

[Oofta]

I think it costs you a bonus action to draw one weapon or to change out your weapons (ex. switching out a longbow for a melee weapon). Since feats are a form of special training, taking up Dual Wielder means that you practiced drawing out both weapons at the same time.

Mind you, this particular aspect of Dual-wielding depends on whether or not your DM is a stickler for rules.

You have one no-action object interaction which can include drawing a weapon. Drawing a second weapon becomes a full action unless you have the Thief subclass and Fast Hands in which case you get an Object Interaction as a bonus action. Of course there's no reason to do that because you can no longer attack anyway. Wait until the next round to draw that off-hand weapon.

A lot of DMs will ignore this because it's a silly rule. An archer can pull as many arrows as they have attacks in a round, but somehow pulling a dagger is impossible?

 

[MarkB]

You have one no-action object interaction which can include drawing a weapon. Drawing a second weapon becomes a full action unless you have the Thief subclass and Fast Hands in which case you get an Object Interaction as a bonus action. Of course there's no reason to do that because you can no longer attack anyway. Wait until the next round to draw that off-hand weapon.

A lot of DMs will ignore this because it's a silly rule. An archer can pull as many arrows as they have attacks in a round, but somehow pulling a dagger is impossible?

As I recall, this is something that's being worked on in the playtest rules, as is the requirement to use a bonus action to get your offhand attack, so we could see some improvements there.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Playing as a rogue in 5E and using 2 weapons I find that this style isn't so much about an increase in damage, but more consistently landing a blow (Advantage with perks). After all, rogue only gets to apply sneak attack 1x/round, so having that off-hand attack makes it more likely to land a SA blow (especially if you aren't using flanking rules).

My son plays a dual-wielding swashbuckler rogue in part for this reason. (The rest of the reason is that Assassin's Creed is cool.)

 

[Olrox17]

The tremendous synergy between TWF and sneak attack is well known and I don’t think anyone will ever dispute it.
I’m more doubtful about the usefulness of TWF for everybody else, especially past 5th level. It just doesn’t scale well with extra attacks, and it eating a bonus action every round becomes more cumbersome at higher levels.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The tremendous synergy between TWF and sneak attack is well known and I don’t think anyone will ever dispute it.
I’m more doubtful about the usefulness of TWF for everybody else, especially past 5th level. It just doesn’t scale well with extra attacks, and it eating a bonus action every round becomes more cumbersome at higher levels.

Honestly, except for the folks who want to emulate their Diablo barbarians, that's probably OK, IMO.

I'm not sure every combat option has to make sense for every character, even martial characters.

Better archery rules would likely matter only to certain martial types, for instance, but that doesn't mean they aren't worthwhile.

 

[JAMUMU]

I think context is important here, especially when we're dealing with the hyper-realism of D&D.

AS others have said, there were definitely historical styles that used a short and long weapon, though they weren't as popular as long weapon+shield. Scottish Highlanders fought with backsword and bashing shield, with a dirk held point-down in the shield hand just in case the opportunity for an off-hand stab came up. Not common on a glocal scale, but very effective.

My ex was taught double-sabre in China by an elderly master. He saw her messing around with two weapons cos she loves anime, and called her over. She thought she'd get into trouble. But no, he revealed there were rare two-weapon forms, and he taught her a solo form, and double-sabre vs spear. At the end of the two-person form, the dual-wielder gets killed. Take that as you will.

Now, knife-fighters dual-wielding is a different story. Someone with a knife in each hand that's well-trained and experienced with dual-wielding is definitely dangerous. Double-damage dangerous? Well, with D&D's scientific 1d4 damage for a knife, I'd be inclined to allow double-damage.