Gwendol
2012-04-05, 02:22 PM
Since the topic of TWF has come up a few times lately it might be useful to explain the rules around it a little better than does the PHB.
Basically, this is what the numbers look like:
You suffer a -6 penalty with your regular attack or attacks with your primary hand and a -10 penalty to the attack with your off hand when you fight this way. You can reduce these penalties in two ways:
•If your off-hand weapon is light, the penalties are reduced by 2 each. (An unarmed strike is always considered light.)
•The Two-Weapon Fighting feat lessens the primary hand penalty by 2, and the off-hand penalty by 6.
What the rules don't say here is that an off-hand attack always suffers a -4 penalty to the attack roll, which thus means that the penalty for attacking at least once with both "hands" (since an off-hand attack can also be e.g. an armor spike) in a round is -6 for all attacks in that round (unless the off-hand weapon is light).
Now we see that what the TWF feat really does is removing the -4 penalty to the attack roll of the off-hand attack, in addition to reducing the overall penalty for attacking using both "hands" in the same round with 2.
Basically, this is what the numbers look like:
You suffer a -6 penalty with your regular attack or attacks with your primary hand and a -10 penalty to the attack with your off hand when you fight this way. You can reduce these penalties in two ways:
•If your off-hand weapon is light, the penalties are reduced by 2 each. (An unarmed strike is always considered light.)
•The Two-Weapon Fighting feat lessens the primary hand penalty by 2, and the off-hand penalty by 6.
What the rules don't say here is that an off-hand attack always suffers a -4 penalty to the attack roll, which thus means that the penalty for attacking at least once with both "hands" (since an off-hand attack can also be e.g. an armor spike) in a round is -6 for all attacks in that round (unless the off-hand weapon is light).
Now we see that what the TWF feat really does is removing the -4 penalty to the attack roll of the off-hand attack, in addition to reducing the overall penalty for attacking using both "hands" in the same round with 2.