Should two weapon fighting give more?

[Devronq]

I was thinking about the twf fighting feats and i agree that they should give more but i also dont think they should just give all of there effects in one feat. So what if instead you just gave the other twf types feats for free. So all the twf feats that i know of are twf, imp twf, greater twf and perfect twf. Then the others are all the two weapon defence feats, double hit, two weapon pounce and two weapon rend. So lets incorporate all those feats into one and we have this.

Prerequisite: Dex 15
This feat improves your offensive and defensive abilities when two weapon fighting. Your penalties for two weapon fighting lessen by 2 for your main hand and 6 for your offhand. You also gain a +1 shield bonus to as long as you are holding both weapons. If you are using a double weapon you only need to hold it in a way that you can two weapon fight. Having extra arms and thus extra ways to two weapon fight does not grant you extra shield bonuses to ac.
You gain the benefits of the double hit feat.

Improved two weapon fighting
Prerequisite: Dex 17, two weapon fighting, BAB+6
This feat grants you a second attack per round with your offhand at a -5 penalty. Your shield bonus to ac increases to +2.
you gain the benefits of the two weapon pounce feat.

Greater two weapon fighting
Prerequisite: Dex 19, two weapon fighting, improved two weapon fighting, BAB+11
This feat grants your third attack per round with your offhand at a -10 penalty. Your shield bonus to ac increases to +3.
You gain the benefits of the two weapon rend feat

Perfect two weapon fighting (prerequisites owered to make it available at 16th level instead of epic)
Prerequisite: Dex21, two weapon fighting, improved two weapon fighting, greater two weapon fighting, BAB+16
This feat grants you a final and forth attack per round with your offhand at a -15 penalty. Your shield bonus to ac increases to +4.
Since there is no other feat i can think of to give lets go with,
Your penalties for two weapon fighting when your off hand is light go to zero.

would this make the feats feel less of a tax or are the abilities granted not good enough to really matter any?

[Krobar]

That's sort of similar to what we did. We rolled the two-weapon defense feats into their corresponding two-weapon fighting feats, but instead of granting even more abilities (double hit, rend, pounce), we eliminated the penalties for fighting with two weapons.

[eggynack]

I'd probably skip the part where I try to roll everything having to do with TWF into the actual TWF line. It just seems like a messy fix, because many of these abilities are basically unrelated. Instead, you may want to consider getting rid of everything in the TWF line, except for TWF. At the correct points in the iterative progression, the feat would give you ITWF, GTWF, and I guess PTWF when you hit epic. That way, a TWF character would have the ability to choose his progression. It's a pretty common fix by my understanding. .

[Seharvepernfan]

One of the things I did in my houserules: Power attack, combat expertise, mounted combat, parry, riposte, weapon finesse, and two weapon fighting/improved/greater/superior are now combat options with prerequisites, not feats. PBS is still a feat, but no longer a prerequisite for other archery feats
(this means if you have at least 13 str, you have power attack for free – 15 dex, you have TWF for free, and so on)

[yougi]

One of the things I did in my houserules: Power attack, combat expertise, mounted combat, parry, riposte, weapon finesse, and two weapon fighting/improved/greater/superior are now combat options with prerequisites, not feats. PBS is still a feat, but no longer a prerequisite for other archery feats
(this means if you have at least 13 str, you have power attack for free – 15 dex, you have TWF for free, and so on)

I also give TWF as a free feat. Even without costing feats, TWF is inferior to THF in every way, except for a Rogue or some other character with lots of bonus damage per attack. And, worst case scenario, you're just giving melee the ability to invest their feats in something else.

[JusticeZero]

I just give the TWF line for free. Still on the fence what to do for X and Board types though. They can invest in the tricks themself.

[Namfuak]

I just give the TWF line for free. Still on the fence what to do for X and Board types though. They can invest in the tricks themself.

I think the first step is making shield bonuses relevant. My first thought would be a feat that allows you to double your base shield bonus every time you gain an iterative attack, to keep shield bonuses themselves relevant. Another one that gave you 5% per 5 shield AC miss chance (fluffed as blocking) would be nice. Already there are ways to add shield bonus to touch AC, I don't remember how easy they are to acquire but if someone in my group was interested in sword and board I'd be willing to do a bit of research. Other possibilities might be things like countercharging (charging an enemy who melees an ally, perhaps with a chance to take the attack for the ally) and other ways for shield users to taunt or otherwise force enemies to pay attention to them.

[Seharvepernfan]

For X and Board, I came up with this: Parry
Pre: Bab +1
Benefit: Whenever you are targeted by anything that requires an attack roll that isn't a touch (melee or ranged) attack, you can expend an attack of opportunity to try to parry the attack. This functions as an opposed attack roll. You must declare that you are parrying before you know the result of their attack roll. If your attack roll is higher than theirs, you negate their attack. You cannot make more parries in any one round than you have attacks in a full attack action. Your first parry in a round uses your full attack bonus, the second uses your first iterative attack bonus, and so on. Unless you can make more than one AoO in a given round, you may only parry one attack. Each parry requires an AoO.

If you are fighting with two weapons, you may parry with one or both, at your discretion. Regardless, you can only make as many parry attempts with either weapon as you have attacks with either weapon. For instance, if you have two attacks with your main-hand weapon and one attack with your off-hand weapon, you can only make one parry with your off-hand weapon, two with your main-hand weapon, or three if you parry one attack with your off-hand weapon and another two with your main-hand weapon.

For each size category difference between the weapon used for parrying and the weapon being parried, you suffer a -2 penalty to your parry roll (shields are considered one size larger or smaller for this purpose, if beneficial). In regards to projectile weapons, use the size of the ammunition. In regards to natural weapons, a secondary natural weapon is considered one-handed for a creature of that size, and a primary natural weapon is considered two-handed for a creature of that size. If your opponent is using power attack, you take a penalty to your parry roll equal to the bonus damage the opponent receives from power attack (if you are parrying with a shield or two handed weapon, this penalty is halved, round down, minimum 1).

If you are two weapon fighting with a shield via improved shield bash and you use your shield to make a parry, you gain its armor class shield bonus (but not its armor class enhancement bonus, if any) to your attack roll (in addition to any MW or enhancement bonus to attack rolls from the weapon aspect of the shield), and you lower the two weapon fighting penalty of the shield by two. You cannot use a currently animated animating shield to parry.

If you are using combat expertise and/or fighting defensively, you gain the bonus to armor class to your parry roll (but the attack penalty to any ripostes you make). You can parry while taking a total defense action, and you gain the AC bonus to your parry rolls, but you cannot make any ripostes or attacks while doing so.

You can only make one parry attempt for each enemy attack roll. You have to be aware of an attack to parry it. You can parry flat-footed if you have combat reflexes, as long as you are aware of the attack.

For every parry attempt you make with a given weapon, you suffer a cumulative -2 penalty to all attacks made with that weapon (but not further parries) until the end your next turn.


Improved Parry
Pre: Parry
Benefit: The weapon you parry with is treated as being a size category larger or smaller if this is beneficial to you for parrying.

Riposte
Pre: Parry, Combat Reflexes
Benefit: Whenever you parry an attack, you can expend another AoO and attack your attacker at the same attack bonus as the parry roll. If you are parrying while two weapon fighting, you riposte with whichever weapon you didn’t parry with and use the attacking weapons attack bonus. You cannot make a riposte on your turn.


Note that rangers in my rules who select TWF style can use it, without dex, even while wearing heavy armor, with only a one-level dip.

Also, I'm working on a feat that lets you use the shield's armor enhancement bonus on attack rolls instead of having to enchant the shield as a weapon as well, and I might just make it that way by default. Not sure yet.

The remaining problem is people without high-dex getting enough AoO's to make parrying truly effective. Might fix that with a feat as well, not sure on that either.