PDA

View Full Version : [Feat] Two Weapon Defence (Alternative)



Matthew
2007-01-08, 03:54 PM
An alternative take on Two Weapon Defence



TWO WEAPON DEFENCE [GENERAL]
Prerequisites: Dexterity 13, Base Attack Bonus +1, Two Weapon Fighting.
Benefit: When wielding a double weapon or two weapons (not including natural weapons or unarmed strikes), you gain a +1 Unnamed Bonus to your Armour Class. When you are fighting defensively or using the total defence action, this Unnamed Bonus increases to +2.
Special: A Fighter may select Two-Weapon Defence as one of his Fighter Bonus Feats.



IMPROVED TWO WEAPON DEFENCE [GENERAL]
Prerequisites: Dexterity 15, Base Attack Bonus +6, Two Weapon Fighting, Two Weapon Defence, Improved Two Weapon Fighting.
Benefit: When wielding a double weapon or two weapons (not including natural weapons or unarmed strikes), you gain a +2 Unnamed Bonus to your Armour Class. When you are fighting defensively or using the total defence action, this Unnamed Bonus increases to +4.
Special: A Fighter may select Improved Two-Weapon Defence as one of his Fighter Bonus Feats.



GREATER TWO WEAPON DEFENCE [GENERAL]
Prerequisites: Dexterity 17, Base Attack Bonus +11, Two Weapon Fighting, Two Weapon Defence, Improved Two Weapon Fighting, Improved Two Weapon Defence, Greater Two Weapon Fighting.
Benefit: When wielding a double weapon or two weapons (not including natural weapons or unarmed strikes), you gain a +3 Unnamed Bonus to your Armour Class. When you are fighting defensively or using the total defence action, this Unnamed Bonus increases to +6.
Special: A Fighter may select Greater Two-Weapon Defence as one of his Fighter Bonus Feats.



PERFECT TWO WEAPON DEFENCE [GENERAL]
Prerequisites: Dexterity 19, Base Attack Bonus +16, Two Weapon Fighting, Two Weapon Defence, Improved Two Weapon Fighting, Improved Two Weapon Defence, Greater Two Weapon Fighting, Greater Two Weapon Defence, Perfect Two Weapon fighting.
Benefit: When wielding a double weapon or two weapons (not including natural weapons or unarmed strikes), you gain a +4 Unnamed Bonus to your Armour Class. When you are fighting defensively or using the total defence action, this Unnamed Bonus increases to +8.
Special: A Fighter may select Perfect Two-Weapon Defence as one of his Fighter Bonus Feats.

Proven_Paradox
2007-01-08, 04:43 PM
Just a minor nit-pick; since Improved TWD is a prerequisit for Greater TWD, you don't have to list Improved TWD as a prereq. for Superior TWD, since Greater TWD is a prereq. for Superior. It'd shorten the text for these a bit.

Why does this need to be an unnamed bonus? Since TWF doesn't let you use a shield (as far as I know) why not just let it be a shield bonus as the current feat is written?

Matthew
2007-01-08, 04:46 PM
Okay, I can change that; I just wanted to be explicit.

Well, indeed. This version of Two Weapon Defence will allow you to use a Shield in combination with it, meaning extra utility for Weapon and Shield types (who can and do use Two Weapon Fighting with Improved Shield Bash). It would be a very Feat intensive Tree, though.

Lord Iames Osari
2007-01-09, 10:54 AM
Actually, PP, that's a common practice in feat descriptions. Great Cleave has both Power Attack and Cleave in its prerequisites. I believe the idea is that certain classes can grant you bonus feats that you don't meet the prerequisites of, so listing all the necessary feats of a chain is a way to prevent someone from acquiring a feat they would not otherwise have access to.

Closet_Skeleton
2007-01-09, 11:26 AM
Part of the whole point is that it's a shield bonus, you're using you're weapon as a shield. With all this nonsense about catgirls (I hate it when people on forums use such copy and paste responses) I sometimes feel like I'm the only person who wants my role playing games to make sense.

If you want it to stack you might as well get rid of the whole rules about bonus stacking.

Vik
2007-01-09, 11:44 AM
Part of the whole point is that it's a shield bonus, you're using you're weapon as a shield. Not really. You're using them to parry the blows, which is different - in fact, it could be considered as a dodge bonus.


If you want it to stack you might as well get rid of the whole rules about bonus stacking. Yeah, sure. Don't you feel you're over-reacting to a simple new feat that's meant to make TWF a possible choice for a Fighter ?

Matthew
2007-01-09, 11:54 AM
As Vik says, the idea is to have it stack with Light and Heavy Shields in order to improve Weapon and Shield and Two Weapon Fighting. I was thinking about this, and I think it should be clear that it doesn't work with Bucklers or Tower Shields.

This is not being proposed to remove all stacking, but to allow Two Weapon Defence to stack with Shields. The idea being that this Feat allows a Character with Two Weapons to better use them to improve his Armour Class, why not a Character with a Weapon and Shield? If that makes it overpowered, fair enough, but I would be interested to hear how.

It's an eight Feat Chain that gives:

Fighter 1-5 - +1 Armour Class (+2 Defensive Fighting)
Fighter 6-10 - +2 Armour Class (+4 Defensive Fighting)
Fighter 11-15 - +3 Armour Class (+6 Defensive Fighting)
Fighter 16-20 - +4 Armour Class (+8 Defensive Fighting)

The only real difference is that this eight Feat Chain (nine including Improved Shield Bash) can be used in conjunction with a Heavy Shield (+2-7 AC) or Light Shield (+1-6 AC). It might be worth preventing its use in conjunction with an Animated Shield, but probably not, as if Animated shields are allowed in a campaign then all this does is make Two Weapon Fighting a more reasonable alternative.

Calver
2007-01-09, 11:57 AM
Part of the whole point is that it's a shield bonus, you're using you're weapon as a shield. With all this nonsense about catgirls (I hate it when people on forums use such copy and paste responses) I sometimes feel like I'm the only person who wants my role playing games to make sense.

If you want it to stack you might as well get rid of the whole rules about bonus stacking.


I'd like to disagree with the Bonus from TWD not stacking with a shield. Frankly, it makes no sense at all. By taking TWD you are, in essence, saying, "I can block/parry my opponent's blows with this 1/2 foot long, 2 inch wide, 1/4 inch thick bar of metal (a dagger) just as well as someone can block/parry the same attack with a light shield (which is somewhere around 2 foot diameter, 1 inch thick, and allows you to put more force behind your defense because it uses your whole arm)." The fact that my shieldbasher suddenly becomes stupid and tactically inept the second he straps on that shield is unrealistic. If he is skilled enough to protect himself with (ok, lets go a little more radical) a beer bottle, why can't he use that same knowledge and expertise to better utilize his shield?

So, I appreciate these feats, though I would like to suggest that they provide a deflection (or other kind of bonus) than simply an "unnamed" bonus.

Not sure where the catgirls come in...

Edit: And as I am typing, two more guys get their posts in before me XD.

Matthew
2007-01-10, 01:24 PM
Heh. Any thoughts on an alternative to Unnamed Bonus? I'm thinking a Parry Bonus at this point.

fangthane
2007-01-10, 02:56 PM
With these feats and Improved Buckler Defense, a fighter with two weapons would have an AC higher than a fighter with a one-handed weapon and shield. That's unbalanced, sorry. :) Especially since he can attack with both weapons, doing more base weapon damage, more strength-bonus damage, more specialisation damage, more magical enhancement damage than the sword-and-board guy. And with damage potential (if not the single-hit numbers against DR) similar to a two-hander wielder, there's no way he should have a (relative) +10 AC at level 20. (Buckler+5 and unnamed +4 bonus)

If you do end up rewriting to indicate that buckler bonus doesn't stack, it's a bit expensive to invest in (4 feats for the effect of one, with slightly more flexibility due to defensive action options as compared to Improved Buckler)

If you were to break it down to just two feats, with prerequisites of fighter level 8th and fighter level 16th, granting a +2 AC (+4 defensive) while using a weapon for which they already have focus and spec (or greater/greater) that'd seem better balanced; it'd also allow other fighters to raise their AC 4 points at the cost of two feats and prevent their being eclipsed by two-weapon fighters who'd otherwise be superior. If you want to tweak two-weapon up a bit, you might consider giving them a bit of a boost (i.e. an additional +1 from the first feat but not the second, granting them +3/+5 and +5/+9 respectively)

Also, as an unnamed bonus it's not clear whether the AC adds to touch AC or not; my presumption would be that it most certainly would not affect flatfooted AC rolls, nor for that matter any roll for which the character is unable to effectively wield either of his two weapons - but touch could be argued either way. I'd tend to call it a parry bonus and call it effective against melee touches but not ranged touch (unless you want to allow people to intercept a Disintegrate with a shortsword and sacrifice the item to save their skin)

Matthew
2007-01-10, 03:16 PM
Yeah, Buckler and Tower shields are out, just haven't got round to reposting the Feat entries. I only remembered the Buckler cheese late on. I would probably remove Bucklers entirely from D&D, given the chance.

Balance issues regarding Two Weapon, Single Weapon and Two Weapon Fighters I will address on the Weapon Mastery Feat at some point. Two Handed Fighters sacrifice Armour Class for Damage, but annoyingly the Animated Shield Cheese removes this disability. I think this might go some way towards redressing the balance.

Yeah, I think a Parry Bonus sounds good (though I have encountered opposition before about adding another Modifier Type). Currently, the Two Weapon Defence Feat is Shield Armour Bonus, but I would be glad to see that advantage disappear. In short, Parry will not grant any Bonuses against Touch Attacks or when Flat Footed.

Saying that, I rather like the idea of a Shield being able to intercept a Disintegrate Ray.

Ultimatum479
2007-01-10, 04:52 PM
I'm with Closet Skeleton. You're already using your weapon as a shield when you parry. It's a completely different motion to move your arm to block with a shield and to move your arm to parry an attack. Trying to do both at once would require speed that a Hasted character would envy. "D'oh, I missed parrying him with my sword. Hold up! Lemme move my arm allllllll the way back into position to try blocking with my shield now, all before his attack lands."

Really, I think the Two-Weapon Defense feat should be scrapped altogether and real parrying should be introduced into D&D. Certain weapons would be more effective at parrying, feats could improve parrying, and wielding two weapons with the Two-Weapon Fighting feat would give you maybe half the parrying bonus for each weapon, eventually reaching the full parrying bonus for each weapon with Greater Two-Weapon Fighting. Parrying is a major part of all weapon fights. Even characters with a shield and a one-handed weapon don't rely on the shield to block _everything_.

I'll think more about the mechanics of such a system later. Busy now. I'll try to post it here when I get around to it.

Matthew
2007-01-10, 05:39 PM
Well, there was quite a lot of discussion about that on a Two Weapon Fighting Thread over on the Gaming Board. It's not too difficult to put into action at all, but it will change D&D combat significantly.

With regards to Two Weapon Defence.

If you use Two Weapons over Weapon and Shield you are at a defensive disadvantage. End of story.

In D&D, however, all a Shield grants is +1 to +2 Armour Class before Magic. Through Two Weapon Defence you can gain exactly the same Shield Bonus.
Given that Two Weapon Fighting works with Weapon and Shield, the same logic should apply to Two Weapon Defence [i.e. a character should be able to learn how to use his Shield and Weapon in combination better to defend]. Hence the logic of making this Feat Chain stack with the ordinary Shield Bonus. Logically it makes sense and mechanically it makes sense (especially when a Two Weapon Fighter gets an Animated Shield, but apparently cannot use Two Weapon Defence in combination with it), meanwhile the Two Handed Fighter is Power Attacking away...