Duelist, Versatile, and 1H martial weapons - an overhaul

[Demonic Spoon]

The Versatile Weapons thread resulted in TheDeadlyShoe and I getting into a long, ranting discussion about various things related to the topic, and we came up with a small set of houserules to:

A. Make the Duelist fighting style feel more like a duelist
B. Provide a larger benefit to using a Versatile weapon (sort of. It's still not that strong of a trait)
C. Differentiate sword-and-board fighters more from great weapon fighters in playstyle
D. Provide an incentive for using the d8 versatile weapons rather than just maxing DEX and using a rapier.
E. Allow for the rapier-and-dagger-for-parrying archetype to exist. Many people have commented that this was a major use of TWF historically.


The changes:

1. The d8 martial weapons - that is, Warhammer, Longsword, and Battleaxe, war pick and others - now have base d10 damage.
2. The dueling fighting style no longer exists in its current form. Instead, the Duelist fighting style is replaced by the benefits Defensive Duelist feat, minus the requirement for the weapon to be a Finesse weapon.

Potential downsides:

-For classes that don't get GWF style, the battleaxe is basically equivalent to the greataxe.
-Sword-and-board fighters do slightly less damage and instead get defensive benefits. I consider this a benefit, but some people may not like this.
-Dex-based rapier fighters do notably less damage in exchange for defensive benefits. I personally consider this an upside and it seems more thematic and balanced, but some probably don't like it
-The Defensive Duelist feat no longer really exists, so a rapier-fighter that gets Duelist style couldn't make use of it. Said fighter could still grab Defense or Protection style and get it, though.

[Regulas]

The whole reason you would use a smaller "two-handed" weapon instead of a big one is because you have much better control over the weapon so it should probably get some kind of bonus like that. (such as more consistent damage dice, or a bonus to attack rolls).

For that matter two weapon wielding should give +1 AC/+1 to attacks rolls instead of a bonus attack.

[Easy_Lee]

For that matter two weapon wielding should give +1 AC/+1 to attacks rolls instead of a bonus attack.

For the sake of realism, I agree with this. Really, I feel they kind of messed up with the fighting styles. If we assume +1 AC, +1 damage, and +1 hit are all (kind of) equivalent, it should have been something like this:

Archery: +2 hit (more accurate)
Duelist: +1 AC, +1 damage (harder to hit because you present a smaller target, more power behind your thrusts)
GWF: +1 hit, +1 damage (more control, more power)
DW: +1 AC, +1 hit (more defensive, can use whichever hand has the better angle to hit)

And put bonus damage to offhand attacks and +1str or dex on the Dual Wielder feat so it's actually worth a damn. Because really, a feat called "Dual Wielder" ought to be damned good if it's named after the fighting style.

But alas, I am not a designer.

[Mechaviking]

That looks pretty good to me Easy_Lee

[Kyutaru]

Florentine style didn't have much power behind it. The AC/hit modification is a nice nod in that direction, but the extra attack is essential for combating chance to miss. Since advantage is already so common as a buff or situational usage, I'd say Dual Wielding should actually not grant you an extra attack but allow you to reroll any misses. Stacking with advantage, your odds of successfully striking the enemy improve drastically while dual wielding. Maybe even allow a Riposte or reroll a successful attack against you if you're defending that round.

I consider there to be six types of combat techniques that need to all be individualized.

Archery - Ranged combat is well defined and needs no assistance in being special from melee.
Sword and Board - The most common form of melee has plenty of advantages in being able to equip shield.
Great Weapon - Two-handed strikes are already king of the heavy hits in damage output.
Dual Wielding - My proposed changes are to eliminate the attacks and make this one about accuracy.
Polearm/Double-Weapon - Already offers unique combat variances such as greater reach.
Duelist - Here's where one of the weak links lies due to how awesome shields and offhands can be.

Duelist is easily the worst style here. This one's tricky because more damage means Great Weapon, more defense means Sword and Board, and more accuracy means Two Weapons. Can't give it stuff that the others already do so well. So what do we do? THIS is when you add that extra attack. Allowing Combo strikes. Someone using a single one-handed weapon with no offhand may attack an additional time.

What does this do exactly?

It doesn't reach the damage output of Great Weapon experts. You may get an extra attack but it's at the usually lower 1h martial weapon output with no extra strength bonuses or feat specialties. At higher levels, it begins to pale when your 6 attacks can't deal nearly as much damage as that guy's 5 attacks.

It doesn't reach the defensive capacity of Sword and Board experts. With bounded accuracy that shield makes a real difference. Some players will prefer hiding behind it to swinging an extra time.

It doesn't reach the accuracy of Two Weapon Fighting. Sure, you get an additional attack. But that's a single extra roll. A duel wielder gets the same number of rolls with a single attack but scales up wickedly as he gains attacks and extra actions.

It doesn't reach as far as a Polearm. Combined with how broken the Polearm Master stuff is -- no one's complaining about their halberd being ineffective.

What it does do is spread itself across them all. A little extra damage, a little extra accuracy, a little extra defense, and a little extra reach (with lunging). It's the middle ground option for those who prefer not to specialize or simply can't choose. Jacks of All Trades will love it. Swashbuckling Bards.

[Longcat]

Duelist allows the usage of shields, so I don't see where the problem is honestly.

[Gwendol]

Wasn't the point of (European) dual wielding to either use one weapon for defence and attack the other, or adopt a duelist fighting style and striking with the second weapon when getting a hold? In any case, that's not the sole dual wielding style, and D&D is supposed to cover all with the same ruleset, so I think we can allow some inaccuracies. Sword and board is another form of TWF, as is various Eastern styles (Katana & Wakizashi, dual butterfly sword, stick fighting, dual sai, etc).

[Mechaviking]

From what I´ve seen of dual sword usage(IRL) is that:

A. Your are mobile enough to avoid the hits and quick enough to capitalize on lack of opponent mobility
B. Attacking so much that your opponent can only defend, thus you only wait for him to slip up and then you win (mostly like A but slightly diffirent)

Also focusing on defending with 1 weapon and attacking with the other is a trap since then you are a fighter with a 10% sized shield(IRL)

How to implement this is mostly preference the designers of 5th went with ability modifier to off hand attack
my friend(who´s designing a rpg using 2d6 instead of d20) opted for a free extra attack(no bonus action to use it) meaning you are slightly more mobile or can do 2 attacks(only 1 each round in his system.

Personally I think you should always get an ability modifier on off hand damage rolls and the fighting style would allow you to do the extra attack without having to spend a bonus action but those without the style would have to spend a bonus action.

[Regulas]

Wasn't the point of (European) dual wielding to either use one weapon for defence and attack the other, or adopt a duelist fighting style and striking with the second weapon when getting a hold? In any case, that's not the sole dual wielding style, and D&D is supposed to cover all with the same ruleset, so I think we can allow some inaccuracies. Sword and board is another form of TWF, as is various Eastern styles (Katana & Wakizashi, dual butterfly sword, stick fighting, dual sai, etc).


The basic principle of all dual-wielding styles are generally the same. You have 1 body no matter how many arms, and you use your whole body to make an attack with any speed or strength meaning that you don't attack any faster/more by having two weapons.

What dual wielding does is give you added melee defense, and if you've trained for it can make it easier to strike targets because you can more readily attack from different positions and angles as well as giving your opponent more points to watch (an example might be parrying his weapon with one of yours and then striking with the other while you've bound his weapon). This is the basic principle behind any style whether it's Miyamoto's dual Katana style, european fencing, of chinese martial arts.

Aside from the fact that's it's benefits arn't vast, the biggest reason it wasn't popular historically outside of dueling is because of arrows. In a battle you would much rather have the protection from arrow fire offered by a shield then anything else

[Gwendol]

That coupled with the fact that shields were used for both offence and defence as well.

[odigity]

Personally I think you should always get an ability modifier on off hand damage rolls and the fighting style would allow you to do the extra attack without having to spend a bonus action but those without the style would have to spend a bonus action.

That'd be awesome. You shouldn't have to spend your bonus action to achieve your basic fighting style -- you're already trading away 2 points of AC (shield) and/or superior 2H/1H-non-light weapon damage for that one extra attack. Having your bonus action back means you can use it on Cunning Action or Ki or quickened spell...

[Easy_Lee]

That'd be awesome. You shouldn't have to spend your bonus action to achieve your basic fighting style -- you're already trading away 2 points of AC (shield) and/or superior 2H/1H-non-light weapon damage for that one extra attack. Having your bonus action back means you can use it on Cunning Action or Ki or quickened spell...

Giving TWF an extra attack instead of the bonus is a pretty popular house rule. It keeps the damage the same, but allows more variety.

[odigity]

Giving TWF an extra attack instead of the bonus is a pretty popular house rule. It keeps the damage the same, but allows more variety.

Is everyone here sure that's balanced? If so, does that mean that TWF by RAW is sub-optimal?

It's a cool houserule, but because it asks for more power without giving anything away, it can still be a tough sell for some DMs...

[Easy_Lee]

Is everyone here sure that's balanced? If so, does that mean that TWF by RAW is sub-optimal?

It's a cool houserule, but because it asks for more power without giving anything away, it can still be a tough sell for some DMs...

As usual, not everyone is convinced. Some feel DW is strong enough, others that the change is not enough.

It's hard to say, because people are biased. Quite a few people here hate dual wield, think it's dumb, and won't be happy until dual wielders do less damage than a wizard swinging a wet noodle. Others think DW is the end-all, be-all of weeaboo fightan and think it ought to grant an extra hit per attack (presumably you swing both weapons at once).

I personally think the free extra attack, no bonus attack option is balanced. But without some kind of buff, even a small one, there's little reason to DW as a fighter.

[Demonic Spoon]

I'm concerned that a lot of the DPS calculations that make people tout the disadvantages of TWF fail to take into account the fact that its nearest competitor, Great Weapon Fighting, requires specializing in a less useful attribute (Strength). Circling back around to my OP, one of the goals for the houserule was to give strength-based warriors a meaningful damage advantage over dex-based ones, which I feel is necessary to keep Strength fighting competitive outside of GWF.


Also, I think the smaller changes I suggested in the OP have an advantage over anything else posted in that they are small, easily-understood changes with limited balance implications beyond what I already mentioned.

[odigity]

As usual, not everyone is convinced. Some feel DW is strong enough, others that the change is not enough.

...

I personally think the free extra attack, no bonus attack option is balanced. But without some kind of buff, even a small one, there's little reason to DW as a fighter.

Giving your Fighter 1 a second attack is really, really useful and effective. The real problem is that when you hit level 5 and 11, it doesn't scale, while the GWF are putting more damage out on their N-1 attacks, and the numbers keep shifting in their favor with each Extra Attack. No one has really solved for that. Perhaps you can't without making dual wield over-powered.

[Easy_Lee]

I'm concerned that a lot of the DPS calculations that make people tout the disadvantages of TWF fail to take into account the fact that its nearest competitor, Great Weapon Fighting, requires specializing in a less useful attribute (Strength).

Actually, its closest competitor is dueling rapier + shield. DW has the edge early on, but the shield user can pick up shield master for bonus action pushing, better Dex saves and half-evasion.

At 11, assuming 20 Dex:
DW = 4*(1d6+5)=34, 38 with DW feat
Dueling=3*(1d8+2+5)=34.5 + bonus action shove + 2 AC + Half-evasion

That's the problem with dual wield.

[Demonic Spoon]

That's true, dueling is problematic, because it puts 1h DPR very close to 2H DPR. That is also solved by the suggestions in my OP by removing it in its current form.

[Regulas]

That's true, dueling is problematic, because it puts 1h DPR very close to 2H DPR. That is also solved by the suggestions in my OP by removing it in its current form.

Unless dueling required your off-hand to be empty?

[Kyutaru]

Unless dueling required your off-hand to be empty?

And now you're heading towards the basis for my suggestions. :smallsmile: