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View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next Two-Weapon Fighting fix (4th time's a charm...)



Revlid
2016-07-06, 11:32 AM
Okay, so it’s time for my first second third fourth bit of D&D homebrew ever. I've been futzing around with game systems for a while, but I was only introduced to D&D 5e last week. I spent a few hours playing around with martial classes, during which I noticed two-weapon fighting had a problem with really, really badly diminishing returns. I've shuffled my original reasoning all the way down to the bottom of the post, but basically - two-weapon fighting starts out fine, but quickly becomes pretty bad for Fighters, Paladins, Rogues, Beast Master Rangers, Berserker Barbarians and Bards. Its fighting style does nothing to help with its problems.

So, with all that in mind, here’s my revised fix. It's a change to the two-weapon fighting rules, plus the relevant feat and fighting style, and a slight addition to class features for the Rogue and Barbarian, both of whom are iconic dual-wielders but don't or shouldn't get the fighting style.

I aimed to bypass the whole damage problem laid out in the original reasoning by limiting it to non-damage applications, making the two-weapon fighter someone who focuses more on battlefield control than raw damage, with the help of the disarm/shove/mark rules laid down in the DMG. This should a) fix the problem of scaling with Extra Attacks while a1) not blowing up in the face of proc-on-hit effects and a2) preserving the feel of a two-weapon fighter and a3) using existing mechanical principles. It should also b) fix the problem of eating up valuable bonus attacks for dedicated two-weapon fighters while b1) not ****ing too badly with the Swashbuckler Rogue or multiclassers.

Let me know what you think!

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Two-Weapon Fighting (Core Rule)
If you are wielding two one-handed melee weapons with the light property, you are two-weapon fighting. Whenever you make a melee attack on your turn while two-weapon fighting, you may use a bonus action to perform one of the following actions, targeting a creature within reach. These are called “off-hand blows”, and use the combat options described on page 271-272 of the Dungeon Master's Guide.

You may mark any one creature. A creature can only be marked once at a time.
You may perform a disarm attack.
You may perform a shove attack.


Two-Weapon Fighting (Fighting Style – now also available to Paladins)
You no longer need to use a bonus action to perform an off-hand blow when engaged in two-weapon fighting, though you can still only perform one per melee attack.

Cunning Action (Rogue Class Feature)
Starting at 2nd level, your quick thinking and agility allow you to move and act quickly. You can take a bonus action on each of your turns in combat. This action can be used only to take the Dash, Disengage, Hide or Tumble action. You gain an additional option when you use a bonus action to make an off-hand blow, which allows you to double your ability modifier when rolling for damage on the original attack.

Reckless Attack (Barbarian Class Feature)
Starting at 2nd level, you can throw aside all concern for defense to attack with fierce desperation. When you make your first attack on your turn, you can decide to attack recklessly. Doing so gives you advantage on melee weapon attack rolls using Strength during this turn, but attack rolls against you have advantage until your next turn. You gain an additional option when you use a bonus action to make an off-hand blow in rage, which allows you to double your ability modifier when rolling for damage on all reckless attacks this turn.

Dual Wielder (Feat)
Seen by some as a frenzied dervish and by others as a graceful master of flashing blades, you've thoroughly trained in the art of fighting with two weapons at once. You gain the following benefits:

Increase your Dexterity score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
You can draw or stow a one-handed weapon in half the time, letting you draw two weapons (or stow one and draw another) when you would normally be able to draw or stow only one.
You can engage in two-weapon fighting even when the one-handed melee weapons you’re wielding aren't light. Your off-hand blow must still be performed with a light weapon.
When you are engaged in two-weapon fighting, you can spend a bonus action to treat one of your weapons as a light shield for that round. It still functions as a weapon for all purposes.




If you are wielding two melee weapons, you can engage in two-weapon fighting.
These melee weapons must be light and one-handed.
If you Attack while you are two-weapon fighting, you can use your bonus action to make another attack, which must use your other weapon.
You do not add your Ability modifier to this other attack.
You can attack a different target, or perform another action (free action, action surge) before you use this bonus action.

So two-weapon fighting is initially a very square deal. You sacrifice:

Extra damage from a non-light weapon
Extra extra damage from a two-handed weapon
Extra AC from a shield
A bonus action


In exchange for:

Extra damage from an extra attack
Extra opportunity to hit with an extra attack


This isn’t a bad trade! The most damaging light one-handed weapons in the game deal 1d6 damage, while a two-handed heavy weapon deals 1d12/2d6 damage – so you’re giving up a bonus action to deal the same average damage as a greatsword-wielding knight, while probably using Dexterity instead of Strength and giving you two chances to hit. The shield guy’s more difficult to compare, but let’s set him aside for now.

Taking the Two-Weapon Fighting style as a Fighter or Ranger even lets you add your Ability modifier to the second attack, pushing it above the greatsword-wielder… although at that point they’ll have Great Weapon Fighting and be dealing more damage themselves, and the shield guy has Defense or Dueling. Whatever. We’ll leave this out and assume it equalizes, because the math on Great Weapon Fighting is too involved for my puny brain to put out on a forum post.

The problem comes in two forms.

Extra Attack
Bonus Actions


Extra Attack comes in at level 5 for Fighters, Paladins and Rangers, and it cuts the relative usefulness of Two-Weapon Fighting in half, because now the greatweapon guy is popping out 2d12+(Mod x 2) or 4d6+(Mod x 2) damage per turn with two attacks, and you can push out 3d6+(Mod x 2) damage per turn. You’re both specced for damage over defense, and you’re already doing worse than him! That’s where it stops for Rangers and Paladins, and thank god for that.

For Fighters, it gets worse, because they get Extra Attack again, later on. And again, and again, and again. At 11th level, the greatweapon guy is doing 6d6+(Mod x 3) damage per turn, and you’re stuck at 4d6+(Mod x 3). Why even bother? It’ll get even worse later on. Hell, the one-handing guy with the shield is looking better than you – if you both have your relevant Fighting Styles, he’s doing 3d8+(Mod x 3)+6. And he gets a shield.

It’s actually even worse than that, because here we hit the second point – bonus actions. When you start off, this is a non-sacrifice, because there’s nothing else you can really do with bonus actions… but as you proceed through your Class levels, you get quite a few things you can do.

As a Fighter, you get to use your bonus action to take an Action Surge once per short rest. Paladins and Rangers can use their bonus actions on certain Spells like Divine Favour and Hunter’s Mark, as can Eldritch Knights and similar Archetypes/Multiclass options. Rogues don’t get Extra Attacks, which keeps two-weapon fighting competitive, but their bonus action is occupied by Cunning Action, which lets them dart around and hide.

You can’t use your two-weapon fighting if you’re doing any of these things. So you start off pretty balanced, and then grow badly. The stuff two-weapon fighting sacrifices becomes more valuable, the stuff it offers becomes less so. Diminishing returns in effect.

The relevant Fighting Style doesn’t help at all with this. It just lets you add your Ability modifier to the second attack, so it’s basically a trap once you move past 5th level. Even the relevant feat, Dual Wielder, is absolutely pathetic – you get +1AC, which is less than the shield you’re giving up, along with the ability to use non-light weapons to change your d6 to a d8 if you don’t mind looking a bit stupid. And that costs a feat – other people get those too, y’know.

Let me explain my reasoning more fully, from the start: Two-Weapon Fighting in 5e starts out fine. You are effectively getting greatweapon damage in exchange for a bonus action – with the benefit that you're splitting your damage potential across two attacks, which lets you target multiple enemies, use "activates on hit" powers more frequently, increase your odds of hitting with at least one attack, and, yes do things like grappling and shoving people.

There are two problems, which mostly come about when you level up, and are pretty different depending on which class you're playing.
1) Extra Attacks. All sources of Extra Attacks devalue Two-Weapon Fighting, because Two-Weapon Fighting does not scale with it. This is a particular problem for Fighters (and Hunter Rangers), who get loads of Extra Attacks and access to features that work well with single weapons of any size.
2) Bonus Action Cost. All features and spells which use a Bonus Action are in direct competition with Two-Weapon Fighting, because Two-Weapon Fighting consumes a Bonus Action. This is a particular problem for... Everyone In The Core Other Than Champion Fighters and Hunter Rangers.

Note that multiclassing – and a ****ing pox on multiclassing in a world where Archetypes exist, seriously – means that it's difficult to address these problems class-by-class.

With that in mind, what can't the fix be?

1) The fix cannot be that Two-Weapon Fighting gives you even more Extra Attacks, because that doesn't solve the Bonus Action problem for Other Classes, but does boost the effectiveness of too many effects that do not fall under the aegis of the class. At 11th level, a greatsword Fighter gets 3 2d6 attacks and a two-weapon Fighter gets 6 1d6 attacks? Well and good, except the two-weapon guy has a magic poison dagger. Hope you enjoy making twice as many Con checks!

2) The fix cannot be that it doesn't cost a Bonus Action, because while that's useful for everyone else, it does very little for many Fighters, who are the Class that suffer most from the proliferation of Extra Attacks. It also undermines the Swashbuckler Archetype, because being able to combine Disengage and Two-Weapon Fighting is that Archetype's first signature feature, so ideally we don't give it to any Rogue who dips a level into Fighter (or vice versa, ****ing multiclassing).

3) The fix cannot be advantage, because there are many other sources of attack advantage and it doesn't stack at all, so you're just invalidating other, probably more interesting powers in favour of boosted accuracy for your attack flurry.

4) The fix can be extra damage on existing attacks. This has no mechanical issues. It is, however, boring as hell – not to mention, it eliminates all the things that make dual-wielding interesting and distinct to begin with. The ability to attack multiple opponents, the increased hit chance, the sense of a deadly flurry...

Final Hyena
2016-07-06, 12:28 PM
The first means that Rogues get to use the thematically-appropriate two-dagger setup without necessarily losing out
Short swords are still better.


Two-Weapon Fighting (Fighting Style – now also available to Paladins)
When you engage in two-weapon fighting, you add your ability modifier to the damage of every weapon attack you make each turn, except the first. This stacks with any ability modifier you would normally add.
This does mathematically help things when you factor in extra attack, but it's kind of awkward. What used to be an option to attack with an offhand after all other attacks are exhausted, now you have to commit to it earlier in your turn.


Dual Wielder (Feat)
You master fighting with two weapons, gaining the following benefits:

You can draw or stow two one-handed weapons when you would normally be able to draw or stow only one.
You can use two-weapon fighting even if one of the one-handed melee weapons you’re wielding isn’t light.
When you are wielding a separate melee weapon in each hand, you may treat one of these weapons as a light shield for that turn. If you do so, you do not receive the other benefits of two-weapon fighting.

Ignoring the last point (because of the reason below) it's rather weak.
The third point is potentially cheeseable as it's based on a turn not a round, just use it on every one else's turn, given the text;

If you do so, you do not receive the other benefits of two-weapon fighting.
I thought that was unintentional.

Revlid
2016-07-06, 01:49 PM
Short swords are still better.Hah, yeah, but I can't do anything about that.


This does mathematically help things when you factor in extra attack, but it's kind of awkward. What used to be an option to attack with an offhand after all other attacks are exhausted, now you have to commit to it earlier in your turn.
Ah, I see my mistake. My intent was that "engage in two-weapon fighting" mean "hold two light one-handed melee weapons in either hand". This meant that you could benefit from this Fighting Style without even spending a bonus action on the off-hand attack. Unfortunately, it seems I came up with that definition off the top of my head.

Thank you very much for the prompt and insightful feedback, by the way – unfortunately, I've swapped out this fix for another version, since my math was off by... quite a bit. Revised and expanded math has been included in the original, edited post.

The new fix is less simple, gets ****ed up badly once magic items are in play, and destroys the Rogue fix. I feel less optimistic about it with every passing moment. Still, it does give dual-wielders an interesting tactical choice re: bonus actions.


Ignoring the last point (because of the reason below) it's rather weak.
That last point was my error, yes – and yes, it's very weak even taking that into consideration with the new version. I'm not sure what to do with it, to be honest. I will likely compare it to some other weapon-type feats, but we'll see.

Amechra
2016-07-06, 02:05 PM
Maybe tweak Extra Attack so that it gives a +2 bonus to damage for your off-hand attacks as well? That actually compares relatively well.

That turns the 11th level, 20 Str/Dex, Appropriate Fighting Style, Extra Attack x2 numbers into...
6d6+15 (reroll 1s and 2s) vs. 4d6 + 24.

That gives you a range of 21-51 (weighted towards the mid-to-high numbers) vs. a range of 28 to 48 (unweighted). Close enough, given that missing on one attack hurts the two-hander more than the two-weapon guy.

Increasing it to +3 might make them closer, and would give you a range of 21-51 (weighted towards the high end) vs. 30 to 50.

Though it makes the off-hand weapon oddly more damaging than the rest of the attacks. Hmm...

Maybe just deal that damage if you hit with a weapon in your main hand and your off hand? Turn it into 1d6 damage per extra main hand attack, like how 3.5 handled Rend?

Final Hyena
2016-07-06, 02:33 PM
Two-Weapon Fighting (Fighting Style – now also available to Paladins)
When you engage in two-weapon fighting, you may make an off-hand attack whenever you perform a normal melee attack. In addition, making an off-hand attack does not require a bonus action. Instead, you may use your bonus action to add your ability modifier to all off-hand attacks made that round.
It feels like you're turning TWF into THF except that for a bonus action you can add on a chunk of damage. Which is an issue as most fighters and paladins have bonus actions to spare.
The wording might be simpler if you choose to add the modifier damage to your off-hand attacks before attacking to avoid adding damage in later, which stops backtracking which is nice especially if resistance or DR is applicable.

Another way is to change the base TWF mechanic so that for every regular light weapon attack you get a light weapon off hand attack (no modifier on offhand). This puts it on the same DPR and action as THF.
Make TWF style a bonus action to make another off hand attack for every two light weapon attacks made. So it scales a little less powerfully.

Edit; but all of this really ***** around with rangers and hunters mark, and allows paladins much more super novas. Which you could kind of get around by turning the main and offhand into a single attack roll. Which kinda works, but feels so indistinct from THF :(


and yes, it's very weak even taking that into consideration with the new version. I'm not sure what to do with it, to be honest. I will likely compare it to some other weapon-type feats, but we'll see.
Maybe +1 dex would even it out?

Mr.Moron
2016-07-06, 03:46 PM
What if the general Two-Weapon Fighting Rule Read:

"When you make an attack if you're wielding two light weapons, you may add your off-hand weapon's die to the damage roll"

The Two-Weapon Fighting style now applies +1 bonus to damage rolls.

This means that without the style an attack with two light weapons is 2d6+DEX to a Greatswords 2d6+STR.
This means that with the style an attack with two light weapons is 2d6+DEX+1 to a Greatswords 2d6+STR (re-roll 1s and 2s).

The numbers are comparable enough. No need to worry about competition for bonus actions or weird multi-attack scaling with modifiers since it's all folded into the baseline attack action.

Wryte
2016-07-06, 05:51 PM
One thing that doesn't seem to have been brought up here when considering the balancing issues is that TWF allows the player to target a different creature with their off-hand attack, while GWF doesn't. That's not a huge advantage to TWF, but it is a slight bit of versatility that I think any changes to the TWF rules should try to preserve; the above suggestion to add off-hand weapon damage onto the damage roll of the main hand weapon, for example, strips this option from the player by bundling both attacks into a single roll.

Without doing any math on it, what about this: when fighting with a weapon in each hand, any time you make a weapon attack on your turn, you may make an extra attack at disadvantage with your off-hand weapon. Alternatively, you can forfeit this free attack to make a weapon attack against the same or a different target within range with your off hand as a bonus action. If you have the Extra Attack feature, you may apply it to off hand attacks made as a bonus action.

This gives TWF some versatility to either function as a weaker Extra Attack when you want to save your bonus action for something else, or make a better attack when you want to commit your bonus action to it. You have to decide which one you're going to do when you make your normal attack before seeing the outcome, but I think that's appropriate to the skill.

Revlid
2016-07-06, 07:33 PM
Maybe +1 dex would even it out?
That sounds like a decent idea, to be honest. I might well go with that, once Two-Weapon Fighting is sorted.

Thanks for all your thoughts so far, by the way.

Okay, so let's run through this again, just so I can get my thoughts in order.

Two-Weapon Fighting in 5e starts out fine. You are effectively getting greatweapon damage in exchange for a bonus action, with the upside that you're splitting your damage potential across two attacks, which lets you target multiple enemies, use "activates on hit" powers more frequently, and increases your odds of hitting with at least one attack.

There are two problems, which mostly come about when you level up, and are pretty different depending on which class you're playing.
1) Extra Attacks. All sources of Extra Attacks devalue Two-Weapon Fighting, because Two-Weapon Fighting does not scale with it. This is a particular problem for Fighters, who get up to four Extra Attacks and access to features that work well with Greatweapons.
2) Bonus Action Cost. All features and spells which use a Bonus Action are in direct competition with Two-Weapon Fighting, because Two-Weapon Fighting consumes a Bonus Action. This is a particular problem for... Everyone In The Core Other Than Champion Fighters and Hunter Rangers.
Barbarians have Rage, and key features of both their core Archetypes. Bards have Bardic Inspiration, and Battle Magic. Clerics have a bunch of separate Divine Domain features. Druids have Moon Circle Wildshape and Healing. Eldritch Knights and Battle Masters make extensive use of Bonus Actions, and even basic Fighters have Second Winds and Action Surges. Monks have their own extra attacks and all their starting Ki abilities. Ranger Beast Masters revolve around Bonus Actions, and the others use them for Hide actions and Spells. Rogues have Cunning Action and Fast Hands. And not that any other Caster-types should really be dual-wielding to begin with, but they all use Bonus Actions for Spells and other features - Sorcerers especially. Even Paladins have Divine Favour, Shield of Faith, Magic Weapon and the Smites taking up key spell slots.

Note that multiclassing - and a ****ing pox on multiclassing in a world where Archetypes exist, seriously - means that it's difficult to address these problems class-by-class.

With that in mind, what can't the fix be?

1) The fix cannot be that Two-Weapon Fighting gives you even more Extra Attacks, because that doesn't solve the Bonus Action problem for Other Classes, but does boost the effectiveness of too many effects that do not fall under the aegis of the class. At 11th level, a greatsword Fighter gets 3 2d6 attacks and a two-weapon Fighter gets 6 1d6 attacks? Well and good, except the two-weapon guy has a magic poison dagger. Hope you enjoy making twice as many Con checks!

2) The fix cannot be that it doesn't cost a Bonus Action, because while that's useful for everyone else, it does very little for many Fighters, who suffer most from the proliferation of Extra Attacks. It also undermines the Swashbuckler Archetype, because being able to combine Disengage and Two-Weapon Fighting is that Archetype's first signature feature, so ideally we don't give it to any Rogue who dips two levels into Fighter (or vice versa). ****ing multiclassing.

3) The fix cannot be advantage, because there are many other sources of attack advantage and it doesn't stack at all, so you're just invalidating other, probably more interesting powers in favour of boosted accuracy for your attack flurry.

4) The fix can be extra damage on existing attacks. This has no mechanical issues. It is, however, boring as hell - not to mention, it eliminates all the things that make dual-wielding interesting and distinct to begin with. The ability to attack multiple opponents, the increased hit chance, the sense of a deadly flurry...

Alright, so. A compromise, then. I think the poorly-named Mr Moron is absolutely right. It needs to be a change to the basic rule itself, not just a patch using the Two-Weapon Fighting Style.

Give me a minute and I'll update the OP. I'm pretty sure I've got something, though it took me 2 fixes to actually understand the problem.

Final Hyena
2016-07-07, 03:08 AM
Two-Weapon Fighting (Combat Rule)
If you are wielding a light one-handed weapon in each of your hands, you are engaging in two-weapon fighting. When you make a melee attack while two-weapon fighting, you can use a bonus action to inflict an "off-hand blow" on any target within reach. An off-hand blow is damage of a type and die equal to your second weapon. This is not an attack, and so does not benefit from ability modifiers or other enhancements.
Ignoring that this removes magical bonuses from your offhand weapon :( doesn't it invalidate hunters mark making a melee ranger pretty poor?


Two-Weapon Fighting (Fighting Style – now also available to Paladins)
When you are engaged in two-weapon fighting, you add half your usual Ability modifier to any off-hand blow damage, rounded down. You can perform an off-hand blow as a free action.
The problem with this is that most offensive fighting styles are worth more as you get extra attacks, this isn't.
Also with this can't a level 1 fighter;
Action ~ main hand d6+3 (6.5)
Free ~ off hand d6+1 (4.5)
Bonus ~ off hand d6+1 (4.5)
For a total of 15.5 which is higher than it used to be or any other style.

Revlid
2016-07-07, 04:32 AM
Ignoring that this removes magical bonuses from your offhand weapon :( doesn't it invalidate hunters mark making a melee ranger pretty poor?Well, that depends.

I mean, yes, this does remove magical bonuses from whichever weapon you're not using for that specific attack – but you still get the choice between two weapons for each attack you make, which can be useful. Mainly my reasoning was that there's basically no way to balance lots of extra attacks with the existence of magical or even poisoned weapons, so I feel like I had to remove it to have any hope of not screwing up.

As for Rangers, well... I mean, Rangers have their own problems, but this frees them up to dual-wield while also using Vanish, scales well with Extra Attack and Horde Breaker, and opens up bonus action spells like Ensnaring Strike or the aforementioned Hunter's Mark. It also means that Beast Master Rangers can actually function... like, at all. Compared to standard dual-wielding, a Level 5 Ranger with Hunter's Mark up is losing out on 1d6 from Hunter Mark, but gaining 1d6 from their new off-hand attack.


The problem with this is that most offensive fighting styles are worth more as you get extra attacks, this isn't.
Also with this can't a level 1 fighter;
Action ~ main hand d6+3 (6.5)
Free ~ off hand d6+1 (4.5)
Bonus ~ off hand d6+1 (4.5)
For a total of 15.5 which is higher than it used to be or any other style.
Sorry, this is my fault for using unclear wording. Hopefully the new wording makes the intent clear.


You can make only one off-hand blow per melee attack. This uses a bonus action, so normally you only get one regardless.
The Two-Weapon Fighting Style adds a damage bonus to your off-hand blow, and lets you make off-hand blows without bonus actions. This means that you can make one off-hand blow for each of your melee attacks (once you have Extra Action) and still have a bonus action left over.
Cunning Action adds a damage bonus when you use a bonus action to make an off-hand blow – so it doesn't stack particularly well with the Two-Weapon Fighting Style, because you still need to use a bonus action to get the benefit. You can still stack the damage bonus, but there are easier ways for a Rogue to get +2 damage to a single bonus-action-consuming attack each round than multiclassing into Fighter.


Does the text convey this properly now, and does it sound better for you?

Final Hyena
2016-07-07, 04:54 AM
I mean, yes, this does remove magical bonuses from whichever weapon you're not using for that specific attack – but you still get the choice between two weapons for each attack you make, which can be useful. Mainly my reasoning was that there's basically no way to balance lots of extra attacks with the existence of magical or even poisoned weapons, so I feel like I had to remove it to have any hope of not screwing up.
I can understand how an offhand attack deals reduced damage, but removing other affects is just strange, how do you explain that poison stops working, or a flaming sword? It punishes TWF as they will want a magic weapon to get past resistances but get none of the bonuses. it would be like telling the sword and board guy you need a +1 shield to be able to even use the shield, but you don't get the +1.

Revlid
2016-07-07, 06:06 AM
I can understand how an offhand attack deals reduced damage, but removing other affects is just strange, how do you explain that poison stops working, or a flaming sword?It's a glancing blow, one that doesn't dig deep enough to inflict poison or set someone alight. It's part of a mad flurry and things are missed in the confusion. Perhaps most importantly, it's something that can actually be balanced. If all magic weapons were just +1/2/3, I'd feel much more comfortable balancing that with off-hand blows... but they're not that simple, so we get things like +1d4 fire damage on a hit, or 2d6 damage on a failed Con check per hit, all of which mean I can't allow Extra Attacks to proliferate any further than they have.


It punishes TWF as they will want a magic weapon to get past resistances but get none of the bonuses. it would be like telling the sword and board guy you need a +1 shield to be able to even use the shield, but you don't get the +1.
You're absolutely right and I completely forgot to include this part:
"If the second weapon is magical its off-hand blows are treated as such, and if it would inflict additional damage (e.g. 1d4 fire damage), its off-hand blow can be treated as that same type of damage."

If you have an ice short sword and a fire short sword, you can make a fire short sword attack as normal – and then inflict 1d6 magical ice/piercing damage to any valid target within reach. Or you can make an ice short sword attack as normal – and then inflict 1d6 magical fire/piercing damage to any valid target within reach. The same is true if you have a handaxe and a poisoned dagger – if you use the poisoned dagger for an off-hand blow, you inflict 1d4 poison/piercing damage, but you don't actually inflict a dose of poison.

The spirit of the weapon is retained in most cases, but it doesn't totally explode your Damage/Proc-per-Turn like an elemental Akbolto tied to a mousewheel.

Revlid
2016-07-08, 07:36 AM
Fourth time's the charm, I swear.

The new fix is all-new – as before, it's a change to the two-weapon fighting rules, plus the relevant feat and fighting style, and a slight addition to class features for the Rogue and Barbarian, both of whom are iconic dual-wielders but don't or shouldn't get the fighting style.

I aimed to bypass the whole damage problem laid out in the original reasoning by limiting it to non-damage applications, making the two-weapon fighter someone who focuses more on battlefield control than raw damage, with the help of the disarm/shove/mark rules laid down in the DMG.

This should a) fix the problem of scaling with Extra Attacks while a1) not blowing up in the face of proc-on-hit effects and a2) preserving the feel of a two-weapon fighter and a3) using existing mechanical principles. It should also b) fix the problem of eating up valuable bonus attacks for dedicated two-weapon fighters while b1) not messing too badly with the Swashbuckler Rogue or multiclassers.

So a regular two-weapon fighter can spend a bonus action to mark an opponent, disarm them, or shove them away or prone. The mad flurry of multi-weapon combat!

A combatant with the two-weapon fighting style can do this without a bonus action – which lets them issue commands, activate spells etc, on the same turn, and do it once for every attack they make. If you're using the marking rules, a level 5 fighter can mark up to four people each turn (and if you're not, they can still mark two).

Rogues and Barbarians don't get two-weapon fighting style, but they can forgo the whole shove/mark/disarm malarkey to just straight-up add damage to an attack they make (or a reckless attack they make) while two-weapon fighting. This specifically only applies if you've used a bonus action, though, so it doesn't stack with Cunning Action or multiclassing for a Fighting Style. Nor, obviously, do they stack with each other, because 5e takes the eminently sensible step of capping multipliers and dividers at one per roll.

Let me know your thoughts!