Yet Another Two Weapon Fighting Overhaul [PEACH]

[Artagon]

Two Weapon Fighting is tough to balance. Do you make it more historical? Do you bring back 3e? How do you make it good during the normal Attack action and the Bonus action without making it overpowered? I don't expect this to meet all those criteria YET, but I think I've found a niche that makes it fun without making it the only style anyone ever uses. It should not be the damage king or the defensive king of all styles, but rather straddle that line somehow where it can come close if the player does things just right. The two weapon fighter is a selfish defender, (s)he doesn't want other team-mates next to him, because they will only get in each other's way.. but (s)he also doesn't want to be truly surrounded.. because that can negate their advantages. Anyway, without further ado..

Two-Weapon Fighting: Homebrew Edition

Two-Weapon Fighting Base Rule

When wielding weapons in both hands you may roll damage twice on your weapon damage and keep the higher roll. NEW
Additionally when you take the attack action on your turn you may make an attack with your off-hand weapon as a bonus action with no ability modifier to the damage.


Two-Weapon Fighting (Style)

When you engage in two-weapon fighting, you can add your ability modifier to the damage of the bonus attack.


Dual Weapon Fighting Feat

When taking the attack action you may give up one attack to give each creature within 5 ft of you disadvantage on their next attack. (fouling attacks with your swings.. can affect allies too) NEW
You can use two-weapon fighting even when the one handed melee weapons you are wielding aren’t light.
You can draw or stow two one-handed weapons when you would normally be able to draw or stow only one.


Defensive Duelist Feat

Prerequisite: Dexterity 13 or higher
When you are wielding a Finesse weapon with which you are proficient and another creature hits you with a melee Attack, you can use your Reaction to add your Proficiency Bonus to your AC for that att⁠ack, potentially causing the a⁠ttack to miss you.
If you are wielding a Finesse weapon in each hand and you cause an attack to miss through this feat you may additionally make an attack with your off-hand as part of your reaction. NEW
If an enemy has disadvantage against you and misses you with a melee attack while you are wielding two Finesse weapons, you can use your Reaction to make an attack with your off-hand weapon. NEW

[bid]

Why?

The consensus is that TWF is strong until level 5, and weak after level 11 for the fighter. Why do a general boost?

[Trickery]

Why?

The consensus is that TWF is strong until level 5, and weak after level 11 for the fighter. Why do a general boost?

It's weak from level 5 onward, or before then on a variant human. It stacks up poorly compared to the other fighting styles, particularly once feats are involved.

A standard S&B fighter with dueling expects to deal 2d8+4+8[attribute] = 21 damage at level 5 while retaining his bonus action. A TWF fighter without the feat at level 5 expects to spend both his action and bonus action to deal 3d6+12[attribute] = 22.5 damage at the same level. Both have the same hit chance. An Archer at the same level without feats can deal 4 less damage than the S&B fighter but from a distance and with a higher chance to hit.

Things only get worse once you add feats. A fighter with polearm mastery, dueling, and a quarterstaff + shield is just straight up better than a TWF fighter in every way, and that isn't even the best damage option for a fighter.

OP, I think your suggestion is too complex. It needs to be simple to be used.

[stoutstien]

Interesting. I like the advantage on damage rolls as a new idea. How would it work with Savage or half orc feat?

[Zhorn]

OP, I think your suggestion is too complex. It needs to be simple to be used.

I've been sticking with the baseline TWF's bonus action goes up to 2 attacks at level 11 that someone else of this forum recommended to me. Not the best fix, but it's simple and makes TWF competitive compared to the competition.

[Evaar]

I like the riposte options. Thematically that makes sense for TWF. I do worry that makes it far too good for a rogue, though.

[bid]

It's weak from level 5 onward, or before then on a variant human. It stacks up poorly compared to the other fighting styles, particularly once feats are involved.
Sure, then boost DW/DD. Don't randomly pick a "fix" for TWF.

Still, it has been discussed enough that any proposal with a boost pre level 5 shows a lack of understanding of the issue.

[djreynolds]

Two weapon rend

It is something I use at my table and is quite nice

When you hit with both the main hand and off hand weapon you may use your reaction to rend. The damage is double your proficiency bonus.

You can also use your reaction to disengage or to shove with a successful athletics check

Its extra damage for a trade of your reaction, or you can move off or shove

It is easy to track

[Lalliman]

I'm not excited about the advantage-on-damage thing. You'd think there'd be two ways to model dual wielding: either make more attacks or, for simplicity, make the same amount of attacks for more damage. Making more attacks for more damage seems arbitrary. You can justify it, but if you have to go out of your way to do so, you've already misstepped. Adding an extra roll-and-pick to every successful attack (on a character who will soon have three attacks per round) is also rather clunky.

I also agree that it doesn't solve the actual problem, which is the diminishing returns of the bonus action attack when you get Extra Attack. The advantage-on-damage does help to make it better at the later levels, but it also makes it needlessly better at the early levels, so it's kind of a net zero gain in terms of balance.

My personal fix for dual-wielding is that a) the amount of bonus action attacks increases with Extra Attack, and b) Two-Weapon Fighting Style allows you to dual-wield non-light weapons instead of the usual benefit (thus making it impossible to get Str or Dex to damage on off-hand attacks). It leads to a lot of rolls at high levels, but it's simple and the numbers work out well. Alternatively, I would also fully support dropping the bonus action and simply using twice the damage die when dual wielding (so that two short swords deal 2d6, just like a greatsword).

The feats are fine, though I'd just make the drawing two weapons thing part of the core rules. I use also a dual wielding feat similar to your version of Defensive Duelist.

[Bjarkmundur]

snip

I've always liked the solution of having it scale, in any way shape or form, with Extra Attack.

Why remove the possibility for the ability modifier, is that simply to lower the power level of the fighting style pre-5?

[Lalliman]

I've always liked the solution of having it scale, in any way shape or form, with Extra Attack.

Why remove the possibility for the ability modifier, is that simply to lower the power level of the fighting style pre-5?
The math just works out best without it. Great weapon and dual weapons both come down to 2d6 + modifier, simple as that. Dual wielding has part of that damage locked behind a bonus action, but that's the price you pay for versatility (more attacks, finesse, throwability, concealability, harder to disarm). Adding the modifier to damage on the off-hand attack with the fighting style would be too big of a boon when the number of bonus attacks scales with level. Compare Duelling Fighting Style, which gives +2 damage per attack, and my version of Two Weapon Fighting Style, which gives +1 damage per attack and further improves versatility by opening up more weapon options.

Also, to quote myself:

I definitely endorse putting the ability to use non-light weapons in the fighting style. The unfortunate thing about vanilla is that only fighters and rangers can get the off-hand damage bonus, but anyone can dual-wield non-light weapons with the feat. Thus, you get rogues who dual-wield rapiers but aren't skilled enough to apply the off-hand damage bonus, which is the opposite of what you'd expect. If you restrict non-light weapons to the fighting style, you get fighters who wield rapiers, longswords, etc. and rogues who stick to daggers and shortswords, as it should be.

I could've granted the ability modifier to damage by ways of a feat, but I opted for a more thematically interesting Dual Wielder feat instead. If you find it unsatisfying to never get the damage modifier, you're free to copy my dual wielding rules and add that as a feat. I think it would work well balance-wise, since dual wielding needs strong feat support to keep up with its competitors.

I've also once considered an alternate version where you get the damage modifier when you get Extra Attack, instead of getting an extra bonus attack. You'd then get an extra bonus attack without modifier when you get Extra Attack 2, and add the modifier to that one at Extra Attack 3. The math works out similarly, with the benefit of fewer attack rolls and more satisfying off-hand attacks. I didn't go with it simply because it's kind of awkward to explain.