Fighting Style: Martial Arts and Treating Two Weapon Fighting in a Similar Fashion

[dmhelp]

I was experimenting with adding Martial Arts as a Fighting Style option and then got to thinking that it could be an easy way to boost TWF up to GWM/PAM levels.


Fighting Style: Martial Arts (as a Monk, but may use with any armor except shields; damage increases as a Monk of class level)



Fighting Style: Two Weapon Fighting - while dual wielding may increase base damage to Martial Arts die as a Monk of class level; may also dual wield one handed melee weapons that do Martial Arts die or less (e.g. a level 5 Fighter with FS:TWF would do d6 base damage with dual sickles; where as a level 11 Fighter with FS:TWF would do d8 base damage with dual maces, and could dual wield battle axes, etc.)


You pretty much ignore the dual wielder feat then.

[MrStabby]

I think that you need to be careful boosting this fighting loadout. Essentially you sacrifice raw damage for the ability to use dexterity as your attack stat - a much beter stat to have high than strength.

I think that as a minimum you would need to only get the benefits when using strength to make the attack.

[Unoriginal]

I was experimenting with adding Martial Arts as a Fighting Style option and then got to thinking that it could be an easy way to boost TWF up to GWM/PAM levels.


Fighting Style: Martial Arts (as a Monk, but may use with any armor except shields; damage increases as a Monk of class level)



Fighting Style: Two Weapon Fighting - while dual wielding may increase base damage to Martial Arts die as a Monk of class level; may also dual wield one handed melee weapons that do Martial Arts die or less (e.g. a level 5 Fighter with FS:TWF would do d6 base damage with dual sickles; where as a level 11 Fighter with FS:TWF would do d8 base damage with dual maces, and could dual wield battle axes, etc.)


You pretty much ignore the dual wielder feat then.

If you give the Fighter one (or even several, depending on how you count) of the Monk's key feature, but with even less downsides and at less cost, what are you giving to the Monk to compensate?

[MrStabby]

If you give the Fighter one (or even several, depending on how you count) of the Monk's key feature, but with even less downsides and at less cost, what are you giving to the Monk to compensate?

Well, not just the monk but everyone else that doesn't get a free toy.

[Pildion]

I was experimenting with adding Martial Arts as a Fighting Style option and then got to thinking that it could be an easy way to boost TWF up to GWM/PAM levels.


Fighting Style: Martial Arts (as a Monk, but may use with any armor except shields; damage increases as a Monk of class level)



Fighting Style: Two Weapon Fighting - while dual wielding may increase base damage to Martial Arts die as a Monk of class level; may also dual wield one handed melee weapons that do Martial Arts die or less (e.g. a level 5 Fighter with FS:TWF would do d6 base damage with dual sickles; where as a level 11 Fighter with FS:TWF would do d8 base damage with dual maces, and could dual wield battle axes, etc.)


You pretty much ignore the dual wielder feat then.

I wouldn't try to fix Two Weapon Fighting by giving out the monks class feature, its needs its own fix. The fact that TWF\DW does less then half the damage of a GWF\GWM without even adding PAM is just INSANE and BROKEN beyond belief. The fact that WotC has NOT fixed it themselves by now utterly baffles me. The best homebrew I've seen for Two Weapon Fighting is Treant Monks.

[LibraryOgre]

Generally, Fighting Styles don't improve with level. Defensive doesn't give you +1 AC at X levels, it gives you +1 to AC.

If you REALLY want to give something like that to fighters, I'd strip it down from the basic monk Martial Arts ability... let them use Dex instead of strength if they want, and make an unarmed strike as a bonus action, but don't give them increased damage. No increased damage, no monk weapons.... but also no restriction on armor or encumbrance.

Still not bad; unarmed damage may be 1, but since it's not technically TWF, you still get your full strength bonus.

As for two-weapon fighting, I've always liked my Dragaeran Two-Weapon (https://rpgcrank.blogspot.com/2021/09/advanced-dungeons-and-dragaerans.html)solution... basically, a modified advantage for damage.

[dmhelp]

I wouldn't try to fix Two Weapon Fighting by giving out the monks class feature, its needs its own fix. The fact that TWF\DW does less then half the damage of a GWF\GWM without even adding PAM is just INSANE and BROKEN beyond belief. The fact that WotC has NOT fixed it themselves by now utterly baffles me. The best homebrew I've seen for Two Weapon Fighting is Treant Monks.

GWM/PAM and SS/CBE get better and better the more attacks you have (at least GWM/SS do). So if you can optimize hitting you are getting +30 damage @ 5 and +40 @ 11 (and more at 20 but no one ever gets there).

Making FS:TWF progress like a monk on a dual shortswords gives you:
+0 @ 5 (although opens up more weapons like daggers) and + 4 @ 11 (free dual wielder feat). It does not give free finesse with everything. So even saying you aren't getting the full damage bonus with GWM/SS this isn't really a big boost. It is like getting the damage portion of dual wielder free at level 11 and doubling it at 17.

Comparing Martial Arts to monk progression FS:TWF since you are limited to monk weapons in Martial Arts you start with a flat damage @ 1 (+1 two handed quarterstaff -1 bonus), +2 damage @ 5 (+2 staff +0 bonus), and flat damage @ 11. But if you have magic weapons you are losing out on bonus action damage because your unarmed strikes do not benefit (so maybe martial arts is 3 damage behind at 11 if you have a +3 weapon in your offhand).

So to me this is more of a minor benefit to TWF and Martial Arts is a TWF-like style. It is more for roleplaying since you aren't getting flurry of blows or stunning strike.

[loki_ragnarock]

The power of dual wielding (as put forward by the associated feat) isn't raw damage numbers.

It's being able to pick up any one handed weapon and saying "I'mma use this." +2 Flametongue dagger? Useless for that dude with GWM, double useless for that dude with PAM. Mace of Disruption? "I'mma use that, too." Giant-slaying hatchet? ""I'mma use that."

TWF abilities should basically read "Your character gains resistance to random treasure tables."

If you're being supplied exactly what you want for your build, of course it isn't as useful. But if you aren't, multiply the GWM dudes damage output by .5 when talking about fighting things you need real heroes for.

EDIT
As for the specific house rule, I think it's both fiddly and misses the mark.

[dmhelp]

The power of dual wielding (as put forward by the associated feat) isn't raw damage numbers.

It's being able to pick up any one handed weapon and saying "I'mma use this." +2 Flametongue dagger? Useless for that dude with GWM, double useless for that dude with PAM. Mace of Disruption? "I'mma use that, too." Giant-slaying hatchet? ""I'mma use that."

TWF abilities should basically read "Your character gains resistance to random treasure tables."

If you're being supplied exactly what you want for your build, of course it isn't as useful. But if you aren't, multiply the GWM dudes damage output by .5 when talking about fighting things you need real heroes for.

EDIT
As for the specific house rule, I think it's both fiddly and misses the mark.

The thing is, I want to allow for heavy armor martial arts. So adding Martial Arts as a Fighting Style is an easy way to do that. Then why would anyone take FS:TWF? So it was kind of the logical follow.

[Jerrykhor]

The power of dual wielding (as put forward by the associated feat) isn't raw damage numbers.

It's being able to pick up any one handed weapon and saying "I'mma use this." +2 Flametongue dagger? Useless for that dude with GWM, double useless for that dude with PAM. Mace of Disruption? "I'mma use that, too." Giant-slaying hatchet? ""I'mma use that."


But you'd be spending 2 attunement slots for wielding a Flametongue and a Mace of Disruption in each hand, and if the raw damage still loses to the GWM guy, what is the point?

[loki_ragnarock]

But you'd be spending 2 attunement slots for wielding a Flametongue and a Mace of Disruption in each hand, and if the raw damage still loses to the GWM guy, what is the point?

GWM guy does X(.5) against things with resistance to non-magical B/P/S with his non-magic greatsword, as the random rolls didn't go his way on the treasure tables. So that actual damage output is going to get wonky when tracked against that possibility.

So GWM guy is great against orcs, total legend. He's just not as good against, oh, a Banshee. Until such time as the random treasure rolls start going his way. 2 attunement slots isn't in excess of the total number available to the character, so the TWFighter isn't really hurting in any meaningful way. The point is that it doesn't matter as much what the random roll winds up being to the TWFighter; as long as it's one handed, it fits the build, and the raw number of weapons that fit that description is vasty compared to the number with the heavy tag.


I agree that the TWF feat should provide a more significant damage boost than it does - like tagging in a line about doing bonus damage equal to the number of attacks you've hit with in a round, or something - but as it exists it's an interesting anti-specialization tool.

[Kane0]

The Unarmed fighting style ready exists. If you feel it isnt good enough, let it also apply Finesse to your unarmed strikes so you can use Dex or Str.

As for TWF, let the feat remove the BA cost and roll the attack into the attack action. I personally also like to swap around the draw 2 + nonlight weapons of the feat with the stat to damage of the style, but thats secondary.

[Zhorn]

As for TWF, let the feat remove the BA cost and roll the attack into the attack action.

Since the beast barbarian came out, I've gone down a similar route for the baseline TWF.
Take the attack action with the appropriate weapons, get a free off-hand-no-modifers attack in the same action, fighting style and feat unchanged (other than wording for main hand / off hand).
It's a minor power bump in tier 1, but opens up TWF to so many other classes/subclesses that just couldn't do anything with it without it conflicting with their features, even if they thematically seemed like they should work (monks, rogues, berserkers, etc).

Dual Wielder could use some love, but as a general design philosophy I don't see a feat tax as a real fix. Feats should offer benefits and options, but should not be required for baseline functionality.

[Kane0]

Dual Wielder could use some love, but as a general design philosophy I don't see a feat tax as a real fix. Feats should offer benefits and options, but should not be required for baseline functionality.

Agreed, I do other things with Dual Wielder but thats not relevant here. In a featless game TWF isnt in such a bad position depending on what other uses your class/subclass picks up for the BA, mostly because TWF doesnt end up looking bad next to things like crossbow expert and polearm master.