TWF and Flurry of blows as standard action

[jpreem]

Having to use a full round action for TWF has always made me really irate. Same with flurry of blows. Especially beacuse both of those actions are somewhat in my mind tied to dextrous, dodgy, spring attack-y types. ( As for the poor monk they are even "designed" to be one) And yet the only way to utilize your flashy combat style is to stand there like a stupid target practice.

For a new game im DM-ing im considering a houserule, allowing TWF and Flurry of blows to work as standard actions. Do you think it would be unbalancing? ( Possible to do some crazy bonus damage twf combos but well compared to a 2hander charger)

[Eldariel]

No, it'd still be weaker than THF, but slightly less so. Once you start removing the extra feats required to TWF efficiently as you level-up too (ITWF, GTWF), it starts to be actually functional.

[Fulkerin]

Maybe allow it through a feat, but flat out...

depends on how many ways your players know to get extra standard actions. Although there are a lot of ways to get pounce or an extra move action in a round. Up to your players I would say.

[nekomata2]

I'm pretty sure that wouldn't be unbalancing, but I assume, at least for TWF, it would be one attack from each hand, not full attacks. There is a feat in PHB that allows a person to attack with a weapon in each hand while charging, at a -2 penalty, and anyone can get pounce with a barbarian dip.

As for monks, well, they can use all the help they can get. I have never seen anyone play a monk, but if I did I would let the extra attacks from flurry work on a standard action attacks anyway. I think gives them more of the skirmisher feel.

But no, as long as you don't replace full attacks completely, it would hardly be unbalancing (since big ol' Mr. Wizard can do it too).

[Eldariel]

Maybe allow it through a feat, but flat out...

depends on how many ways your players know to get extra standard actions. Although there are a lot of ways to get pounce or an extra move action in a round. Up to your players I would say.

It's no more broken than a two-hander swinging once per standard action. So unless you force two-handers to only be able to attack ½ times per standard action, the restriction is senseless.

[Yuki Akuma]

It's no more broken than a two-hander swinging once per standard action. So unless you force two-handers to only be able to attack ½ times per standard action, the restriction is senseless.

The problem comes when you're wielding magic weapons. Two chances to kill someone instantly is much better than one, for example, no matter what the base damage of the weapon is.

[Eldariel]

The problem comes when you're wielding magic weapons. Two chances to kill someone instantly is much better than one, for example, no matter what the base damage of the weapon is.

Due to the cost of getting two magic weapons on a scale where instant death is actually an option generally balances that part out. Yes, TWF has some advantages...and a buttload of disadvantages. I don't know about you, but I'd still rather PA with a two-hander, and I can do that just as well after movement. And I'd rather not take a generic -2 on all my attacks for no reason if I can help it.

And if I intend on ever using AoOs, two-hander both deals tons more damage (sans Double Hit, additional feat tax) and I can actually get a reach two-hander to have a relevant chance at getting those. And yeah...no, I don't see any issues with magic weapons. Untyped stuff that get applied on every attack is the only advantage TWF has to make up for costing an extra feat, being incompatible with PA, offering inferior weapon abilities (finding good trippers, good reach weapons and such is hard in one-handed and light categories; Kusari-Gama and Spinning Sword are the only ones and neither is included in most gameworlds), having random static penalties, being costlier to enhance, offering less powerful attacks whenever you may take a single attack, inducing MAD due to Dex-requirements of the feats (or additional feat costs to base your attacks off Dex), etc.


It's just...no issue whatsoever.

[Mauther]

There are a couple of ways to achieve the off hand attacks already. Considering how fast you can outpace 2 handed with 2wf I think it would be unbalancing to make this change for free. While its true your unlikely to get the trip/reach options with 2wf, all the stackable damage you can put on separate weapons pretty much wins it for the Drizzt's of the world. Everything else pretty much matches up between the two.

[Person_Man]

Or you could just get Pounce or Free Movement. It's pretty easy to do. If you make a full attack a Standard Action, then it just encourages people to abuse their Move and actions more (to Demoralize, activate a psionic/magic/etc power, use magic items, etc).

[Mauther]

Due to the cost of getting two magic weapons on a scale where instant death is actually an option generally balances that part out. Yes, TWF has some advantages...and a buttload of disadvantages. I don't know about you, but I'd still rather PA with a two-hander, and I can do that just as well after movement. And I'd rather not take a generic -2 on all my attacks for no reason if I can help it.

But the cost of scaling up the damage on 2 weapons is actually cheaper that a comparable increase for just one. For instance, its cheaper to get weapons each with 2 elemental enhancments (2*+3 enhancement = 36k) versus a single weapon with 4 elemental enhancements (1*+5enhancement = 50k) Just slapping Collission on both weapons in a 2wf build goes along way towards balancing the numbers.

Its not a slam dunk, there's plenty of cheeze on the 2hander as well, but I think 2wf scales up just fine as is.

[Eldariel]

There are a couple of ways to achieve the off hand attacks already. Considering how fast you can outpace 2 handed with 2wf I think it would be unbalancing to make this change for free. While its true your unlikely to get the trip/reach options with 2wf, all the stackable damage you can put on separate weapons pretty much wins it for the Drizzt's of the world. Everything else pretty much matches up between the two.

Unless you rewrite the whole damn game, THF will always be at least equivalent, and with these houserules, still superior to TWF.

Exploring the pros and cons of TWF compared to THF:

Spoiler

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- TWF requires a feat just to get you started. THF doesn't, extra feat to increase damage.
- TWF requires 15 Dex to start with and 19 Dex by the end of your career. So TWF is more MAD and thus has less Str and thus deals less damage and hits worse, or spends two feats to make up for this.
- TWF will never get the 4th iterative off-hand, no matter how many feats you invest. This matters especially since you can't Power Attack either.
- Every extra attack you gain increases THFer's damage more; hello, Haste, Whirling Frenzy, etc.
- Whenever you move, TWF is completely useless.
- On AoOs, TWF deals less damage.
- TWF can't make proper use out of Power Attack.
- In spite of all this, TWF full attack deals as much damage on pure weapon+Str basis as THF full attack (before level 16 where THF full attack deals more again).
- It costs more to get magical weapons for a TWFer than THFer.
+ TWF benefits more of weapon enhancements based on hits than THF.
+ TWF adds generic extra damage more often.

In other words, you invest an extra stat and feats into this whole deal only to be worse than you'd be without doing it. And you claim it's broken? Let's remove single attack issues from the equation for a second:

- TWF requires a feat just to get you started. THF doesn't, extra feat to increase damage.
- TWF requires 15 Dex to start with and 19 Dex by the end of your career. So TWF is more MAD and thus has less Str and thus deals less damage and hits worse, or spends two feats to make up for this.
- TWF will never get the 4th iterative off-hand, no matter how many feats you invest. This matters especially since you can't Power Attack either.
- Every extra attack you gain increases THFer's damage more; hello, Haste, Whirling Frenzy, etc.
- TWFer has a worse weapon selection, that'll cost him attacks (AoOs) and combat options (tripping)
- TWF can't make proper use out of Power Attack.
- In spite of all this, TWF full attack deals as much damage on pure weapon+Str basis as THF full attack (before level 16 where THF full attack deals more again).
- It costs more to get magical weapons for a TWFer than THFer.
+ TWF benefits more of weapon enhancements based on hits than THF.
+ TWF adds generic extra damage more often.

I calculated that TWF generally has about 2/3 of THFer's enhancements due to the extra costs of having to enhance two weapons. By using the metric set by Collision that +1 = 2.5 points of pure damage with no "buts", this means TWFer will have two weapons that max out at 10 points total more than THFer (+7s vs. +10 at level 10; 7*2*2.5=35, 10*2.5=25).

In the meanwhile, the -2 penalty to hit alone eats tons more damage; each hit has effectively 10 percentile-units lower chance to hit, which reduces your composite damage by something fierce. Then we add Haste, which is a full hit worth of extra damage for THF and only ~half hit worth of extra damage for TWF and THF is already way ahead.

Add whatever precision damage TWFer has twice (say, +10d6...though that's hard with full BAB; at -7 attacks compared to full BAB, hitting starts to become an option) and compare it to THFer's class features (which most likely don't involve various forms of precision damage, but maybe damage multipliers or extra feats or sources of AoOs or Rage or such instead) and notice that THFer's toys are about as good.


Honestly, there's just no way TWF is winning that comparison. You could cull even more drawbacks and it'd still be even. Like this:
So TWF is more MAD and thus has less Str and thus deals less damage and hits worse, or spends two feats to make up for this.

- TWFer has a worse weapon selection, that'll cost him attacks (AoOs) and combat options (tripping)
- TWF can't make proper use out of Power Attack.
- In spite of all this, TWF full attack deals as much damage on pure weapon+Str basis as THF full attack (before level 16 where THF full attack deals more again).
- It costs more to get magical weapons for a TWFer than THFer.
+ TWF benefits more of weapon enhancements based on hits than THF.
+ TWF adds generic extra damage more often.

At this point, it's still quite balanced. There may be a scenario where TWFer is even better than THFer; but is that really a bad thing, considering that there's still a hundred things THFers are better for?

Note the list of disparities we removed:
- MAD
- Feat costs
- TWF AoOs being worse
- Movement-related issues with using TWF
- Haste & al. granting superior benefits for THFer

In spite of changing all this, the remaining points about cancel each other out.

It sounds to me like you just hate TWF or never bothered to do the math, since the math just doesn't add up. TWF needs a lot of help to be a comparable option for anyone without precision damage, and that help won't make a precision-based TWFer a better warrior than non-precision based THFer.

Or you could just get Pounce or Free Movement. It's pretty easy to do. If you make a full attack a Standard Action, then it just encourages people to abuse their Move and actions more (to Demoralize, activate a psionic/magic/etc power, use magic items, etc).

Frankly, you shouldn't be forced to waste resources on that and it should be doable core-only. Besides, it's ridiculous that you can fit 4 attacks into 6 seconds but only 1 into 3 on level 20, while on level 1 you can attack once in 6 or 3 seconds.

It just makes no sense whatsoever. And frankly, I wouldn't worry about the move action abuse. Mostly, I'd wager having access to extra move actions just makes melee combatants actually move more. I've played a lot with ToB that fixes the movement issue by just giving people Standard Action strikes that are "comparable" to full attacks and all it does is make the combat more mobile. Is that really a bad thing?

Outside Fearsome Armor, there's just little in move actions that interests a normal warrior. Having the option of moving in combat without gimping yourself would, IMHO, actually just be a huge enhancer of game enjoyability, which is what this is all about.

[Theodoxus]

It's works in 4th ed, no reason you couldn't backwards compatibility it for 3.5

Basically the notion that moving and swinging two weapons at once is overpowered is outdated and proven wrong both by conjecture and common sense. But, as with all things, play test it out. If it works for the group - great. If not, rule it back to RAW.

It's your game - own it.