WOW I am blown away by the comments and the response and the comments to this video! Thank you all for swinging by to check it out! I will be making a follow up video adressing the concerns about Hunters Mark and Hex Blades Curse in a future video VERY soon! So stay tuned! 💜 Join Patreon for more Homebrew Content: www.patreon.com/thedungeoncoach
You can sneak attack with two weapons and not with a two handed weapon. Also action surge op. Also I don't think you are taking into account both two handed weapons can be rapiers or magic rapiers? What about monks? Crazy damage. This is a way too over powered option.
@@SayviRock well maybe not so much with paladin since using smites requires to use resources. If a paladin wants to burn through 4 spell slots which they don't have a lot as a half caster i day go for it 😀
@@rafaelcastor2089 when you’re a level 20 fighter, missing is not a thing you worry about. Unless you get a nat 1, you have a +11 to hit without magic items and you’re level 20 so you have plenty of magic weapons
@@CMacK1294 while it is true that the DM has ultimate power, it's a pretty dick move to overwrite a player characters class features, especially when it's such a core part of the class' identity.
@@INTCUWUSIUA not only that but, the martial vs caster gaps does exist. Not only do Martials need magic weapons to overcome resistance, but to also provide something besides dpr, since casters can pretty much do anything else.
I love his chart and the math behind it make sense, but I wonder what the damage is when you factor in the double opportunity to roll critical hits. I wonder if you would expect to see slight or big jumps in damage. I just wonder if you can factor it back to even with like a halving the damage when critical hits happen
W&S: Able to fight and defend at same time 2HW: Large amount of damage to a single target in one attack TWF: Able to attack a single target twice or up to two targets at same time
Dual Wield General Rules: Bonus Action Attack with Limiters. TWP Style: Free AC and above. The other Two Weapon Fighter Feat: Damage Modifiers. Dual Wielder: EVEN BETTER!!! Eldritch Knight: "Other rules do better for this mechanic... Dual Wields one Versatile Great Sword and one Throw Great Sword... I HAVE THE POWER!!!" DM: "RAW... The Eldritch Knight is valid to hold two weapons in both hands without Feats or the Light limitation because those only apply to the Off Hand Attack Bonus Action... Which only means that Dual Wielding rules are not great in the Action Economy."
I feel this is actually perfectly balanced in a shield is defensive, two hander is more damage, and dual wielding is more consistent damage over rounds. So your melee character had choices
@@TheDungeonCoach I mean the book method. When you start throwing in accuracy the dual wielder does have perks over the 2hander. I fully get the homebrew of I wanna wield 2 weapons and do a bunch of damage, player choice matters and the more the better.
I remember reading about developer woes about dual wielding. Their testing showed people really liked having another attack when dual wielding, but their action economy design prevented them from granting additional attacks to dual wielders in a way that wasn't broken.
Echo Knight: "So... 13 Attacks mean nothing, huh?" I just avoid that Bonus Action and work around the limitation. It's rather simple with Interaction, swapping hands with yourself (not clones), and dropping weapons. Ex: Attack Action with sword + Interact by putting that sword away + Swap hands with my Ax + Extra Attack with Ax... There are more combinations than this. You don't even need "light" weapons to dual wield. This limitation is only regards to that Binus Action. And... Reaction Opportunity Attacks do not care which weapon you use. You can even exchange weapons between Extra Attacks if you use the mechanics well.
It's mostly cause of two classes: Paladins and Rogues. You see it's not damage thats the problem. It's the fact that you get more attacks to succeed on. Therefore you get more chances to get off Sneak Attack/Divine Smite. That's where the bonus action comes in. With a Paladin, you have to choose between a guaranteed TWF and something like Banishing Smite. Same with Rogue and Cunning Action. So removing the bonus action requirement or making it a part of the attack action would just break both classes. At 20th level, 4 chances per turn to deal Smite/2 for Sneak attack damage and a free disengage or Shield of Faith.
@zooker7938 it already does do that The problem is that the chance to proc sneak attack or smite is increased - not the number of sneak attacks or smite And making them hard, once per turn declarations would just severely crush both classes
@@xuklysc for dex based characters the last thing you take is the feat, cause each +2 to dex already increases your AC and average dmg by 1, but also initiative, dex checks and saves
The main issue I have with the whole "swing both weapons at once" thing, and using it as a focus for how to rebalance two-weapon fighting, is that that would kinda breaks away from the main role that an off-handed weapon plays during combat; it's more defensive than the main weapon. In historical treatises showing the dual-wielding as we understand it today, the off-handed weapon is usually smaller than the main-hand weapon, and plays mainly a defensive role. The daggers that were wielded alongside rapiers were used to act in place of a shield. While you definitely could attack with both weapons simultaneously, it would require that you make those attacks with them from different directions in order to bypass your opponent's defense. For instance, if your attack with your main weapon is coming from the side, then your attack from your secondary should be coming from the top or bottom or opposite side, thus guaranteeing that at least one of your attacks gets through (assuming your opponent doesn't have a shield or other off-hand weapon of their own of course). Regardless, if you're attacking with both weapons simultaneously, then that would leave you vulnerable to any sort of attacks, since now you have nothing to defend yourself with; both your weapons are attacking. Thus, I propose an alternative solution: *Two-Weapon Fighting:* When you are wielding two separate melee weapons, you get +1 to your AC (this extra AC only functions against melee attacks). As part of an attack action, you can choose to make an additional attack with your off-hand weapon, which doesn't add your Strength/Dexterity modifier to the damage. However, when you do this, then you lose the extra AC until the start of your next turn. Alternatively, you can make a bonus action to attack with your off-hand weapon without sacrificing this AC bonus. You cannot use both these options together.
Nice! I like the idea of positioning two-weapon as giving a bit less AC benefit than a shield, and a bit less damage than a two-hander. And while we're at it, let's allow the rapier + dagger combo since it's historically accurate and gives you the same damage as your standard shortsword/shortsword combo. Maybe count daggers as ultra-light weapons that you can use with any one-handed weapon? Oh, and bucklers which are smaller and lighter than shields, and easier to sneak around with in a city, but only give +1 AC.
@@TheDungeonCoach It really depends on where in the world you're looking at anyway. Some places were more offensive, some more balanced. Outside of Western Europe different cultures were pretty varied. So you're still historically accurate if say you're looking at the Middle East, Asia or Africa :D
I practiced Eskrima for many years - it's an old Filipino martial art that absorbed some Spanish fencing techniques. It's centered around swords, knives and dual-wielding (and also is famous for using a pair of sticks with those same sword techniques). Although there are many defensive techniques with two weapons, the emphasis in most styles of Eskrima/Arnis/Kali I have encountered is on overwhelming the opponent with flurries of attacks from varying angles. It is true at least that using two longer swords isn't very common, I've never seen anyone win doing that - the two long blades take too much time to maneuver around one another. But there is a term for doing just that in European fencing referred to as wielding a "case of swords." When wielding a dagger along with your sword the dagger is held out front in an offensive pose, and spends more than half the time as the main offensive weapon. Againt, the idea is that you have two arms and two weapons, and should be aggressive with both simultaneously. The second weapon is not used as a passive shielding implement - shields are better for that and can sometimes even be found in the style. (as it happens, shields in European martial arts are also used aggressively, and should probably be looked at as just another type of weapon). Just my full dollar, I guess.
Does the balancing get a little messed up when we start considering spells like Hunter's Mark and Hex being able to be used and then getting 4 attacks immediately by level 5? Also, should the utility of breaking concentration be taken into consideration when you are able to potentially hit with twice as many attacks? Wondering about your thoughts on these things!
The balance is messed up. The two best solutions I found for TWF are: 1. (mine) have 1 Offhand attack as part of the Extra Attack, if you have Extra Attack (x3) you can do 2 Offhand Attacks. This will keep up with the weapon damage from a 2HW without the feat but TWF can take advantage of Hex and Hunter's Mark. 2. (Treantmonk) Have the Bonus Action Offhand attack be as many as the Action normal attacks. This has the same amount of attacks as suggested in this video but it's not as easily exploitable with Hex and Hunter's Mark because you have to choose between the spell and the Offhand attacks.
I would either not use this Homebrew if those classes/ players were present and trying to abuse the system. But here is my solution to hex/ mark. I would have a lore/ mechanic/ RP tie in to where the extra damage is only on the main hand (they’ll still do more damage anyway with this Homebrew) And for concentration you could limit the checks one character can impart on one caster to 2/3 per round Or pair main/ off hand together for the checks Or only have main hand trigger concentration Lots of tweaks or just remove it
@@cassnt But here is my solution to hex/ mark. I would have a lore/ mechanic/ RP tie in to where the extra damage is only on the main hand (they’ll still do more damage anyway with this Homebrew) Or don’t use this with a character like that
A little thing me and my friends do is that in TWF only the off-hand weapon needs to be light. It’s not like a guy with a shield has a stronger arm or anything.
personally when i run D&D again I'll just think about making off-hand weapons just a shield with different flavor and be done with it. Parrying, shoving, etc.
No one has played a dual wielder since I did it, but a while ago I said "ok, your two weapon fighting attack is now part of the action, leaving your bonus action free. I don't limit it to only those with extra attack, though
I think the dual weapon fighter is mostly combined with a more dexterity based Charakter and the advantage is, that you can focus only on dexterity and increase AC, damage and to hit modifier at the same time, plus gives you more flexibility with range weapons. I think all this should be also considered, if you try to equalize the pure damage numbers.
This tbh... plus it's important to look at % to hit when comparing average damage numbers ... which gives TWF a slight advantage since with more hits you're more likely to hit SOME...
@@tungstenzephyr well, but a fighter that does four attacks for 2d6 damage with Greatsword will deal more damage than fighter that makes five attacks for 1d6 damage.
@Lukáš Szűcs Well not everyone is playing a strength based fighter and wants to go pure fighter all the way. A ranger and hexblade warlock, and more especially but strangely enough rarely considered paladin, benefit quite nicely from two weapon fighting. Hex+Hexblade's curse combo and even Hunters mark kinda equalize the playing field, and the paladin gets an extra hit with smite (and hunters mark as well if a vengence pally). AND. There's extra benefits to having a dex oriented character, that can still go toe to toe with the consistent damage of a fighter. If you want to get real numbers crunchy and situational about a high level character. A pure lv 20 ranger, considered one for the weakest and lesser classes of the game, could still output almost comparable, even sometimes more, damage. A Ranger with a heavy crossbow activating Swift Quiver can also attack 4 times with additional single damage flat damage form it's lv 20 feature. And we aren't even considering the stronger subclasses from the ranger that give boosts to said damage or attacks, or even extra attack with additional damage ontop in the dread ambushers case. All this, while considering that rangers can get the archery fighting style, making thier attacks more likely to hit, making feats like sharpshooter more valuable and has the average dps against high AC enemies exceed even the average dps of 2d6 two greeatweapon master combo. (And even if you want to take a look at lower levels, crossbow expert still covers getting three attacks dual wielding handcrossbows and getting bang for your buck with sharpshooter at level 4/ 8 at latest. Still exceeding Fighter damage, while having other spells still accessible like magic weapon for a fight... or an upgraded favored foe, elemental weapon, hunters mark, hail of thorns, etc.) So yeah. People actually don't consider all of the following when looking at dualwielding and dex builds. And the long drawn out example was purely for the weaker options. Paladins and especially Hrxblade warclocks benefit significantly more so.
These are the homebrew dual wielding rules I use. They might not be perfect as I'm still play testing them. Inorder to use these features you must have the Two Weapon Fighting style. Each melee weapon in the game can be broken down into a few categories, and mismatching weapons from each category gives an additional feature. Fell Handed (Axe&Axe): If you hit the same creature with your main hand axe and your off hand axe in the same turn, it must make a Constitution saving throws equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your strength/dexterity modifier, or have attacks against it be made with advantage until the start of your next turn. Anvil of Thunder (Axe&Hammer): If you hit the same creature with both your axe and your hammer in the same turn, it must make a Strength saving throws equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your strength/dexterity modifier, or be fall prone. Bear Fang (Axe&Sword): If you hit the same creature with both your axe and your sword in the same turn, it must make a Strength saving throws equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your strength/dexterity modifier, or become grappled. Sanguine Flow (Axe&Polearm): If you hit the same creature with both your axe and your polearm in the same turn, it must make a Constitution saving throws equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your strength/dexterity modifier, or at the start of each of the creature's turns, it takes 1d4 necrotic damage for each time you hit it with both weapons. It repeats the save at the end of each of it's turns, ending the effect of all such wounds on itself on a success. Serpent's Lure (Axe&Chained): If you hit the same creature with both your Hammer and your Sword in the same turn, it must make a Dexterity saving throws equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your strength/dexterity modifier, or be unable to willingly attack any other creature besides you until the start of your next turn. Brutalizing Firepower (Axe&Gun): If you hit a creature with your axe on your turn, then the next attack you take with your handgun, has an additional weapon die of damage. Wrath of Thor (Hammer&Hammer): If you hit the same creature with your main hand hammer and your off hand hammer in the same turn, then you can make an additional weapon attack against that same creature. Hammer's Edge (Hammer&Sword): If you hit the same creature with both your hammer and your sword in the same turn, it must make a Constitution saving throws equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your strength/dexterity modifier, or have disadvantage on attack rolls until the start of your next turn. Thundering Strike (Hammer&Polearm): If you hit the same creature with both your hammer and your polearm in the same turn, it must make a Constitution saving throws equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your strength/dexterity modifier, or be pushed 10ft in any direction. Dead Leg Blow (Hammer&Chained): If you hit the same creature with both your hammer and your chained weapon in the same turn, it must make a Dexterity saving throws equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your strength/dexterity modifier, or have it's speed reduced by 15ft until the start of your next turn. Reloading Ricochet (Hammer&Gun): If you hit the same creature with both your hammer and your handgun in the same turn, then your handgun is automatically reloaded. As long as you have ammo on your person to do so. Crescent Sweep (Sword&Sword): If you hit the same creature with your main hand sword and your off hand sword in the same turn, it must make a Strength saving throws equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your strength/dexterity modifier, or drop one item they're holding and have that item be thrown up to 20ft away. Guardian Stance (Sword&Polearm): If a creature triggers an attack of opportunity against you, then you can attack twice, once with your sword and another time with your polearm. Weakening Wounds (Sword&Chained): If you hit the same creature with both your sword and your chained weapon in the same turn, it must make a Constitution saving throws equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your strength/dexterity modifier, or be unable to regain hit points until the start of your next turn. Assassin's Whisper (Sword&Gun): If you hit a creature with your sword on your turn, then the next attack you take with your handgun in this turn, is completely silent. Drilling Barrage (Polearm&Polearm): If you hit the same creature with your main hand polearm and your off hand polearm in the same turn, the next attack made against that creature ignores the effects of its armor or shield. Follow Through (Polearm&Chained): If you hit the same creature with both your Polearm and your chained weapon in the same turn, then you can make an additional weapon attack against a different creature that's within 5tf of it, that you can reach. Stabled Shot (Polearm&Gun): If you hit a creature with your polearm on your turn, then the next attack you take with your handgun in this turn, has it's close range and long range are increased by by 1.5x. Lunging Rumba (Chained&Chained): If you hit the same creature with your main hand chained weapon and your off hand chained weapon in the same turn, then you're reach for your chained weapons is extended by 5ft until the end of your next turn. Conservative Flourish (Chained&Gun): If you hit a creature with your chained weapon on your turn, then the next attack you take with your handgun, doesn't consume any ammo. You must have ammo in your gun in order to use this feature. Akimbo (Gun&Gun): When you're wield a handgun in each hand, you can choose to have all of your attacks that turn to be made with disadvantage, but you can attack twice as much on your turn.
Oooo, this looks very promising, might have to try it at my table. Out of curiosity, how do you define chained weapons and polearms for the purposes of this system? And what are daggers considered?
@@emmettmay8704 Daggers are considered swords and chain weapons would be whips and flails. Polearms are anything under the Polearm Master feat, so spears and quarterstaffs primary. And just so you know you would have to homebrew a little bit of light weapons to let it work properly, but just take a already fitting weapon, reduce its damage die, and add the light property and you're good to go. So for example give the javelin the light property, or take the flail, reduce its damage die from a 1d8 to a 1d6, and add the light property.
An interesting and descriptive analysis as usual. It made me think about what I believe and re-evaluate things. Ultimately though, I think neglecting an increased chance of a nat 20 with so many more rolls (especially with fighters) and the AC bonus that dual wielders get from using DEX instead of STR makes it so you have to tweak a lot of other things to keep this balanced. As such, rules as written don’t feel as weak. But I do really enjoy your well structured arguments and considerations even if I do still tend to land on the side of rules as written.
Spot on Tyler! To each it's own table but this can affect game play dramatically. I had TWF go thus way from the jump. The PCs noticed it made the fighter and swords bard OP so they wanted it reverted.
After some additional consideration (I do go back and rewatch videos later that were interesting to me), I tried to recreate the very convincing chart. I realized that part of the large disparity is that high risk, high reward accuracy penalty of great weapon master that you are neglecting when you assume all attacks hit. You seem to have given a boost to damage for great weapon fighting styles retook of 1 or 2 but aren’t giving any considerations for the accuracy (which you did point out at the start but I think is bigger than is reflected). For classes that don’t get fighting styles, there are also interesting considerations. For them a great weapon is all or nothing where two attacks increase the likelihood of some damage. Many of these can’t just wield any weapon too though. After having watched your new armor video, it seems like there might be an expectation issue that you are running into where people are trading high risk and missing and then damage isn’t dispersed very evenly and you are trying to compensate for that. I think it is worth letting players reconsider always taking the high risk. More attacks lower risks of not hitting, that is the real advantage of more attacks. I think action economy is an important consideration and not just damage. As much as you talk about the importance of trade-offs in some other videos this one seems to try to avoid a trade-off by boiling it down to a simple discussion of damage.
@@Sovann_the_Mighty that is true. But the game isn’t built to make everything players can dream up work. It tries to avoid someone who is everything. Strength does benefit from being able to wear heavier armor and this similarly raises AC. My only point is that if your focus is optimizing any one part of the game you should see favorite options that have to trade off other parts of the game. If you can optimize everything then there is little point to play anything but one option. Optimizing damage is obviously best with the great sword (for those proficient). But damage isn’t the only mechanic in the game. If we simply want to optimize combat then action economy, crowd control, and AC are also important considerations.
A lot of this makes sense, and I like the idea. I think the presentation would be stronger if hit rates were taken into account on the chart. Yes, we can mentally adjust the graphs for hit rate, but one of the benefits of TWF in the first place is more opportunities to hit, which means more steady damage output over time. Also, without knowing how much average damage output is reduced when accuracy is taken into account, we still don't know (mathematically) how your homebrew rules for TWF stack up against RAW 2HW. It would be interesting to see the adjusted means and standard deviations for damage per round once accuracy was taken into account.
I would honestly be interested to see that as well, would take a lot of calculations but from gameplay this homebrew has felt absolutely perfect in my opinion. But once again I really would love to see how this would work out. Another thing to take into account is greater with a master would not be used against talking to Tyra class because the player would be smarter than that to use it. Hard to calculate that lol 😆
The issue I see happening is when you get into adding rider effects to those attacks, such as hex, or hunters mark. But I do like the ideas to make dual wielding actually comparable to two handed weapons and great weapon master.
So this is a two-fold problem. On one hand you trigger effects like spirit shroud, hex, hunter's mark more often but on the other, unless you're willing to give up two of your three attunement slots for weapons, your off-hand will never be anything better than a boring +x weapon.
Solid fix, actually pretty much the same one I had implemented, nice to see the math adds up. Even if someone complains about the damage increase a dual wielder is supposed to be a tornado of blades, an offensive beast! I think it fits well.
GREAT common sense home brew tweak, Coach! I like how this helps the Monk class as well (it had more of an impact before Tasha's) But giving a Monk the option to do two strikes without using a bonus action OR using their bonus action to use fury of blows makes sense (also I think FOB should scale with level but that's another conversation).
I think this takes an ability which is on the lower end of the acceptable bounds of the power curve and maybe takes it a little too far up the power curve. I would pull it back a little and say you only get the one extra attack per turn when you take the attack action (even when you get extra attack), but I like taking the bonus action requirement out of it. I would also make the trigger 'when you make the attack action and are holding two light melee weapons', this way you can mix in shove actions as needed which you are limited by originally. I could argue that TWF might be a way to make you more defensive and maybe give an alternative use to the extra attack the offhand provides: perhaps you may instead use the extra attack to increase your AC by 1? It's a small benefit but I think it pairs well with the benefits of the feat. There are some issues with the proposed fix for Monks: they have no reason to use versatile weapons over the two weapon in this fix. This gets significantly worse with extra attack and their martial arts die boosting TWF at higher levels. Not to mention the issues with hex/Hunter's mark boosted damage.
The dual welding feat also gives a plus 1 to AC, so this maybe leaving shield users behind. Also not sure how much it'll effect a rogues bonus action economy. You'd get 2 chances to hit (to apply sneak attack once) and then always be able to disengage or dash.
Exactly! it would be really overpowered in the hands of a rogue... But as it stands dual-wielding in 5e currently incompatible or sub-optimal choice for every class and subclass except Rogues. :/
Amazing video Coach. Greta way to flesh them out further and the martial upgrade pack will definitely help the "linear fighter, quadratic wizard" problem. D&D 5.5 DUNGEON COACH SOUNDS AWESOME. Cant wait for it to launch
I actually like this a lot because it introduces dual wielding as a viable option for monks to use as well! Dual wielding as a monk is incredibly redundant and it feels like a waste to make your monk do that even if you just want it to be cool and flavorful, but I can definitely see like a dual wielding Kensei monk with this change going absolutely ham. Love it
If you really want to min-max like this and keep it RAW you could go with variant human with a feat and any martial class that gets a fighting style you can start at lvl 1 with 2 rapiers that will do 1d8 plus dex on both attacks giving them both the sane stats. This works great for non fighters to keep up with them.
The thing is, dual-wielding, you're rarely going to attack with both weapons like that. The advantage isn't in damage output, it's in versatility. Usually you're going to attack with one while blocking with the other. Using two sword is tactically similar to using a sword and shield, but your off hand is forfeiting some defense coverage for a little bit more coverage in terms of where you can attack.
Hey pro tip: put an EQ on your audio and dip down at about 150hz, especially when you're close up. You use a condenser mic, so the "proximity effect" causes the boomy part of your voice (~100-250Hz) to be really overpowering an makes it unpleasant, especially with your deep and sonorous voice. Best 15 bucks i spend each month is on your patreon!
Dude you support me AND give me pro tips! What a bad ass! Ok so I’m looking into a new mic... but Idk DM me on Discord if you know a lot about mics like that! Are you talking about when I’m at the desk??
(I know this video is 2y old, it just came up on my feed and I really like the concept.) I see a lot of people talking about taking into account the effect this action economy would have on things like opponents' spell concentration and rolling crits and such. I have a couple ideas that simplify it (and hopefully stay within the realm of other 5e rule construction). 1. Against one target, consider both strikes as one Attack. You still roll to hit with each weapon, but if both hits land on a spellcaster, they would only need to roll for concentration once against the pair. Repeat for each Extra Attack feature. 2. Only your main hand can crit, OR on a crit you hit with both weapons simultaneously and consider the total damage for calculating the critical damage. This way you prevent things such as attacking two separate targets and getting a nat 20 on both hits. Not that I see a HUGE problem with that, but the main idea is that dual-wielding gets balanced with two-handing, and I feel like this option is a happy medium, and (especially if only your main hand can crit) feels a lot like something WotC would include as RAW.
Personally I prefer that players have to sacrifice their bonus action to gain extra chances to hit. Because of this, my homebrew ruling is that when you gain an extra attack your bonus action also gives another attack. Great video as always though :)
I think that solves the BA damage issue but not the BA economy, I totally agree with needing dynamic choice, but I still can’t help but feel bad compared to the 2 handed weapons just being better
@@TheDungeonCoach The issue is that if you solve both the BA damage and the BA economy with the same feat you are making it exploitable with Hex and Hunter's Mark. Also your damage graphs aren't reliable if you assume the attacks always hit, because the 2HW with feat hits like 25% less thus doing less damage than the other reference points.
@@whiskeypixels idk what you mean here. I think you are saying that dual wielding has more opportunities to hit which is huge yes. But it’s damage AND action economy that bothers me
@@cassnt for what you are saying in general I would either NOT use this Homebrew if those classes are present OR just limit the damage from those to X times per round or whatever you feel is fair, but I customize my homebrews to which classes are present at the table
So, here's what I came up with, it's a little different but still simple. I'm actually ok with the standard two weapon fighting rules, as in anyone can pick up two weapons but your offhand weapon does not get the damage bonus AND you have to use a bonus action to make the offhand attack. Why? As someone who has actually had some sword training, I can tell you that when you train with a weapon one way, you can't just pick up a second weapon and all of a sudden you're Ray Parks. It's awkward, you're not used to moving like that, and you will be banging your two weapons together as often as you will be hitting your target. You have to think about what you are doing before you even do it. It requires training and practice to get proficient with it. Having to use the bonus action helps reflect this. However, once you have trained and practiced, it becomes more smooth. You no longer have to think about what you are doing, it becomes second nature. So this is where the change comes in. When you take the two-weapon FIGHTING STYLE, you add your modifier to the damage like normal, but your offhand attack now becomes a "free" action as part of your attack. This free attack only kicks in once per attack action, even if you get multiple attacks from extra attack. So now when you attack, you can swing + swing and still have a bonus action. When you get extra attack at level 5, you can swing + swing + swing and still get a bonus action. This prevents the Fighters from getting ridiculous amounts of extra attacks on top of their already ridiculous amounts of extra attacks. But it gives dual wielders a better feeling attack sequence, and maintain their action economy. For classes like rogues, all you need to do is dip 1 level into fighter to get the fighting style, and you're golden. They can even still max out their sneak attack damage when they hit level 20 (overall). Tying it to the fighting style helps it to feel like it's something the character had to actually train in, rather than just saying anyone can do it. Yes, anyone can pick up two knives and swing away wildly, but the key here is doing it well. I think this method reflects that difference better.
I agree with helping them out bonus wise. To keep it simple, perhaps a "once per turn, you swing with both". That way all classes can use, and not a have fighters or multiclass monks bog the game done with a tonne of rolls.
Seeing this actually inspired me to attempt my own fix for this! Instead, I made a homebrew optional feature that replaces the Extra Attack feature, allowing characters that focus on dual-wielding to make the most out of it: Blade Whirl 5th-level feature, replaces Extra Attack When engaged in Two-Weapon Fighting, you can make three attacks, instead of one, with your action. (For Fighters) The number of attacks increases to four when you reach 11th level in this class and to five when you reach 20th level in this class. This allows more or less what you are proposing, but reduces it slightly to more of my liking, and still allowing you to use your bonus action to make a fourth attack if you want/need to. It still gives that need for tactical thinking on what to use your bonus action for, without making it obsolete. And for Fighters: Making potentially 6 attacks is still better than 5, and with Action Surge it means you can make a total of 11 attacks, instead of 9.
What an absolutely BEAUTIFUL FIX... honestly it is! You really need to join discord and DM me so I can get you into the Homebrew Crew of mine that I work out stuff like this with Optional swap out features and SICK!
I actually really like this fix except for one thing. You replaced Extra Attack. Now if this character picks up a bow they're back to one attack. What if instead, you tacked this onto the Two Weapon Fighting style? Runs as is but preserves the ability to be a switch hitter while requiring them to choose the TWF style to gain the benefit.
This is exactly how I prefer to run it! I’ve found it feels perfectly balanced. Sure, you can make some crazy combos with it (hunters Mark for example) and basically every monk would benefit a lot from it by getting an extra attack. It’d be interesting if this was specifically tied to the twf fighting style to keep it unique to fighters, rangers, and anyone that picks it up through fighting initiate.
IMO every class that gains access to extra attacks should be able to benefit from it,the only class i can see gaining a lot from those changes are monks but i see them on the weaker side as they are now anyways.Also the only martial class i can see go above and beyond with it are rangers with their hunter's mark and paladins with smites.
After a few weeks I finally incorporated some changes to two-weapon fighting into my game. It came to a head when a newer player took the new Beastmaster ranger offered in Tasha's and the two-weapon fighting style (the obvious issue here being the competing uses of the bonus action!). Another player (a DM themselves) suggested that the two weapon fighting ability itself is intentionally weak and is meant to be improved on with the fighting style and feat if players are interested in excelling with it. As such tying the improvements to the fighting style and the feat seemed to be the best approach as it prevented a snow ball effect where *all* classes gained the benefits without some kind of investment. In particular Monks have the problem where a two-weapon wielding Monk is consistently better than Monks wielding single weapons if you remove the requirement that a bonus action must be used. The solutions I came to were as follows: Improved Two Weapon Fighting Style: In addition to the features provided, you may use reaction instead of your bonus action to make the second attack granted to you when you engage in Two-Weapon Fighting. Improved Dual Wielder Feat: In addition to the features provided, if you have the extra attack feature you may use your reaction to make an additional attack if you have also used a bonus action to make the second attack granted to you when you engage in Two-Weapon Fighting. Overall I think this fixes two weapon fighting. The interference with class features is fixed by the changes to the fighting style, and as it requires multiclassing/feat to be obtained it can't be abused too badly (e.g. rogues, paladins and monks). Meanwhile the additional feature in the dual wielder feat keeps this style of fighting competitive at higher levels of play (5+). There's also not too much overlap between the two new features: the fighting style is more flexible in it's use of a reaction or a bonus action while the feat requires you spend the bonus action first (less shenanigans with hex), so the two work well together but they can also be taken separately.
I'm a veteran player, but new to the DM field. Your videos have been extremely helpful! Thank you so much for the content! Easy to understand, and easy to apply. All of it makes sense! Definitely looking forward to running my first campaign!
What a Dual Wielder tries to do, is to trigger "on hit" effects becuase they get 1 additional extra attack per turn. Slasher / Crusher get to do their thing 1 more time Battlemaster get 1 extra chance to use a maneuver (and +1d8 to damage) Mobile cancels 1 extra opportunity attack "Per hit" effects (Dual wielding fighting style, Brute fighter, Divine favor)
i'd say the biggest role dual wielding has in it's current iteration is for sneak attack. you only need to hit once to deal your damage as a rogue, and having that extra attack gives you a much better chance of doing it.
I agree, big weapons are good for huge burst damage, whereas dual wielding would be superb for triggering the chances of something happening multiple times. Death by a thousand cuts (and forcing a thousand Saves)
Great video, I love the work you do on your channel. But I think there is more to weapon choice than pure dps. I think DWF and THF are pretty balanced when you take other factors into consideration. For example Versatility- in many campaigns you get one really great weapon at a time (I know this is game dependent) but having a really great one handed weapon allows you options vs a great two hander. At any point a dual wielder can chose to switch to a shield The second weapon can add a different damage type to help with resistances ( a sword and a hammer) The second weapon can give you range (eg a sword and a dagger) You can only pull one sword and keep a hand free for casting You already mentioned you also get -Psudo-advantage by rolling twice to hit -you can hit multiple targets There is also price if you use the official price guide a you can buy 5 short swords for the price of one great sword. (Again game dependent)
I agree with ALL of these points, totally see the value in TWF as is. I have a video tomorrow talking abo to why I did what I did and it’s more the FEEL of it for me. But I love your points!
Man only 123 likes i am surprised! Keep it up man! The numbers will follow soon enough; you are doing amazing content that is greatly valuable and appreciated. I got notifications for many Lives you did but not the regular videos as this. Weird! I'll be catching up fast =] Ps; that fast pace + sufficient puns is on point!
As someone trained in a dual wielding martial art I’ve never been a fan of DnD rules on dw. I may be right handed but if I have 2 weapons in my hands it would be a mistake to think I’m not equally capable with my “off” hand. In DnD, someone with the dw feat should get the same proficiency and str/dex bonus to both hands and any attack made with them. In DnD my thoughts are: -2H...double the str modifier with single prof bonus -Dual wield...an attack is both hands getting an attack each with prof and dex, no bonus action required -sword and board...that shield needs some love bc a +2 bonus to ac isn’t exciting enough to take over the above two but I’m not sure what that is
So cool that you have a background in this and i 100% agree about you being trained then you are deadly with both! I got some solutions for shields coming up too!
Even factoring in that 2 handed wins over time still since they have the same chance to hit. Now round to round can change yes, but over time 2 hander wins 😖
@@TheDungeonCoach not with the feat, which is a *massive* -5, and it's the only time where they really get far apart in damage. Your "fix" is really cool, but also absolutely broken. Giving 2handers 1.5 strenght is good, but the sheer versatility *and* power of your 2WF is absurd. You want to attack as many times as you normally do with the offhand? Perfectly fine. You think it shouldn't cost a bonus action? Yeah, probably not. But both at once completely equalizes their damage, which shouldn't happen as 2WF should be hitting harder to compensate for way less versatility. In my opinion, a better fix in this case would be 1 free attack with the offhand, and at the cost of your bonus action you can attack as many times as you have attacks, for those with Extra Attack. That way you van't just set up a trigger on hit and absolutely demolish everyone on the same turn
@@TheDungeonCoach actually, no. I got curious and made the average damage with average chance to hit. I considered PC at level 20 with +5 mod, and enemy's AC 19, and I take critical hit in consideration: std fs feat fs+feat twc 13,85 17,1 15,95 19,2 2hand 16,3 17 18,76 19,22 n-twc 16,3 22,8 19,1 25,6 n-2hand 16,3 17 17,94 18,35 in the rules, dual wield with fighting style make almost the same damage per round as a great weapon. with your homebrew, it really made dual wield more powerful, because it's probably hitting more times in a round. but I liked very much you Great Weapon Master variant. I'll use that in my games. but I'll keep the normal rules for dual wielding.
Without having watched the video yet I'd like to point out that experts tend to agree that dual-wielding actually does suck in real life. You get nearly as much threat (shield bashes) and much more protection from a shield in the off hand, or more threat and more defense from the reach advantage of a two-handed weapon. Edit: Okay, having watched it now (and not knowing if this intrudes on some other rule not discussed)... I think a more realistic idea would be to offer dual-wielders an opportunity for a free counterattack. The idea being that the real advantage of dual-wielding is that you can intercept the incoming attack with one weapon and still counter with the other. I leave it to you to math out whether it should be a percentage chance, or "on any missed melee attack", or if it's better to make it cost your reaction for proper balance. But I definitely think that is a more realistic/thematic way for dual-wielding to allow for additional damage. I could also see some rules for hooking with the off-hand weapon being a thing. Hook a shield, lower the opponents AC. Hook a leg and get an opportunity to knock them prone (or advantage on the attempt). True, not every off hand weapon would actually be useful for hooking, but I think it's worth ignoring that for consistency's sake.
This. John Woo has warped expectations and perceptions a ridiculous amount. I like a lot of DC stuff, But If it exists in real life, it will more closely reflect what reality is for my games. Magic can be off the hook, but real martial discipline is cooler than the fantasy for me.
If you are taking medieval / renaissance battlefield maybe. You want a shield for arrow volleys. But in single melee or small groups? No. There's a reason nobility fought rapier dagger, and in modern fighting a dual wielding Kali Stick fighter would make mincemeat out of you. Don't know what "experts" you're quoting.
@@matthewkloster7295 - What do you think bucklers existed for, buddy? You can't protect yourself from arrow volleys with a one foot circle of steel. Sword and buckler was just a common as sword and dagger, if not moreso. As for escrima... Which are actually stand ins for machetes, BTW... I'd love to see someone using them vs a longsword. I'm betting they'd lose at least 3 out of 4 times on average just based on shorter reach. Dual weilding machetes makes sense in the context of living somewhere that everyone carries a machete anyway. Because 99% of the time, whoever you're fighting is probably just going to use the machete they're already carrying. Whereas if you're living in a DnD world where people walk around with everything from daggers, to sword and board, to spears and pole-axes, it's much less practical. It's obvious you don't know the first thing about the practical history of world martial arts. So I'll stick with my experts over your random opinions based on zero actual historical knowledge.
@@JCPRuckus Actually, I trained with Fight Directors Canada for years, surrounded by instructors who studied historical fighting and trained under the pioneers who developed combat for stage and film. But yeah, you stick with whatever DnD and RUclips videos you looked up.
@@matthewkloster7295 - Even if you weren't doing the "Random guy in comments claims specific expertise" thing, the fact that you're claiming expertise in "stage combat" still doesn't help you. Stage combat is supposed to look good and result in zero injuries, not be historically accurate or practically effective. What's next? Are you going to tell me that swinging to deliberately miss your opponent whenever possible is also sound martial technique, because that's what you did as a stuntman?
The dual wielding feet lets you use longs sword and add str modifier to both hits AND a +1 to AC. So a fighter with a 18 STR would get 2d8 + 8 and a bonis to AC, at the cost of a bonus action Also, more chances to hit. A dual wielder with advantage is almost a guarantee hit
@@rhysjonsmusic I affectionately refer to it as "mathfinder". I cut my teeth on the first edition of the system and it still holds a place in my heart, but by the time I got out of it building the character was a week-long process of hunting down as many +1s as you could.
@@markdasaro9045 also the extra attack base he is using is 3.x ish except the 3.x would give you the negative to hit (which to me makes more sense) you give up accuracy but keep effort. A feat or two could do away with that penalty.
Correction: in one of the Errata/Sage Advice Compedium it was stated that when using Extra Attack you aren't limited to your "main hand" only, you can use whatever weapon(s) you are wielding in whichever hand when taking the Attack action.
As a rogue, rules as written its about just landing an attack and upgrading the one that lands into a sneak attack. More attack options leads to higher damage output and procs for magic weapon effects, poisons landing and sneak attack.
This idea is really cool, and I think when looked at just in the context of a fighter or barbarian, it is fairly balanced. However, where this becomes a major problem is with paladin. At fifth level, when paladin gets extra attack, if they have taken the Dual Wielder feat, they would be able to make 4 longsword attacks. On each of these attacks, they would be able to smite. If all of these attacks hit, this would be 18d8+12(assuming 16 STR and using as high smite level as possible), or 93 damage on average in one round. This doesn’t even take into consideration crits which would be quite likely if the paladin rolled with advantage, which is quite easy to get. This can easily one shot bosses at this level, and at the very least will get any creature you encounter to very low hp. It gets even crazier though, as we can take one more level in paladin, 2 in fighter and 2 in sorcerer, making us a paladin 6, sorcerer 2, and fighter 2 by level 10, this allows us to use action surge, making 8 attacks, cast wrathful smite as a bonus action , and smite on each attack using our highest level spell slots, totaling to 31d8+2d6+24, or 171 damage on average. This can totally one shot bosses, especially if you crit, or if you have your cleric casts holy weapon on your sword, which is another 8d8, or now 207 damage on average. And if you have someone cast hold monster on the boss, then you can do 62d8+4d6+24 or 317 DAMAGE, just on average. This build becomes more and more powerful the more you go up, but since many campaigns don’t go past 10th level, I decided to stop here, as it gets the point across. Obviously most people won’t do a triple multi class, but this is still very powerful with a straight class paladin along with holy weapon and/or hold monster. I don’t know how I would account for this, but something along the lines of not being able to smite with offhand weapons might be good, or maybe only smiting with off hand weapons once a turn. Keep up the good work, your content is great, just wanted to point out this error. :) Edit: you could take vengeance paladin to get hunters mark to do even more damage
I agree, I focused more on what a Fighter already does (since that seemed to be the focus) in my comment above, because I knew what a Paladin could do given the chance with TWF being more expansive. Any class that benefits from 'on hit' abilities can begin to produce an insane amount of damage, but even without that, until much later and with a decent negative to hit, TWF isn't as weak as many like to complain it is. It starts to fall behind around level 11, otherwise it is on par, and with more attacks a person is far more likely to get crits. This just goes up exponentially when you consider tying in TWF with Basic Attack over a bonus action, since Haste and Action Surge make it far more valuable.
Something to note is that some classes get extra bonuses on landing hits. The two that benefit the most currently are as follows: 11th level paladins get an extra d8 radiant on each melee attack they land, plus each hit can be further boosted with a Divine Smite. Allowing a nova class to nova that much more is going to splatter bigger targets a lot faster than one would expect. Rogues are all about getting a single hit in for that juicy Sneak Attack damage. TWF gives them an additional chance to land that if the first swing misses, mitigating the biggest drawback of running that class in melee.
I didn't watch all the way through, but I think dual wielding has a benefit you didn't mention at the beginning. Although the damage of an individual hit may be less, dual wielding greatly increases your chances of landing at least one hit per turn. If you have spells or features that do damage once turn, but require a hit to activate, like sneak attack or hunter's mark, dual wielding greatly increases your odds of getting to use that damage.
Yes but that "benefit" is balanced out by the fact that because more dice are being rolled, there is a FAR greater chance that your actual damage ends up always being much closer to the average DPR. This compared to Great Weapon Fighting which has an equal chance to roll any amount of damage due to lesser dice rolls, meaning that in many situations its much easier to near max your already superior damage. This follows the basic realities and trends of probability, so ultimately TWF having more hits and thus more chances of not doing 0 damage really isn't a benefit compared to GWF which has a higher chance of scoring no damage in a round, but also an equal chance of scoring near max damage in the same round.
@@envytee9659 you didn't really address what I said about more hits giving more opportunities to trigger abilities and spells like sneak attack. Sneak attack on particular is huge, and it's best to improve your odds of your rogue being able to land it.
@@corphish129 For said spells, Dual wielding ultimately just means 1 more time that you trigger the spell. 9 times out of 10, you would do more damage with two hits with Great Weapon Fighting than the little amount that a single extra trigger of an "on hit" spell effect ever would. Not to mention that many such spells use a bonus action so you wouldn't even be able to use your dual wielding attack on the round you use the spell. As for sneak attack, why use a bonus action for a second attack when you could use the same bonus action to Hide, gain advantage and make a ranged attack (rolling the same two dice as if you were making dual wielding attacks) thus giving you the same chance of landing sneak attack, except now you're at range instead of being in melee to use two weapon fighting. Being at range and out of enemy reach is huge for a rogue. And let's not forget just how important a Rogue's Bonus action is for things like Dash, Disengage and the aforementioned Hide Actions.... all of which are lost if you choose to use two weapon fighting.
@@envytee9659 Concerning sneak attack, hiding is not always possible (depending on the DMs interpretation of the hiding rules it may even be impossible to hide while in combat) and it requires a successful skill check, so it's not always a good option. As for using your bonus action to disengage or dodge, Rogues still have that option. Make your first attack and if it hits you have no need of making the second: you can disengage. If it misses, you can still disengage, or you can double down and go for that second attack. Look man, I'm not trying to prove that two weapon fighting is optimal in every single situation, just that it has utility.
@@corphish129 RAW, hiding is simple. You make a stealth in some level of obscurity, if you beat the enemy's passive perception or if the enemy makes an active perception check that fails to beat your stealth, then you gain the "Unseen Attacker" state. If your DM does something different, they are allowed to but that is ultimately homebrew and isn't a valid argument for why Hide isn't a better option here. As for "oh but hide requires a roll and it may not be successful".... well two separate attacks require two separate rolls and equally may not be successful, although hiding is actually more likely to succeed than a hit due to Rogues having proficiency in stealth and enemies having, in general, a higher AC than their passive perceptions, though rare exemptions do exist. Then saying "rogues still have that option by just not using two weapon fighting" is in favor of what I am saying because it just goes to show that dual wielding is inferior to the point that you would consider using those actions instead of a second attack. You aren't proving it has utility. You are helping me prove that there is genuinely 0 benefit to Dual Weilding as opposed to using the many alternatives. Dual Wielding in 5e is strictly an inferior option mechanically and its only amazing perk is the flavor it brings of a badass warrior swinging around two weapons.
The problem I came up with in my homebrewing of 2 handed weapons and dual wielding (very similar to your homebrews) was that dual wielders with things like flametongue and frostbrand in either hand. This adds an extra 8 damage on average. So what I did was double the magical output of great weapons, if your weapon had a 1d6 added on to it, you have a 2d6 instead. I did take away the ability mod on ranger's off-hand strikes to tie them with great weapons, but fighters had it. So I'll probably give it back to Rangers now and add the 1.5 abi mod on two handers as well thanks to this video.
Fighters don't have access to 9th level magic. I think it's balanced to give them so many attacks. Being able to mince things in combat only helps in some situations.
I'm going to borrow from Cyberpunk 2020 and say the duel wielder can choose to attack with both weapons at once as their action and they'll have their bonus applied to each hand since your non-dominant hand is still full of the same muscles, but both attacks are at a -2 penalty to hit accuracy since you need to split your attention. Sure they get a bit more damage on a hit due to flat bonus applied twice, but they'll be hitting less often. Maybe slightly increase the penalty, but that needs play testing. I love your idea, this is just adding my own.
I think you're overlooking a pretty big factor here. Which is how many things add damage to each hit. Your solution would make spirit shroud insanely powerful on a blade singer. I agree with the general idea of fixing dual wielding but giving that many extra attacks without having to pay a bonus action is way too easy to exploit
@@TheDungeonCoach If a feat is broken depending on who's at the table, then the feat you created is shit. Take your fix for twf for example: Its shit, because "depending who's at the table" Your fix become completely broken. Spirit guardians breaks your fix. Shadowblade breaks your fix. Having magical weapons breaks your fix. Anything that adds more damage dice breaks your fix. Taking champion and having extend crit range breaks your fix. Bloodhunter rites break your fix. I could go on. This fix is so badly thought out, I'm honestly surprised you clicked publish.
@@Jk-zv6tz You know... the rule of thumb is to make the game fun for your table. I certainly agree that this fix can be exploited, but it is also a valid choice if you talk with your players and say "lets implement this fix but if you guys want to combo it lets nerf it a little so everyone can build the character they want without breaking the game" Also, please dont be a dick about it... I bet you are not this rude when talking in person... right?
Aw I love this so much! So simple and clean and I love the ramping of this ability as you get to higher levels. Start of small because duel weilding as a fighting style is kinda tough to master. But you get a better and better edge as you master it further...until eventually becoming a beyblade xD so cool
If you don't use the math to take into account the reduced odds of hitting when you take 5 (or your proficiency bonus) off your to-hit, it inflates your damage per round. It also ignores more potential crits, and more chances to land extra damage. Missed your attack with your main hand and didn't get sneak attack damage? Your off-hand attack gives you another chance. Hunter's Mark? After the first bonus action to cast the spell, every hit inflicts extra damage. Dual-wielding paladin? You'll burn through spell slots, but you can deliver some serious burst damage.
The damage output for a solo Fighter is fine with this houserule. The crazy number of attacks at level 20 (8 attacks without Action Surge) doesn't really matter because it's level 20... so just consider level 11. It's (without action surge) 4 vs 6... that's fine. Action Surge is kinda busted as a class ability anyways because it makes the Fighter _way_ too good in chase scenes.
Two weapon fighting is the only way to attack with a bonus action (with some exceptions of quickened spell booming/greenflame blade and other subclass abilities) on a featless game. It has its place and doesn't need any changes.
Really good video, watching you explain it in the beginning was very informative. I thought going through it, o just get rid of it costing a bonus action, and that's where you went, cool to be on the same page as a high tier DM.
Worth mentioning - as soon as you get extra attack you can attack with any two one-handed weapons you are wielding. If you are wielding a longsword and a warhammer you can make one attack with each or two attacks with either one. Bonus actions are a separate topic, the simplest form of dual wielding is extra attack.
As mentioned below, dice adders like Hex, Hunter’s Mark, Frostbrand and Flametongue weapons, they all go ballistic missile insane with this variant. It is an elegant solution, and honestly Ranger could use the boost, but this would cause Gloomstalker (already the top tier Ranger option) to become obnoxious by default. @5th Rd1: BA HMark, Attack action, 6 attacks for 12d6+24. Add 3 levels of Assassin for 24d6+24. Another elegant solution that’s a little more manageable: 1/turn when you take the attack action you can make an attack with a light weapon in your off hand. You can make an additional attack with a weapon you’re holding as a bonus action. Now you can use the BA to optimize with a magic or poisoned blade, you still get a free extra attack with a light weapon (upgradable with feat).
@@ReaperGrimm5594 No, the fact that you have to chose betwen doing another attack or using another feature with your bonus action balances the game. Let me give you an example: Halfling rogue, dual wielder. Makes two sneak attacks and then uses his bonus action to hide behind one of his companions so the next round he'll be sneak attacking again. Rinse and repeat. Even if he doesn't score criticals, he'll be abusing his economy of actions (which the game balance relies a lot upon). Add two levels of fighter so he can get action surge and you have a character that at level 4 is making four sneak attacks in one round every short rest. Let's assume he's wielding two short swords and has a DEX of 20 (to use the same values as in the video), while a two handed fighter can make two attacks of 2d6+5(12) and the one of 2d6+5, the rogue can make two attacks of 2d6+5(12) plus two of 2d6(7) and then one of each every turn.
it takes a bonus action and a negative because most people have a dominant hand. swinging a sword with your non dominant hand just feels wrong and is often not as coordinated as your dominant hand. just picture like this. if you have a baseball in each hand your going to be better at throwing it with one hand than the other. Unless your ambidextrous. and since its stupid to say "well all characters just happen to be ambidextrous" they have an off hand. A non dominant hand that isnt as effective at attacking.
Except that many sword masters will study fighting with their off hand, as being left handed (or fighting left handed) offers a slight advantage (see co-operative vs combative tension). So while they may not naturally be ambidextrous it is learnable, and adventurers would be highly motivated to seize any edge they can.
@@nathanaelpoole1369 yes i like your thoughts i feel like there should be a negative to those who aren't trained in it so your chance to hit should be lowered unless your trained it in such as combat style and the feat which shows that you spent time to learn to be good at it. Start with a -5 to the attack then if your combat style is TWF then reduce that negative by your proficiency
@@nathanaelpoole1369 - Actually in some ways min-maxing works in real life, and this is one of those situations. There's only so many hours to practice in a day, and you're almost certain to get more effective results from spending basically all of your time becoming amazing with your dominant hand than in splitting your time to become "pretty good" with either hand. Because if you are "pretty good" with either hand, then a person who is amazing with only one hand will usually defeat you, since they are amazing and you are "pretty good". You truly would have to be a master with your dominant hand before serious cross-training with your off hand would make sense from an opportunity cost perspective. And almost certainly your average "adventurer" would be too busy adventuring to become a true master. Like so many things, becoming a master swordsman would be almost exclusively the provenance of the rich. Because in reality only a rich person could afford to spend several hours a day for several years learning swordsmanship, especially in a pre-industrial society.
@@JordanNoctrianSutton Citation fucking needed. Almost everyone has a dominant hand and historically almost everyone fought with a two handed weapon or shield in the non-dominant hand precisely for this reason. Dual wielding is a movie thing that really doesn’t work for 99% of people. It’s inclusion in D&D is fine but it doesn’t need different rules. A simple fix might be to simply subtract -1 to AC but +1 to Attack / advantage on damage rolls.
Your channel is awesome! I’ve been running my first campaign ever and plan to make some D&D related videos on my channel. Your channel has inspired me a lot regarding my campaign and channel. Keep up the great work.
Wow man! That just made my day!! I’ve been running around and just filmed a response video for this video and saw this comment, put a smile on my face for sure!
Completely dismiss the Fighting Style for Two Weapon Fighting and the risk of ramping with that and having a person using the feat (Dual Wielder) associated with Two Weapon Fighting (TWF) and just using two longswords. After all, don't need flaming weapons to do an insane amount of damage, when just having a giants belt and dealing 1d8 + Str Mod + Weapon Enchant (since they don't require attunement) or so but having six attacks at level 11 with a Fighter, twelve when you action surge with easily having about an 80% hit rate. Personally, I would suggest going with something like 2:1 round up, so it does somewhat increase two weapon fighting, but not to such a huge degree, because my math is very different than yours. The reason they always limited the amount of TWF attacks in previous editions was because it basically overwhelmed the other styles to such a degree that there was no point to ever going 2her. Considering that more attacks and at a higher crit rate is going to generate more critical hits, plus the much higher average damage with your method of doing TWF, it just makes it far more valid over ever considering 2h (essentially reversing current trend). Without changes, Fighters damage at level 1 going TWF are actually doing 1d8 + Mod and 1d6 + Mod due to Fighting Style, so their damage is higher, changing down slightly at level 5 to 3 attacks at 1d8 + Mod per hit (So 4.5 + 5 using your example, all hit would be 27.5 versus 24 (or 44 if hitting with Great Weapon Master with the -5 to hit)). Action Surge would give you 5 attacks at 5 with TWF for 47.5 and 48 for 2h (88 with the GWM if you managed to hit). With your modification that changes to eight attacks for 72 damage (not counting crits) which barely falls behind GWM that has a much lower chance to hit. Bringing down the attacks slightly like I suggested, makes 11 less of an issue when the amount of attacks from TWF would just eclipse anything 2h could do. Instead, you'd get 3MH +2OH per attack, so 10 with action surge. Otherwise, considering a Fire Giant Belt + two +2 LS would generate something like 13.5 per hit, and with twelve attacks (14 with haste) you get 162 (189) versus 16 per hit with a +2 greatsword and same belt at 6 attacks for 96 (156 with GWM hitting all hits (112 with haste or 182 if all GWM hits hit (unlikely)) The only way for 2h to compete is the hope that A) TWF doesn't crit (unlikely not to happen) and that B) they can hit with the negative for every hit despite it decreasing chances before your Feat change by a solid 25%. Not even going to touch what Giants Belt + Flame tongue would do, which would be possible for three attunement slots. Anyways, sorry for the paragraphs of info dumb, but I enjoy theory crafting.
Maybe, instead of adding the off-hand attack to your action, you can add another hit for every 2 extra attacks you can do, in the spread: 1 attack + 1 off hand attack, 2 attack + 1 off hand attack, 3 attack + 2 off hand 4 att + 2 off, 5 att + 3 off-hand, etc.
My personal fix: "While dual wielding, you gain a +1 bonus to AC while you are wielding a separate melee weapon in each hand." Everything else remains the same. This doesn't change the offensive capability but does neatly place TWF between S&S (+2 ac, lowest damage) and GW (+0 ac, best damage). In this way, TWF still benefits from the option to use a BA for a little more damage or save it for something else. After all, making additional attacks often has many benefits from things like Flametongue, Hunter's Mark, sneak attack (more likely to land), and Fancy Footwork (Swashbuckler). If the player is a martial (or fighting intiate feat), they can take TWF style and push their damage slightly above a Duelist with S&S but still have some of the AC bonus. If they want to further focus TWF, they can take "Dual Wielder" feat which allows 1d8 weapons in each hand and an additional +1 to AC.
I like that if you want to go down the road of making any kind of weapons fighting better, you take a feat or levels in a class with a fighting style. To that end I improved the Two-Weapon fighting style: "When you engage in two-weapon fighting, you can add your ability modifier to the damage of the second attack. You may also ignore the "light" and "melee" requirements for two-weapon fighting. In addition, while wielding a weapon in each hand, if you don't take the Attack action, you may still make an attack with your Bonus action. If you don't attack with your Bonus action on your turn, you may make one additional attack with your Attack action." I also (inspired by Treantmonk's old variants) included Improved Fighting Styles at level 14 for fighters. The Improved Two-weapon fighting style reads: "You now gain a +1 bonus to AC when holding a weapon in each hand. Your Bonus action attack granted by this style also benefits from your Extra Attack feature."
@@TheDungeonCoach Right? I hope, one day, he returns to it. Until then though, you have to admit his grasp of the rules is amazing. Even though I'm not an optimizer, I still gain so much from him. Between you and him, both end of my gaming spectrum are complete haha.
I will say why normally attacking with two weapons at the same time is different action, because attacking with two weapons at the same time is really really hard and when done in reality is done with two weapons of different lengths and the shorter one isent normally used for attacking its is normaly defensive
Yes, attacking with two weapons at the same time is really hard! At the same time, is very different than both attack within 6 seconds though. For instance, two weapons following the same arc where the first swing is an attack, but used as more of a beat attack to bash away defense (or hit them if the defense fails) and the second for the primary attack to do the damage then followed by another two attacks. It's rather like boxing, you use combos, you don't just shove both fists at your opponent at once.
This is cool and we play something similar. I have been playing since 1982. In 1E and 2E if you take the nonweapon proficiency AMBIDEXTROUS it cancels those negatives in two weapon fighting as when you max proficiency on your weapon like 4 weapon proficiencies into mastering longsword, you can now dual wield longswords with no negatives and get your damage. Its really good with monk and assassin characters as well. We do the 3/2 attack rule as literally 3 attacks every round as one hand gets 1 attack and the other gets 2 and the next round its reversed for 2 and 1 for 3 every turn. Then when you get higher levels and get the 2 every turn its 4 attacks per turn. Then at the higher levels when it hits 5/2 it becomes 5/5 for 3 attacks one hand and 2 the other hand for 5 and then the next turn its reversed so you get 5 every turn. 3/2 1 + 2 main hand 2 + 1 off hand = 3 every turn 2 2 main hand 2 off hand = 4 every turn 5/2 2 + 3 main hand 3 + 2 off hand = 5 every turn I havent been playing 5E for very long and am still figuring things out on a lot of levels as a lot has changed and so channels like yours are full of great info.
Getting a whole bucket of attacks as a high level fighter sounds like it would imbalance it (especially with TWF) but it just brings it up to par with GWM.
In my table we've played it so that dual wielding doesn't give you any extra attacks, bonus action or otherwise. If you wield a single-handed weapon in your main hand and a dagger in your off-hand, or two light weapons, and you hit something with your melee weapon attack, you may add the off-hand weapon's damage die (plus any bonuses from it being magical) to your damage once in your turn. TWF fighting style enables dual wielding with weapons without "light" trait. TWW feat gives you the ability to use your Bonus Action to do one attack, where you may add your off-hand weapon's damage even if you used that in a regular attack this turn. Also gives the +1 AC bonus if dual wielding. This frees up the bonus action (or makes it actually useful), takes into account any problems arising from multiple hits and gives monks a reason to dual wield. It's been working well with our group so far. We've also used a rule to give daggers a free attack when doing grappling attempts, which has led to really interesting builds and advancement choices, especially for rogues looking for a reason to get into melee distance and get the Grappler feat.
Wait, doesn't the two weapon fighting style make this fix stronger than two handed weapons? You're adding your ability modifier more times. (1d6+5)×4 (2d6+5)×2
Against an AC of 15, TWF with 4 attacks would be 15.6 points of damage per round, 2HW (2d6) with GWF would only be around 13.2. I'd allow three attacks with TWF for 11.7 points of damage, which would be above archery (10.5 w longbow) and duelling (11.4 w longsword). Given that Archery is less risky, and duelling gets to use a shield, this seems fairest to me. I'd allow the TWF to use their bonus action for a 4th attack (or any other bonus action option they have). Edit: For ability mod of +3
Nope TWF = 4d6+10 for all 4 attacks because you don't add your bonuses in your off hand damage THW = 4d6+10 as per normal two attacks Note I'm doing total dice rolled and bonuses for an attack action. The main difference would now you'd have to roll to hit twice as many times, but in general the amount of damage would still be more or less similar
My goals for melee: * Unarmed: Most flexible, but overall lowest damage * Dual-Wielding: Greatest number of attacks, greatest potential damage (if all attacks land) * Two-Handed Weapons: Highest damage per swing, and more accurate attacks * One-Handed Weapon & Free Hand: Balanced number of attacks, decent damage per swing & improved AC * Weapon & Shield: Basic damage, but improved AC & can reduce/negate damage (+shield abilities)
Once they take the feat, they can use two longswords @ 1d8+am each, letting them attack with both weapons means they will do more damage than a two-handed weapon AND get a bonus to AC. I'm sorry, but I feel this makes two weapon fighting more powerful than using a single two-handed weapon, once you've maxed out the style.
I took that into account in the damage chart too, but I would have to disagree when it comes to classes who have good bonus actions, having to WASTE a bonus action ... to deal LESS damage just feels terrible to me. And if they want to optimize for dual wielding and do more damage... cool let em 👌🏼
@@TheDungeonCoach In your games, you may decide that. The rules you proposed make 2-handed weapons the lower damage dealer (by far when you include hunters mark and hex blade) and have a lower AC than the dual wielder. If the two-handed wants to get even close to that new super-high damage they need to take a -5 to attack. In my games I'll be running RAW regarding dual-wielding. Love the channel and the ideas. This one just fell short to me. Others likely love it!
When you just compare damage its true what you say but usually some minmaxer would grab this and armor that adds dex or unarmored defense multiclassing with monk for example. Since 2 handed fighting usually uses weapons with finesse it would be a monster on the offensive and defensive.
O for sure and then I would intervene on the min maxer and work out other things for them lol. DM always has to have a pulse check on what each player is capable of
So, I actually took the bonus damage of the sharp shooter, and the great weapon master feat and replaced it with a different effect that kept the feats beneficial. I then rolled the bonus damage into a new feat called power attack which basically says that when preforming a non-spell attack you can subtract half your proficiency modifier rounded down from the attack roll and gain your proficiency modifier in damage. In addition, if the attack has the heavy modifier applied to it you subtract your entire proficiency modifier from attack rolls and add double your proficiency modifier to damage. This makes the feat useful for any attack that isn't a cantrip or spell with exceptions in the form of cantrips which require you to hit the target such as booming blade, or magic stone.
The thing that occurred to me looking at those graphs in the video, was that sword and board kinda gets screwed. It would be nice to give them special things to do with their shield, since they are losing out on the extra attacks and/or extra damage.
I mean... Shields CANNOT do anything but to be treated as an Improvised Weapon or an AC boost, RAW. In some ways, 5e is simple. In other ways, 5e is outdated...
Dual wielding is superior with hunters mark, colossus slayer, hex and sneak attack, etc., since you get an extra chance to trigger them with your second attack. Looking at the mechanic in a void it may look like there is no balance, but the game is not balanced in a void.
Yeah. I don't think he took these mechanics into things at all. It is almost like he just thought of the fighter, and that was it, but if you ever played a Ranger who pumps Hunters Mark into each hit you know how powerful Dual Wielding is.
@@marks2807 I have a Homebrew philosophy: if a minority of classes/ subclasses cause a Homebrew to be imbalanced... it does not make it a bad Homebrew... I just simply would not use it at the table with those characters present. So yea I did 100% think of those... but if I had a player trying to abuse it... I don’t use it... or hell, maybe I do and let them have a blast, it all depends.
You also can’t look at homebrews under ALL circumstances... if it would break the game cuz you have a Hexblade and a ranger in your party... don’t use the Homebrew I’m saying in the big picture of the game it feels bad... that’s all 👍🏼
@@TheDungeonCoach No problem just saying the ranger, and the hexblade warlock to a lesser extent could very much abuse your homebrew. The fact that you would be mindful of this is good.
One thing about having multiple attack rolls is that damage becomes more consistent. If TWF and GWF have the same damage maximum, the TWF will get a more consistent damage output while one handed becomes more hit and miss. Maybe one could lean into that consistency as an attractive strength of TWF. We know that an offhand dagger is historically used to assist the main hand by forcing opponent weapons out of position. So maybe a way to represent that is, if any of the attack rolls miss (either the off-hand or the main-hand), the next swing gets advantage or +5 or whatever because the enemy compromised their defensive stance for a split second to parry.
Reminds me of a couple things I drafted at different points: One was a change to the dual wield Fighting Style, where you made the offhand attack as part of the same action, with only a raw Str/Dex modifier The other was "Twin Weapons" Which were meant to be a pair of magically modified weapons that truck as part of the same action This one didn't go anywhere outside of a single legendary item I made (a pair of dagger's that were once owned by a legendary Rogue)
A simple and elegant system! Why didn't I think of that? 😅 I would add a clause with Two-weapon fighting that you cannot add bonus damage from Ability Modifiers, Feats, or Spells to the off-hand attack. That would effectively keep players from getting out of control with their two-weapon fighting. Lancer actually has a similar rule for "Auxiliary Weapons" because some weapons in that game let you put smaller weapons on your bigger weapons so you can fire your guns while you fire your guns. 😅
The one thing this video is just plain correct on is that they just need to get rid of the attack being a bonus action for martial characters. The fact that it takes a bonus action means that dual wielding particularly sucks for rangers, warlocks, and anything that relies on bonus action stuff like barbarian rage. I think having 2 attacks for every attack makes this too strong for hex and hunters mark, so i think the simplest fix is to just add the offhand attack to part of the action; the math for this checks out for early levels and with the fighting style it's close to 2h weapons. This fixes the damage difference at early levels, but this doesn't address fighters at level 11 and 20. The other option is if you use your dual wielding fix; and you could potentially limit hex and hunters mark to main hand attacks, but then the wording for the spells gets a little more complex. I think it's a tough thing to fix without addressing the things that would become stronger because of the change.
My homebrew rule I do for duel wielding is if the take the Feat, you add your modifier for the off hand just like the fighting style, but if you take both feat and two weapon style, you add twice as much on the off hand weapon and with extra attack you can use your off hand weapon instead of main hand as long as your Action is using your main hand.
Love this because yes, mechanically, Dual wielding is weak sauce. Worse action economy, worse damage past 5th level. One thing my group does to improve the Dual Wielder feat is to make the bonus to AC based on half your proficiency bonus. So when you have a +4 Prof bonus, your Dual Wielder feat now gives a +2 to AC. When your Prof bonus is +6, your bonus is +3.
Lets not forget, that you can still get feats, like magic initiate, and get Hex, or Hunter's Mark. One attack, with a Greatsword with a +5 to str, that's 2d6+1d6+5, where as if you use TWF with this new Homebrew, granted it is still two separate attacks, but that's also a greater chance to critical, so with TWF, that's 1d6+1d6(Hex/Hunter's Mark)+5, and as part of the second attack, 1d6+1d6, so even though it maybe a bit small in terms of damage, but then if this is on a fighter, that's still 2 attacks per each normal attack they'd have. So at level 20, I might be wrong about the amount but I think with action surge, for non TWF, would be 12 attacks, not counting any class features or anything. Whereas with this change, that's around 24 attacks. Which at the end of the day, sky rockets damage potential. Considering with if you get HM, or Hex, on them, for TWF's change, That's 24d6(Weapon attacks)+24d6(HM/Hex)+60(Assuming +5 to mod) with no magic Items. TWF becomes godly with this. Too much so.
WOW I am blown away by the comments and the response and the comments to this video! Thank you all for swinging by to check it out!
I will be making a follow up video adressing the concerns about Hunters Mark and Hex Blades Curse in a future video VERY soon! So stay tuned!
💜 Join Patreon for more Homebrew Content: www.patreon.com/thedungeoncoach
I would be glad of seing it.
You can sneak attack with two weapons and not with a two handed weapon. Also action surge op. Also I don't think you are taking into account both two handed weapons can be rapiers or magic rapiers? What about monks? Crazy damage. This is a way too over powered option.
5 levels barbarian the rest rogue let's go too op
What about paladin smites? I dual wielding paladin doing 4 attacks in one turn would be game-breaking.
@@SayviRock well maybe not so much with paladin since using smites requires to use resources. If a paladin wants to burn through 4 spell slots which they don't have a lot as a half caster i day go for it 😀
All balance discussions aside, a 20 level fighter being able to attack 16 times within one turn and become a cyclone of steel sounds freaking cool
Hahahahaha cyclone of steel!! EPIC!
Number of attack rolls to the moon
I call that the Glorious Chainsaw Method. "Make your swords become like things unto chainsaws."
Until you actually have to roll...
@@rafaelcastor2089 when you’re a level 20 fighter, missing is not a thing you worry about. Unless you get a nat 1, you have a +11 to hit without magic items and you’re level 20 so you have plenty of magic weapons
Dungeon Coach: “You’re the DM, you are in control of what magic items your players get.”
Artificers: *”Are you sure about that?”*
A good DM: chadyes.png
@@CMacK1294 while it is true that the DM has ultimate power, it's a pretty dick move to overwrite a player characters class features, especially when it's such a core part of the class' identity.
@@INTCUWUSIUA not only that but, the martial vs caster gaps does exist. Not only do Martials need magic weapons to overcome resistance, but to also provide something besides dpr, since casters can pretty much do anything else.
Oh heck yeah, you love to see a chart. That's what it's all about.
CHARTS CHARTS CHARTS!!! lol
I love his chart and the math behind it make sense, but I wonder what the damage is when you factor in the double opportunity to roll critical hits. I wonder if you would expect to see slight or big jumps in damage. I just wonder if you can factor it back to even with like a halving the damage when critical hits happen
@@justinchrstnsn especially with a champion archetype warrior, with its 18-20 to crit
W&S: Able to fight and defend at same time
2HW: Large amount of damage to a single target in one attack
TWF: Able to attack a single target twice or up to two targets at same time
Dual Wield General Rules: Bonus Action Attack with Limiters.
TWP Style: Free AC and above.
The other Two Weapon Fighter Feat: Damage Modifiers.
Dual Wielder: EVEN BETTER!!!
Eldritch Knight: "Other rules do better for this mechanic... Dual Wields one Versatile Great Sword and one Throw Great Sword... I HAVE THE POWER!!!"
DM: "RAW... The Eldritch Knight is valid to hold two weapons in both hands without Feats or the Light limitation because those only apply to the Off Hand Attack Bonus Action... Which only means that Dual Wielding rules are not great in the Action Economy."
I feel this is actually perfectly balanced in a shield is defensive, two hander is more damage, and dual wielding is more consistent damage over rounds. So your melee character had choices
Thats exactly what I want it to be, choice to customize play style! Love it!
@@TheDungeonCoach I mean the book method. When you start throwing in accuracy the dual wielder does have perks over the 2hander.
I fully get the homebrew of I wanna wield 2 weapons and do a bunch of damage, player choice matters and the more the better.
I remember reading about developer woes about dual wielding. Their testing showed people really liked having another attack when dual wielding, but their action economy design prevented them from granting additional attacks to dual wielders in a way that wasn't broken.
Echo Knight: "So... 13 Attacks mean nothing, huh?"
I just avoid that Bonus Action and work around the limitation. It's rather simple with Interaction, swapping hands with yourself (not clones), and dropping weapons.
Ex: Attack Action with sword + Interact by putting that sword away + Swap hands with my Ax + Extra Attack with Ax... There are more combinations than this.
You don't even need "light" weapons to dual wield. This limitation is only regards to that Binus Action.
And... Reaction Opportunity Attacks do not care which weapon you use.
You can even exchange weapons between Extra Attacks if you use the mechanics well.
It's mostly cause of two classes: Paladins and Rogues.
You see it's not damage thats the problem. It's the fact that you get more attacks to succeed on.
Therefore you get more chances to get off Sneak Attack/Divine Smite.
That's where the bonus action comes in.
With a Paladin, you have to choose between a guaranteed TWF and something like Banishing Smite.
Same with Rogue and Cunning Action.
So removing the bonus action requirement or making it a part of the attack action would just break both classes.
At 20th level, 4 chances per turn to deal Smite/2 for Sneak attack damage and a free disengage or Shield of Faith.
@zooker7938 it already does do that
The problem is that the chance to proc sneak attack or smite is increased - not the number of sneak attacks or smite
And making them hard, once per turn declarations would just severely crush both classes
@@seosamhrooney4819 If I remember right, you can only sneak attack once per turn anyway.
What I think it should be (gross simplification):
GWF: best damage
S&S: best defense
TWF: good, but not best, at both
It already is supposed to be that, atleast with the dual wielder feat. Either pure damage, +1 ac and attack or +2 ac with no bonus attacks.
@@stevenyoung9738 Supposed to be, but doesn’t achieve it well.
@@NotYourAverageNothing I mean, the fact that for dual wielding to be competent you need a feat is kinda trash desing
@@xuklysc for dex based characters the last thing you take is the feat, cause each +2 to dex already increases your AC and average dmg by 1, but also initiative, dex checks and saves
@@xuklysc you don't really need the feat, just be a dex fighter and that's it
The main issue I have with the whole "swing both weapons at once" thing, and using it as a focus for how to rebalance two-weapon fighting, is that that would kinda breaks away from the main role that an off-handed weapon plays during combat; it's more defensive than the main weapon. In historical treatises showing the dual-wielding as we understand it today, the off-handed weapon is usually smaller than the main-hand weapon, and plays mainly a defensive role. The daggers that were wielded alongside rapiers were used to act in place of a shield.
While you definitely could attack with both weapons simultaneously, it would require that you make those attacks with them from different directions in order to bypass your opponent's defense. For instance, if your attack with your main weapon is coming from the side, then your attack from your secondary should be coming from the top or bottom or opposite side, thus guaranteeing that at least one of your attacks gets through (assuming your opponent doesn't have a shield or other off-hand weapon of their own of course). Regardless, if you're attacking with both weapons simultaneously, then that would leave you vulnerable to any sort of attacks, since now you have nothing to defend yourself with; both your weapons are attacking. Thus, I propose an alternative solution:
*Two-Weapon Fighting:* When you are wielding two separate melee weapons, you get +1 to your AC (this extra AC only functions against melee attacks). As part of an attack action, you can choose to make an additional attack with your off-hand weapon, which doesn't add your Strength/Dexterity modifier to the damage. However, when you do this, then you lose the extra AC until the start of your next turn. Alternatively, you can make a bonus action to attack with your off-hand weapon without sacrificing this AC bonus. You cannot use both these options together.
I can totally see this from the historical perspective, but I’m going for a fantasy role play vibes. Definitky see this adding +AC like you said 👍🏼
Nice! I like the idea of positioning two-weapon as giving a bit less AC benefit than a shield, and a bit less damage than a two-hander. And while we're at it, let's allow the rapier + dagger combo since it's historically accurate and gives you the same damage as your standard shortsword/shortsword combo. Maybe count daggers as ultra-light weapons that you can use with any one-handed weapon? Oh, and bucklers which are smaller and lighter than shields, and easier to sneak around with in a city, but only give +1 AC.
@@TheDungeonCoach It really depends on where in the world you're looking at anyway. Some places were more offensive, some more balanced. Outside of Western Europe different cultures were pretty varied. So you're still historically accurate if say you're looking at the Middle East, Asia or Africa :D
ignore the queen dying, she was poisoned. ruclips.net/video/3irLWeS5G3Q/видео.html
I practiced Eskrima for many years - it's an old Filipino martial art that absorbed some Spanish fencing techniques. It's centered around swords, knives and dual-wielding (and also is famous for using a pair of sticks with those same sword techniques). Although there are many defensive techniques with two weapons, the emphasis in most styles of Eskrima/Arnis/Kali I have encountered is on overwhelming the opponent with flurries of attacks from varying angles. It is true at least that using two longer swords isn't very common, I've never seen anyone win doing that - the two long blades take too much time to maneuver around one another. But there is a term for doing just that in European fencing referred to as wielding a "case of swords." When wielding a dagger along with your sword the dagger is held out front in an offensive pose, and spends more than half the time as the main offensive weapon. Againt, the idea is that you have two arms and two weapons, and should be aggressive with both simultaneously. The second weapon is not used as a passive shielding implement - shields are better for that and can sometimes even be found in the style. (as it happens, shields in European martial arts are also used aggressively, and should probably be looked at as just another type of weapon). Just my full dollar, I guess.
Does the balancing get a little messed up when we start considering spells like Hunter's Mark and Hex being able to be used and then getting 4 attacks immediately by level 5? Also, should the utility of breaking concentration be taken into consideration when you are able to potentially hit with twice as many attacks? Wondering about your thoughts on these things!
The balance is messed up. The two best solutions I found for TWF are:
1. (mine) have 1 Offhand attack as part of the Extra Attack, if you have Extra Attack (x3) you can do 2 Offhand Attacks. This will keep up with the weapon damage from a 2HW without the feat but TWF can take advantage of Hex and Hunter's Mark.
2. (Treantmonk) Have the Bonus Action Offhand attack be as many as the Action normal attacks. This has the same amount of attacks as suggested in this video but it's not as easily exploitable with Hex and Hunter's Mark because you have to choose between the spell and the Offhand attacks.
I would make so the extra attack do all the damage once, so you can't abuse of hex/hunters mark to gain insane dmg while keeping it's damage relevant.
I would either not use this Homebrew if those classes/ players were present and trying to abuse the system.
But here is my solution to hex/ mark.
I would have a lore/ mechanic/ RP tie in to where the extra damage is only on the main hand (they’ll still do more damage anyway with this Homebrew)
And for concentration you could limit the checks one character can impart on one caster to 2/3 per round
Or pair main/ off hand together for the checks
Or only have main hand trigger concentration
Lots of tweaks or just remove it
@@cassnt
But here is my solution to hex/ mark.
I would have a lore/ mechanic/ RP tie in to where the extra damage is only on the main hand (they’ll still do more damage anyway with this Homebrew)
Or don’t use this with a character like that
@@nicolasvillasecaali7662 same!
A little thing me and my friends do is that in TWF only the off-hand weapon needs to be light. It’s not like a guy with a shield has a stronger arm or anything.
That, and the standard rules make one of the only real cases of dual wielding impossible, the rapier and dagger.
That's literally how two weapon fighting works in Pathfinder 1e & D&D 3.5.
personally when i run D&D again I'll just think about making off-hand weapons just a shield with different flavor and be done with it. Parrying, shoving, etc.
That sounds solid honestly
Shield / buckler/ blade defense in off hand, for sure!
No one has played a dual wielder since I did it, but a while ago I said "ok, your two weapon fighting attack is now part of the action, leaving your bonus action free. I don't limit it to only those with extra attack, though
Yea I totally see not restricting it to extra attacks, that’s just a personal preference of mine
I think the dual weapon fighter is mostly combined with a more dexterity based Charakter and the advantage is, that you can focus only on dexterity and increase AC, damage and to hit modifier at the same time, plus gives you more flexibility with range weapons. I think all this should be also considered, if you try to equalize the pure damage numbers.
This tbh... plus it's important to look at % to hit when comparing average damage numbers ... which gives TWF a slight advantage since with more hits you're more likely to hit SOME...
@@tungstenzephyr well, but a fighter that does four attacks for 2d6 damage with Greatsword will deal more damage than fighter that makes five attacks for 1d6 damage.
@Lukáš Szűcs Well not everyone is playing a strength based fighter and wants to go pure fighter all the way. A ranger and hexblade warlock, and more especially but strangely enough rarely considered paladin, benefit quite nicely from two weapon fighting. Hex+Hexblade's curse combo and even Hunters mark kinda equalize the playing field, and the paladin gets an extra hit with smite (and hunters mark as well if a vengence pally). AND. There's extra benefits to having a dex oriented character, that can still go toe to toe with the consistent damage of a fighter.
If you want to get real numbers crunchy and situational about a high level character. A pure lv 20 ranger, considered one for the weakest and lesser classes of the game, could still output almost comparable, even sometimes more, damage. A Ranger with a heavy crossbow activating Swift Quiver can also attack 4 times with additional single damage flat damage form it's lv 20 feature. And we aren't even considering the stronger subclasses from the ranger that give boosts to said damage or attacks, or even extra attack with additional damage ontop in the dread ambushers case. All this, while considering that rangers can get the archery fighting style, making thier attacks more likely to hit, making feats like sharpshooter more valuable and has the average dps against high AC enemies exceed even the average dps of 2d6 two greeatweapon master combo.
(And even if you want to take a look at lower levels, crossbow expert still covers getting three attacks dual wielding handcrossbows and getting bang for your buck with sharpshooter at level 4/ 8 at latest. Still exceeding Fighter damage, while having other spells still accessible like magic weapon for a fight... or an upgraded favored foe, elemental weapon, hunters mark, hail of thorns, etc.)
So yeah. People actually don't consider all of the following when looking at dualwielding and dex builds. And the long drawn out example was purely for the weaker options. Paladins and especially Hrxblade warclocks benefit significantly more so.
These are the homebrew dual wielding rules I use. They might not be perfect as I'm still play testing them.
Inorder to use these features you must have the Two Weapon Fighting style. Each melee weapon in the game can be broken down into a few categories, and mismatching weapons from each category gives an additional feature.
Fell Handed (Axe&Axe): If you hit the same creature with your main hand axe and your off hand axe in the same turn, it must make a Constitution saving throws equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your strength/dexterity modifier, or have attacks against it be made with advantage until the start of your next turn.
Anvil of Thunder (Axe&Hammer): If you hit the same creature with both your axe and your hammer in the same turn, it must make a Strength saving throws equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your strength/dexterity modifier, or be fall prone.
Bear Fang (Axe&Sword): If you hit the same creature with both your axe and your sword in the same turn, it must make a Strength saving throws equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your strength/dexterity modifier, or become grappled.
Sanguine Flow (Axe&Polearm): If you hit the same creature with both your axe and your polearm in the same turn, it must make a Constitution saving throws equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your strength/dexterity modifier, or at the start of each of the creature's turns, it takes 1d4 necrotic damage for each time you hit it with both weapons. It repeats the save at the end of each of it's turns, ending the effect of all such wounds on itself on a success.
Serpent's Lure (Axe&Chained): If you hit the same creature with both your Hammer and your Sword in the same turn, it must make a Dexterity saving throws equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your strength/dexterity modifier, or be unable to willingly attack any other creature besides you until the start of your next turn.
Brutalizing Firepower (Axe&Gun): If you hit a creature with your axe on your turn, then the next attack you take with your handgun, has an additional weapon die of damage.
Wrath of Thor (Hammer&Hammer): If you hit the same creature with your main hand hammer and your off hand hammer in the same turn, then you can make an additional weapon attack against that same creature.
Hammer's Edge (Hammer&Sword): If you hit the same creature with both your hammer and your sword in the same turn, it must make a Constitution saving throws equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your strength/dexterity modifier, or have disadvantage on attack rolls until the start of your next turn.
Thundering Strike (Hammer&Polearm): If you hit the same creature with both your hammer and your polearm in the same turn, it must make a Constitution saving throws equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your strength/dexterity modifier, or be pushed 10ft in any direction.
Dead Leg Blow (Hammer&Chained): If you hit the same creature with both your hammer and your chained weapon in the same turn, it must make a Dexterity saving throws equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your strength/dexterity modifier, or have it's speed reduced by 15ft until the start of your next turn.
Reloading Ricochet (Hammer&Gun): If you hit the same creature with both your hammer and your handgun in the same turn, then your handgun is automatically reloaded. As long as you have ammo on your person to do so.
Crescent Sweep (Sword&Sword): If you hit the same creature with your main hand sword and your off hand sword in the same turn, it must make a Strength saving throws equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your strength/dexterity modifier, or drop one item they're holding and have that item be thrown up to 20ft away.
Guardian Stance (Sword&Polearm): If a creature triggers an attack of opportunity against you, then you can attack twice, once with your sword and another time with your polearm.
Weakening Wounds (Sword&Chained): If you hit the same creature with both your sword and your chained weapon in the same turn, it must make a Constitution saving throws equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your strength/dexterity modifier, or be unable to regain hit points until the start of your next turn.
Assassin's Whisper (Sword&Gun): If you hit a creature with your sword on your turn, then the next attack you take with your handgun in this turn, is completely silent.
Drilling Barrage (Polearm&Polearm): If you hit the same creature with your main hand polearm and your off hand polearm in the same turn, the next attack made against that creature ignores the effects of its armor or shield.
Follow Through (Polearm&Chained): If you hit the same creature with both your Polearm and your chained weapon in the same turn, then you can make an additional weapon attack against a different creature that's within 5tf of it, that you can reach.
Stabled Shot (Polearm&Gun): If you hit a creature with your polearm on your turn, then the next attack you take with your handgun in this turn, has it's close range and long range are increased by by 1.5x.
Lunging Rumba (Chained&Chained): If you hit the same creature with your main hand chained weapon and your off hand chained weapon in the same turn, then you're reach for your chained weapons is extended by 5ft until the end of your next turn.
Conservative Flourish (Chained&Gun): If you hit a creature with your chained weapon on your turn, then the next attack you take with your handgun, doesn't consume any ammo. You must have ammo in your gun in order to use this feature.
Akimbo (Gun&Gun): When you're wield a handgun in each hand, you can choose to have all of your attacks that turn to be made with disadvantage, but you can attack twice as much on your turn.
Oooo, this looks very promising, might have to try it at my table. Out of curiosity, how do you define chained weapons and polearms for the purposes of this system? And what are daggers considered?
@@emmettmay8704 Daggers are considered swords and chain weapons would be whips and flails. Polearms are anything under the Polearm Master feat, so spears and quarterstaffs primary. And just so you know you would have to homebrew a little bit of light weapons to let it work properly, but just take a already fitting weapon, reduce its damage die, and add the light property and you're good to go. So for example give the javelin the light property, or take the flail, reduce its damage die from a 1d8 to a 1d6, and add the light property.
@@emmettmay8704 I really hope that was helpful and thank you very much for the kind words
@@destinpatterson1644 Awesome, that makes sense, thanks!
@@emmettmay8704 You're welcome
An interesting and descriptive analysis as usual. It made me think about what I believe and re-evaluate things. Ultimately though, I think neglecting an increased chance of a nat 20 with so many more rolls (especially with fighters) and the AC bonus that dual wielders get from using DEX instead of STR makes it so you have to tweak a lot of other things to keep this balanced. As such, rules as written don’t feel as weak. But I do really enjoy your well structured arguments and considerations even if I do still tend to land on the side of rules as written.
Dude... I respect the hell out of that! For real, you have a great level headed approach to evaluating and end on your own conclusions, I love it!
Spot on Tyler! To each it's own table but this can affect game play dramatically. I had TWF go thus way from the jump. The PCs noticed it made the fighter and swords bard OP so they wanted it reverted.
After some additional consideration (I do go back and rewatch videos later that were interesting to me), I tried to recreate the very convincing chart. I realized that part of the large disparity is that high risk, high reward accuracy penalty of great weapon master that you are neglecting when you assume all attacks hit. You seem to have given a boost to damage for great weapon fighting styles retook of 1 or 2 but aren’t giving any considerations for the accuracy (which you did point out at the start but I think is bigger than is reflected).
For classes that don’t get fighting styles, there are also interesting considerations. For them a great weapon is all or nothing where two attacks increase the likelihood of some damage. Many of these can’t just wield any weapon too though.
After having watched your new armor video, it seems like there might be an expectation issue that you are running into where people are trading high risk and missing and then damage isn’t dispersed very evenly and you are trying to compensate for that. I think it is worth letting players reconsider always taking the high risk. More attacks lower risks of not hitting, that is the real advantage of more attacks. I think action economy is an important consideration and not just damage.
As much as you talk about the importance of trade-offs in some other videos this one seems to try to avoid a trade-off by boiling it down to a simple discussion of damage.
But for strength based, the rules as written are still bad...
@@Sovann_the_Mighty that is true. But the game isn’t built to make everything players can dream up work. It tries to avoid someone who is everything. Strength does benefit from being able to wear heavier armor and this similarly raises AC.
My only point is that if your focus is optimizing any one part of the game you should see favorite options that have to trade off other parts of the game. If you can optimize everything then there is little point to play anything but one option.
Optimizing damage is obviously best with the great sword (for those proficient). But damage isn’t the only mechanic in the game. If we simply want to optimize combat then action economy, crowd control, and AC are also important considerations.
A lot of this makes sense, and I like the idea. I think the presentation would be stronger if hit rates were taken into account on the chart. Yes, we can mentally adjust the graphs for hit rate, but one of the benefits of TWF in the first place is more opportunities to hit, which means more steady damage output over time. Also, without knowing how much average damage output is reduced when accuracy is taken into account, we still don't know (mathematically) how your homebrew rules for TWF stack up against RAW 2HW. It would be interesting to see the adjusted means and standard deviations for damage per round once accuracy was taken into account.
Liking and subscribing because I thought this was a good idea.
@@sysiphusis2082 thanks for that! For real! 👍🏼💜
I would honestly be interested to see that as well, would take a lot of calculations but from gameplay this homebrew has felt absolutely perfect in my opinion. But once again I really would love to see how this would work out. Another thing to take into account is greater with a master would not be used against talking to Tyra class because the player would be smarter than that to use it. Hard to calculate that lol 😆
The issue I see happening is when you get into adding rider effects to those attacks, such as hex, or hunters mark. But I do like the ideas to make dual wielding actually comparable to two handed weapons and great weapon master.
So this is a two-fold problem. On one hand you trigger effects like spirit shroud, hex, hunter's mark more often but on the other, unless you're willing to give up two of your three attunement slots for weapons, your off-hand will never be anything better than a boring +x weapon.
Solid fix, actually pretty much the same one I had implemented, nice to see the math adds up. Even if someone complains about the damage increase a dual wielder is supposed to be a tornado of blades, an offensive beast! I think it fits well.
Yea I wanted to also ensure that the math was valid and no OP! 👌🏼👌🏼
GREAT common sense home brew tweak, Coach! I like how this helps the Monk class as well (it had more of an impact before Tasha's) But giving a Monk the option to do two strikes without using a bonus action OR using their bonus action to use fury of blows makes sense (also I think FOB should scale with level but that's another conversation).
Thanks bro! Agree with the monk too! I got a fix for that in the works too lol
I think this takes an ability which is on the lower end of the acceptable bounds of the power curve and maybe takes it a little too far up the power curve. I would pull it back a little and say you only get the one extra attack per turn when you take the attack action (even when you get extra attack), but I like taking the bonus action requirement out of it. I would also make the trigger 'when you make the attack action and are holding two light melee weapons', this way you can mix in shove actions as needed which you are limited by originally.
I could argue that TWF might be a way to make you more defensive and maybe give an alternative use to the extra attack the offhand provides: perhaps you may instead use the extra attack to increase your AC by 1? It's a small benefit but I think it pairs well with the benefits of the feat.
There are some issues with the proposed fix for Monks: they have no reason to use versatile weapons over the two weapon in this fix. This gets significantly worse with extra attack and their martial arts die boosting TWF at higher levels. Not to mention the issues with hex/Hunter's mark boosted damage.
I have some things like this in the works for the martial upgrades for sure
The dual welding feat also gives a plus 1 to AC, so this maybe leaving shield users behind. Also not sure how much it'll effect a rogues bonus action economy. You'd get 2 chances to hit (to apply sneak attack once) and then always be able to disengage or dash.
Exactly! it would be really overpowered in the hands of a rogue...
But as it stands dual-wielding in 5e currently incompatible or sub-optimal choice for every class and subclass except Rogues. :/
Amazing video Coach. Greta way to flesh them out further and the martial upgrade pack will definitely help the "linear fighter, quadratic wizard" problem. D&D 5.5 DUNGEON COACH SOUNDS AWESOME. Cant wait for it to launch
I actually like this a lot because it introduces dual wielding as a viable option for monks to use as well! Dual wielding as a monk is incredibly redundant and it feels like a waste to make your monk do that even if you just want it to be cool and flavorful, but I can definitely see like a dual wielding Kensei monk with this change going absolutely ham. Love it
If you really want to min-max like this and keep it RAW you could go with variant human with a feat and any martial class that gets a fighting style you can start at lvl 1 with 2 rapiers that will do 1d8 plus dex on both attacks giving them both the sane stats. This works great for non fighters to keep up with them.
The thing is, dual-wielding, you're rarely going to attack with both weapons like that. The advantage isn't in damage output, it's in versatility. Usually you're going to attack with one while blocking with the other. Using two sword is tactically similar to using a sword and shield, but your off hand is forfeiting some defense coverage for a little bit more coverage in terms of where you can attack.
Hey pro tip:
put an EQ on your audio and dip down at about 150hz, especially when you're close up. You use a condenser mic, so the "proximity effect" causes the boomy part of your voice (~100-250Hz) to be really overpowering an makes it unpleasant, especially with your deep and sonorous voice.
Best 15 bucks i spend each month is on your patreon!
Dude you support me AND give me pro tips! What a bad ass! Ok so I’m looking into a new mic... but Idk DM me on Discord if you know a lot about mics like that!
Are you talking about when I’m at the desk??
(I know this video is 2y old, it just came up on my feed and I really like the concept.)
I see a lot of people talking about taking into account the effect this action economy would have on things like opponents' spell concentration and rolling crits and such. I have a couple ideas that simplify it (and hopefully stay within the realm of other 5e rule construction).
1. Against one target, consider both strikes as one Attack. You still roll to hit with each weapon, but if both hits land on a spellcaster, they would only need to roll for concentration once against the pair. Repeat for each Extra Attack feature.
2. Only your main hand can crit, OR on a crit you hit with both weapons simultaneously and consider the total damage for calculating the critical damage. This way you prevent things such as attacking two separate targets and getting a nat 20 on both hits. Not that I see a HUGE problem with that, but the main idea is that dual-wielding gets balanced with two-handing, and I feel like this option is a happy medium, and (especially if only your main hand can crit) feels a lot like something WotC would include as RAW.
Personally I prefer that players have to sacrifice their bonus action to gain extra chances to hit. Because of this, my homebrew ruling is that when you gain an extra attack your bonus action also gives another attack. Great video as always though :)
I think that solves the BA damage issue but not the BA economy, I totally agree with needing dynamic choice, but I still can’t help but feel bad compared to the 2 handed weapons just being better
@@TheDungeonCoach The issue is that if you solve both the BA damage and the BA economy with the same feat you are making it exploitable with Hex and Hunter's Mark.
Also your damage graphs aren't reliable if you assume the attacks always hit, because the 2HW with feat hits like 25% less thus doing less damage than the other reference points.
Exactly, why would anyone expect to consistently deal equal damage as someone with fewer opportunities, all other variables being equal.
@@whiskeypixels idk what you mean here. I think you are saying that dual wielding has more opportunities to hit which is huge yes. But it’s damage AND action economy that bothers me
@@cassnt for what you are saying in general I would either NOT use this Homebrew if those classes are present
OR just limit the damage from those to X times per round or whatever you feel is fair, but I customize my homebrews to which classes are present at the table
So, here's what I came up with, it's a little different but still simple. I'm actually ok with the standard two weapon fighting rules, as in anyone can pick up two weapons but your offhand weapon does not get the damage bonus AND you have to use a bonus action to make the offhand attack. Why?
As someone who has actually had some sword training, I can tell you that when you train with a weapon one way, you can't just pick up a second weapon and all of a sudden you're Ray Parks. It's awkward, you're not used to moving like that, and you will be banging your two weapons together as often as you will be hitting your target. You have to think about what you are doing before you even do it. It requires training and practice to get proficient with it. Having to use the bonus action helps reflect this.
However, once you have trained and practiced, it becomes more smooth. You no longer have to think about what you are doing, it becomes second nature. So this is where the change comes in. When you take the two-weapon FIGHTING STYLE, you add your modifier to the damage like normal, but your offhand attack now becomes a "free" action as part of your attack. This free attack only kicks in once per attack action, even if you get multiple attacks from extra attack.
So now when you attack, you can swing + swing and still have a bonus action. When you get extra attack at level 5, you can swing + swing + swing and still get a bonus action.
This prevents the Fighters from getting ridiculous amounts of extra attacks on top of their already ridiculous amounts of extra attacks. But it gives dual wielders a better feeling attack sequence, and maintain their action economy.
For classes like rogues, all you need to do is dip 1 level into fighter to get the fighting style, and you're golden. They can even still max out their sneak attack damage when they hit level 20 (overall).
Tying it to the fighting style helps it to feel like it's something the character had to actually train in, rather than just saying anyone can do it. Yes, anyone can pick up two knives and swing away wildly, but the key here is doing it well. I think this method reflects that difference better.
I agree with helping them out bonus wise. To keep it simple, perhaps a "once per turn, you swing with both". That way all classes can use, and not a have fighters or multiclass monks bog the game done with a tonne of rolls.
I totally agree and hate too many rolls!! Gonna talk about this in Wednesday’s video
Seeing this actually inspired me to attempt my own fix for this! Instead, I made a homebrew optional feature that replaces the Extra Attack feature, allowing characters that focus on dual-wielding to make the most out of it:
Blade Whirl
5th-level feature, replaces Extra Attack
When engaged in Two-Weapon Fighting, you can make three attacks, instead of one, with your action.
(For Fighters) The number of attacks increases to four when you reach 11th level in this class and to five when you reach 20th level in this class.
This allows more or less what you are proposing, but reduces it slightly to more of my liking, and still allowing you to use your bonus action to make a fourth attack if you want/need to. It still gives that need for tactical thinking on what to use your bonus action for, without making it obsolete.
And for Fighters: Making potentially 6 attacks is still better than 5, and with Action Surge it means you can make a total of 11 attacks, instead of 9.
What an absolutely BEAUTIFUL FIX... honestly it is! You really need to join discord and DM me so I can get you into the Homebrew Crew of mine that I work out stuff like this with
Optional swap out features and SICK!
@@TheDungeonCoach I'm totally down! That sounds super fun and something I would really enjoy :)
I actually really like this fix except for one thing. You replaced Extra Attack. Now if this character picks up a bow they're back to one attack. What if instead, you tacked this onto the Two Weapon Fighting style? Runs as is but preserves the ability to be a switch hitter while requiring them to choose the TWF style to gain the benefit.
This is exactly how I prefer to run it! I’ve found it feels perfectly balanced. Sure, you can make some crazy combos with it (hunters Mark for example) and basically every monk would benefit a lot from it by getting an extra attack. It’d be interesting if this was specifically tied to the twf fighting style to keep it unique to fighters, rangers, and anyone that picks it up through fighting initiate.
IMO every class that gains access to extra attacks should be able to benefit from it,the only class i can see gaining a lot from those changes are monks but i see them on the weaker side as they are now anyways.Also the only martial class i can see go above and beyond with it are rangers with their hunter's mark and paladins with smites.
After a few weeks I finally incorporated some changes to two-weapon fighting into my game. It came to a head when a newer player took the new Beastmaster ranger offered in Tasha's and the two-weapon fighting style (the obvious issue here being the competing uses of the bonus action!).
Another player (a DM themselves) suggested that the two weapon fighting ability itself is intentionally weak and is meant to be improved on with the fighting style and feat if players are interested in excelling with it. As such tying the improvements to the fighting style and the feat seemed to be the best approach as it prevented a snow ball effect where *all* classes gained the benefits without some kind of investment. In particular Monks have the problem where a two-weapon wielding Monk is consistently better than Monks wielding single weapons if you remove the requirement that a bonus action must be used. The solutions I came to were as follows:
Improved Two Weapon Fighting Style:
In addition to the features provided, you may use reaction instead of your bonus action to make the second attack granted to you when you engage in Two-Weapon Fighting.
Improved Dual Wielder Feat: In addition to the features provided, if you have the extra attack feature you may use your reaction to make an additional attack if you have also used a bonus action to make the second attack granted to you when you engage in Two-Weapon Fighting.
Overall I think this fixes two weapon fighting. The interference with class features is fixed by the changes to the fighting style, and as it requires multiclassing/feat to be obtained it can't be abused too badly (e.g. rogues, paladins and monks). Meanwhile the additional feature in the dual wielder feat keeps this style of fighting competitive at higher levels of play (5+). There's also not too much overlap between the two new features: the fighting style is more flexible in it's use of a reaction or a bonus action while the feat requires you spend the bonus action first (less shenanigans with hex), so the two work well together but they can also be taken separately.
I'm a veteran player, but new to the DM field. Your videos have been extremely helpful! Thank you so much for the content! Easy to understand, and easy to apply. All of it makes sense! Definitely looking forward to running my first campaign!
What a Dual Wielder tries to do, is to trigger "on hit" effects becuase they get 1 additional extra attack per turn.
Slasher / Crusher get to do their thing 1 more time
Battlemaster get 1 extra chance to use a maneuver (and +1d8 to damage)
Mobile cancels 1 extra opportunity attack
"Per hit" effects (Dual wielding fighting style, Brute fighter, Divine favor)
I’d give em the cool perks for sure! Follow up video on Wednesday!
i'd say the biggest role dual wielding has in it's current iteration is for sneak attack.
you only need to hit once to deal your damage as a rogue, and having that extra attack gives you a much better chance of doing it.
I agree, big weapons are good for huge burst damage, whereas dual wielding would be superb for triggering the chances of something happening multiple times. Death by a thousand cuts (and forcing a thousand Saves)
Great video, I love the work you do on your channel. But I think there is more to weapon choice than pure dps. I think DWF and THF are pretty balanced when you take other factors into consideration. For example
Versatility- in many campaigns you get one really great weapon at a time (I know this is game dependent) but having a really great one handed weapon allows you options vs a great two hander.
At any point a dual wielder can chose to switch to a shield
The second weapon can add a different damage type to help with resistances ( a sword and a hammer)
The second weapon can give you range (eg a sword and a dagger)
You can only pull one sword and keep a hand free for casting
You already mentioned you also get
-Psudo-advantage by rolling twice to hit
-you can hit multiple targets
There is also price if you use the official price guide a you can buy 5 short swords for the price of one great sword. (Again game dependent)
I agree with ALL of these points, totally see the value in TWF as is.
I have a video tomorrow talking abo to why I did what I did and it’s more the FEEL of it for me. But I love your points!
I definitely want the GIF of Dungeon Coach swinging imaginary swords on a loop
Hahah I remember liking that part when I watched it back! hahah I want that too!
Man only 123 likes i am surprised! Keep it up man! The numbers will follow soon enough; you are doing amazing content that is greatly valuable and appreciated. I got notifications for many Lives you did but not the regular videos as this. Weird! I'll be catching up fast =]
Ps; that fast pace + sufficient puns is on point!
Hahaha damn bro thanks!! People like you are going to be what eventually grows this into something truly next level! I’ll keep the puns coming!
As someone trained in a dual wielding martial art I’ve never been a fan of DnD rules on dw. I may be right handed but if I have 2 weapons in my hands it would be a mistake to think I’m not equally capable with my “off” hand. In DnD, someone with the dw feat should get the same proficiency and str/dex bonus to both hands and any attack made with them.
In DnD my thoughts are:
-2H...double the str modifier with single prof bonus
-Dual wield...an attack is both hands getting an attack each with prof and dex, no bonus action required
-sword and board...that shield needs some love bc a +2 bonus to ac isn’t exciting enough to take over the above two but I’m not sure what that is
Exactly ! As a Kung Fu practicer I do rule that you add your modifier too on your "off hand"
So cool that you have a background in this and i 100% agree about you being trained then you are deadly with both!
I got some solutions for shields coming up too!
@@TheDungeonCoach I'm working on Homebrew magic shields we can fight with too !
If only the game had someway of representing that people trained in fighting with two weapons were better at it.
I've always thought that two weapon fighting was very weak and this seems like an amazing way to balance it out
I was immediately excited to see this when it was “teased”
Haha gotta build the hype up!!
As you say this presumes you always hit. The bonus of duel wield is that if you miss you can still get a hit. 2handed if you miss you miss, no damage.
Even factoring in that 2 handed wins over time still since they have the same chance to hit. Now round to round can change yes, but over time 2 hander wins 😖
@@TheDungeonCoach not with the feat, which is a *massive* -5, and it's the only time where they really get far apart in damage.
Your "fix" is really cool, but also absolutely broken. Giving 2handers 1.5 strenght is good, but the sheer versatility *and* power of your 2WF is absurd.
You want to attack as many times as you normally do with the offhand? Perfectly fine. You think it shouldn't cost a bonus action? Yeah, probably not. But both at once completely equalizes their damage, which shouldn't happen as 2WF should be hitting harder to compensate for way less versatility.
In my opinion, a better fix in this case would be 1 free attack with the offhand, and at the cost of your bonus action you can attack as many times as you have attacks, for those with Extra Attack.
That way you van't just set up a trigger on hit and absolutely demolish everyone on the same turn
@@TheDungeonCoach what if there is another enemy? and both only have 5hp but do 40hp of damage?
how useful is your damage over the extra attack now?
@@TheDungeonCoach actually, no. I got curious and made the average damage with average chance to hit.
I considered PC at level 20 with +5 mod, and enemy's AC 19, and I take critical hit in consideration:
std fs feat fs+feat
twc 13,85 17,1 15,95 19,2
2hand 16,3 17 18,76 19,22
n-twc 16,3 22,8 19,1 25,6
n-2hand 16,3 17 17,94 18,35
in the rules, dual wield with fighting style make almost the same damage per round as a great weapon.
with your homebrew, it really made dual wield more powerful, because it's probably hitting more times in a round.
but I liked very much you Great Weapon Master variant. I'll use that in my games. but I'll keep the normal rules for dual wielding.
Without having watched the video yet I'd like to point out that experts tend to agree that dual-wielding actually does suck in real life. You get nearly as much threat (shield bashes) and much more protection from a shield in the off hand, or more threat and more defense from the reach advantage of a two-handed weapon.
Edit: Okay, having watched it now (and not knowing if this intrudes on some other rule not discussed)... I think a more realistic idea would be to offer dual-wielders an opportunity for a free counterattack. The idea being that the real advantage of dual-wielding is that you can intercept the incoming attack with one weapon and still counter with the other. I leave it to you to math out whether it should be a percentage chance, or "on any missed melee attack", or if it's better to make it cost your reaction for proper balance. But I definitely think that is a more realistic/thematic way for dual-wielding to allow for additional damage.
I could also see some rules for hooking with the off-hand weapon being a thing. Hook a shield, lower the opponents AC. Hook a leg and get an opportunity to knock them prone (or advantage on the attempt). True, not every off hand weapon would actually be useful for hooking, but I think it's worth ignoring that for consistency's sake.
This. John Woo has warped expectations and perceptions a ridiculous amount. I like a lot of DC stuff, But If it exists in real life, it will more closely reflect what reality is for my games. Magic can be off the hook, but real martial discipline is cooler than the fantasy for me.
If you are taking medieval / renaissance battlefield maybe. You want a shield for arrow volleys. But in single melee or small groups? No. There's a reason nobility fought rapier dagger, and in modern fighting a dual wielding Kali Stick fighter would make mincemeat out of you. Don't know what "experts" you're quoting.
@@matthewkloster7295 - What do you think bucklers existed for, buddy? You can't protect yourself from arrow volleys with a one foot circle of steel. Sword and buckler was just a common as sword and dagger, if not moreso.
As for escrima... Which are actually stand ins for machetes, BTW... I'd love to see someone using them vs a longsword. I'm betting they'd lose at least 3 out of 4 times on average just based on shorter reach.
Dual weilding machetes makes sense in the context of living somewhere that everyone carries a machete anyway. Because 99% of the time, whoever you're fighting is probably just going to use the machete they're already carrying. Whereas if you're living in a DnD world where people walk around with everything from daggers, to sword and board, to spears and pole-axes, it's much less practical.
It's obvious you don't know the first thing about the practical history of world martial arts. So I'll stick with my experts over your random opinions based on zero actual historical knowledge.
@@JCPRuckus Actually, I trained with Fight Directors Canada for years, surrounded by instructors who studied historical fighting and trained under the pioneers who developed combat for stage and film. But yeah, you stick with whatever DnD and RUclips videos you looked up.
@@matthewkloster7295 - Even if you weren't doing the "Random guy in comments claims specific expertise" thing, the fact that you're claiming expertise in "stage combat" still doesn't help you. Stage combat is supposed to look good and result in zero injuries, not be historically accurate or practically effective. What's next? Are you going to tell me that swinging to deliberately miss your opponent whenever possible is also sound martial technique, because that's what you did as a stuntman?
The dual wielding feet lets you use longs sword and add str modifier to both hits AND a +1 to AC. So a fighter with a 18 STR would get 2d8 + 8 and a bonis to AC, at the cost of a bonus action
Also, more chances to hit. A dual wielder with advantage is almost a guarantee hit
"Here's my homebrew." *Cracks open Pathfinder CRB*
Lowkey the more I look at pathfinder, the more appealing its looking
@@rhysjonsmusic I affectionately refer to it as "mathfinder". I cut my teeth on the first edition of the system and it still holds a place in my heart, but by the time I got out of it building the character was a week-long process of hunting down as many +1s as you could.
The times 1.5 strength modifier to damage rolls with a two-handed weapon is from 3rd Edition
@@markdasaro9045 and also....?
Pathfinder, correct.
@@markdasaro9045 also the extra attack base he is using is 3.x ish except the 3.x would give you the negative to hit (which to me makes more sense) you give up accuracy but keep effort.
A feat or two could do away with that penalty.
Correction: in one of the Errata/Sage Advice Compedium it was stated that when using Extra Attack you aren't limited to your "main hand" only, you can use whatever weapon(s) you are wielding in whichever hand when taking the Attack action.
That's a real neat system!
And did I hear homebrew ideas for monks? When are we getting that?
Fixing classes like that takes a LOT of time, so maybe the summer? I wanna make sure I do it right and not 1/2 ass it 👍🏼
As a rogue, rules as written its about just landing an attack and upgrading the one that lands into a sneak attack. More attack options leads to higher damage output and procs for magic weapon effects, poisons landing and sneak attack.
Rouge it's basically free hand and cunning action vs increased sneak chance.
This idea is really cool, and I think when looked at just in the context of a fighter or barbarian, it is fairly balanced. However, where this becomes a major problem is with paladin. At fifth level, when paladin gets extra attack, if they have taken the Dual Wielder feat, they would be able to make 4 longsword attacks. On each of these attacks, they would be able to smite. If all of these attacks hit, this would be 18d8+12(assuming 16 STR and using as high smite level as possible), or 93 damage on average in one round. This doesn’t even take into consideration crits which would be quite likely if the paladin rolled with advantage, which is quite easy to get. This can easily one shot bosses at this level, and at the very least will get any creature you encounter to very low hp. It gets even crazier though, as we can take one more level in paladin, 2 in fighter and 2 in sorcerer, making us a paladin 6, sorcerer 2, and fighter 2 by level 10, this allows us to use action surge, making 8 attacks, cast wrathful smite as a bonus action , and smite on each attack using our highest level spell slots, totaling to 31d8+2d6+24, or 171 damage on average. This can totally one shot bosses, especially if you crit, or if you have your cleric casts holy weapon on your sword, which is another 8d8, or now 207 damage on average. And if you have someone cast hold monster on the boss, then you can do 62d8+4d6+24 or 317 DAMAGE, just on average. This build becomes more and more powerful the more you go up, but since many campaigns don’t go past 10th level, I decided to stop here, as it gets the point across. Obviously most people won’t do a triple multi class, but this is still very powerful with a straight class paladin along with holy weapon and/or hold monster. I don’t know how I would account for this, but something along the lines of not being able to smite with offhand weapons might be good, or maybe only smiting with off hand weapons once a turn. Keep up the good work, your content is great, just wanted to point out this error. :)
Edit: you could take vengeance paladin to get hunters mark to do even more damage
I agree, I focused more on what a Fighter already does (since that seemed to be the focus) in my comment above, because I knew what a Paladin could do given the chance with TWF being more expansive. Any class that benefits from 'on hit' abilities can begin to produce an insane amount of damage, but even without that, until much later and with a decent negative to hit, TWF isn't as weak as many like to complain it is. It starts to fall behind around level 11, otherwise it is on par, and with more attacks a person is far more likely to get crits. This just goes up exponentially when you consider tying in TWF with Basic Attack over a bonus action, since Haste and Action Surge make it far more valuable.
@fire lord smite spells require a bonus action, but paladin’s divine smite does not
You unlocked the OP mode!!
Something to note is that some classes get extra bonuses on landing hits. The two that benefit the most currently are as follows:
11th level paladins get an extra d8 radiant on each melee attack they land, plus each hit can be further boosted with a Divine Smite. Allowing a nova class to nova that much more is going to splatter bigger targets a lot faster than one would expect.
Rogues are all about getting a single hit in for that juicy Sneak Attack damage. TWF gives them an additional chance to land that if the first swing misses, mitigating the biggest drawback of running that class in melee.
I didn't watch all the way through, but I think dual wielding has a benefit you didn't mention at the beginning.
Although the damage of an individual hit may be less, dual wielding greatly increases your chances of landing at least one hit per turn. If you have spells or features that do damage once turn, but require a hit to activate, like sneak attack or hunter's mark, dual wielding greatly increases your odds of getting to use that damage.
Yes but that "benefit" is balanced out by the fact that because more dice are being rolled, there is a FAR greater chance that your actual damage ends up always being much closer to the average DPR.
This compared to Great Weapon Fighting which has an equal chance to roll any amount of damage due to lesser dice rolls, meaning that in many situations its much easier to near max your already superior damage.
This follows the basic realities and trends of probability, so ultimately TWF having more hits and thus more chances of not doing 0 damage really isn't a benefit compared to GWF which has a higher chance of scoring no damage in a round, but also an equal chance of scoring near max damage in the same round.
@@envytee9659 you didn't really address what I said about more hits giving more opportunities to trigger abilities and spells like sneak attack. Sneak attack on particular is huge, and it's best to improve your odds of your rogue being able to land it.
@@corphish129 For said spells, Dual wielding ultimately just means 1 more time that you trigger the spell. 9 times out of 10, you would do more damage with two hits with Great Weapon Fighting than the little amount that a single extra trigger of an "on hit" spell effect ever would. Not to mention that many such spells use a bonus action so you wouldn't even be able to use your dual wielding attack on the round you use the spell.
As for sneak attack, why use a bonus action for a second attack when you could use the same bonus action to Hide, gain advantage and make a ranged attack (rolling the same two dice as if you were making dual wielding attacks) thus giving you the same chance of landing sneak attack, except now you're at range instead of being in melee to use two weapon fighting. Being at range and out of enemy reach is huge for a rogue.
And let's not forget just how important a Rogue's Bonus action is for things like Dash, Disengage and the aforementioned Hide Actions.... all of which are lost if you choose to use two weapon fighting.
@@envytee9659 Concerning sneak attack, hiding is not always possible (depending on the DMs interpretation of the hiding rules it may even be impossible to hide while in combat) and it requires a successful skill check, so it's not always a good option.
As for using your bonus action to disengage or dodge, Rogues still have that option. Make your first attack and if it hits you have no need of making the second: you can disengage. If it misses, you can still disengage, or you can double down and go for that second attack.
Look man, I'm not trying to prove that two weapon fighting is optimal in every single situation, just that it has utility.
@@corphish129 RAW, hiding is simple. You make a stealth in some level of obscurity, if you beat the enemy's passive perception or if the enemy makes an active perception check that fails to beat your stealth, then you gain the "Unseen Attacker" state. If your DM does something different, they are allowed to but that is ultimately homebrew and isn't a valid argument for why Hide isn't a better option here.
As for "oh but hide requires a roll and it may not be successful".... well two separate attacks require two separate rolls and equally may not be successful, although hiding is actually more likely to succeed than a hit due to Rogues having proficiency in stealth and enemies having, in general, a higher AC than their passive perceptions, though rare exemptions do exist.
Then saying "rogues still have that option by just not using two weapon fighting" is in favor of what I am saying because it just goes to show that dual wielding is inferior to the point that you would consider using those actions instead of a second attack.
You aren't proving it has utility. You are helping me prove that there is genuinely 0 benefit to Dual Weilding as opposed to using the many alternatives. Dual Wielding in 5e is strictly an inferior option mechanically and its only amazing perk is the flavor it brings of a badass warrior swinging around two weapons.
The problem I came up with in my homebrewing of 2 handed weapons and dual wielding (very similar to your homebrews) was that dual wielders with things like flametongue and frostbrand in either hand. This adds an extra 8 damage on average. So what I did was double the magical output of great weapons, if your weapon had a 1d6 added on to it, you have a 2d6 instead. I did take away the ability mod on ranger's off-hand strikes to tie them with great weapons, but fighters had it. So I'll probably give it back to Rangers now and add the 1.5 abi mod on two handers as well thanks to this video.
Fighters don't have access to 9th level magic. I think it's balanced to give them so many attacks. Being able to mince things in combat only helps in some situations.
I'm going to borrow from Cyberpunk 2020 and say the duel wielder can choose to attack with both weapons at once as their action and they'll have their bonus applied to each hand since your non-dominant hand is still full of the same muscles, but both attacks are at a -2 penalty to hit accuracy since you need to split your attention. Sure they get a bit more damage on a hit due to flat bonus applied twice, but they'll be hitting less often. Maybe slightly increase the penalty, but that needs play testing. I love your idea, this is just adding my own.
"Fighters have too many attacks"
(adds more attacks for fighters in homebrew)...
Around the ~11 min mark, I was reminded to like this...but I had already shared it with my DM group. Great stuff.
I think you're overlooking a pretty big factor here. Which is how many things add damage to each hit. Your solution would make spirit shroud insanely powerful on a blade singer.
I agree with the general idea of fixing dual wielding but giving that many extra attacks without having to pay a bonus action is way too easy to exploit
It heavily depends on who is at your table, and yea if it can be too abused then definitely don’t use it!
@@TheDungeonCoach If a feat is broken depending on who's at the table, then the feat you created is shit.
Take your fix for twf for example: Its shit, because "depending who's at the table" Your fix become completely broken. Spirit guardians breaks your fix. Shadowblade breaks your fix. Having magical weapons breaks your fix. Anything that adds more damage dice breaks your fix. Taking champion and having extend crit range breaks your fix. Bloodhunter rites break your fix.
I could go on.
This fix is so badly thought out, I'm honestly surprised you clicked publish.
@@Jk-zv6tz You know... the rule of thumb is to make the game fun for your table.
I certainly agree that this fix can be exploited, but it is also a valid choice if you talk with your players and say "lets implement this fix but if you guys want to combo it lets nerf it a little so everyone can build the character they want without breaking the game"
Also, please dont be a dick about it... I bet you are not this rude when talking in person... right?
@@jeanluca01 Don't necro old threads. Good day.
Aw I love this so much! So simple and clean and I love the ramping of this ability as you get to higher levels. Start of small because duel weilding as a fighting style is kinda tough to master. But you get a better and better edge as you master it further...until eventually becoming a beyblade xD so cool
This might be my favorite homebrew I've seen you make. And I love A LOT of what you do. lol Why hasn't Wotc hired you yet?
High praise there good sir! Thank you for that! Haha I feel I have FUN and FEEL at the forefront of my intentions! So I appreciate that!
If you don't use the math to take into account the reduced odds of hitting when you take 5 (or your proficiency bonus) off your to-hit, it inflates your damage per round. It also ignores more potential crits, and more chances to land extra damage. Missed your attack with your main hand and didn't get sneak attack damage? Your off-hand attack gives you another chance. Hunter's Mark? After the first bonus action to cast the spell, every hit inflicts extra damage. Dual-wielding paladin? You'll burn through spell slots, but you can deliver some serious burst damage.
O for sure! SOOOO much more math to do, and I love dual wielding for all of those reasons too!
Looking forward to your 5.5e kickstarter!
Ooooooo yes! Big plans!!
The damage output for a solo Fighter is fine with this houserule. The crazy number of attacks at level 20 (8 attacks without Action Surge) doesn't really matter because it's level 20... so just consider level 11. It's (without action surge) 4 vs 6... that's fine. Action Surge is kinda busted as a class ability anyways because it makes the Fighter _way_ too good in chase scenes.
Two weapon fighting is the only way to attack with a bonus action (with some exceptions of quickened spell booming/greenflame blade and other subclass abilities) on a featless game. It has its place and doesn't need any changes.
Really good video, watching you explain it in the beginning was very informative. I thought going through it, o just get rid of it costing a bonus action, and that's where you went, cool to be on the same page as a high tier DM.
Dude I love that feeling too!! Two people from across the world just came up with the same great solution! Good stuff man! 💪🏼
Worth mentioning - as soon as you get extra attack you can attack with any two one-handed weapons you are wielding. If you are wielding a longsword and a warhammer you can make one attack with each or two attacks with either one. Bonus actions are a separate topic, the simplest form of dual wielding is extra attack.
As mentioned below, dice adders like Hex, Hunter’s Mark, Frostbrand and Flametongue weapons, they all go ballistic missile insane with this variant.
It is an elegant solution, and honestly Ranger could use the boost, but this would cause Gloomstalker (already the top tier Ranger option) to become obnoxious by default.
@5th
Rd1: BA HMark, Attack action, 6 attacks for 12d6+24. Add 3 levels of Assassin for 24d6+24.
Another elegant solution that’s a little more manageable:
1/turn when you take the attack action you can make an attack with a light weapon in your off hand. You can make an additional attack with a weapon you’re holding as a bonus action.
Now you can use the BA to optimize with a magic or poisoned blade, you still get a free extra attack with a light weapon (upgradable with feat).
Actually, for a fighter with this ruling at level 20, they could get 16 attacks with action surge.
This was very cool. Thank you.
I look forward to the rest of your martial stuff.
I think with hexblade curse and some warlock invocations this will be a killer.
If you made a Hexblade warlock built around this... that would be SO much fun!
@@TheDungeonCoach Dm need to get some villan actions monsters for that.
Showed this to my GM and now this is ho we do it. My Arcane Trickster thanks you. Also cant wait for you martial rework. Sounds FUN!!!!
YEEEESSSS! That’s awesome!! Woop woop!
Rogues: Now... could ya let me get sneak attack on both?
Hahahahah GREEDY BASTARDS 😆😂
@@TheDungeonCoach Hey man, I'm just salty that the Assassin and Thief NPCs get two and THREE extra attacks a round.
Now add the chance of BOTH attacks getting being criticals. That's the reason TWF uses the bonus action.
That sounds like the opposite of a bad thing
@@ReaperGrimm5594 No, the fact that you have to chose betwen doing another attack or using another feature with your bonus action balances the game. Let me give you an example:
Halfling rogue, dual wielder. Makes two sneak attacks and then uses his bonus action to hide behind one of his companions so the next round he'll be sneak attacking again. Rinse and repeat. Even if he doesn't score criticals, he'll be abusing his economy of actions (which the game balance relies a lot upon).
Add two levels of fighter so he can get action surge and you have a character that at level 4 is making four sneak attacks in one round every short rest. Let's assume he's wielding two short swords and has a DEX of 20 (to use the same values as in the video), while a two handed fighter can make two attacks of 2d6+5(12) and the one of 2d6+5, the rogue can make two attacks of 2d6+5(12) plus two of 2d6(7) and then one of each every turn.
The video I’ve been waiting for! Awesome homebrew. Thanks!
Ever since that class we worked on! Hahaha
it takes a bonus action and a negative because most people have a dominant hand. swinging a sword with your non dominant hand just feels wrong and is often not as coordinated as your dominant hand. just picture like this. if you have a baseball in each hand your going to be better at throwing it with one hand than the other. Unless your ambidextrous. and since its stupid to say "well all characters just happen to be ambidextrous" they have an off hand. A non dominant hand that isnt as effective at attacking.
Except that many sword masters will study fighting with their off hand, as being left handed (or fighting left handed) offers a slight advantage (see co-operative vs combative tension). So while they may not naturally be ambidextrous it is learnable, and adventurers would be highly motivated to seize any edge they can.
Idk it's not difficult to fight either handed
@@nathanaelpoole1369 yes i like your thoughts i feel like there should be a negative to those who aren't trained in it so your chance to hit should be lowered unless your trained it in such as combat style and the feat which shows that you spent time to learn to be good at it. Start with a -5 to the attack then if your combat style is TWF then reduce that negative by your proficiency
@@nathanaelpoole1369 - Actually in some ways min-maxing works in real life, and this is one of those situations. There's only so many hours to practice in a day, and you're almost certain to get more effective results from spending basically all of your time becoming amazing with your dominant hand than in splitting your time to become "pretty good" with either hand. Because if you are "pretty good" with either hand, then a person who is amazing with only one hand will usually defeat you, since they are amazing and you are "pretty good".
You truly would have to be a master with your dominant hand before serious cross-training with your off hand would make sense from an opportunity cost perspective. And almost certainly your average "adventurer" would be too busy adventuring to become a true master. Like so many things, becoming a master swordsman would be almost exclusively the provenance of the rich. Because in reality only a rich person could afford to spend several hours a day for several years learning swordsmanship, especially in a pre-industrial society.
@@JordanNoctrianSutton Citation fucking needed. Almost everyone has a dominant hand and historically almost everyone fought with a two handed weapon or shield in the non-dominant hand precisely for this reason.
Dual wielding is a movie thing that really doesn’t work for 99% of people. It’s inclusion in D&D is fine but it doesn’t need different rules. A simple fix might be to simply subtract -1 to AC but +1 to Attack / advantage on damage rolls.
Your channel is awesome! I’ve been running my first campaign ever and plan to make some D&D related videos on my channel. Your channel has inspired me a lot regarding my campaign and channel. Keep up the great work.
Wow man! That just made my day!!
I’ve been running around and just filmed a response video for this video and saw this comment, put a smile on my face for sure!
Completely dismiss the Fighting Style for Two Weapon Fighting and the risk of ramping with that and having a person using the feat (Dual Wielder) associated with Two Weapon Fighting (TWF) and just using two longswords. After all, don't need flaming weapons to do an insane amount of damage, when just having a giants belt and dealing 1d8 + Str Mod + Weapon Enchant (since they don't require attunement) or so but having six attacks at level 11 with a Fighter, twelve when you action surge with easily having about an 80% hit rate. Personally, I would suggest going with something like 2:1 round up, so it does somewhat increase two weapon fighting, but not to such a huge degree, because my math is very different than yours. The reason they always limited the amount of TWF attacks in previous editions was because it basically overwhelmed the other styles to such a degree that there was no point to ever going 2her. Considering that more attacks and at a higher crit rate is going to generate more critical hits, plus the much higher average damage with your method of doing TWF, it just makes it far more valid over ever considering 2h (essentially reversing current trend).
Without changes, Fighters damage at level 1 going TWF are actually doing 1d8 + Mod and 1d6 + Mod due to Fighting Style, so their damage is higher, changing down slightly at level 5 to 3 attacks at 1d8 + Mod per hit (So 4.5 + 5 using your example, all hit would be 27.5 versus 24 (or 44 if hitting with Great Weapon Master with the -5 to hit)). Action Surge would give you 5 attacks at 5 with TWF for 47.5 and 48 for 2h (88 with the GWM if you managed to hit). With your modification that changes to eight attacks for 72 damage (not counting crits) which barely falls behind GWM that has a much lower chance to hit. Bringing down the attacks slightly like I suggested, makes 11 less of an issue when the amount of attacks from TWF would just eclipse anything 2h could do. Instead, you'd get 3MH +2OH per attack, so 10 with action surge. Otherwise, considering a Fire Giant Belt + two +2 LS would generate something like 13.5 per hit, and with twelve attacks (14 with haste) you get 162 (189) versus 16 per hit with a +2 greatsword and same belt at 6 attacks for 96 (156 with GWM hitting all hits (112 with haste or 182 if all GWM hits hit (unlikely)) The only way for 2h to compete is the hope that A) TWF doesn't crit (unlikely not to happen) and that B) they can hit with the negative for every hit despite it decreasing chances before your Feat change by a solid 25%. Not even going to touch what Giants Belt + Flame tongue would do, which would be possible for three attunement slots. Anyways, sorry for the paragraphs of info dumb, but I enjoy theory crafting.
Hey! I love me some theory crafting too! Sounds like you really got some gears turning on this one!’
Maybe, instead of adding the off-hand attack to your action, you can add another hit for every 2 extra attacks you can do, in the spread: 1 attack + 1 off hand attack, 2 attack + 1 off hand attack, 3 attack + 2 off hand 4 att + 2 off, 5 att + 3 off-hand, etc.
My personal fix:
"While dual wielding, you gain a +1 bonus to AC while you are wielding a separate melee weapon in each hand." Everything else remains the same.
This doesn't change the offensive capability but does neatly place TWF between S&S (+2 ac, lowest damage) and GW (+0 ac, best damage). In this way, TWF still benefits from the option to use a BA for a little more damage or save it for something else. After all, making additional attacks often has many benefits from things like Flametongue, Hunter's Mark, sneak attack (more likely to land), and Fancy Footwork (Swashbuckler).
If the player is a martial (or fighting intiate feat), they can take TWF style and push their damage slightly above a Duelist with S&S but still have some of the AC bonus. If they want to further focus TWF, they can take "Dual Wielder" feat which allows 1d8 weapons in each hand and an additional +1 to AC.
I give a +1 just to melee attacks. Didn't make sense to me that a light weapon would help much against a crossbow bolt.
The hand motions in this one are so great lmao!
Hahaha especially when Zack added in swords to them haha!
I like that if you want to go down the road of making any kind of weapons fighting better, you take a feat or levels in a class with a fighting style. To that end I improved the Two-Weapon fighting style: "When you engage in two-weapon fighting, you can add your ability modifier to the damage of the second attack. You may also ignore the "light" and "melee" requirements for two-weapon fighting.
In addition, while wielding a weapon in each hand, if you don't take the Attack action, you may still make an attack with your Bonus action. If you don't attack with your Bonus action on your turn, you may make one additional attack with your Attack action."
I also (inspired by Treantmonk's old variants) included Improved Fighting Styles at level 14 for fighters. The Improved Two-weapon fighting style reads: "You now gain a +1 bonus to AC when holding a weapon in each hand. Your Bonus action attack granted by this style also benefits from your Extra Attack feature."
Oooo yea I love Treantmonks stuff on this too!!
@@TheDungeonCoach Right? I hope, one day, he returns to it. Until then though, you have to admit his grasp of the rules is amazing. Even though I'm not an optimizer, I still gain so much from him. Between you and him, both end of my gaming spectrum are complete haha.
I will say why normally attacking with two weapons at the same time is different action, because attacking with two weapons at the same time is really really hard and when done in reality is done with two weapons of different lengths and the shorter one isent normally used for attacking its is normaly defensive
Very well said real world examples there, makes me want to give a weapon AC option too, but then we get real complicated
@@TheDungeonCoach i like that idea
Yes, attacking with two weapons at the same time is really hard! At the same time, is very different than both attack within 6 seconds though. For instance, two weapons following the same arc where the first swing is an attack, but used as more of a beat attack to bash away defense (or hit them if the defense fails) and the second for the primary attack to do the damage then followed by another two attacks. It's rather like boxing, you use combos, you don't just shove both fists at your opponent at once.
This is cool and we play something similar. I have been playing since 1982. In 1E and 2E if you take the nonweapon proficiency AMBIDEXTROUS it cancels those negatives in two weapon fighting as when you max proficiency on your weapon like 4 weapon proficiencies into mastering longsword, you can now dual wield longswords with no negatives and get your damage. Its really good with monk and assassin characters as well.
We do the 3/2 attack rule as literally 3 attacks every round as one hand gets 1 attack and the other gets 2 and the next round its reversed for 2 and 1 for 3 every turn. Then when you get higher levels and get the 2 every turn its 4 attacks per turn. Then at the higher levels when it hits 5/2 it becomes 5/5 for 3 attacks one hand and 2 the other hand for 5 and then the next turn its reversed so you get 5 every turn.
3/2
1 + 2 main hand
2 + 1 off hand
= 3 every turn
2
2 main hand
2 off hand
= 4 every turn
5/2
2 + 3 main hand
3 + 2 off hand
= 5 every turn
I havent been playing 5E for very long and am still figuring things out on a lot of levels as a lot has changed and so channels like yours are full of great info.
Woah what an interesting fix! So cool, never seen that before!
Getting a whole bucket of attacks as a high level fighter sounds like it would imbalance it (especially with TWF) but it just brings it up to par with GWM.
In my table we've played it so that dual wielding doesn't give you any extra attacks, bonus action or otherwise.
If you wield a single-handed weapon in your main hand and a dagger in your off-hand, or two light weapons, and you hit something with your melee weapon attack, you may add the off-hand weapon's damage die (plus any bonuses from it being magical) to your damage once in your turn.
TWF fighting style enables dual wielding with weapons without "light" trait.
TWW feat gives you the ability to use your Bonus Action to do one attack, where you may add your off-hand weapon's damage even if you used that in a regular attack this turn. Also gives the +1 AC bonus if dual wielding.
This frees up the bonus action (or makes it actually useful), takes into account any problems arising from multiple hits and gives monks a reason to dual wield. It's been working well with our group so far. We've also used a rule to give daggers a free attack when doing grappling attempts, which has led to really interesting builds and advancement choices, especially for rogues looking for a reason to get into melee distance and get the Grappler feat.
Wait, doesn't the two weapon fighting style make this fix stronger than two handed weapons?
You're adding your ability modifier more times.
(1d6+5)×4
(2d6+5)×2
It does
Against an AC of 15, TWF with 4 attacks would be 15.6 points of damage per round, 2HW (2d6) with GWF would only be around 13.2. I'd allow three attacks with TWF for 11.7 points of damage, which would be above archery (10.5 w longbow) and duelling (11.4 w longsword). Given that Archery is less risky, and duelling gets to use a shield, this seems fairest to me. I'd allow the TWF to use their bonus action for a 4th attack (or any other bonus action option they have).
Edit: For ability mod of +3
Nope
TWF = 4d6+10 for all 4 attacks because you don't add your bonuses in your off hand damage
THW = 4d6+10 as per normal two attacks
Note I'm doing total dice rolled and bonuses for an attack action. The main difference would now you'd have to roll to hit twice as many times, but in general the amount of damage would still be more or less similar
@@bowow0807 TWF style allows ability modifier to damage
My goals for melee:
* Unarmed: Most flexible, but overall lowest damage
* Dual-Wielding: Greatest number of attacks, greatest potential damage (if all attacks land)
* Two-Handed Weapons: Highest damage per swing, and more accurate attacks
* One-Handed Weapon & Free Hand: Balanced number of attacks, decent damage per swing & improved AC
* Weapon & Shield: Basic damage, but improved AC & can reduce/negate damage (+shield abilities)
Once they take the feat, they can use two longswords @ 1d8+am each, letting them attack with both weapons means they will do more damage than a two-handed weapon AND get a bonus to AC. I'm sorry, but I feel this makes two weapon fighting more powerful than using a single two-handed weapon, once you've maxed out the style.
I took that into account in the damage chart too, but I would have to disagree when it comes to classes who have good bonus actions, having to WASTE a bonus action ... to deal LESS damage just feels terrible to me.
And if they want to optimize for dual wielding and do more damage... cool let em 👌🏼
@@TheDungeonCoach In your games, you may decide that. The rules you proposed make 2-handed weapons the lower damage dealer (by far when you include hunters mark and hex blade) and have a lower AC than the dual wielder. If the two-handed wants to get even close to that new super-high damage they need to take a -5 to attack. In my games I'll be running RAW regarding dual-wielding. Love the channel and the ideas. This one just fell short to me. Others likely love it!
When you just compare damage its true what you say but usually some minmaxer would grab this and armor that adds dex or unarmored defense multiclassing with monk for example. Since 2 handed fighting usually uses weapons with finesse it would be a monster on the offensive and defensive.
O for sure and then I would intervene on the min maxer and work out other things for them lol. DM always has to have a pulse check on what each player is capable of
Two-handed weapons should do more damage then one-handed weapons and dual-wielding.
I agree and they do with that great weapon master feat, for sure! AND I have 2 handed weapons add 1.5 or even 2x strength mod to damage
What about Versatile weapons being wielded with two hands?
So, I actually took the bonus damage of the sharp shooter, and the great weapon master feat and replaced it with a different effect that kept the feats beneficial. I then rolled the bonus damage into a new feat called power attack which basically says that when preforming a non-spell attack you can subtract half your proficiency modifier rounded down from the attack roll and gain your proficiency modifier in damage. In addition, if the attack has the heavy modifier applied to it you subtract your entire proficiency modifier from attack rolls and add double your proficiency modifier to damage. This makes the feat useful for any attack that isn't a cantrip or spell with exceptions in the form of cantrips which require you to hit the target such as booming blade, or magic stone.
Sounds like you are basically trying to bring back 3rd
Agreed
The thing that occurred to me looking at those graphs in the video, was that sword and board kinda gets screwed. It would be nice to give them special things to do with their shield, since they are losing out on the extra attacks and/or extra damage.
I mean... Shields CANNOT do anything but to be treated as an Improvised Weapon or an AC boost, RAW.
In some ways, 5e is simple. In other ways, 5e is outdated...
Dual wielding is superior with hunters mark, colossus slayer, hex and sneak attack, etc., since you get an extra chance to trigger them with your second attack. Looking at the mechanic in a void it may look like there is no balance, but the game is not balanced in a void.
Yeah. I don't think he took these mechanics into things at all. It is almost like he just thought of the fighter, and that was it, but if you ever played a Ranger who pumps Hunters Mark into each hit you know how powerful Dual Wielding is.
@@marks2807 I have a Homebrew philosophy: if a minority of classes/ subclasses cause a Homebrew to be imbalanced... it does not make it a bad Homebrew... I just simply would not use it at the table with those characters present.
So yea I did 100% think of those... but if I had a player trying to abuse it... I don’t use it... or hell, maybe I do and let them have a blast, it all depends.
You also can’t look at homebrews under ALL circumstances... if it would break the game cuz you have a Hexblade and a ranger in your party... don’t use the Homebrew
I’m saying in the big picture of the game it feels bad... that’s all 👍🏼
@@TheDungeonCoach No problem just saying the ranger, and the hexblade warlock to a lesser extent could very much abuse your homebrew. The fact that you would be mindful of this is good.
One thing about having multiple attack rolls is that damage becomes more consistent. If TWF and GWF have the same damage maximum, the TWF will get a more consistent damage output while one handed becomes more hit and miss. Maybe one could lean into that consistency as an attractive strength of TWF. We know that an offhand dagger is historically used to assist the main hand by forcing opponent weapons out of position.
So maybe a way to represent that is, if any of the attack rolls miss (either the off-hand or the main-hand), the next swing gets advantage or +5 or whatever because the enemy compromised their defensive stance for a split second to parry.
How would this react to Flurry of Blows?
Fury of blows would add ontop of this 👌🏼
Reminds me of a couple things I drafted at different points:
One was a change to the dual wield Fighting Style, where you made the offhand attack as part of the same action, with only a raw Str/Dex modifier
The other was "Twin Weapons"
Which were meant to be a pair of magically modified weapons that truck as part of the same action
This one didn't go anywhere outside of a single legendary item I made (a pair of dagger's that were once owned by a legendary Rogue)
Your GWF fix is literally "let's bring back Power Attack from 3.5e".
I love it.
I just use a mix of the duncehack to do combat.
A simple and elegant system! Why didn't I think of that? 😅
I would add a clause with Two-weapon fighting that you cannot add bonus damage from Ability Modifiers, Feats, or Spells to the off-hand attack. That would effectively keep players from getting out of control with their two-weapon fighting. Lancer actually has a similar rule for "Auxiliary Weapons" because some weapons in that game let you put smaller weapons on your bigger weapons so you can fire your guns while you fire your guns. 😅
The one thing this video is just plain correct on is that they just need to get rid of the attack being a bonus action for martial characters. The fact that it takes a bonus action means that dual wielding particularly sucks for rangers, warlocks, and anything that relies on bonus action stuff like barbarian rage. I think having 2 attacks for every attack makes this too strong for hex and hunters mark, so i think the simplest fix is to just add the offhand attack to part of the action; the math for this checks out for early levels and with the fighting style it's close to 2h weapons.
This fixes the damage difference at early levels, but this doesn't address fighters at level 11 and 20. The other option is if you use your dual wielding fix; and you could potentially limit hex and hunters mark to main hand attacks, but then the wording for the spells gets a little more complex. I think it's a tough thing to fix without addressing the things that would become stronger because of the change.
I am adressing all of this on Wednesday’s video!
@@TheDungeonCoach Awesome, can't wait to see it coach!
My homebrew rule I do for duel wielding is if the take the Feat, you add your modifier for the off hand just like the fighting style, but if you take both feat and two weapon style, you add twice as much on the off hand weapon and with extra attack you can use your off hand weapon instead of main hand as long as your Action is using your main hand.
Love this because yes, mechanically, Dual wielding is weak sauce. Worse action economy, worse damage past 5th level.
One thing my group does to improve the Dual Wielder feat is to make the bonus to AC based on half your proficiency bonus. So when you have a +4 Prof bonus, your Dual Wielder feat now gives a +2 to AC. When your Prof bonus is +6, your bonus is +3.
Oooo what a simple Homebrew fix! Love it!
Lets not forget, that you can still get feats, like magic initiate, and get Hex, or Hunter's Mark. One attack, with a Greatsword with a +5 to str, that's 2d6+1d6+5, where as if you use TWF with this new Homebrew, granted it is still two separate attacks, but that's also a greater chance to critical, so with TWF, that's 1d6+1d6(Hex/Hunter's Mark)+5, and as part of the second attack, 1d6+1d6, so even though it maybe a bit small in terms of damage, but then if this is on a fighter, that's still 2 attacks per each normal attack they'd have. So at level 20, I might be wrong about the amount but I think with action surge, for non TWF, would be 12 attacks, not counting any class features or anything. Whereas with this change, that's around 24 attacks. Which at the end of the day, sky rockets damage potential. Considering with if you get HM, or Hex, on them, for TWF's change, That's 24d6(Weapon attacks)+24d6(HM/Hex)+60(Assuming +5 to mod) with no magic Items. TWF becomes godly with this. Too much so.