How would you fix TWF in 3.5?

[Psychic Robot]

Just wondering. I'm trying to think of a way to fix it. As far as I can tell, there are three main problems with it.

1. The feat expenditure is too high.
2. Without extra dice of damage, the damage output is too low.
3. Most of the extra attacks don't hit.
4. Double the weapons cost without a substantial increase in combat capability.

Are these correct? And if so, how would you fix them? The first is easy enough--combine feats--but how would you go about remedying the other problems?

[virgil]

One method I've considered using is something Frank's made...
Two-Weapon Fighting [Fighter]
Benefit: You suffer no penalty for doing things with your off-hand. When you make an attack or full-attack action, you may make a number of attacks with your off-hand weapon equal to the number of attacks you are afforded with your primary weapon.

In my current game, I'm using AE's method, which works much like 3.5's TWF except there is no penalty and it costs an extra feat (+0/-4 for one feat, +0/+0 with the second taken). And in AE, double weapons are considered two-handed weapons on both ends, and thus the improved damage from Strength applies to both ends.

[SunTzuWarmaster]

I like the F+K method of 1 scaling feat. This makes TWK slightly better than 2-handed fighting. Under the circumstances, it looks a bit like this:


Level 1
THF - 1 attack, highest bonus, 2d6 + 1.5*str in damage
TWF - 2 attack, highest bonus, 2d10 + 2*str in damage

(above assumes no specialty bonuses such as favored enemy or sneak attack, choosing fairly optimal weapons, and equal strength bonuses)

so, as a warrior with one feat invested, you have increased your damage by 4 points and one half of your strength (call it six). It remains this way most of the way to level 6.

Level 6
THF - single +2 weapon, 1 highest, 1 secondary, 4d6+3*str+4
TWF - 2 +1 weapons, 2 highest, 2 secondary, 4d10+4*str

The TWF is now fighting at a -1 to hit compared to the THF, and the THF will Power Attack that away for +4 (+2 from each attack) damage to put us at even to-hit rolls. With the feat investment of TWF, your average damage at the same to-hit has increased by 4+str (call it 8) points.

The issue comes in when the rogues take it and double their sneak attack potential or you are adding bonus damage on a per-hit basis (such as the Fire Mage). Still, you take the feat investment for this exchange (TWF and THF are both 'all out' styles), and the AC hit for not having a shield.

Costing 2 feats for a fighter to add 4 points of damage from levels 1-5 and 8 points of damage from levels 6-10 is just retarded, and you will still run into the problem that rogues only take it once because their BAB isn't enough get bonus attacks. I tried to make a TWF Ranger in 3.5 and gave up, because you are numerically inferior to any character that put their highest stat in strength instead of dex and hoisted a weapon with both arms (0 character investment). Really, it was just depressing to stand next to a barbarian and watch him do more damage every round by saying "I Rage! I Power Attack for all of it!" at the same AC with more hitpoints.

[Username17]

Two Weapon Fighting is worth it regardless of cost for the Pounce Rogue, and not for anyone else. You can either accept that fact and surreptitiously pretend that Rangers don't do TWF, or you can try to find a niche for TWF that anyone would care about.

The version in Races of War is based on the age old D&D concept that multi-weapon fighters should roll lots of d20s. It's simple, straightforward, and gives people a lot of attacks. Attacks that aren't super great, but you get a lot of them. With some basic min/maxing like using greater magic weapon and flaming swords, you can make that combat style desirable, making the price point of one feat fairly reasonable.

Of course, that assumes that you want to do the D&D thing of rolling eight d20s every time an octopus attacks, which frankly a lot of people do not want to do. One could easily see TWF as having some other kind of niche. Massive Damage is taken by greatswords and high defenses by sword and board, but one could easily imagine a place for TWF as a fighting style for high accuracy.

If you were doing that, probably the best bet would be to have people make their attacks only with the primary weapon, with a flat bonus (of perhaps +2) to their attack rolls. Then, to keep things in line with other things in the game, you'd want to allow people to stack the enhancement bonuses of both weapons. And it would still be kind of marginal for a feat (as compared to Sword + Shield, which is free), but it would be something.

-Username17

[K]

The easiest route would be to just let the weapon give you a shield bonus modified by its enhancement bonus, with the option of choosing which one you wanted to use for attacks.

[JonSetanta]

Extra attacks -> attack rerolls.

They are made using your highest attack bonus (none of this diminishing returns bullshit) and once one (two?) hit goes through there's no others stacking on top of it.

[CatharzGodfoot]

The easiest route would be to just let the weapon give you a shield bonus modified by its enhancement bonus, with the option of choosing which one you wanted to use for attacks.

I agree.


If you were going to go even farther, it would be worthwhile to give every weapon a "parry" bonus to AC and make shields weapons.

[RandomCasualty2]

The easiest route would be to just let the weapon give you a shield bonus modified by its enhancement bonus, with the option of choosing which one you wanted to use for attacks.

I really don't like the idea of using the enhancement bonus much because then it turns the style into something that's good at high levels, but total suck at low levels.

[Cielingcat]

I like Sigma's idea of TWF letting you reroll missed attacks, though that might increase accuracy by a quite a bit.

[K]

The easiest route would be to just let the weapon give you a shield bonus modified by its enhancement bonus, with the option of choosing which one you wanted to use for attacks.

I really don't like the idea of using the enhancement bonus much because then it turns the style into something that's good at high levels, but total suck at low levels.

It would be exactly the same as using a shield, so I don't understand your complaint. The only difference is that instead of buying a separate enchantment for bonuses to hit and bonuses to AC, it's just one bonus that affects hitting when it is used as a weapon and it affects AC when the weapon is used as a shield.

I also like the idea of shields just being weapons. People love to shield bash and they shouldn't have to pay feats for the privilege.

[SunTzuWarmaster]

The K suggestion is that the weapon IS a shield for anyone that missed that playing along at home...

It is a "weapon" that gives a +2 shield bonus +(enhancement). You can attack with it at a penalty if you opt not to block with it. Also, it is a heavy shield....

[RandomCasualty2]

It would be exactly the same as using a shield, so I don't understand your complaint.

My complaint is that shields don't really work well either.

Basically sword and shield doesn't start to get good until you've got at least a +2 shield. Before then, the +2 to AC just isn't worth much. It's pretty useful if you're a cleric tower shield caster, but otherwise any fighter type is going to stick to the greatsword.

I really don't feel like scaling AC bonuses like that are a good idea. Two handers get 1.5x strength and power attack pretty much right out of the box, why make people wait before TWF or shield style AC becomes useful because you need magic items?

[angelfromanotherpin]

There was a whole discussion about this sort of thing on this board earlier, let me see if I can find what it came to...

Ah, here it is:

Shields give you a bonus to AC.
Greatsword give you a bonus to damage.
Off-hand weapons give you a bonus to-hit.

Ideally, all of these can be roughly the same. However, as you noticed, Power Attack and Expertise makes a bonus to-hit somewhat superior to a bonus to AC or damage because it can be traded back anyway.

So what you are looking at is:

Shields give you a base +2 bonus to AC, plus a bonus for magic.

Greatswords give you a base average +2 bonus to damage, plus half your strength.

Off hand weapons give you... perhaps a +1 bonus to attack with additional plusses based on something or other?

One thing I was seriously considering is dropping the shield enhancement bonus altogether, making magical shields do something else entirely (give bonuses to saves or grant energy resistance or something), and then make:

Greatswords: +2 base damage, + 1/2 Str mod to damage.
Shields: +2 base AC, +1/2 Con mod to AC.
Off Hand Weapon: +1 base attack bonus, +1/2 Dex mod to attack rolls.

That way each of the fighting styles is roughly balanced, shields don't scale into crazy town at high levels, and the light fighter dextrous type really considers fighting dagger and sword like he's supposed to.

Bucklers can then subtract one from your attack roll, and add in a +1 AC bonus - but keeping you on the 1/2 Dex bonus to attack rolls. And now the light fighter who goes in with dagger, buckler, and rapier doesn't look quite so dumb.

That's just the beginning of an idea, obviously it still has problems.

-Username17

[JonSetanta]

I like Sigma's idea of TWF letting you reroll missed attacks, though that might increase accuracy by a quite a bit.

Actually we had discussed the topic in a thread not more than a month ago, wherein good ideas were brainstormed.
That's the best one I can see so far.

Keep in mind that the direct product of the redundant rolls is near-guaranteed hits by mid to higher levels, the same thing as having more attacks (even at low bonus, since eventually one will roll 20s)
The difference is in variance. Rerolls will have a very predictable outcome, while massive quantities of attacks with bonuses all over the place will have equally mixed results.
A TWF character could roll shitty and get nothing but 1 hit to none, or roll extremely well and get a fuckload of crits.

Regardless of reroll or extra rolls, "keen" properties and anything to boost crit multiplier is essential.

[Kaelik]

Maybe a simple change to just TWFing is this:

There is no feat. I'm serious, it's as easy as fighting with a greatsword.

You take no penalties at all to your attacks. Forget that crap. In fact, you get a bonus of +1 or +2.

You do damage equal to the base damage of both weapons. Then you add your Str damage once.

But, you use the crit modifiers of both weapons in some way or something.

So a Rapier and a Dagger (both X2, 18-20 and 19-20) would give you a single attack with 1d6+1d4+Str with a crit of 17-20 at a +2 compared to a greatsword user.

You'd probably want to either limit the off hand to light weapons or change the rules somewhat so that they couldn't get the kind of ridiculous crit ranges like you could in 3.0.

But I definitely like the idea of twfing giving some lesser damage, but better crits and more accuracy. Because with two weapons, you are more likely to hit, and more likely to hit well, or hit worse when you do hit well.

So something like:

Hammer and Dagger equals 1d8+1d4+Str 19-20/X3 or whatever.

[Judging__Eagle]

I dunno Kaelic; that seems a bit too complex.

I'd rather just have TWF rep accurate attacks, THF rep damaging attacks and S&B rep defensive attacks.

Hmm, what if every off-hand attack gives you the chance to perform the aid another action, on yourself; with respect to getting +2 to your next attack roll. These +2's add to your main attack; you can choose if the big sword or your tiny dagger is your main attack on each attack action.

You get a 10+ with each off-hand attack and you add +2 to your next main-attack roll.

Up-side:
-Extra 'attacks' don't mean extra damage rolls, or anything else weird or new.
-People who want to 'roll' lots of attacks, still get to do so
-Combat isn't bogged down with tons of extra damage rolls
-TWF-ers will power attack more often, or will just swing and hit more often?

Down Side:
-TWF SA rogues get the shaft for their damage; but.... fvck, I dunno what to say to that. Really I don't.
-Less damage rolls (good thing and bad thing, I dunno)

[Jacob_Orlove]

You could apply the same to Shields: attacks let you give a +2 Aid Another to your own AC, on top of whatever the fixed shield AC bonus is.

[Calibron]

Maybe a simple change to just TWFing is this:

There is no feat. I'm serious, it's as easy as fighting with a greatsword.

You take no penalties at all to your attacks. Forget that crap. In fact, you get a bonus of +1 or +2.

You do damage equal to the base damage of both weapons. Then you add your Str damage once.

But, you use the crit modifiers of both weapons in some way or something.

So a Rapier and a Dagger (both X2, 18-20 and 19-20) would give you a single attack with 1d6+1d4+Str with a crit of 17-20 at a +2 compared to a greatsword user.

You'd probably want to either limit the off hand to light weapons or change the rules somewhat so that they couldn't get the kind of ridiculous crit ranges like you could in 3.0.

But I definitely like the idea of twfing giving some lesser damage, but better crits and more accuracy. Because with two weapons, you are more likely to hit, and more likely to hit well, or hit worse when you do hit well.

So something like:

Hammer and Dagger equals 1d8+1d4+Str 19-20/X3 or whatever.

So your choices are Heavy Pick/Kukri or Rapier/Light Pick? 1d6+1d4+Str 18-20/*4 Crit. 15-20/*4 once you start getting magic weapons.

[Kaelik]

So your choices are Heavy Pick/Kukri or Rapier/Light Pick? 1d6+1d4+Str 18-20/*4 Crit. 15-20/*4 once you start getting magic weapons.

Well obviously it would narrow down to some specifically good combos. But that just means that you add one good combo to a Fighter's arsenal of options.

So instead of being:
Spiked Chain or Greatsword, it becomes Spiked Chain, Greatsword, or Pick and Kukiri.

But I want to know how Rapier/Light Pick works out to 15-20/x4, unless you mean that Keen is a given, in which case why didn't you apply it to the heavy pick and kukiri?

[CatharzGodfoot]

No, it isn't heavy pick/kukri or rapier/light pick. The way Caelic set it up, you might well be better off with Kukri/rapier for 16-20 threat range (and 3.0-level treat range with Keen).

Or you can go with a high-crit weapon and something more utilitarian, like kukri/kusarigama.

[Judging__Eagle]

You know... I like to use Kusari-Gama's b/c they're essentially 1-handed Spiked Chains (to TWF with, or use a sheild) or Kukris...b/c a Kukri is just an interesting tool/weapon.

So.... Kukri...Kukri? 18-20 + 18-20 = 15-20? or 16-20?

The above is why I don't like the idea your suggesting, Kaelic. It's math that I can't do without thinking about. Meaning that other people who are even sloppier than me will make mistakes, a lot.

[Kaelik]

Well see, a 20 doesn't count for threat range as I was envisioning it. But yeah, I'm not saying this is the one true way or anything, honestly, if I was willing to change more about the game Frank's earlier suggestion about 1.5 Dex to attack seems pretty cool.

I'm just pointing out another option, and one I think is pretty easy to implement and use, while still presenting a series of better options.

I just think it would be cool to have TWFing grant better accuracy and cirts. Or just better crits even.

Though, for my name, they are all Ks. I don't mind Kaelic too much, but I think Caelic is the name of some guy in Char Op. I think he did the guide to "practical" optimization, which was just a list of reasons to nerf your characters because your DM can't handle the truth. I'd just as soon not be associated with that.

[Judging__Eagle]

Don't mind my spelling, I'm forever misspelling people's names; here and everywhere. I can't even spell Koumei, Calibron or Catharz's names properly without actually looking at their posts and making sure I wrote them down correctly; and I've known them for at least a year or two.

I'd be careful about wanting to get more crits, since just b/c you 'threaten' a crit. Doesn't mean that you'll actually crit; since you have to confirm the crit.

I spent a lot of time trying to build "wide crit range" builds, before realizing that they were ultimately sort of useless. "Always Hit" builds ended up being more useful against enemies with all sorts of AC, and had the option of power-attacking to become "Large Damage" builds.