Talk:Two-Weapon Fighting (3.5e Feat)

are all pentallies removed?--ParakeeTalk 16:45, 1 May 2011 (UTC)


 * There is no -2 for off-hand attacks. You still only get half your strength as a bonus to your off-hand attacks, since that reduction isn't technically a penalty. - Tarkisflux 17:07, 1 May 2011 (UTC)


 * There's a chart in the Combat chapter of the Player's Handbook. Not sure if it is on the wiki though. --Havvy 21:09, 1 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I believe the aforementioned table is here. As written, I do believe that all penalties to attack rolls from making attacks with your off hand are negated. Other penalties to attack rolls that do not specifically stem from two-weapon fighting (such as the penalties you normally recieve for iterative attacks) are applied normally. - TG Cid 22:02, 1 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I confirm that that indeed is the aforementioned table. --Havvy 22:17, 1 May 2011 (UTC)


 * So I can effectively double my damage with no pentaly?ParakeeTalk 23:16, 1 May 2011 (UTC)


 * As long as your secondary weapon is a light weapon and you have this feat, the penalties are -2 for each attack. You need to take more two-weapon fighting feats to get the other extra attacks though. --Havvy 23:50, 1 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Not with this feat, though. It removes the whole TWF feat tree, which is frankly awesome. But it doesn't quite double the damage, although it does make being a two-weapon fighter even more of an appealing proposition than it already was (which is, in the scope of wizard-level characters, not a hell of a lot, although it is how certain builds like the acid flask rogue compete). In short, yes, it is win; that's why it's a wizard-level feat. - TG Cid 02:39, 2 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Sorry Havvy, this is the Tome TWF and doesn't work like that. And yes Parakee, you can take a feat and "almost double your damage output". Which mostly means that you suffer no worse than if you had elected to go with a two-handed weapon instead of two light one-handed weapons (aside from having to pay twice for magic upgrades). Seriously, 2 shortswords with this are going to be 1d6+str and 1d6+half-str, exactly like wielding a greatword for 2d6+str+halfstr. It's extremely useful, but the default ability isn't crazy awesome. - Tarkisflux 03:49, 2 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Were does it say it has to be light? Can't it be any one handed?--ParakeeTalk 21:24, 2 May 2011 (UTC)


 * It can be any-one handed the way I see it. They're already paying for two magic weapons. They don't need to be locked into light-weapon damage. --Genowhirl 17:35, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Two Weapon Defense tree.
Doesn't any of the shield bonuses to AC only make since with bladed weapons. Two whips shouldn't give you bonuses...--ParakeeTalk 17:14, 5 June 2011 (UTC)


 * This is the same folks who decided the penalty for silver weapons (-1 to damage because silver is softer) is stupid because wooden weapons don't take that same penalty. If someone wants to dual-wield whips, I'll give them a heartfelt 'Merry Christmas' and see how it goes. And you say 'bladed' weapons, but I'm pretty sure you meant to include maces and flails and clubs and the like. --Genowhirl 17:28, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Trying to work out the balance between Two-Handed Weapons and this Feat
Hey guys,

Despite being an administrator now at your sister site, I was kind of looking at some of the specifics of Frank & K's Races of War, and specifically noticed a particular trend in my own campaign which made me come here to question about a balance concern of mine: I'm worried that this feat makes Two-Weapon Fighting way more appealing that Two-Handed Weapons, in general. Now, with all the love for roleplay and scenario aside (We all have players, or are players, who look to calculate the best possible benefits of their options and make decisions based on that, rather than how cool a greatsword is, aesthetically), I want to know what justification or reason could be found to offset this concern. For that reason, I've come here, since I know a number of the major retainers of Frank & K's work do frequent this site since our historic schism forced us to part ways.

My basic argument exists on this level, and it may well be wrong; Please feel free to correct me if I'm doing something inappropriate:

Say "NotLumu" has the choice of spec'ing to run with either a two-handed weapon or a set of two weapons, and is considering her feats after she has taken the Tome Barbarian Class. In this particular scenario, she has narrowed down her choices to the following options: Two Longswords, or One Greatsword.

In the case of both sets of weapons, let us presume she has a Strength modifier of +4, and that she has a moderately high base attack bonus. How about +10, giving her two attacks, +10/+4 (Not using Races of War's progression, in this case, although we could and I truthfully am not sure the concerned portion would change at all)?

With this feat, the longswords are capable of dealing 1d8+4 and 1d8+2, twice each, for a grand total of potential damage being 44, with a full attack action, excluding criticals and presuming that all four attacks hit.

With the greatsword, she is capable of dealing 2d6+6 damage twice, for a grand total of potential damage being 18, with a full attack action, excluding criticals and presuming both attacks hit.

That's a staggering difference in damage capability, especially considering that one dwarfs the other, and will only continue to do so, further on. The argument could be made that four attacks are less likely to hit than two, but I feel that is an argument that is avoiding the real issue of damage out per set of attacks. Also consider that even if NotLumu only took a single attack in the round, and not a full attack action, her longswords (since she gets the extra attack any time she normally attacks) would do a potential total of 22 damage in the same circumstances, while the greatsword could only do 18 potential damage.

Furthermore, I believe the argument could be made that she could pursue something like Power Attack with the feat she has not used for Two-Weapon Fighting, but that would mean that in order to compensate her damage with the Greatsword, she would have to give up relatively massive amounts of her chance to hit, just to break even. Using the secondary example, Lumu could give up +4 from her attack roll, and end up at 22 potential damage, presuming she hits with the +6 remaining, while she otherwise uses the two longswords at +10/+10 and achieves the same level of damage.

Even minimum damage is no different between the two, and even moreso, is surpassed when the user gains more attacks with this feat.

So, given this information, I am curious as to how this balances with or even makes two-handed weapons a reasonable alternative when this is an option. It is possible, highly so, that I am missing some part of the equation, as I'd hope there'd be something missing for it to be this skew'd in the favor of the Two-Weapon Fighting option; And regarding that, please keep in mind that this is purely concerning potential damage dealt, and doesn't even broach the rest of the feat, such as bonuses to AC and the ability to feint, which a Greatsword fighter would not get.

Here's hoping you all can help me with this. Jwguy (talk) 01:49, 14 August 2014 (UTC)


 * First thing's first, I think the sample character's attack progression would be +10/+5 assuming it followed the standard -5 penalty. So long as it's only on the first iterative attack, there's no functional difference between SRD and Races of War; it's only when you get to the third and fourth attacks that the penalties got so big it wasn't worth having those attacks at all most of the time, hence the change.


 * I think the issue here comes from the fact that too many assumptions were made about hitting and potential damage, while in reality averages are more indicative of performance. I am also going to calaculate the DPR (that is, Damage Per Round) a little differently. The calculations will still come out in favor of TWF, but nowhere near the margins you found.


 * So with the same character with level 18 Strength, before factoring the actual process of attacking, you get either:


 * Two longswords: 1d8 (4.5 average, using the mean of lowest and highest possible outcomes) + 4 (main hand) OR + 2 (off hand) = 6.5-8.5 damage on successful hit
 * Greatsword: 2d6 (7 average) + 6 = 13 damage on successful hit


 * So just in terms of raw output on all successful attacks, the TWF'er has a good edge because of sheer volume of attacks, which is consistent with your findings.


 * Now, I'll use the attack rolls of +10/+5 against a reasonable AC (say, AC 20, for the sake of easy math) and the average damage to extrapolate the character's damage. I also expect these to be in favor of the TWF'er in this scenario, but only just. First, the longswords:


 * Main Hand First: 8.5 x (0.95, the highest probability possible because you can assume an average roll of 10, 20 is an auto-hit and 1 an auto-miss) = 8.075
 * Main Hand Second: 8.5 x 0.70 = 5.95
 * Off Hand First: 6.5 x 0.95 = 6.175
 * Off Hand Second: 6.5 x 0.70 = 4.55


 * That brings the total DPR of the TWF'er to 22.75 (just by adding all those other numbers I got).


 * Now, the greatsword:


 * First: 13 x 0.95 = 12.35
 * Second: 13 x 0.70 = 9.1


 * That gives the greatsword a total DPR of 21.45, only slightly losing out.


 * Lastly, all this was done without me even factoring in the feat that the two-handed guy saved. Given that this is a Tome Two-Weapon Fighting feat, using anything less than another Frank & K Tome feat would not be a fair comparison. So with the feat he saved, say the two-hander barbarian picks Combat School. Even only factoring in the +0 benefit, that +2 bonus on attack rolls makes the hit probability of his second attack climb to 0.80, which makes the adjusted damage of the second attack 10.4 and the DPR become exactly 22.75, dead even with the TWF guy (I didn't even plan that, I swear). Tack on the +1 benefit, you get a +2 bonus to damage on both attacks, making it even higher.


 * So it's not as bad as you might think. Let me know if I need to elaborate on anything else. Hope that helped! - TG Cid (talk) 02:38, 14 August 2014 (UTC)


 * There's one important thing to keep in mind here as well when having this discussion. Under Tome rules, you don't need to spend a feat to get Power Attack -- it's something that everyone can do by default. On the other hand, to use Two-Weapon Fighting, you have to spend a feat to get it. Thus, it being somewhat stronger than straight-up Power Attack is actually by design. Surgo (talk) 02:57, 14 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Jwguy - your greatsword numbers are off. 2d6+6 max is 18, so doing that twice is a max of 36 compared to the longsword 44. An 8 point gain that requires you to succeed at twice as many attacks is not an amazing deal for the feat that you spent on getting to do so. Particularly since you can PA without feat investment as Surgo points out. In this instance it's not that big of a difference. You'd see a much larger difference if you were looking at a rogue and applying sneak attack to one set of attacks or two. I know you used Barbarian in this example, but I'm not actually sure if they get rage dice on their off-hand attacks. - Tarkisflux Talk 04:32, 14 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Ah, I see my error, now. I still kind of feel twigged at the idea that somehow Two-Weapons deals inherently more damage and gives more benefits than two-handed weapons on a trend, but I feel a lot better about it now with the proper math being done, and I can accept TG Cid's method in determining the averages. I only hope that my players can, as well.


 * In any case, I appreciate the assistance. I'll be heading back over to dandwiki, now, but here's hoping our paths cross, again. Jwguy (talk) 12:48, 14 August 2014 (UTC)