Treantmonk's Video on Two Weapon Fighting: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/obJ1o8WFyJ2Wj2g.html Our Google Doc Summary of the new rules: docs.google.com/document/d/1ZuZbqscx09T2eKqzFPmguB3_LqPj7aFama_lbteyqLg/edit?usp=sharing

It always seemed weird to me that the Duelist fighting style was incompatible with rapier + dagger, and that you need the dual wielder feat to even do it. It's a classic archetype, and is deeply embedded in D&D's own lore (eg Artemis Entreri), and yet it's not very accessible to players. As a DM, I'd be very open to homebrew something to allow it.

I think a good middle ground for the Improved Weapon Fighting suggested style is removing the light restriction from the primary weapon only. Still strong but tempers the power scaling if the Bonus Action is no longer needed for the second weapon attack and adding the ability score mod to damage.

It's crazy this came up literally as I was thinking about this. I'm planning a campaign for the first time for my brothers who have never played a TTRPG and one of my brothers was ENAMORED with the concept of a paladin but dual wielding spears. Was trying to figure out how that'd work for weeks now but this video definitely helped give me some ideas!

another thing that two weapon fighting shows up on: official D&D miniatures! you'd think that if every melee mini has either a big two-handed weapon, two one-handed weapons, or weapon/shield, they'd put more thought into two weapon fighting!

"You can drop any or all objects you’re holding as a reaction." - I would remove that stipulation. I think dropping an object should be free, an doable at any time. Otherwise it will be a bit restrictive and conflict with things like _heat metal_ which specify "the creature must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or drop the object if it can" (which will require the creature having its reaction available).

Instead of doubling your stat with great-weapon fighting style, just have it add proficiency to damage. Maintains the damage buff it does in low levels and stays relevant with your late game changes

I think the removing the bonus action is a great idea, changes to the fighting style, and feat are all great ideas! Adding the modifier back to the damage is where I would say you are crossing the line. The others should be enough to strengthen the concept without tipping the balance too far in their favor.

*Off-Hand Attack (changed from "Two-Weapon Fighting" to avoid confusion between the bonus action available to anyone and the fighting style)* When you take the Attack action and attack with a light or finesse melee weapon that you are holding in one hand, you can use a bonus action to attack with a different light melee weapon that you are holding in the other hand. You don’t add your ability modifier to the damage of the bonus attack, unless that modifier is negative. If either weapon has the thrown property, you can throw the weapon, instead of making a melee attack with it. _Reasoning: Drawing and swinging two weapons is pretty difficult; it should require specialized training (i.e. a fighting style or a feat). Adding "finesse" to the restriction only on the primary weapon opens up the classic rapier & dagger style but prevents the wierd dual-rapier or dual-whip style that should again really require specialized training._ *Two-Weapon Fighting (fighting style)* You can draw or stow two one-handed weapons when you would normally be able to draw or stow only one and you can add your ability modifier to the damage of an off-hand attack. When you gain the Extra Attack feature you may make one additional off-hand attack per turn as part of the Attack action. _Reasoning: This removes the need for Dual Wielder feat to make the fighting style work and lets it keep pace with damage from other fighting styles using heavier weapons._ *Dual Weilder (feat)* You master fighting with two weapons, gaining the following benefits: You gain a +1 bonus to AC while you are wielding a separate melee weapon in each hand. You can make an off-hand attack even when the one-handed melee weapons you are wielding aren't light or finesse.

Love the recent name dropping of d4: D&D Deep Dive and Treantmonk's Temple. These are my 3 favorite channels and you guys all working together is awesome. Building each other up!!

What I did after watching Treantmonk's video is just changed the dual wielding feat. All the other rules remain the same except now you can draw both weapons when you draw weapons. Dual Wielder: You master fighting with two weapons, gaining the following benefits: • You gain a +1 bonus to AC while you are wielding a separate melee weapon in each hand. • You can use two-weapon fighting even when the one-handed melee weapons you are wielding aren't light. • Once per attack action, you can add an one attack with your off-hand weapon.

I'm about to start DM'ing my first campaign, I've watched so many of your videos and they are what pushed me to take the leap. Thank you so much!

One of my problems with shifting the light weapon exception to the fighting style is it would limit a class like barbarians from getting it. The massive brute class being limited to two small weapons while a ranger can use much heavier ones doesn’t make much sense

Maybe the Two Weapon Fighting style means that only your offhand weapon needs to be Light? That way you can do the classic "rapier and dagger" or "katana and wakazashi" weapon sets. Meanwhile, the Dual Wielder feat lets you ignore the Light requirement for your main hand weapon as well. I'd keep the Feat's +1 to AC but change it that, if you forgo making an attack with your offhand weapon, you can use your Bonus Action to give yourself an additional +1 to your AC until the start of your next turn.

For the strength increase on two handed weapons, I recommend using something more like what they did in 3/3.5e. Two handed weapons added 1.5 times the strength mod (rounded down). So an 18 strength would be +6 instead of +4, or your suggestion of +8.

Love this! One of my greatest DnD inspirations is Drizzt, and it never feels like actual DnD play feels at all similar to the book descriptions of his scimitars blurring and wheeling over one another.

Awesome quick, thought provoking, and inspirational video. As a life long DM since first edition D&D, I love the possibilities all these changes bring to 5e and our campaign. Already discussed with my group and we will be incorporating all these changes and recommendations into our homebrew rules at our next session. Thanks Dungeon Dudes!

i’ve been drawing on the Star Wars 5e rules for fighting styles and feats. they managed to come up with a fighting style for each kind of weapon, and standardized the weapon feats into corresponding Fighting Masteries, and added a feat that lets you pick up any fighting mastery. that’s mostly bookkeeping, but it now means there’s like, 24 sets of valid fighting styles and masteries for you to pick from. of course, half of them are specific to lightsabers and blasters, but the biggest thing they changed for two weapon fighting was: the two weapon fighting style lets you make two attacks whenever you take an opportunity attack. they also changed a fighter’s extra attack so that once you have 3 attacks, two weapon fighting lets you make two more attacks as your bonus action. this essentially keeps two weapon fighting as a 50% boost in number of attacks at minimum, which is neat.

Historically an off-hand weapon tended to be mostly for defense and/or controlling the enemy's weapon rather than as another means of attacking; as such, I'd actually like to find some way of implementing an option that allows you to use a secondary weapon in place of a shield, maybe as a reaction.

I would add “+1 to AC while wielding a melee weapon in each hand” to the dual wielder feat in your proposed changes. Otherwise, all very solid changes from beginning to end.

I had JUST got my DM to accept a very sub-par standing fix for 2wf, so I can't wait to see what you guys offer which will be undoubtedly better!

I use something that the dungeon coach suggested in his video. Basically if you have 1 attack your roll your d20 once and if you hit, you roll your damage for hitting with both hands and only add your mod the one time. My table has used this for about 3 months now and its not op or anything, it just puts 2 weapon on par with using heavy weapons.

The homebrew we're trying out at our table is that the drawing/stowing is just part of normal rules (as many others including you have already suggested), and that point of the Dual Wielder feat is replaced by "Your off-hand attack no longer requires your bonus action. It’s made as part of your Attack action." (Inspired by Treantmonk.) Then we added a new feat with a prerequisite of Dual Wielder feat (feat-tree style) that tacks on more benefits (including the additional off-hand attack with Extra Attack you mentioned) if you want to lean farther into Dual Wielding. I actually kind of like leaving the two-weapon fighting style the same. The idea that not everyone who picks up a second weapon can be as effective with their second weapon as their first appeals to me.

Great video, this problem definitely needs tackling. A few things to have in mind: *2 weapon f. is good from levels 1-4 as is, with this rules a lv1 dual w. Fighter is as a crossbow expert. *Rage damage adds very quickly on 4 attacks with advantage. *Shield master shove is intended to be one per turn or once per attack? *You guys are awesome.

The changes you guys are brainstorming are actually right along the lines of what I’ve been working on for my table! I’ve been meddling with my own system on the side on and off for a couple years now that aims to make these kind of changes and ideas more integral to the game and more streamlined, so I appreciate the insight you’ve offered.

I love all of these changes, specifically because it evens out the playing field for the majority of martial styles. As a small addition, I would still allow the additional +1 bonus to Armor Class from Dual Wielder while you have a weapon in each hand. That allows for the rapier and parrying dagger, one weapon focused mainly on offense and one weapon focused mainly on defense style of play, while still adding the flurry of attacks that is so iconic to Two-Weapon Fighting. I think I would add it into the Two-Weapon Fighting Style, where it would read along the lines of: ~ While you are holding a weapon in each hand, as long as at least one of those weapons is a light weapon, you gain a +1 bonus to your Armor Class.

Love the video and love what you guys are doing!!! Keep up the great work! Here is how I run 2 Weapon Fighting. Untrained: No bonus action, 2 attacks in 1 action, Ability mod added 2nd attack if offhand weapon is light or finesse weapon, Main weapon does not need to be light. Trained (Fighter Fight Style): ability mod added to both attacks regardless of weapon type, +1 attack if dual wielding, +1 bonus to AC if Dual wielding Dual Wielded Feat: +1 bonus to AS if Dual wielding (stacks w/ Trained bonus), may fight with weapons of any type, +1 attack if dual wielding (stacks with Trained bonus) Played around with this a bunch and my players seem to really like it. Non-fighters still get some sweet advantages without stealing anything away from the Fighter class. The Trained classification really allows martial classes to fully reap the rewards and this is how it should be. Keep the dice rolling high!!!

2 handed weapon update that could be interesting. For all 2 handed weapons, if your player character is size large or larger (ie Enlarged, giants might etc.) it can wield 2 handed weapons in 1 hand.

I remember making an entire fighter subclass dedicated to changing the way two weapon fighting works, slowly getting more attacks with their "off-hand" weapon as they got their class features until at level 20 they could make 8 attacks with a single attack action, 4 with each weapon.

My simple solution. The two weapon fighting style doesnt let you add your modifier to the damage, but instead lets you attack with your off-hand weapon as many times as your attack action. So if you're 20th level, you have 4 attacks as your attack action and 4 attacks as a bonus action (no modifier). So attacking with two light d6 weapons puts you on par with attacking with a greatsword. So assuming all attacks hit and the modifier is +5 to damage on a 20th level fighter Greatsword: (2d6+5) × 4 = 48 Dual Wield: [(1d6+5) × 4] + [4d6] = 48

cool ! i like ho you worked through the technical issues and offered different perspectives, not just for the two-weapon fighting but also for everything else that might be affected

I’m so glad to have found this video, I don’t know how I missed it and I have been tweeking two weapon fighting in my own campaign. For balance, I’ve essentially used reckless attack for inspiration. The two weapon fighting looks like this: the second weapon is restricted to finesse or small, the second weapon is essentially a free attack when you attack with your primary, however you have to have 13 dexterity, you lose the ability to cast anything that needs your hands and you take a knock to your AC of -2. It’s not perfect, but it works out pretty well.

I, myself, am hitting this issue headlong in my subclass homebrew. I've been attempting to take the flavor of the Lich King era Fury Fighter and roll it onto the Barbarian frame (dual wield 2 handed weapons). I used several of the ideas posted in the video to help streamline the process. Unlike the Dungeon Dudes, I left the bonus action attack and amped it up to compensate for the action economy. Reward usage but not punish for not choosing to use.

I'd love this to become a series! Going to underpowered or underutilized parts of the game, and buffing em up! Poisons! Potions! Classes and subclasses! :D so much potential for content!

i totally agree on that using two weapons should not use a bonus action and use to use modifiers, and ofc also the stowing of weapons change. BUT as one who use two weapons to fight with at LARP, i can say you have more defense with two weapons then you have with one, as you can parry with one weapon and counter with the other. so i would rather have that you gain +1 ac for the duel wielding fighting style and maybe with a reaction to counter attack if a melee attack misses you. and keep the feat as there is a big difference with fighting with two large weapons then with two light weapons. this would also make it so that all have to take a feat to use non light weapons, not giving Ranger and fighter the advantage of being able to duel wield non light weapons earlier and without a feat then as an example barbarian. :) the one with the heavy weapon and twice the str mod i like, but i think i would fit best as a feat.

Something I think is more fair, and could be more interesting, is if once per turn you could draw OR stow any items needed to perform an action as part of that action, but discarding items is a free action. So you can change from your bow to your two swords in time to make an attack with those swords, but you'll have to throw your bow on the ground, unless you recognise you'll be changing weapons a round early. And once that bows on the ground you might need to move to pick it up and use again, or maybe an enemy might get there first if you move away.

I’m sure you guys know but you do add your ability modifier to the off hand attack already just not to the damage. I think it makes sense because you might be just as skilled at hitting with your off hand but it might not be as strong

For the heavy weapon, especially considering the recent trend, you might add proficiency bonus instead of double strength modifier. Not as much extra damage until level 17 or so, but it gives a consistent damage buff at each tier of play. Coupled with the lack of the -5 penalty to hit, I think it balances out but without the weird flavor that hitting harder means you're more likely to completely whiff. Or maybe even if you miss, you still add your proficiency or strength bonus, to reflect that even if you don't pierce the armor, you still don't entirely miss like you were casting a cantrip

always a joy listening to your considerations. I had a player (fighter one for two handed weapon style, barbarian berserker the rest up to 1/7) with the idea of a derwish. So he danced singing and raging into battle with two scimitars. I remembered then far to old books about a ranger with a (under)dark past, so he got two matching magical scimitars. One, his main weapon, dealt cold damage and gave on a crit vulnerability agains fire, the other dealt fire damage and gave on a crit vulnerability against cold damage. It was fun times and never felt overpowered or annoying. The only bad thing was barbarians do not getting a fighting style so he had to multiclass.

this is almost exactly what i did at my table- i did not alter crossbow or the others you mentioned, but i'm fair convinced to do so after your presentation. i did upgrade Spell Sniper to add the players relevant attribute modifier to cantrip damage, and that has helped cantrips scale with other weapons.

I REALLY like this. Martial classes definitely lag behind casters. So by balancing these abilities on the more powerful side of things it helps to elevate martial classes a bit

Paladin does not need a bonus action to smite unless they want to use a spell for that

I had inadvertently utilized this as well! Glad to know I’m similarly aligned with y’all!

Really nice to see that these problems are adressed! I like that video, especially because there is a player in our new DnD group who plays a dual wielder (a champion fighter dwarf with two handaxes/later battleaxes). I was already thinking about some homebrewing but trying to keep it as simple as possible because this player is also a dnd beginner: I would have just adjusted the dual wielder feat with the additional point that the "extra attack" feature also grants an extra attack on your two weapon fighting bonus action (if he uses it immediately after the attack action and is not moving between all those attacks). After this dwarf took the two weapon fighting style plus the dual wielder feat, he very specializes himself onto this technique, so he should get some more benefit from it! Besides that addition, everything else can stay the same and I don't think it makes him overpowered. I think, using the bonus action for his two weapon attacks isn't that kind of a problem, because - besides second wind - there is no more bonus action available... Additionally, we played a bit loosy around the "drawing and stowing" aspect... Everyone can draw the thinks he/she would like to use in his/her turn, but we never talked about this in detail. Furthermore we never did it a "written houserule". But these tips from your video shows some cool ideas to match this with other characters who would like to dual wield once in a while! Thanks!

House rule I've been running for some time has been that with the two-weapon fighting style, offhand attacks are made with advantage. The idea is that they still cost your bonus action when you can get them but that's because your character is using an attack with one hand to create an opening for the other (which is the entire point of dual melee weapons). This also makes the fighting style appealing for rogues to pick up, without being absolutely broken since its still just barely ahead of steady aim but requires a feat or class feature to pick up. Best of all: its simple.

You know, these changes would help out the Monk a great deal, since they would still be able to do an unarmed strike as a bonus action, allowing them to do 3 attacks at 1st level.

Hey Dudes! First of all, thank you guys for the constant flow of consistently amazing content. As a long time player and DM of D&D 5e, and a huge fan of your channel, I have been listening to your comments, opinions and feelings in regard to several of the disappointing mechanics of 5e. I have decided I agree with so many of your opinions, and think that I may have something I would love to share with you guys for not only your feedback, but also to see if you would use in your games. I have started working on a G-Doc, to compile a list of homebrew changes for many features and options of D&D 5e. Primarily those that have come across as lackluster, and unnecessarily restrictive for seemingly no real reason, other than the writers being afraid to make good features for so many of the unique and thematically rich player options in the game. This came from me seeing an unsubtle trend of players always choosing a select few options in our games, over various others, because they are blatantly just better in every way. So my intentions for this doc, are to improve on many of the most amazing thematical options of 5e, and then to inevitably share the doc with others who may be able to enjoy and benefit from it as well. I feel the document is far from complete, but I will most definitely will be incorporating a handful of your homebrew work here into the "System Changes" section of my doc, but I would like to invite you guys to take a look at what I have, see if you guys like any of it, if there is anything you think you might incorporate into your home games, and perhaps even offer some feedback if you have the time. If you you guys see this, and are interested, please feel free to reply with where I can go to share this with you, and I would happily do so. Thank you all again for your awesome contribution to the community of D&D, and all the work you do in making a fun and enjoyable place to come and listen to well thought out and planned talks about one of my favorite TTRPG games. I look forward to seeing what awesome content you release in the future.

Waiting with anticipation for the followed up episode on this one, I would seriously would like to see changes made to fighting styles that make them more balanced. When you know the system a bit too much, it's hard to ignore some options even in favore of great fluff

Love the shield master feat. I’ve been wanting to make a sub class that’s all about the sword and board

I never knew this was a problem, but it does seem like it would make two weapon fighting stronger.

As always dudes, nice vid, you guys complement each other! I agree with 90%, I myself love the idea of sheild mastery having the choice of damage 1d6, or shove 5ft, and if smaller than 1ft in radius have thrown property, if larger has 1d8 damage but no thrown property. Keep on keeping on.👍

Great overall. I hope to see more videos like this. Good discussion, and since these are all separate, independant rules, people can pick and choose the ones they like. Good work!

Glad this is being made, because two weapon fighting requires WAY to much investment...

I think the two handed flurry is unnecessary. The problems i see is that it makes a person have endlessly long rounds, which can be boring for others. I think the other changes are already good enough and the original two handed feat can just be an option for classes that don't get a fighting style, don't you think?

I saw a Tiktok the other day of someone explaining their idea for a versatile weapons feat where sword and shield allows extra damage and two handed use gives extra AC. It also allowed you to switch grips as a bonus action by donning/doffing a shield as a bonus action. Very cool.

I love all these, these are fantastic! i do think the extra attacks should be once per action though, and have it work with oportunity attacks and such as for balancing the other weapons, i think that the dueling fighting style could also apply to great weapons, simply making the dueling fighting style "when you're attacking with a single weapon"

As for Shield Master I'd do what you guys did, but I'd add you could make a bonus action attack with your shield. Something like 1d4 plus your strength modifier.

This just sounds like DnD 5.5 edition at this point lol. All do respect I love the content you guys put out, just seems like a domino effect started to happen where we changed this to supplement this. Then had to change this for this, this for that, so on and so on. I mean at your table sure, homebrew away, but at this point this just sounds like a PowerPoint of why we need a .5 new edition written lol. And this is simply just my opinion. Take it with a grain of salt.

Love the video. This has been a topic I have been working on myself. Was looking through the math a bit and I think it would make 2WF stronger than GWF consistently and with less investment. With the fury Feat, a Zealot Barbarian of level 5 who acquired hunters mark (however?) could use 2 Battle axes and achieve approx. 65.5 DPR while raging and attacking each turn (not including any reaction). A GWM PAM Zealot with Hunters mark would achieve 57.5 DPR if they cant use their reaction to PAM, if they can, 83.5 DPR. A paladin with TWF can use 2 battle axes, using 2 level 2 slots, and 2 level 1 slots, and a thunderous smite at level 5 can hit for 90 DPR. Add hex (however) and ends up being 97 DPR. Take a paladin with GWM and PAM using 2 level 2 smites, thunderous smite can achieve 75 DPR. if they can react and PAM and 1 level 1 smite, 102.5 DPR. The problem with this is that the 2H fighter has to get 2 feats PAM & GWM, take a -5 on ATK, and the TWF only needs 1 feat, doesn't take a minus to hit, and has more opportunities to crit just due to more d20s being rolled in character career. In the math, I assume every attack hits to achieve the desired numbers. If you include the lower chance to hit with take the -5 to ATK, it would lower the overall DPR as well. I would suggest allowing the free off hand attack with modifier and the feat, but you can't add effects like hunter's mark, hex, smite, etc. to the off hand attacks because that's where they jump in damage.

Great video! Gotta say though, I noticed you mention this a lot too, Paladin smite in 5e doesn’t cost a bonus action

I think the two wapong fighting style could allow the main hand weapon to be any not heavy or two handed weapons, like a rapier + dagger.

Polearm master also uses a bonus action.

"Guides for GMs" instead of "Game Masters" took me off guard haha I was just looking searching for homebrews for this rule a couple hours ago. Thank you for the video!

These are the rules I use, they are not as simple but i think it balances it better while keeping the image dual wielders in media give: Firstly, I want to explain what is the thought behind these changes. When I think of 2 weapon fighting, i dont think of multiple attacks with each hand, i think of doing a single hit with 2 weapons in harmony. So i wouldn't add attacks but instead change the damage values to add the second weapon. So the changes would be: -Fixing the silly rule of not letting you draw or stow two one-handed weapons. -Two-weapon fighting would keep the option to do the extra attack with a light weapon as your bonus action but in addition the default would add the ability modifier. -Two-weapon figthing style would now let you add a weaker version of the damage dice (d6 turns to d4 and d8 turns to d6) to your normal attack. this would emulate the feeling of hitting someone with your 2 weapons at once, being in rapid succession or as a single strike. This would keep the balance of damage as it would only be stronger than a heavy weapon if you take the dual wielder feat and would help differentiate damage types as you can dual wield different kind of weapons. -Dual Wielder Feat would stay the same as it increases your damage output and gives you AC. I want to try a new version of the feat but haven't had the chance to playtest it, I'll add it at the end. The math behind these changes would go as follows if we use a +3 strength for the examples: 1d6+1d4+3 = 9 in average for using two weapon fighting style with 2 shortswords. 1d8+1d6+3 = 11 in average for using the fighting style and the feat with 2 longswords. 2d6+3 = 10 for a greatsowrd with no feat or fighting style to improve the damage output, or 1d12+3 = 9.5 in average for a greataxe. This has worked well for me making two weapon fighting a valid option but never being the strongest. As to the change to the Dual Wielder feat i thought about, it goes like this: In addition to the previous 2 benefits, -Before you make a melee attack while you are wielding a separate melee weapon in each hand that you are proficient with, you can choose to take a penalty to the attack roll equal to the ability modifier. If the attack hits, you double the ability modifier added to the attack’s damage. (this would give a bonus similar to the Great Weapon Master feat, but capping at 5 and being more risk than reward as the feat already improves your damage output)

When I think of the two weapon fighting, I think of a couple of fantasies the beserking barbarian who swings his two axes, the two sword wielding samurai, the swashbuckling rogue, the monk with two sticks. We need more to do with the off weapon like parrying as a reaction. As well as no bonus attack. Two-weapon fighting style should allow you to cleave.

My current paladin is wielding two scimitars but it'd be better if I used a shield but I love these swords mentioning they are of a pair

Due to work I haven't even gotten to listen to the whole video, but thank you for putting out quality content yet again. Love your channel!

Great video, guys! My gaming groups have done pretty much the same with two weapon fighting and the Shield Mastery feat. The other points are definitely worth considering too.

Thank you for talking about the issue with two-weapon fighting in 5e! I was playing 2e up until last year, and I had loved the ranger class in that edition. One of its coolest features was that it was the only class that allowed two-weapon fighting without a penalty at lower levels, and you get both strikes on your turn. While I love a lot about 5e, I haven't played a ranger at all because who wants to lose a bonus action in order to get the obvious second strike? Makes no sense. I like your fix, but would be happy even if it was boiled down to simply removing the bonus action requirement if you take that fighting style.

14:15 LOVE the addition to heavy weapons. This should be what the Great Weapon Fighting Style does (given the official one isn't very useful). This would mean removing the STR 15 prerequisite, but I think that's fine since, for a STR of 14 or lower, this is giving you +1/+2 damage at best.

I have just finished running a campaign lvl 1 - 14 using these rule sets ( and I brought back the Monkey's Grip Feature allowing you to ignore the heavy property on weapons) so far I saw 0 imbalances and 1 character used a Greatsword, the other used 2 Longswords, and the last character used sword and board. They all did very similar damage. The Paladin loved more attacks, the Fighter Loved the shove action and then wild swinging, and the Bard loved the heavy hitting greatsword. 👌 good job guys.

I just shared this with my dm for my swords bard swashbuckler multi class and I'm excited to try this out! Great ideas!

I like what you guys have here but I gotta say I disagree because I think there’s a far easier/ better way to fix this. All characters have the ability, when they are wielding a one handed weapon, to wield a weapon In their off hand with the light or thrown properties. When they make hit with an attack on their turn, they roll the damage dice for both weapons, adding their modifiers only once. I know it keeps them from adding hex or hunter’s mark a bunch but it also keeps them from smiting four times a turn at level 5. I just think this is easier to conceptualize and still fits the aesthetic. Plus, it’s basically like giving dex characters a great sword option, which is FINE because they won’t have a shield equipped when doing this.

These are great homebrew fixes and I’m gonna bring them up with my DM for an upcoming campaign! Great video, dudes!

I love the Shield Master changes! Being able to shove someone every time you hit with an attack just brings to mind a relentless push forwards with a rain of blows. And yeah, makes sense you should be able to shield a Fireball!

yeah I think the + attack baked in to your attack action is the solution. def. gonna use some of these rules. ty for making good content :D

The rules always want to penalize two-weapon fighting and ignore the fact that a sword and shield *IS* two-weapon fighting.

There is one melee fighting Style you forget. One handed Weapon and empty Hand.

After crunching the numbers a couple years ago and the numbers line up with Monk unarmed vs DW Longswords as a Champion Fighter (at 20th level). Monk deals an average of 4 damage more per round with just main hand/offhand. So what I did as a new DM was this: -If you take the Dual Wielder Feat, you make BOTH hand attacks when you take the Attack Action. (Effectively moving offhand off Bonus Action, opening up the BA for other uses.)

What I love about changing mechanics to make characters more powerful and fun is that it also opens up the possibility to make powerful NPCs to test players' mettle.

Now that Fighting Initiate is a thing, my solution would be to take TWF and Dual Wielder and mash them together.

I love the feel of this, especially the negating of BA and same rolls for all attacks. But I think this package is overpowered as-is. At low levels, +2Dex spellcaster with daggers would do more melee damage per attack (9 avg, 2d4+4) than a +2Str great-weapon wielder (8.5 avg,1d12+2), and far more than they would by casting a cantrip. And d6 weapon would come out far ahead with 11avg. Shields also look /a lot/ worse when you're giving up a full 2nd attack, albeit with a lighter weapon. And even when feats/styles are considered, until someone gets 3 attacks in a turn, I think dual wielders would have the best damage overall. Then there's unintended synergies like basic lvl1 warlocks being able to BA Hex, then do '4d6+2xDEX' on one turn without any abilities, feats, or friends. I think it could use some of this buff, but could use constraints like a minus to damage or removing a bonus to hit. I definitely like making this viable for BA-heavy classes. But great weapon builds have to give up shields and Dex to get there; dual-wielders shouldn't be able to get to the same base damage without some downside, whether that's reduction in raw damage, reduction to hit, or reduction to AC.

My home brew fixes for the Dual Wielder feat. We kept the 2 weapons even not light, and the +1 to AC. So I added what I called arts. -Defensive Art, enemies can still do opportunity attacks on you, however because of your mastery, the first 4 opportunity attacks done on you are with disadvantage. -Offensive art, when you move to an empty space you can do an opportunity attack on any creature 5 feet away from said space using your proficiency.

The two weapon fighting style changes I have implemented for a half orc fighter in the party I DM, (they started at first level and now are at 8th.) First weapon can be any single handed melee weapon the off hand is a light weapon, in this case the fighter is an axe man. Battle axe and hand axe. All to hit and damage bonus' apply to all attempts. Freeing up his bonus action for what ever he wants to do. He now has 2 attack actions so gets four normal attacks per round The the changes have made the fighter a cool kick a.. character for melee. I have not applied any others rule changes to the feats as you are suggesting, but they sound - sound. Love you ideas

Interestingly, the problems with 2 weapon fighting in D&D are similar the the problems with 2 weapon fighting irl. Its a large investment to get good at it for a pretty negligible advantage

Taking out GWF for heavy weapon master would be a huge nerf for hexblade and battle smiths that want to use big weapons.

This would be pretty amazing on barbarians, at level 5 with reckless attack, we're talking 4 attacks at advantage d8+str+2, a frenzy barbs 5th attack would actually be pretty nice (and thematic). And once you hit those extra dice on crits... at 17 a crit is 4d8+str+4. This sounds like a lot of fun to play, and I'll need to talk to my DM about trying it. (Though I'll probably still go Zealot, cause I think it'd be even better...)

I don't know if you'll be able to see this after the hundreds of comments that proceeded this, but I thought very hard about your homebrew, and while I would personally adopt almost all of the changes suggested, I have a couple of small suggestions that I think would keep your great homebrew fixes more in line with the current balance in 5e. Dual Wielding falls behind the other fighting styles because of the steep action economy drawback and the offhand weapon's incompatibility with Extra Attack and its kindred mechanics. Making the offhand attack part of the Attack Action and the Dual Flurry feat competantly answer this problem, and tweaking free objection interaction is a nice touch that I appreciate. It's because of those fixes that I think adding an ability score modifier to the damage roll of the offhand attack is an overcorrection that threatens to overtake heavy weapons and agitate the balance of Duelist/Dual Flurry. The RAW TWF fighting style adds more damage than the other fighting styles, which makes sense in the context of the action economy drawback, but without that drawback, using the ability modifier with offhand weapon damage makes Dual Wielding alarmingly powerful, particularly in the early game. Your revision to the TWF fighting style is honestly a perfectly flavorful and effective rebalance to fit your other homebrew changes. With your revisions, the new TWF generally replaces two 1d6 weapons with two 1d8 weapons, or replaces two 1d4 weapons with 1d6 weapons (depending on weapon proficiency), which effectively adds +1 to each attack, or +2 damage to the player's base attack action. That's on par with Dueling and is still better than GWF (it adds 1.33 damage for Greatswords/hammers and even less for other heavy weapons. GWF is underpowered in my opinion, and I have my own solution, but that's a different conversation). With this performance balance, you wouldn't have to consider a Heavy Weapon Mastery mechanic, which is good from a design perspective. I'm mainly saying this for certain onlookers, but if you make a homebrew rule that requires rebalancing other stuff, which causes other stuff to need rebalancing, and so on, it's a sign of unhealthy balance. Removing the ability modifier from offhand weapon damage also makes the prospect of a Level 6 fighter using Action Surge to make 8 attacks a lot less scary. Let's assume the fighter has a modifier of +4, which is pretty reasonable after racial bonuses and Level 4 ASI, with the Level 6 ASI spent on the Dual Flurry feat. 6 attacks with six +4 modifiers = 6d8 + 24 = 51 average damage 8 attacks with four +4 modifiers = 8d8 + 16 = 52 average damage I don't like to indulge in a lot of emotional thinking, but... as long as it's balanced, more attacks is cooler than less attacks. For the new wording, I'd remove the prerequisite line and let it read as: "You gain a +1 bonus to AC while you are wielding a separate melee weapon in each hand. If you have a class feature that allows you to attack more than once when you take the Attack Action, and you make those attacks with a light melee weapon, you can make an equal number of attacks with a light melee weapon in the other hand as part of the Attack Action."

Really clean fixes. This implementation is actually more straight forward and easier to use for newer players than the current rules. I tip my hat to you dudes. The only problem I see is the tier 1 damage (levels 1 to 4). A fighter dealing 2d8 + 2mod with their attack action at level 1 is a lot. It leaves all the other fighting styles way behind in damage per round. Maybe giving access to non light weapons as a fighting style is to much of a buff when you take into account that you also gave the old fighting style and bonus action use for free as part of the buff.

Overall your running into the same problems I have when reworking two-weapon fighting, you change that, and you might as well change everything, since you must choose a specific power level for each fighting style and then they need to match. The problem is combining fighting styles such as Polearm master and GWF will always be more effective than any single one. My solution is to leave combining styles to masterful effect in the fighters wheelhouse thats what they should excel at above all others... Then you get a new problem on adjusting how fighting styles working in all martial classes. For 5e I say keep it simple, tweak two-weapon fighting until it feels cool enough to use compared to GWF, but fight the urge not to mess with the other options. 5E is not perfect, if you want perfect rewrite the system. Good Luck!

The version I was allowed to use as a houserule once was the following: I had the normal feature investment (fighting style, feat) and I got to attack an additional time for each time I attacked as part of the same action, but instead of adding my full Strength mod to each attack I added half, and I could still only use d6 weapons. I calculated that this was basically fair compared to other options given that I wasn't also using Hunter's Mark.

I playtested some ideas similar to this including weapon specific tweaks for a major 5e publisher and I hope they come out with their ideas as they were a lot of fun.

I think that if you’re going to be changing sharpshooter and great weapon master, I think the -5 accuracy penalty makes more sense for GWM where you’re swinging a slow, heavy weapon that can be easily dodged, but deals a meaty hit if it connects. With sharpshooter, a sharpshooter is someone who is accurate with a bow, so why is it giving me an accuracy penalty? It doesn’t make much sense to me. I think sharpshooter should make your attacks more accurate like a buffed archery fighting style, and maybe change the archery fighting style to do trick shots around corners, negating half and three-quarters cover or something. I also love the shield master changes. It’s never made sense to me that my shield doesn’t help my saving throws against a dragon’s breath weapon, but it also protects me from the damage it deals. Either I’m holding up my shield to protect myself and blocking the damage or I’m not.

The ideas here are amazing omg and yeah if it is a bit too strong (starting w the phb rules) maybe you could give everyone their ability modifier to their off hand; change the fighting style to give you the extra attack without using a bonus action and then add in a slightly nerfed version of dual flurry into dual wielder, something like if you have extra attack you can make two off hand attacks rather than 1 i.e at level 5, 4 attacks (+2 attacks action surge); level 11, 5 attacks (+3 attacks action surge); level 20, 6 attacks (+4 attacks action surge)? I only suggest this because great weapon master and sharpshooter/crossbow expert are already really strong so if the suggestions you’ve made are too strong, instead of making everything else stronger it might be better to take two weapon fighter back a step again. But yeah this way classes that can take the two weapon fighting style get that no bonus action trait for free and can pick up dual wielder if they want but the classes that don’t have the fighting style might have to multi class or take the feat that gives them a fighting style w custom lineage or at level 4 which seems a bit more balanced? Also yeah shield master NEEDS to be given some more love. Keep up the great vids!

While I'm not sure about the rules that you've included involving two weapon fighting. I'll have to test them to see what I think. I agree with your rules for drawing/stowing weapons. Also the link to the google doc isn't in the description.

I was making a character sheet earlier today for Leon Kennedy for a RE one shot and this is perfect timing for his Wing Shooter pistols! Thanks, Dudes!

I just remove the bonus action portion (and reallocate it as such below) and just allow it once for every attack action and add a reaction attack to a missed(you or opponent)/blocked attack. That would effectively recreate that Hollywood flow of attacks and responses. This would raise the value of 2WF related rules without having to rewrite them. The bonus action would be used to provide advantage to 1 attack OR a bonus to damage as the weapons force the opponent to track multiple weapon motions. That would give 2WF an Action, Reaction, and a better use of the bonus action, again without having to rewrite the rules and giving them more desirability. In the end, it's not that the other weapon fighting styles are too powerful really. It's just that 2WF needed to have a "restriction" removed and a stronger edge. Altering the other playstyles because you OP'd this system just makes more work and really ups the CR needed to challenge the players. We're just fixing the 2WF, correct? The others are already really powerful and don't need "boosters". Yes my proposal does not give the +10 damage bonus, but it doesn't have the -5 penalty. Instead it's balanced by a consistent attack option. Adding the Dual Wielder feat gives more oomph by allowing stronger weapon options. Two weapon fighting style gives bonus damage (and combined with the more frequent attacks gives the +10 damage output).

I had watched Treantmonk's vid and really liked his initial proposal. I immediately implemented the "no bonus action" rule in my game. However, you guys lost me at "Dual Flurry". By allowing yet another attack it will cause a HUGE boost to those builds that have ways adding to damage PER attack (Hexblades, Spirit Shroud, etc.). This has the potential to really make those builds OP. In addition, you "arbitrarily" disallow dual-wielding during action surge, to fix the problem you just created. Action Surge currently doesn't disallow anything, including casting additional spells. Furthermore, the double strength is just going to increase the power creep. Rather than increasing dual-wield damage past the already powerful GWM build, the aim IMO should be to bring it on par with it (assuming you are using an equal number of feats). I actually like Chris' idea (he talks about in his own Homebrew rules that he uses) where he just allows everyone to use GWM and SS, removing them from being a "must take feat".

Love your homebrew videos. I'd love to see a video on homebrewing subclasses. I've gotten very interested in making subclasses recently.

Our approach was to hybridized a character class feature a couple of feats such as dual wield feat, martial adept mated to Bards; college of swords: Two weapon fighting style along with blade flourishes all into a nifty new feat. We remove bonus action requirements, an argument won by saying ok if your marilith attacks the party it can make one main hand attack and one off handed as bonus action and the rest of the arms flail about menacingly. This functionally allows a character to make two attacks,( three if they choose to use a bonus action to attack with either weapon or even cast a spell or use item.) Additionally they have a maneuver like ability that allows them to do a blade flourish giving feel of more attacks/Defense. Now critics will point out this is taking away from bard....yeah kinda, though to be fair they did make it possible through fighting initiate to steal fighters weapon styles. Plus using martial adept language and treating it as bardic inspiration and limiting it to two flourishes puts full bard classes ahead. I feel a good option is to let a bard also take this feat and gain an additional attack or more bardic inspiration equal to martial adept feat. Personally Two weapon fighting should never of not had ability to use str/dex mods makes no sense you've literally been training to use two weapons. Some Dms might think too much is thrown in here and might prefer the dual wield feat be taken separately I can kinda see that. We all agreed that this applies to players and any npc's sort of what's good for goose good for gander.