Dual Wield Questions

[Oddball]

Some questions I had after realizing I don't think I've been dual wielding correctly...

Why does dual wielding take a bonus action to use the second weapon, when you can often do another bonus melee action while use one main weapon? Didn't it used to be (maybe not, I'm not a rules nut) that the point of dual wield was that you attack with both weapons as a single attack (with penalties to hit to make up for uses two weapons).

Also, it seems (may be my imagination) that when dual wielding while melee sneak attacking does damage with both weapons in the same sneak attack? If not, should it?

Should dual wielding + the feat allow for an automatic parry or riposte type of reaction as well, since that's another reason to dual wield.

Otherwise... what's the point of dual wielding if the off hand isn't doing something automatically if we have the dual wield feat or the fighter/ranger specialty?

[talemore]

Originally posted by Oddball:

Originally posted by malkavius77:

If we got into the discussion of things that are "broken" in D&D this will be a 100+ page snorefest. You can't give players in table top or video games near unlimited ways to play and not have a thousand way to break it. Haste is just the new player idea of what they think broken is, while being woefully unaware of what broken actually is.

lol too funny and sadly true!

(regarding haste as "broken" but newer players not actually realizing what broken actually is... I seem to remember a long time ago that haste actually caused the character to age a year whenever they had it cast on them, due to the age acceleration effect it caused... which meant that tracking character's age was important because stats would change over time (would lose STR but gain WIS the older one got)... so nobody spammed haste in every combat because they'd be 90 yrs old in a stretcher during their campaign at level 5 lol).

I only seen might & magic using age as a mechanic.

There are other ways haste is broken. It doesn't multiple all your other actions.

You get 1 action when it should been
1 bonus action. A bonus action is used for off hand weapon. You don't get 1 action from haste because the 1 action is a bonus from haste.

[Oddball]

Originally posted by talemore:

Originally posted by Oddball:

lol too funny and sadly true!

(regarding haste as "broken" but newer players not actually realizing what broken actually is... I seem to remember a long time ago that haste actually caused the character to age a year whenever they had it cast on them, due to the age acceleration effect it caused... which meant that tracking character's age was important because stats would change over time (would lose STR but gain WIS the older one got)... so nobody spammed haste in every combat because they'd be 90 yrs old in a stretcher during their campaign at level 5 lol).

I only seen might & magic using age as a mechanic.

There are other ways haste is broken. It doesn't multiple all your other actions.

You get 1 action when it should been
1 bonus action. A bonus action is used for off hand weapon. You don't get 1 action from haste because the 1 action is a bonus from haste.

(I'm foggy on when... but I think it was early 80's DnD 2nd edition or some such...or maybe from one of those early DnD computer RPGs)

As BG3 mechanic, I could see though that besides what you mentioned that it should be a bonus action, that being hasten doesn't necessarily mean that the player can automatically do everything faster without some sort of negative repercussion, because the sudden chance of pace isn't something one normally experiences or can cope with (without some sort of DC for dexterity maybe?). So there could also be consequences to trying to cast for example due to speeding through casting rituals or impacting skills requiring concentration. So haste really could be +bonus and movement, but -DC for spells or something. (I mean, imagine spending your life driving at only 30 mph then suddenly accelerating to drive at 100 mph... it doesn't mean we'll make all the usual turns and react to stop at the light on time because it's not a normal mode of living we were accustom too...)

[Mike Garrison]

Originally posted by Oddball:

Didn't it used to be (maybe not, I'm not a rules nut) that the point of dual wield was that you attack with both weapons as a single attack (with penalties to hit to make up for uses two weapons)?

It seems to me that when you ask this question, you are thinking of BG1/2 and the AD&D 2.5 rules.

Those rules did not have "action and bonus action". Instead, you just had "attacks per round". Dual wielding gave you one extra attack per round from your off-hand weapon. So, not really much different.

The reason why dual wielding was so powerful in BG2 is because there were a ton of "stat sticks" that would do things like give you an extra attack or multiply your damage or block incoming damage or things like that. And for whatever reason, their bonuses always applied to your main hand attack, even if the weapon was in your off hand.

So it wasn't really that single extra off-hand attack that was powerful. It was the weapon bonuses you could transfer from your off-hand weapon to your main-hand weapon.

[w.f.schepel]

Originally posted by Moffin Bovin:

dual wielding sucks for fighters because it falls off hard once they start getting extra attacks.

But then, so does sword and shield. For the fighter classes its pretty much just "use a great weapon or go ♥♥♥♥ yourself."

Not really. You can jack up the AC to levels that make you more or less invulnerable even to bosses. Shields matter if your main job is to tank and allow others to get damage in properly. Also, one handed damage can stack up quite nicely as well if you add some damage boosts along the way.

The glass cannon appraoch is nice and dandy until you run into fights that you can't blitz your way through. I happily went back to shields from a 2H approach somewhere halfway through the game. It was just too darn resource hungry.

[Oddball]

Originally posted by Mike Garrison:

Originally posted by Oddball:

Didn't it used to be (maybe not, I'm not a rules nut) that the point of dual wield was that you attack with both weapons as a single attack (with penalties to hit to make up for uses two weapons)?

It seems to me that when you ask this question, you are thinking of BG1/2 and the AD&D 2.5 rules.

Those rules did not have "action and bonus action". Instead, you just had "attacks per round". Dual wielding gave you one extra attack per round from your off-hand weapon. So, not really much different.

The reason why dual wielding was so powerful in BG2 is because there were a ton of "stat sticks" that would do things like give you an extra attack or multiply your damage or block incoming damage or things like that. And for whatever reason, their bonuses always applied to your main hand attack, even if the weapon was in your off hand.

So it wasn't really that single extra off-hand attack that was powerful. It was the weapon bonuses you could transfer from your off-hand weapon to your main-hand weapon.

I'm just going to completely agree with you here because I really can't keep straight the evolution of mechanics between the various computer and TT games and rulesets I've played over the decades.

But I will say that "attacks per round" make better sense to me when the player is attacking with whatever weapon(s) they have equipped. It gets messy to me to say "you can only attack with your main hand, but not your offhand even though you're proficient or highly trained to dual wield as a combat style, because that requires another attack". To me, "attacking" is attacking with whatever is equipped if the training allows for it. So this is where I get hung-up on BG3 mechanics because I don't see or understand why would one want to train for dual wielding as a combat style, when it still requires yet another bonus action just to do something they should already be trained to do (which being trained to use BOTH weapons while attacking during that single action).

(As a philosophical aside... this thought notes that all combat styles have trade offs... the trade off to using both weapons in the same attack is the greater chance of not hitting as it takes more focus to land hits with two different weapons, and even more of a hit penalty if the player is targeting two different targets with each weapon, but also a chance to parry and block with increased training/more feats... unarmed monks trained in martial arts have the trade off of being able to attack quicker (more attacks) per round, but a fist is obviously less damage and can't penetrate armor like weapons can. Two-handed weapons (GWF) trade off is being able to attack with a weapon that can potentially do more damage per hit, with a greater stand-off range, and in cases of polearms and pikes etc, better chance at hitting mounted targets. Single weapon and shield has the trade off of only a single weapon to focus on attacking (so normal damage), but higher accuracy/To Hit, with greater chance of blocking due to the shield, which usually is represented as AC in this game......

.... so given that the combat styles are (should be appropriately) balanced, there's no need to require a bonus action to use one's off hand weapon if their trained for dual wielding. If one didn't have the DW feat chain, then of course it requires a bonus action to do so)