Basic Fantasy RPG Forums

Seeing as we have been down this road before I will just slip this little rule on in here. For those wondering its been playtested a lot in my home games, PBP games, and live chat games. It works like a dream and I have yet to come across any problems with it.


Duel-Wield:
When duel-wielding weapons you make a single attack with your primary weapon as normal, if you miss with your primary weapon you may immediately attack any target within reach with your offhand weapon at a -2 penalty. Alternately, you can give up the option to make this secondary attack upon missing and instead gain a +1 bonus to AC against melee attacks. Off-hand weapons must be small sized weapons. You may not wield a shield while duel-wielding weapons.

I've played with GMs who said something like "your character doesn't have the training, so he wont ever consider to grab a second weapon".
I don't give extra attacks nor opportunities with a secondary weapon because I don't like it, I allow combat maneuvers for extra attacks and using a secondary weapon gives a minor modifier for different maneuvers.
If you give an extra attack (or opportunity) without any "cost" it wouldn't be exactly and "option", most characters will use an extra weapon, specially does that can't use a shield...
" Just leave it out of your game." sounds like saying: "Don't allow characters to hold a weapon in each hand". A secondary attack is the obvious use, but isn't the only one...

I like the idea of the simple triad.
shield for +1 AC
two weapon for +1 attack
two hands for +1 damage

To flesh out more, two weapon could alternate between +1 attack and +1 defense vs. one opponent - you decide whether you want to go offensive or defensive with said weapon. The tweak here also makes it easier to engage two opponents - you apply your defense bonus to one, and then attack the other.
Regarding magical bonuses: I'd recommend using the highest bonus of the weapons for the attack bonus, but the damage bonus based on which weapon is being used for damage.


Looking at other options, the multiple attacks at penalty makes two-weapon fighting a more difficult feat, but turns you into quite the mook mower. I will need to dig for my damage analysis - bit against multiple "easy" targets, two-weapon does dole out the damage. If you wanted to make a comparable mechanic for Large weapons, you could use a sweep/cleave mechanic - attacking your adjacent follow-up target at penalty.

Another way to approach the two attack feel without # attack proliferation would be to use the "best of" approach - Roll for two attack rolls and two damage rolls, keeping the best results of each. You're rolling two attacks, but only one effective "result". You could use the kept damage die to say which one actually connected, or make it players choice (both hit, or the other weapon forced a better opening for the connecting strike). This doesn't give you as much a damage gain, or the multiple target options of the Gygax 2-weapon approach, but you pick up some in the probabilities. A catch here is that you still need a negative to-hit modifier to offset the shift in the roll distribution - it varies by what you actually need to hit, but it comes out in the neighborhood of a +3 overall.

(If for some reason you want to keep "one attack" but allow multiple targets... ummm, splitting the damage roll?)

I suppose what it really comes down to is how "accessible" you want the different weapon styles to be. Steeper penalties keep florentine in the province of the very skilled and/or talented (high level, high dex and/or str, optional specialty rules) - but as it stands has big payouts. Flat bonus systems let any "ability" of character use two weapon as it suits them, but with more marginal gains.

At least that's what I see.

SmootRK wrote:Having multiple attacks is logical and would be more like how monsters get additional attacks.

This, and:

Hywaywolf wrote:My pet peeve is DM's telling me my PC CAN'T do something that is obviously possible to do.

That.

These are the reasons I chose to use a variation of Gary's system for two-weapon combat.

In about 90% of my games I use the rules in the Combat Options document for everything, when I don't I'm going Big Black Book only.

I have never once felt the two-weapon rules in the document failed in any way to do their job in any way.

I use the weapon specialization skill from combat options along with the two weapon rule, modified to suit my games. I also apply those modifiers to the monsters that use weapons also. For monsters that use natural attacks like animal types (including the monstrous types like Owlbears) I apply a to hit modifier to each additional attack after the first. This is generally offset by the AB on the second attack and if there is another attack then the modifier is scaled up to represent each additional attack. That means as the AB grows it is applied in full on the first then is reduced for each attack afterwards.

It works for me and my games.

MM.. I actually really like your two weapon fighting rule.. simple but keeps it from being too overpowered.

Well I didn't make it myself. When I first joined we had this same conversation and that rule was what came out of the final discussion. I have been using it since and have had no problems with it.

Here's an added twist on the discussion:

I am looking at the option of "weapon finesse" - using Dexterity for your attack adjustment with "light" weapons. If you combine this with Gygax two-weapon, you have attack penalties, offset by high Dexterity, and an attack bonus for high Dexterity.

Is anyone else bothered by the Dexterity Double-Dip in this configuration? Or triple-dip, as you have the Dex AC adjustment as well. Does anyone have ideas on a modification to make it work, or justifications why it should stand as-is?

Hm. I always use DEX for missile weapons AB, the trade off is that also using a shield is usually not possible(or awkward).

For a "light" weapon, it's an interesting idea. You may want to prohibit heavy armor use (chain and up), or add some minuses to the attack when wearing heavy armor (same result, different mechanic).

You may want to consider limiting this bonus only for fighters. Thieves would simply rock it. But that might not be a problem for you.

I think it might work better as a "Kit"/Specialty (if you use those), rather than making it a general rule. IMG, I use weapon specialisations from Combat Options, but ruled that 2 weapon fighting is a "Kit"/Speciality, and so don't use the Combat Options 2 Weapon Fighting.

I'm really big on tradeoffs, rather than have characters who can do everything and have every option.