Dungeons & Delvers: Two-Weapon Fighting

Two-Weapon Fighting in 3rd Edition was utter garbage: your first attack suffered a -6 penalty to hit, while the second suffered a -10 penalty. If your off hand weapon was considered light, the penalties were "only" -4 and -8 respectively, and you could take a feat to reduce the penalties to -4 for both attacks, or -2 to both if you're also using a light weapon.

There's another feat you can take, after getting the previous ones and hitting at least 6th-level, to make a second off-hand attack, but that extra attack is made at a -5 penalty, and there's a third two-weapon fighting feat you can get at 11th-level or later that lets you make a third off-hand attack, but its at a -10 penalty.

Basically, outside of possibly a specialized build there was no reason to bother. Monster AC more or less scaled by their CR: just skimming a few CR 6 entries, their AC ranges from 16 to 22. A 6th-level fighter would have a base attack bonus of +6, probably another +2 or +3 from Strength, +1 from a feat, and another +1 from a magic sword.

That's a total of +10 to +11 to hit. Going in the middle on AC, that's enough to hit an AC 19 monster 60% of the time, which isn't that bad.

But then they get -2 to hit for two-weapon fighting, and a further -5 to hit for the second attack they get at 6th-level. In the end, assuming they have two magic weapons, they can make up to four attacks per round, but the first two are at  +8 to +9, while the second two are at a measly +3 to +4. If only one weapon is magical, then the off-hand attacks are 1 point lower.

Of course this wasn't unusual for 3rd Edition: for some reason they were, to put it lightly, overly cautious about giving the lowly melee classes extra attacks (you could only make multiple attacks if you didn't do more than move 5-feet per round I think). Auto-scaling area-effect spells are fine, as are spells that circumnavigate hit points entirely, but don't you dare let Mike the Fighter make more than one un-penalized attack per round: dishing out maybe an extra 1d8+4 damage? Well that'll break the game!

Hell, even a monk using their flurry of blows class feature to make two meager 1d4 damage attacks suffers a -2 penalty to both attacks. The only saving grace is that the penalty gradually winds down, until 9th-level when it disappears entirely. Of course by then a wizard can drop at least six 9d6 damage fireballs a day (among many other things), so it kind of pales in comparison.

4th Edition had a simple if ultimately pointless solution: if you fight with two weapons you deal +1 damage. That's it. No absurd penalties such that beyond possibly a specialized build there's no reason to bother...but then you could just use a Versatile weapon in two-hands to deal +1 damage, or use a two-handed weapon, which upped the average damage by +1 or +2 anyway.

Some classes (like the ranger and one of the barbarian types) also had built-in exploits and other abilities that keyed off of multiple weapons, so you could make multiple attacks per round without any penalties, so that was good.

Dungeon World didn't bother explaining anything about fighting with two weapons. The official response was something along the lines of, "Well what do you think it should do", which given the final result of a number of ill-conceived mechanics in the game that might have been preferable. When we developed The Fighter, we included a kind of two-weapon fighting tree: our basic implementation was that if you attack with two weapons, you roll damage twice and take the higher result.

Simple and effective.

This was also how we initially implemented it in Dungeons & Delvers. The idea is that you can use a two-handed weapon to deal a bunch of damage, as well as choose talents that make you deal more damage and destroy a target's armor, though there was a chance you'd roll poorly. You could also go with a shield, making you harder to hit and also protect allies. But, if you want more reliable damage you go with two weapons.

No one has had any complaints, but we also haven't seen anyone use it: most warrior types use a weapon and shield combo, or a two-handed weapon. In issue 8 of Appendix D, we ended up including a number of monstrous races with natural weapons, like the nekobito (cat-person). Initially we were going to just do it like it's always been done in Dungeons & Dragons: it's basically a built-in weapon, usually one that deals subpar damage.

Natural weapons were also another thing that 3rd Edition designers for some reason thought was a big deal. For example, a lizardmen gets both claw and bite attacks. But, so what? They only do 1d4 damage. If you're playing a rogue, okay, fine, you can just use your bite and claws instead of a dagger, right? Well, the downside is that a dagger can be thrown, and you can find magic daggers. You can also just use a shortsword to deal more damage, and why wouldn't you?

Of course, if you're playing a fighter, or really any class that gets to use weapons that deal 1d6 damage or more (which is every class that uses weapons routinely) there's absolutely no reason to unless you have no other option, but I can only recall a handful of times when the party lost access to their weapons. Unfortunately none of those times was anyone playing a lizardman, so they had to use improvised weapons and spells.

Speaking of spells, that's also why spellcasters aren't going to us their claws: you have spells, and when they run out your attack bonus sucks anyway, so even then you aren't going to bother.

Which is why in the end I didn't do natural weapons how they've always been done; after thinking about it some more I hit on the idea to let them use a Swift Action to make a claw attack, but only when they use their Standard Action to make a melee attack. So if you're playing a nekobito fighter, you can make an attack with an arming sword, and then follow up with a claw attack. Sure, it's not as good as an arming sword, but it's free, so why not?

Magic items in Dungeons & Delvers aren't assumed, so it's less likely you'll end up finding a magic dagger to completely replace your claws, and if you do? You can use the dagger to make a normal attack, and your Swift Action to make a bonus claw attack.

Also, since the overall game math is actually flat, even spellcasters can benefit from making a claw attack: in our Age of Worms campaign, early on Humal (wrathful cambion wizard) would smash shit with his quarterstaff, and in an earlier playtest we had an elven enchanter wizard using a bow to take bandits out!

All of this, plus watching a few videos about dual-wielding caused me to rethink two-weapon fighting in general.

First, the Two-Weapon Fighting tree is going to be moved to specific classes, or rather the tree will specify which classes can choose them. Partially this is because I don't want to reprint the same batch of talents five or six times, partially because some classes get more talents, like the wizard, and I could see some players multiclassing into wizard just to gobble up a bunch of them for some reason.

Second, the basic rule of wielding two weapons will be that anyone can carry and wield two one-handed weapons, but beyond having two weapons to choose from when you attack there is no inherent benefit: you need to take the Dual Wielding talent, first.

DUAL WIELDING
When wielding two weapons, you gain a +1 bonus to your Armor Class (but not to Reflex saves). If one weapon is light, when an adjacent enemy misses you with a melee attack, as a Reaction you can make a melee attack against them using the light weapon.

There are a few reasons that this is the gateway talent.

The first is that while watching some videos on dual-wielding, besides hearing over and over that dual-wielding isn't very practical (which is why you need to take a talent in the first place to get any benefit at all), typically what would happen is that they would use one weapon to block and the other to stab simultaneously.

The other is that this way races with natural weapons get some benefit out of this. If I'd left it so that you could make a bonus attack (at a penalty or not), it would overlap and be kind of pointless. Also races with natural weapons can just skip the talent that grants them a bonus attack later.

Keep in mind that the classes that can choose these talents, will only normally get eight over the entire 20-level spread. I think by 10th-level fighters only get to choose three talents in total: the rest of their levels are spent granting static bonuses to their attack and damage rolls, and multiple attacks. The upside is that, if you want these talents sooner than later, you can swap out your Damage Bonus for a talent. Or play a human.

Anyway, here are the rest of the talents for the dual-wielding tree:

FINISHING THROW
Prerequisite: Dual-Wielding, Improved Dual-Wielding
When you are wielding two one-handed weapons that you’re proficient with, once you have finished making melee attacks if one can be thrown you can make a ranged attack with it as a Swift Action.

IMPROVED DUAL WIELDING
Prerequisite: Dual-Wielding
When you use Dual-Wielding, the attack can be made with either weapon (not just the light one).

RAPID STRIKE
Prerequisite: Dual-Wielding, Improved Dual-Wielding
When you use your Standard Action to attack, if you're wielding two melee weapons and one is light you can make an attack using the light weapon as a Swift Action.

SUPERIOR DUAL-WIELDING
Prerequisite: Dual-Wielding, Improved Dual-Wielding
Your other weapon doesn't need to be light to benefit from dual-wielding. Both weapons must be one-handed, however.

WEAPON TRAP
Prerequisite: Two-Weapon Fighting
When an enemy your size or smaller misses you with a melee attack, as a Reaction they must succeed on a Reflex save or have their weapon trapped: they can let go of the weapon, or attempt to use it, but they're considered Restrained until they manage to break free (requires a Strength check). While using your weapon to Restrain an opponent in this fashion, you cannot use it to attack.

What do you think: better? Worse? Have another idea? Something you'd like to see?

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