Alternate Two-Weapon Fighting Rules [Archive] - Wizards Community

Alternate Two-Weapon Fighting Rules [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Jack Daniel
04-04-05, 02:21 PM Alternate Two-Weapon Fighting Rules

The purpose of this alternate ruleset is to create a version of the two-weapon fighting rules that appeals to fighters more than rogues; to make the rules less feat-intensive, so characters like barbarians and paladins can use the style; and generally for a campaign where a pair of one-handed weapons, rather than a single two-handed weapon, is the optimal choice for maximum damage output.

The Basic Idea

The core rules say that wielding an extra weapon in your off-hand grants an extra attack. Forget that. Instead of multiple attacks, two-weapon fighting now simply compounds damage – you attack with both weapons as part of a single attack. This means that you can use two-weapon fighting on a standard action or a full-attack action.

For a standard attack, you make one attack roll and add both weapons' bonuses to it separately to see if either or both weapons hit. Likewise, check each weapon's threat range separately to see if either weapon threatens a critical. Further, if both weapons threaten, a single critical roll is made to determine the outcome.

Example: A fighter with Strength 15, Base Attack Bonus +4, Two-Weapon Fighting, and Weapon Focus (rapier) attacks a foe with AC 15 with his rapier and dagger. His attack bonuses are +5 with the rapier and +4 with the dagger, so a roll of 9 is a miss with both weapons, a roll of 10 hits with the rapier alone (1d6+2 damage), and a roll of 11 hits with both weapons (1d6+1d4+3 damage). If the d20 had turned up a natural 18, the rapier would score a threat and a roll of 10 would be needed to critical with the rapier (2d6+1d4+5 damage). A natural 19 or 20 would be a threat with both weapons, and though a critical roll of 10 would again cause only the rapier to critically hit, a roll of 11 or higher would mean a critical hit with both weapons (2d6+2d4+6 damage).

The damage from a two-weapon attack is treated as a single blow for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction or dealing massive damage. The two attacks may only be directed at a single target, and precision damage (such as from a Sneak Attack) applies only once.

The penalties for attacking with two weapons remain the same as in the core rules (-4 for the primary weapon and -8 for the off-hand weapon, with a further -2/-2 penalty if the off-hand weapon isn't light). The feats that reduce these penalties are as follows:

Two-Weapon Fighting
Prerequisite: Dex 13+
Benefit: The -4 attack penalty associated with off-hand attacks is negated, and the penalties for fighting with two weapons are further reduced by 2 in each hand, effectively making them -2/-2 when the off-hand weapon is light, and -4/-4 when it is not. When wielding two weapons, you also get a +1 bonus to disarm checks.

Ambidextrous Two-Weapon Fighting
Prerequisite: Two-Weapon Fighting, Str 13+, Base Attack Bonus +1
Benefit: The -2 penalty for wielding an off-hand weapon that is not light is negated, making the penalties for two-weapon fighting a flat -2/-2, regardless of the weapons wielded.

Improved Two-Weapon Fighting
Prerequisite: Two-Weapon Fighting, Dex 15+, Base Attack Bonus +6
Benefit: When wielding two weapons and making a full attack, you can attack with your off-hand weapon for every attack you can make with your primary weapon, including iterative attacks and extra attacks granted by Rapid Shot or haste.
Normal: Fighting with two weapons adds a single off-hand attack to your first primary attack.

Monks

Changing the two-weapon rules in this manner will have an effect on both the monk and ranger classes. As far as ranger combat styles are concerned, you're on your own; I replaced combat styles (henceforth referred to as "WotC's second-biggest dumbarse mistake") with a simple bonus feat list a long time ago.

A greater problem comes in with monks, their ever-increasing unarmed damage, and that ubiquitous craw-sticker known as the flurry of blows (henceforth referred to as "WotC's biggest dumbarse mistake ever"). The two-weapon fighting rules alone would've sufficed for monk unarmed strikes as well as any other weapon way back in 3.0, but no, they had come up with yet another case where monks were the exception, not the rule. Well, forget that.

In order to make a monk that works with these two-weapon fighting rules, it becomes necessary to change A) the way unarmed strikes work, especially for monks, B) a couple of feats, and C) the way unarmed strikes interact with enchanted weapons.

Unarmed Strikes

A character can use unarmed strikes with two-weapon fighting in just about any combination. An unarmed strike can be a primary attack, an off-hand attack, or both – even when carrying a two-handed weapon. For the purposes of game mechanics, an unarmed character is treated as having a "left hand" and a "right hand" when attacking with unarmed. Kicks, head-butts, and so forth are all treated as off-hand attacks. Basically, unarmed strikes become a double-weapon under this system and work just like a quarterstaff or a pair of nunchaku in either hand. The unarmed strike damage for a medium-sized monk now follows this chart:

Lv 0-3: 1d3/1d3
Lv 4-7: 1d4/1d4
Lv 8-11: 1d6/1d6
Lv 12-15: 1d8/1d8
Lv 16-19: 1d10/1d10
Lv 20+: 1d12/1d12

As for the monk's attack bonus, that goes back to the way it was in 3.0: when using unarmed strikes or light martial arts weapons, the monk's multiple attacks come at iterations of -3, not -5. But of course, this was changed in 3.5 because of multiclassing, right? The fact is, it's not a difficult problem to solve. When you have a multiclassed monk, just add the attack bonuses together and iterate the last attackt at -5 like normal. So if you have a 10th level monk (unarmed attack bonus +7/+4/+1) who goes on to take 10 levels of fighter (BAB +10), you end up with an armed attack bonus of +17/+12/+7/+2 and an unarmed attack bonus of +17/+14/+11/+6/+1.

Lv uBAB Lv uBAB Lv uBAB Lv uBAB
1 +0 6 +4/+1 11 +8/+5/+2 16 +12/+9/+6/+3
2 +1 7 +5/+2 12 +9/+6/+3 17 +12/+9/+6/+3
3 +2 8 +6/+3 13 +9/+6/+3 18 +13/+10/+7/+4/+1
4 +3 9 +6/+3 14 +10/+7/+4/+1 19 +14/+11/+8/+5/+2
5 +3 10 +7/+4/+1 15 +11/+8/+5/+2 20 +15/+12/+9/+6/+3

Feats

The flurry of blows is gone - 'tis no more. Instead, monks begin with Improved Unarmed Strike, Two-Weapon Fighting, and Brawling as 1st level bonus feats, and Improved Two-Weapon Fighting is granted for free at 6th level (all these feats ignore the prerequisites). Two-Weapon Fighting and Improved Two-Weapon Fighting work as described above, and Improved Unarmed Strike is as it appears in v3.5 core rules. Brawling is a new feat.

Brawling
Prerequisite: Improved Unarmed Strike, Two-Weapon Fighting, Str 13+.
Benefit: When attacking two-handed with unarmed strikes as both your primary and off-hand attack, the -2/-2 penalty for fighting with two-weapons is negated. When you combine an unarmed attack with a special monk weapon, the penalty is halved to -1/-1. When you combine an unarmed attack with any other weapon, the two-weapon fighting penalties apply normally.

Example: Take a 1st-level monk with Str 15 and a pair of nunchaku. His two-weapon fighting options are as follows:
1.He can attack with unarmed strikes at +2/+2 to hit. It's a two-handed attack and deals 2d3+3 damage.
2.He can attack with nunchaks at +0/+0 to hit. This is regular two-weapon fighting, and a hit deals 2d6+3 damage.
3.He can attack with an unarmed strike and a nunchak, at +1/+1 to hit, for 1d6+1d3+3 damage.

Magic Weapons

In spite of a slight damage increase to the monk's primary attacks, the monk's individual unarmed attacks have still been halved in damage. To make up for this, monks need to have access to the same enhanced equipment that fighters can make use of, and that doesn't just mean enchanted quarterstaves and kamas. Thus, the introduction of the brass knuckle as a common weapon that also gets treated as a special monk weapon.

The brass knuckle has no damage of its own, instead adding a +1 enhancement bonus to unarmed strike damage (either lethal or nonlethal, whichever the character chooses to deal). The common brass knuckle is a blut weapon, but spiked and bladed knuckles (cesti and claw bracers) also exist which, instead of the +1 damage bonus, cause the character's unarmed strike damage to become "bludgeoning & piercing" or "bludgeoning & slashing". A monk wielding a brass knuckle deals whatever his normal unarmed strike damage is, and may still use his more favorable rate of unarmed attacks.

Enchanted knuckles confer their properties on all of the monk's unarmed strikes, not just his fists. For example, if right-handed a monk were to wear a +2 flaming brass knuckle on his right hand and a +1 holy claw on his left hand, all of his primary unarmed strikes would become +2 flaming (even if they were made with kicks or head-butts or sumo-style belly-bounces) and all of his off-hand attacks would become +1 holy and deal both slashing and bludgeoning damage.
Grigori
04-04-05, 04:30 PM So basically for two weapon fighting, you're just rolling one dice to see if it hits. Ok. Your call. No problem there. As for the rest of it... Some of it is interesting, but really too much effort to re-work everything. If it works for your players and your campaign, more power to you though.

The brass knuckles is a good idea. The same should work for the cestus and a few other weapons.
Jack Daniel
04-04-05, 04:53 PM So basically for two weapon fighting, you're just rolling one dice to see if it hits. Ok. Your call. No problem there. As for the rest of it... Some of it is interesting, but really too much effort to re-work everything. If it works for your players and your campaign, more power to you though.

The brass knuckles is a good idea. The same should work for the cestus and a few other weapons.

I believe I did mention cesti and claws alongside the brass knuckles. :)
Grigori
04-04-05, 04:55 PM I believe I did mention cesti and claws alongside the brass knuckles. :)

Doh! >.< Reading too many things at once.
Kintaran
04-05-05, 02:30 AM Hmm. Interesting. I might want to try some variant on this. Mainly because being able to take both swings as a standard action is pretty good, even if they go off the same attack roll. That really benefits the dual-wielding finesse fighters, since their Spring Attack gets better.
Jack Daniel
04-06-05, 04:20 PM Hmm. Interesting. I might want to try some variant on this. Mainly because being able to take both swings as a standard action is pretty good, even if they go off the same attack roll. That really benefits the dual-wielding finesse fighters, since their Spring Attack gets better.

Exactly what it's meant to do. I first devised this system, in fact, to go along with Swashbuckling Adventures games.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Jack Daniel 04-04-05, 02:21 PM	Alternate Two-Weapon Fighting Rules The purpose of this alternate ruleset is to create a version of the two-weapon fighting rules that appeals to fighters more than rogues; to make the rules less feat-intensive, so characters like barbarians and paladins can use the style; and generally for a campaign where a pair of one-handed weapons, rather than a single two-handed weapon, is the optimal choice for maximum damage output. The Basic Idea The core rules say that wielding an extra weapon in your off-hand grants an extra attack. Forget that. Instead of multiple attacks, two-weapon fighting now simply compounds damage – you attack with both weapons as part of a single attack. This means that you can use two-weapon fighting on a standard action or a full-attack action. For a standard attack, you make one attack roll and add both weapons' bonuses to it separately to see if either or both weapons hit. Likewise, check each weapon's threat range separately to see if either weapon threatens a critical. Further, if both weapons threaten, a single critical roll is made to determine the outcome. Example: A fighter with Strength 15, Base Attack Bonus +4, Two-Weapon Fighting, and Weapon Focus (rapier) attacks a foe with AC 15 with his rapier and dagger. His attack bonuses are +5 with the rapier and +4 with the dagger, so a roll of 9 is a miss with both weapons, a roll of 10 hits with the rapier alone (1d6+2 damage), and a roll of 11 hits with both weapons (1d6+1d4+3 damage). If the d20 had turned up a natural 18, the rapier would score a threat and a roll of 10 would be needed to critical with the rapier (2d6+1d4+5 damage). A natural 19 or 20 would be a threat with both weapons, and though a critical roll of 10 would again cause only the rapier to critically hit, a roll of 11 or higher would mean a critical hit with both weapons (2d6+2d4+6 damage). The damage from a two-weapon attack is treated as a single blow for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction or dealing massive damage. The two attacks may only be directed at a single target, and precision damage (such as from a Sneak Attack) applies only once. The penalties for attacking with two weapons remain the same as in the core rules (-4 for the primary weapon and -8 for the off-hand weapon, with a further -2/-2 penalty if the off-hand weapon isn't light). The feats that reduce these penalties are as follows: Two-Weapon Fighting Prerequisite: Dex 13+ Benefit: The -4 attack penalty associated with off-hand attacks is negated, and the penalties for fighting with two weapons are further reduced by 2 in each hand, effectively making them -2/-2 when the off-hand weapon is light, and -4/-4 when it is not. When wielding two weapons, you also get a +1 bonus to disarm checks. Ambidextrous Two-Weapon Fighting Prerequisite: Two-Weapon Fighting, Str 13+, Base Attack Bonus +1 Benefit: The -2 penalty for wielding an off-hand weapon that is not light is negated, making the penalties for two-weapon fighting a flat -2/-2, regardless of the weapons wielded. Improved Two-Weapon Fighting Prerequisite: Two-Weapon Fighting, Dex 15+, Base Attack Bonus +6 Benefit: When wielding two weapons and making a full attack, you can attack with your off-hand weapon for every attack you can make with your primary weapon, including iterative attacks and extra attacks granted by Rapid Shot or haste. Normal: Fighting with two weapons adds a single off-hand attack to your first primary attack. Monks Changing the two-weapon rules in this manner will have an effect on both the monk and ranger classes. As far as ranger combat styles are concerned, you're on your own; I replaced combat styles (henceforth referred to as "WotC's second-biggest dumbarse mistake") with a simple bonus feat list a long time ago. A greater problem comes in with monks, their ever-increasing unarmed damage, and that ubiquitous craw-sticker known as the flurry of blows (henceforth referred to as "WotC's biggest dumbarse mistake ever"). The two-weapon fighting rules alone would've sufficed for monk unarmed strikes as well as any other weapon way back in 3.0, but no, they had come up with yet another case where monks were the exception, not the rule. Well, forget that. In order to make a monk that works with these two-weapon fighting rules, it becomes necessary to change A) the way unarmed strikes work, especially for monks, B) a couple of feats, and C) the way unarmed strikes interact with enchanted weapons. Unarmed Strikes A character can use unarmed strikes with two-weapon fighting in just about any combination. An unarmed strike can be a primary attack, an off-hand attack, or both – even when carrying a two-handed weapon. For the purposes of game mechanics, an unarmed character is treated as having a "left hand" and a "right hand" when attacking with unarmed. Kicks, head-butts, and so forth are all treated as off-hand attacks. Basically, unarmed strikes become a double-weapon under this system and work just like a quarterstaff or a pair of nunchaku in either hand. The unarmed strike damage for a medium-sized monk now follows this chart: Lv 0-3: 1d3/1d3 Lv 4-7: 1d4/1d4 Lv 8-11: 1d6/1d6 Lv 12-15: 1d8/1d8 Lv 16-19: 1d10/1d10 Lv 20+: 1d12/1d12 As for the monk's attack bonus, that goes back to the way it was in 3.0: when using unarmed strikes or light martial arts weapons, the monk's multiple attacks come at iterations of -3, not -5. But of course, this was changed in 3.5 because of multiclassing, right? The fact is, it's not a difficult problem to solve. When you have a multiclassed monk, just add the attack bonuses together and iterate the last attackt at -5 like normal. So if you have a 10th level monk (unarmed attack bonus +7/+4/+1) who goes on to take 10 levels of fighter (BAB +10), you end up with an armed attack bonus of +17/+12/+7/+2 and an unarmed attack bonus of +17/+14/+11/+6/+1. Lv uBAB Lv uBAB Lv uBAB Lv uBAB 1 +0 6 +4/+1 11 +8/+5/+2 16 +12/+9/+6/+3 2 +1 7 +5/+2 12 +9/+6/+3 17 +12/+9/+6/+3 3 +2 8 +6/+3 13 +9/+6/+3 18 +13/+10/+7/+4/+1 4 +3 9 +6/+3 14 +10/+7/+4/+1 19 +14/+11/+8/+5/+2 5 +3 10 +7/+4/+1 15 +11/+8/+5/+2 20 +15/+12/+9/+6/+3 Feats The flurry of blows is gone - 'tis no more. Instead, monks begin with Improved Unarmed Strike, Two-Weapon Fighting, and Brawling as 1st level bonus feats, and Improved Two-Weapon Fighting is granted for free at 6th level (all these feats ignore the prerequisites). Two-Weapon Fighting and Improved Two-Weapon Fighting work as described above, and Improved Unarmed Strike is as it appears in v3.5 core rules. Brawling is a new feat. Brawling Prerequisite: Improved Unarmed Strike, Two-Weapon Fighting, Str 13+. Benefit: When attacking two-handed with unarmed strikes as both your primary and off-hand attack, the -2/-2 penalty for fighting with two-weapons is negated. When you combine an unarmed attack with a special monk weapon, the penalty is halved to -1/-1. When you combine an unarmed attack with any other weapon, the two-weapon fighting penalties apply normally. Example: Take a 1st-level monk with Str 15 and a pair of nunchaku. His two-weapon fighting options are as follows: 1.He can attack with unarmed strikes at +2/+2 to hit. It's a two-handed attack and deals 2d3+3 damage. 2.He can attack with nunchaks at +0/+0 to hit. This is regular two-weapon fighting, and a hit deals 2d6+3 damage. 3.He can attack with an unarmed strike and a nunchak, at +1/+1 to hit, for 1d6+1d3+3 damage. Magic Weapons In spite of a slight damage increase to the monk's primary attacks, the monk's individual unarmed attacks have still been halved in damage. To make up for this, monks need to have access to the same enhanced equipment that fighters can make use of, and that doesn't just mean enchanted quarterstaves and kamas. Thus, the introduction of the brass knuckle as a common weapon that also gets treated as a special monk weapon. The brass knuckle has no damage of its own, instead adding a +1 enhancement bonus to unarmed strike damage (either lethal or nonlethal, whichever the character chooses to deal). The common brass knuckle is a blut weapon, but spiked and bladed knuckles (cesti and claw bracers) also exist which, instead of the +1 damage bonus, cause the character's unarmed strike damage to become "bludgeoning & piercing" or "bludgeoning & slashing". A monk wielding a brass knuckle deals whatever his normal unarmed strike damage is, and may still use his more favorable rate of unarmed attacks. Enchanted knuckles confer their properties on all of the monk's unarmed strikes, not just his fists. For example, if right-handed a monk were to wear a +2 flaming brass knuckle on his right hand and a +1 holy claw on his left hand, all of his primary unarmed strikes would become +2 flaming (even if they were made with kicks or head-butts or sumo-style belly-bounces) and all of his off-hand attacks would become +1 holy and deal both slashing and bludgeoning damage.
Grigori 04-04-05, 04:30 PM	So basically for two weapon fighting, you're just rolling one dice to see if it hits. Ok. Your call. No problem there. As for the rest of it... Some of it is interesting, but really too much effort to re-work everything. If it works for your players and your campaign, more power to you though. The brass knuckles is a good idea. The same should work for the cestus and a few other weapons.
Jack Daniel 04-04-05, 04:53 PM	So basically for two weapon fighting, you're just rolling one dice to see if it hits. Ok. Your call. No problem there. As for the rest of it... Some of it is interesting, but really too much effort to re-work everything. If it works for your players and your campaign, more power to you though. The brass knuckles is a good idea. The same should work for the cestus and a few other weapons. I believe I did mention cesti and claws alongside the brass knuckles. :)
Grigori 04-04-05, 04:55 PM	I believe I did mention cesti and claws alongside the brass knuckles. :) Doh! >.< Reading too many things at once.
Kintaran 04-05-05, 02:30 AM	Hmm. Interesting. I might want to try some variant on this. Mainly because being able to take both swings as a standard action is pretty good, even if they go off the same attack roll. That really benefits the dual-wielding finesse fighters, since their Spring Attack gets better.
Jack Daniel 04-06-05, 04:20 PM	Hmm. Interesting. I might want to try some variant on this. Mainly because being able to take both swings as a standard action is pretty good, even if they go off the same attack roll. That really benefits the dual-wielding finesse fighters, since their Spring Attack gets better. Exactly what it's meant to do. I first devised this system, in fact, to go along with Swashbuckling Adventures games.