I was looking over the fighter class in the PHB and something in the wording of the Dueling fighting style gave me pause. It says "When you are wielding a melee weapon in one hand and no other weapons, you gain a +2 bonus to damage rolls with that weapon." (emphasis mine) I had originally thought that this feature was intended to help make concepts like a fencer viable, where you just use a single one handed weapon, but the way the feature is worded it seems to allow for use of a shield as well. Am I reading this right?
Sure.
Yes, the dueling style as worded allows for the other hand to be holding things that aren't weapons - a torch, lantern, magic item, shield, or a heavy cape used to distract your opponent an bind up their weapon (a shield with a fencing-flavored description) are all good suggestions as to what kind of thing a duelist might hold.
What it amounts to is, that Dueling just isn't really a very good name for the style. Thought it's hard to come up with a really good one.
jaelis wrote:
Because this is what you get if you Google 'duelist' and look at the images.
Perhaps it isn't logical, but I think most people don't associate shields with duels.
jaelis wrote:
EmpactWB wrote:
...so we should be complaining that dueling style doesn't involve pistols? (or banjos... or violins... hopefully you get the point)
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
I'm going to throw in my support for a Bard subclass that gets to use banjos with the Dueling fighting style. 
I disagree with the fantasy context excluding shields from duels thematically. A Renaissance or modern setting, certainly, but when I think of fantasy duels, I'm usually thinking knights with sword and shield (particularly the post-joust fracas).
Perhaps a better name for it is "SIngle-weapon fighting style"?
Isn't that what is was called in 2e, "single-weapon fighting style"?
Greenstone.Walker wrote:
I dont know what yall are talking about. The first thing that came to my mind when I read duelist was this
jaelis wrote:
durntaur wrote:
jaelis wrote:
IIRC there was a duelist during 1E in Dragon.... they got special bonuses if they matched weapons with their opponent. So shortword vs shortsword, or mace vs mace, etc. I really liked it, but can no longer remember why. (I was young, so it may have just been brokenly powerful....)
jonathonhawke wrote: