Homebrew TWF rules

[anthony Valente]

I've been mulling over this for the past several evenings and wondered if people here on the boards have any suggestions:

Basically, my intent is to simplify the rules for TWF and boost the TWF tree from its current rules.

In my house rules, TWF would grant you an extra attack as normal, but the penalties would be -4 to hit with primary, and -6 to hit with off hand. If the off-hand weapon is light, then its -2 to hit with the primary and -4 to hit with the off hand.

The TWF feat would simply reduce the off hand penalty by two, netting the penalties as they currently stand.

Improved TWF, would not grant an extra attack, but reduce the primary weapon penalty by two. So:
Primary hand -2, Off hand -4
or if off-hand weapon is light: +0 primary, -2 off hand

Greater TWF also would not grant an extra attack but reduce the off hand penalty further by two. So:
Primary hand -2, Off hand -2
or if off-hand weapon is light: +0 primary, +0 off hand

As a result, a two weapon fighter would normally make 5 attacks total when full-attacking at the highest BABs (instead of its current 7 attacks), providing some simplification.

Any thoughts? Do you think these changes meet my intent?

[kyrt-ryder]

What you've done here virtually destroys the entire purpose of the two-weapon fighting feats, and that is to develop a fighting style around fighting with two weapons.

Who in their right mind would take 3 feets just to reduce penalties on one free attack?

If your curious, this is my homebrew twf rules.

Normal: a character with a weapon held in their off-hand may make an attack with it as a swift action. If it is a one-handed weapon this attack takes a -6 penalty, if it is a light weapon it takes a -3 penalty. (This is the only type of off-hand attack that can be made using armor spikes)

Two-weapon fighting: As part of an attack you make, you may strike with a weapon in your off-hand, once per turn. These paired attacks take a -2 penalty on their attack rolls.

Improved Two-Weapon Fighting: As part of any attacks you make, you may strike with a weapon in your off-hand, with any attack you get (including attacks of opportunity and the extra attack provided by the haste spell) you have the option of striking with the off-hand as well (and taking a -2 penalty on both attack rolls) or striking with your main hand alone, ignoring the penalty.

Hope you find that useful.

[anthony Valente]

kyrt-ryder wrote:

What you've done here virtually destroys the entire purpose of the two-weapon fighting feats, and that is to develop a fighting style around fighting with two weapons.

Noted. I'm not so sure the existing rules for these feats create a fighting style though. They just give extra attacks at weaker attack bonuses, which I guess could be considered a style. I want to stay away from a slew of attacks on a full-attack though. We just finished a high level campaign with a 2-weapon fighter in it and it became more of a chore than a fun endeavor to tally up 7 attacks per round (or more when hasted). That's why I'm leaning toward one extra attack but with better chances to hit, and thus hopefully having that equate to the same results overall. But I'm no expert at math.

Quote:

Who in their right mind would take 3 feets just to reduce penalties on one free attack?

Well, put another way, its three feats to gain one free attack at no penalty. Perhaps this is too weak? I'm considering changing the following to Greater Two-Weapon Fighting:

You reduce the penalties of your off hand attack rolls by an additional 2. In addition, when you make an attack as a standard action, you may attack once with your primary weapon, and once with your off-hand weapon.

Quote:

If your curious, this is my homebrew twf rules.

Normal: a character with a weapon held in their off-hand may make an attack with it as a swift action. If it is a one-handed weapon this attack takes a -6 penalty, if it is a light weapon it takes a -3 penalty. (This is the only type of off-hand attack that can be made using armor spikes)

So you can attack even if you double move for instance? Or withdraw? Or when you cast a spell? I don't like it in these instances, but if it were as swift action only when you are able to attack, that's something I might consider.

Quote:

Two-weapon fighting: As part of an attack you make, you may strike with a weapon in your off-hand, once per turn. These paired attacks take a -2 penalty on their attack rolls.

Improved Two-Weapon Fighting: As part of any attacks you make, you may strike with a weapon in your off-hand, with any attack you get (including attacks of opportunity and the extra attack provided by the haste spell) you have the option of striking with the off-hand as well (and taking a -2 penalty on both attack rolls) or striking with your main hand alone, ignoring the penalty.

Hope you find that useful.

Indeed I do. But what about Greater TWF? The swift action idea is interesting.

[kyrt-ryder]

I'll reply to your points one at a time, rather than trying to quote you and your responses to all my quotes and work through that mess. (It looks good done once, but a response that follows the pattern... it gets messy)

1: Yeah, two-weapon fighting is a combat style. I'm sure you've seen or read about people fighting with two weapons. The point isn't just a free attack, it's emulating a real world style.

When you look at two weapon fighting, you have to remember all the weaknesses it has. You have to pay twice as much to magically enhance your weapons the same amount, you take a -2 penalty, DR counts against you twice, AND, as if that weren't bad enough, in core you cannot two-weapon fight as a standard action or at the end of a charge attack.

(And come on, haven't you ever seen the epic charge attacks in movies where a character rushes his opponent to deliver a double slash, or a double-thrust. Heck wolverine did it dozens of times)

2: It wouldn't be so bad if it were a whole free attack action (attack taken as a standard action, invoking all the options PF feats present during such) but just a simple off-hand attack for three feats? It's not worth it my friend, not at all. Core two-weapon fighting isn't really worth it half the time.

3: The double move I actually have little problem with. You see, your moving double your movement, able to zig-zag around enemies and such, and get a single shot at -3 penalty (as opposed to the single shot at +2 if you'd been able to charge) it's weird yeah, but its not imbalanced in any way.

Now, the withdraw action, I hadn't even thought of that, very good catch. A quick ruling that you can't use swift actions when withdrawing (aka the withdraw action burns your swift action) would not be unwise, considering 9 times out of 10 a quickened spell or normally swift action spell is going to be more powerful than an offhand swing.

As for casting a spell and attacking? Thats not bad because the Gishes (read, fighter/mages) could use help as well. In this way they could cast a spell that gives them a touch attack (or enhances their swing) as a standard action with their main hand, move to the target as a move action, and make the touch (or enhanced swing) with their off-hand at the appropriate penalty. Works for me.

3: I eliminated greater two weapon fighting because it's not worth the feat. Two feats for a style that barely scrapes even with two-handed fighting is a big enough tax.

The way mine works, taking the two-weapon fighting feat frees your swift action for other things, and lets you choose to use your off-hand attack with a single attack of opportunity or to gain the benefit of a charge to it (with the swift action off-hand it's not part of the charge attack, just something you tack on after hitting or missing the charge)

And Improved Two Weapon fighting lets you make an off-hand attack with each of your attack chances. Say you've got BAB +6 and are hasted, that means you make two off-hand attacks at full BAB (-2 of course, or -4 if their one hand weapons) and one off-hand attack at BAB+1.

This continues as long as you have attacks. Basically, my goal was to bring two-weapon fighting into balance, where before it really wasn't worth the effort

(Oh, one special note you might be interested in. Armor spikes, you know, the cheap and sneaky way two-handed fighters used to take advantage of two-weapon fighting without giving up their two-hand strikes? Those are incompatible with the two-weapon fighting feat, at most you can get one off-hand armor spike strike per turn by burning up your swift action.)

[anthony Valente]

Kyrt-ryder:

Some of the weaknesses you mention don't register in our campaign, notably the cost of weapons (I still adhere to the concepts of magic distribution from earlier editions, and my players can't normally just go and purchase items)

I think I'll pass on making the off hand attack a swift action for my rules. I thought about it for a while after reading your last post; it's an interesting concept, but one that would complicate things for me at our table. I'd rather keep the off hand attack such that you may make one when you would normally be able to make an attack. And I do want to find an alternative to the current boat-load of attacks you get currently, hence my original idea of it granting one extra attack at your full BAB, and the subsequent feats lowering the penalties to eventually no penalty at all. I think I agree with you that three feats to gain a free attack at no penalty may be too expensive. Maybe one or two would be best. (For instance, if it's just Two Weapon Fighting, I could make it scale with BAB to reduce the penalty, subsuming the benefits I proposed in Improved Two Weapon Fighting, and Greater Two Weapon Fighting). But at the same time, I don't want to throw out those feats, and would rather think of something fresh to make them worth having.

You have me stuck on a few things though, mainly, I like your mentioning of the feats defining TWF as a style. IMO, TWF, ITWF, and GTWF don't really create a "style". Double Slice, Two Weapon Defense, and Two Weapon Rend are feats that are more defining a style. I could re-introduce Two Weapon Pounce and other feats from 3.5. And again, going back to your mentioning of a style, I was also thinking creating a new feat, where if an opponent misses you , you could make an attack roll as an immediate action... with the idea of you parrying with one weapon and riposting with the other. The other thing is: I do like the concept of gaining an extra attack during a standard action, which no style currently supports. I could roll this into Improved Two Weapon Fighting or Greater Two Weapon Fighting. But I'm contemplating how such a feat would interact with other feats such as Spring Attack, Vital Strike, Cleave, and so on.

Thanks for the feedback.