Idea for fixing two weapon fighting

[Arcus]

Hi there,

Two weapon fighting vs. two handed fighting.

The consensus seems to be that two handed fighting is easier to pull off and has less restrictions then two weapon fighting.

It seems to be that the two styles can do about even damage on full attacks. Both get similar strength bonuses to damage - two handed gets 1 1/2x stregnth bonus, and the first weapon of two weapon fighter gets 1x, and the second hand gets 1/2x.

The two weapon fighter gets penalties to hit, but also more chances to hit, and more chances to crit.

The glaring inequalities the double wielder suffers seem to be the heavy feat investment, loss of power on single attack actions, and requirement of both high dex and str.

The idea behind two weapon fighting seems to be that an attack with a weapon in each hand should be equal in power to a single attack with a two-handed weapon.

This is why it makes no sense that a single attack action as a two weapon fighter only lets you get one attack with one hand. The simple and obvious solution to this is let two weapon fighters attack with both weapons once as a standard action. You could go so far as to allow an attack with each weapon during an attack of opprotunity.

To date wizards of the coast seems adamant about preventing this. In 3.5 I don't think their were any feats that allowed this kind of attack (at least in official wizards books). The two-weapon fighter archetype grants this ability at 9th level.

I don't think this ability is at all overpowered. And I think it fits well with the image of a two weapon fighter. They tend to be more nimble then their two handed counterparts (high required dexterity scores of two weapon fighting feats) so why do they have to stand in the same place all the time to be at all effective?

The only case this could be unbalancing is builds that give extra damage that can be duplicated in the extra attacks granted by two weapon fighting, such as sneak attack, high crit chances, or weapon specialization. But these advantages can still be justified by the high feat investment of two weapon fighting.

This is a simple solution that does not require much work to be house-ruled. You just have to replace the 9th level two weapon fighter ability with something else.

[The Crimson Jester, Rogue Lord]

maybe I am dense but when did a consensus come about that TWF did not work well. As far as I am concerned it works just fine and needs no adjustments.

[Dabbler]

Actually from what I have seen TWF actualy boosts damage output over that of the 2-handed fighter. Consider the following:

Double Slice - allows full strength bonus to apply to both weapons.
For a fighter:
Weapon Specialisation & Weapon Training apply fully to each weapon, so you effectively double the benefit of these.
For a paladin or ranger:
Favoured enemy and smite bonuses apply equally to both weapons, so you double their effectiveness.

So compared to the two-handed fighter, the TWF is -2 to hit, doubles all their 'special' damage bonuses, gets +50% damage from strength bonus, increased chances to critical ... not to mention special damage off the weapons themselves - not bad for some feat investments.