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3 months ago ::
Feb 25, 2013 - 5:16PM
#11
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Date Joined:
May 12, 2009
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Not adding MDD to the offhand attack isn't because MDD could be a bonus even though they are not defined as such. Rather the problem is that a character only receives 6 MDD by level 20 and each can only be used once per turn. Adding all of them to both main hand and offhand weapon attacks would effectively provide the character with 12d6 "extra" damage. Personally, I hope the weapon dice mechanic Mike's been hinting at will alleviate this descrepancy.
You misunderstood it slightly
Its 6 total, that can be applied to either main hand or off hand, but the total can never go above 6
He is saying that if you could ONLY apply to to main hand, there is no reason to dual wield
For example
If you could only apply it to main hand, then if your main hand misses (which happens 10% more often because of dual wield) then you wont be able to use your MDD at all that round, and if your off hand hits at most you would only do a tiny amount of damage
So what you are losing for TWF is much much greater than what you would be gaining, meaning it would never be worth TWF if you could not use MDD on your off hand (but again, if you decide to apply MDD to each hand, the total can never go above your max, so with 6 dice the potential combinations would be 6/0 5/1 4/2 3/3)
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3 months ago ::
Feb 25, 2013 - 7:24PM
#12
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Date Joined:
Dec 20, 2012
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Ah, I see the point now. I did not consider the instance of the main hand missing even though it is obvious after reading it a second time.
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3 months ago ::
Feb 25, 2013 - 11:53PM
#13
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Date Joined:
Apr 12, 2010
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uh uh let me munckin as well. If MDD is allowed on the basis that it isnt written in the description that its a bonus, then you can add ability mod as well as its doesnt use the word bonus either! "how to play" p16 you apply damage.
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3 months ago ::
Feb 26, 2013 - 10:06AM
#14
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Date Joined:
Feb 15, 2013
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@Keendk
I think we have pretty well covered that the wording is god-awful.
I'm surprised that the white-knights around here haven't jumped at this as a "feature" of modularity. They are clearly just letting the DM use his discretion to determine the best usage. Some bonuses, no bonuses, all bonuses, all bonuses with Dual Wield feat, no bonuses without Dual Wield feat.... lots of options there.... that way, TWF adapts to each groups playstyle.
With terrible writing comes great responsibility.
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3 months ago ::
Feb 27, 2013 - 7:01PM
#15
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Date Joined:
Jun 17, 2011
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In 3E and 4E (I think), two-weapon fighting was generally subpar unless your extra attack added bonus damage in some way. So if you missed with your main-hand attack, you could still hit with your off-hand and deal sneak attack or quarry or whatever bonus damage. Basically, TWF is used as a backup to ensure that your class damage bonus is still dealt.
Here, I assumed the same thing. If you missed with your mainhand, your off-hand can still hit and add MDD, since MDD can be added only once per turn. No bonus STR damage though. If you do hit twice, you're only adding an extra [W] to total damage, which isn't a whole lot. You would never do 2x MDD per round.
So you suffer -2 to your attacks in return for two die rolls, ensuring more consistent damage over the long run. TWF is the opposite of all-or-nothing; rather, it helps ensure you score at least one hit in a round, so your MDD can go through.
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3 months ago ::
Feb 27, 2013 - 11:15PM
#16
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Date Joined:
Apr 12, 2010
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In 3E and 4E (I think), two-weapon fighting was generally subpar unless your extra attack added bonus damage in some way. So if you missed with your main-hand attack, you could still hit with your off-hand and deal sneak attack or quarry or whatever bonus damage. Basically, TWF is used as a backup to ensure that your class damage bonus is still dealt.
Here, I assumed the same thing. If you missed with your mainhand, your off-hand can still hit and add MDD, since MDD can be added only once per turn. No bonus STR damage though. If you do hit twice, you're only adding an extra [W] to total damage, which isn't a whole lot. You would never do 2x MDD per round.
So you suffer -2 to your attacks in return for two die rolls, ensuring more consistent damage over the long run. TWF is the opposite of all-or-nothing; rather, it helps ensure you score at least one hit in a round, so your MDD can go through.
TWF is more accurate if you just want to hit once. So if you want to hit for riders like disarm TWF is ypur friend. This should not come free... hence why you do less damage on average than a person with 1 less accurate weapon. If you want it both superior in damage AND accuracy add MDD to offhand and have evryone dual wield as therr is no viable alternative
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3 months ago ::
Feb 28, 2013 - 2:49PM
#17
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Date Joined:
Feb 22, 2009
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Allowing the MMD to offhand also increases the chance you'll maximise it with a crit, which skews the numbers further.
Additionally, comparing at low hit chance is less fair, because monsters tend to be quite a bit easier to hit than not. For example, at level 20, a barbarian could be expected to have a +10 to attack rolls (without magic items), but very few monsters get remotely close to 20 AC. Even against AC 20 you'll be hitting at least 55% of the time.
With high level stats like these, the average two-weapon damage overtakes the single weapon when your normal hit chance would be somewhere between 40 and 50%. That's true even if the single weapon is doing 2d6 damage and the dual weapons are 1d8/1d6, as weapon damage is almost totally overshadowed by the martial damage dice.
So, it's clear that allowing MDD on dual wielding is a huge advantage compared to wielding a two-hander.
However, not allowing it swings way too far the other way. The same way that having more MDD increases the benefit of TWF with MDD allowed offhand over a two-hander, it also increases the benefit of a two-hander over TWF without the MDD offhand, and this won't overtake the two-hander until very high hit chance (over 90% for most levels and weapon combos).
Unfortunately, either interpretation leads to a clear choice (TWF is almost always vastly superior if offhand MDD applies, almost always vastly inferior if not).
The best combination of keeping the rules simple and making both choices valid is to allow MDD on offhand and increase the TWF penalty to -3. Depending on the weapons, the attack damage bonus and the number of MDD available, the point where TWF starts to overtake 2handing is around the 60-70% hit mark, which seems a lot more reasonable to me.
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