Forgotten Kingdoms Forums

Per SRD wiki for 3.5 two-weapon defence: http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Two-Weapon_Defense

Two-Weapon Defense [General]

Prerequisites
Dex 15, Two-Weapon Fighting.
Benefit
When wielding a double weapon or two weapons (not including natural weapons or unarmed strikes), you gain a +1 shield bonus to your AC.
When you are fighting defensively or using the total defense action, this shield bonus increases to +2.
Special
A fighter may select Two-Weapon Defense as one of his fighter bonus feats.

This does not currently happen in game. Would it be possible to get this changed so that when you're in defensive combat mode, two-weapon defence gives +2 shield AC instead of +1?

Thanks!

Absolutely all for this.

Personally, I think we should take this a step further and make the base feat give +2 whether fighting in defensive or not. I've been doing some theorycrafting with a friend pursuing dual wield, and currently cannot see a reason that this feat--an intrinsic, long-term decision for a character--should ever be taken. Right now it can't compete with rings of similar enchantment, and just doesn't live up like an all-around bonus armor feat like Heavy Armor Optimisation. If the feat were tweaked to be +2 it would A) free up a ring slot, a fair trade and B) actually provide a much-needed boost to the style so that it can compete with 2H or sword and board. Offering an additional +1 in defensive from there might make it trend on the strong side, but considering the off-set of how demanding the build is, I don't really see it being majorly overpowered.

I agree totally, the dual-wield seems only effective with the natural armor bonuses(1 or 2), +2 shield bonus. and it is a huge feat investment. I probably mistaken but also I do not believe the entire line of dual wield feats available for all alignments. Greater two-weapon fighting comes to mind. But I like the idea of the base feat giving +2, but with such a high feat investment....4 feats....not hard to do on a fighter I suppose but what of thieves and rangers?
I would even go a step further and suggest +3. It may sound wild at first, but there is no chance of "shieldwork" which does help a lot. Many would still hunt those rings to save a feat, thieves and rangers definitely would even at a bonus increased to +2

Well that is just my 2cents

The reason I believe +3 is too high is because it negates grabbing a heavy shield--which should be viable and have its own playstyle, as well. I like the idea that shield rings and TWD don't scale off of shield spec, which lets a heavy shield get an advantage again (and a rather hefty one, at that) when feated for.

I agree. Shieldwork is a nice bonus. My thief has a chance for dodge, shieldwork, parry. Combined with the uncanny dodge, I love playing my shield thief.

Just trying to revive this a bit and see if there is any interest still.

In my humble opinion the feat should give a static +2 shield bonus in any of the fighting stances.
Though most seem to agree that the +2 shield bonus over the current +1 would work very well.

After some reflection I've come to think that some sort of bonus to the "Parry" skill would be very interesting, wouldn't be overpowered(just my opinion)


I believe that there should be some way when using two-weapon for a bonus to Parry skill.

Thoughts friends?

Aye I agree. The only bonus to parry I could see is possible for a chance to parry with your mainhand once and offhand once. But you give up one attack with each when you do parry. Ie if you have the dual wield feats and you get 3 offhand attacks you parry you only get 2 of them and the same with main attack. Now I do agree the two weapon defence does need to be fixed or just make it a static +2 shield defense as if you're not a fighter and take it it uses some of a precious and finite resource.

I'm not an expert on game mechanics. Though I assumed that the parry skill comes into effect while the opponent to swinging at you. Did not think this takes attacks away from the person whom successfully parries. Merely suggesting some sort of bonus akin to what I've seen on various items.

Example--- have seen an item that gives a bonus to the "Grip" skill.

I'd think would be realistic for a trained dual-wielder to have a bit of a nudge to his parry chance though.

Even though it seems that a big-ole-claymore has a clear advantage in game right now over someone using two-weapons. I rarely think of what would be most optimal when building up a character, base my feats much more on the personality and life events.

As far as I know -- and I could easily be wrong -- a character in FK can't get a higher skill level than 25 (GM) even while using items that grant a skill bonus. Assuming this is correct, giving a parry bonus through a feat would ultimately be pointless, as the bonus wouldn't really be having any effect once the PC hits GM.

This is presumably why we don't have any of the myriad standard D&D feats that boost skill levels, like alertness, athletic, etc.

I was told otherwise about the 25(gm) skill upon asking several about it. Though never heard anything official. To allow for stat bonuses and magical items.

But this was just a little idea I had about the parry bonus. Mainly wondering if any still have the interest in two-weapon defense feat being bumped up to the same level as if the wearer had on a +2 shield bonus bauble.
As the feat is now with the heavy investment it takes (as it should) as the dual-wielder, most seem to think the current +1 shield bonus that is provides to be of little use. With items around being strong then the feat currently is and the multitude of other two-weapon feats. Hard for me to justify my character sinking a feat point into it as it stands. Seems many others feel the same way.

Korwin wrote: I was told otherwise about the 25(gm) skill upon asking several about it. Though never heard anything official. To allow for stat bonuses and magical items.

If that indeed is the case, then I think a little parry boost might be pretty cool for this one.

As the feat is now, though, none of my three dual-wielders have taken or will take it, what with the current availability of shielding rings and the like. Not to mention, most dual-wielders able to get this feat aren't or shouldn't be tanking most of the time, so... I tend to feel maxing AC isn't super important for a lot of them.

My initial reaction to a static +2 shield from this feat is that it'd be slightly unbalanced, compared with other AC-boosting feats (e.g., shield specialization, heavy armor optimization). The +2 bonus granted by the feat in standard rules exists only when you also get a fairly tangible penalty to attack rolls, and I think that's what makes that version alright with me. One or two of my dual-wielders would pick it up if it gave the +2 when fighting defensively.

Mind, my most-played chars have always been casters, so this opinion comes from someone only casually familiar with the topic.

I don't like to compare a feat to from my experience a very rare magical shielding bauble/item.
That might lead some people to think that " Oh well I'll skip this feat and just wait for some item that I read about on the forums"

people had some good points, I said how I feel about it. Seems most pass over the feat. I'll respectfully disagree that making it on par with an item that may or may not exist (no spoilers here! would be "overpowered".

Hrosskell wrote:Personally, I think we should take this a step further and make the base feat give +2 whether fighting in defensive or not. I've been doing some theorycrafting with a friend pursuing dual wield, and currently cannot see a reason that this feat--an intrinsic, long-term decision for a character--should ever be taken. Right now it can't compete with rings of similar enchantment, and just doesn't live up like an all-around bonus armor feat like Heavy Armor Optimisation. If the feat were tweaked to be +2 it would A) free up a ring slot, a fair trade and B) actually provide a much-needed boost to the style so that it can compete with 2H or sword and board. Offering an additional +1 in defensive from there might make it trend on the strong side, but considering the off-set of how demanding the build is, I don't really see it being majorly overpowered.

Benorf wrote:Absolutely all for this.

Perhaps this item referred to is the thing overpowered. Maybe the ring should only work in defensive mauahaha

After thinking about this for a while. I'll plonk myopinion here and see what happens if anything.

While sometimes I feel that dnd and by extension FK is too realistic for a fantasy game and it can feel restrictive, overall it's probably best to have some basis in reality on which to base the game mechanics otherwise left up to me the most powerful fighter builds would be dual wielders simply because it's mor asthetically pleasing.

Now then, how this relates to the topic at hand is that I think the original suggestion is mostly sound. Two weapon defence should be updated to give a +2 bonus to AC when fighting defensively. However, I think this should be an untyped bonus that stacks with a shield bonus, natural AC etc as long as you have a weapon in each hand.

I have a few reasons for this. First is rather simple and based in reality. During combat, you shouldn't really be comparing an off-hand weapon to a shield. The plethera of offensive or defensive options vary significantly when you have a light shield / buckler on your arm, or whether you have a dagger, short sword or offhand longsword.

The second is mechanical, The +2 or +4 stacking shield bonus you might enjoy from this as a dual wielding warrior still do not offer you a mechanically higher rate of defence than your 2h wielding counterpart due to a mix of the nature of how AC has been alotted to armor types, the types of warriors that are going to use two handers, available feats, to balance out the detractor of the lower damage output of dual wielding and to balance out the detractor of the lower hit ratio by making the style potentially more defensive.

Third reason is to maintain the value of the afformentioned shield items if not push them up in value.

fourth is to make the feat worth the investment of the feat points. Yes fighters have a lot of feat points but that doesn't mean they are suddenly worthless. its very easy to run out of them for some types of warriors.