Prerequisite: Dual Wielder feat
You have gained expertise as a Dual Wielder. When fighting with two weapons, you gain the following benefits:
- Your Dual Wielder AC bonus is increased by 1 while you are wielding a separate melee weapon in each hand.
- Your Dual Wielder bonus action attack is made with advantage. If you already have advantage, you may reroll one of the dice once.
- When you use your reaction to melee attack while Dual Wielding, you do so with advantage.
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Posted Mar 9, 2024The problem with the Dual Wielder fighter is that it doesn't scale. To use it properly, you start by investing in both a feat and a fighting style—a heavy commitment. And it pays early dividends: Two attacks at first level (assuming you're a variant human), three at fifth! But it doesn't work with Action Surge, as that feature doesn't grant a second bonus action (RAW). And that bonus action always being consumed is hard on action economy. By 11th level, you're wondering if the one extra attack is worth not having a shield. And you're left wondering why one hand manages three attacks while the other is no better than it was at 1st level.
With this feat, I went with a simple mechanic. Instead of boosting the number of attacks, I made the off-hand more accurate. Having advantage is the same as having two attacks, but only being able to roll damage once, if you think about it. It's a simple change that easily stays within RAW. Granting advantage during a melee reaction is simply a reward for the investment. The extra AC reflects expertise, and helps make up for the lack of a magical shield.
Is it too little? I added the reaction advantage feature, thinking the feat was too weak otherwise to be worth it.
Are there other answers? I dislike re-writing class features, preferring to tack things on to them, but if I were to throw that self-imposed restriction away...
I'd scrap the bonus action off-hand attack altogether in favour of a more aggressive attack action. One idea I had was to keep Dual Wielder as-is until 5th level, where I would move the second attack out of the bonus action and assign it to the attack action (this is a fighter-focused feat). You would have two main-hand attacks and one off-hand, as you would now, but your bonus action would be freed up for other things. A BM, for instance, would be able to use the Feint bonus action maneuver without losing the off-hand attack.
Note that this now scales with Action Surge.
At 11th level, you would still only get one off-hand attack in your attack action (for four attacks, like at level 20!) but would gain the option of a fifth attack with either hand as a bonus action.
At 20th, I'd add a second melee attack within the bonus action, one from each hand. That would be five attacks within the attack action and another two in the bonus action. Insane!
I'm not sure I'd fiddle with anything else. Perhaps I'd allow either hand to respond during a reaction?