Okay, so I remember that their was a type of Barbarian build that had it so a Barbarian could duel wield two handed weapons. Similar to Titan's Grip from wow (Always thought that Talent was from https://19216811.cam/https://1921681001.id/ D&D)
Does anyone off hand remember the name or if its a Pathfinder or otherwise feat/trait.
3.0 and 3.5 had rules governing wielding weapons meant for a size category larger or smaller than you. I don't know if there was a feat to support this in 3.0 but I know it was possible in 3.0 at least in a round about way. In 3.0 the Dragon Disciple prestige class has the player go up in size category at 5th level in the prestige class. So a player that starts off medium would then become large. This would then let you wield a large one handed weapon or a medium two-handed weapon in one hand.
In 3.5 there are the feats Monkey Grip and Wield Oversized Weapon both from the Complete Warrior source book. Monkey Grip could be picked up pretty early on but comes with -2 penalty to hit. Wield Oversized Weapon has Monkey Grip as a prerequisite and is an epic level feat (so required being higher than level 20).
In 5e there is no RAW way to do this, only homebrew. Also in 5e the only benefit to dual wielding is getting to attack with your bonus action regularly. You can achieve this with the Polearm Master feat and it is strictly more efficient than dual wielding. A Barbarian with extra attack dual wielding longswords needs the Dual Wielder feat and the Two-Weapon Fighting Style to do the same damage as a Barbarian with extra attack and Polearm Master. Add to that the fact that glaives and halberds are heavy weapons and work with Great Weapon Master and dual wielding is just in a terrible state in 5e.
Agreed on dual wielding weapons being nine out of ten times a very underwhelming experience in 5e. Also doesn't help that most Barbarian subclasses want to use their Bonus Action for one of their features so they can't really make use of it anyway.
While every Barbarian will want to use their bonus action to Rage some of the time, I think dual wielding can work okay on the sub-classes that don't add extra bonus actions; off the top of my head that's Ancestral Guardian and Zealot.
The other main problem with dual wielding as a Barbarian is that we get no direct access to the two-weapon fighting style, so the bonus attack doesn't add your modifier, which at later levels is the largest part of your damage anyway, though Rage slightly offsets it at least. This means that before you can even think of taking the Dual Wielder feat, you either need a second feat or a level in Fighter to pick up two weapon fighting*.
That said, you only need a single level in Fighter for the fighting style and Second Wind, and if you go this route you can also get Action Surge for a 2nd level in Fighter, and maybe a Fighter sub-class for a 3rd. You do lose the Barbarian capstone (+4 Strength and Constitution) at 20th-level, but are you likely to get that far?
With Dual Wielder you can dual wield battleaxes or longswords which are two-handed weapons of a sort (you're just wielding them one handed) and the +1 AC isn't bad.
But I mean, fun is what matters, I have a two-weapon Barbarian build I'm thinking about and I think it'll be a lot of fun to play, even if it's not the most optimal; it'll be Ancestral Guardian so the tanking is the important part anyway, not the damage. If you care more about damage and being psychotically incapable of dying then Zealot also works, as the third attack gives you an extra opportunity to land the bonus damage, though for that I'd definitely multiclass Fighter as I find the Zealot on its own a bit boring personally.
*Alternatively if you don't want to multiclass you could just ask your DM if you can have fighting initiate for free since you're not really going for an optimised build anyway (the optimisers would take a polearm and Polearm Master, as while it's a weaker dice on the bonus attack it applies the modifier so requires no further setup, comes with a reaction attack, and it's a single weapon for upgrades, so no need to find pairs of magic weapons).
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Okay, so I remember that their was a type of Barbarian build that had it so a Barbarian could duel wield two handed weapons. Similar to Titan's Grip from wow (Always thought that Talent was from https://19216811.cam/ https://1921681001.id/ D&D)
Does anyone off hand remember the name or if its a Pathfinder or otherwise feat/trait.
3.0 and 3.5 had rules governing wielding weapons meant for a size category larger or smaller than you. I don't know if there was a feat to support this in 3.0 but I know it was possible in 3.0 at least in a round about way. In 3.0 the Dragon Disciple prestige class has the player go up in size category at 5th level in the prestige class. So a player that starts off medium would then become large. This would then let you wield a large one handed weapon or a medium two-handed weapon in one hand.
In 3.5 there are the feats Monkey Grip and Wield Oversized Weapon both from the Complete Warrior source book. Monkey Grip could be picked up pretty early on but comes with -2 penalty to hit. Wield Oversized Weapon has Monkey Grip as a prerequisite and is an epic level feat (so required being higher than level 20).
In 5e there is no RAW way to do this, only homebrew. Also in 5e the only benefit to dual wielding is getting to attack with your bonus action regularly. You can achieve this with the Polearm Master feat and it is strictly more efficient than dual wielding. A Barbarian with extra attack dual wielding longswords needs the Dual Wielder feat and the Two-Weapon Fighting Style to do the same damage as a Barbarian with extra attack and Polearm Master. Add to that the fact that glaives and halberds are heavy weapons and work with Great Weapon Master and dual wielding is just in a terrible state in 5e.
While every Barbarian will want to use their bonus action to Rage some of the time, I think dual wielding can work okay on the sub-classes that don't add extra bonus actions; off the top of my head that's Ancestral Guardian and Zealot.
The other main problem with dual wielding as a Barbarian is that we get no direct access to the two-weapon fighting style, so the bonus attack doesn't add your modifier, which at later levels is the largest part of your damage anyway, though Rage slightly offsets it at least. This means that before you can even think of taking the Dual Wielder feat, you either need a second feat or a level in Fighter to pick up two weapon fighting*.
That said, you only need a single level in Fighter for the fighting style and Second Wind, and if you go this route you can also get Action Surge for a 2nd level in Fighter, and maybe a Fighter sub-class for a 3rd. You do lose the Barbarian capstone (+4 Strength and Constitution) at 20th-level, but are you likely to get that far?
With Dual Wielder you can dual wield battleaxes or longswords which are two-handed weapons of a sort (you're just wielding them one handed) and the +1 AC isn't bad.
But I mean, fun is what matters, I have a two-weapon Barbarian build I'm thinking about and I think it'll be a lot of fun to play, even if it's not the most optimal; it'll be Ancestral Guardian so the tanking is the important part anyway, not the damage. If you care more about damage and being psychotically incapable of dying then Zealot also works, as the third attack gives you an extra opportunity to land the bonus damage, though for that I'd definitely multiclass Fighter as I find the Zealot on its own a bit boring personally.
*Alternatively if you don't want to multiclass you could just ask your DM if you can have fighting initiate for free since you're not really going for an optimised build anyway (the optimisers would take a polearm and Polearm Master, as while it's a weaker dice on the bonus attack it applies the modifier so requires no further setup, comes with a reaction attack, and it's a single weapon for upgrades, so no need to find pairs of magic weapons).
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
If you want to be a dual wielder, then take one level in fighter and pick that as your fighting style.
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