In essence, by choosing daggers you're trading slightly better damage for the thrown property, and while that can be handy, is it really a good trade when darts are so readily available for quick throwing? It's also an odd thing for daggers to have, as most daggers aren't balanced for throwing.
Anyway, I got to thinking about what would make a good alternative feature to make daggers an attractive option, and this is what I'm proposing:
A dagger in your main hand can also be used as an off-hand weapon for the purposes of two-weapon fighting.
Basically this means that you can use the Bonus Action attack granted by two-weapon fighting while holding only a single dagger, keeping your other hand free for something else (casting as an Arcane Trickster, bombs, the aforementioned darts etc. It also would have the side effect that a magic dagger can be used for one more attack per turn, whereas with twin shortswords if only one is magical then your bonus attack will be non-magical.
Anyone have any thoughts about how balanced a change this would be? Would it skew the balance too far in the other direction (daggers becoming much better than shortswords)?
An alternative idea I had on the same theme would be:
If a dagger is the only weapon you are holding, you have a +1 bonus to attack rolls with it.
Maybe could be phrased a bit better, but with this option there's still a benefit to wielding two daggers (more attacks), but wielding just one still has a benefit that could represent the speed with which you can strike (more likely to hit than a slower weapon).
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Daggers are meant to be the “standard” weapon. EVERYONE has can use daggers, and I mean everyone. All classes have proficiency, and they have finesse so dexterity characters can use them. They can be dual-wielded, while also having a ranged component.
Daggers are the jack-of-all trades and are completely balanced as-is. Daggers are already as good as Shortswords, especially when you consider how easy a dagger is to bring places (not really a balancing mechanic, but it is useful to consider, especially for Rogues).
The one-handed two-weapon fighting mechanic is especially powerful, bringing daggers to be one of the best weapons in the game, on par with Rapiers and possibly better than the Dual-Bladed Scimitar.
A Dagger being a fair trade for a Shortsword is already pushing what a simple weapon should do, so Daggers need no further upgrades.
Since you're allowed to unsheathe 1 weapon as part of your action, but not 2 (unless your have the Dual-Wielding feat), I play my Arcane Trickster as always palming a dagger in her off hand, leaving her main hand free to cast spells or take out her shortsword/dagger/dart/whatever depending on what she decides to do for her action, so that she always has the dagger ready for 2-weapon fighting. Even better helped by using her off-hand dagger as a spellcasting focus.
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Helpful rewriter of Japanese->English translation and delver into software codebases (she/e/they)
Since you're allowed to unsheathe 1 weapon as part of your action, but not 2 (unless your have the Dual-Wielding feat), I play my Arcane Trickster as always palming a dagger in her off hand, leaving her main hand free to cast spells or take out her shortsword/dagger/dart/whatever depending on what she decides to do for her action, so that she always has the dagger ready for 2-weapon fighting. Even better helped by using her off-hand dagger as a spellcasting focus.
Darts are the only finesse thrown light melee weapons in the game, I don't think they need love. Other weapons need it much more, like tridents the most, but also sickles, blowguns, scimitars...
Since you're allowed to unsheathe 1 weapon as part of your action, but not 2 (unless your have the Dual-Wielding feat), I play my Arcane Trickster as always palming a dagger in her off hand, leaving her main hand free to cast spells or take out her shortsword/dagger/dart/whatever depending on what she decides to do for her action, so that she always has the dagger ready for 2-weapon fighting. Even better helped by using her off-hand dagger as a spellcasting focus.
Darts are the only finesse thrown light melee weapons in the game, I don't think they need love. Other weapons need it much more, like tridents the most, but also sickles, blowguns, scimitars...
you mean daggers right? darts meet most of what you were saying but are ranged
I think what the OP was about was removing the thrown property and giving them a bonus instead because irl daggers are rarely balanced for throwing.
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So there's a topic in the Rogue sub-forum about choosing Daggers over a Rapier, and it got me to thinking about the differences between daggers and shortswords.
In essence, by choosing daggers you're trading slightly better damage for the thrown property, and while that can be handy, is it really a good trade when darts are so readily available for quick throwing? It's also an odd thing for daggers to have, as most daggers aren't balanced for throwing.
Anyway, I got to thinking about what would make a good alternative feature to make daggers an attractive option, and this is what I'm proposing:
Basically this means that you can use the Bonus Action attack granted by two-weapon fighting while holding only a single dagger, keeping your other hand free for something else (casting as an Arcane Trickster, bombs, the aforementioned darts etc. It also would have the side effect that a magic dagger can be used for one more attack per turn, whereas with twin shortswords if only one is magical then your bonus attack will be non-magical.
Anyone have any thoughts about how balanced a change this would be? Would it skew the balance too far in the other direction (daggers becoming much better than shortswords)?
An alternative idea I had on the same theme would be:
Maybe could be phrased a bit better, but with this option there's still a benefit to wielding two daggers (more attacks), but wielding just one still has a benefit that could represent the speed with which you can strike (more likely to hit than a slower weapon).
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.
Daggers are meant to be the “standard” weapon. EVERYONE has can use daggers, and I mean everyone. All classes have proficiency, and they have finesse so dexterity characters can use them. They can be dual-wielded, while also having a ranged component.
Daggers are the jack-of-all trades and are completely balanced as-is. Daggers are already as good as Shortswords, especially when you consider how easy a dagger is to bring places (not really a balancing mechanic, but it is useful to consider, especially for Rogues).
The one-handed two-weapon fighting mechanic is especially powerful, bringing daggers to be one of the best weapons in the game, on par with Rapiers and possibly better than the Dual-Bladed Scimitar.
A Dagger being a fair trade for a Shortsword is already pushing what a simple weapon should do, so Daggers need no further upgrades.
Since you're allowed to unsheathe 1 weapon as part of your action, but not 2 (unless your have the Dual-Wielding feat), I play my Arcane Trickster as always palming a dagger in her off hand, leaving her main hand free to cast spells or take out her shortsword/dagger/dart/whatever depending on what she decides to do for her action, so that she always has the dagger ready for 2-weapon fighting. Even better helped by using her off-hand dagger as a spellcasting focus.
Helpful rewriter of Japanese->English translation and delver into software codebases (she/e/they)
ATs have no rules for using arcane foci, sadly.
Darts are the only finesse thrown light melee weapons in the game, I don't think they need love. Other weapons need it much more, like tridents the most, but also sickles, blowguns, scimitars...
The dagger had a Ruby of the War Mage, I should've specified.
Helpful rewriter of Japanese->English translation and delver into software codebases (she/e/they)
you mean daggers right? darts meet most of what you were saying but are ranged
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I think what the OP was about was removing the thrown property and giving them a bonus instead because irl daggers are rarely balanced for throwing.