Actually this is about Two-Weapon Fighting. Building a character for 5e, I was sad to see that two weapon fighting is not very good in 5e (personally I don't recall it being good in 3.5 either but others might enlighten me there).
Between requiring massive investment into a Fighting Style, feats, and magical weapons on top of the cost of other more promising combat feats, the benefits of the dual wielding warrior... generally gets outshone by other more simple and efficient builds.
But what if the Extra Attack feature could stack, specifically once and only when utilizing Two-Weapon Fighting AND when you use your bonus action to perform an off-hand attack? In other words, gaining two instances of Extra Attack (outside Fighter's upgraded version, but still stacking with the base level 5 Fighter Extra Attack feature) grants you two attacks with your main hand and two attacks with your off-hand. This change would also apply to equivalent benefits that provides extra attacks - think Warlock's Thirsting Blade, Tenser's Transformation's extra attack, etc. Just for clarity a Level 11 Fighter with their upgraded Extra Attack x2 + an additional instance of Extra Attack from say Level 5 Cleric would result in 3 attacks with main hand and 2 attacks with off-hand - mind you that's a Level 16 Player Character.
Would this be a fair improvement to Two-Weapon Fighting?
Well there's quite a list of issues with the entire mechanic:
1. It hogs your bonus action.
2. You are limited to light weapons for both your main and off-hand weapons, unless you invest a feat to basically get +1 AC, +2 to your damage dice on both weapons and a technical benefit for double drawing/stowing that really shouldn't exist, but if we count it, it counts as another negative point against Two-Weapon Fighting.
3. You don't get your ability modifier applied to the damage rolls for your off-hand unless you pick up the Fighting Style, limited to Fighter and Ranger or the Fighting Initiate feat.
4. You forego picking up Great Weapon Master or Polearm Master or Sharpshooter/Crossbow Expert. Polearm Master even includes a bonus action off-hand attack, if you got nothing to use your bonus action on.
5. You have weapons in both hands, meaning spell casting with somatic components is a no-go unless you grab War Caster feat or utilize shenanigans with Hexblade's Improved Pact Weapon as a Spell Casting Focus, casting Warlock spells with a material component.
6. No benefits for Attacks of Opportunity.
7. Lessened benefit from extra actions like those from Haste or Action Surge, especially hurting with the loss of access to Polearm Master and Great Weapon Master.
8. Finding two magic weapons is more problematic than finding/acquiring one.
Considering the above, I thought a buff wouldn't be in the wrong.
If we try to theorize a build with this change in mind:
This means if you want to invest heavy into this style you could go something like; Two-Weapon Fighting style from Fighter (to add STR mod to off-hand attack damage) going to lvl 5 -> Dual Wielder feat to upgrade light weapons to Longswords and +1 AC -> and then either pick up Paladin for Divine Favor's +1d4 damage per hit and later on getting access to lvl 11 Paladin's Improved Smite for the extra 1d8 radiant damage on hit / or you could pick up Barbarian for the Rage damage modifier.
If we assume a starting point buy of (15 / 10 / 15 / 8 / 10 / 13), starting with Human Variant Fighter and picking up feat Dual Wielder and Two Weapon Fighting Style, we can start out with dual Longswords, and a Chain Mail, hitting for 2d8 + 2x2 damage with an AC of 15. On level 4 we pick up +1 STR and +1 CON to up our ability modifier +3. On level 5 we get the Extra Attack to our main hand. On level 6 we swap to Paladin, picking up Divine Favor for the +1d4 radiant damage on hit, Fighting Style either Blind Fighting or Defense, on PC lvl 8 picking up Oath of Vengeance for the Vow of Enmity for the advantage on all attack rolls against one selected target, on PC lvl 9 we get +2 STR (to 18), on PC lvl 10 we get the second Extra Attack feature.
In combat we use turn 1 casting Divine Favor + using our Channel Divinity on the biggest enemy and zone in on that target. Then each round we strike 4 times with +4 and advantage on attacks for a total of 4d8 + 4x4 slashing damage + 4d4 radiant damage + 3d8 radiant by offering one of our two 2nd level spell slot to Divine Smite; somewhere between 27 - 88 damage with an average of 57 damage. Outside Divine Smite, we're down to 24 - 64, with an average of 44 damage. This assuming we hit all our attacks, which is not likely but with advantage we're somewhere around 75% accuracy so 3 out of 4 attacks hit. We could pop our singular Action Surge for an extra 1d8 + 4 + 1d4.
This is the most potent power spike this build is going to get, save forgoing Paladin and instead pick up Wizard for Spirit Shroud at level 5 and later Tenser's Transformation at level 11 (PC lvl 16) (with a +2 STR on level 8). With Tenser's, attacking with advantage with +5 for 4d8 + 4x5 slashing + 8d12 force damage for between 32 - 148 damage, with an average of 92 damage. Again reducing to 75% accuracy. With our singular Action Surge, that's an additional 1d8 + 5 + 2d12.
In comparison if you pick a level 16 Fighter with Polearm Master and Great Weapon Master, using the Samurai subclass to gain advantage on all attacks in the same turn from the lvl 3 Fighting Spirit and trading one of these advantages for an additional attack with Rapid Strike, we have 4 attacks, 2 with advantage, 2 without - at reach, with 20 STR, 18 CON. Lets utilize GWM for the 2 attacks with advantage but not for the two without. The damage could look something like 4d10 + 4x5 + 2x10 for dealing between 44 - 80, with an average of 62 damage. Pop an Action Surge for an additional +1d10 + 5 + 10. We can pop Fighting Spirit 3 times per long rest, or we can utilize Rapid Strike by getting advantage through flanking.
If we instead pick up 3 levels of Ranger for Horizon Walker's Planar Warrior, we can use our bonus action to turn one hit into force damage and add 1d8 force damage. If we're using our bonus action to change damage type to a type that usually isn't damage resisted, we would rather want the Battle Master subclass for Fighter to utilize the Superiority Dice as a fail safe when using GWM, adding the d10 superiority die to the attack roll if we think it might change a miss into a hit. So we would have 3 attacks, one amped to force damage and here we can more easily apply GWM with the superiority die as a fail safe. Dealing 1d10 + 5 + 10 + 1d8 force damage + 2d10 + 2x5 + 2x10 slashing, between 34 - 83 damage, with an average 66 damage. And this build don't need to utilize a limited ressource, when dealing with mobs with poor AC. The Superiority die can also be added to damage rolls through the Maneuvers options.
And those are pretty simple Fighter builds. Reminding that these builds would more easily get full benefit from extra actions or Opportunity Attacks - at 10 ft. reach and bonuses from a magical weapon apply more benefit through the GWM feat as the penalty gets offset.
I would generate another feat and allow that stack with existing feats and (sub)class features. I have in my mind this image of a martial combatant who attacks with both weapons in coordinate combination of strikes. Similar to a boxer or an MMA fighter; using attacks to setup big more power blows or quickly striking so to hit their opponent two, three, or even for times with their attacks. The draft for the feat would look something like this:
Combination Attacker
You are a master of welding a weapon in each hand and have perfected techniques that allow you to attack by using a combination of strikes.You gain the following benefits:
When you take the ATTACK action and hit a creature, you may immediately use your Bonus Action (if available) to attack the same creature with advantage using the weapon in your other hand.
When you score a critical hit with a melee weapon, you may make a regular damage roll for the weapon in your other hand and add the rolled value to your critical hit damage.
When you take the ATTACK action, before you make a melee attack with a weapon that you are proficient with, you can choose to take a -5 penalty to the attack roll. If the attack hits, you add +10 to the attack's damage.
This would stand alone as a feat and does not require, but would benefit from, taking Dual Wielder or the two weapon fighting style. I think is adds in some power to the damage capability for a character that opts to fight with weapons in both hands; making the two weapon combatant have more impact in the game.
My main issue with this fix is that it still hogs your bonus action, which really hurts rangers who should arguably be the ideal dual wielders.
I do agree that TWF is a trap in 5e, especially in later levels where you hit a pretty low damage ceiling with GWM/Sharpshooters passing you with flying colors.
My own houserules for this:
Draw and Stow can be used on two weapons rather than one as long as they are drawn/stowed simultaneously
The TWF fighting style allows you to make the bonus attack as a part of the Attack action
The Light Weapon Master feat, which gives TWF an equivalent to GWM/SS (2d6 instead of a flat 10 came after a lot of number crunching - 10 made the average too high and 2d6 helps your crits keep up with GWMs crit bonus)
If a player is a TWF caster, I will give them a magic weapon that doubles as a focus (I also rule that a hand holding a focus can fulfill the somatic component in spells without a material component, which is common sense to me but a sore point of debate for many)
It's not perfect, but it goes a long way towards closing the gap.
I would generate another feat and allow that stack with existing feats and (sub)class features. I have in my mind this image of a martial combatant who attacks with both weapons in coordinate combination of strikes. Similar to a boxer or an MMA fighter; using attacks to setup big more power blows or quickly striking so to hit their opponent two, three, or even for times with their attacks. <snip for space>
I have a similar image about how two weapon warriors would function. I feel like a lot of the mechanical design space that could work well for Two-Weapon Fighting, is actually already included in the Fighter's Battlemaster's Maneuver abilities, like feint, disarm, moving the opponent, etc. I really don't want to devalue that subclass's features, so that's not really a good path. At the very least it needs to be heavily limited in potential overlap.
However I don't think making a Great Weapon Master/Sharpshooter -esque feat for TWF is a good approach, as it would just overshadow GWM because it could apply to +1 weapon attack with its flat bonuses. There's already a feat and a Fighting style dedicated to improve TWF damage, so in my eyes it would be dangerous (read trap) to put "fixes" to TWF in additional investments. At least if you are mainly considering damage. You either end up giving too much benefit to the point where it becomes much better than other combat styles or you end up having to invest too much just for the build to function on par or somewhat superior to other builds - in the end being worse off than a simple two-handed, sword-and-board or single hand wielding (to off-hand magic, thrown weapons, or just to get Dueling fighting style) build.
Ideally you could add bonuses/changes to existing mechanics like the Two-Weapon Fighting style or the Dual Wielder feat, although that just increases the early game disparity where TWF is generally slightly better than any other combat style.
That's why I looked at the stacking of the Extra Attack feature because it would lock it behind, at minimum, a PC level 10.
My main issue with this fix is that it still hogs your bonus action, which really hurts rangers who should arguably be the ideal dual wielders.
I do agree that TWF is a trap in 5e, especially in later levels where you hit a pretty low damage ceiling with GWM/Sharpshooters passing you with flying colors.
My own houserules for this:
Draw and Stow can be used on two weapons rather than one as long as they are drawn/stowed simultaneously
The TWF fighting style allows you to make the bonus attack as a part of the Attack action
The Light Weapon Master feat, which gives TWF an equivalent to GWM/SS (2d6 instead of a flat 10 came after a lot of number crunching - 10 made the average too high and 2d6 helps your crits keep up with GWMs crit bonus)
If a player is a TWF caster, I will give them a magic weapon that doubles as a focus (I also rule that a hand holding a focus can fulfill the somatic component in spells without a material component, which is common sense to me but a sore point of debate for many)
It's not perfect, but it goes a long way towards closing the gap.
I agree wholeheartedly with the dual draw/stow simultaneous houserule. It just makes it on par with a sword-and-board combat style.
Removing the bonus action as a cost to use the "off-hand" weapon is a significant buff that boosts the early game advantage even more. I think that might be a bit much. I could stand behind it if it was a benefit to gain the Extra Attack feature. Basically once you attain the Extra Attack feature, you have mastered weapon technique enough that the off-hand attack can just be included in the attack action without costing your bonus action. Delaying the benefit to at least PC level 5.
To me, the Light Weapon Master feat would basically replace Dual Wielder, which is not necessarily a major loss. The draw/stow part of the feat is already superfluous as many DMs seems to agree with your first houserule on TWF. The main benefit of DW is generally replacing the 2d6 weapons with 2d8 weapons or in other terms; replacing an average of 7 on damage rolls for an average of 9, so +2 on damage rolls. One of the other benefits is improving your ability to utilize looted magic items by not restricting yourself to light weapons. Additionally the introduction of LWM would basically just be a GWM/SS equivalent, slightly detracting from their respective design spaces, even though the damage modifier is different (on average +7.35 damage, accounting critical hits). The combat utility provided is slightly interesting with the draw/stow, simply because you can keep one hand free (for instance to spellcast), draw the weapon as part of the attack and then stow as part of the movement action. Although this also kinda detracts from the War Caster feat, so I'm not loving how much it overlaps with other feats. The concealment thing is a neat but very very niche feature. If anything I would improve upon the Dual Wielder feat rather than making a new feat. At least for one that is mainly aimed at improving damage. One of the problems with TWF is the amount of investment needed to make it function well.
As for the TWF caster, that seems like a lot of help to give them. And again devalue to the War Caster feat, which I believe is folly. War Caster should have a place, especially for TWF, but TWF itself should just be more worthwhile and not as investment heavy.
I think I would enjoy playing a TWF build with you Scatter, but from a holistic view I think we can find a better approach to fix TWF.
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So how about the following:
You can draw/stow two melee weapons without the two handed property as long as they are drawn/stowed simultaneously.
When attaining the Extra Attack feature or an equivalent feature or ability that grants additional attacks as part of the attack action without using a bonus action*, you can use two-weapon fighting without using a bonus action when taking the attack action.
Add-on to Dual Wielder in place of draw/stow: If your proficiency bonus is at least +4 (aka PC lvl 9+), when you use two-weapon fighting and take the attack action with two melee weapons that you are proficient with, you can use a bonus action to gain advantage on one of your attacks this round.
* I want to make sure that Haste and Polearm Master's bonus action attack with the foot-end doesn't cause confusion and make people believe they have "unlocked" bonus action free TWF through any other means than Extra Attack, Thirsting Blade, or Tenser's Transformation (I'm not aware if there are other effects that grant additional attacks and not additional actions - like Haste) - it would be so much easier if Thirsting Blade and Tenser's would simply say that you gain the Extra Attack feature. If you have a more elegant way to phrase it, please share it. Simply naming the three abilities above would limit the list to those three, which is why I seek a broader description that encompasses the Extra attack feature mechanic.
This change frees up the bonus action for TWF from PC level 5. Until then you have to choose between hex/hunter's mark/similar BA or an off-hand attack. It also adds some later additional value to Dual Wielder locked behind the bonus action (and weapon proficiency) - so if you don't have anything else/better to use your bonus action on you can trade it for advantage on one attack roll. At first I thought to make it grant +1 weapon attack on the off-hand (so +2 with the TWF free bonus attack) and locked behind proficiency +5 (PC lvl 13) and the Extra attack feature, but that felt like a bit too much value, especially paired with on-hit modifiers like Rage/Hunter's Mark/Hex - even though that is what I initially advocated for in the OP through multiclassing and picking up multiple Extra Attack features.
I may still consider a new feat for TWF that primarily helps the Fighter, because they gain so many feats/attribute increases but the list of feats that work with TWF is rather limited. The intend is mainly to add some utility or late game scaling.
Ideas for a new feat that primarily helps Two-Weapon Fighting:
Whenever you attack with a melee weapon that you wield in one hand and you are proficient with, you may take a penalty to your attack roll up to your proficiency bonus (any number between 0 and your proficiency bonus). If the attack hits, you add that amount to the damage roll.
Whenever you attack with a melee weapon that you wield in one hand that you are proficient with, you may add half (rounded up) of your ability score modifier for Strength or Dexterity (your choice) to the attack and damage rolls of that attack. You cannot use the same ability score modifier through this feat that you are already using for your attack.
While you are wielding a non-heavy melee weapon in each of your hands and an enemy within 5 ft. of you attacks you but doesn't hit, you may use your bonus action or reaction to make one weapon attack against that enemy.
While you are wielding a non-heavy melee weapon in each of your hands and an enemy within 5 ft. of you attacks you, you may use your bonus action or reaction to have that enemy attack at disadvantage with that attack. You may use this ability after the enemy has rolled for attack but before the outcome is determined.
While you are wielding a non-heavy melee weapon in each of your hands and with which you are proficient, you may use your bonus action to not provoke opportunity attacks this turn.
Whenever you take the disengage action while wielding a non-heavy melee weapon in each of your hands and with which you are proficient, you may make one weapon attack against an enemy within reach.
The first suggestion is basically trading your attack proficiency to damage proficiency. It mainly matters later on when your proficiency bonus is higher, but it can add some additional benefit up through leveling. The trade off is half as good as that of Great Weapon Master, but it has the added flexibility that makes you choose the amount of your hubris. This is not limited to TWF but I would like to put such a benefit on a feat with other TWF exclusive benefits, so it can be picked up by others but TWF users gain the full benefit.
The second one is mainly to aid Fighters that gain a vast amount of feats/attribute increases, so we add in 0-3 from the Dexterity (or occasionally Strength) modifier. Usually you don't want to invest in both STR and DEX, so it is a lean-in investment that generally wont be that powerful. It can be utilized by something like a Hexblade-Paladin that uses the Hexblade to primarily use CHA as ASM for attacks but also has a high STR to wear armor. I like the opportunity for other builds to take advantage of the feat's strengths if possible but the primary user should be a TWF character.
The rest is just different ways to slap in some additional attacks or other combat benefit. I don't really see that many other utility aspects that would make sense and be generally useful, other than maybe add proficiency or a bonus to skills like Perform and Intimidation.
I did consider just slapping on Martial Adept (the Combat Maneuver feat) on a TWF exclusive feat with some additional TWF benefits to get that feeling that a two blade warrior has potentially better opportunities to influence the space between themselves and their enemy. It could be a limited portion of the Combat Maneuvers that is made available through this feat with perhaps higher up-time than Martial Adept with its single d6 Superiority Die and two learned Maneuvers. If you would humor me, I was thinking something like putting in the list: Disarming Attack, Distracting Strike, Feinting Strike, Parry, and Riposte with 3 d0 Superiority Dice. Basically you get no bonuses from the die, but you get the maneuvers. You learn maneuvers equal to your proficiency bonus when selecting the feat and whenever you gain a level you may choose to exchange one maneuver out for another and if your proficiency bonus goes up, you may learn one additional maneuver, although there is only 5 on the list, with +6 being max proficiency bonus. I did judge against putting it up there, again because it felt like a cheapening of the Battle Master subclass and by extension also the Martial Adept feat. Although it would be so sweet to include for TWF.
If you have any ideas for bulletins for a TWF feat or if you have feedback for any of the suggestions put forward, please share.
I would generate another feat and allow that stack with existing feats and (sub)class features. I have in my mind this image of a martial combatant who attacks with both weapons in coordinate combination of strikes. Similar to a boxer or an MMA fighter; using attacks to setup big more power blows or quickly striking so to hit their opponent two, three, or even for times with their attacks. <snip for space>
I have a similar image about how two weapon warriors would function. I feel like a lot of the mechanical design space that could work well for Two-Weapon Fighting, is actually already included in the Fighter's Battlemaster's Maneuver abilities, like feint, disarm, moving the opponent, etc. I really don't want to devalue that subclass's features, so that's not really a good path. At the very least it needs to be heavily limited in potential overlap.
However I don't think making a Great Weapon Master/Sharpshooter -esque feat for TWF is a good approach, as it would just overshadow GWM because it could apply to +1 weapon attack with its flat bonuses. There's already a feat and a Fighting style dedicated to improve TWF damage, so in my eyes it would be dangerous (read trap) to put "fixes" to TWF in additional investments. At least if you are mainly considering damage. You either end up giving too much benefit to the point where it becomes much better than other combat styles or you end up having to invest too much just for the build to function on par or somewhat superior to other builds - in the end being worse off than a simple two-handed, sword-and-board or single hand wielding (to off-hand magic, thrown weapons, or just to get Dueling fighting style) build.
Ideally you could add bonuses/changes to existing mechanics like the Two-Weapon Fighting style or the Dual Wielder feat, although that just increases the early game disparity where TWF is generally slightly better than any other combat style.
That's why I looked at the stacking of the Extra Attack feature because it would lock it behind, at minimum, a PC level 10
The current Fighting Style and Duel Wielder Feat is too limiting and doesn't provide that much benefit (or at least at an easy cost) to the melee combatants that would utilize the two weapon fighting.
For example, Duel Wielder is more of a buff than an improvement in damage output. While the text justifies that the weapon damage can increase to a d8 variety, the two weapon fighting combatants that are DEX based do not see an increased of options with this (rapier being the only d8 option), and STR base attackers benefit at 4th level with the two 4.5 attacks but that eventually begins to favor the two handed weapon combatant once they gain the Multiattack feature. So the choice of the fighting style for the Fighter, Paladin, and Ranger now is the difference maker. Taking the Two Weapon Fighting style does have the advantage when you can add your modifier on your BA attack (or with a Barbarian the Rage bonus on the BA); but the Great Weapon Master feat is just too much of an improvement and really diminishes the benefit of being able to increase your potential damage per weapon by one higher die value.
The most useful benefit of the Duel Wielder is the +1 AC you get. But a STR based player can see an different advantage in still using a shield and looking to benefit from Shield Master. The shield is a +2 AC and this Feat offers more buff overall. Still, if the player considers the +1 AC is good enough and takes the Two Weapon Fighting style (or in the case of a Rogue has to burn a ASI/Feat to gain it) then they still need to use a BA for an extra attack to get the full benefit of two weapon fighting.
This last point is the primary factor I wanted to address. There are several class builds that require their BA for other impactful acts during encounters, and while I didn't want to eliminate using an extra attack with a BA, at high levels I feel it is too much of a trade off to have to lose that potential damage in combat due to not having the BA always available. I also didn't want to rewrite Duel Wielder: I think having stacking feats is good but I wanted to also leave it so there isn't a dependency on each other.
So I went with the -5/+10 as a basis. I like this rule as it helps move the game along because you can have a high damage output and not have to roll extra die. But I do believe it should come with a cost hence why I am proposing another feat. The other reason I wanted to propose this feat this way is because there are characters that cannot benefit from the Great Weapon Master Feat due to the fact their size prevents full proficiency with heavy weapons or their class does not grant the proficiency at all. This proposed feat allows for a melee combatant who's build is optimal for the standard/versatile weapons or finesse weapons to increase their damage output in an encounter.
That said, you do raise a good point about it overshadowing the Great Weapon Master. For most classes, the extra attack on the BA (when taken) does out perform having less attacks with more powerful two handed weapons. Even if this proposed feat doesn't mandate the BA to be used in each round, I don't think there is a guarantee that the average frequency in using the BA won't surpass the two weapon fighting damage output. So I would propose the following tweaks
1) Limit the -5/+10 to only one attack per round. 2) Caveat that one of the weapons must have the light property.
I like the idea of being able to do one attack where the target is hit with a flurry of blows by both weapons and using the -5/+10 is the most efficient way to do this. It limits die rolls and extra bonuses from weapons with unique properties. It also doesn't mandate the use of the BA every turn, which I think is important, but also doesn't eliminate or alter its use in the game. The proposed feat still allows for its use (and if taken right after a hit grants the bonus to the attack). I also give a generous crit bonus but I feel it is still less than what Great Weapon Master offers. And with a new feat, Duel Wielder and the Two Weapon Fighting style still have a place; but neither are a mandatory build. I see this gives options for a variety of builds and could inspire more characters investing in wielding two weapons in combat.
Any changes you make need to keep in mind the build/classes that already make excellent use of the rule as-is, and make sure what you're proposing doesn't send them into the stratosphere of OPness.
Take, for example, a Bladesinger. Your Changes would allow them to Attack twice normally, and then make 2 offhand attacks. On the surface that's already not a great idea, since the TWFing bladesinger with an upcast shadow blade is already pretty remarkable damage. Attack once, attacking with your scimitar, then again substituting it for a Booming Blade with your Scimitar. Then two offhand attacks dealing massive 2d8/3d8/4d8 etc damage per attack from the shadowblade.... twice.
That is at a first glance because it is actually significantly worse than that. Why? Because you actually only need to attack once with the booming bladed scimitar to be eligible for the shadowblade offhand. So, the 2nd extra attack can also be the shadowblade. This means you're attacking for d6+mods+xd8s from scimitar/boom, but then plus xd8+mods shadow blade and then two more xd8 shadowblades.
It is a kinda absurd amount of damage output. Let's look at an 18 dex L6 bladesinger casting it a L3 slot. Damage for the round is: 1d6+10d8+8(+2d8maybe), average of 56.5 (maybe 65.5).
This is too high. It was already really high, this just makes it silly high.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
@Ravnodaus Without a quote or a more specific reference, I will assume you are commenting on the OP and not subsequent posts.
First off I would like to say that I generally agreed that gaining an extra attack is maybe not the best way to improve Two Weapon Fighting as a whole. The other posts reflect these suggestions from me and others.
Secondly I would like to cement that the OP was suggesting that stacking Extra Attack features would specifically give you two attacks with each weapon in each of your hands - as in 2x left hand, 2x right hand. Thus you cannot stack 3x left hand and 1x right hand. The bladesinger's ability to exchange one attack for a cantrip (like Booming Blade) could introduce some creative rule abusing, but the OP clearly states what I wanted to happen. The actual rule lingo would have to be ironed out. (Post scriptum: I forgot that Booming Blade has a M cost of a weapon worth at least 1 sp, so no abuse is possible with Shadow Blade.)
The proposition you put up is thus limited to a lvl 11 character (you need 6th level wizard for Bladesinging's Extra attack feature and a 5th level class that grants Extra Attack) and it would result in 2x weapon attacks with the Shadow Blade and 2x weapon attacks with another weapon. So you gain +1 attack with your non-Shadow Blade weapon, with the suggestion in the OP.
Lets assume you're going 6 levels in Wizard - Bladesinging and 5 levels in Fighter. You pick up Two Weapon fighting style from Fighter and pump your Dex with your 2x ASI to 18 and upcast Shadow Blade at 3th level. You can deal up to 2x 3d8 + 4 and 1x 1d6 + 4 + 2d8 and 1x 1d6 + 4 for an average of 59 damage with an assumed 100% accuracy.
Lets compare to a d10 two-handed weapon Fighter - Samurai at level 11. We pick up 2x ASI in STR for 18 and GWM, utilizing our BA for Samurai's Fighting Spirit to gain advantage on attacks to offset the -5 on GWM. You can deal up to 3x 1d10 + 4 + 10 for an average of 58.5 damage with an assumed 100% accuracy.
We could also compare to a lvl 11 Wizard upcasting Fireball at 6th level for 11d6 fire damage or 38.5 average AoE damage or casting Disintegrate for 10d6 + 40 or 75 average force damage.
I believe once we get around that level, many builds have already popped off, so I don't think it is bonkers. But again, maybe the proposed suggestion in the OP is not the right way to go about it, but neither does it appear as an outlier.
Please do have a look at some of the other suggestions if you want, I would love some feedback.
1. The way two weapon fighting works is you if you make an attack with a light weapon as your action, you can use a bonus action to attack with a different light weapon in the other hand. The proposal to add an extra attack to this bonus action would allow the same attack but twice, as a bonus action. If not, please provide some wording as to what you mean.
2. In current rules a Bladesinger can Booming Blade with Scimitar, then attack with Shadowblade, as his action. Then from TWF attack again with the shadowblade because it IS a different light weapon from the Scimitar he attacked with. So BoomScimitar x1, SB x2.
3. Adding that extra attack bonus attack just ups the number of shadowblade attacks he'd make. So BoomScimitar x1, SB x3.
4. We're talking just level 6 when they first get Extra Attack. IDK what level 11 has to do with anything. Because Extra Attack doesn't stack.
5. Not all tables disallow Booming Blade/GFB and Shadowblade to funtion together. There is a perfectly valid arguement that a summoned object from a 2nd level+ spell is worth 1sp.
6. The point in #5 isn't important because when you booming blade with the Scimitar, the Shadowblade is now a "different light weapon in your other hand". Whether your table allows a booming shadow blade or not has exactly 0 material effect on the damage you deal. Compare: Booming SB 3d8+4+1d8, then SB 3d8+4, BA 1d6 Scimitar. VS Booming Scimitar 1d6+4+1d8, then SB 3d8+4, BA SB 3d8. Totals: 1d6+8+7d8 VS 1d6+8+7d8. It is the same.
7. 1d6+8+7d8 is already fantastic melee damage at Level 6, and adding another 3d8+ to it seems reckless and unnecessary.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
Removing the bonus action as a cost to use the "off-hand" weapon is a significant buff that boosts the early game advantage even more.
I should have specified that I later added that both weapons must be light to gain this feature, so compared to a greatsword this would do 2d6+stat+stat versus 2d6+stat. It's a bonus, but not a crazy one. As for the existing early game advantage you speak of, I've never seen it. I don't see anyone dual wield in 5e except for people new to the game (except for rogues who lose nothing for it), regardless of level. As you say, moving it into Extra Attacks would make things more equal damage-wise, but TWF would still be way behind until then due to bonus action expenditure. I hate that this impacts different builds so differently. A fighter often loses practically nothing by giving up his BA, while most ranger builds are expected to be using their BA for spells or a subclass feature.
Additionally the introduction of LWM would basically just be a GWM/SS equivalent, slightly detracting from their respective design spaces, even though the damage modifier is different (on average +7.35 damage, accounting critical hits).
This is a weird exception to have when the two existing feats already "detract from" each other's design spaces just as much, and invalidate all other weapon options by doing so. Having a third equivalent track just opens up more viable options. You gain far more than you lose here, if you are losing anything at all.
As for the TWF caster, that seems like a lot of help to give them. And again devalue to the War Caster feat, which I believe is folly. War Caster should have a place, especially for TWF, but TWF itself should just be more worthwhile and not as investment heavy.
Your last clause here outweighs the rest IMO. War Caster is already a top-tier feat, and can withstand a bit of devaluing. This should not be a feat tax for TWF. Two-handers don't have to take this to cast. Bow users don't have to take this to cast. Clerics and paladins are explicitly given a loophole for it for the same reason that I'm doing it - you should not have to take a feat just to get a particular - and very common - character archetype to be able to function.
I feel like you haven't properly read the OP nor my response (I mean stacking Extra Attacks is literally the title of the thread). I clearly stated that the suggestion in the OP is explicitly to allow the Extra Attack feature (or equivalent) to stack, specifically when utilized with Two-Weapon Fighting, only then and only once. So you definitely need two separate instances of the Extra Attack feature to get this benefit, which is achievable at the earliest at Player Character level 10 multiclassing 5 levels into two classes that have it at 5. Wizard - Bladesinging first acquires the Extra Attack feature at level 6, which is why I used a level 11 character to compare to. Under this suggestion with two instances of the Extra Attack feature, you can in essence - when using Two-Weapon Fighting - use your Bonus Action to attack twice with each weapon as a result (the stated result here ignores Fighter's ability to stack more attacks and Haste's extra action or anything similar). The actual rule lingo that would make this function under the current ruleset is not my forté, so I just wrote what I wanted to happen and not specifically how the rules should be written to allow/reflect that. With that in mind you cannot stack your attacks to one hand specifically like you suggest. The rules should disallow this - although in a more elegant way if possible.
The Booming Blade + Shadow Blade combo is only relevant in this case when combined with the Bladesinger's ability to forego one of their weapon attacks to instead cast a Cantrip. Technically this rule is referring to your "main-attack" and not any weapon attack - like one from a bonus action. The way it is worded can make people believe they can exchange a left-hand attack and cast a cantrip-attack (like Booming Blade) with their right-hand. This should clearly not be allowed in the OP's suggestion. Rightfully a spell cast is not worth gold as you cannot literally trade it. A spell on retainer (like a spell scroll) is another matter because you can trade the scroll. Under normal circumstances the Shadow Blade does not fulfill Booming Blade's material requirement. If people allow this, it is homebrew and then nothing is a limit. Either way the rules for the OP's suggestion should just disallow the creative exchange in the first place, then it wont functionally matter for this particular case.
And just so we're not talking past each other, if your further replies doesn't reflect that you've read my post, then I'll refrain from replying further. No offense, but that is not constructive in any fashion. Of course you're welcome to ask me to elaborate on any particular statement if it is unclear.
It took me a while to figure out what you are trying to do here but I think I get it now and I kind of like it.
It sounds like the main "problem" that you have with two-weapon fighting is that it requires the Bonus Action to be able to make one attack with the off-hand, thus limiting how many such off-hand attacks can be made to one. The proposed improvement is that if you somehow gain a 2nd instance of the Level 5 Extra Attack (most likely through multi-classing) then you should be allowed to use one instance of Extra Attack with your main hand as normal, and then when you use the Bonus Action to attack with your off-hand you propose the ability to be able to then use a separate instance of Extra Attack for the off-hand at that time so that you end up with two off-hand attacks instead of one.
I think this is pretty good actually since that character wouldn't be getting the improved Level 11 version of Extra Attack until at least Level 16 anyway and they never get the Level 20 version due to multiclassing. They also can never get to the Level 11 version with both instances.
Perhaps something like this could be added to a Feat that such a character is likely to pick up along the way anyway -- or add this as an option for such a feat where they would give up a feature normally given by that feat in exchange. Or perhaps the Two-Weapon Fighting fighting style itself can be tweaked to add this as an option -- for example, you can add the ability modifier OR you can apply a 2nd instance of Extra Attack. Lots of potential homebrew ways to tweak something to get the right balance with this idea.
Removing the bonus action as a cost to use the "off-hand" weapon is a significant buff that boosts the early game advantage even more.
I should have specified that I later added that both weapons must be light to gain this feature, so compared to a greatsword this would do 2d6+stat+stat versus 2d6+stat. It's a bonus, but not a crazy one. As for the existing early game advantage you speak of, I've never seen it. I don't see anyone dual wield in 5e except for people new to the game (except for rogues who lose nothing for it), regardless of level. As you say, moving it into Extra Attacks would make things more equal damage-wise, but TWF would still be way behind until then due to bonus action expenditure. I hate that this impacts different builds so differently. A fighter often loses practically nothing by giving up his BA, while most ranger builds are expected to be using their BA for spells or a subclass feature.
Okay... but that's just reason to avoid the Dual Wielder feat as it suddenly has the tacked on disadvantage that it costs your bonus action to use non-light weapons. Personally I find it more reasonable to remove the bonus action cost from TWF when you gain the Extra Attack feature - which everyone who would reasonably care about TWF should be able to attain.
The early game advantages to TWF is to get 2d6 + 2x ASM (with TWF style) compared to a singular 2d6 + 1x ASM or in terms of a lvl 2 ranger 1d10 (or 2d6/1d12 with 2-hander melee) + ASM + 1d6 (from Hunter's Mark). Do however account that Hunter's Mark is a spell cast, so while the Ranger does that turn 1, the TWF can hit someone in the face. Hunter's mark is not particularly good early on before you get the Extra Attack feature or another way to add more weapon attacks. And a level 1 character can relatively easily get 16 in a stat (with point-buy + racial feature) to make their ASM a +3. That's 2d6 + 6 for an average of 13 damage against 2d6 + 3 for an average of 10 or 2d6 + 3 + 1d6 for an average of 13,5 (last one on turn 2 from Ranger lvl 2+)
Additionally the introduction of LWM would basically just be a GWM/SS equivalent, slightly detracting from their respective design spaces, even though the damage modifier is different (on average +7.35 damage, accounting critical hits).
This is a weird exception to have when the two existing feats already "detract from" each other's design spaces just as much, and invalidate all other weapon options by doing so. Having a third equivalent track just opens up more viable options. You gain far more than you lose here, if you are losing anything at all.
GWM and SS are separated to work specifically for ranged and melee with extra benefits that only or primarily makes sense for their range of influence. GWM and the LWM both accounts for melee weapons. They share a larger overlap in design space, which is why I think just making a light weapon version of GWM is not a good idea. It doesn't differentiate going two weapons compared to one big weapon. I believe it is better to find alternative ways to assist the damage of TWF and provide some additional utility tools - like for instance being able to riposte (make a weapon attack) by using a bonus action or reaction when an enemy misses an attack against you within melee range. I believe the Fighter TWF is the least potent of any TWF build, which is why adding more feats/investment options would not be a bad thing, but TWF itself should still be worthwhile for other builds - therefore I believe you cannot fix TWF through additional feats alone as not many build paths can afford to use ASIs on feats to fix the build - but the Fighter can to bump up their relevancy especially on later levels.
As for the TWF caster, that seems like a lot of help to give them. And again devalue to the War Caster feat, which I believe is folly. War Caster should have a place, especially for TWF, but TWF itself should just be more worthwhile and not as investment heavy.
Your last clause here outweighs the rest IMO. War Caster is already a top-tier feat, and can withstand a bit of devaluing. This should not be a feat tax for TWF. Two-handers don't have to take this to cast. Bow users don't have to take this to cast. Clerics and paladins are explicitly given a loophole for it for the same reason that I'm doing it - you should not have to take a feat just to get a particular - and very common - character archetype to be able to function.
I may be biased from my play group, but there War Caster is not particularly well liked. Advantage to maintaining concentration either means you're in melee and doing spell casting wrong OR you're a cleric/paladin who has some benefit from concentration buffs (usually not that major) but they also have the high AC to avoid hits and the CON stat to clear their saves most of the time OR you got hit somewhere in the back by something your frontline couldn't soak for you. If you're a ranged spellcaster and need help maintaining concentration, go for the Resilient feat instead - the next two bulletins don't usually grant you much benefit. The somatic component skip is mostly ignored by many builds, either because they already have a hand free (two-hander weapons have a hand free) or they utilize Focus shenanigans to ignore the somatic component as long as there is a material component to the spell. Or people use a draw/stow if it is really crucial to do that spell cast - most of the time only affecting the ability to do an opportunity attack (with a weapon that is). The spell cast as opportunity attack is again mostly relevant for melee spellcasters with touch/weapon attack spells/non-attack spells (or they cast with disadvantage to hit due to being in melee range) and opportunity attacks happens rarely enough that this is a hard sell to be the main driver for the feat.
The occasions where I find War Caster as a good tool is with Wizard - Bladesinging, Warlock - Hexblade, Fighter - Eldritch Knight and technically TWF casters (if they were good). Bladesingers are melee spell casters that don't necessarily have the CON to maintain concentration (although they gain their INT as a bonus to saves to maintain), so the advantage is very useful with something like Spirit Shroud, Greater Invisibility or Tenser's Transformation. The somatic component thing is generally not that useful but it makes it possible to side-wield a wand or other utility item. Mainly TWF casters benefit from this. The opportunity attack works great with stuff like Booming Blade. These builds checks off at least two of the three boxes with the third not entirely wasted, whereas most others only have one they care about.
I feel like you haven't properly read the OP nor my response (I mean stacking Extra Attacks is literally the title of the thread). I clearly stated that the suggestion in the OP is explicitly to allow the Extra Attack feature (or equivalent) to stack, specifically when utilized with Two-Weapon Fighting, only then and only once. So you definitely need two separate instances of the Extra Attack feature to get this benefit, which is achievable at the earliest at Player Character level 10 multiclassing 5 levels into two classes that have it at 5. Wizard - Bladesinging first acquires the Extra Attack feature at level 6, which is why I used a level 11 character to compare to. Under this suggestion with two instances of the Extra Attack feature, you can in essence - when using Two-Weapon Fighting - use your Bonus Action to attack twice with each weapon as a result (the stated result here ignores Fighter's ability to stack more attacks and Haste's extra action or anything similar). The actual rule lingo that would make this function under the current ruleset is not my forté, so I just wrote what I wanted to happen and not specifically how the rules should be written to allow/reflect that. With that in mind you cannot stack your attacks to one hand specifically like you suggest. The rules should disallow this - although in a more elegant way if possible.
The Booming Blade + Shadow Blade combo is only relevant in this case when combined with the Bladesinger's ability to forego one of their weapon attacks to instead cast a Cantrip. Technically this rule is referring to your "main-attack" and not any weapon attack - like one from a bonus action. The way it is worded can make people believe they can exchange a left-hand attack and cast a cantrip-attack (like Booming Blade) with their right-hand. This should clearly not be allowed in the OP's suggestion. Rightfully a spell cast is not worth gold as you cannot literally trade it. A spell on retainer (like a spell scroll) is another matter because you can trade the scroll. Under normal circumstances the Shadow Blade does not fulfill Booming Blade's material requirement. If people allow this, it is homebrew and then nothing is a limit. Either way the rules for the OP's suggestion should just disallow the creative exchange in the first place, then it wont functionally matter for this particular case.
And just so we're not talking past each other, if your further replies doesn't reflect that you've read my post, then I'll refrain from replying further. No offense, but that is not constructive in any fashion. Of course you're welcome to ask me to elaborate on any particular statement if it is unclear.
Yeah I'm not following. The title says that it is about extra attack stacking but to wait. Then your very first sentence is this is actually just about two weapon fighting.
If extra attack could stack it just incentives/forces martial classes to multiclass. And that has nothing to do with bonus actions. So why is it then relevant to a convo about two weapon fighting?
Could you write out your proposal for what this alternative rule should say? That's probably the more straightforward way to know what it is you're proposing, if you just write it down. Even if it is just a rough draft.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
I think the proposal is just to be able to use your second instance of Extra Attack on your off-hand weapon when you use your Bonus Action to attack with that off-hand weapon (when utilizing the two-weapon fighting rule from Chapter 9). This would give certain multiclass characters' one additional off-hand attack at around the same time that a single classed Fighter would pick up a 3rd main hand attack anyway.
I think that the cleanest way to do this if we wanted to actually modify the rule book would be to change the paragraph that relates to Extra Attack in Chapter 6:
Extra Attack
If you gain the Extra Attack class feature from more than one class, the features don't add together with one exception. The Extra Attack class feature gained from the second class may be applied to the Bonus Action attack while two-weapon fighting. You can't make more than two attacks with this feature unless it says you do (as the fighter's version of Extra Attack does). Similarly, the warlock's eldritch invocation Thirsting Blade doesn't give you additional attacks if you also have Extra Attack.
The wording would have to be cleaned up but you get the idea.
I feel like you haven't properly read the OP nor my response (I mean stacking Extra Attacks is literally the title of the thread). I clearly stated that the suggestion in the OP is explicitly to allow the Extra Attack feature (or equivalent) to stack, specifically when utilized with Two-Weapon Fighting, only then and only once. So you definitely need two separate instances of the Extra Attack feature to get this benefit, which is achievable at the earliest at Player Character level 10 multiclassing 5 levels into two classes that have it at 5. Wizard - Bladesinging first acquires the Extra Attack feature at level 6, which is why I used a level 11 character to compare to. Under this suggestion with two instances of the Extra Attack feature, you can in essence - when using Two-Weapon Fighting - use your Bonus Action to attack twice with each weapon as a result (the stated result here ignores Fighter's ability to stack more attacks and Haste's extra action or anything similar). The actual rule lingo that would make this function under the current ruleset is not my forté, so I just wrote what I wanted to happen and not specifically how the rules should be written to allow/reflect that. With that in mind you cannot stack your attacks to one hand specifically like you suggest. The rules should disallow this - although in a more elegant way if possible.
The Booming Blade + Shadow Blade combo is only relevant in this case when combined with the Bladesinger's ability to forego one of their weapon attacks to instead cast a Cantrip. Technically this rule is referring to your "main-attack" and not any weapon attack - like one from a bonus action. The way it is worded can make people believe they can exchange a left-hand attack and cast a cantrip-attack (like Booming Blade) with their right-hand. This should clearly not be allowed in the OP's suggestion. Rightfully a spell cast is not worth gold as you cannot literally trade it. A spell on retainer (like a spell scroll) is another matter because you can trade the scroll. Under normal circumstances the Shadow Blade does not fulfill Booming Blade's material requirement. If people allow this, it is homebrew and then nothing is a limit. Either way the rules for the OP's suggestion should just disallow the creative exchange in the first place, then it wont functionally matter for this particular case.
And just so we're not talking past each other, if your further replies doesn't reflect that you've read my post, then I'll refrain from replying further. No offense, but that is not constructive in any fashion. Of course you're welcome to ask me to elaborate on any particular statement if it is unclear.
Yeah I'm not following. The title says that it is about extra attack stacking but to wait. Then your very first sentence is this is actually just about two weapon fighting.
If extra attack could stack it just incentives/forces martial classes to multiclass. And that has nothing to do with bonus actions. So why is it then relevant to a convo about two weapon fighting?
Could you write out your proposal for what this alternative rule should say? That's probably the more straightforward way to know what it is you're proposing, if you just write it down. Even if it is just a rough draft.
It may be a little confusing. Your first post seemed to respond to the OP's suggestion to let Extra Attack stack, which was my initial idea. Since then I've recanted that that may not be the best way to improve on TWF, thus I started looking at freeing up the bonus action like Scatterbraind mentioned. And instead of their homebrew to remove the bonus action expenditure (when using only light weapons, later clarification) when using TWF, I suggested to remove the Bonus Action expenditure using TWF when you get the Extra Attack feature.
So that's two completely different suggestions and ways to go about improving on TWF. Thus the OP's suggestion to let the Extra Attack feature stack (again explicitly when used with TWF and explicitly when using your bonus action to make that attack) has nothing to do with freeing up the bonus action.
Like I said it's not my forté to write the rule text and English is not my first language, so there may be unintended confusion. I see up2ng has made an attempt which is not bad as a baseline but it does still allow you to stack attacks on one of your hands. My intention was that a character with 2x Extra Attack features and using TWF would get 2x weapon attacks with their left hand and 2x weapon attacks with their right hand. The rule text that up2ng has made technically allows you to do a "main-attack" with your right-hand weapon and then use a bonus action to attack twice with your other weapon (your left-hand weapon) and then you can use your second "main-attack" to attack with your left-hand weapon again. Thus achieving 3x attacks with your left-hand weapon and only 1x attack with your right-hand.
If I were to give it a shot, I would likely put the exception under the Two-Weapon Fighting ruleset under Chapter 9, because Two-Weapon Fighting is more specific than the Extra Attack feature. Basically I don't want people who read the Extra Attack feature to worry about an exception for Two-Weapon Fighting.
"If you have two instances of features or abilities that grant extra attacks when taking the Attack action, like the Extra Attack feature, Warlock's eldritch invocation Thirsting Blade, Tenser's Transformation, etc. you can instead use your bonus action to attack twice with the weapon in your other hand when using Two-Weapon Fighting unless you have already attacked with that weapon during this Attack action. You cannot attack with that weapon further during this Attack action. You ignore these limitations if you make or made attacks with that weapon during a separate action - like the additional action gained from the Haste spell."
It's not as elegantly put as I would like, but it should get the job done. The limit that you cannot attack further nor use the clause if you have already attacked with that weapon (the off-hand weapon) is only there to secure that you cannot skew your number of weapon attacks to favor one hand (otherwise it would functionally just add +1 weapon attack). And I had to put in the clarification that if you have additional actions - like from Haste - then you're not limited on the off-hand because it is a different action than the one where you used TWF.
Again I would like to point out that I don't think this change is necessarily the best way to improve on TWF where it matters the most, but neither is it egregiously strong. With the change it is more likely that you would see dual wielding Paladins, Warlocks (Hexblade), Barbarians, Wizards (Bladesinging) and possibly Fighters. However I would rather want to look at freeing up the Bonus Action and possibly make some additional feats that benefit TWF's scaling in PC lvl 10+ - potentially using the now freed up Bonus Action. The additional feats would be especially helpful for a TWF Fighter who has the ability to pick up many feats and ASIs compared to many other classes but lacks the damage that a GWM build would have.
It may be a little confusing. Your first post seemed to respond to the OP's suggestion to let Extra Attack stack, which was my initial idea. Since then I've recanted that that may not be the best way to improve on TWF, thus I started looking at freeing up the bonus action like Scatterbraind mentioned.
Oh wow, I didn't realize that you had changed your mind away from your own OP suggestion. Why?? The original idea for being allowed to use an additional instance of Extra Attack for an off-hand weapon is a good one. Any idea that involves allowing additional attacks via two-weapon fighting that does NOT require the use of the Bonus Action is a MUCH less good idea in my opinion. Two-Weapon Fighting provides an additional attack -- that should cost you something . . . like a Bonus Action.
The rule text that up2ng has made technically allows you to do a "main-attack" with your right-hand weapon and then use a bonus action to attack twice with your other weapon (your left-hand weapon) and then you can use your second "main-attack" to attack with your left-hand weapon again. Thus achieving 3x attacks with your left-hand weapon and only 1x attack with your right-hand.
So what? Why attempt to micro-manage the player actions beyond this? The overall design of 5e is all about simplifying such rules while allowing for balanced options that the players can choose between. We all acknowledge that the current 5e rules for Two-Weapon Fighting is unbalanced in the sense that it is far too weak when compared to many other available options. This above solution "fixes" that by adding an additional attack under certain circumstances. There's not a very good reason for it to be more complicated than that, assuming that this fix is well balanced.
If I were to give it a shot, I would likely put the exception under the Two-Weapon Fighting ruleset under Chapter 9, because Two-Weapon Fighting is more specific than the Extra Attack feature. Basically I don't want people who read the Extra Attack feature to worry about an exception for Two-Weapon Fighting.
"If you have two instances of features or abilities that grant extra attacks when taking the Attack action, like the Extra Attack feature, Warlock's eldritch invocation Thirsting Blade, Tenser's Transformation, etc. you can instead use your bonus action to attack twice with the weapon in your other hand when using Two-Weapon Fighting unless you have already attacked with that weapon during this Attack action. You cannot attack with that weapon further during this Attack action. You ignore these limitations if you make or made attacks with that weapon during a separate action - like the additional action gained from the Haste spell."
Same sort of criticism here -- all of this is unnecessarily complicated. Don't worry so much about micro-managing exactly what a player can do and how they can do it -- provide options and just make sure that nothing is too overpowered.
Also, the premise here is incorrect. Extra Attack is the specific feature. Two-Weapon Fighting is the general rule. You were thinking of that backwards.
At least you didn't make the mistake here of trying to get away from requiring the use of the Bonus Action. Doing so doesn't make sense. At the most basic level in combat you use an Action to make an attack. Now you've used your action. But if you have some way to use a Bonus Action then you could also do that. One of the ways that anyone can use a Bonus Action is by holding another weapon in the other hand and following the rule for Two-Weapon Fighting. This makes sense. You shouldn't get to make another attack for free simply because you are holding another weapon. Mostly, it should require another action to do so -- but, if you meet the specific requirements set forth in the rule for Two-Weapon Fighting then you can use a Bonus Action instead of another Action to make a second attack and by default that second attack is slightly weaker. This all makes sense. The "problem" is that this doesn't scale well because there is an overall rule that you only ever get one Bonus Action. But changing this entire mechanic would be a really big change to the core rules and would most likely be unbalanced.
Oh wow, I didn't realize that you had changed your mind away from your own OP suggestion. Why?? The original idea for being allowed to use an additional instance of Extra Attack for an off-hand weapon is a good one. Any idea that involves allowing additional attacks via two-weapon fighting that does NOT require the use of the Bonus Action is a MUCH less good idea in my opinion. Two-Weapon Fighting provides an additional attack -- that should cost you something . . . like a Bonus Action.
The reason I moved away from it is three-fold:
Adding it means you cannot rightfully change something else without making TWF OP.
Granting extra attacks, especially limit-free extra attacks, can be so much more powerful for specific abilities or builds compared to others. Like Ravnodaus cleverly pointed out, the Shadow Blade spell grants you a 2d8 Psychic damage Scimitar with the Light property and upcasting at lvl 3-4 = +1d8 or lvl 5-6 = +2d8. If your PC level 11 with 6 levels into Wizard - Bladesinging and 5 levels into Fighter; without limits on the extra attacks you can get 3x attacks with the Shadow Blade and 1x attacks with a random light weapon of relatively unimportant quality. With a lvl 3 spell slot Shadow Blade for 3d8 damage with ability score modifier +4, that's 3x ( 3d8 + 4 ASM ) and 1x ( 1d6 + 4 ASM ) for an average of 59 damage. In comparison a GWM with 3x attacks that all hit (way bigger if than the Shadow Blade) deals 61 damage on average. Basically any on-hit effects gets so much more mileage out of this change than other builds, which is why I believe there must be better ways to even that out across different builds while lifting TWF as a whole, especially in the later stages, like PC lvl 10+.
It doesn't help particularly well for Rangers who also has the TW fighting style but generally is locking their BA to shift Hunter's Mark as a not insignificant portion of their damage output. Similar case for Warlocks with Hexes. It doesn't particularly help TWF Fighters when comparing to a GWM Fighter build. I've not particularly researched how well it would help Barbarians and Rogues, but I imagine both would have a hard time determining if it is worth the multiclassing for the +1 off-hand attack, especially for Barbarians to forego GWM and for Rogues to not just use basic TWF to help proc Sneak Attack.
As for the cost: it doesn't "cost" a two-hander melee build when at level 5 they go from 1 weapon attack to 2 weapon attacks. They get full benefit for their entire 2d6 or 1d10 or 1d12 damage die. TWF doesn't get the same, they get 1d6 (or with investment into Dual Wielder 1d8). That's a disparity. Now TWF does get an early benefit before level 5 over a two-handed weapon. They get two weapon attacks with a higher chance to make some hits and do some damage, but particularly with the TW fighting style, you see a small damage advantage for TWF. However as soon as we hit level 5, that damage advantage is gone and overtaken by the two-hander (and it only gets worse). At this point TWF is behind and we're taxed with a bonus action cost. To help evening it out I believe freeing up the bonus action with the Extra Attack feature (or equivalent) is a good proposition. The bonus action can and is being used by many class features for various purposes. This prevents TWF from pushing you away from classes that utilize their bonus action. And for classes that don't already have a bonus action, new feats could (and probably should) be added that further helps TWF scale into the late-game. And we have a nifty bonus action to throw down that well if desired, that particularly helps those builds (primarily thinking TWF Fighter).
The rule text that up2ng has made technically allows you to do <snip> 3x attacks with your left-hand weapon and only 1x attack with your right-hand.
So what? Why attempt to micro-manage the player actions beyond this?
Refer to point 2 above. Also from a flavor perspective it makes more sense that a person can make two separate attacks with two separate weapons than three attacks with one weapon and one attack with the other weapon. Sometimes simplicity or more precisely leniency makes balancing difficult. Imagine if Wizard's Arcane Recovery could refresh 6th+ level spell slots. Limits makes sense in certain situations. Here the limits has to be a bit more extensive because the general rules are lax.
"If you have two instances of features or abilities that grant extra attacks when taking the Attack action, like the Extra Attack feature, Warlock's eldritch invocation Thirsting Blade, Tenser's Transformation, etc. you can instead use your bonus action to attack twice with the weapon in your other hand when using Two-Weapon Fighting unless you have already attacked with that weapon during this Attack action. You cannot attack with that weapon further during this Attack action. You ignore these limitations if you make or made attacks with that weapon during a separate action - like the additional action gained from the Haste spell."
Same sort of criticism here -- all of this is unnecessarily complicated. Don't worry so much about micro-managing exactly what a player can do and how they can do it -- provide options and just make sure that nothing is too overpowered.
And it's explicitly to avoid things getting overpowered that I found the need to limit the way you can do these attacks to be important.
Also, the premise here is incorrect. Extra Attack is the specific feature. Two-Weapon Fighting is the general rule. You were thinking of that backwards.
I understand if it was confusing, from a rulebook perspective you're right. From a user/reader perspective Two-Weapon Fighting is more niche compared to Extra Attack, so exceptions to Two-Weapon Fighting's ruleset would make more sense under the rules for Two-Weapon Fighting. Additionally I would have wanted the change in the OP to apply to any sort of feature or ability that grants extra attacks when taking the Attack action. Hereunder including Thirsting Blade and Tenser's Transformation. Putting the exception under Two-Weapon Fighting covers that spectrum broadly while putting it under the Extra Attack feature would force you to do similar to Thirsting Blade and Tenser's Transformation.
At least you didn't make the mistake here of trying to get away from requiring the use of the Bonus Action. Doing so doesn't make sense. At the most basic level in combat you use an Action to make an attack. Now you've used your action. But if you have some way to use a Bonus Action then you could also do that. One of the ways that anyone can use a Bonus Action is by holding another weapon in the other hand and following the rule for Two-Weapon Fighting. This makes sense. You shouldn't get to make another attack for free simply because you are holding another weapon. Mostly, it should require another action to do so -- but, if you meet the specific requirements set forth in the rule for Two-Weapon Fighting then you can use a Bonus Action instead of another Action to make a second attack and by default that second attack is slightly weaker. This all makes sense. The "problem" is that this doesn't scale well because there is an overall rule that you only ever get one Bonus Action. But changing this entire mechanic would be a really big change to the core rules and would most likely be unbalanced.
If you compare the point of advancement on level 5 (ASM = +4):
A level 5 Fighter with a two-handed weapon goes from 2d6 + ASM damage by taking their attack action (average of 11) --> to 4d6 + 2xASM (average of 22)
A level 5 Fighter with two weapons (and TW fighting style) goes from 1d6 + ASM (average of 7.5) --> to 3d6 + 3xASM (average of 22.5)
Both upgrade 2d6 but the TWF starts at only 1d6 compared to the two-handers 2d6 but TWF also gain +1xASM over the two-hander at level 5. I'd say that looks pretty balanced to me. I don't get how you're so hung up on the need to have this cost here. There's already a lot of costs associated with TWF that I listed in the second post of this thread.
And if you're going to say that TWF should include their BA attack as well in the pre-level 5 comparison above, lets pick a Polearm Master against a Dual Wielder (both at ASM = +3 as they picked up a feat):
A level 5 Fighter with a two-handed polearm and the Polearm Master feat goes from 1d10 + ASM AND 1d4 + ASM by taking their attack action + use of bonus action (average of 14) --> to 2d10 + 2xASM and 1d4 + ASM (average of 22.5)
A level 5 Fighter with two weapons, the Two-Weapon Fighting Style and Dual Wielder goes from 1d8 + ASM AND 1d8 + ASM by taking their attack action + use of bonus action (average of 15) --> to 3d8 + 3xASM but no bonus action cost (average of 22.5)
Now the TWF do have a Bonus Action they can freely use for something else. However most other BAs you can use, you have to compare that the PM can exchange for their 1d4 + ASM (average of 5.5 damage) to do instead, and the PM has more reach and a higher damage count per weapon swing. So at maximum the TWF can add 2.5+ASM additional average damage. And we're not considering the Polearm's OA on range entry, nor GWM, nor Sentinel, nor additional attacks adding 1 additional average damage for the PM over the TWF. Nor do we take account for critical strikes which funny enough is the same average damage increase whether it's 3d8 or 2d10 + 1d4 but is to the TWF's favor before level 5 with 1 point of damage on average.
So far I've not seen reason to believe that freeing up the Bonus Action for TWF when they get the Extra Attack feature (or equivalent) is overpowered. It is a change, but that's also why we're here: To make changes to TWF so it becomes more approachable for more builds.
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Actually this is about Two-Weapon Fighting. Building a character for 5e, I was sad to see that two weapon fighting is not very good in 5e (personally I don't recall it being good in 3.5 either but others might enlighten me there).
Between requiring massive investment into a Fighting Style, feats, and magical weapons on top of the cost of other more promising combat feats, the benefits of the dual wielding warrior... generally gets outshone by other more simple and efficient builds.
But what if the Extra Attack feature could stack, specifically once and only when utilizing Two-Weapon Fighting AND when you use your bonus action to perform an off-hand attack? In other words, gaining two instances of Extra Attack (outside Fighter's upgraded version, but still stacking with the base level 5 Fighter Extra Attack feature) grants you two attacks with your main hand and two attacks with your off-hand.
This change would also apply to equivalent benefits that provides extra attacks - think Warlock's Thirsting Blade, Tenser's Transformation's extra attack, etc.
Just for clarity a Level 11 Fighter with their upgraded Extra Attack x2 + an additional instance of Extra Attack from say Level 5 Cleric would result in 3 attacks with main hand and 2 attacks with off-hand - mind you that's a Level 16 Player Character.
Would this be a fair improvement to Two-Weapon Fighting?
"Why the hate on Two-Weapon Fighting?"
Well there's quite a list of issues with the entire mechanic:
Considering the above, I thought a buff wouldn't be in the wrong.
If we try to theorize a build with this change in mind:
This means if you want to invest heavy into this style you could go something like; Two-Weapon Fighting style from Fighter (to add STR mod to off-hand attack damage) going to lvl 5 -> Dual Wielder feat to upgrade light weapons to Longswords and +1 AC -> and then either pick up Paladin for Divine Favor's +1d4 damage per hit and later on getting access to lvl 11 Paladin's Improved Smite for the extra 1d8 radiant damage on hit / or you could pick up Barbarian for the Rage damage modifier.
If we assume a starting point buy of (15 / 10 / 15 / 8 / 10 / 13), starting with Human Variant Fighter and picking up feat Dual Wielder and Two Weapon Fighting Style, we can start out with dual Longswords, and a Chain Mail, hitting for 2d8 + 2x2 damage with an AC of 15. On level 4 we pick up +1 STR and +1 CON to up our ability modifier +3. On level 5 we get the Extra Attack to our main hand. On level 6 we swap to Paladin, picking up Divine Favor for the +1d4 radiant damage on hit, Fighting Style either Blind Fighting or Defense, on PC lvl 8 picking up Oath of Vengeance for the Vow of Enmity for the advantage on all attack rolls against one selected target, on PC lvl 9 we get +2 STR (to 18), on PC lvl 10 we get the second Extra Attack feature.
In combat we use turn 1 casting Divine Favor + using our Channel Divinity on the biggest enemy and zone in on that target. Then each round we strike 4 times with +4 and advantage on attacks for a total of 4d8 + 4x4 slashing damage + 4d4 radiant damage + 3d8 radiant by offering one of our two 2nd level spell slot to Divine Smite; somewhere between 27 - 88 damage with an average of 57 damage. Outside Divine Smite, we're down to 24 - 64, with an average of 44 damage. This assuming we hit all our attacks, which is not likely but with advantage we're somewhere around 75% accuracy so 3 out of 4 attacks hit. We could pop our singular Action Surge for an extra 1d8 + 4 + 1d4.
This is the most potent power spike this build is going to get, save forgoing Paladin and instead pick up Wizard for Spirit Shroud at level 5 and later Tenser's Transformation at level 11 (PC lvl 16) (with a +2 STR on level 8). With Tenser's, attacking with advantage with +5 for 4d8 + 4x5 slashing + 8d12 force damage for between 32 - 148 damage, with an average of 92 damage. Again reducing to 75% accuracy. With our singular Action Surge, that's an additional 1d8 + 5 + 2d12.
In comparison if you pick a level 16 Fighter with Polearm Master and Great Weapon Master, using the Samurai subclass to gain advantage on all attacks in the same turn from the lvl 3 Fighting Spirit and trading one of these advantages for an additional attack with Rapid Strike, we have 4 attacks, 2 with advantage, 2 without - at reach, with 20 STR, 18 CON. Lets utilize GWM for the 2 attacks with advantage but not for the two without. The damage could look something like 4d10 + 4x5 + 2x10 for dealing between 44 - 80, with an average of 62 damage. Pop an Action Surge for an additional +1d10 + 5 + 10.
We can pop Fighting Spirit 3 times per long rest, or we can utilize Rapid Strike by getting advantage through flanking.
If we instead pick up 3 levels of Ranger for Horizon Walker's Planar Warrior, we can use our bonus action to turn one hit into force damage and add 1d8 force damage. If we're using our bonus action to change damage type to a type that usually isn't damage resisted, we would rather want the Battle Master subclass for Fighter to utilize the Superiority Dice as a fail safe when using GWM, adding the d10 superiority die to the attack roll if we think it might change a miss into a hit.
So we would have 3 attacks, one amped to force damage and here we can more easily apply GWM with the superiority die as a fail safe. Dealing 1d10 + 5 + 10 + 1d8 force damage + 2d10 + 2x5 + 2x10 slashing, between 34 - 83 damage, with an average 66 damage.
And this build don't need to utilize a limited ressource, when dealing with mobs with poor AC. The Superiority die can also be added to damage rolls through the Maneuvers options.
And those are pretty simple Fighter builds. Reminding that these builds would more easily get full benefit from extra actions or Opportunity Attacks - at 10 ft. reach and bonuses from a magical weapon apply more benefit through the GWM feat as the penalty gets offset.
I would generate another feat and allow that stack with existing feats and (sub)class features. I have in my mind this image of a martial combatant who attacks with both weapons in coordinate combination of strikes. Similar to a boxer or an MMA fighter; using attacks to setup big more power blows or quickly striking so to hit their opponent two, three, or even for times with their attacks. The draft for the feat would look something like this:
Combination Attacker
You are a master of welding a weapon in each hand and have perfected techniques that allow you to attack by using a combination of strikes. You gain the following benefits:
This would stand alone as a feat and does not require, but would benefit from, taking Dual Wielder or the two weapon fighting style. I think is adds in some power to the damage capability for a character that opts to fight with weapons in both hands; making the two weapon combatant have more impact in the game.
My main issue with this fix is that it still hogs your bonus action, which really hurts rangers who should arguably be the ideal dual wielders.
I do agree that TWF is a trap in 5e, especially in later levels where you hit a pretty low damage ceiling with GWM/Sharpshooters passing you with flying colors.
My own houserules for this:
It's not perfect, but it goes a long way towards closing the gap.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
I have a similar image about how two weapon warriors would function. I feel like a lot of the mechanical design space that could work well for Two-Weapon Fighting, is actually already included in the Fighter's Battlemaster's Maneuver abilities, like feint, disarm, moving the opponent, etc. I really don't want to devalue that subclass's features, so that's not really a good path. At the very least it needs to be heavily limited in potential overlap.
However I don't think making a Great Weapon Master/Sharpshooter -esque feat for TWF is a good approach, as it would just overshadow GWM because it could apply to +1 weapon attack with its flat bonuses. There's already a feat and a Fighting style dedicated to improve TWF damage, so in my eyes it would be dangerous (read trap) to put "fixes" to TWF in additional investments. At least if you are mainly considering damage. You either end up giving too much benefit to the point where it becomes much better than other combat styles or you end up having to invest too much just for the build to function on par or somewhat superior to other builds - in the end being worse off than a simple two-handed, sword-and-board or single hand wielding (to off-hand magic, thrown weapons, or just to get Dueling fighting style) build.
Ideally you could add bonuses/changes to existing mechanics like the Two-Weapon Fighting style or the Dual Wielder feat, although that just increases the early game disparity where TWF is generally slightly better than any other combat style.
That's why I looked at the stacking of the Extra Attack feature because it would lock it behind, at minimum, a PC level 10.
I agree wholeheartedly with the dual draw/stow simultaneous houserule. It just makes it on par with a sword-and-board combat style.
Removing the bonus action as a cost to use the "off-hand" weapon is a significant buff that boosts the early game advantage even more. I think that might be a bit much. I could stand behind it if it was a benefit to gain the Extra Attack feature. Basically once you attain the Extra Attack feature, you have mastered weapon technique enough that the off-hand attack can just be included in the attack action without costing your bonus action. Delaying the benefit to at least PC level 5.
To me, the Light Weapon Master feat would basically replace Dual Wielder, which is not necessarily a major loss. The draw/stow part of the feat is already superfluous as many DMs seems to agree with your first houserule on TWF. The main benefit of DW is generally replacing the 2d6 weapons with 2d8 weapons or in other terms; replacing an average of 7 on damage rolls for an average of 9, so +2 on damage rolls. One of the other benefits is improving your ability to utilize looted magic items by not restricting yourself to light weapons.
Additionally the introduction of LWM would basically just be a GWM/SS equivalent, slightly detracting from their respective design spaces, even though the damage modifier is different (on average +7.35 damage, accounting critical hits).
The combat utility provided is slightly interesting with the draw/stow, simply because you can keep one hand free (for instance to spellcast), draw the weapon as part of the attack and then stow as part of the movement action. Although this also kinda detracts from the War Caster feat, so I'm not loving how much it overlaps with other feats.
The concealment thing is a neat but very very niche feature.
If anything I would improve upon the Dual Wielder feat rather than making a new feat. At least for one that is mainly aimed at improving damage. One of the problems with TWF is the amount of investment needed to make it function well.
As for the TWF caster, that seems like a lot of help to give them. And again devalue to the War Caster feat, which I believe is folly. War Caster should have a place, especially for TWF, but TWF itself should just be more worthwhile and not as investment heavy.
I think I would enjoy playing a TWF build with you Scatter, but from a holistic view I think we can find a better approach to fix TWF.
--------
So how about the following:
* I want to make sure that Haste and Polearm Master's bonus action attack with the foot-end doesn't cause confusion and make people believe they have "unlocked" bonus action free TWF through any other means than Extra Attack, Thirsting Blade, or Tenser's Transformation (I'm not aware if there are other effects that grant additional attacks and not additional actions - like Haste) - it would be so much easier if Thirsting Blade and Tenser's would simply say that you gain the Extra Attack feature. If you have a more elegant way to phrase it, please share it. Simply naming the three abilities above would limit the list to those three, which is why I seek a broader description that encompasses the Extra attack feature mechanic.
This change frees up the bonus action for TWF from PC level 5. Until then you have to choose between hex/hunter's mark/similar BA or an off-hand attack. It also adds some later additional value to Dual Wielder locked behind the bonus action (and weapon proficiency) - so if you don't have anything else/better to use your bonus action on you can trade it for advantage on one attack roll. At first I thought to make it grant +1 weapon attack on the off-hand (so +2 with the TWF free bonus attack) and locked behind proficiency +5 (PC lvl 13) and the Extra attack feature, but that felt like a bit too much value, especially paired with on-hit modifiers like Rage/Hunter's Mark/Hex - even though that is what I initially advocated for in the OP through multiclassing and picking up multiple Extra Attack features.
I may still consider a new feat for TWF that primarily helps the Fighter, because they gain so many feats/attribute increases but the list of feats that work with TWF is rather limited. The intend is mainly to add some utility or late game scaling.
Ideas for a new feat that primarily helps Two-Weapon Fighting:
The first suggestion is basically trading your attack proficiency to damage proficiency. It mainly matters later on when your proficiency bonus is higher, but it can add some additional benefit up through leveling. The trade off is half as good as that of Great Weapon Master, but it has the added flexibility that makes you choose the amount of your hubris. This is not limited to TWF but I would like to put such a benefit on a feat with other TWF exclusive benefits, so it can be picked up by others but TWF users gain the full benefit.
The second one is mainly to aid Fighters that gain a vast amount of feats/attribute increases, so we add in 0-3 from the Dexterity (or occasionally Strength) modifier. Usually you don't want to invest in both STR and DEX, so it is a lean-in investment that generally wont be that powerful. It can be utilized by something like a Hexblade-Paladin that uses the Hexblade to primarily use CHA as ASM for attacks but also has a high STR to wear armor. I like the opportunity for other builds to take advantage of the feat's strengths if possible but the primary user should be a TWF character.
The rest is just different ways to slap in some additional attacks or other combat benefit. I don't really see that many other utility aspects that would make sense and be generally useful, other than maybe add proficiency or a bonus to skills like Perform and Intimidation.
I did consider just slapping on Martial Adept (the Combat Maneuver feat) on a TWF exclusive feat with some additional TWF benefits to get that feeling that a two blade warrior has potentially better opportunities to influence the space between themselves and their enemy. It could be a limited portion of the Combat Maneuvers that is made available through this feat with perhaps higher up-time than Martial Adept with its single d6 Superiority Die and two learned Maneuvers.
If you would humor me, I was thinking something like putting in the list: Disarming Attack, Distracting Strike, Feinting Strike, Parry, and Riposte with 3 d0 Superiority Dice. Basically you get no bonuses from the die, but you get the maneuvers. You learn maneuvers equal to your proficiency bonus when selecting the feat and whenever you gain a level you may choose to exchange one maneuver out for another and if your proficiency bonus goes up, you may learn one additional maneuver, although there is only 5 on the list, with +6 being max proficiency bonus.
I did judge against putting it up there, again because it felt like a cheapening of the Battle Master subclass and by extension also the Martial Adept feat. Although it would be so sweet to include for TWF.
If you have any ideas for bulletins for a TWF feat or if you have feedback for any of the suggestions put forward, please share.
The current Fighting Style and Duel Wielder Feat is too limiting and doesn't provide that much benefit (or at least at an easy cost) to the melee combatants that would utilize the two weapon fighting.
For example, Duel Wielder is more of a buff than an improvement in damage output. While the text justifies that the weapon damage can increase to a d8 variety, the two weapon fighting combatants that are DEX based do not see an increased of options with this (rapier being the only d8 option), and STR base attackers benefit at 4th level with the two 4.5 attacks but that eventually begins to favor the two handed weapon combatant once they gain the Multiattack feature. So the choice of the fighting style for the Fighter, Paladin, and Ranger now is the difference maker. Taking the Two Weapon Fighting style does have the advantage when you can add your modifier on your BA attack (or with a Barbarian the Rage bonus on the BA); but the Great Weapon Master feat is just too much of an improvement and really diminishes the benefit of being able to increase your potential damage per weapon by one higher die value.
The most useful benefit of the Duel Wielder is the +1 AC you get. But a STR based player can see an different advantage in still using a shield and looking to benefit from Shield Master. The shield is a +2 AC and this Feat offers more buff overall. Still, if the player considers the +1 AC is good enough and takes the Two Weapon Fighting style (or in the case of a Rogue has to burn a ASI/Feat to gain it) then they still need to use a BA for an extra attack to get the full benefit of two weapon fighting.
This last point is the primary factor I wanted to address. There are several class builds that require their BA for other impactful acts during encounters, and while I didn't want to eliminate using an extra attack with a BA, at high levels I feel it is too much of a trade off to have to lose that potential damage in combat due to not having the BA always available. I also didn't want to rewrite Duel Wielder: I think having stacking feats is good but I wanted to also leave it so there isn't a dependency on each other.
So I went with the -5/+10 as a basis. I like this rule as it helps move the game along because you can have a high damage output and not have to roll extra die. But I do believe it should come with a cost hence why I am proposing another feat. The other reason I wanted to propose this feat this way is because there are characters that cannot benefit from the Great Weapon Master Feat due to the fact their size prevents full proficiency with heavy weapons or their class does not grant the proficiency at all. This proposed feat allows for a melee combatant who's build is optimal for the standard/versatile weapons or finesse weapons to increase their damage output in an encounter.
That said, you do raise a good point about it overshadowing the Great Weapon Master. For most classes, the extra attack on the BA (when taken) does out perform having less attacks with more powerful two handed weapons. Even if this proposed feat doesn't mandate the BA to be used in each round, I don't think there is a guarantee that the average frequency in using the BA won't surpass the two weapon fighting damage output. So I would propose the following tweaks
1) Limit the -5/+10 to only one attack per round.
2) Caveat that one of the weapons must have the light property.
I like the idea of being able to do one attack where the target is hit with a flurry of blows by both weapons and using the -5/+10 is the most efficient way to do this. It limits die rolls and extra bonuses from weapons with unique properties. It also doesn't mandate the use of the BA every turn, which I think is important, but also doesn't eliminate or alter its use in the game. The proposed feat still allows for its use (and if taken right after a hit grants the bonus to the attack). I also give a generous crit bonus but I feel it is still less than what Great Weapon Master offers. And with a new feat, Duel Wielder and the Two Weapon Fighting style still have a place; but neither are a mandatory build. I see this gives options for a variety of builds and could inspire more characters investing in wielding two weapons in combat.
Any changes you make need to keep in mind the build/classes that already make excellent use of the rule as-is, and make sure what you're proposing doesn't send them into the stratosphere of OPness.
Take, for example, a Bladesinger. Your Changes would allow them to Attack twice normally, and then make 2 offhand attacks. On the surface that's already not a great idea, since the TWFing bladesinger with an upcast shadow blade is already pretty remarkable damage. Attack once, attacking with your scimitar, then again substituting it for a Booming Blade with your Scimitar. Then two offhand attacks dealing massive 2d8/3d8/4d8 etc damage per attack from the shadowblade.... twice.
That is at a first glance because it is actually significantly worse than that. Why? Because you actually only need to attack once with the booming bladed scimitar to be eligible for the shadowblade offhand. So, the 2nd extra attack can also be the shadowblade. This means you're attacking for d6+mods+xd8s from scimitar/boom, but then plus xd8+mods shadow blade and then two more xd8 shadowblades.
It is a kinda absurd amount of damage output. Let's look at an 18 dex L6 bladesinger casting it a L3 slot. Damage for the round is: 1d6+10d8+8(+2d8maybe), average of 56.5 (maybe 65.5).
This is too high. It was already really high, this just makes it silly high.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
@Ravnodaus Without a quote or a more specific reference, I will assume you are commenting on the OP and not subsequent posts.
First off I would like to say that I generally agreed that gaining an extra attack is maybe not the best way to improve Two Weapon Fighting as a whole. The other posts reflect these suggestions from me and others.
Secondly I would like to cement that the OP was suggesting that stacking Extra Attack features would specifically give you two attacks with each weapon in each of your hands - as in 2x left hand, 2x right hand. Thus you cannot stack 3x left hand and 1x right hand. The bladesinger's ability to exchange one attack for a cantrip (like Booming Blade) could introduce some creative rule abusing, but the OP clearly states what I wanted to happen. The actual rule lingo would have to be ironed out. (Post scriptum: I forgot that Booming Blade has a M cost of a weapon worth at least 1 sp, so no abuse is possible with Shadow Blade.)
The proposition you put up is thus limited to a lvl 11 character (you need 6th level wizard for Bladesinging's Extra attack feature and a 5th level class that grants Extra Attack) and it would result in 2x weapon attacks with the Shadow Blade and 2x weapon attacks with another weapon. So you gain +1 attack with your non-Shadow Blade weapon, with the suggestion in the OP.
Lets assume you're going 6 levels in Wizard - Bladesinging and 5 levels in Fighter. You pick up Two Weapon fighting style from Fighter and pump your Dex with your 2x ASI to 18 and upcast Shadow Blade at 3th level.
You can deal up to 2x 3d8 + 4 and 1x 1d6 + 4 + 2d8 and 1x 1d6 + 4 for an average of 59 damage with an assumed 100% accuracy.
Lets compare to a d10 two-handed weapon Fighter - Samurai at level 11. We pick up 2x ASI in STR for 18 and GWM, utilizing our BA for Samurai's Fighting Spirit to gain advantage on attacks to offset the -5 on GWM.
You can deal up to 3x 1d10 + 4 + 10 for an average of 58.5 damage with an assumed 100% accuracy.
We could also compare to a lvl 11 Wizard upcasting Fireball at 6th level for 11d6 fire damage or 38.5 average AoE damage or casting Disintegrate for 10d6 + 40 or 75 average force damage.
I believe once we get around that level, many builds have already popped off, so I don't think it is bonkers. But again, maybe the proposed suggestion in the OP is not the right way to go about it, but neither does it appear as an outlier.
Please do have a look at some of the other suggestions if you want, I would love some feedback.
1. The way two weapon fighting works is you if you make an attack with a light weapon as your action, you can use a bonus action to attack with a different light weapon in the other hand. The proposal to add an extra attack to this bonus action would allow the same attack but twice, as a bonus action. If not, please provide some wording as to what you mean.
2. In current rules a Bladesinger can Booming Blade with Scimitar, then attack with Shadowblade, as his action. Then from TWF attack again with the shadowblade because it IS a different light weapon from the Scimitar he attacked with. So BoomScimitar x1, SB x2.
3. Adding that extra attack bonus attack just ups the number of shadowblade attacks he'd make. So BoomScimitar x1, SB x3.
4. We're talking just level 6 when they first get Extra Attack. IDK what level 11 has to do with anything. Because Extra Attack doesn't stack.
5. Not all tables disallow Booming Blade/GFB and Shadowblade to funtion together. There is a perfectly valid arguement that a summoned object from a 2nd level+ spell is worth 1sp.
6. The point in #5 isn't important because when you booming blade with the Scimitar, the Shadowblade is now a "different light weapon in your other hand". Whether your table allows a booming shadow blade or not has exactly 0 material effect on the damage you deal. Compare: Booming SB 3d8+4+1d8, then SB 3d8+4, BA 1d6 Scimitar. VS Booming Scimitar 1d6+4+1d8, then SB 3d8+4, BA SB 3d8. Totals: 1d6+8+7d8 VS 1d6+8+7d8. It is the same.
7. 1d6+8+7d8 is already fantastic melee damage at Level 6, and adding another 3d8+ to it seems reckless and unnecessary.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
A couple rebuttals here:
I should have specified that I later added that both weapons must be light to gain this feature, so compared to a greatsword this would do 2d6+stat+stat versus 2d6+stat. It's a bonus, but not a crazy one. As for the existing early game advantage you speak of, I've never seen it. I don't see anyone dual wield in 5e except for people new to the game (except for rogues who lose nothing for it), regardless of level. As you say, moving it into Extra Attacks would make things more equal damage-wise, but TWF would still be way behind until then due to bonus action expenditure. I hate that this impacts different builds so differently. A fighter often loses practically nothing by giving up his BA, while most ranger builds are expected to be using their BA for spells or a subclass feature.
This is a weird exception to have when the two existing feats already "detract from" each other's design spaces just as much, and invalidate all other weapon options by doing so. Having a third equivalent track just opens up more viable options. You gain far more than you lose here, if you are losing anything at all.
Your last clause here outweighs the rest IMO. War Caster is already a top-tier feat, and can withstand a bit of devaluing. This should not be a feat tax for TWF. Two-handers don't have to take this to cast. Bow users don't have to take this to cast. Clerics and paladins are explicitly given a loophole for it for the same reason that I'm doing it - you should not have to take a feat just to get a particular - and very common - character archetype to be able to function.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
@Ravnodaus
I feel like you haven't properly read the OP nor my response (I mean stacking Extra Attacks is literally the title of the thread). I clearly stated that the suggestion in the OP is explicitly to allow the Extra Attack feature (or equivalent) to stack, specifically when utilized with Two-Weapon Fighting, only then and only once. So you definitely need two separate instances of the Extra Attack feature to get this benefit, which is achievable at the earliest at Player Character level 10 multiclassing 5 levels into two classes that have it at 5. Wizard - Bladesinging first acquires the Extra Attack feature at level 6, which is why I used a level 11 character to compare to.
Under this suggestion with two instances of the Extra Attack feature, you can in essence - when using Two-Weapon Fighting - use your Bonus Action to attack twice with each weapon as a result (the stated result here ignores Fighter's ability to stack more attacks and Haste's extra action or anything similar). The actual rule lingo that would make this function under the current ruleset is not my forté, so I just wrote what I wanted to happen and not specifically how the rules should be written to allow/reflect that.
With that in mind you cannot stack your attacks to one hand specifically like you suggest. The rules should disallow this - although in a more elegant way if possible.
The Booming Blade + Shadow Blade combo is only relevant in this case when combined with the Bladesinger's ability to forego one of their weapon attacks to instead cast a Cantrip. Technically this rule is referring to your "main-attack" and not any weapon attack - like one from a bonus action. The way it is worded can make people believe they can exchange a left-hand attack and cast a cantrip-attack (like Booming Blade) with their right-hand. This should clearly not be allowed in the OP's suggestion.
Rightfully a spell cast is not worth gold as you cannot literally trade it. A spell on retainer (like a spell scroll) is another matter because you can trade the scroll. Under normal circumstances the Shadow Blade does not fulfill Booming Blade's material requirement. If people allow this, it is homebrew and then nothing is a limit. Either way the rules for the OP's suggestion should just disallow the creative exchange in the first place, then it wont functionally matter for this particular case.
And just so we're not talking past each other, if your further replies doesn't reflect that you've read my post, then I'll refrain from replying further. No offense, but that is not constructive in any fashion. Of course you're welcome to ask me to elaborate on any particular statement if it is unclear.
It took me a while to figure out what you are trying to do here but I think I get it now and I kind of like it.
It sounds like the main "problem" that you have with two-weapon fighting is that it requires the Bonus Action to be able to make one attack with the off-hand, thus limiting how many such off-hand attacks can be made to one. The proposed improvement is that if you somehow gain a 2nd instance of the Level 5 Extra Attack (most likely through multi-classing) then you should be allowed to use one instance of Extra Attack with your main hand as normal, and then when you use the Bonus Action to attack with your off-hand you propose the ability to be able to then use a separate instance of Extra Attack for the off-hand at that time so that you end up with two off-hand attacks instead of one.
I think this is pretty good actually since that character wouldn't be getting the improved Level 11 version of Extra Attack until at least Level 16 anyway and they never get the Level 20 version due to multiclassing. They also can never get to the Level 11 version with both instances.
Perhaps something like this could be added to a Feat that such a character is likely to pick up along the way anyway -- or add this as an option for such a feat where they would give up a feature normally given by that feat in exchange. Or perhaps the Two-Weapon Fighting fighting style itself can be tweaked to add this as an option -- for example, you can add the ability modifier OR you can apply a 2nd instance of Extra Attack. Lots of potential homebrew ways to tweak something to get the right balance with this idea.
Okay... but that's just reason to avoid the Dual Wielder feat as it suddenly has the tacked on disadvantage that it costs your bonus action to use non-light weapons. Personally I find it more reasonable to remove the bonus action cost from TWF when you gain the Extra Attack feature - which everyone who would reasonably care about TWF should be able to attain.
The early game advantages to TWF is to get 2d6 + 2x ASM (with TWF style) compared to a singular 2d6 + 1x ASM or in terms of a lvl 2 ranger 1d10 (or 2d6/1d12 with 2-hander melee) + ASM + 1d6 (from Hunter's Mark). Do however account that Hunter's Mark is a spell cast, so while the Ranger does that turn 1, the TWF can hit someone in the face. Hunter's mark is not particularly good early on before you get the Extra Attack feature or another way to add more weapon attacks. And a level 1 character can relatively easily get 16 in a stat (with point-buy + racial feature) to make their ASM a +3. That's 2d6 + 6 for an average of 13 damage against 2d6 + 3 for an average of 10 or 2d6 + 3 + 1d6 for an average of 13,5 (last one on turn 2 from Ranger lvl 2+)
GWM and SS are separated to work specifically for ranged and melee with extra benefits that only or primarily makes sense for their range of influence. GWM and the LWM both accounts for melee weapons. They share a larger overlap in design space, which is why I think just making a light weapon version of GWM is not a good idea. It doesn't differentiate going two weapons compared to one big weapon. I believe it is better to find alternative ways to assist the damage of TWF and provide some additional utility tools - like for instance being able to riposte (make a weapon attack) by using a bonus action or reaction when an enemy misses an attack against you within melee range. I believe the Fighter TWF is the least potent of any TWF build, which is why adding more feats/investment options would not be a bad thing, but TWF itself should still be worthwhile for other builds - therefore I believe you cannot fix TWF through additional feats alone as not many build paths can afford to use ASIs on feats to fix the build - but the Fighter can to bump up their relevancy especially on later levels.
I may be biased from my play group, but there War Caster is not particularly well liked.
Advantage to maintaining concentration either means you're in melee and doing spell casting wrong OR you're a cleric/paladin who has some benefit from concentration buffs (usually not that major) but they also have the high AC to avoid hits and the CON stat to clear their saves most of the time OR you got hit somewhere in the back by something your frontline couldn't soak for you. If you're a ranged spellcaster and need help maintaining concentration, go for the Resilient feat instead - the next two bulletins don't usually grant you much benefit.
The somatic component skip is mostly ignored by many builds, either because they already have a hand free (two-hander weapons have a hand free) or they utilize Focus shenanigans to ignore the somatic component as long as there is a material component to the spell. Or people use a draw/stow if it is really crucial to do that spell cast - most of the time only affecting the ability to do an opportunity attack (with a weapon that is).
The spell cast as opportunity attack is again mostly relevant for melee spellcasters with touch/weapon attack spells/non-attack spells (or they cast with disadvantage to hit due to being in melee range) and opportunity attacks happens rarely enough that this is a hard sell to be the main driver for the feat.
The occasions where I find War Caster as a good tool is with Wizard - Bladesinging, Warlock - Hexblade, Fighter - Eldritch Knight and technically TWF casters (if they were good). Bladesingers are melee spell casters that don't necessarily have the CON to maintain concentration (although they gain their INT as a bonus to saves to maintain), so the advantage is very useful with something like Spirit Shroud, Greater Invisibility or Tenser's Transformation. The somatic component thing is generally not that useful but it makes it possible to side-wield a wand or other utility item. Mainly TWF casters benefit from this. The opportunity attack works great with stuff like Booming Blade. These builds checks off at least two of the three boxes with the third not entirely wasted, whereas most others only have one they care about.
That's just how my play group view War Caster.
Yeah I'm not following. The title says that it is about extra attack stacking but to wait. Then your very first sentence is this is actually just about two weapon fighting.
If extra attack could stack it just incentives/forces martial classes to multiclass. And that has nothing to do with bonus actions. So why is it then relevant to a convo about two weapon fighting?
Could you write out your proposal for what this alternative rule should say? That's probably the more straightforward way to know what it is you're proposing, if you just write it down. Even if it is just a rough draft.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
I think the proposal is just to be able to use your second instance of Extra Attack on your off-hand weapon when you use your Bonus Action to attack with that off-hand weapon (when utilizing the two-weapon fighting rule from Chapter 9). This would give certain multiclass characters' one additional off-hand attack at around the same time that a single classed Fighter would pick up a 3rd main hand attack anyway.
I think that the cleanest way to do this if we wanted to actually modify the rule book would be to change the paragraph that relates to Extra Attack in Chapter 6:
The wording would have to be cleaned up but you get the idea.
It may be a little confusing. Your first post seemed to respond to the OP's suggestion to let Extra Attack stack, which was my initial idea. Since then I've recanted that that may not be the best way to improve on TWF, thus I started looking at freeing up the bonus action like Scatterbraind mentioned. And instead of their homebrew to remove the bonus action expenditure (when using only light weapons, later clarification) when using TWF, I suggested to remove the Bonus Action expenditure using TWF when you get the Extra Attack feature.
So that's two completely different suggestions and ways to go about improving on TWF. Thus the OP's suggestion to let the Extra Attack feature stack (again explicitly when used with TWF and explicitly when using your bonus action to make that attack) has nothing to do with freeing up the bonus action.
Like I said it's not my forté to write the rule text and English is not my first language, so there may be unintended confusion. I see up2ng has made an attempt which is not bad as a baseline but it does still allow you to stack attacks on one of your hands. My intention was that a character with 2x Extra Attack features and using TWF would get 2x weapon attacks with their left hand and 2x weapon attacks with their right hand. The rule text that up2ng has made technically allows you to do a "main-attack" with your right-hand weapon and then use a bonus action to attack twice with your other weapon (your left-hand weapon) and then you can use your second "main-attack" to attack with your left-hand weapon again. Thus achieving 3x attacks with your left-hand weapon and only 1x attack with your right-hand.
If I were to give it a shot, I would likely put the exception under the Two-Weapon Fighting ruleset under Chapter 9, because Two-Weapon Fighting is more specific than the Extra Attack feature. Basically I don't want people who read the Extra Attack feature to worry about an exception for Two-Weapon Fighting.
"If you have two instances of features or abilities that grant extra attacks when taking the Attack action, like the Extra Attack feature, Warlock's eldritch invocation Thirsting Blade, Tenser's Transformation, etc. you can instead use your bonus action to attack twice with the weapon in your other hand when using Two-Weapon Fighting unless you have already attacked with that weapon during this Attack action. You cannot attack with that weapon further during this Attack action. You ignore these limitations if you make or made attacks with that weapon during a separate action - like the additional action gained from the Haste spell."
It's not as elegantly put as I would like, but it should get the job done. The limit that you cannot attack further nor use the clause if you have already attacked with that weapon (the off-hand weapon) is only there to secure that you cannot skew your number of weapon attacks to favor one hand (otherwise it would functionally just add +1 weapon attack). And I had to put in the clarification that if you have additional actions - like from Haste - then you're not limited on the off-hand because it is a different action than the one where you used TWF.
Again I would like to point out that I don't think this change is necessarily the best way to improve on TWF where it matters the most, but neither is it egregiously strong. With the change it is more likely that you would see dual wielding Paladins, Warlocks (Hexblade), Barbarians, Wizards (Bladesinging) and possibly Fighters. However I would rather want to look at freeing up the Bonus Action and possibly make some additional feats that benefit TWF's scaling in PC lvl 10+ - potentially using the now freed up Bonus Action. The additional feats would be especially helpful for a TWF Fighter who has the ability to pick up many feats and ASIs compared to many other classes but lacks the damage that a GWM build would have.
Oh wow, I didn't realize that you had changed your mind away from your own OP suggestion. Why?? The original idea for being allowed to use an additional instance of Extra Attack for an off-hand weapon is a good one. Any idea that involves allowing additional attacks via two-weapon fighting that does NOT require the use of the Bonus Action is a MUCH less good idea in my opinion. Two-Weapon Fighting provides an additional attack -- that should cost you something . . . like a Bonus Action.
So what? Why attempt to micro-manage the player actions beyond this? The overall design of 5e is all about simplifying such rules while allowing for balanced options that the players can choose between. We all acknowledge that the current 5e rules for Two-Weapon Fighting is unbalanced in the sense that it is far too weak when compared to many other available options. This above solution "fixes" that by adding an additional attack under certain circumstances. There's not a very good reason for it to be more complicated than that, assuming that this fix is well balanced.
Same sort of criticism here -- all of this is unnecessarily complicated. Don't worry so much about micro-managing exactly what a player can do and how they can do it -- provide options and just make sure that nothing is too overpowered.
Also, the premise here is incorrect. Extra Attack is the specific feature. Two-Weapon Fighting is the general rule. You were thinking of that backwards.
At least you didn't make the mistake here of trying to get away from requiring the use of the Bonus Action. Doing so doesn't make sense. At the most basic level in combat you use an Action to make an attack. Now you've used your action. But if you have some way to use a Bonus Action then you could also do that. One of the ways that anyone can use a Bonus Action is by holding another weapon in the other hand and following the rule for Two-Weapon Fighting. This makes sense. You shouldn't get to make another attack for free simply because you are holding another weapon. Mostly, it should require another action to do so -- but, if you meet the specific requirements set forth in the rule for Two-Weapon Fighting then you can use a Bonus Action instead of another Action to make a second attack and by default that second attack is slightly weaker. This all makes sense. The "problem" is that this doesn't scale well because there is an overall rule that you only ever get one Bonus Action. But changing this entire mechanic would be a really big change to the core rules and would most likely be unbalanced.
The reason I moved away from it is three-fold:
Like Ravnodaus cleverly pointed out, the Shadow Blade spell grants you a 2d8 Psychic damage Scimitar with the Light property and upcasting at lvl 3-4 = +1d8 or lvl 5-6 = +2d8. If your PC level 11 with 6 levels into Wizard - Bladesinging and 5 levels into Fighter; without limits on the extra attacks you can get 3x attacks with the Shadow Blade and 1x attacks with a random light weapon of relatively unimportant quality.
With a lvl 3 spell slot Shadow Blade for 3d8 damage with ability score modifier +4, that's 3x ( 3d8 + 4 ASM ) and 1x ( 1d6 + 4 ASM ) for an average of 59 damage. In comparison a GWM with 3x attacks that all hit (way bigger if than the Shadow Blade) deals 61 damage on average.
Basically any on-hit effects gets so much more mileage out of this change than other builds, which is why I believe there must be better ways to even that out across different builds while lifting TWF as a whole, especially in the later stages, like PC lvl 10+.
As for the cost: it doesn't "cost" a two-hander melee build when at level 5 they go from 1 weapon attack to 2 weapon attacks. They get full benefit for their entire 2d6 or 1d10 or 1d12 damage die. TWF doesn't get the same, they get 1d6 (or with investment into Dual Wielder 1d8). That's a disparity. Now TWF does get an early benefit before level 5 over a two-handed weapon. They get two weapon attacks with a higher chance to make some hits and do some damage, but particularly with the TW fighting style, you see a small damage advantage for TWF. However as soon as we hit level 5, that damage advantage is gone and overtaken by the two-hander (and it only gets worse). At this point TWF is behind and we're taxed with a bonus action cost.
To help evening it out I believe freeing up the bonus action with the Extra Attack feature (or equivalent) is a good proposition. The bonus action can and is being used by many class features for various purposes. This prevents TWF from pushing you away from classes that utilize their bonus action. And for classes that don't already have a bonus action, new feats could (and probably should) be added that further helps TWF scale into the late-game. And we have a nifty bonus action to throw down that well if desired, that particularly helps those builds (primarily thinking TWF Fighter).
Refer to point 2 above. Also from a flavor perspective it makes more sense that a person can make two separate attacks with two separate weapons than three attacks with one weapon and one attack with the other weapon. Sometimes simplicity or more precisely leniency makes balancing difficult. Imagine if Wizard's Arcane Recovery could refresh 6th+ level spell slots. Limits makes sense in certain situations. Here the limits has to be a bit more extensive because the general rules are lax.
And it's explicitly to avoid things getting overpowered that I found the need to limit the way you can do these attacks to be important.
I understand if it was confusing, from a rulebook perspective you're right. From a user/reader perspective Two-Weapon Fighting is more niche compared to Extra Attack, so exceptions to Two-Weapon Fighting's ruleset would make more sense under the rules for Two-Weapon Fighting. Additionally I would have wanted the change in the OP to apply to any sort of feature or ability that grants extra attacks when taking the Attack action. Hereunder including Thirsting Blade and Tenser's Transformation. Putting the exception under Two-Weapon Fighting covers that spectrum broadly while putting it under the Extra Attack feature would force you to do similar to Thirsting Blade and Tenser's Transformation.
If you compare the point of advancement on level 5 (ASM = +4):
A level 5 Fighter with a two-handed weapon goes from 2d6 + ASM damage by taking their attack action (average of 11) --> to 4d6 + 2xASM (average of 22)
A level 5 Fighter with two weapons (and TW fighting style) goes from 1d6 + ASM (average of 7.5) --> to 3d6 + 3xASM (average of 22.5)
Both upgrade 2d6 but the TWF starts at only 1d6 compared to the two-handers 2d6 but TWF also gain +1xASM over the two-hander at level 5. I'd say that looks pretty balanced to me. I don't get how you're so hung up on the need to have this cost here. There's already a lot of costs associated with TWF that I listed in the second post of this thread.
And if you're going to say that TWF should include their BA attack as well in the pre-level 5 comparison above, lets pick a Polearm Master against a Dual Wielder (both at ASM = +3 as they picked up a feat):
A level 5 Fighter with a two-handed polearm and the Polearm Master feat goes from 1d10 + ASM AND 1d4 + ASM by taking their attack action + use of bonus action (average of 14) --> to 2d10 + 2xASM and 1d4 + ASM (average of 22.5)
A level 5 Fighter with two weapons, the Two-Weapon Fighting Style and Dual Wielder goes from 1d8 + ASM AND 1d8 + ASM by taking their attack action + use of bonus action (average of 15) --> to 3d8 + 3xASM but no bonus action cost (average of 22.5)
Now the TWF do have a Bonus Action they can freely use for something else. However most other BAs you can use, you have to compare that the PM can exchange for their 1d4 + ASM (average of 5.5 damage) to do instead, and the PM has more reach and a higher damage count per weapon swing. So at maximum the TWF can add 2.5+ASM additional average damage. And we're not considering the Polearm's OA on range entry, nor GWM, nor Sentinel, nor additional attacks adding 1 additional average damage for the PM over the TWF. Nor do we take account for critical strikes which funny enough is the same average damage increase whether it's 3d8 or 2d10 + 1d4 but is to the TWF's favor before level 5 with 1 point of damage on average.
So far I've not seen reason to believe that freeing up the Bonus Action for TWF when they get the Extra Attack feature (or equivalent) is overpowered. It is a change, but that's also why we're here: To make changes to TWF so it becomes more approachable for more builds.