Two weapon Fighting (aka Nick) cannot be used in the manner you described according to Interact with Objects rules:
Interacting with Things. You can interact with one object or feature of the environment for free, during either your move or action. For example, you could open a door during your move as you stride toward a foe . If you want to interact with a second object, you need to take the Utilize action.
You can only interact with an object once. Trying to interact with another object requires an Utilize Action, thus losing your additional attack.
So can make your first attack, drop the weapon and draw your second weapon for the Nick attack. But you can't attack, stow it and draw another weapon and attack with the new weapon. RAI is that you have a weapon in each hand, but nothing in the description expressly requires it.
Equipping and Unequipping Weapons. You can either equip or unequip one weapon when you make an attack as part of this action. You do so either before or after the attack. If you equip a weapon before an attack, you don’t need to use it for that attack. Equipping a weapon includes drawing it from a sheath or picking it up. Unequipping a weapon includes sheathing, stowing, or dropping it.
And yes, it's for every attack, and yes, it's in addition to the free interaction. These have been hashed out ad nauseam in other threads.
(And dropping a weapon is an object interaction, anyway., no different from sheathing it.)
Ad nauseam or not, it's still being debated in this thread. From my perspective 1) you have to use a weapon in each hand (RAI). 2) Even your own quote shows You can't do both in the same action, due to the "or" preposition. But it's only my perspective and I have no desire to debate the point forever.
Attack Action [Revised Rule] The Attack action contains several revisions:
- The action now specifies that it involves an attack with a weapon or an Unarmed Strike. - The action now allows you to equip or unequip one weapon with each attack you make with the action. - The ability to move between attacks during com-at is now a function of the Attack action rather than a general rule.
PS. But yeah, it's still being debated across several threads, even in parallel.
From my perspective 1) you have to use a weapon in each hand (RAI).
That's not RAI, that's a house rule. Neither Light, Nick, TWF or DW has any sort of requirement that you wield the weapons simultaneously.
Why would you change weapons? That is the most illogical thing. If you have a weapon already in the hand, then you use that weapon twice. Not once then use a completely different weapon.
To consider that you can use a weapon, then use a 2nd weapon in the same hand is flat out unethical. It makes no sense you get a single attack. But because you change weapons, you get two attacks. To say this is a game with magic et. al. means there is no logic, is a bigger part of being unethical. There still needs to be certain logic to teh rules, and suspending belief for some does not mean throwing logic out the window.
If using two weapon fighting does not imply two handed, then the logical result is a rulebook probably double or even triple in size to to ensure all intent is included.
If using two weapon fighting does not imply two handed, then the logical result is a rulebook probably double or even triple in size to to ensure all intent is included.
There is no "two weapon fighting" any more, it is called attacking with a Light weapon. And nothing in the phrase "light weapon" implies using two hands nor does anything in its description.
Light
When you take the Attack action on your turn and attack with a Light weapon, you can make one extra attack as a Bonus Action later on the same turn. That extra attack must be made with a different Light weapon, and you don’t add your ability modifier to the extra attack’s damage unless that modifier is negative. For example, you can attack with a Shortsword in one hand and a Dagger in the other using the Attack action and a Bonus Action, but you don’t add your Strength or Dexterity modifier to the damage roll of the Bonus Action unless that modifier is negative.
If using two weapon fighting does not imply two handed, then the logical result is a rulebook probably double or even triple in size to to ensure all intent is included.
There is no "two weapon fighting" any more, it is called attacking with a Light weapon. And nothing in the phrase "light weapon" implies using two hands nor does anything in its description.
Light
When you take the Attack action on your turn and attack with a Light weapon, you can make one extra attack as a Bonus Action later on the same turn. That extra attack must be made with a different Light weapon, and you don’t add your ability modifier to the extra attack’s damage unless that modifier is negative. For example, you can attack with a Shortsword in one hand and a Dagger in the other using the Attack action and a Bonus Action, but you don’t add your Strength or Dexterity modifier to the damage roll of the Bonus Action unless that modifier is negative.
Based on what you quoted this is definitely for 2 hands: ...you can attack with a Shortswordin one handand a Daggerin the other using the Attack action and a Bonus Action,...
Having a single hand get 2 attacks if you use a different weapon vice only one attack if you keep the weapon is utterly without any logic.
Under feats you have dual wielder which can only be interpretated as two handed. To twist it otherwise to a single hand using different weapons makes one appear to be unethical trying to twist the rules for ones personal gain and not for making a better game experience.
EDIT: The rules are written to prevent from someone trying to use a second attack with one hand. You have twisted that attempt to ensure there are 2 different weapons (one per hand) back into using this one handed.
From my perspective 1) you have to use a weapon in each hand (RAI).
That's not RAI, that's a house rule. Neither Light, Nick, TWF or DW has any sort of requirement that you wield the weapons simultaneously.
To be fair, the names of the fighting style (Two-Weapon Fighting) and the feat (Dual Wielding) at least suggest the intention that that's how they were meant to be used. Doesn't apply to the Light property or the Nick mastery, necessarily.
From my perspective 1) you have to use a weapon in each hand (RAI).
That's not RAI, that's a house rule. Neither Light, Nick, TWF or DW has any sort of requirement that you wield the weapons simultaneously.
To be fair, the names of the fighting style (Two-Weapon Fighting) and the feat (Dual Wielding) at least suggest the intention that that's how they were meant to be used. Doesn't apply to the Light property or the Nick mastery, necessarily.
At the same time, there have been a number of changes to improve inclusiveness. Although changes to overtly remove barriers regarding disabilities have been fewer, it could be that these changes fall under the umbrella of removing mechanical penalties for these characters even if the legacy names were preserved.
From my perspective 1) you have to use a weapon in each hand (RAI).
That's not RAI, that's a house rule. Neither Light, Nick, TWF or DW has any sort of requirement that you wield the weapons simultaneously.
Why would you change weapons? That is the most illogical thing. If you have a weapon already in the hand, then you use that weapon twice. Not once then use a completely different weapon.
To consider that you can use a weapon, then use a 2nd weapon in the same hand is flat out unethical. It makes no sense you get a single attack. But because you change weapons, you get two attacks. To say this is a game with magic et. al. means there is no logic, is a bigger part of being unethical. There still needs to be certain logic to teh rules, and suspending belief for some does not mean throwing logic out the window.
"Unethical" is very much an overreaction. Playing the game in a way the rules allow isn't unethical. Is this particular quirk weird? Sure. Not really what you imagine? Absolutely. Something the DM can shut down at their table if it bugs them? Yes, though if somebody asked me if I'd allow it, I'd be more likely to give them the mechanical effects without the narration.
Most importantly, however, it's not something most people are gonna do in actual play. If you're building a two-weapon fighter, you're not going to go for a shield and stupid weapon-swapping tricks because that doesn't fit with your character concept.
They presumably chose to have permissive weapon-swapping rules in the 24 rules to try to make sure that the scenarios that are likely to come up in actual play are allowed. Kill somebody and draw your bow? Allowed. Take a swing with your sword, discover it's useless against the monster, so you want to put it away and grab a club? Allowed. Want to be a shield-using dagger thrower? Allowed, and you get the light weapon attacks. Stand alone in the entrance fighting off the goblin horde, setting aside your usual weapon when you get an opening to try to thin their numbers with a big sweep of your polearm? Allowed.
It's not possible to allow all the various things people might want that you consider reasonable while stopping those you don't. Permissive rules are always going to have that issue, but it's better to let the PCs do stuff by default, and have the GM intercede against problems, rather than making them ask the GM for permission to exceed the usual limits.
Playing the game in a way the rules allow isn't unethical.
No that is the difference between cheating and not cheating. Unethical is playing by the rules, but exploiting them (e.g. inane loopholes) for your own gain.
Playing the game in a way the rules allow isn't unethical.
No that is the difference between cheating and not cheating. Unethical is playing by the rules, but exploiting them (e.g. inane loopholes) for your own gain.
OK, which of the examples I gave are unethical by your lights?
They presumably chose to have permissive weapon-swapping rules in the 24 rules to try to make sure that the scenarios that are likely to come up in actual play are allowed. Kill somebody and draw your bow? Allowed. Take a swing with your sword, discover it's useless against the monster, so you want to put it away and grab a club? Allowed. Want to be a shield-using dagger thrower? Allowed, and you get the light weapon attacks. Stand alone in the entrance fighting off the goblin horde, setting aside your usual weapon when you get an opening to try to thin their numbers with a big sweep of your polearm? Allowed.
Based on what you quoted this is definitely for 2 hands: ...you can attack with a Shortswordin one handand a Daggerin the other using the Attack action and a Bonus Action,...
No that is an example, not a limitation. You certainly can use two hands but it isn't the only way to satisfy the requirements in the feature.
Under feats you have dual wielder which can only be interpretated as two handed. To twist it otherwise to a single hand using different weapons makes one appear to be unethical trying to twist the rules for ones personal gain and not for making a better game experience.
The Dual Wielder feat in no way requires you to use two different hands. It says that it needs to be two different weapons (the same language that theLight property uses) but makes no mention about different hands or needing to wielded simultaneously (which, again, is just the same as the Light property).
To be fair, the names of the fighting style (Two-Weapon Fighting) and the feat (Dual Wielding) at least suggest the intention that that's how they were meant to be used. Doesn't apply to the Light property or the Nick mastery, necessarily.
Not really. Names of features don't take precedence over the descriptions of the features. It's nothing new that they are sometimes quite poor at naming things, they even had an answer in the 2014 SAC that mentioned that names shouldn't be taken literally.
And also by keeping the same names as the 2014 features they make sure that those features are over-written and replaced in the 2024 rules, at least for "official" play and rules interpretations.
In 2014 Dual Wielding was mostly underpowered because GWM/PAM was a broken combination. Crunch the numbers on the straight weapons and fighting styles- 3d6+15 averages out to 25 damage, 2d8+14 averages out to 23, and 2d12+10 averages out to 23. With the new Dual Wielder combo you can add up to a d8 to the mix for another 9 while PAM gives a whopping d4 for 7. And that's before you mix in elements like Hunter's Mark or in late game dual wielding weapons like Flametongues, plus the simple increase in critical frequency from additional attack rolls per turn.
Yea TWF was under powered and other styles were overpowered. It might well be that they went to far and that the additional attacks you get from the Light property and Dual Wielder makes this overpowered this time round, I'm not really sure. But your arguments are about disagreeing with a design choice and and opinions about balance issues, not about what they rules actually say that they do.
I might note that I don't like the new rule here much at all either. I think that not requiring the weapons to be wielded simultaneously (as they where in 2014) was narratively a bad choice. And while I think that the addition of the Nick property makes for interesting play/choices I'm not much of a fan of the changes to the Dual Wielder feat. I think limiting the "allow a non-light weapon" part to only that features attack was clunky, unintuitive and poor for play. I'm not sure if having it give another additional attack is overpowered or not, it is quite possible that just having Nick free up your Bonus Action had been enough, but I can go either way on that. I would likely had kept the +1 to AC though.
The changes to how you interact with weapons are great though. The 2014 rules were way to restrictive and annoying and the freedom to be able to switch weapons when/how it fits the narrative without having to spend a round or two on the process is fantastic.
"Shields require the Utilize action to Don or Doff"
Unless some other rule changes this, putting on or taking off a shield isnt a free object interaction, it is armor and must be donned/doff where that is the only thing you do for your entire action
Also, if you try to dual wield two light weapons with the nick property AND the two weapon fightijg style and the dual wielding feat to get yourself 3 full attacks on your turn that do full weapon plus abmod damage at level four AND THEN ON TOP OF ALL THAT you wanna hot swap your weapons and shields to claim the +2 ac in between your attack?
"Shields require the Utilize action to Don or Doff"
Unless some other rule changes this, putting on or taking off a shield isnt a free object interaction, it is armor and must be donned/doff where that is the only thing you do for your entire action
Also, if you try to dual wield two light weapons with the nick property AND the two weapon fightijg style and the dual wielding feat to get yourself 3 full attacks on your turn that do full weapon plus abmod damage at level four AND THEN ON TOP OF ALL THAT you wanna hot swap your weapons and shields to claim the +2 ac in between your attack?
I might just ask you to leave my campaign...
Start Turn with Shortsword and Shield.
Attack Action.
Attack with Shortsword
Sheath Shortsword
Equip Scimitar - Dual Wielder (Note that it is not clear whether it is intended that two equips/unequips have to be the same - two equips or two unequips - or if they can be different - one unequip and one equip. If it is not, this uses the Free Object Interaction instead)
Attack with Scimitar - Nick
Bonus Action
Attack with Scimitar (this is a different weapon than the Shortsword
Start next Turn with Scimitar and Shield.
This requires
Weapon Mastery in the Nick Weapon
Using primarily Light Weapons
One level 4+ Feat (as opposed to an Origin Feat)
Two-weapon Fighting Style is optional. That will just add your attribute modifier to your Nick and Dual Wielder attacks.
Thri-kreen can do this without weapon swapping.
With two or more attacks, you can do this with simpler weapon swapping. Let's assume 2 attacks (Some Artificers, Barbarians, College of Valor Bard, Fighter, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Some Warlocks, Bladesinger Wizard)
Attack Action.
Attack with Shortsword
Sheath Shortsword
Attack with Unarmed Strike
Equip Scimitar
Attack with Scimitar - Nick
Bonus Action
Attack with Scimitar (this is a different weapon than the Shortsword
Start next Turn with Scimitar and Shield.
It is completely RAW. You may have your opinions on RAI, but RAW is clear.
I interpret Quick Draw as increasing the number of weapons from 1 to 2 that you can draw or stow. Having said that, one can still wield a Shortsword and Shield and;
Attack with Shortsword and unequip Shortsword [Attack Action]
Equip Scimitar and attack with Scimitar [Nick Mastery]
Also, if you try to dual wield two light weapons with the nick property AND the two weapon fightijg style and the dual wielding feat to get yourself 3 full attacks on your turn that do full weapon plus abmod damage at level four AND THEN ON TOP OF ALL THAT you wanna hot swap your weapons and shields to claim the +2 ac in between your attack?
I might just ask you to leave my campaign...
Start Turn with Shortsword and Shield.
Attack Action.
Attack with Shortsword
Sheath Shortsword
Equip Scimitar - Dual Wielder (Note that it is not clear whether it is intended that two equips/unequips have to be the same - two equips or two unequips - or if they can be different - one unequip and one equip. If it is not, this uses the Free Object Interaction instead)
Attack with Scimitar - Nick
You don't need the sketchy interpretation of DW, nor your free interaction. You get an equip/unequip per attack that's part of your attack action. The nick attack is part of your attack action, therefore you can draw the scimitar as part of it.
It is completely RAW. You may have your opinions on RAI, but RAW is clear.
And, of course, one can say "I don't allow that level of weapon juggling in my game". But asking somebody to leave for wanting to do something in the rules strikes me as excessive. (And, of course, if you are going to house-rule it, you should make it clear what the new boundary is.)
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Ad nauseam or not, it's still being debated in this thread. From my perspective 1) you have to use a weapon in each hand (RAI). 2) Even your own quote shows You can't do both in the same action, due to the "or" preposition. But it's only my perspective and I have no desire to debate the point forever.
MPA, I know you don't want to debate the point, but it's also explained as a change between editions in the Converting to System Reference Document 5.2.1:
PS. But yeah, it's still being debated across several threads, even in parallel.
That's not RAI, that's a house rule. Neither Light, Nick, TWF or DW has any sort of requirement that you wield the weapons simultaneously.
The "or" limitation is per attack, not per action.
Why would you change weapons? That is the most illogical thing. If you have a weapon already in the hand, then you use that weapon twice. Not once then use a completely different weapon.
To consider that you can use a weapon, then use a 2nd weapon in the same hand is flat out unethical. It makes no sense you get a single attack. But because you change weapons, you get two attacks. To say this is a game with magic et. al. means there is no logic, is a bigger part of being unethical. There still needs to be certain logic to teh rules, and suspending belief for some does not mean throwing logic out the window.
If using two weapon fighting does not imply two handed, then the logical result is a rulebook probably double or even triple in size to to ensure all intent is included.
There is no "two weapon fighting" any more, it is called attacking with a Light weapon. And nothing in the phrase "light weapon" implies using two hands nor does anything in its description.
Based on what you quoted this is definitely for 2 hands: ...you can attack with a Shortsword in one hand and a Dagger in the other using the Attack action and a Bonus Action,...
Having a single hand get 2 attacks if you use a different weapon vice only one attack if you keep the weapon is utterly without any logic.
Under feats you have dual wielder which can only be interpretated as two handed. To twist it otherwise to a single hand using different weapons makes one appear to be unethical trying to twist the rules for ones personal gain and not for making a better game experience.
EDIT: The rules are written to prevent from someone trying to use a second attack with one hand. You have twisted that attempt to ensure there are 2 different weapons (one per hand) back into using this one handed.
To be fair, the names of the fighting style (Two-Weapon Fighting) and the feat (Dual Wielding) at least suggest the intention that that's how they were meant to be used. Doesn't apply to the Light property or the Nick mastery, necessarily.
At the same time, there have been a number of changes to improve inclusiveness. Although changes to overtly remove barriers regarding disabilities have been fewer, it could be that these changes fall under the umbrella of removing mechanical penalties for these characters even if the legacy names were preserved.
How to add Tooltips.
My houserulings.
"Unethical" is very much an overreaction. Playing the game in a way the rules allow isn't unethical. Is this particular quirk weird? Sure. Not really what you imagine? Absolutely. Something the DM can shut down at their table if it bugs them? Yes, though if somebody asked me if I'd allow it, I'd be more likely to give them the mechanical effects without the narration.
Most importantly, however, it's not something most people are gonna do in actual play. If you're building a two-weapon fighter, you're not going to go for a shield and stupid weapon-swapping tricks because that doesn't fit with your character concept.
They presumably chose to have permissive weapon-swapping rules in the 24 rules to try to make sure that the scenarios that are likely to come up in actual play are allowed. Kill somebody and draw your bow? Allowed. Take a swing with your sword, discover it's useless against the monster, so you want to put it away and grab a club? Allowed. Want to be a shield-using dagger thrower? Allowed, and you get the light weapon attacks. Stand alone in the entrance fighting off the goblin horde, setting aside your usual weapon when you get an opening to try to thin their numbers with a big sweep of your polearm? Allowed.
It's not possible to allow all the various things people might want that you consider reasonable while stopping those you don't. Permissive rules are always going to have that issue, but it's better to let the PCs do stuff by default, and have the GM intercede against problems, rather than making them ask the GM for permission to exceed the usual limits.
No that is the difference between cheating and not cheating. Unethical is playing by the rules, but exploiting them (e.g. inane loopholes) for your own gain.
OK, which of the examples I gave are unethical by your lights?
No that is an example, not a limitation. You certainly can use two hands but it isn't the only way to satisfy the requirements in the feature.
The Dual Wielder feat in no way requires you to use two different hands. It says that it needs to be two different weapons (the same language that the Light property uses) but makes no mention about different hands or needing to wielded simultaneously (which, again, is just the same as the Light property).
Not really. Names of features don't take precedence over the descriptions of the features. It's nothing new that they are sometimes quite poor at naming things, they even had an answer in the 2014 SAC that mentioned that names shouldn't be taken literally.
And also by keeping the same names as the 2014 features they make sure that those features are over-written and replaced in the 2024 rules, at least for "official" play and rules interpretations.
Yea TWF was under powered and other styles were overpowered. It might well be that they went to far and that the additional attacks you get from the Light property and Dual Wielder makes this overpowered this time round, I'm not really sure. But your arguments are about disagreeing with a design choice and and opinions about balance issues, not about what they rules actually say that they do.
I might note that I don't like the new rule here much at all either. I think that not requiring the weapons to be wielded simultaneously (as they where in 2014) was narratively a bad choice. And while I think that the addition of the Nick property makes for interesting play/choices I'm not much of a fan of the changes to the Dual Wielder feat. I think limiting the "allow a non-light weapon" part to only that features attack was clunky, unintuitive and poor for play. I'm not sure if having it give another additional attack is overpowered or not, it is quite possible that just having Nick free up your Bonus Action had been enough, but I can go either way on that. I would likely had kept the +1 to AC though.
The changes to how you interact with weapons are great though. The 2014 rules were way to restrictive and annoying and the freedom to be able to switch weapons when/how it fits the narrative without having to spend a round or two on the process is fantastic.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/equipment/8-shield
"Shields require the Utilize action to Don or Doff"
Unless some other rule changes this, putting on or taking off a shield isnt a free object interaction, it is armor and must be donned/doff where that is the only thing you do for your entire action
Also, if you try to dual wield two light weapons with the nick property AND the two weapon fightijg style and the dual wielding feat to get yourself 3 full attacks on your turn that do full weapon plus abmod damage at level four AND THEN ON TOP OF ALL THAT you wanna hot swap your weapons and shields to claim the +2 ac in between your attack?
I might just ask you to leave my campaign...
I don't think anyone challenged this.
Start Turn with Shortsword and Shield.
Attack Action.
Bonus Action
Start next Turn with Scimitar and Shield.
This requires
Thri-kreen can do this without weapon swapping.
With two or more attacks, you can do this with simpler weapon swapping. Let's assume 2 attacks (Some Artificers, Barbarians, College of Valor Bard, Fighter, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Some Warlocks, Bladesinger Wizard)
Attack Action.
Bonus Action
Start next Turn with Scimitar and Shield.
It is completely RAW. You may have your opinions on RAI, but RAW is clear.
How to add Tooltips.
My houserulings.
Let me see if I understand your RAW interpretation.
Only using a single hand. If I do not swap out any weapons I get a single attack.
But if I was to swap out a weapon, I now get two attacks.
Is that what RAW states?
I interpret Quick Draw as increasing the number of weapons from 1 to 2 that you can draw or stow. Having said that, one can still wield a Shortsword and Shield and;
You don't need the sketchy interpretation of DW, nor your free interaction. You get an equip/unequip per attack that's part of your attack action. The nick attack is part of your attack action, therefore you can draw the scimitar as part of it.
And, of course, one can say "I don't allow that level of weapon juggling in my game". But asking somebody to leave for wanting to do something in the rules strikes me as excessive. (And, of course, if you are going to house-rule it, you should make it clear what the new boundary is.)