Its correct in that light/nick/2wf/dual wins any comparison cause it gets shields and works with dex and then adding in any per-hit features like huntrrs mark or barbarian rage damage just keeps scaling the difference in damage.
If you add graze, then heavy weapons catch up in damage, but still dont have shields. Which is the focus of the thread.
But also heavy weqpons arent finesse, so you have to max STR, meaning DEX isnt as great, maybe 14 and medium armor or 8 and heavy armor. And then you roll worse in initiative and have worse dex saves than the nick/light/2wf/dual combo that is also finesse and probably dex based.
"You're just really talking about +2 AC."
Again, ir is the point of the thread
It is? But you're skewing the comparison to make it worse. Like, everything you said about the situation would be just as true without this interaction. The TWF guy's AC would just be 2 AC worse. That's it. That doesn't mean no one would do anything else. For one thing, this idea is frickin' stupid and no one but optimizers would enjoy that. Other kinds of players would hate this with such a passion that even if they knew about it, they just wouldn't do it on principle, even if the DM allowed it. It's not true that there wouldn't be a reason to play anything else.
You don't need to walk with a Shield and a Shortsword equipped all day since you can;
Equip Shortsword [Free Item Interaction]
Attack with Shortsword and unequip Shortsword [Attack Action]
Equip Scimitar and attack with Scimitar [Nick Mastery]
Attack with Scimitar [Dual Wielder]
That's why sheathing a weapon should actually be an action (like doffing a shield), since scabbards don't come with funnels.
I disagree that it should be an action to unequip a weapon and think its fine with the Utilize action, your Free Item Interaction or an attack with the Attack action.
I disagree that it should be an action to unequip a weapon and think its fine with the Utilize action, your Free Item Interaction or an attack with the Attack action.
You can disagree, but have you ever sheathed a sword yourself? The only way how to unequip a weapon as a free action, or part as of an attack action should be to simply drop it.
Rules arent physics is helpful to deal with someone who is bending the rules and justifying it based on physics.
This discussion is part "how do i light/nick/2wf/dual to do 4 attacks while holding a shield?" And part "is that not completely unbalanced game mechanics?:
I think folks saying "that is unbalanced" might also refer to physical reality limitations as a means to find a better solution, but i dont think anyone here is simply saying "rule breaks physics, therefore rule bad".
If nothing else, this thread makes it abundantly clear that the rules are so obfuscated that some people are still shocked when they learn this is legal.
A lot of rules are general, and apply to lots situations. Attack rolls, ability checks, saving throws are all generic concepts that apply in lots of different situations. The specifics are which abikity is being used, do uou habr proficiency or not, and so on. Once you understand saving throws in general, you know a chunk of the game.
But light/nick/2wf/dual are all extremely niche, they only kick in during one or two situations, they have seemingly arbitrary features, and when you put these seemingly niche and arbitrary features together, they surprisingly allow a player the highest DPR for a non-magical martial build.
So, the thing to invoke here isnt "rules arent physics". The thing going on here is these rules are crap, they are unbalanced, they are completely unintuitive, they add multiple levels of needless complexity to the game. And it basically allows max dmg of any martial build, max armor class with shield, highest dex for initive and dex saves, and the moment you stack this with hunters marrk or whatever +1d6 per hit spell, its just gonna blow up.
And who is defending these kind of crap rules but power gamers with their thri-kreen builds...
Im pretty sure the designers were trying to get martial characters to catch up with the years of power creep that have gone into magic using builds. Paladin-Warlock builds are just bonkers.
But having a weapon property (light) you purchase, a weapon mastery (nick) that you havr to learn, a fighting style (2 weapon fighting) that you have to gain, and a feat (dual wielding) that you have to unlock and suddenly you have max dpr, highest ac, best initiative, best dex saving throws, and a level 1 spell will add 26 more damage per round?
Is that "character development"??? Because it doesnt feel like character development to me. What it feels like is someone took their character sheet and went Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start.
:"Thri-kreen can use a shield with two weapons. This is because they have 4 arms."
Yes. And everyone who wants to play one, wants it strictly for the roleplay...
Yes. People play thri-kreen because they want to play telepathic bug people. Four arms is part of their deal, just like elves get some freebie magic spells, and humans get a free feat. If they're playing a thri-kreen who's quad-wielding two scimitars, a rapier, and a shield, is that because they're munchkining, or because "swashbuckling mantis pirate" sounded like a cool idea to them? (To be fair, it totallyis a cool idea. I have a heavily-aquatic campaign idea on the back burner and I'm now sad because thri-kreen pirates just don't fit the rest of the world.)
Will people choose species and feats because they enable a specific thing? Sometimes, but it's at least as often going to be "I have this cool-but-janky barbarian/warlock idea, and I need to be a variant human to get the stats up", rather than "if I play a thri-kreen, I can be slightly more effective in combat."
The D&D you talk about, where players are trying to exploit the rules for every mechanical advantage, and the DM must take steps to stop them, well, I'm not going to say it doesn't exist at all, but it's very far out of the norm. Your average D&D player not only is not going to change their character idea to get the most plusses, they would never think of going to the work to figure out what the most plusses are. It's the world of character optimizers, which is a real hobby that people enjoy, but it has little to do with how people, probably including most of the optimizers, actually play. (But if a group wants to go all-out on the character optimization, more power to them. Their fun is not my fun, but their fun is ok.)
Lets assune a ability modifier of 18 at level 5. Thats a +4 damage bump per hit. Will do all calculations at level 5, assuming feat is used for dual wielding or polearm master. Damage is max possible. Multiply by roughly 70% for average dmg per turn. Polerm master adds 1d4+4=6 dmg.
Light/nick/2wf/dual: Scimitars use a d6 × 4 attacks = 30 dmg. Shield, but only because shenanigans.
Single weapon, not light: d8 * 2 attacks =17 dmg + pam = 23. Shield is standard.
Heavy/2 handed: d10 * 2 attacks = 19 dmg plus pam = 25dmg. Shield is impossible.
Light/nick/2wf/dual gives the highest damage per turn, AND lets you use a shield AND gives you 4 attacks per turn, so you are more likely to get at least one hit per turn (which is good for a rogue and sneak attack, or someone just wanting to force a spellcaster to fail a concentration save, by forcing them to make losts of saves.) Someone tell me why play any other combination?
Whoever came up with this really screwed up.
If you're going to try arguing by DPR between different fighting styles, the necessary calculations get a lot more complex. Hit percentage matters when Graze weapons enter the fray. Critical chance has to be factored in once your dice change. Etc. And, of course, you shouldn't be comparing a well-chosen light/nick setup with a less-optimal other weapon setup. (Not to mention the hard-to-calculate intangibles. What's the advantage of reach weapons worth? What about archery? And so on, and so forth.)
And yes, I can't be bothered, but I've seen the calculations done by the people who can be, and the damage numbers are pretty close. Light is not the clear winner. It may not even be the leader. (But, of course, these things aren't consistent across all levels. IIRC, it edges out the others at some points, but not consistently.)
"People play thri-kreen because they want to play telepathic bug people."
Greetings sir. I am prince thri kreen of nigeria. The recent coup has left me stateless. If you would just send me your bank information, i can transfer 23,738,626 dollars american to you...
I don't think this is intended, but as far as I know, there's no rule about having to hold the weapon for a light attack in your other hand, so from my understanding of RAW, you could do this:
Begin with shield and light weapon (say scimitar with nick)
1. Do your main attack
2. Stow your scimitar as a part of that attack
3. Draw, say, a shortsword as a part of the nick attack
4. Attack with the shortsword as a part of the same attack
You don't even need nick, as you can use you Free Object Interaction to draw the weapon, or get Dual Wielder and use that feat's extra weapon stowing, and if you have dual wieldeer you could get 4 attacks at level 5, or 3 attacks at level 4, all with a shield, right?
This feels unintended and a bit overpowered to me, but it could be done, right? Am I missing something?
As far as we can tell, it's intended, or at least the general weapon swapping rules are intended, and this is one consequence of it. And IMO it's not that big a deal, power-wise.
Except for the dual-wielder thing. That lets you draw two, or stow two, but not one of each, which limits your options.
You don't need the dual welder feat. (The feat would be one reason I'd argue against the common and more likely interpretation for drawing/showing weapons)
At least not for drawing/stowing weapons. That portion of the feat doesn't provide a benefit other than letting you draw/stow two weapons at once. But you can draw/stow a weapon with each attack.
"People play thri-kreen because they want to play telepathic bug people."
Greetings sir. I am prince thri kreen of nigeria. The recent coup has left me stateless. If you would just send me your bank information, i can transfer 23,738,626 dollars american to you...
I would have to refer you to build libraries done by our very own Treantmonk and Colby post 2024. They don't just do a bit of basic math at level 5. They putting together full builds and statting them up from level 1 to 20. It is true that a TWF Ranger or Dex Paladin or Fighter does extremely well at Tier 1 and early Tier 2. It's not a clear winner, though, and adding +2 AC doesn't do anything for your DPR.
"People play thri-kreen because they want to play telepathic bug people."
Greetings sir. I am prince thri kreen of nigeria. The recent coup has left me stateless. If you would just send me your bank information, i can transfer 23,738,626 dollars american to you...
I would have to refer you to build libraries done by our very own Treantmonk and Colby post 2024. They don't just do a bit of basic math at level 5. They putting together full builds and statting them up from level 1 to 20. It is true that a TWF Ranger or Dex Paladin or Fighter does extremely well at Tier 1 and early Tier 2. It's not a clear winner, though, and adding +2 AC doesn't do anything for your DPR.
It does mean that everyone should dual wield and use a shield or use a two handed weapon.
It eliminates any reason to use a single sword/shield.
"People play thri-kreen because they want to play telepathic bug people."
Greetings sir. I am prince thri kreen of nigeria. The recent coup has left me stateless. If you would just send me your bank information, i can transfer 23,738,626 dollars american to you...
I would have to refer you to build libraries done by our very own Treantmonk and Colby post 2024. They don't just do a bit of basic math at level 5. They putting together full builds and statting them up from level 1 to 20. It is true that a TWF Ranger or Dex Paladin or Fighter does extremely well at Tier 1 and early Tier 2. It's not a clear winner, though, and adding +2 AC doesn't do anything for your DPR.
It does mean that everyone should dual wield and use a shield or use a two handed weapon.
It eliminates any reason to use a single sword/shield.
I will refer you to what I said earlier. The first is that not everyone is an optimizer. So that alone gives plenty of people reason not to do this. Because it looks and plays stupid.
But really, this IS a sword and shield build. You have a shield and you're just swapping swords. It directly competes with TWF builds where you wield one weapon in each hand.
Ladies and gentlemen, this just in. AC has no effect on dpr, so everyone is getting an AC of 22 because it has no effect on DPR...
Jeebus. In a discussion about game BALANCE, I dont even know what else to say to this.
Well, in this particular discussion, you might want to say what the valuation of defense to offense is or something to that effect. This was notably absent when you put in Nick to make a case for TWF being broken, but didn't mock up similar advantages for competing options. Honestly, I really don't this weapon swapping meta going on at virtually any table I'm seeing or playing on. In fact, this specific thread is the first time I've ever seen anyone seriously advocating for this to be played anywhere, let alone saying that no one would play anything else. Literally, everyone I'm seeing is playing everything else EXCEPT for this.
So you might want to characterize this loophole as exploitable, messy, sloppy, or mildly advantageous. It is absolutely not the mad TWF meta we saw in 2e.
Complaint light/nick/2wf/dual ... "eliminates any reason to use a single sword/shield."
Counter argument: "not everyone is an optimizer"
Hahahahahaha so it IS completely unbalanced as a BUILD, but your argument is it doesnt unbalance the GAME because not everyone will use it?
Maybe a lot of players dont use it because they see it as game breaking? At level 4 you do 3 attacks when anyone who isnt a power gamer is doing 1 attack. And you do the most dpr, have a great ac, have a high initiative bonus, and great dex saves.
As dm theres no way i see that as anything but game breaking. And even the people defending it, are basically defending it with things making me think more and more of "but its what my character would do".
Complaint light/nick/2wf/dual ... "eliminates any reason to use a single sword/shield."
Counter argument: "not everyone is an optimizer"
Hahahahahaha so it IS completely unbalanced as a BUILD, but your argument is it doesnt unbalance the GAME because not everyone will use it?
Maybe a lot of players dont use it because they see it as game breaking? At level 4 you do 3 attacks when anyone who isnt a power gamer is doing 1 attack. And you do the most dpr, have a great ac, have a high initiative bonus, and great dex saves.
As dm theres no way i see that as anything but game breaking. And even the people defending it, are basically defending it with things making me think more and more of "but its what my character would do".
I haven't seen anyone here saying they would do this weapon-swapping nonsense as something their character would do, or even as some kind of iconic fantasy archetype. It's just silly, and I'd just ban it on any table where I'm DM just on that basis. It's the wrong vibe.
I DID NOT even say that it doesn't unbalance the game. Please reread what I've been saying.
I said there are reasons people would choose not to play this, even if they were aware of it.
And frankly, apart from modestly boosting the AC of TWFing builds, it's not game breaking. This ain't Conjure Minor Elementals, friend, and some folks even argue that the original version of that spell also wasn't broken.
"you might want to say what the valuation of defense to offense is or something to that effect"
Dpr is pretry straightforward. Monster ac tracks almost directly with proficiency bonus and other mods so that the overall percent chance to hit is basically the same for all 20 levels. Dpr is linear.
Everything else is exponentially more complex as you level up, and almost impossible to model in a simplw formula. But +2 ac reduces the average damage you take per turn by 10%, thats roughly a +1 to your conmod which adds roughly 10% to your hitpoints.
And light weapons are finnesse weapons meaning you can max out your DEX score, which helps your dex saves. And the most common saves are dex and wis, so from a saving throw perspective, having a high dex save just overall is a much better thing than dumping dex to 8 and using heavy weapons and wearing plate and having a high STR save.
So, no, im not going to provide the equations for the numerical tradeoffs here. In this case, its simole enought to point out that light/nick/2wf/dual does more dpr than sword and board or a heavy weapon fighter, AND also gets the best ac and best dex save and best initiative.
When building a character, usually if you want more of one thing, you have to take less of something else. But in the case of light/nick/2wf/dual, you get the best of the three weapon approachs (i.e. sword/board, or 2 handed heavy with no shield). Its easy enough to show that there is not a single downside to light/nick, it is better than the other 2.
"I haven't seen anyone here saying they would do this weapon-swapping nonsense as something their character would do"
Eh? We're reading different threads.
"and I'd just ban it on any table where I'm DM just on that basis."
I propsed several modifications to specifynwhat rules i would change, and every suggestion got someone replying that its bad for some reason or other.
The smallest rule change might be to say light, nick, dual attacks cannot be performed while a shield is equipped, and to say nick mastery simply doesnt exist so light attacks remain on the bonus action so it cant stack with dual wieldings other bonus action attack.
Its a bit of a mouthful, but i think it solves the +2 shield issue and the unbalanced number of attacks per turn issue.
It does mean that everyone should dual wield and use a shield or use a two handed weapon.
Everyone who's trying to optimize DPR. (Though I believe it makes the third swap to a bigger weapon for the DW attack impossible.)
Most people aren't.
It eliminates any reason to use a single sword/shield.
This is a legit argument for DM-fiating it out.
I don't believe it's possible to kill it mechanically without collateral damage. (The dagger-thrower is the primary obstacle. Somebody who wants to build around Thrown Weapon Fighting needs all the help they can get. You also probably unnecessarily inhibit other circumstantial uses.)
Complaint light/nick/2wf/dual ... "eliminates any reason to use a single sword/shield."
Counter argument: "not everyone is an optimizer"
Hahahahahaha so it IS completely unbalanced as a BUILD, but your argument is it doesnt unbalance the GAME because not everyone will use it?
Light weapon swapping with a shield is in no way unbalanced as a build; it's just a bit better than sword-and-shield or normal light, so might be worth squelching to increase stylistic variety. (Inasmuch as players are actually doing it.)
Maybe a lot of players dont use it because they see it as game breaking?
A lot of players don't use it because they don't think about the game like that. They don't want to feel ineffective, but whether or not they have an optimal build is of no interest to them. They do light weapons if that's the sort of thing their character does, or if they've got an obvious reason that lots of little attacks work for them. (Rangers are pushed toward light weapons. Which is fine. Hunter's Mark is their thing, like paladins have smites.)
At level 4 you do 3 attacks when anyone who isnt a power gamer is doing 1 attack.
The pole arm masters are getting 2-3. The great weapon masters may be getting only one most of the time, but it hits like a truck.
Number of attacks is unimportant. It's how the light weapon specialists do their damage. Other styles do theirs in other ways.
And level 4 is likely the high point. The fewer, bigger, attack people catch up hard at level 5, when they get their extra attack. GWM users almost double their damage output, while you get a 33% improvement.
And don't forget that light weapons are the highest investment of all the fighting styles -- you need a dedicated mastery, a fighting style, and a general feat to keep up. Most everybody else is operating on a feat or a fighting style, and can choose everything else based on what works for them.
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It is? But you're skewing the comparison to make it worse. Like, everything you said about the situation would be just as true without this interaction. The TWF guy's AC would just be 2 AC worse. That's it. That doesn't mean no one would do anything else. For one thing, this idea is frickin' stupid and no one but optimizers would enjoy that. Other kinds of players would hate this with such a passion that even if they knew about it, they just wouldn't do it on principle, even if the DM allowed it. It's not true that there wouldn't be a reason to play anything else.
"That's why sheathing a weapon should actually be an action (like doffing a shield), since scabbards don't come with funnels. "
Hm. Equip and/or drop a weapon to ground is a normal object interaction and can be done as part of attacking with that weapon during your Action.
Unequip a weapon to your scabbard, and/or picking up a weapon from the ground is a utiluze action?
That might be another solution...
I disagree that it should be an action to unequip a weapon and think its fine with the Utilize action, your Free Item Interaction or an attack with the Attack action.
You can disagree, but have you ever sheathed a sword yourself? The only way how to unequip a weapon as a free action, or part as of an attack action should be to simply drop it.
Rules Aren’t Physics. The rules of the game are meant to provide a fun game experience, not to describe the laws of physics in the worlds of D&D, let alone the real world.
Rules arent physics is helpful to deal with someone who is bending the rules and justifying it based on physics.
This discussion is part "how do i light/nick/2wf/dual to do 4 attacks while holding a shield?" And part "is that not completely unbalanced game mechanics?:
I think folks saying "that is unbalanced" might also refer to physical reality limitations as a means to find a better solution, but i dont think anyone here is simply saying "rule breaks physics, therefore rule bad".
If nothing else, this thread makes it abundantly clear that the rules are so obfuscated that some people are still shocked when they learn this is legal.
A lot of rules are general, and apply to lots situations. Attack rolls, ability checks, saving throws are all generic concepts that apply in lots of different situations. The specifics are which abikity is being used, do uou habr proficiency or not, and so on. Once you understand saving throws in general, you know a chunk of the game.
But light/nick/2wf/dual are all extremely niche, they only kick in during one or two situations, they have seemingly arbitrary features, and when you put these seemingly niche and arbitrary features together, they surprisingly allow a player the highest DPR for a non-magical martial build.
So, the thing to invoke here isnt "rules arent physics". The thing going on here is these rules are crap, they are unbalanced, they are completely unintuitive, they add multiple levels of needless complexity to the game. And it basically allows max dmg of any martial build, max armor class with shield, highest dex for initive and dex saves, and the moment you stack this with hunters marrk or whatever +1d6 per hit spell, its just gonna blow up.
And who is defending these kind of crap rules but power gamers with their thri-kreen builds...
Im pretty sure the designers were trying to get martial characters to catch up with the years of power creep that have gone into magic using builds. Paladin-Warlock builds are just bonkers.
But having a weapon property (light) you purchase, a weapon mastery (nick) that you havr to learn, a fighting style (2 weapon fighting) that you have to gain, and a feat (dual wielding) that you have to unlock and suddenly you have max dpr, highest ac, best initiative, best dex saving throws, and a level 1 spell will add 26 more damage per round?
Is that "character development"??? Because it doesnt feel like character development to me. What it feels like is someone took their character sheet and went Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start.
Yes. People play thri-kreen because they want to play telepathic bug people. Four arms is part of their deal, just like elves get some freebie magic spells, and humans get a free feat. If they're playing a thri-kreen who's quad-wielding two scimitars, a rapier, and a shield, is that because they're munchkining, or because "swashbuckling mantis pirate" sounded like a cool idea to them? (To be fair, it totally is a cool idea. I have a heavily-aquatic campaign idea on the back burner and I'm now sad because thri-kreen pirates just don't fit the rest of the world.)
Will people choose species and feats because they enable a specific thing? Sometimes, but it's at least as often going to be "I have this cool-but-janky barbarian/warlock idea, and I need to be a variant human to get the stats up", rather than "if I play a thri-kreen, I can be slightly more effective in combat."
The D&D you talk about, where players are trying to exploit the rules for every mechanical advantage, and the DM must take steps to stop them, well, I'm not going to say it doesn't exist at all, but it's very far out of the norm. Your average D&D player not only is not going to change their character idea to get the most plusses, they would never think of going to the work to figure out what the most plusses are. It's the world of character optimizers, which is a real hobby that people enjoy, but it has little to do with how people, probably including most of the optimizers, actually play. (But if a group wants to go all-out on the character optimization, more power to them. Their fun is not my fun, but their fun is ok.)
If you're going to try arguing by DPR between different fighting styles, the necessary calculations get a lot more complex. Hit percentage matters when Graze weapons enter the fray. Critical chance has to be factored in once your dice change. Etc. And, of course, you shouldn't be comparing a well-chosen light/nick setup with a less-optimal other weapon setup. (Not to mention the hard-to-calculate intangibles. What's the advantage of reach weapons worth? What about archery? And so on, and so forth.)
And yes, I can't be bothered, but I've seen the calculations done by the people who can be, and the damage numbers are pretty close. Light is not the clear winner. It may not even be the leader. (But, of course, these things aren't consistent across all levels. IIRC, it edges out the others at some points, but not consistently.)
"People play thri-kreen because they want to play telepathic bug people."
Greetings sir. I am prince thri kreen of nigeria. The recent coup has left me stateless. If you would just send me your bank information, i can transfer 23,738,626 dollars american to you...
You don't need the dual welder feat. (The feat would be one reason I'd argue against the common and more likely interpretation for drawing/showing weapons)
At least not for drawing/stowing weapons. That portion of the feat doesn't provide a benefit other than letting you draw/stow two weapons at once. But you can draw/stow a weapon with each attack.
I would have to refer you to build libraries done by our very own Treantmonk and Colby post 2024. They don't just do a bit of basic math at level 5. They putting together full builds and statting them up from level 1 to 20. It is true that a TWF Ranger or Dex Paladin or Fighter does extremely well at Tier 1 and early Tier 2. It's not a clear winner, though, and adding +2 AC doesn't do anything for your DPR.
It does mean that everyone should dual wield and use a shield or use a two handed weapon.
It eliminates any reason to use a single sword/shield.
I will refer you to what I said earlier. The first is that not everyone is an optimizer. So that alone gives plenty of people reason not to do this. Because it looks and plays stupid.
But really, this IS a sword and shield build. You have a shield and you're just swapping swords. It directly competes with TWF builds where you wield one weapon in each hand.
"adding +2 AC doesn't do anything for your DPR. "
Ladies and gentlemen, this just in. AC has no effect on dpr, so everyone is getting an AC of 22 because it has no effect on DPR...
Jeebus. In a discussion about game BALANCE, I dont even know what else to say to this.
Well, in this particular discussion, you might want to say what the valuation of defense to offense is or something to that effect. This was notably absent when you put in Nick to make a case for TWF being broken, but didn't mock up similar advantages for competing options. Honestly, I really don't this weapon swapping meta going on at virtually any table I'm seeing or playing on. In fact, this specific thread is the first time I've ever seen anyone seriously advocating for this to be played anywhere, let alone saying that no one would play anything else. Literally, everyone I'm seeing is playing everything else EXCEPT for this.
So you might want to characterize this loophole as exploitable, messy, sloppy, or mildly advantageous. It is absolutely not the mad TWF meta we saw in 2e.
Complaint light/nick/2wf/dual ... "eliminates any reason to use a single sword/shield."
Counter argument: "not everyone is an optimizer"
Hahahahahaha so it IS completely unbalanced as a BUILD, but your argument is it doesnt unbalance the GAME because not everyone will use it?
Maybe a lot of players dont use it because they see it as game breaking? At level 4 you do 3 attacks when anyone who isnt a power gamer is doing 1 attack. And you do the most dpr, have a great ac, have a high initiative bonus, and great dex saves.
As dm theres no way i see that as anything but game breaking. And even the people defending it, are basically defending it with things making me think more and more of "but its what my character would do".
I haven't seen anyone here saying they would do this weapon-swapping nonsense as something their character would do, or even as some kind of iconic fantasy archetype. It's just silly, and I'd just ban it on any table where I'm DM just on that basis. It's the wrong vibe.
I DID NOT even say that it doesn't unbalance the game. Please reread what I've been saying.
I said there are reasons people would choose not to play this, even if they were aware of it.
And frankly, apart from modestly boosting the AC of TWFing builds, it's not game breaking. This ain't Conjure Minor Elementals, friend, and some folks even argue that the original version of that spell also wasn't broken.
"you might want to say what the valuation of defense to offense is or something to that effect"
Dpr is pretry straightforward. Monster ac tracks almost directly with proficiency bonus and other mods so that the overall percent chance to hit is basically the same for all 20 levels. Dpr is linear.
Everything else is exponentially more complex as you level up, and almost impossible to model in a simplw formula. But +2 ac reduces the average damage you take per turn by 10%, thats roughly a +1 to your conmod which adds roughly 10% to your hitpoints.
And light weapons are finnesse weapons meaning you can max out your DEX score, which helps your dex saves. And the most common saves are dex and wis, so from a saving throw perspective, having a high dex save just overall is a much better thing than dumping dex to 8 and using heavy weapons and wearing plate and having a high STR save.
So, no, im not going to provide the equations for the numerical tradeoffs here. In this case, its simole enought to point out that light/nick/2wf/dual does more dpr than sword and board or a heavy weapon fighter, AND also gets the best ac and best dex save and best initiative.
When building a character, usually if you want more of one thing, you have to take less of something else. But in the case of light/nick/2wf/dual, you get the best of the three weapon approachs (i.e. sword/board, or 2 handed heavy with no shield). Its easy enough to show that there is not a single downside to light/nick, it is better than the other 2.
"I haven't seen anyone here saying they would do this weapon-swapping nonsense as something their character would do"
Eh? We're reading different threads.
"and I'd just ban it on any table where I'm DM just on that basis."
I propsed several modifications to specifynwhat rules i would change, and every suggestion got someone replying that its bad for some reason or other.
The smallest rule change might be to say light, nick, dual attacks cannot be performed while a shield is equipped, and to say nick mastery simply doesnt exist so light attacks remain on the bonus action so it cant stack with dual wieldings other bonus action attack.
Its a bit of a mouthful, but i think it solves the +2 shield issue and the unbalanced number of attacks per turn issue.
Everyone who's trying to optimize DPR. (Though I believe it makes the third swap to a bigger weapon for the DW attack impossible.)
Most people aren't.
This is a legit argument for DM-fiating it out.
I don't believe it's possible to kill it mechanically without collateral damage. (The dagger-thrower is the primary obstacle. Somebody who wants to build around Thrown Weapon Fighting needs all the help they can get. You also probably unnecessarily inhibit other circumstantial uses.)
Light weapon swapping with a shield is in no way unbalanced as a build; it's just a bit better than sword-and-shield or normal light, so might be worth squelching to increase stylistic variety. (Inasmuch as players are actually doing it.)
A lot of players don't use it because they don't think about the game like that. They don't want to feel ineffective, but whether or not they have an optimal build is of no interest to them. They do light weapons if that's the sort of thing their character does, or if they've got an obvious reason that lots of little attacks work for them. (Rangers are pushed toward light weapons. Which is fine. Hunter's Mark is their thing, like paladins have smites.)
The pole arm masters are getting 2-3. The great weapon masters may be getting only one most of the time, but it hits like a truck.
Number of attacks is unimportant. It's how the light weapon specialists do their damage. Other styles do theirs in other ways.
And level 4 is likely the high point. The fewer, bigger, attack people catch up hard at level 5, when they get their extra attack. GWM users almost double their damage output, while you get a 33% improvement.
And don't forget that light weapons are the highest investment of all the fighting styles -- you need a dedicated mastery, a fighting style, and a general feat to keep up. Most everybody else is operating on a feat or a fighting style, and can choose everything else based on what works for them.