Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
Sign in- Marketplace
Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
Sign in
I'm making this post because I apparently noticed something that nobody in my group noticed and that I also couldn't find on the internet.
Regarding the Dual Wielding feat, we have the following text:
"Improved Dual Wielding. When you use the Attack action on your turn and attack with a weapon that has the Light property, you can make an extra attack as a Bonus Action later in the same turn with a different weapon, which must be a melee weapon that does not have the Two-Handed property. You don't add your ability modifier to the damage of the extra attack unless that modifier is negative."
Well, from this, we have that the prerequisite to activate the improved dual wielding attack is:
- using a weapon with the Light property in an attack action, right?
Well, then.
The Nick mastery says the following:
Nick. When you make the extra attack with the Light property, you can do so as part of the Attack action instead of as a Bonus Action. You can perform this extra attack only once per turn.
Okay, so the off-hand attack is performed as part of the attack action, right?
Well, if the off-hand attack is performed as part of the attack action, and it's done with a light weapon, that means it can be used to active a Dual Wielding attack because it meets all the prerequisites, right?
We have: First attack with a light weapon, activates Nick; second attack with another light weapon; this second attack is part of the attack action and is considered a Dual Wielding attack. The Dual Wielding ability is used with the main-hand weapon.
What I noticed was the following: Using a weapon with the light property during your attack action is a sufficient condition to activate the feat. Using more than one weapon that meets the feat's activation requirements doesn't imply that the effect will be triggered by the first weapon because the feat is an ability that must be declared to use. You can use it, you don't have to. In this case, because Nick makes it clear that the light property attack becomes part of the attack action, he meets the requirements to activate the feat.
But why am I saying this?
This allows you to perform the following rotation:
Shadow Blade (activates Nick), Nick attack (activates Dual Wielder), Dual Wielder attack with Shadow Blade.
No, it does not.
Improved Dual Wielding gives you an attack that has a prerequisite of using a weapon with Light property during the Attack action. This is a new extra attack that is not the extra attack given by the Light property.
Nick modifies the extra attack given by the Light property.
These are different extra attacks and you cannot use Nick to modify the Improved Dual Wielding extra attack.
How to add Tooltips.
My houserulings.
I'm not trying to use Nick to modify the Dual Wielder's extra attack.
I'm trying to activate the Dual Wielding feat with the off-hand light weapon attack instead of the main-hand attack, so I can use the main-hand weapon to attack with the Dual Wielding bonus action.
That's fine, and it's not new, though it may not have been a part of that many conversations here. It's been hashed out over many iterations in the discord, however.
Edit: to be clear, you can use either weapon to activate IDW if they are both light, though you will need some weapon juggling shenanigans to get the most out of your IDW BA attack.
Nick doesn't matter for Improved Dual Wielding. Sure, it makes your Bonus Action available, but it doesn't otherwise matter. Is Shadow Blade a Light weapon and was it used to attack during the Attack action? Yes, so Improved Dual Wielding's extra attack is now available. Is the Nick weapon a Light weapon and was it used to attack during the Attack action? Yes, so Improved Dual Wielding's extra attack is now available.
That's all that matters. If a Light Weapon was used to make an attack during an Attack action, Improved Dual Wielding's extra attack is available.
There might be some weird edge case somewhere where a Bonus Action allows you to make an attack with a Light weapon during your Attack action and some will disagree with whether that counts or not. I can't think of any official way to do it (but I have no inkling of what is coming down the pipe) and I am not going to delve into the oddities of third parties. If such a situation arises in the future, discuss it with your table so expectations are managed.
How to add Tooltips.
My houserulings.
This is legit.
(Some people will argue that the DW attack can only be activated once, and that it's activated by your first attack, preventing you from using your first weapon for the bonus action. This doesn't actually have textual support, but the support for your interpretation is admittedly only inferential -- nothing says the DW attack can only be enabled once, so we presume it's activated by every relevant attack. It's consistent with how other stuff behaves, though, so likely correct.)
Almost.
Since Weapon 1 and Weapon 2 were made as part of the Attack action, Weapon 3 must be different than Weapon 1 or Weapon 2. It can be Weapon 1 (Weapon 1 is different than Weapon 2), it can be Weapon 2 (Weapon 2 is different than Weapon 1), or it can be a third weapon.
I don't see where an Eldritch Knight class was mentioned.
However, be aware that there is dispute as to whether Dual Wielder plus the Attack Action allows you to equip a weapon and unequip a weapon between attacks (referred to here as "weapon juggling"). You can also stow + draw without issue if you are using the Attack action equip/unequip rules plus the free object interaction rules (making one attack with one weapon and 1+ attacks with the second weapon). If you wish to swap weapons multiple times, discuss it with your DM to see what the stance at the table is.
How to add Tooltips.
My houserulings.
It's also worth saying that one-handed weapon juggling—while perfectly within the rules as written—does seem to create friction with the fiction of "two-weapon fighting" (Read: Light Property) and "Dual Wielding". It's probably a good idea to ask your DM about this one before you try it.
Some examples from another thread by Plaguescarred:
EDIT: btw, it's Enhanced Dual Wielding, not Improved DW, right?
EDIT#2: for clarity.
Another interesting consideration is that Shadow Blade doesn't have a Weapon Mastery Property (e.g. Nick), if that's something relevant for you, Wayneland, or other visitors, as discussed at least here:
- Shadow Blade
- Shadow Blade Dual Wielded Bladesinger
- 5e 2024 "Nick" weapon + Shadow blade combo
- Does Shadow Blade work with Weapon Mastery?
EDIT: for clarity.
Yeah, I was about to say -- attacking with a Shadow Blade can't "activate Nick", because Shadow Blade doesn't have any weapon masteries. You would need a second weapon with Nick to use this combo
For that matter, making a Nick attack doesn't "activate" the Dual Wielder BA attack. You have that option whether you make a Nick attack or not
Active characters:
Edoumiaond Willegume "Eddie" Podslee, Vegetanian scholar (College of Spirits bard)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Peter "the Pied Piper" Hausler, human con artist/remover of vermin (Circle of the Shepherd druid)
PIPA - Planar Interception/Protection Aeormaton, warforged bodyguard and ex-wizard hunter (Warrior of the Elements monk/Cartographer artificer)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Shadow Blade has 3 weapon properties: Light, Finesse, and Thrown. It might get a weapon mastery when updated to 2024, but maybe not. Light is sufficient to allow for Nick to trigger on the Nick weapon.
How to add Tooltips.
My houserulings.
At level 5, an 18 Dex character with Nick Mastery, daggers, and a 65% chance to hit has a DPR of 17.4 (4 attacks). Change that out for scimitars and it's 20.2.
An 18 Str character with a great axe (as opposed to a Battle Axe wielded in two hands) has a DPR of 14.3 but has not expended a Bonus Action and has not invested a feat for extra damage. Changing that out for a Pole Arm (let's use a Halberd) and take Polearm Master and Halberd Mastery, that becomes 17.25 (3 attacks) or 23.7 with Cleave.
Hunter's Mark and Hex require setup reducing the impact on the first turn. This has no significant contribution to the martial-caster divide.
How to add Tooltips.
My houserulings.
Fighters, specifically, really benefit from huge damage dice at later levels compared to more attacks from Light/Nick/EDW. There isn't even really a comparison in DPR. Dual Wielders need those extra riders to even try to keep pace.
Note: I am going from memory here, but every discussion I remember seeing about this comes to the same conclusion.
Right. I was referring to the Mastery Property, not the common Properties.
I wasn't clear enough. I've updated my answer.
Honestly, this particular rule smells very strongly of an oversight that simply wasn't caught before the initial publication. All that they had to do with a couple of these features was to specify that the 2nd attack needs to be made with another weapon "that is currently wielded in another hand" or something to that effect.
Now that it's been published, the official stance is very likely to just double down on it and pretend that it was intended when it very likely was not. They tend to avoid changing such things via errata when such a change would actually change how things work rather than simply clarifying the wording for how something already works. So, in all likelihood now we are just stuck with it, and it will be up to the individual DMs to decide if they want to fix this for their games or not.
I'm pretty sure they intended not requiring that. I wouldn't be surprised if they intended to allow shield-wearing thrown-weapon specialists, but they didn't work through the logistics of melee light weapons, or they tinkered with the draw/stow mechanics late on.
Or it's possible they were aware, but decided it wasn't worth fixing it.
Any universal rules change I can think of also steps on things I'd rather allow. (Mostly thrown weapon tricks. If you're building a throwing specialist, IMO you need all the help you can get.) My inclination is to not worry about it unless I actually have a player doing it, and it's just not something I expect to see outside of theorycrafting. And if I do, I fully expect to solve it by the means of "dude, could you not?"
"Duel Wielding" implies two weapons in hand at the same time. You are free to rule however you want at your table, but the common sense definition of 'duel wielding' seems pretty clear.
Someone fighting sword and board, is NOT dual wielding.
Someone fighting one handed, then doing some weapon juggling shennanigans is NOT dual wielding.
Duel Wielding means duel wielding.
Playing D&D since 1982
Have played every version of the game since Basic (original Red Box Set), except that abomination sometimes called 4e.
You are free to run your table anyway you wish, but the five DMs in our extended group will always apply a bit of common sense to the rules. Ruling that 'dual wielding' requires a weapon in each hand (as it has been for every edition of the game that used that wording) does not diminish any character's power, but it does prevent exploits that quickly become ridiculous.
The benefit of the Dual Wielding feat is that the second weapon doesn't need to be light, and you can draw/stow two weapons at once (again reinforcing the idea that dual wielding is the wielding of a weapon in each hand at the same time).
Playing D&D since 1982
Have played every version of the game since Basic (original Red Box Set), except that abomination sometimes called 4e.
Ability names are not mechanics. They never have been and never will be. The game is better for it. If you want to house rule unnecessary restrictions on mechanics because of how things are named, the game will need to clutter the books with "despite the name, this doesn't actually mean ..."
How to add Tooltips.
My houserulings.