You augment your attacks with mind-scarring magic, drawn from the gloomy hollows of the unseelie fey. You gain a bonus action that you can use to imbue the weapon, or weapons, you’re currently holding with magic. Until the end of the turn, the weapons are magical, and they deal an extra 1d6 psychic damage on a hit. A creature can take this extra damage only once per turn.
When you engage in two-weapon fighting, you can imbue your weapons as part of the same bonus action you use to make the attack.
It's that last sentence that I'm wondering about. After reading it through a few times, I concluded that if you engage in two-weapon fighting and use this feature, the extra 1d6 psychic damage would only apply to the additional attack given by two-weapon fighting, and not to any of the attacks during the Attack action. For more context, Two-Weapon Fighting says:
When you take the Attack action and Attack with a light melee weapon that you’re holding in one hand, you can use a bonus action to attack with a different light melee weapon that you’re holding in the other hand.
This wording makes me think you have to take the Attack action first, before you can take the bonus action to attack. But that seems counterintuitive to what this feature's supposed to do, because you'd get more out of using your bonus action to activate this feature, then make two attacks with Extra Attack that both deal the extra 1d6, than using Two-Weapon Fighting. Am I wrong?
You are correct RAW, though it's hard to say whether this is their intention because FW is playtest material. I hope not though, because then it would be better to make two imbued bow attacks etc. as you say.
Actually, now that I've reread Dreadful Strikes, this probably is the intention, since you can only deal the extra damage once per turn. So two-weapon fighting still has better damage output (unless you're using a greatsword or something, which is honestly unlikely), but I'd argue that in some situations having two magical attacks that can potentially deal the extra damage is better than having two nonmagical attacks and then a single magical attack that can deal extra damage.
Thanks for responding, I'm looking forward to seeing this is Tasha's!
For context, this is Dreadful Strikes:
It's that last sentence that I'm wondering about. After reading it through a few times, I concluded that if you engage in two-weapon fighting and use this feature, the extra 1d6 psychic damage would only apply to the additional attack given by two-weapon fighting, and not to any of the attacks during the Attack action. For more context, Two-Weapon Fighting says:
This wording makes me think you have to take the Attack action first, before you can take the bonus action to attack. But that seems counterintuitive to what this feature's supposed to do, because you'd get more out of using your bonus action to activate this feature, then make two attacks with Extra Attack that both deal the extra 1d6, than using Two-Weapon Fighting. Am I wrong?
You are correct RAW, though it's hard to say whether this is their intention because FW is playtest material. I hope not though, because then it would be better to make two imbued bow attacks etc. as you say.
Hopefully we'll find out in Tashas :)
Actually, now that I've reread Dreadful Strikes, this probably is the intention, since you can only deal the extra damage once per turn. So two-weapon fighting still has better damage output (unless you're using a greatsword or something, which is honestly unlikely), but I'd argue that in some situations having two magical attacks that can potentially deal the extra damage is better than having two nonmagical attacks and then a single magical attack that can deal extra damage.
Thanks for responding, I'm looking forward to seeing this is Tasha's!
You can apply the damage more than once a turn it just has to be to different creatures.