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?
This was brought up when the 24 version first came out. As I recall the argument came down to, while it may be RAW, good luck finding a DM who will allow you to do it.
And even the RAW part needs to ignore the general rule of good faith interpretation of the rules.
This feels unintended and a bit overpowered to me, but it could be done, right? Am I missing something?
No, you have the right of it. It's not that big of a deal, but my usual players are pretty chill so I am fine with allowing it. From the base weapon itself, this is about an extra 3.5 (No Two-weapon Fighting style) to 8.5 damage per round, possibly more depending on if it's a magic weapon or other effects like Hex. I'm not worried about it.
Yeah, what you propose is allowed and valid per the rules.
Aralas4543 there area a couple of recent threads about the same scenario you asked about. If you want, take a look at the answers there for more thoughts:
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?
If I understand this, you want the advantage of 2 weapon fighting, without the penalty of a lower AC? You found a potential loophole in the rules (law) to exploit and use. That sounds very unethical.
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.
If I understand this, you want the advantage of 2 weapon fighting, without the penalty of a lower AC? You found a potential loophole in the rules (law) to exploit and use. That sounds very unethical.
I have a hard time calling it a loophole tbh, it seems entirely intended. The 2014 rules called it two-weapon fighting and explicitly said that you needed to hold the two weapons at the same time. The 2024 rules never even hints at needing to hold the two weapons simultaneously and the only place it mentions "two" or "dual" is in in the name (but not the descriptions) of the related feats (Two-Weapon FightingandDual Wielder).
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.
I disagree, as this allows a sword and board fighter to get an extra attack with no down side.
Two weapon fighting implies that you have two weapons that you are holding, so you cannot receive that shield AC. You are trading off defensive AC for an extra attack.
This is a big deal if it is correct, because now you have the advantage of an extra attack and the advantage of higher AC, there is no downside.
I disagree, as this allows a sword and board fighter to get an extra attack with no down side.
Two weapon fighting implies that you have two weapons that you are holding, so you cannot receive that shield AC. You are trading off defensive AC for an extra attack.
This is a big deal if it is correct, because now you have the advantage of an extra attack and the advantage of higher AC, there is no downside.
Two-weapon fighting doesn't exist in the 2024 rules though so there is no such implication in the current rules.
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.
I disagree, as this allows a sword and board fighter to get an extra attack with no down side.
Two weapon fighting implies that you have two weapons that you are holding, so you cannot receive that shield AC. You are trading off defensive AC for an extra attack.
This is a big deal if it is correct, because now you have the advantage of an extra attack and the advantage of higher AC, there is no downside.
The thing is that, if you compare TWF, even with a shield, to what you can get for similar investments in other fighting styles, it doesn't really come out ahead. The sword and board fighter is downgrading to lighter weapons, and has to devote a fighting style, and later a feat, to keep the damage up. If they'd taken a different fighting style and feat, and stuck with boring old longsword, they'd still be competitive.
Also, I remain unconvinced that people are doing it in actual play, and not just when talking about character optimization.
The best part that will make DMs truly hate you is that you can use the Dueling fighting style too!
When would you take it? As your startup fighting style, instead of TWF? At 4th, instead of Dual Wielder's stat bump and full-blown extra attack?
Dueling + TWF requires two extra feats and a weapon mastery over straight dueling. And yes, you get two extra attacks, but that's not really an unreasonable payoff for the investment.
The best part that will make DMs truly hate you is that you can use the Dueling fighting style too!
They won’t hate you; they’ll just refer you to Rule 0 and the good faith section in the DMG and give you the boot if you keep insisting you should have your way.
The best part that will make DMs truly hate you is that you can use the Dueling fighting style too!
When would you take it? As your startup fighting style, instead of TWF? At 4th, instead of Dual Wielder's stat bump and full-blown extra attack?
Dueling + TWF requires two extra feats and a weapon mastery over straight dueling. And yes, you get two extra attacks, but that's not really an unreasonable payoff for the investment.
Wouldn't dueling do more damage than twf? I mean, especially once you get extra attacks, with being able to do 6 attacks as a level 20 fighter, 6 x 2 is a lot more than 5, and even at lower levels, dueling would be better because first your ability modifier is lower and so dueling does more damage with the 2 attacks, (2 x 2 vs just 3) then you get dual wielder at level 4 and you get even more attacks, (3 x 2 vs 4) and then at level 5 you get another attack, (4 x 2 vs 4) and even though at level 8 you get an ASI it just all goes downhill for twf from there.
They won’t hate you; they’ll just refer you to Rule 0 and the good faith section in the DMG and give you the boot if you keep insisting you should have your way.
As much as I miss the visual of someone running around with dual weapons I really don't see why people are so against it. Dual wielding in 2024 isn't really that good. Compared to 2014 you get one additional attack but you get -1 to AC and you go down a damage die for two of the three attacks. And this is from a 2014 baseline where pretty much everyone thought dual wielding was under powered.
Edit: Btw, if you want to actually get the benefit of the Dual Wielder feat then you need to do some weapon juggling as you will use two different weapons for the original and the Nick attacks and then a third one for the DW attack, and then back for the next round. So one stow and one draw each round as a minimum.
The best part that will make DMs truly hate you is that you can use the Dueling fighting style too!
When would you take it? As your startup fighting style, instead of TWF? At 4th, instead of Dual Wielder's stat bump and full-blown extra attack?
Dueling + TWF requires two extra feats and a weapon mastery over straight dueling. And yes, you get two extra attacks, but that's not really an unreasonable payoff for the investment.
Wouldn't dueling do more damage than twf? I mean, especially once you get extra attacks, with being able to do 6 attacks as a level 20 fighter, 6 x 2 is a lot more than 5, and even at lower levels, dueling would be better because first your ability modifier is lower and so dueling does more damage with the 2 attacks, (2 x 2 vs just 3) then you get dual wielder at level 4 and you get even more attacks, (3 x 2 vs 4) and then at level 5 you get another attack, (4 x 2 vs 4) and even though at level 8 you get an ASI it just all goes downhill for twf from there.
Assume you have a +3 stat bonus.
At level 1-3, TWF gets you 2*(3.5+3) =13
Dueling plus light weapons gets you 2*(3.5+2) + 3 =14
At 4, you get to add DW and +1 bonus, so TWF = 22.5, while Dueling/light = 20.5
At 5, you get an extra attack, and TWF is now 4*(3.5+4)=30, while Dueling/light = 2*(3.5+2) + 2*(3.5+5)=28
So... no.
I'm not going to try to figure out the damage you can do with Dueling and real weapons, because I can't be bothered to figure out the feat options. (I find character optimization uninteresting.) And there's also whatever advantage you can work out of your weapon masteries when you don't have to be using a Nick weapon.
As much as I miss the visual of someone running around with dual weapons I really don't see why people are so against it. Dual wielding in 2024 isn't really that good. Compared to 2014 you get one additional attack but you get -1 to AC and you go down a damage die for two of the three attacks. And this is from a 2014 baseline where pretty much everyone thought dual wielding was under powered.
TWF is better in 24, due to the extra attacks. IIRC it stays competitive with the other "standard" setups.
Edit: Btw, if you want to actually get the benefit of the Dual Wielder feat then you need to do some weapon juggling as you will use two different weapons for the original and the Nick attacks and then a third one for the DW attack, and then back for the next round. So one stow and one draw each round as a minimum.
No, you only need two, unless you really want that extra 1 point of average damage from using a d8 weapon.
The first attack enables both light/nick and DW. They both require you make an attack with a light weapon, then let you make an additional attack with a different weapon from the first. Those two attacks can be made with the same weapon. (Or, if you'd rather, you can attack with #1, Nick with #2, then DW with #1, since #2 was also an attack with a light weapon. But if you're trying to do silly Dueling tricks, 1,2,2 is easier.)
They won’t hate you; they’ll just refer you to Rule 0 and the good faith section in the DMG and give you the boot if you keep insisting you should have your way.
As much as I miss the visual of someone running around with dual weapons I really don't see why people are so against it. Dual wielding in 2024 isn't really that good. Compared to 2014 you get one additional attack but you get -1 to AC and you go down a damage die for two of the three attacks. And this is from a 2014 baseline where pretty much everyone thought dual wielding was under powered.
Edit: Btw, if you want to actually get the benefit of the Dual Wielder feat then you need to do some weapon juggling as you will use two different weapons for the original and the Nick attacks and then a third one for the DW attack, and then back for the next round. So one stow and one draw each round as a minimum.
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.
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.
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.)
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.
This is incorrect. Interacting with an object, other than equipping a weapon, requires that you use your free object interaction if it is simple enough, or use your action, preventing you from taking the Attack action at all unless Hasted.
When you take the Attack Action, that Action gives you additional opportunities to equip and unequip weapons. See, Equipping and Unequipping Weapons, below.
When you take the Attack action, you can make one attack roll with a weapon or an Unarmed Strike.
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.
Moving between Attacks. If you move on your turn and have a feature, such as Extra Attack, that gives you more than one attack as part of the Attack action, you can use some or all of that movement to move between those attacks.
The best part that will make DMs truly hate you is that you can use the Dueling fighting style too!
When would you take it? As your startup fighting style, instead of TWF? At 4th, instead of Dual Wielder's stat bump and full-blown extra attack?
Dueling + TWF requires two extra feats and a weapon mastery over straight dueling. And yes, you get two extra attacks, but that's not really an unreasonable payoff for the investment.
Credit to TarodNet, but Champions get an additional Fighting Style at level 7.
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?
This was brought up when the 24 version first came out. As I recall the argument came down to, while it may be RAW, good luck finding a DM who will allow you to do it.
And even the RAW part needs to ignore the general rule of good faith interpretation of the rules.
No, you have the right of it. It's not that big of a deal, but my usual players are pretty chill so I am fine with allowing it. From the base weapon itself, this is about an extra 3.5 (No Two-weapon Fighting style) to 8.5 damage per round, possibly more depending on if it's a magic weapon or other effects like Hex. I'm not worried about it.
How to add Tooltips.
My houserulings.
Yeah, what you propose is allowed and valid per the rules.
Aralas4543 there area a couple of recent threads about the same scenario you asked about. If you want, take a look at the answers there for more thoughts:
- Shields, Dual Wielding, drawing and sheathing and the free object interaction
- question about light weapon (dnd2024)
EDIT: for clarity.
If I understand this, you want the advantage of 2 weapon fighting, without the penalty of a lower AC? You found a potential loophole in the rules (law) to exploit and use. That sounds very unethical.
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.
I have a hard time calling it a loophole tbh, it seems entirely intended. The 2014 rules called it two-weapon fighting and explicitly said that you needed to hold the two weapons at the same time. The 2024 rules never even hints at needing to hold the two weapons simultaneously and the only place it mentions "two" or "dual" is in in the name (but not the descriptions) of the related feats (Two-Weapon Fighting and Dual Wielder).
I disagree, as this allows a sword and board fighter to get an extra attack with no down side.
Two weapon fighting implies that you have two weapons that you are holding, so you cannot receive that shield AC. You are trading off defensive AC for an extra attack.
This is a big deal if it is correct, because now you have the advantage of an extra attack and the advantage of higher AC, there is no downside.
Two-weapon fighting doesn't exist in the 2024 rules though so there is no such implication in the current rules.
The thing is that, if you compare TWF, even with a shield, to what you can get for similar investments in other fighting styles, it doesn't really come out ahead. The sword and board fighter is downgrading to lighter weapons, and has to devote a fighting style, and later a feat, to keep the damage up. If they'd taken a different fighting style and feat, and stuck with boring old longsword, they'd still be competitive.
Also, I remain unconvinced that people are doing it in actual play, and not just when talking about character optimization.
The best part that will make DMs truly hate you is that you can use the Dueling fighting style too!
When would you take it? As your startup fighting style, instead of TWF? At 4th, instead of Dual Wielder's stat bump and full-blown extra attack?
Dueling + TWF requires two extra feats and a weapon mastery over straight dueling. And yes, you get two extra attacks, but that's not really an unreasonable payoff for the investment.
They won’t hate you; they’ll just refer you to Rule 0 and the good faith section in the DMG and give you the boot if you keep insisting you should have your way.
Wouldn't dueling do more damage than twf? I mean, especially once you get extra attacks, with being able to do 6 attacks as a level 20 fighter, 6 x 2 is a lot more than 5, and even at lower levels, dueling would be better because first your ability modifier is lower and so dueling does more damage with the 2 attacks, (2 x 2 vs just 3) then you get dual wielder at level 4 and you get even more attacks, (3 x 2 vs 4) and then at level 5 you get another attack, (4 x 2 vs 4) and even though at level 8 you get an ASI it just all goes downhill for twf from there.
As much as I miss the visual of someone running around with dual weapons I really don't see why people are so against it. Dual wielding in 2024 isn't really that good. Compared to 2014 you get one additional attack but you get -1 to AC and you go down a damage die for two of the three attacks. And this is from a 2014 baseline where pretty much everyone thought dual wielding was under powered.
Edit:
Btw, if you want to actually get the benefit of the Dual Wielder feat then you need to do some weapon juggling as you will use two different weapons for the original and the Nick attacks and then a third one for the DW attack, and then back for the next round. So one stow and one draw each round as a minimum.
Assume you have a +3 stat bonus.
At level 1-3, TWF gets you 2*(3.5+3) =13
Dueling plus light weapons gets you 2*(3.5+2) + 3 =14
At 4, you get to add DW and +1 bonus, so TWF = 22.5, while Dueling/light = 20.5
At 5, you get an extra attack, and TWF is now 4*(3.5+4)=30, while Dueling/light = 2*(3.5+2) + 2*(3.5+5)=28
So... no.
I'm not going to try to figure out the damage you can do with Dueling and real weapons, because I can't be bothered to figure out the feat options. (I find character optimization uninteresting.) And there's also whatever advantage you can work out of your weapon masteries when you don't have to be using a Nick weapon.
TWF is better in 24, due to the extra attacks. IIRC it stays competitive with the other "standard" setups.
No, you only need two, unless you really want that extra 1 point of average damage from using a d8 weapon.
The first attack enables both light/nick and DW. They both require you make an attack with a light weapon, then let you make an additional attack with a different weapon from the first. Those two attacks can be made with the same weapon. (Or, if you'd rather, you can attack with #1, Nick with #2, then DW with #1, since #2 was also an attack with a light weapon. But if you're trying to do silly Dueling tricks, 1,2,2 is easier.)
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.
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.
This is incorrect, because the Attack action allows 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.)
This is incorrect. Interacting with an object, other than equipping a weapon, requires that you use your free object interaction if it is simple enough, or use your action, preventing you from taking the Attack action at all unless Hasted.
When you take the Attack Action, that Action gives you additional opportunities to equip and unequip weapons. See, Equipping and Unequipping Weapons, below.
Credit to TarodNet, but Champions get an additional Fighting Style at level 7.
How to add Tooltips.
My houserulings.