D&D 5E Suggestions for a TWF dragonborn barbarian?

[doctorhook]

Two weapon fighting in 5E: I recall people saying it's underwhelming, but my search-fu is weak today, so I can't find any of those previous discussion. Can anybody remind me what the alleged problems were?

One of my players has made a first level barbarian who wields a pair of battleaxes. I said to him, "It's your character, so I want it to be your concept and I want to help it be awesome." I realize that as-written, his barbarian can't use two non-light weapons without the Dual Wielder (name?) feat, that barbarians suffer due to no fighting style, and that two weapon fighting would be very suboptimal for the barbarian's sweet 9th level critical hit feature. I also note that vanilla dual wielding looks pretty weaksauce: two attack rolls but no +mod damage on the second attack means slowing down the game with tiny attacks.

I want to make this [-]work[/-] super eff'ing cool for my player, and I'm willing to hack the game if a good solution is presented. I've granted some custom content for each of my other players, so I'm okay if the solution involves a relatively small net boost. Any suggestions?

Some of the things I've been considering:

• Give him a "two battleaxes" attack, which involves a single attack roll and deals 1d12+mod damage. (This is just a greataxe attack reskinned as two weapons.)
• Give him the two weapon fighting style (from fighter and ranger) as a bonus.
• Give him the Dual Wielder feat as a bonus.

Alone, none of these options seems great, but I'm also suspicious of granting all of them. Thoughts?

Thanks for your input.

 

[Cernor]

If he's building a TWF barbarian, let him know that a dip in fighter 1 for the TWF style might be a good option if he wants to make his off-hand attacks more powerful. However, barbarians' rage applies to his off-hand attack as well as his main-hand one, and with Reckless Attack he's likely to hit with both main- and off-hand attacks.

Calculating the damage, the twin battleaxes hit for an average of 2.5 (1d12 compared to 2d8) more damage per round, meaning although his bonus action would be tied up every round, he's more than capable of holding his own in combat.

 

[Flamestrike]

Give him a "two battleaxes" attack, which involves a single attack roll and deals 1d12+mod damage.

That works. Highly suboptimal for him at 1st level though.

Any reason he cant just wield a Battle axe and Hand axe at the same time at 1st level? The rules allow for this.

His combined damage will be at +5 1d8+Str(3)+2 (9.5) with rage on the first attack, and a second attack (bonus action) at +5 dealing 1d6+2 (5.5) for a total of 15 DPR on average with hits (11 when not raging). Thats much higher DPR than a single 1d12+5 (11.5 or 9.5 when not raging) damage attack.

At second level, he dips Fighter for second wind and the TWF fighting style adding a further (Str bonus) to the off hand attack, increasing average DPR by 3.

He then goes back to Barb, sticks with it for 4 more levels, picking up DW feat at 5th level (4th Barb level) for the ability to use two Battle axes at once (and +1 AC).

(FWIW I think Dual weilder is a total trap feat in almost every case possible. It gives no bonuses to hit, only lets you increase a single attacks damage by (on average) 1 point over what you could do anyways, and adds +1 to your AC. I recomend most classes (Barbs are possibly the only exception, but even they should probably stay away) just using a rapier and shortsword and boosting Dex at this level getting you +1 to hit and damage on both attacks, and to your AC, initiative, Dex saves and all your dex skills. Only when Dex is maxed would you want to take the DW feat, and even then I would take Lucky, Alert or Resilient any day of the week)

As a final option you could just do what a lot of people do (myself included) and just grant everyone a bonus feat at 1st level (two for humans). He picks up the DW feat for his concept, uses 2 battleaxes and everyone is happy.

 

[LapBandit]

Any reason he cant just wield a Battle axe and Hand axe at the same time at 1st level? The rules allow for this.

Not without a feat they don't. The rules explicitly state that dual wielding requires light weapons, the feat removes that restriction and adds 1 AC.

 

[Flamestrike]

Not without a feat they don't. The rules explicitly state that dual wielding requires light weapons, the feat removes that restriction and adds 1 AC.

Ah, so just two handaxe attacks till he gets the feat then.

Even then his damage with 2 handaxes is 1d6+Str(3)+2 (8.5) with rage on the first attack, and a second attack (bonus action) at 1d6+2 (5.5) for a total of 14 DPR on average with hits (10 when not raging). Thats much higher DPR than a single 1d12+5 (11.5 or 9.5 when not raging) damage attack.

It might almost be worth him taking the feat at 4th Barb level to increase average damage per attack by +1 and add +1 to his AC. I cant get past thinking that he could simply add +2 to Strength for +1 to hit and damage for all his attacks in a round, and to his athletics checks also. As brutal critical gets activated the extra damage dice would come in handy I guess. Still; its no real difference using hand axes instead of battle axes.

Plus with handaxes he can throw and draw another one every round if need be.

Clearly for a Dex TWF build the +2 to Dex is always superior to the DW feat as it adds to damage, hit, AC, saves, skills and initative. (barring the ability to draw 2 weapons at once, which would be situational).

 

[famousringo]

My DM lets everybody pick one feat at first level for sake of customization. I think it's a good idea to help differentiate 1st level characters right out of the gate. Your player could use his on the dual wielding feat.

I don't think two weapon fighting is too terrible, mostly its just that -5/+10 feats are kinda sick. A raging, dual wielding barbarian gets an extra chance to add his rage damage bonus, an extra chance to crit and get bonus crit dice, and generally more reliable damage output. Not bad at all.

Steer him away from the Frenzied subclass and toward the Totem subclass. The extra attack from frenzy won't stack with dual wield, and IMO, the rage abilities of the totem subclass are pretty sick, anyway. Free advantage for all your friends? Badass.

And yeah, he should totally grab at least one level of fighter for the weapon style. Also consider 3 for the extra crits for even more bonus crit damage.

 

[spinozajack]

Two weapon fighting in 5E: I recall people saying it's underwhelming, but my search-fu is weak today, so I can't find any of those previous discussion. Can anybody remind me what the alleged problems were?

One of my players has made a first level barbarian who wields a pair of battleaxes. I said to him, "It's your character, so I want it to be your concept and I want to help it be awesome." I realize that as-written, his barbarian can't use two non-light weapons without the Dual Wielder (name?) feat, that barbarians suffer due to no fighting style, and that two weapon fighting would be very suboptimal for the barbarian's sweet 9th level critical hit feature. I also note that vanilla dual wielding looks pretty weaksauce: two attack rolls but no +mod damage on the second attack means slowing down the game with tiny attacks.

I want to make this [-]work[/-] super eff'ing cool for my player, and I'm willing to hack the game if a good solution is presented. I've granted some custom content for each of my other players, so I'm okay if the solution involves a relatively small net boost. Any suggestions?

Some of the things I've been considering:

• Give him a "two battleaxes" attack, which involves a single attack roll and deals 1d12+mod damage. (This is just a greataxe attack reskinned as two weapons.)
• Give him the two weapon fighting style (from fighter and ranger) as a bonus.
• Give him the Dual Wielder feat as a bonus.

Alone, none of these options seems great, but I'm also suspicious of granting all of them. Thoughts?

Thanks for your input.

My suggestions:
-Don't give away free feats. Other players will scream foul.
-You can let him dual wield handaxes and reflavor them as battleaxes until he can get the Dual Wielder feat at level 4.
-Single attacks don't refluff to two attacks in the narrative sense, so use the dual wielding rules instead of some fake super-axe houserule.
-Make a custom weapon to be "heavy battle axe" which is identical to the regular battle axe but requires proficiency (use background to give this proficiency at first level), and it has the heavy property so it can be used with great weapon master feat. That is definitely in the jurisdiction of the DM and other players could then do it as well.
-Or you could add a "double axe" weapon type which also requires custom proficiency but is both heavy and has an offhand attack built in. I'd keep it to 1d6, 1d6, maybe go ahead and give 1/2 ability mod to damage on both ends, why not. It's still weaker mechanically than a polearm for a barbarian. Then you can reflavor that as being two separate handaxes or battleaxes if you want. Keep the math and damage balanced to the base system for fairness. The dual wielder feat could bump the damage up to 1d8 and 1d8 so that it's balanced compared with dual wielding two battle axes.

You can also just make the str mod bonus give 1/2 to each hand so that the off hand doesn't feel limp or "weak", and then if he multiclasses to fighter for the TWF fighting style it goes back up to full mod. That's fair, actually a slight penalty at level 5 because he'd have two main hand attacks by then so would lose out by 1/2 mod.

The big penalty for barbarians is losing out on the great weapon master feat since they get advantage on all their attacks so the to hit penalty is less onerous. Dual wielding anything but a polearm is a trap choice mechanically for barbarians, which is why I think there should be a "heavy battle axe" proficiency, and maybe "heavy hand axe" too (though you'd need the dual wielder feat). That way he could take both proficiencies at first level as part of his background and still be able to dual wield and pick up great weapon master at level 4, which is when most non-human barbarians take it one would assume. The good thing about adding a custom weapon type for your campaign is that other PCs can then choose to take it if they want and think it's really sweet.

I would add a "double axe" proficiency which is 1d6 but heavy and has 1/2 damage mod on both ends (unless the user has TWF style) explicitly in the item description. That would be perfectly balanced against a greatsword for damage and feat applicability. Plus it would be two-handed so you can use great weapon style on it too. And maybe take a second fighting style from a couple levels in ranger to add up the TWF on top. That would be rad.

 

[bganon]

TWF is generally quite competitive DPR at low levels. And with the feat, it remains fairly good unless the class has several Extra Attacks (Fighter) or better uses for the bonus action (Monk, often Rogue, Frenzy Barb, etc...).

For example, at first level dual handaxes basically deal 2d6+STR damage, whereas a greataxe deals... 2d6+STR. The main difference is one takes two attack rolls instead, but with things like Sneak Attack or certain crit fishing builds, this can be beneficial.

The GWF feat skews things towards big weapons, but that's more of an issue with that feat than any deficiency of dual-wielding.

 

[spinozajack]

Well if he's got some players picking feats and others getting custom houseruled stuff, they should be roughly balanced in power, to what you can do in feats. There's no point asking your DM to be a dual wielding powerhouse as a concept when you can already dual wield by RAW as a barbarian, it will just be weaker than other classes dual wielding, and is a poor choice for damage. In a game where great weapon master is used and available, it would be sad if the barbarian weren't the prime person to take it. Especially since dual wielding a polearm allows you to have your cake and eat it too. Or three (attacks at level 5, that is).

The least change a DM could make to make dual wielding a worthwhile option damage wise for barbarians is to make a custom one handed heavy weapon, thereby making Dual Wielder & Great Weapon Master stack in the same way Polearm Master does. Even then, Polearm Master would still be stronger, because of reach and the opportunity attack and the free ability mod to damage for the off hand attack. The person who conceived of that feat is responsible for this edition's version of the spiked chain. Nothing else compares to it, really. Except Sharpshooter. Forgot about that one. But for barbs, yes you want this dragonborn to pick up great weapon master if he's to be a powerhouse instead of a poor excuse for a damage monster.

 

[77IM]

Trading the first Totem ability for a fighting style seems fair. Hell, make up an entire totem animal (Lion or Monkey or Mantis Shrimp or something) oriented around two-weapon fighting to bring this build up to par.