two-weapon fighting & iterative attacks

[freyar]

Ok, this seems to me like a silly question, but I couldn't find this in the PHB. Suppose a character has BAB at least +6/+1 and is fighting with two weapons. Do they get iterative attacks with the off-hand weapon or just the primary hand? Does it depend on the actual bonus? Thanks in advance!

 

[Michael Silverbane]

No. Fighting with two weapons grants only one additional attack when making a full attack action.

The feat, Improved Two Weapon Fighting grants a second attack with the off-hand weapon, with an additional -5 penalty (much like an iterative attack). There are additional feats to grant further off hand attacks.

 

[irdeggman]

From the SRD:

TWO-WEAPON FIGHTING [GENERAL]
You can fight with a weapon in each hand. You can make one extra attack each round with the second weapon.

Prerequisite: Dex 15.

Benefit: Your penalties on attack rolls for fighting with two weapons are reduced. The penalty for your primary hand lessens by 2 and the one for your off hand lessens by 6.

Normal: If you wield a second weapon in your off hand, you can get one extra attack per round with that weapon. When fighting in this way you suffer a –6 penalty with your regular attack or attacks with your primary hand and a –10 penalty to the attack with your off hand. If your off-hand weapon is light the penalties are reduced by 2 each. (An unarmed strike is always considered light.)

Special: A 2nd-level ranger who has chosen the two-weapon combat style is treated as having Two-Weapon Fighting, even if he does not have the prerequisite for it, but only when he is wearing light or no armor.

A fighter may select Two-Weapon Fighting as one of his fighter bonus feats.

TWO-WEAPON FIGHTING
If you wield a second weapon in your off hand, you can get one extra attack per round with that weapon. You suffer a –6 penalty with your regular attack or attacks with your primary hand and a –10 penalty to the attack with your off hand when you fight this way. You can reduce these penalties in two ways:
•If your off-hand weapon is light, the penalties are reduced by 2 each. (An unarmed strike is always considered light.)
•The Two-Weapon Fighting feat lessens the primary hand penalty by 2, and the off-hand penalty by 6.
Table: Two-Weapon Fighting Penalties summarizes the interaction of all these factors.

Table: Two-Weapon Fighting Penalties
Circumstances Primary Hand Off Hand
Normal penalties –6 –10
Off-hand weapon is light –4 –8
Two-Weapon Fighting feat –4 –4
Off-hand weapon is light and Two-Weapon Fighting feat –2 –2

Double Weapons: You can use a double weapon to make an extra attack with the off-hand end of the weapon as if you were fighting with two weapons. The penalties apply as if the off-hand end of the weapon were a light weapon.
Thrown Weapons: The same rules apply when you throw a weapon from each hand. Treat a dart or shuriken as a light weapon when used in this manner, and treat a bolas, javelin, net, or sling as a one-handed weapon

As stated by the previous poster - you get one extra attack when wielding 2 weapons - at a steep penalty to all attacks.

Having this feat reduces those penalties - and that is all it does.

Additional feats give additional off hand attacks, at increased penalties to attacks.

 

[benosmash]

I think that at +6/+1 you end up with a +4/+4/-1 attack with two-weapon fighting.

While we're on the two-weapon fighting topic, I had a question of my own.
Do Moneky Grip (page 103 of the complete warrior book) and Oversized Two-weapon Fighting (page 111 of
Complete Adventurer) stack? If so, is it wrong to be able to wield the equivelant of two greatswords with a meagre -4/-4 attack penalty?

 

[dontpunkme]

No, they wouldn't stack IMO. Oversized two-weapon fighting allows a character to treat a one-handed melee weapon as if it was a light weapon. The greatsword does not fit this description. The monkey grip feat reduces the penalty for using a weapon of a larger size category at a -2 penalty as opposed to a -4 penalty. It doesn't say anything in the feat description that this would allow a character to use a two-handed melee weapon in one hand at a reduced penalty. If you house rule that this allows a greatsword to be used one-handed that's fine, but that doesn't change the weapon to a one-handed melee weapon as far as other rules go.
In my experience allowing too much tweaking of rules along this vein gets out of hand in a hurry.

 

[benosmash]

No, they wouldn't stack IMO. Oversized two-weapon fighting allows a character to treat a one-handed melee weapon as if it was a light weapon. The greatsword does not fit this description. The monkey grip feat reduces the penalty for using a weapon of a larger size category at a -2 penalty as opposed to a -4 penalty. It doesn't say anything in the feat description that this would allow a character to use a two-handed melee weapon in one hand at a reduced penalty. If you house rule that this allows a greatsword to be used one-handed that's fine, but that doesn't change the weapon to a one-handed melee weapon as far as other rules go.
In my experience allowing too much tweaking of rules along this vein gets out of hand in a hurry.

Oversized Two-Weapon fighting allows you to use a one-handed weapon in your off hand at no penalty.
Monkey grip allows you to wield any weapon one size larger than you are for a -2 penalty.

The first feat allows you to wield, for instance two longswords with the regular -2/-2 penalty.
The second feat allows you to increase the size of the weapon you wield by one step for a -2 penalty on all attacks.

Monkey grip specifically states that you can wield a larger light weapon as a light weapon or a larger one-handed weapon as a one-handed weapon. Since I'm not wielding a larger greatsword, but merely a larger longsword in each hand (which happen to have the same stats as a greatsword) this combination should work. But at a -4/-4 penalty. Page 114 of the PHB shows you the progression of damage dice for size. If you look at the damage for a medium long sword (1d8) and then look at the damage for a large longsword(2d6), you will see that it matches the damage of a greatsword(2d6). Crit range/mod and damage type also match.

I don't see where any house ruling would need to come into play. As a fighter, in order to wield this combination I would have to sacrifice four levels of advancement in attack bonuses in order to wield this combination. Since that advancement is pretty much what a fighter is, I don't think it's so broken.

 

[irdeggman]

Monkey grip allows you to wield any weapon one size larger than you are for a -2 penalty.

Right except add the following text ", but the amount of effort it takes you to use the weapon does not change."

Basically you wield a larger light weapon as light weapon, a larger one-handed weapon as a one-handed weapon, etc. with the -2 penalty.

If you did not have this feat it would require a greater level of effort by one step. Basically a larger light weapon would be treated as one-handed weapon, a larger one-handed weapon would be treated as a two handed weapon, a larger 2 handed weapon could not be wielded at all. And you still get the -2 penalty on the attack roll for using a wrongly sized weapon.

 

[benosmash]

I failed to add that part from the book. My interpretation of the rules and how they work doesn't change. I'm still saying you'd be able to use two large longswords to attack with those feats. Am I wrong in my interpretation?

Is there somewhere in the rules that specifically states that you can't do such a thing even with these feats?

 

[irdeggman]

I failed to add that part from the book. My interpretation of the rules and how they work doesn't change. I'm still saying you'd be able to use two large longswords to attack with those feats. Am I wrong in my interpretation?

Is there somewhere in the rules that specifically states that you can't do such a thing even with these feats?

The last sentence from monkey grip benefit

You cannot wield a larger weapon in your off hand, and you cannot use this feat with a double weapon.

Basically the feat only works on your primary hand.

So you can't get to the point where you can wield a large longsword in each hand with any combination of these three feats.

 

[benosmash]

>_< D'OH!

I get too enthusiastic for my own good. could I still do the large longsword/longsword combo for a -4/-2 modifier?