Level Up (A5E) Two-Weapon Fighting Question

[kerleth]

I was looking at two-weapon fighting and realized that they put in text that allows you to make a second attack with extra attack! O5E was one attack only, which made using two weapons on a fighter great at 1st level, okay at 5th, and subpar at 11th+. However, due to the phrasing the fighter and marshal, which both get a 3rd attack with their off-hand weapon when they get Extra Attack again at 11th level. Here is the relevant phrasing

"If you have the Extra Attack feature, you can use your bonus action to make two attacks with the weapon in your off-hand."

My question is, was this intentional or not? I don't want to put in a bug report for it if the designers did it on purpose. It does seem a rather odd design choice though considering they specifically made Extra Attack work with it, but not all the way.
Does anyone know for sure what the designer's intent was?

 

[Mike Myler]

Having the Extra Attack feature is binary—you have it or you don't, and the degree of your Extra Attack isn't part of the equation. If you have Extra Attack and use two-weapon fighting, you get two attacks with your offhand weapon (and that's where it ends).

The designer who was on two-weapon fighting (who frequents these forums and I bet has resisted commenting ) pushed very hard to have additional attacks like you suggest, but with the extra attacks coming through each round from combat maneuvers it was decided not to scale it any higher for the fighter and marshal lest we fall back into the days of 3.X's marilith-warrior PCs rolling umpteen times a round in higher tier play.

 

[kerleth]

Thanks for the reply! I'll have to take a look at the math versus other fighting styles. Whether it works out to be equivalent power wise is my main concern. Two-weapon fighting being completely subpar for 11+ fighter's was incredibly frustrating to me, as I envision them as the class that should be the best at two-weapon fighting lore wise. I can't imagine going up one more attack would break anyone's enjoyment unless it was already stretched (which would mean other issues that should be looked at), so the math's the thing. Thanks again.