Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Dual Wielding feels bad

Hello.

I have only started my journey in the early access a few days ago, but want to provide some feedback in regards to dual wielding (better sooner than later).

I don't know a lot about DnD, but after googling a bit, dual wielding seems to be a mostly niche way to build your character in DnD, too. I don't know how strictly Larian wants to stick to rules from DnD (apparently very strictly), but I feel like dual wielding could need some buffs. Many players (especially those that don't know a lot about DnD) want to play dual wield with their melee-specialized characters like Barbarian, Fighter etc. and don't want to be punished for it.

The problem with dual wielding is that you have to spend a bonus action to attack with your off-hand. This makes you sacrifice all your bonus actions, if you want to do damage. Something someone with a 2-hander has not to. Also it somewhat locks several classes out of using dual wield, because of class abilities like 'Rage' for the Barbarian which needs a bonus action to activate. 'Action Surge' of the fighter class, for example, not restoring a bonus action is also an unneccessary nerf to dual wield. Reactions like 'Riposte' doesn't use your main + offhand either (as far as I know). On top of that, the bonuses dual wielding provide do not outweight these weaknesses in the slightest.

I really would like to avoid another "Divinity: Original Sin 2" experience where using a 2-hander is pretty much the only way to go, due to dual wielding just being a gimmick (severly undertuned). Strictly sticking to DnD rules isn't always the best decision, IMO. Not only for balance reasons, but also regarding things like weapon variety, character customization and customer expectations.

Thank you for listening. Please take my feedback into consideration.

You're right, the BA requirement makes it suck. And then BG3 makes it much worse still with all the new Bonus Actions available.

I hope they fix dual wielding for the next version of D&D. To make it cool and viable mechanically without being overpowered, it could have something to do with reactions (dual shortswords react faster than a Greatsword), and some flexibility between defense and offense.

Yeah, unfortunately dual wielding being tied to a bonus action makes it really only optimal on thieves because they get an extra BA. They can actually consistently make an off-hand attack or two. Very deadly with dual xbows. It makes the two weapon fighting style not a great choice for martial classes because the additional +2 on the off hand often won't be used.

I'm most familiar with how two weapon fighting works in 3.5 (due to kotor). In that system the benefit of equipping an off-hand weapon is making an extra attack during your round for free. However gaining this extra attack came at the cost of a penalty to attack in both hands. Pathfinder uses something similar. I pulled this list of penalties from D20 (before the addition of any player modifiers):
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
(Note: that the dual wield trait is not required to equip two full sized weapons in each hand you just took a larger penalty to hit for doing so).

I'm not sure about pathfinder, but the dueling feat line in kotor eventually gave you +3 on your mainhand attack and +3 to defense. So the benefit of going two handed was the chance at higher damage at the risk of accuracy and defense, while the benefit of single handed was consistent striking and higher defense. Personally wouldn't mind if BG3 worked a bit more like this. Make the two weapon fighting style add something like a +2 on the roll for each hand and allow an extra attack per round done with the off hand (as a non BA). Then make the dual wielder feat add an additional +2/+2.

This approach would make dual wielding much more viable on martial classes, but be aware that it would leave Rogues suffering a bit as they wouldn't be able to pick a fighting style like martials to add an additional +2/+2, only the trait at lvl 4. However, it could also help them by freeing up their BAs for more than offhand attacks.
If they did take an approach more like this I would also recommend merging the dueling and defense fighting style. Remove defense and merge it with dueling for a +2 on the attack roll and +1 to AC. This would be a massive damage increase to two weapon fighting so single handed folk would need to be given something to keep pace (especially with skills like hunters mark or hex).

If it's true that just taking the extra dex (18) gives you equal damage to dual wielding larger weapons, then yes. Deprives you of magic weapons, but the hit to accuracy turns the tide and makes dual wielding inferior to many people.

Not sure I agree, especially If you get some important weapons for builds in the full release. A bit of added accuracy from the feat could go a long way, though.

Its a simple fix, just Larian needs to add ambi-dexterous trait to the game. This feat removes the negative penalty associated with two weapon fighting- unsure if it exists in 5th edition thou. Regarding pathfinder, the way the game does it is it treats the secondary weapon as an additional source of damage and adds it as if it was any other damage source [force, acid, fire, frost, shock etc]. Do not know the math behind it thou. This could be added to BG3- yes swtor does it similar to pathfinder. The result would be not using off hand as a free action.

Is this Op? No its not. Enemies in BG3 will cheat by shooting through walls, drop things on you, throw hand fulls of bombs as if they are Elon Musk despite having no reason to have them, will use splash surfaces on effects, will actively try to alert enemies to you, will by a game of numbers toss you of walls to your death. [turning of Karmic dice does help, not sure why its on by DEFAULT]. You are already at a huge disadvantage [assuming your not cheesing, which i am not trying to]. This same issue is seen with DOS2. If you try to do tactician as it is designed your going to be slaughtered in 1000/1000 fights. Larian are even worse at balancing encounters then Paizo is at marketing pathfinder. This merely fixes a major disadvantage

If you really want to feel insulted, try playing a dual wielding frenzy barbarian. You either get your main hand attack and your off hand attack or you get your main hand attack and your frenzy attack. You don't get to attack with both hands and THEN add your bonus frenzy attack. Lol. It is the whole bonus action thing you mention. Just a heads up to anyone thinking of trying a dual wielding frenzy barbarian. Lol. Don't bother.

The most recent One D&D playtest packet had dual wielding mechanics where you get a free off-hand attack once per turn if you use the Attack action, if both weapons are Light.

I wouldn't mind if they included this mechanic in BG3, because as many think, dual-wielding is underpowered in 5e. Especially in BG3 where Larian has added so many bonus action options. I'd probably advocate for some sort of dual-wielding penalty though...?

I've spoilered the below because it gets into the math/balance of dual-wielding and theorycrafting, and so is less relevant to the thread.

It's not really the Bonus Action use that's a problem as you are getting damage out of it; the real issue is 5e requires Two Weapon Fighting to add your ability modifier to the damage and that feels bad in a CRPG. They could add the effect of Two Weapon Fighting to Dual Wielder feat and then come up with something else for Fighters and Rangers to get instead of TWF. That might annoy some of the DnD hardcore, but honestly Fighter and Ranger are two of the weaker options right now outside of GWM...

As much as I'd like it to be otherwise, two-weapon fighting / dual wielding (TWF) hasn't really been intended as a universally accessible fighting style in D&D 5e. Only Fighters and Rangers get access to the style normally, which lets you use the stat to damage. Rogues also use it to get more chances to sneak attacks. Very few others could use it effectively, even if they didn't have to spend a bonus action.

That being said, for BG3, if you want to dual wield, there might be hope yet. Larian have said at some point that they plan on including multiclassing, so unless that has changed, playing a Fighter 5 or Ranger 5 that then levels Rogue should give you pretty decent damage and a lot of skill utillity. Add in that the Thief subclass for Rogue gets another bonus action and there are bonus action maipulation on items, dual wielding has the potential to get out of hand if we can multiclass.

Edit: By having having dual wielding be a bonus action, Larian might've ended up buffing it in the grand scheme of things. We've got a helmet that gives +1 BA when you're below 50% hp in EA already, which was a major buff to my Ranger (2 offhand attacks). That wouldn't have been possible without it being a BA.

Well when multiclassing is added, this may be a powerful combo. Two main plus two bonus plus one from the helmet at charecters level eight. Thinking about power gaming one when it’s released or a modder figures out how to unlock the ability (or add it).

Edit: just read above post, I would add that probably best to get rogue first for the proficiencies at a small hp cost.

One thing overlooked is how flexible dual wielding can be. DW fights aren’t typically the in your face kind of fights. You duck and weave your way around the battlefield.

I got Asterian(sp) set up as a thief and dual wielding scimitars and the versatility was pretty powerful. He had those boots that give mobility and that helm. He pretty much owned the battlefield.

1: Backstab one and kills, cunning dash, bonus hit on another.
2: Use two bonus on one then longbow on another.
3: Bonus attack, cunning disengage, run as far away as possible, longbow,
etc

These don’t include the 3rd bonus action granted by helm. He pretty much danced the battlefield.

This makes sense. On melee rogues, I fee like it's the Standard Option™ to Dual Wield, either because of the extra chance in tabletop to get sneak attack, or the extra bonus action usages in BG3. A dual-wielding rogue is just better than a rapier-wielding rogue. If you do need to use your BA for something else, you've lost a paltry 1 damage by using a shortsword instead of a rapier.

The main problem imo is that, as @OP says, Fighters, Barbarians, and Rangers can't usually make good use of dual wielding. It's just so suboptimal compared to wielding a single weapon, and that's even without taking into account GWM. You either get a shield for +2 AC, or get so much extra damage using 2H weapons when Extra Attack comes online. And in BG3 it's even worse due to the plethora of homebrewed Bonus Actions that single-wielders don't have to sacrifice damage to use.

Completely agree and that’s why my only recourse is multiclassing

I have considered what playing a melee thief/Druid 3/# would be like. Spell, cunning dash, bonus attack… etc.

Flexibility over out right damage… I dunno never played past 3.5ed. I do miss my lawnmower fighter though

A bit of a tangent, but while I don't mind the rules around off hand weapons for 5e/BG3 I don't find the interface for managing a dual wielding character very fluid in the game.

They just don't feel swashbuckling and nimble, at least the way I've been doing it which is to left click to attack with main weapon then select the offhand weapon from my toolbar and then click the enemy again to attack with my other hand, while Astarion or whoever does a little twirl as I move my mouse around.

Is there any way to bind attacking with an off hand weapon to a key, like Shove is to V or Jump is to Z by default, so that you can hover over a character and press it to get the option to attack with the off hand rather than main hand? Or any other quick way to attack with the off hand other than selecting the icon from the toolbar ? (Without toggling dual wielding on, that is.)

I think if you could left click attack with your main hand, then press some other key and left click again to attack with your offhand, it would feel so much more dynamic.

It'll be embarrassing if I've not noticed a way to do something like this given how many hours I've played the game, but I'm still hoping there is one!

Dual Wielding just needs to let us use second weapons special skills that is all. And Gwm needs to be nerfed in half cos we all know that feat is broken.

When you do the avg numbers on GWM it usually isn't that strong without a way to boost accuracy*, but this is where the homebrewed stuff in Larian comes in. There are much more ways to increase accuracy in BG3 compared to tabletop, which means GWM scales very high, very early.

*Don't believe me? Here is a Fighter using GWM, a Blastlock and a TWF Hunter Ranger dmg numbers at lvl 3, 4, 5 and 11.

Fighter
Lvl 3 - 2d6 + 3 = 10 x 0.65 = 6.5
Lvl 4 - 2d6 + 3 + 10 = 20 x 0.35 (- 5 from GWM, -1 for not increasing str) = 7
Lvl 5 - 4d6 + 6 + 20 = 40 x 0.35 = 14
Lvl 11 - 6d6 + 15 + 30 = 66 x 0.4 (- 5 from GWM, no penalty from str since we have bonus ASI at lvl 6) = 26,4

Blastlock (Eldritch Blast + Agonizing Blast + Hex + increase Charisma at lvl 4 and 8. Often considered the benchmark to meet for acceptable dmg per turn)
Lvl 2 - 1d10 + 3 + 1d6 = 12 x 0.65 = 7.8
Lvl 5 - 2d10 + 8 + 2d6 = 26 x 0.65 = 16.9
Lvl 11 - 3d10 + 15 + 3d6 = 42 x 0.65 = 27.3

TWF Hunter Ranger
Lvl 2 - 2d6 + 6 = 13 x 0.65 = 8.45
Lvl 3 - 2d6 + 6 = 13 x 0.65 = 8.45 + 3,9 (from Colossus Slayer with 2 chances to trigger) = 12.35
Lvl 5 - 3d6 + 12 = 22.5 x 0.65 = 14.625 + 4,3 (Colossus Slayer with 3 chances) = 18.925
Lvl 11 - 3d6 + 15 = 25.5 x 0.65 = 16.575 + 4.3 = 20.875

TWF Hunter using Hunter's Mark at lvl 5.
Round 1 (settup): 2d6 + 8 = 15 x 0.65 = 9.75 + 3.9 = 14.05
Round 2 (full potential)**: 3d6 + 12 + 3d6 = 33 x 0.65 = 21.45 + 4.3 = 25.75

Note: Ranger 5 -> Rogue multiclassing can add ~2.9 (2 attacks) to ~3.3 (3 attacks) avg dmg per turn for each Sneak Attack dice without spending any resources or feats.

**This will require no settup in OneD&D, since TWF is no longer a BA there, and Hunter's Mark won't need concentration for Rangers. Ranger go brrrr in OneD&D playtest.

Contrarily, here is a Barbarian using Rage + Reckless Attack + GWM (from lvl 4). Barbarians are great users of GWM because they get advantage for free.
Lvl 2: 2d6 + 3 + 2 = 12 x 0.8775 = 10.53
Lvl 4: 2d6 + 3 + 2 + 10 = 22 x 0.5775 = 12.705
Lvl 5: 4d6 + 6 + 4 + 20 = 44 x 0.5775 = 25.41

The extra Bonus Attack on the Thief that helps make dual wielding viable needs to be removed. That is not the correct answer.

Mostly because other classes and subclasses need to be able to dual wield as well.

But also because extra BA's open up new problems. Drinking an unreasonable amount of potions to tank a hard enemy. Using powerful stuff like Wyvern poison or smites spiral out of control when you get extra attacks.

I agree they should already change how dual wielding works in BG3 (as per the One D&D playtest material) and get rid of the Bonus Action requirement.

dual wielding changes in future dnd editions, but dual wielding 5e overall isnt that bad. It has strong interactions with multi attack buffs. It beats two handed weapons easily unless you have a great weapon master or sharpshooter build with high attack, or easy advantage

It's important to keep in mind that in 5e D&D, not every class is meant to benefit from dual wielding. Only Rangers and Fighters get the two-weapon style to use it.


And if you multiclass Fighter or Ranger 5 -> Rogue, it can remain fairly competitive even with feats.

By "multi-attack buffs," do you mean effects that deal extra damage on each attack? These seem required to make dual wielding competitive on non-rogue characters.

Even taking into account TWFS, dual-wielding still seems strictly worse for Fighters at level 5+.

- Level 2 Fighter with TWF shortswords: 0.65*2*(1d6+3) = 8.5 expected damage, at the cost of their bonus action
- Level 2 Fighter with GWF greatsword: 0.65*(2*4.167+3) = 7.4 expected damage (1d6, reroll 1 and 2, comes out to 4.167 damage)

- Level 5 Fighter with TWF shortswords: 0.65*3*(1d6+4) = 14.6 expected damage, at the cost of their bonus action
- Level 5 Fighter with GWF greatsword: 0.65*2*(2*4.167+4) = 16.0 expected damage
Already at level 5, with a single additional extra attack, 2H'ing a weapon beats out dual wielding. And you still have you bonus action available!

If you have +1d4 on each attack (dipping, magic weapon, etc)
- Level 5 Fighter with Dipped TWF shortswords: 0.65*3*(1d6+4+2.5) = 19.5 expected damage, at the cost of their bonus action
- Level 5 Fighter with Dipped GWF greatsword: 0.65*2*(2*4.167+4+2.5) = 19.3 expected damage
Dual wielding slightly beats out using a 2H weapon, but only if you use your bonus action making that off-hand attack each turn. Your dps plummets if you have to continually spend your BA doing something else (dipping on your first turn, Second Wind, BG3 homebrew BAs).

Rangers are more suited for two-weapon fighting I suppose, as they don't get Great Weapon Fighting Style or a 2nd Extra Attack at level 11, and they also get Hunter's Mark.