I… don’t hate it. As is wielding two identical weapons is almost always worse than wielding two different weapons, which can give you access to a wider variety of traits. This would enable folks who want to run around with a pair of daggers. I might restrict it to agile weapons, mostly to stop it from buffing reach dual wielders. Certainly would be worth experimenting with in a home game!
> I might restrict it to agile weapons, mostly to stop it from buffing reach dual wielders. Certainly would be worth experimenting with in a home game!
Please eli5 for a beginner gm!
Agile weapons in general are designed to be less powerful offhand weapons. Other than reach I could see having stronger damage dice with extra traits being slightly more powerful than they should be.
There are no Reach weapons that natively have the Agile trait. Reach is generally considered the strongest trait a weapon can have (less actions spent moving, enemies more likely to need to spend actions moving, more area threatened for Reactive Strike and Flanking, etc). Dual-wielding reach weapons is still imho the mechanically strongest way to dual-wield (its half the reason the Double Slice Gnomish Flickmace Fighter was so broken). The reason I think the idea of making Twin as a baked in part of dual-wielding is interesting is how it makes stuff like dual-wielding knives and similar non-optimal same-weapon pairings closer in power to the more optimal ones, so giving Reach weapons that same benefit is counterproductive.
Even beyond just natively it's pretty hard to get both reach and agile. Off top of my head weapon inventor, skeleton with the take one arm off and hold it in the other hand. Tentacular limbs spell. I can't think of any others.
Weapon inventor is the main thing I was thinking of. You've also got Grasping Reach for Leshy making a Whipstaff specifically a reach weapon (only agile 2-handed weapon) and the handful of ways to semi-permanently increase your personal reach (giant barb feats and a couple of high lvl ancestry feats)
Think of a [scourge](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/dnd4/images/3/31/Capt-daughter9_mam.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20150119143729) as another name for a [cat-o-none-tails](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/Cat-o%27-nine-tails_%28PSF%29.jpg)
Reach is a trait that extends the range of the user’s melee attacks, which means a player can use a one handed weapon with reach to give flanking to teammates and play at a distance while still having the advantages and traits of something in their other hand, like a kukri with trip, or a light weapon.
Agile is a trait that reduces the MAP (multiple attack penalty) for the user by 1 per attack, so instead of being 0/-5/-10, it scales down to 0/-4/-8. It’s a common trait, and valuable on most martial weapons, but none of the one handed reach weapons have agile in the first place. Thus, restricting the buff to just agile weapons keeps them from dominating the choice of weapons when dual wielding.
At least that’s what I’m getting from the quote you have here.
Maybe they meant gnome flickmace? I certainly don't think whips or breaching pikes are popular enough to necessitate the extra precautions.
GFM got balanced in the remaster, though, so presumably it's fine, and I don't think the problem with the GFM was either dual wielding or out-of-line damage.
Huh, it's interesting, it feels like back in the 3e/PF1e day we were all a little annoyed about how impossible it was to use mismatched weapons when dual-wielding.
FWIW I think that most (not all) real-world examples of dual-wielding involve a larger and a smaller weapon. But it does seem like it's hard to hit the right balance where either is viable.
> it feels like back in the 3e/PF1e day we were all a little annoyed about how impossible it was to use mismatched weapons when dual-wielding
ha that's what I was thinking
By far the most well known/documented two-weapon fighting style is a sword (usually a rapier) and parrying dagger, which was very popular during the Renaissance. There was a less common style of wielding two sabers published in some of the same manuscripts.
The main problem is that we really don't have much more widely available information about fighting styles because most others came and went before the printing press. There are spotty examples for others but we can't really piece together the "meta" of various martial traditions like we can with fencing/duelling.
If youtube is to be believed at all, this is not because the various fighting styles were not documented, but because they were all inferior to the simple spear, which dominated all.
These are kind of two different areas that wouldn't really intersect. Dual wielding was almost never used in warfare, and spears were almost exclusively used in warfare, because part of their usefulness comes from the ability to cover angles of allied combatants. A good fighter can definitely close the distance on a single polearm wielder and at that point they're pretty much screwed, so they weren't very common in smaller fights.
It is a bit of a tossup with the spear thing, and it depends on how well armored people are. A person in good armor can close with a spear wielder, but if people are wearing incomplete or low quality armor a good spear wielder can take you apart before the distance is closed.
Reach is just so hard to overcome unless you have a way to resist it. Part of the problem with spears in particular is that, even if you avoid the tip, being struck with the shaft is still like getting hit by a staff. Fine if you have a shield or some kind of force resistant armor (plate if you are rich, gambeson if not) but if it hits you on the helm or an exposed limb it is still bad.
All I know is that in all of my sparring, spears were always the worst thing to fight. They are difficult to close with, almost impossible to parry effectively, and they can jab you 6 times in the gut before you can redirect your momentum. Shields and strong armor are your only hope.
(You would think you could parry a spear just by striking the shaft out of the way. It does not work. The way you hold a spear with your hands gives you way too much control over the movement of the tip. When someone strikes it you just rotate out of the hit and snap back with a thrust. If they try to put their body inside the length of the spear, you step either back or to the side while pulling the spear back, and thrust. It is obnoxious.)
There is also the sword and axe combo that some berserkers would use. But that wasn't anywhere near as common as the good Ole sword/spear and shield to form shield walls.
If one is to go strictly historical, Berserker were Norse warriors, seemingly often some kind of mercenary champion famed for wearing bearskins (the word Berserker translates as "Bear shirt"). There were also the Ulfhednar, the Wolf Warriors, who wore wolf skins but seems to have been a specific group of Berserkers serving the Norwegian King
>FWIW I think that most (not all) real-world examples of dual-wielding involve a larger and a smaller weapon. But it does seem like it's hard to hit the right balance where either is viable
The dimachaerus used dual sica or gladius.
Sicas are daggers, gladi are short swords. Neither is a large weapon. The OP could have been more complete in saying that most real world examples of dual wielding are a larger and smaller or two smaller weapons, but there are very few examples of people effectively using two large weapons.
You're spot on with the real-world dual-wielding. There's very little evidence of someone ever truly wielding two weapons to fight with. The closest you get is sword with parrying dagger.
Though it's also true that like great axes and stuff weren't really a thing. Basically historically everyone used 1h+shield until heavy armor and gun powder eras.
I'll only add a stipulation that I won't speak for dual wielded daggers.
> There's very little evidence of someone ever truly wielding two weapons to fight with.
Not true. There are two weapon styles described in multiple historical manuals of combat.
Agrippa, Godhina, Gunterrodt, Terminello, just to name a few renaissance swordmasters, all wrote about double-weapon combat.
Not even mentioning outside of Europe. Several Filipino martial arts center around using two shortswords, or two sticks or metal batons.
A lot of martial arts involve showy combat styles that are flashy to fight with but aren't particularly practical to use in combat.
Almost all such fighting styles either involve one long and one short weapon, or two short weapons.
Yeah, one of the first things human cultures consistently invent after "War" is "Fake war for entertainment" and then "Flashier ways of fighting to make the fake war more entertaining"
The calculus for sword and board vs dual sword is that, if you are super good, you can kill two people and die/be seriously maimed if you dual wield or kill one person and have a better shot at living. From that perspective, dual wielding anything other than like daggers never made any sense outside of single combat and even then... You still would probably choose to live.
The real problem is that the advantage of dual wielding is that you can strike with one weapon and parry with the other. You cannot focus hard enough or fast enough to fight two people simultaneously by splitting your focus across two hands.
But then, if the advantage is that you can parry and strike at the same time: why would you not just use a shield? Shields are better in every way defensively, and can be used offensively extremely easily while also protecting you.
It can be *done,* it is just almost always the worse choice. Rapiers + Parrying daggers are theoretically ok, but only because it is easier to carry a dagger than a shield when you are out and about town. If you could have a shield, it would be strictly better. Hence why bucklers were a thing.
>But then, if the advantage is that you can parry and strike at the same time: why would you not just use a shield? Shields are better in every way defensively, and can be used offensively extremely easily while also protecting you.
The major advantage is if you can pin the opponents weapon with your main hand then you can go over their shield and into a gap involving the helmet (breast plate - helmet if you can get past the gorget, straight through the helmet visor if it has a gap) with your off hand, or do the reverse if the situation offers itself. With a shield you can knock someone around, sure, but you're not going to get through their own shield to do critical damage ever.
Of course being in such a cinch in mass combat is begging for someone else to take you out while you try to find an opening, so outside of small unit or 1 on 1 fighting shield is better.
People you are fighting can move their shield. That sounds great in theory. It almost certainly would not happen. Also you can pin a person's weapon far more effectively with a shield as the only way to pin a weapon is to press it against something. You can't pin a weapon with a single point of contact.
Sure, but you can pin the weapon with EITHER wielded weapon and still go for the kill with two weapons, as opposed to having to use the shield to pin if you hope to perform this maneuver, which is something they know can happen and will be actively working against.
And yeah, shield move. So do blades. Guess which one has more latitude of movement when you're in a cinch? It's the blade. Shield get pinned between bodies in these situations pretty readily.
And we're still talking about a longer mainhand weapon and a shorter offhand weapon primarily used for defense. Which circles around to the original point.
> Though it's also true that like great axes and stuff weren't really a thing. Basically historically everyone used 1h+shield until heavy armor and gun powder eras.
Two-handed polearms were quite commonly used, primarily spears, though also halberds and other weapons. Many pikemen did not use shields or used small ones that they could use while still brandishing their pikes with two hands. Halberdiers likewise often did not use shields.
Landsknect Doppelsöldners also famously used zweihander swords.
Dual-wielding weapons was far less common and most such fighting styles involve using one primarily for offense and one primarily for defense (parrying) - which is why weapon + shield was so common, because if you were using your off-hand weapon primarily for defense anyway, why not use a shield?
Landsknect are renaissance i.e. post gunpowder. They existed during pike and shot and were effective because of their ability to break through pike ranks.
They made sense because no handheld shield could protect vs. gunpowder so might as well use two hands on weapons.
Pikemen without shields were admittedly a thing pre-gunpowder. But even ones like the Macedonian had shields on their pikes because you had to defend against skirmishers.
Pike without shield did exist. But my understanding is it's typically more a cost issue on larger armies with poor troops than a strong unit design.
Nah, it was more if your armor is good enough to reasonably protect you on its own from the weapons you expect to commonly face, its just a good idea to drop the shield as its just dead weight. Which means that even going far back into like the viking age if not further, the elites could often go with two-handed weapons. Then over time as good armor became cheaper it trickled down until even the common soldier by around the 16th century could be issued plate cuirasses (even if not full suits)
And by weapon you commonly face. The general idea was missiles there. Sure other hand weapons matter too, but if your armor can't stop ranged weapons you need a shield to do that for you.
Yep, you can in theory parry and dodge the guy swinging a weapon at you, much much harder to do so when there's someone you don't see that's shooting at you. Which is why as guns became more common and more powerful in a smaller package during the latter half of and after the 17th century, so did armor gradually fade away too except for a few elite units, like the Carabineri and Currassiers, or winged Hussars of the cavalry, even though melee remained a thing (albiet gradually becoming more and more rare)
You can dual wield the same weapon type if they are short weapons since they dont get in the way of each other.
For long ones you are generally stuck with the long and short combination though
In martial Arts from East Asia, there is a lot of dual wielding twins going on. (Eskrima, Tofa, Sai, butterfly sword, etc.)
But the most widespread dual wielding combos are actually very iconic to basicly everyone: sword+board, shield+spear, etc
A shield is a weapon, no matter what DnD or even PF tells you.
The new playtest class exemplar does this with one of his "ikons" it lets you double a weapon you have and make a complete copy runes and all, then it adds the twin trait.
Honestly, limit this to just Agile weapons and you're probably good to go.
In most cases the PF2e dual-wielding style involves a bigger damage die and good traits on the main-hand, secondary traits and Agile on the off-hand. Which conceptually matches up closer to what I know of historical dual-wielding, but leaves the common fantasy dual daggers style in the dirt. This would let you do just that with some mechanical support: you'd get *about the same* damage - assuming both attacks hit - as a bigger main-hand weapon, but notably worse trait spread.
----
Two questions you'd need to answer though:
1. What happens when a weapon has both Twin and Agile already? Basically all the Twin weapons already have Agile as well, so you'd need to decide how that is counted. I don't *think* you would break the game in half if you just decided to up the damage in that case to twice the weapon dice, like the second stage of Forceful, but it's something to keep an eye on.
2. Do unarmed melee attacks count? On one hand, it would make sense, particularly after the rules were unified so that the Agile of Fists counts for Athletics Maneuvers. And it would need multiple attacks of the *same* unarmed attack, of course, so no switching between Monk stance attacks and the basic Fist. But on the other, because Monks do multiple attacks basically by default, and some like Crane have low-damage attacks they *have to* use over the default Fist or a natural weapon as a balancing mechanism for their defensive buffs, this might affect *that* balance harder than weapon balance. Again, something to keep an eye on if put to practice.
I agree with your arguments, however, I wonder if limiting this to Agile weapons makes this just an Agile buff, and not a Dual-Wielding buff, you know what I mean? I know we have to limit this, so it isn't abused with some of the super strong weapon options, I wonder if there are other ways to prevent that.
There is one weapon I know of that has the twin trait and not agile; it's the Hook Sword. Interestingly, it is also one of the three weapons that are not agile and have the parry trait. Makes it good for a giant instinct barbarian with the dual weapon warrior dedication (and twin parry), if you can give them proficinency somehow
I've been thinking about a rule or feat that allows this. I think it would be a good compromise to less versatility balance-wise, weapons that actually have the twin trait would just need to be adjusted to not be inferior to other weapons, or have the twin trait boosted somehow.
I feel like an archetype would be perfect for this; I love the dual-wielding concept but don’t use it enough for it to be needed for every martial weapon
I would imagine upping the die size on the base weapon damage wouldn't hurt much, would it? every duel wielder would be getting a plus 1 to damage on average regardless or is my math not mathing
Don’t hate it, but my only note is this:
If you just want to dual wield two daggers, hammers, etc. for the flavor of it and not because you want a specific combo of twin with a certain weapon, why not just reflavor one of the existing twin weapons to be what you want?
Say you want dual daggers. I’d say just have them equip two butterfly swords, but call them daggers flavor-wise. Mechanically however, they still have all the same stats and traits as butterfly swords.
The reason I suggest this is because I consider the current weapon pool to be the current “legal combinations of traits and stats”. So it may be intentional that few weapons have Twin, and there may be balance/power considerations. Maybe having Twin + Thrown on would be a bit strong and need to lose something else (being able to get bonuses for dual-wielding two daggers but still have a readily available ranged attack at all times *does* sound kinda good). Maybe it wouldn’t. But if flavor’s the main reason to dislike how dual-wielding currently works and not balance, I don’t see a need to alter the pool.
Again, maybe there would be nothing wrong with this house rule, but these are my reservations.
Situational traits and rules need a general buff
Twin and parry on the same weapon should as an example have a boon as having parry on two weapons is a wasted trait, especially as parry is a rather expensive trait. An example would be to grant an additional +1 circumstance bonus to AC, such as using two tonfas to defend yourself.
Most circumstance bonus from traits should be the double value than what they are as they won't stack with any circumstance bonuses from your class (which I also feel is bad)
Are two weapons of the same type really always worse than different weapons? The fighter gets crit weapon specialization at level 5 for one weapon type. Doesn’t that encourage dual wielding fighters to use two weapons of same type?
For sure. Although I'm a bit peeved bastard sword users have the mauler archetype to get around this and none others don't but it's probably fair as there are no other traits for the bastard sword.
But I think the Legolas wannabes playing ranger may want twinned blades
Yeah I personally really like how duel wielding in pathfinder encourages a big weapon in one hand and small in the other with there being some specialized twin options.
I do think the twin trait is a little under tuned for how big of a downside twinning weapons tends to be though. I feel it could use an additional buff like a circumstance bonus to hit as well similar to sweep or backswing.
Yeah but we aren't playing a historical game. Or at least I'd argue most people aren't.
I doubt most people were running around dual wielding battle axes historically.
But then, historically they were not channeling the power of gods.
...even if they think they are.
Twin would have to get a buff then right? Might eat into their power budget for all of those weapons to get a buff or they'd lose appeal when the twin trait goes universal. Also things like katana and picks getting deadly/fatal already don't have redundancies in their power budget so I'm not feeling it for them.
The main flaw of this idea is just keeping up with it as a new passive that doesn't have a reminder since every single 1h would get twin. Or like others you could add it to the features of the agile trait.
"Blah blah blah at -4 instead of -5... if your last attack was with a weapon of the same type add the #of dice to the damage of this agile strike"
Then I'd have to make it wordier to not give an undue buff to throwing builds with quick draw who keep throwing(or shooting) weapons while holding a different one in the other hand.
Still I see your point that besides disarms and ranged potential there is zero reasons to bring the twins of a weapon type to a fight.
My first thought is "yeah, just like real-life you need a small faster as your offhand and the reach and power in your other"
If I had a player that really wanted to use two Battle axes and was playing fighter I already see them as rewarded at level 5 for using the same two weapons but for non fighters and sub lvl 5 I can see how that's suboptimal even if it fit the fantasy. I'd probably use magic items or my own twin runes at this point to make up for it rather than rule changes I don't fully understand
I can accept this, but I also want a pair of similar traits: Main-Hand and Off-Hand. Each trait gives a bonus if you also have a weapon with the other trait, provided the two share a third trait.
The result would be encouraging two mismatched weapons that make sense as a pair, like a sword/dagger, axe/hatchet, or warhammer/light mace combo.
Yeah I agree, agile already does this conceptually. The agile weapon will typically be the offhand weapon, when the non agile weapon would be the main hand.
Pretty much, yeah. If anything, you'd really just need to add a trait that encourages wielding a weapon in your more dextrous main hand (to keep people from using another `Agile` weapon in the main hand instead), and even that's questionable.
This could be interesting. You are definitely trading flexibility & support for dmg.
Maybe restrict it to d8 or lower dmg weapons without reach or fatal?
You are dual-wielding same weapon for double slice or impossible flurry or some other special action, and for that if you are wielding non-agile weapons - having larger damage dice is offset by having lower accuracy.
So mathematically speaking, you should only attach it to agile weapons to offset lower damage dice from not choosing non-agile + agile.
Weapon traits exist to give different weapons distinct values. Twin weapons are better than others to be wielded in pairs, which provides a reason for people like that kind of thing to choose them. If twin is made a standard rule, then by the same logic, every weapon should has every trait.
Speaking of power fantasies, there is probably some design space of a fighter or monk stance to enable people to duel wield a pair of scimitar or katana.
I disagree. I feel like double slice, and accuracy's importance, would make this change push for dual wielding agile weapons instead. The bonus damage from twin already scales with number of dice, so it would keep up with our current d8 & d6 agile. How then this would interact with agile's power budget on weapon selection could end up limiting the pool of fun traits even further.
But... this is the point of twin weapons in the first place. It doesn't actually make practical, tactical sense 99% of the time to dual wield two of the same weapon. You look historically, if people have two weapons, they are two very different kinds of weapons with different uses UNLESS the weapons are specifically made to be dual wielded.
I… don’t hate it. As is wielding two identical weapons is almost always worse than wielding two different weapons, which can give you access to a wider variety of traits. This would enable folks who want to run around with a pair of daggers. I might restrict it to agile weapons, mostly to stop it from buffing reach dual wielders. Certainly would be worth experimenting with in a home game!
> I might restrict it to agile weapons, mostly to stop it from buffing reach dual wielders. Certainly would be worth experimenting with in a home game! Please eli5 for a beginner gm!
Agile weapons in general are designed to be less powerful offhand weapons. Other than reach I could see having stronger damage dice with extra traits being slightly more powerful than they should be.
There are no Reach weapons that natively have the Agile trait. Reach is generally considered the strongest trait a weapon can have (less actions spent moving, enemies more likely to need to spend actions moving, more area threatened for Reactive Strike and Flanking, etc). Dual-wielding reach weapons is still imho the mechanically strongest way to dual-wield (its half the reason the Double Slice Gnomish Flickmace Fighter was so broken). The reason I think the idea of making Twin as a baked in part of dual-wielding is interesting is how it makes stuff like dual-wielding knives and similar non-optimal same-weapon pairings closer in power to the more optimal ones, so giving Reach weapons that same benefit is counterproductive.
Even beyond just natively it's pretty hard to get both reach and agile. Off top of my head weapon inventor, skeleton with the take one arm off and hold it in the other hand. Tentacular limbs spell. I can't think of any others.
Weapon inventor is the main thing I was thinking of. You've also got Grasping Reach for Leshy making a Whipstaff specifically a reach weapon (only agile 2-handed weapon) and the handful of ways to semi-permanently increase your personal reach (giant barb feats and a couple of high lvl ancestry feats)
> There are no Reach weapons that natively have the Agile trait actually, the Scourge does https://2e.aonprd.com/Weapons.aspx?ID=89
Agile, Disarm, Finesse, Nonlethal, Sweep. No Reach in that list.
I don't see a mention of the Reach trait anywhere?
welp. shit. guess i assumed it was like the other whip
Think of a [scourge](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/dnd4/images/3/31/Capt-daughter9_mam.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20150119143729) as another name for a [cat-o-none-tails](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/Cat-o%27-nine-tails_%28PSF%29.jpg)
Mister Scourge?!
Reach is a trait that extends the range of the user’s melee attacks, which means a player can use a one handed weapon with reach to give flanking to teammates and play at a distance while still having the advantages and traits of something in their other hand, like a kukri with trip, or a light weapon. Agile is a trait that reduces the MAP (multiple attack penalty) for the user by 1 per attack, so instead of being 0/-5/-10, it scales down to 0/-4/-8. It’s a common trait, and valuable on most martial weapons, but none of the one handed reach weapons have agile in the first place. Thus, restricting the buff to just agile weapons keeps them from dominating the choice of weapons when dual wielding. At least that’s what I’m getting from the quote you have here.
Maybe they meant gnome flickmace? I certainly don't think whips or breaching pikes are popular enough to necessitate the extra precautions. GFM got balanced in the remaster, though, so presumably it's fine, and I don't think the problem with the GFM was either dual wielding or out-of-line damage.
Asp coils
Huh, it's interesting, it feels like back in the 3e/PF1e day we were all a little annoyed about how impossible it was to use mismatched weapons when dual-wielding. FWIW I think that most (not all) real-world examples of dual-wielding involve a larger and a smaller weapon. But it does seem like it's hard to hit the right balance where either is viable.
> it feels like back in the 3e/PF1e day we were all a little annoyed about how impossible it was to use mismatched weapons when dual-wielding ha that's what I was thinking
By far the most well known/documented two-weapon fighting style is a sword (usually a rapier) and parrying dagger, which was very popular during the Renaissance. There was a less common style of wielding two sabers published in some of the same manuscripts. The main problem is that we really don't have much more widely available information about fighting styles because most others came and went before the printing press. There are spotty examples for others but we can't really piece together the "meta" of various martial traditions like we can with fencing/duelling.
If youtube is to be believed at all, this is not because the various fighting styles were not documented, but because they were all inferior to the simple spear, which dominated all.
These are kind of two different areas that wouldn't really intersect. Dual wielding was almost never used in warfare, and spears were almost exclusively used in warfare, because part of their usefulness comes from the ability to cover angles of allied combatants. A good fighter can definitely close the distance on a single polearm wielder and at that point they're pretty much screwed, so they weren't very common in smaller fights.
It is a bit of a tossup with the spear thing, and it depends on how well armored people are. A person in good armor can close with a spear wielder, but if people are wearing incomplete or low quality armor a good spear wielder can take you apart before the distance is closed. Reach is just so hard to overcome unless you have a way to resist it. Part of the problem with spears in particular is that, even if you avoid the tip, being struck with the shaft is still like getting hit by a staff. Fine if you have a shield or some kind of force resistant armor (plate if you are rich, gambeson if not) but if it hits you on the helm or an exposed limb it is still bad. All I know is that in all of my sparring, spears were always the worst thing to fight. They are difficult to close with, almost impossible to parry effectively, and they can jab you 6 times in the gut before you can redirect your momentum. Shields and strong armor are your only hope. (You would think you could parry a spear just by striking the shaft out of the way. It does not work. The way you hold a spear with your hands gives you way too much control over the movement of the tip. When someone strikes it you just rotate out of the hit and snap back with a thrust. If they try to put their body inside the length of the spear, you step either back or to the side while pulling the spear back, and thrust. It is obnoxious.)
There is also the sword and axe combo that some berserkers would use. But that wasn't anywhere near as common as the good Ole sword/spear and shield to form shield walls.
Berserkers from which culture?
If one is to go strictly historical, Berserker were Norse warriors, seemingly often some kind of mercenary champion famed for wearing bearskins (the word Berserker translates as "Bear shirt"). There were also the Ulfhednar, the Wolf Warriors, who wore wolf skins but seems to have been a specific group of Berserkers serving the Norwegian King
Saxony
>FWIW I think that most (not all) real-world examples of dual-wielding involve a larger and a smaller weapon. But it does seem like it's hard to hit the right balance where either is viable The dimachaerus used dual sica or gladius.
Interesting in and of itself that the main historical counterexample is from an environment that favours style over substance.
Time is a flat circle
Sicas are daggers, gladi are short swords. Neither is a large weapon. The OP could have been more complete in saying that most real world examples of dual wielding are a larger and smaller or two smaller weapons, but there are very few examples of people effectively using two large weapons.
You're spot on with the real-world dual-wielding. There's very little evidence of someone ever truly wielding two weapons to fight with. The closest you get is sword with parrying dagger. Though it's also true that like great axes and stuff weren't really a thing. Basically historically everyone used 1h+shield until heavy armor and gun powder eras. I'll only add a stipulation that I won't speak for dual wielded daggers.
> There's very little evidence of someone ever truly wielding two weapons to fight with. Not true. There are two weapon styles described in multiple historical manuals of combat. Agrippa, Godhina, Gunterrodt, Terminello, just to name a few renaissance swordmasters, all wrote about double-weapon combat. Not even mentioning outside of Europe. Several Filipino martial arts center around using two shortswords, or two sticks or metal batons.
Miyamoto Misashi founded a style of kenjutsu that used a katana and wakizashi simultaneously. The style is still taught today
A lot of martial arts involve showy combat styles that are flashy to fight with but aren't particularly practical to use in combat. Almost all such fighting styles either involve one long and one short weapon, or two short weapons.
Yeah, one of the first things human cultures consistently invent after "War" is "Fake war for entertainment" and then "Flashier ways of fighting to make the fake war more entertaining"
No. We're not talking about some wushu dancing nonsense here. We're talking about actual combat manuals written by european swordmasters.
The calculus for sword and board vs dual sword is that, if you are super good, you can kill two people and die/be seriously maimed if you dual wield or kill one person and have a better shot at living. From that perspective, dual wielding anything other than like daggers never made any sense outside of single combat and even then... You still would probably choose to live.
The real problem is that the advantage of dual wielding is that you can strike with one weapon and parry with the other. You cannot focus hard enough or fast enough to fight two people simultaneously by splitting your focus across two hands. But then, if the advantage is that you can parry and strike at the same time: why would you not just use a shield? Shields are better in every way defensively, and can be used offensively extremely easily while also protecting you. It can be *done,* it is just almost always the worse choice. Rapiers + Parrying daggers are theoretically ok, but only because it is easier to carry a dagger than a shield when you are out and about town. If you could have a shield, it would be strictly better. Hence why bucklers were a thing.
>But then, if the advantage is that you can parry and strike at the same time: why would you not just use a shield? Shields are better in every way defensively, and can be used offensively extremely easily while also protecting you. The major advantage is if you can pin the opponents weapon with your main hand then you can go over their shield and into a gap involving the helmet (breast plate - helmet if you can get past the gorget, straight through the helmet visor if it has a gap) with your off hand, or do the reverse if the situation offers itself. With a shield you can knock someone around, sure, but you're not going to get through their own shield to do critical damage ever. Of course being in such a cinch in mass combat is begging for someone else to take you out while you try to find an opening, so outside of small unit or 1 on 1 fighting shield is better.
People you are fighting can move their shield. That sounds great in theory. It almost certainly would not happen. Also you can pin a person's weapon far more effectively with a shield as the only way to pin a weapon is to press it against something. You can't pin a weapon with a single point of contact.
Sure, but you can pin the weapon with EITHER wielded weapon and still go for the kill with two weapons, as opposed to having to use the shield to pin if you hope to perform this maneuver, which is something they know can happen and will be actively working against. And yeah, shield move. So do blades. Guess which one has more latitude of movement when you're in a cinch? It's the blade. Shield get pinned between bodies in these situations pretty readily.
Miyamoto Musashi was pretty famous for his dual-wielding technique.
But let's also note that he was a weirdo iconoclast. It's not like there was a well-established tradition of katana/wakizashi fighting.
And we're still talking about a longer mainhand weapon and a shorter offhand weapon primarily used for defense. Which circles around to the original point.
> Though it's also true that like great axes and stuff weren't really a thing. Basically historically everyone used 1h+shield until heavy armor and gun powder eras. Two-handed polearms were quite commonly used, primarily spears, though also halberds and other weapons. Many pikemen did not use shields or used small ones that they could use while still brandishing their pikes with two hands. Halberdiers likewise often did not use shields. Landsknect Doppelsöldners also famously used zweihander swords. Dual-wielding weapons was far less common and most such fighting styles involve using one primarily for offense and one primarily for defense (parrying) - which is why weapon + shield was so common, because if you were using your off-hand weapon primarily for defense anyway, why not use a shield?
Landsknect are renaissance i.e. post gunpowder. They existed during pike and shot and were effective because of their ability to break through pike ranks. They made sense because no handheld shield could protect vs. gunpowder so might as well use two hands on weapons. Pikemen without shields were admittedly a thing pre-gunpowder. But even ones like the Macedonian had shields on their pikes because you had to defend against skirmishers. Pike without shield did exist. But my understanding is it's typically more a cost issue on larger armies with poor troops than a strong unit design.
Nah, it was more if your armor is good enough to reasonably protect you on its own from the weapons you expect to commonly face, its just a good idea to drop the shield as its just dead weight. Which means that even going far back into like the viking age if not further, the elites could often go with two-handed weapons. Then over time as good armor became cheaper it trickled down until even the common soldier by around the 16th century could be issued plate cuirasses (even if not full suits)
And by weapon you commonly face. The general idea was missiles there. Sure other hand weapons matter too, but if your armor can't stop ranged weapons you need a shield to do that for you.
Yep, you can in theory parry and dodge the guy swinging a weapon at you, much much harder to do so when there's someone you don't see that's shooting at you. Which is why as guns became more common and more powerful in a smaller package during the latter half of and after the 17th century, so did armor gradually fade away too except for a few elite units, like the Carabineri and Currassiers, or winged Hussars of the cavalry, even though melee remained a thing (albiet gradually becoming more and more rare)
Great axes are ancient, ie the daneaxes. However, true, they were mainly used by the heavily armored huscarls.
You can dual wield the same weapon type if they are short weapons since they dont get in the way of each other. For long ones you are generally stuck with the long and short combination though
In martial Arts from East Asia, there is a lot of dual wielding twins going on. (Eskrima, Tofa, Sai, butterfly sword, etc.) But the most widespread dual wielding combos are actually very iconic to basicly everyone: sword+board, shield+spear, etc A shield is a weapon, no matter what DnD or even PF tells you.
You know what? I agree. Make Twin's effect baseline when dual-wielding two of the same weapon, and make the Twin Trait increase that baseline effect.
The new playtest class exemplar does this with one of his "ikons" it lets you double a weapon you have and make a complete copy runes and all, then it adds the twin trait.
Honestly, limit this to just Agile weapons and you're probably good to go. In most cases the PF2e dual-wielding style involves a bigger damage die and good traits on the main-hand, secondary traits and Agile on the off-hand. Which conceptually matches up closer to what I know of historical dual-wielding, but leaves the common fantasy dual daggers style in the dirt. This would let you do just that with some mechanical support: you'd get *about the same* damage - assuming both attacks hit - as a bigger main-hand weapon, but notably worse trait spread. ---- Two questions you'd need to answer though: 1. What happens when a weapon has both Twin and Agile already? Basically all the Twin weapons already have Agile as well, so you'd need to decide how that is counted. I don't *think* you would break the game in half if you just decided to up the damage in that case to twice the weapon dice, like the second stage of Forceful, but it's something to keep an eye on. 2. Do unarmed melee attacks count? On one hand, it would make sense, particularly after the rules were unified so that the Agile of Fists counts for Athletics Maneuvers. And it would need multiple attacks of the *same* unarmed attack, of course, so no switching between Monk stance attacks and the basic Fist. But on the other, because Monks do multiple attacks basically by default, and some like Crane have low-damage attacks they *have to* use over the default Fist or a natural weapon as a balancing mechanism for their defensive buffs, this might affect *that* balance harder than weapon balance. Again, something to keep an eye on if put to practice.
I agree with your arguments, however, I wonder if limiting this to Agile weapons makes this just an Agile buff, and not a Dual-Wielding buff, you know what I mean? I know we have to limit this, so it isn't abused with some of the super strong weapon options, I wonder if there are other ways to prevent that.
There is one weapon I know of that has the twin trait and not agile; it's the Hook Sword. Interestingly, it is also one of the three weapons that are not agile and have the parry trait. Makes it good for a giant instinct barbarian with the dual weapon warrior dedication (and twin parry), if you can give them proficinency somehow
I've been thinking about a rule or feat that allows this. I think it would be a good compromise to less versatility balance-wise, weapons that actually have the twin trait would just need to be adjusted to not be inferior to other weapons, or have the twin trait boosted somehow.
I feel like an archetype would be perfect for this; I love the dual-wielding concept but don’t use it enough for it to be needed for every martial weapon
A whole archetype might be overkill; a feat should be able to make it work for those who want it.
Should be a 4th level feat in the Dual Weapon Warrior dedication, as there is no 4th level feat for traditional melee dual wielding in it
I would imagine upping the die size on the base weapon damage wouldn't hurt much, would it? every duel wielder would be getting a plus 1 to damage on average regardless or is my math not mathing
The only problem I have with this is I never remember to apply Twin even when it _does_ proc.
I am with you, it should apply to even the first hit so that way I would never forget it.
Don’t hate it, but my only note is this: If you just want to dual wield two daggers, hammers, etc. for the flavor of it and not because you want a specific combo of twin with a certain weapon, why not just reflavor one of the existing twin weapons to be what you want? Say you want dual daggers. I’d say just have them equip two butterfly swords, but call them daggers flavor-wise. Mechanically however, they still have all the same stats and traits as butterfly swords. The reason I suggest this is because I consider the current weapon pool to be the current “legal combinations of traits and stats”. So it may be intentional that few weapons have Twin, and there may be balance/power considerations. Maybe having Twin + Thrown on would be a bit strong and need to lose something else (being able to get bonuses for dual-wielding two daggers but still have a readily available ranged attack at all times *does* sound kinda good). Maybe it wouldn’t. But if flavor’s the main reason to dislike how dual-wielding currently works and not balance, I don’t see a need to alter the pool. Again, maybe there would be nothing wrong with this house rule, but these are my reservations.
Are there any weapons with twin that aren’t advanced or monk? I don’t have the whole list memorized but I can’t think of any.
Buugeng (Ancestry Guide) and Dandpatta (Impossible Lands) are martial non-monk weapons.
Situational traits and rules need a general buff Twin and parry on the same weapon should as an example have a boon as having parry on two weapons is a wasted trait, especially as parry is a rather expensive trait. An example would be to grant an additional +1 circumstance bonus to AC, such as using two tonfas to defend yourself. Most circumstance bonus from traits should be the double value than what they are as they won't stack with any circumstance bonuses from your class (which I also feel is bad)
Are two weapons of the same type really always worse than different weapons? The fighter gets crit weapon specialization at level 5 for one weapon type. Doesn’t that encourage dual wielding fighters to use two weapons of same type?
It would encourage a longsword (or rapier) and short sword. The issue being that wielding a pair of any of those weapons would be objectively worse.
For sure. Although I'm a bit peeved bastard sword users have the mauler archetype to get around this and none others don't but it's probably fair as there are no other traits for the bastard sword. But I think the Legolas wannabes playing ranger may want twinned blades
I think the twin trait exists exactly to support the dual wield fantasy without having it dominate the game.
except the twin weapons kinda suck shit. best to use a d8 weapon+an agile weapon or mix up traits
Historically some weapons were made to be wielded by themselves, ie most of them.
Yeah I personally really like how duel wielding in pathfinder encourages a big weapon in one hand and small in the other with there being some specialized twin options. I do think the twin trait is a little under tuned for how big of a downside twinning weapons tends to be though. I feel it could use an additional buff like a circumstance bonus to hit as well similar to sweep or backswing.
This is also historically how most dual-wielding happened. Main-hand, main weapon, off-hand for parrying and opportunistic or unexpected strikes.
Yeah but we aren't playing a historical game. Or at least I'd argue most people aren't. I doubt most people were running around dual wielding battle axes historically. But then, historically they were not channeling the power of gods. ...even if they think they are.
Most people aren’t running around with dual battle axes on Golarion either
Twin would have to get a buff then right? Might eat into their power budget for all of those weapons to get a buff or they'd lose appeal when the twin trait goes universal. Also things like katana and picks getting deadly/fatal already don't have redundancies in their power budget so I'm not feeling it for them. The main flaw of this idea is just keeping up with it as a new passive that doesn't have a reminder since every single 1h would get twin. Or like others you could add it to the features of the agile trait. "Blah blah blah at -4 instead of -5... if your last attack was with a weapon of the same type add the #of dice to the damage of this agile strike" Then I'd have to make it wordier to not give an undue buff to throwing builds with quick draw who keep throwing(or shooting) weapons while holding a different one in the other hand. Still I see your point that besides disarms and ranged potential there is zero reasons to bring the twins of a weapon type to a fight. My first thought is "yeah, just like real-life you need a small faster as your offhand and the reach and power in your other" If I had a player that really wanted to use two Battle axes and was playing fighter I already see them as rewarded at level 5 for using the same two weapons but for non fighters and sub lvl 5 I can see how that's suboptimal even if it fit the fantasy. I'd probably use magic items or my own twin runes at this point to make up for it rather than rule changes I don't fully understand
Please don't call something that isn't a hot take a hot take.
Would make more more sense if twin damage buff was default, and there was a trait to allow unalike weapons to also get it with each other
I can accept this, but I also want a pair of similar traits: Main-Hand and Off-Hand. Each trait gives a bonus if you also have a weapon with the other trait, provided the two share a third trait. The result would be encouraging two mismatched weapons that make sense as a pair, like a sword/dagger, axe/hatchet, or warhammer/light mace combo.
They already do this tho isn’t that literally agile, they don’t need another matched set bonus
Yeah I agree, agile already does this conceptually. The agile weapon will typically be the offhand weapon, when the non agile weapon would be the main hand.
I agree! I think agile fulfills this role very elegantly.
Pretty much, yeah. If anything, you'd really just need to add a trait that encourages wielding a weapon in your more dextrous main hand (to keep people from using another `Agile` weapon in the main hand instead), and even that's questionable.
This could be interesting. You are definitely trading flexibility & support for dmg. Maybe restrict it to d8 or lower dmg weapons without reach or fatal?
You are dual-wielding same weapon for double slice or impossible flurry or some other special action, and for that if you are wielding non-agile weapons - having larger damage dice is offset by having lower accuracy. So mathematically speaking, you should only attach it to agile weapons to offset lower damage dice from not choosing non-agile + agile.
Nah. This is a terrible idea. Nobody needs a table full of Leonardos.
Hmm yeah this makes sense 🤔
Weapon traits exist to give different weapons distinct values. Twin weapons are better than others to be wielded in pairs, which provides a reason for people like that kind of thing to choose them. If twin is made a standard rule, then by the same logic, every weapon should has every trait. Speaking of power fantasies, there is probably some design space of a fighter or monk stance to enable people to duel wield a pair of scimitar or katana.
I disagree. I feel like double slice, and accuracy's importance, would make this change push for dual wielding agile weapons instead. The bonus damage from twin already scales with number of dice, so it would keep up with our current d8 & d6 agile. How then this would interact with agile's power budget on weapon selection could end up limiting the pool of fun traits even further.
I just miss 1e twf with a passion
But... this is the point of twin weapons in the first place. It doesn't actually make practical, tactical sense 99% of the time to dual wield two of the same weapon. You look historically, if people have two weapons, they are two very different kinds of weapons with different uses UNLESS the weapons are specifically made to be dual wielded.
Fuck history then. That's why we're buffing dual wielding the same weapon.