Do you think you'll live long enough to see an edition of D&D where dual wielding is good?

Even the Japs got in in the act with Miyamoto Musashi writing in the Book of Five Rings how to dual wield a katana and wakizashi.

>D&D
>EVERYTHING MUST BE BALANCED
>2 swords MUST = 1 sword
>2=1

Yah, nah, you'll have to try something other than D&D.

Will crossbows ever be good?

Hand Crossbows don't count.

It's good now for paladins, rogues, and rangers. Any class that uses needs more than once chance to hit with burst damage or stacks a lot of bonuses to the damage. It's not even bad on barbarians.

Obviously in higher levels this isn't nearly as true without spreading GWM and sharpshooter style bonus damage around, but most starting adventurers will use dual wielding for a while in 5e to get an extra 1d6 damage.

The kusarigama isn't all that obscure. You can find it under oriental weapons in the DMG, so it is technically a core weapon.

Two weapons were useful in the absence of armor as either could kill and in theory you could attack while defending or vice versa. Against armor you wanted strength and precision which two hands on one weapon provided.

Dual wielding is perfectly acceptable in 5E if you have the fighting style and feat.
It's not exceptionally useful in later levels, but it carries the day in the early game (1-5) and doesn't hold you back at all in the mid game (6-11).
Past level 12, it's alright? You'll usually have something better to do with your bonus action by then, but not always.

It's also pretty good if you're a Rogue with Mobility or the Swashbuckler rogue subclass that gets half of Mobility's features for free.

>There are also used now adays, aswell in the schools, as in the lists, two Swords or Rapiers, admitted, and approved both of Princes, and of the professors of this art, for honorable and knightly weapons, albeit they be not used in the wars.
>Giacomo di Grassi, His True Arte of Defence

wiktenauer.com/wiki/Giacomo_di_Grassi

With any luck, I'll live long enough to see people admit that Salvatore is a shit writer, and dual-wielding is fucking stupid.

Short answer: Yes

Long answer: Generally no, since it doubles or triples the training amount for basic proficiency, and requires the wielder to be ambidextrous.
Its actually good to train with it, since it forces the wielder to learn how to use the off hand.

>It's not exceptionally useful in later levels
Then its shit.

I hope not. Dual-wielding shouldn't be good. Realistically, it usually sucks.

The cool factor is high enough that even if it was gimped enough to simply put it on par with single wielding EVERYONE would do it.

>Does dual-wielding even work in real life with anything bigger than a gladius?
Even then it's iffy.

Dual wielding mostly results in your using your off-hand weapon as a shitty shield.

It's shittier than sword and board in all instances.

Hopefully not, it's the least aesthetic combat choice. The less incentives there are to use it, the less I'll have to see it used by others in my games.

>Then its shit.
◔_◔

A lot of the shit in historical manuals is literally a joke or for competition not real combat though.

Historical manuals deal mostly with duels, which were absolutely serious business back then, but they have many reference to situations of war. The likes of Fiore dei Liberi or Hans Talhoffer were career mercs with decades of war and duels experience, neither jokers nor sportsmen.
That said, twf is mostly described as viable, but extremely situational and only with light swords.

>+shank two niggas at once
>+shank one nigga twice

Though, as points out, it forces you to learn to fight with your offhand, which could be useful if your main hand is somehow disabled.

TWF is better than having nothing at all in your off hand (unless you're going to be using that off hand for something, like grappling), but worse than pretty much anything else you could be doing with that off hand, such as using it to wield a 15 foot pike or spear, or use a shield.

A 15ft pike is not the kind of weapon you'd compare to a sword, or two swords for that matter. It's a formation weapon.

No reason not to keep a sword and buckler as your sidearms, for when they get too close and you have to drop the spear.

But you bet your ass you're better off with the spear/pike, with a sword and buckler as backup.

Not 1 on 1. A 15ft pike is fucking unwieldy.

Also if you count other weapons too you might as well give the pikeman's opponent a javelin, since we're talking of weapons other than their primary ones.

Why would you want to fight *Anything* 1 on 1?

Swords are sidearms, not primary combat weapons (Unless you combine it with a good sized shield).

Two Swords is not a great combat style.

Again, better than a single weapon, but worse than sword and shield or a two handed weapon.

This shit makes me the saddest. Gun Fu dual Crossbow wielding Half-Orc badass is one of the first things I've ever wanted to play in tabletop RPGs. Just give me the fucking ability to reload fast while dual wielding Crossbows.

Dual wielding was good in 2e and 4e if you were the proper classes.

Would monk ever be good in a non shunned D&D edition?

>not sure if OotS or just a fan-comic

Fan comic. Rich's writing isn't QUITE that bad.

You mean 4e? Where Twin Strike is best.

Play 5e and get the Crossbow Expert feat. Dual-wield hand crossbows without needing a free hand to reload.

Who?

That's already a thing though.

They're fine in 5e. If your friends shun it, it's probably just because they want to keep playing 3.5e or Pathfinder.

You mean 4e with rangers?

5e monks are shitshows compared to 4e monks though.

>Just give me the fucking ability to reload fast while dual wielding Crossbows.
I will the moment you give me a satisfying explanation of how it's done.

That also goes for drawing a two-handed sword from a "back-scabbard", and three-swording with one sword in your mouth like your favourite anime character.

Paint me a picture here: what the fuck am i supposed to imagine is happening?

They were squarely mid-tier in 4e, which is the same as they are in 5e.

Fluff-wise, they often did some crazier-looking stuff in 4e, though.

The crossbows have wriststraps tied to my wrists. Like a wiimote.

>Realistically, it usually sucks
>Realistically
>Real
Nigga you're fighting dragons I don't think what's real matters anymore

It was very viable in duels, but not something you would see on a battlefield.
Then again, most RPGs depict just duel or skirmish level combats, so that's fine.

This kind of opinion is cancerous.
>Something in this setting is not as it is in real life
>Thus we shoulldn't give a shit about realism on anything
Why? Just why the fuck would that make sense?
Yes, there are dragons. Are we going to fight them with weapons or by throwing tomatoes at them? I don't see why the second option shouldn't be viable, according to the "Hurr durr magic dragons fuck realism" opinion.

The idea is that you are fighting a twenty ton flying lizard alongside a group that consists of a dude who shits lightning out his dick, a guy who calls upon the power of his gods and they fucking listen, and a dude who can turn into a bear on a whim I don't think being able to effectively wield two swords in combat should break someones suspension of disbelief of take 3 to 4 feats to make it worth it

Man, to be honest, you're quite right in this occasion.
I'm just tired of reading "There's fantasy stuff so everything goes"

Works with pistols. It became obsolete after small-ish smgs appeared though.

You aren't wrong to think that, its just a matter of balancing out the suspension of disbelief, y'know?

I have the same problem with the guys who use that to justify over powered magic in games
But that's a whole separate can of worms

When it comes to my personal tastes I think that as long as everyone is having fun and agrees to it and it doesn't break the game you should be able to do whatever the fuck you want

try again

what is 100% correct however

For the record, buckler fighting brought about more instances of historical dual-wielding in the form of targe and dirk, which was used on the battlefield and was successful. Mind you, this sort of thing came in the Early Modern period and armor wasn't common.

And we're done here.

I would have also accepted "3.X Rogue dual throwing flasks" or "pre weapon cord nerf Gunslinger/Gunsmoke Rogue in PF"

>Clearly autistic
>wants a verbal picture painted for them

Ummm lol?

But here, since I feel generous.
Crossbows: bolt feeder mechanism that chambers with each pull. Reload as one would a pistol.
Two handed sword: you use a long, thin sword that isn't just a slab of metal and draw like you're doing a dumbbell fly. Even if it is a huge hunk of metal, that just means you have to be yoked to do it.
Three swording: Dagger or cutlass between the teeth: if you get disarmed draw the mouth blade. If you end up in a grapple, whip your head and slice their eyes/throat or spit the blade into your hand and stab your way free, then grab your other swords.

Cocksuckers like you are why Fighters will never get to be Conan, much less any actual warrior of legend. Take your versimilitude and shove it up your ass.

>Crossbows
Doesn't work. Bullets don't have feathers that can be damaged. Regular comments come from the English transporting arrows around during the hundred years war confirming this. Bundling arrows for transportation gave you more arrows, but damaged the feathers on all and severely impacted the accuracy during flight.
>two handed sword
It's not a matter of width, it's a matter of length. There is a point where your arm is at the maximum extended reach possible, and a sword that's worth two-handing will be longer than that.
>three swording
>
What do you want me to tell you about this idea of yours?

Arming swords. But as for wielding two of the same weapon, no not for practical purposes. If you are fighting as part of a unit you are better off with a shield, if it is single combat a longer sword is better than two short swords.

I thought a rapier and parrying dagger combo was perfectly viable IRL if you didn't want to carry a shield.

Not on a battlefield where you can expect to have arrows/bolts shot at you or get struck at by multiple hostiles. A parrying dagger also does nothing to help the man next to you, and is harder to use than a shield.

It worked in duels because you could disarm or sword trap with them, which you can't do with a shield/buckler.

On the back sheath thing you could use a more skeletal approach.
Forgive my description as I do not know proper terms.

Long back strap for loops and fascening, rigid metal and leather upper portion that would be the normal opening but instead is more like a hook (looks like a J from a downward view) and a partial sheath cupping for the end that would hang somewhat loose when the blade is not present. Add a thumb clasp around the cross guard to prevent it from bouncing out of the hook.

Drawing is a sequence of thumbing the catch strap from the cross guard and lifting clear of the upper hook. Bottom would fall away as its only about 4 inches of covering. You would have to oil the shit out of it as it would be exposed but still doable.