There’s a phenomenon in TTRPGs called a Mermaids Amulet. There was an item in a game that let a mermaid breathe in air, which was the ONLY thing that indicated they normally couldn’t. In short, a rule was only shown to exist by an ability to overcome it.

Monks have the ability to make a bonus action unarmed strike after making an attack, which would be redundant if the dual wielding rules let you do that.

If you have nothing else to do with your bonus action that round then it isn’t really a waste of time, no matter how bad it is. 1 damage is sometimes all you need.

Rapier and main gauche was my first idea of dual wielding, shrug

Probably, considering the meaning of dual

Stuff like this is why I like my DM so much. He has basically a “common sense” time for stuff like this where if an action makes good common sense within the world he’s built (like a warrior type being able to punch someone after swinging a sword, or a brawler type being able to use both their fists without having to have some esoteric attribute attached to their character sheet), it’s allowed, and you can roll for it.

That is massively more powerful than a RAW normal action unarmed attack, which does a single point of damage with no other riders.

More fun

Depends on what era. In Europe, coats of plates didn’t really appear before the 13th century and full plate armor wasn’t developed until the late 14th century. Before that you mainly had people wearing chainmail and a helmet if they could get it, or gambesons (cloth armor).

At that time, weapons were still somewhat effective against armor. Spears, axes, and arrows could punch through chainmail.

When full plate armor was developed, only the very wealthy had access to it, and everyone else continued to just wear chainmail and gambesons. Fully armored knights effectively became tanks that could slash their way through all the peons.

The only realistic way the foot soldiers could stop them was to have several guys swarm an isolated knight, each grabbing a limb, and hold him down. Then they would either stab the knight through the gaps in his armor (like the eyeslot of the visor) or more likely would drag him off for ransom.

That being said, there are plenty of instances of 2 armored knights fighting each other, with them often half-swording or grappling each other to the ground and stabbing each other with daggers.

But my earlier comparison to tanks still stands. Most of the time, tanks are actually supporting infantry units, with tank v tank encounters being relatively rare. Similarly, knights spent most of their time in relatively small units killing a lot of unarmored opponents

As someone with a similar hobby, I personally hate this clip. It’s obviously choreographed, but I just don’t find concussions funny anymore.

Not the only one, but probably a minority. Dual-wielding identical weapons is mostly a meme popularized by fantasy literature and games, and the movies and pc games based on those.

In actual reality people are quite bad at coordinating similar weapons and don’t get much benefit out of it. So the classical dual-wield is a bigger main weapon and a smaller supporting offhand, beginning with shields being used offensively (and getting smaller and more maneuverable with the main one becoming lighter and faster - see buckler) and ending with classic combinations like rapier & parrying dagger or Daishō (a katana & wakizashi pair).

Pretty sure this is rules as written or at least as interpreted by Baldur’s Gate 3. It’s been a while since my playthrough but I’m pretty sure I was doing this with Astarion the whole time. Knife in one hand unarmed strike with the other. Warrior monk rogue kicked ass.

People desperately need to understand that mechanical rules are there for balancing and taking them so painfully literally just isn’t necessary.

You only get one unarmed attack on the dice, but if you want to say you did the damage in two or three hits instead of one then go for it, it literally does not matter. You can even say you missed one attack and them wound up for a sneaky second one!

Follow the rules for number related things and roleplay and tell a story for being cool related things.

… and this is why I don’t play D&D. It’s all abstract. It’s more like a board game than an RPG.

[Obviously, this is just my opinion, and it’s subjective, and it’s probably wrong. But, we are where we are.]

In BG3, you have to multiclass into rogue for the off-hand attack. But yeah, I think it would let you “dual wield” with a single light weapon.

thought that just let them add their modifier to the second attack

If that was the case, it’d be phrased more like Two Weapon Fighting from the fighter’s fighting styles. But instead of saying you can add your modifier, it says you can make an unarmed strike. Which means you couldn’t before.

As DM, I’ll have you roll the dice, tell you if it succeeded or not, and then have YOU describe what happens based on the roll.

But with this particular thing, it’s not really about the story. It’s the player trying to maximize their bonuses so the dice will be more favorable. In which case, sure. You can dual wield your hands. But you’re still taking a penalty with your off-hand unless you have the feat that removes it. You ever try to punch someone with your non-dominant arm? You definitely take a penalty IRL, unless you’re ambidextrous.

Unarmed Strikes are not just punches, they have nothing to do with how many hands you have. You can even Unarmed Strike with a weapon in each hand. If you want to “dual wield” Unarmed Strikes, go Monk.

There are other games with fewer mechanical rules where you can go crazy with this kinda stuff. D&D is one of the most mechanically crunchy ones out there

So there’s a few issues here:

• Unarmed Strikes do not require an open hand. Punches, kicks, and slams all count as the same Unarmed Strike
• If you were to allow this, there would be no reason to allow someone with two Shortswords or a Greataxe to do a BA strike
• …which would then render the BA attack from Polearm Master moot since they no longer need a feat to do that
• I’ll also note that the fighter with a sword in one hand and nothing in the other is likely using the Duelist fighting style, so that sword attack is effectively two die sizes larger. A Duelist Longsword is roughly equivalent to a Greatsword to put it in perspective

At the end of the day, allowing martials to perform a BA Unarmed Strike wouldn’t be game breaking, but it needs to be applied universally which has secondary implications