Two-Weapon Fighting

Two-weapon fighting is not a new topic, but with the 2024 rules, the introduction of the Nick property and the changes to the Dual Wielder feat complicates things. It’s not specific to Adventurers League, but I want to break down how it works under Rules As Written (RAW).

Assumptions

For this explanation, I will assume the following:

Only two weapons are being used.
Two hands will be used, one for each weapon.

While you may be able to eke out some (minor) additional damage by stowing and drawing additional weapons, that won’t be discussed here.

Two-Weapon Fighting Basics

The basics of two-weapon fighting come from the description of the Light property for weapons:

Light When you take the Attack action on your turn and attack with a Light weapon, you can make one extra attack as a Bonus Action later on the same turn. That extra attack must be made with a different Light weapon […]

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What does this mean?

So, if you have two Light weapons active (so you wouldn’t be holding a shield), you can use the Attack action to attack with one of those Light weapons, then use your Bonus Action to attack with the other Light weapon.

What about Extra Attack, Action Surge, or Haste?

If your character has the Extra Attack feature, Action Surge, or are subject to the Haste spell, which allow you to make more attacks, you still only get one Bonus Action attack.

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Be aware that unless you have the Two-Weapon Fighting feat, your secondary Bonus Action attack does not include your Strength/Dexterity modifier (unless it’s negative).

Nick Weapon Mastery

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There is debate on whether the Nick Weapon Mastery needs to be on the weapon used during your Action or if it needs to be on the weapon used during your Bonus Action. I do not address that here. Ask your DM. For our purposes here, it does not change how Nick works.

So, how does the Nick Weapon Mastery change things?

Nick

When you make the extra attack of the Light property, you can make it as part of the Attack action instead of as a Bonus Action. You can make this extra attack only once per turn.

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When you introduce the Nick property, all it does is move the attack from using your Bonus Action to being part of the original Attack action. This frees up your Bonus Action for something else.

It does not give you another Bonus Action attack, even if you have Extra Attack or Action Surge.

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Be aware that unless you have the Two-Weapon Fighting feat, your Nick attack does not include your Strength/Dexterity modifier (unless it’s negative).

An Example

A level 5 Fighter with Extra Attack:

	Without Nick	With Nick
Action	Two attacks using one Light weapon in one hand for atleast one of the attacks.	Three attacks using a mixture of both Light weapons in both hands. Both weapons must be used.
Bonus Action	One attack using a different Light weapon in the other hand.	Available for something else
Total	3 attacks	3 attacks

Dual Wielder Feat

Here’s the relevant portion of the Dual Wielder feat:

Enhanced Dual Wielding. When you take the Attack action on your turn and attack with a weapon that has the Light property, you can make one extra attack as a Bonus Action later on the same turn with a different weapon, which must be a Melee weapon that lacks the Two-Handed property.

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Assuming you attack with a Light weapon as part of your Attack action, then the Dual Wielder feat allows you to make another attack with any other non-Two-Handed weapon as part of your Bonus Action.

Simply put, all this does is let your Bonus Action attack use a non-Light weapon. It does not give you another attack on top of the one you got from the Light property.

What if I use two Light weapons?

If you are using two Light weapons, then you have two features giving you extra attacks:

The Light property gives you an extra attack as a Bonus Action.
The Dual Wielder feat gives you an extra attack as a Bonus Action.

During your turn, you can only take one Bonus Action. So you can only use one of these extra attacks. Dual Wielder does not grant you any extra attacks on top of the extra attack you get from Light.

What if my Action weapon (my Light weapon) also has Nick?

This also won’t change anything. Nick only affects the attack made as part of the Light weapon property.

	Without Dual Wielder	With Dual Wielder
Action	Two attacks using one Light weapon in one hand for atleast one of the attacks.	Two attacks using one Light weapon in one hand for atleast one of the attacks.
Bonus Action	One attack using a different Light weapon in the other hand.	One attack using a different non-Two-Handed weapon in the other hand.
Total	3 attacks	3 attacks

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Be aware that unless you have the Two-Weapon Fighting feat, your secondary Bonus Action attack does not include your Strength/Dexterity modifier (unless it’s negative).

Combining Nick with Dual Wielder

If you want to combine Nick with Dual Wielder, you can do so. This is the only way to eke out one more attack.

Going back to our level 5 Fighter with Extra Attack, Dual Wielder, and two Light weapons (one of which has Nick), they can attack twice with their Attack action. By attacking once with one Light weapon, this gives them two things:

A Bonus Action attack from the Light property
A Bonus Action attack from the Dual Wielder feat

Without the Nick Weapon Mastery, they would need to choose one of the two attacks (they don’t get both).

But with Nick, the Bonus Action attack from the Light property moves to be part of the Attack action, which frees up their Bonus Action to do the attack from the Dual Wielder feat.

This gives them a total of four (4) attacks.

One must be from one Light weapon in one hand.
Two must be from the other Light weapon in the other hand.
The last can be using either weapon.

Action	Two attacks using one Light weapon in one hand for atleast one of the attacks.
Part of the Attack Action	One attack using a different Light weapon in the other hand.
Bonus Action	One attack using a different Light weapon in the other hand.
Total	4 attacks

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Be aware that unless you have the Two-Weapon Fighting feat, your secondary Nick and Bonus Action attacks do not include your Strength/Dexterity modifier (unless it’s negative).

As far as ordering your attacks, the two extra secondary attacks must come after your primary Light weapon attack (but don’t need to be directly after your primary attack).

So any of the following are valid (assuming your DM allows you to put your Bonus Action between two attacks):

Primary, primary, secondary, secondary
Primary, secondary, secondary, secondary
Primary, secondary, primary, secondary
Secondary, primary, secondary, secondary