Swordmage? Why not a Hammermage?

[Hedgemage]

Hope I'm not retreading old territory here.

Just started a new campaign, and wanted to convert a 3E character to 4e, so I ended up with a dwarven Swordmage.

But it just didn't quite work since the old character was a hammer-lovin' dwarf.

Can anyone give me a decent reason NOT to houserule the swordmage into a hammermage? Looking at the RAW, I honestly can't see any downside or upside to swapping them one for one.

Punch holes in this theory if you can, please.

 

[Mentat55]

Can't think of any good reason. Perhaps it was all for story reasons -- the genasi and eladrin are put forward as the "it" races for swordmages, and eladrin especially are all about the swords.

Maybe the potential increase in damage output, between craghammers / mordenkrads and Hammer Rhythm? But hammers are less accurate than swords, so...

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think it was mainly just a flavor thing. There are a lot of permutations of various classes that would probably work fine mechanically.

 

[Hellzon]

A Shielding Hammermage can go all-out with Int/Con and still take the feats. A Shielding Swordmage (using heavy blades) has to put some points in Dex. Worth considering.

 

[Blackbrrd]

It's broken because you can call yourself a Hammerdin and it's just too cool.

 

[keterys]

Go for it, says me.

 

[Hedgemage]

As a shielding hammermage, my dwarf is focused on Con and Int. The wis bonus helps out the will defense which is the one thing lacking in the build.

Unless I really want to dump a lot of points into Str, its pretty much out of reach to get the Hammer Rhythm and other cool hammer feats. I got the con for it, but nowhere near the strength.

 

[Nytmare]

My initial reaction would be to pick a sword, pretend it was a hammer, and ignore any hammerey feats.

 

[chronoplasm]

I dunno, it seems like you could do this just fine with a Dwarven Frylock and a Pact Hammer from Adventurer's Vault. You want a defender, specifically?

 

[DanmarLOK]

Technically all the powers only require Melee, I'm not seeing any requirements that specifically require a sword per se? I didn't exhaustively go through everything, just auto built a level 30 swordmage and in looking at the powers, nothing is saying Sword except the name of some powers and the flavor text. Mechanically the powers work with any melee assuming they're not ranged. And throwing hammers could take care of the ranged ones so you're fully hammerific.

As a DM I'd certainly HR the following for a player that wanted to be a hammermage -

Hammermage - As a result of your upbringing and training you may elect to swap out either Military Light Blade or Military Heavy Blade proficiencies to gain access to the Hammer group of weapons.