Single-handed-Two-handed Weapons

[Omnifarious Grey]

This is an off shoot of my thread question about wielding two-handed weapons in a single hand.


Since 4E doesn't seem to support doing this, I am looking for ways to have a PC be able to wield a two-handed weapon in one hand.

There are three concepts that I am looking into for this idea. The first is by Jedrious:

Einhander keyword

A two-handed weapon with the Einhander keyword may be wielded in one-hand, however while doing so it's proficiency bonus is reduced by 1

The second idea is to have a feat that would be available to be taken which would incur a minus 1 penalty to the proficiency bonus as well as decreasing the damage size of the weapon by 1 when wielded as such.

This would bring weapons such as Falchions from 2d4 to 1d8 with a +2 proficiency and a Greatsword from 1d10 to 2d4 with a +2 proficiency.


The last idea was thought up by my brother, there would be a paragon tier feat that would allow you to wield a two-handed weapon in one hand with only reducing the penalty to proficiency by 1.

This idea would be similar to jedrious', however you can only take it once you become paragon. This would eliminate the issues that I had with some weapons becoming too powerful when the property was added as well as trying to make the feat concept more balanced than stylistic, as my brother views it.



I am curious to see how balanced these ideas are as well as other ideas to implement such a method for a two-handed weapon.

 

[jedrious]

The property as I originally posted it

Einhander keyword

A two-handed weapon with the Einhander keyword may be wielded in one-hand, however while doing so it's proficiency bonus is reduced by 1

taken pretty much from the Versatile keyword, however I didn't want to apply it to damage because of the possibility of dealing no damage on a hit

 

[Exen Trik]

however I didn't want to apply it to damage because of the possibility of dealing no damage on a hit

It could simply say that damage can't be reduced to less than one. I don't know if it exactly needs the -1 to damage, but it does seem a little on the strong side as is.

 

[Omnifarious Grey]

I was curious about the damage aspect as well. I mean you could always add in the minimum of 1 damage that could be dealt. In theory it does sound like a weapon would deal less damage and probably be harder to wield if it is larger than the normal size of what you would wield.

Maybe both a minus to the property and damage aspects of those weapons when wielded in such a way.

 

[jedrious]

It could simply say that damage can't be reduced to less than one. I don't know if it exactly needs the -1 to damage, but it does seem a little on the strong side as is.

it all depends on what the proficiency bonus of the weapons with the keyword have, something that needs to be looked at properly

 

[Omnifarious Grey]

it all depends on what the proficiency bonus of the weapons with the keyword have, something that needs to be looked at properly

What if the weapon could get the Einhander property added to it, and when wielded in one hand you decrease the damage dice by 1?

This would make the weapon do less damage due to being wielded in an odd fashion and we might also include the minus to proficiency due to odd handling fashion.

This would bring weapons such as Falchions from 2d4 to 1d8 with a +2 proficiency and a Greatsword from 1d10 to 2d4 with a +1 proficiency.



Thoughts on this?

[Editted the proficiency bonus because I feel you should also penalize the attack bonus for using larger weapons as such.]

 

[jedrious]

What if the weapon could get the Einhander property added to it, and when wielded in one hand you decrease the damage dice by 1?

This would make the weapon do less damage due to being wielded in an odd fashion and we might also include the minus to proficiency due to odd handling fashion.

This would bring weapons such as Falchions from 2d4 to 1d8 with a +2 proficiency and a Greatsword from 1d10 to 2d4 with a +1 proficiency.



Thoughts on this?

[Editted the proficiency bonus because I feel you should also penalize the attack bonus for using larger weapons as such.]

at that point I think you're penalizing too much plus having to examine the table for reducing damage dice and which table do you use, the one-handed or two-handed table

you also have situation where under the both penalizing attack rolls and reducing damage that similar one-handed weapons are strictly better options

 

[Omnifarious Grey]

at that point I think you're penalizing too much plus having to examine the table for reducing damage dice and which table do you use, the one-handed or two-handed table

you also have situation where under the both penalizing attack rolls and reducing damage that similar one-handed weapons are strictly better options

I was using the two-handed damage table for the reduction.

Also I don't think it would be as much of an issue as far as comparing them to other one-handed weapons.

Take the falchion for instance, this change would make the falchion have a proficiency bonus of +2 and would now deal 1d8 and still leaves it with high-crit. This makes the falchion the similar to a War pick (prof. +2, dmg. 1d8, high-crit., versatile). This would make these weapons similar and would not pose any issue.

However, without the damage decrease as well you would be able to wield reach weapons in a single hand and still be able to both maintain the reach of the weapon and the damage output only with a slight decrease of attack. For example, a glaive now has a +1 proficiency, yet still maintains 2d4 damage as well as reach and you still are able to wield a shield in your off-hand.

The main bonus single-handed weapons have is to both combine with a shield for AC bonus and to be used with tempest fighters and rangers. Without the damage reduction it seems like the two-handed weapon's damage specialization is allowed to be used with these builds to increase their damage output while maintaining AC or other powers.

Does this seem to be a reasonable arguement for the damage reduction or am I still missing something?

 

[jedrious]

Obviously the Einhander property would have to be selectively added to weapons, I would obviously never place it on a polearm, your "Solution" however makes it no point to even have the property making the weapons absolute clones of other weapons

 

[Omnifarious Grey]

Obviously the Einhander property would have to be selectively added to weapons, I would obviously never place it on a polearm, your "Solution" however makes it no point to even have the property making the weapons absolute clones of other weapons

What if we changed the focus from a property of a weapon to something like a feat?

Would this work well with plan for proficiency as well as damage; would there need to be a benefit included more to it or would the capability of wield a two-handed weapon in one hand be enough?