Should the Greatsword be d12?

[Stalker0]

It's true that weapons don't exist in a vacuum, and it's possible that a greatsword really is more useful because of that +hit, but in a world where the bastard sword exists and feats are cheap, it's pretty hard to claim the greatsword is worth anything.

This is what I don't understand. Yes, a bastard sword is a better weapon in 4e than the GS. That's....the point. Its a superior weapon, you pay a feat and get to use a better weapon.

Now if your point is that currently there aren't enough good feats in 4e to provide competition to the bastard sword feat than I agree with you. But that has nothing to do with the GS. The GS seems to be a solid weapon, it trails just slightly behind the other THW in damage, but you gain the reliability on minions and better landing of non damage effects. The BS provides a solid boost to that weapon for the cost of a feat, exactly the benefit you should get for a feat.

Wait until some splats come up with a lot more feats, and suddenly you might like the GS because that means you get to spend that feat on something else, something you really like. But that's a feat issue, it has nothing to do with the equipment as written.

 

[Ferrous]

Hi Gu
Hi Guys,

If you compare one handed weapon you find:

Battle axe +2 d10 Versatile
Longsword +3 d8 Versatile
Scimitar +2 d8 High critical

So from this you can see that you effectively can trade +1 to hit for +1 average damage per die or High Critical

However with one handed weapons you get:

Greataxe +2 D12
Hi Guys,

If you compare one handed weapon you find:

Battle axe +2 d10 Versatile
Longsword +3 d8 Versatile
Scimitar +2 d8 High critical

So from this you can see that you effectively can trade +1 to hit for +1 average damage per die or High Critical

However with one handed weapons you get:

Greataxe +2 D12 High critical
Greatsword +3 D10


So you have traded +1 to hit for both +1 average damage and high critical.

This is fairly obviously not internally consistent and hence not balanced. The bastard sword is actually just the icing on the cake really. It is simply an upgraded Longsword for a feat in the same way that a rapier is an upgraded shortswordHigh critical
Greatsword +3 D10


So you have traded +1 to hit for both +1 average damage and high critical.

This is fairly obviously not internally consistent and hence not balanced. The bastard sword is actually just the icing on the cake really. It is simply an upgraded Longsword for a feat in the same way that a rapier is an upgraded shortswordys,

If you compare one handed weapon you find:

Battle axe +2 d10 Versatile
Longsword +3 d8 Versatile
Scimitar +2 d8 High critical

So from this you can see that you effectively can trade +1 to hit for +1 average damage per die or High Critical

However with one handed weapons you get:

Greataxe +2 D12 High critical
Greatsword +3 D10


So you have traded +1 to hit for both +1 average damage and high critical.

This is fairly obviously not internally consistent and hence not balanced. The bastard sword is actually just the icing on the cake really. It is simply an upgraded Longsword for a feat in the same way that a rapier is an upgraded shortsword

 

[Mercutio01]

This is what I don't understand. Yes, a bastard sword is a better weapon in 4e than the GS. That's....the point. Its a superior weapon, you pay a feat and get to use a better weapon.

Now if your point is that currently there aren't enough good feats in 4e to provide competition to the bastard sword feat than I agree with you. But that has nothing to do with the GS. The GS seems to be a solid weapon, it trails just slightly behind the other THW in damage, but you gain the reliability on minions and better landing of non damage effects. The BS provides a solid boost to that weapon for the cost of a feat, exactly the benefit you should get for a feat.

Wait until some splats come up with a lot more feats, and suddenly you might like the GS because that means you get to spend that feat on something else, something you really like. But that's a feat issue, it has nothing to do with the equipment as written.

My thinking is just that the greatsword is a bad decision all around. For heavy blades (minus bastard sword), the falchion is better. I don't see anyone picking the greatsword for any other reason than fluff because it's only marginally better than wielding the longsword two-handed. There's just no good reason to ever pick the greatsword.

 

[keterys]

Falchion does 2 less damage per W on crits (8 instead of 10) so it loses some of what's gained by the high crit.

 

[keterys]

See, now there's an interesting different question - should _all_ two handed be better?

 

[Anthony Jackson]

Doing the same calculations as I did earlier (nW+B, 50% hit chance with +2 proficiency, 20 attacks)
Falchion, T1: 58n + 11B + 5
Falchion, T2: 58n + 11B + 10
Falchion, T3, improved critical: 61n + 11B + 30
At T1, if 7n < 5 the Falchion is better. This is never true.
At T2, if 7n < 10 the Falchion is better. This is very unlikely.
At T3, if 9.5n < 30 the Falchion is better. This is possible.

As far as the bastard sword goes, +1 damage for a feat is underwhelming; take it only after you've taken everything else useful.

As far as "should all 2H weapons be better", 2H weapons should be enough better that using a 2H weapon, rather than a 1H weapon plus a shield, is not a dumb choice.

 

[keterys]

Thanks for the math again - confirmed what I suspected about the early tiers (aside: do you have a preferred shortened form? Ie, Tony, AJ, whatever)!

Amusingly, I actually thought greataxe or greatsword were effectively equal choices before this, but the math has actually shown that greataxe does _so little_ damage more than the greatsword pre-epic that I can't imagine wanting it over making sure to hit with powers (like righteous smite on the paladin, etc) or hammer rhythm. Maybe if you almost always attack with reaping strike.

And, yeah, I think 1h and shield just wins for any build I'd want to play, but that may just be a playstyle question.

 

[deleteme123456]

Sorry, I must not be subscribed to this thread. Here's my latest take. I spent some extra time cleaning it up and making it more flexible. What you still can't change easily: number of [W]s, value of high crit (e.g., for P/E tier), % of time the Rogue gets SA (or Ranger gets HQ, etc.). Constants you need to change are on Assumptions. You can filter the list on Bonus Damage to get just the weapons you care about, the numbers highlighted in Red are the best among those currently shown. Had to zip this one.

 

[keterys]

Cool - haven't had time to really dig in, but that's a ton more featured. Out of curiosity I put in level 10 stats (+5 stat, +3 weap, +1 feat for 9 base) and got

Greataxe 8.02 10.77 9.89 10.44
Greatsword 7.87 10.37 9.92 10.52

Which makes decent sense. Fwiw, you could make entering stuff less variable. Like I set all the SA/Reap/etc fields to =Non-striker value + extra value. If sneak attack weren't irregular, you could do tier as a simpler multiplier, but that could actually be two nested ifs I suppose.

Anyhow, much more useful and cool for plugging stuff into.

 

[Kzach]

This is what I don't understand. Yes, a bastard sword is a better weapon in 4e than the GS. That's....the point. Its a superior weapon, you pay a feat and get to use a better weapon.

The bastard sword is also known as the hand and a half sword. It is meant to sit between a longsword and a greatsword. It is roughly a foot shorter than a greatsword and yet is fundamentally of the same design and wielded in much the same manner, so under no circumstances should it be doing more damage than the greatsword.

For those who want a greatsword at d12... you're outright saying you want the greatsword to be a better option than a greataxe or maul. Period. Why?

Again I'm not seeing how you come to this conclusion based on the evidence.

The evidence suggests that at d10 it's inferior to most other 2H weapons in most other circumstances. Upping it to d12, however, makes it superior in a limited set of circumstances, and yet still inferior in many.

This, at least to me, seems like it would balance the GS where it ought to be, rather than where it currently is; that being at the very bottom of the stack.

Falchion does 2 less damage per W on crits (8 instead of 10) so it loses some of what's gained by the high crit.

Err... falchion is high crit. So on a crit, it does an absolute minium of 10, not 8, and can beat the GS by up to 6 points.

Only once you get into multiple dice rolls does your statement have any effect whatsoever.

At 2W, you'd get 20 for the greatsword vs. 18-24 for the falchion. 3W is 30 vs. 24-32. 4W equals 40 vs. 32-40. It's only at 5W that you are guaranteed to do more damage than the falchion.

Of course, that all then falls apart at paragon and epic where the falchion is just far and away the superior choice.