D&D 5E Philosophy of Greataxe vs. Greatsword

[Horwath]

I suggested in a playtest survey to give fighters the ability to reroll a single damage dice Intelligence modifiers times per rest. Woulda made great axe warriors more common.

that would give 0,1 damage on average more to greataxe over greatsword few times per day. hardly worth writing on a character sheet.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

that would give 0,1 damage on average more to greataxe over greatsword few times per day. hardly worth writing on a character sheet.

It's a significant boost to the axe wielders, and of little benefit to the swordwielders. The idea is to even them out, not make the axe flat better.

 

[Minigiant]

that would give 0,1 damage on average more to greataxe over greatsword few times per day. hardly worth writing on a character sheet.

The idea is it would stack on GWF and allow rerolls of 3s & 4s

 

[Hexmage-EN]

My personal idea for weapons in general is to copy Baldur's Gate 3's weapon ability concept. Basically, if you're wielding a weapon and are proficient in it you can use a special ability once per day.

I'm sure of how I'm actually going to implement the idea, though, as many of the abilities in Baldur's Gate 3 inflict new status conditions.

One idea I've had was to look at how weapons and the Battle Master Fighter maneuvers have been ranked and assign stronger maneuvers to weaker weapons and weaker maneuvers to stronger weapons.

However, in my initial brainstorming I just gave both Greatswords and Greataxes Sweeping Attack (while giving the subpar Trident Grappling Strike), so that wouldn't really help here unless I gave Greataxes and Greatswords different abilities. Or maybe I could give some multiple maneuvers based on what's appropriate...

 

[humble minion]

My great weapon master paladin uses a greatsword (except for when he used a glaive for a while because it was the only magic weapon in the party and we needed to hit some weird spectral thing from a Kobold Press monster book...). Mostly it's a background thing. He's got this long-running inner conflict about how he's got a very deep bloodthirsty streak that his paladin's vows keep in check, and in that light, a 'knightly' sword fits him better than greataxes which he sees as the mark of a savage (however tempting that might be...)

Personally, the 0.5hp average difference isn't something i ever really noticed, but the more reliable damage certainly is. Even when i was using the glaive, it was amazingly disheartening to roll a 1 or 2 on the damage die, even though logically you know that over the long run, you should average just as many 9s and 10s.

(And why do mauls never enter into this comparison, may I ask? Discrimination against blunt weapons!)

Having said all that, the weapon table really does need an overhaul. Though rapiers are a much bigger priority than great weapons in that department, imho.

 

[Oofta]

Heavens to Murgatroid, a whole extra 0.5 damage! Greatswords are broken, broken I tell you!

Good grief. The swords will likely average more towards the median value, the axe will be more random. The impact of the difference is going to be incredibly minimal.

Now if you really want to gripe about broken weapons, take a look at the longbow that traditionally had draw weights up to 150 pounds or more and explain to me why it's dex based weapon.

 

[FrogReaver]

Heavens to Murgatroid, a whole extra 0.5 damage! Greatswords are broken, broken I tell you!

Good grief. The swords will likely average more towards the median value, the axe will be more random. The impact of the difference is going to be incredibly minimal.

Now if you really want to gripe about broken weapons, take a look at the longbow that traditionally had draw weights up to 150 pounds or more and explain to me why it's dex based weapon.

To make the math a little easier let's compare a d12 to a d13 weapon. That's the same 0.5 damage difference. Both are linear so the math behind both is alot easier.

After 2 hits the d12 weapon will do 13+(10 mod) = 23 average damage and the d13 weapon will do 14 + (10 mod) = 24 average damage. Now consider an enemy with 35 hp. The d12 weapon (assuming the previous hits were average damage) will only have a 50% chance of killing the enemy on the next hit. The d13 weapon will have a 61.5% chance of doing the same.

Looking at it through this lens sure makes .5 average damage sound alot more important.

*Also, randomness is usually not in the PC's favor as they tend to be expected to win.

 

[TwoSix]

Heavens to Murgatroid, a whole extra 0.5 damage! Greatswords are broken, broken I tell you!

To be fair, with GWF style, the difference is actually a whole point. (8.33 v 7.33).

Is it a huge deal? No. It's just an annoying proud nail in a very visible chart. Trident being martial is much more annoying to me, personally, when it's literally identical to a spear.

 

[Norton]

I let my players go to the Smithy and add damage to their weapons with adamantine edges and such. Evens things up and they love doing it. Say 350 gold to change the d12 to 2d6. They'll think it's expensive and they should.

 

[Horwath]

To be fair, with GWF style, the difference is actually a whole point. (8.33 v 7.33).

Is it a huge deal. No. It's just an annoying proud nail in a very visible chart. Trident being martial is much more annoying to me, personally, when it's literally identical to a spear.

the whole table is a mess,

properties were handed out to some weapons not bothering taking anything in return, read damage die less, non universal thrown weapon range, treating versatile as an actual useful property.

I would say that 2d6 for martial 2Handed, Heavy weapon without any properties is too little, 2d8 would be better as we do not have one and a half STR mod as in 3E.