Medium PC Two-Weapon Fighting with Medium Two-Handed Weapons

Let me reiterate: If someone wants to be a huge brute with 2 weapons that are enormous, instead of being POWERFUL and using 1 2handed weapon, I'll make up my own rule to help him if I have to.

The RAW dont cover every possible combination, but based on the spirit of the rules, and the fact that Monkey Grip exists, its obviously possible to learn to use bigger weapons. The people with monkey grip do so. All thats left is to create the feats that let you use a Large GreatSword in 2 hands, and the medium Greatsword in 1 hand. I can whip them up and post them in under 10 seconds, if required, but it shouldnt be hard for anyone to do themself.

Don't be surprised to see a 3rd party product add it in, its an obvious hole that needs plugging.

DanMcS said:

This is the argument people have been making since 3.5 debuted, and it remains silly. I wish I could find the picture someone here on the boards used to post to refute such sillyness, but alas, my google-fu is weak. Anybody have it? That picture of arnold the governator as conan the barbarian, in two side-by-side shots; in one, he's wielding a big but one-handed sword; in the other, he's wielding a dagger meant for a giant. It sums up the whole thing very nicely.

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This one, I presume? (Attached .jpg file, couldn't figure out how to embed an image ...)

Thanks for the fun debate, everyone.

My issue is for my own character in Living Greyhawk. So, no house rules or special exceptions or ultra-lenient interpretations.

We have a chance to convert LG characters, and I was thinking of making my Bbn2/Rgr1/Ftr8 into all Ranger. The biggest problem with this change is that his armor is medium (breastplate +2 Light Fortification) and his main weapon is a +3 silver scythe (which he's had since the first weekend I played the character, way back in 2001). He's also got a +1 adamantine scythe. The sight of him wielding both of those scythes at once would have been fun, with some "to hit" penalties & the weapon choice balancing out the potentional for massive damage if all four attacks actually hit.

If I switch to Ranger, the medium armor and two-handed weapon are useless for the Two Weapon Fighting combat style. And, under LG rules, during conversion I can sell only one item at full price; everything else is the standard "sell for half price" when you get rid of it. Additionally, since item upgrades beyond +1 are not easy to come by in LG, I have to either take another hit in effectiveness (and only have +1 armor and a +1 weapon until I get more favors gain through play) as well as the huge hit in g.p. (though selling the armor at 1/2 is not nearly as bad as selling the armor and the weapon at 1/2 price).

My character is already a sub-optimal build (i.e., not a raging power gamer wet dream), so I'm not going to change to all-Ranger if it hurts his combat effectiveness with this double whammy. I guess a big "to hit" penalty wouldn't bother me as much as losing one decent weapon and one decent piece of armor and starting over on the long "upgrade path" for those two items. Which is kind of funny, since starting over with +1 items (a total change of -2 on my current attack modifiers) would be less of a penalty than two-weapon fighting with two two-handed weapons would ever be (at least -4 and maybe much more if it was even "legal" in the rules.).

So, since there's no way to allow a medium PC to wield a two-handed weapon in one hand (which is silly, but that's the RAW), I'm just going to change my character into something else. Probably straight fighter (which more closely matches his current build anyway), even though I was trying to avoid that.

In a home game, I would not use Monkey Grip to allow it, but come up with some other feat to allow use of a two-handed weapon in one hand (maybe with a damage penalty in addition to an attack penalty).

Barendd Nobeard said:

My issue is for my own character in Living Greyhawk. So, no house rules or special exceptions or ultra-lenient interpretations.

We have a chance to convert LG characters, and I was thinking of making my Bbn2/Rgr1/Ftr8 into all Ranger. The biggest problem with this change is that his armor is medium (breastplate +2 Light Fortification) and his main weapon is a +3 silver scythe (which he's had since the first weekend I played the character, way back in 2001). He's also got a +1 adamantine scythe. The sight of him wielding both of those scythes at once would have been fun, with some "to hit" penalties & the weapon choice balancing out the potentional for massive damage if all four attacks actually hit.

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Weee-ell... there is a way to do it.

Become Large. The easiest way is to get the party Wiz/Sor a Wand of Enlarge Person.

Now, your scythes will enlarge with you... but if you let go of them, they'll revert to being Medium. A Large ranger uses a Medium scythe as a one-handed weapon... so you can use one in each hand (at a -2 penalty for inappropriate size).

-Hyp.

Well, I may just do that then!

He was previously a gnome (due to Reincarnation) and I had to do that same thing for the opposite reason. Now he's a half-elf, desparately seaching for a way to get his dwarf body back.

Hmm. What's a Large bastard sword roll for damage? Taking exotic proficiency: bastard sword + letter-of-the-3.5-law monkey grip is better than monkey gripping either a medium greatsword or a large longsword (depending on whether or not you interpret the 3.5 wording of monkey grip beyond the letter of the law).

Frightening, indeed.

Kaffis said:

Hmm. What's a Large bastard sword roll for damage? Taking exotic proficiency: bastard sword + letter-of-the-3.5-law monkey grip is better than monkey gripping either a medium greatsword or a large longsword (depending on whether or not you interpret the 3.5 wording of monkey grip beyond the letter of the law).

Frightening, indeed.

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A large bastard sword does 2d8 damage.
A medium greatsword and a large longsword both do 2d6 damage.

Monkey Grip + exotic weapon proficiency should leave you better off than just monkey grip; you've sunk two feats into it, not one, after all.

DanMcS said:

Monkey Grip + exotic weapon proficiency should leave you better off than just monkey grip; you've sunk two feats into it, not one, after all.

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And given that Bastard Sword is bigger than Longsword, it's not surprising that Large Bastard Sword deals more damage than Large Longsword...

-Hyp.

the simple true answer...

You could wield 2 handed weapons in both hands but you could only make attacks from one side of each of the weapons

read about two-bladed sword for example... "a creature wielding a 2-bladed sword in 1 hand can't us it as a double weapon- only 1 end of the weapon can be used in any given round."

it is the same for all 2 handed weapon descriptiosn in the PH.

the penalties would be normal for fighting with 2 weapons at once but neither weapon could be considered a light weapon.

the thing to do is get a 4 armed creature and give it two 2-handed weapons then it works great.

Oh and the large greatsword is 3d8 damage and could be used by a large creature in 1 hand with the monkey grip feat. use 2 of those babbies with an ogre with a few levels of fighter using weapon focus, greater weapon focus, weapon specilization and greater weapon specilization and all the 2 weapon fighting feats with improved crit and you got yourself a super deluxe meat grinder. Your attack bonus will be so high from your strength and fighter levels you wont miss much anyway.. add in your reach for being large and you see it gets nasty fast.