A strange question about wielding a big sword

[BlackSeed_Vash]

A great sword is heavy. The IRL way to wield it without overly exerting yourself is to hold the handle about head height and to have the tip of the blade around waist height. In this position, removing one hand would make you either drop it or force you to plant the tip in the ground.

That being said this is D&D and realism doesn't always work well with the rules.... I'd personally go with a swift action to represent re-steadying the blade and leave the hand being removed/returned as free actions.

 

[Jackinthegreen]

The SRD has the greatsword listed at 8 pounds, but that's actually an upper bound on the weight and would only work for the longest of swords like what William Wallace is thought of as using. Most of them weighed 3 to 5 pounds (as seen at http://www.thearma.org/essays/2HGS.html), so they wouldn't be heavy or awkward to someone trained in their use. Polearms are a bit of a different story though, but for the purposes of this thread a free action for both letting go and regaining the grip shouldn't be a problem.

 

[Nezkrul]

There's a reason they came up with a feat in the Complete Mage called "Somatic Weaponry" - it lets you cast spells with somatic components while your hands are full

 

[BelGareth]

While I see your logic, and have gone down that road myself, the feat 'somatic weaponry' was created to avoid this.

-guess, I should have read the above post.

 

[El Mahdi]

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[El Mahdi]

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