Greataxe, greatsword, and a little math

[Krachek]

The Great sword can't be better?

 

[Bardbarian]

Yes, you only get one reroll. I would allow a reroll on crit dice, just like a greatsword gets to reroll both d6s on a crit. Certainly it only applies to the actual weapon die.

As regards to whether it is worth it, it does make the two weapons more balanced. If the existing imbalance doesn't bother you, then you are probably just a little more sane than me, so I can't argue with that

There are a few misunderstandings in this thread which are leading to the discussion. The mechanics of the weapons was intentional and were designed with both the Half Orc race and the Barbarian class in mind as outliers. A greatsword or maul as written and confirmed by the designers of the game, only does one additional d6 when using the half orc racial or the barbarian improved critical features. The greataxe gets a 1d12. The greataxe was designed as the weapon of critical hit builds. in effect it already does what you are asking per design. With that in mind, our group allows our players to choose what damage die they wish to use when choosing between axe and sword. they literally are the same weapon. Note that nowhere in the book is an axe or sword defined and both are just 2 handed heavy weapons that deal slashing damage. The difference between the two weapons is so minimal its not worth bothering over. If you do lose sleep over the slight difference in damage then just apply the correct critical rules and see if that fixes the disparity in your mind.

In the end its your game and play it how you like.

 

[FrogReaver]

OK, that is not at all what I meant, I'm sorry if it came across that way.

Your suggestion makes sense, but it is true that there is no fixed bonus crit damage you can add that makes the two weapons balanced for all ACs. It is also true that if you make the base damage balanced, then it will be balanced also when crits are included. You could instead decide to make them balanced with crits for some nominal AC target, I don't think there is anything wrong with that idea. It is just not how I took your question.

right. If the 2 weapons do exactly the same average damage then Crits won't cause a change depending on AC. But your suggestion doesn't cause the weapons to do the same average damage. So Opponenet AC will still affect your version the same way (albeit possibly less in magnitude because your averages are closer)

 

[aco175]

One solution is to do away with feats, or at least GWF. I would guess that someone discussing how to fix the math problem likes the feats though. I'm not sure on the math, but allowing both weapons to re-roll damage again on rolls of 12 should work out for the ax being 1d12 and not needing both d6s to roll max to make 12 for the sword.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Everyone knows that the greataxe has slightly lower average damage than the greatsword. The axe does 6.5 on average, the sword does 7.0. This is not a big deal, but it bothers me more than it probably should..

Nod. Since 3.0, it's been that way, and generated this odd controversy.

At this point, I just think of it as an illustrative foible of D&Ders, that a half-point of average damage is a balance issue in the context of weapons & characters that use them, while LFQW seems to be debatable.

 

[Laurefindel]

@jaelis, ok dwarf with greataxe i give your that one, at least if you take those modern 4-5 ft dwarves with a broad build, but a flimsy elf with a maul? Cmon now stay true

Different game, but I like the looks of Warhammer's High Elf White Lions and Sword Masters (or I guess you could say that all GW figurines looks silly in their proportions). Same with the 2nd age elves in LotR movie. Can't think of a pop reference of an elf with maul however...

More on the subject, I'd be careful about introducing exploding damage in D&D. It's the GWF combat style that really advantages the 2h sword over the great axe. So it's more an issue with fighters and paladins. Barbarians, the archetypal great axe wielding characters, is just as good (if not better off with features) with a great axe.

 

[BookBarbarian]

I like it the way it is.

There's the slight advantage to using a Greatsword as a Fighter, or Paladin (or a Ranger, if you are weird like me and enjoy Great Weapon Rangers) and a slight advantage to a Barbarian using the Greataxe, that gets even better with Half-Orc or a Champion dip.

 

[jgsugden]

If you take the time to determine how often the proposed rule change would actually make any difference in the outcome of a combat, much less a significant one, you'd be less worried.

 

[CTurbo]

I thought with a Maul or Greatsword, you only got to reroll one of the d6s on a crit(which I always thought was dumb) which gives the Greataxe an edge when factoring in crits

2d12 > 3d6

 

[jaelis]

I thought with a Maul or Greatsword, you only got to reroll one of the d6s on a crit(which I always thought was dumb) which gives the Greataxe an edge when factoring in crits

2d12 > 3d6

Pretty sure that is a misimpression. It says "When you score a critical hit, you get to roll extra dice for the attack’s damage against the target. Roll all of the attack’s damage dice twice and add them together."

Compare to the barbarian's Brutal Crit, which says "you can roll one additional weapon damage die when determining the extra damage for a critical hit with a melee attack."