Greataxe, greatsword, and a little math

[BookBarbarian]

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."

This is correct. It's not crits in General that are limited to one die, just special things like Brutal Critcal, and I think the Half-Orc ability that operates similarly to it.

 

[Leatherhead]

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."

Yeah, this mechanical divide always gets to me. I want my Barbarian Noble to wield a greatsword, 'cause nobles use swords. But the Barbarian is designed to use a Greataxe or Maul.

 

[Bardbarian]

Yeah, this mechanical divide always gets to me. I want my Barbarian Noble to wield a greatsword, 'cause nobles use swords. But the Barbarian is designed to use a Greataxe or Maul.

Use an greataxe stats call it a sword. There is literally no difference. An axe is no different in game terms than a sword and neither is defined in any asthetic terms.

 

[CTurbo]

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."

Oh I see. So a Barb brutal crit would be 3d12 Greataxe or 5d6 for Greatsword, but a regular crit would be 2d12 Greataxe and 4d6 Greatsword.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The Great sword can't be better?

Not only that, the Greatsword should be better - it's the product of significantly more advanced technology.

 

[CapnZapp]

I strongly believe one weapon shouldn't be better than another just for pesky historical or realism reasons.

We're playing a game. That game would be the most fun if it allowed the player to choose his own tool of destruction with little or no mechanical penalty.

 

[jaelis]

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.

Just to ground this point about barbarians and half orcs... At level 9 a barb gets one extra die on a crit. If you assume a 50% hit chance, that puts the greataxe damage at 7.15 hp, compared to a greatsword at 7.35. So even at that point the greataxe lags a bit. (Bearing in mind that the axe will do relatively better against a higher AC target, and worse for lower AC.)

Now if you go to a half orc barbarian at level 17, who gets 4 extra dice on a crit, the axe is up to 9.1, while the sword is at 8.4.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I strongly believe one weapon shouldn't be better than another just for pesky historical or realism reasons.

We're playing a game. That game would be the most fun if it allowed the player to choose his own tool of destruction with little or no mechanical penalty.

Great, so a dagger should do the same damage as a longsword.

 

[jaelis]

Great, so a dagger should do the same damage as a longsword.

Whether you agree with the concept or not, that's not really a legit criticism. The dagger is a simple weapon with the finesse, light, and thrown properties. No one would say those should be ignored when determining damage.

 

[snickersnax]

My solution is modify GWF from reroll 1s and 2s to roll an extra die and drop the lowest. So greataxe becomes best one of 2d12 and greatsword becomes best 2 of 3d6.

This makes the weapon averages 8.48 for greataxe and 8.46 for greatsword. It gives a small boost to GWF and evens out greatsword and greataxe all in one beautiful solution.

Not sure who came up with this idea originally, but I think its really great