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<blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 9002380" data-attributes="member: 87792">The only time I've seen versatile used in practice in any edition was in games of 4e with a brawler fighter who would swing their sword two handed if they weren't using their other hand to put someone in a headlock. And that's the fundamental problem with Versatile as a concept; it shouldn't be as good as a two handed weapon when using the weapon two handed otherwise you make two handed weapons redundant. So in order to be good rather than a ribbon ability it needs to be combined with a fighting style where you sometimes hit two handed and sometimes take one hand off your weapon to do something else. Which means that it's the lack of interesting fighting styles that's the reason Versatile's never used. You could do something with the Grappler feat to grab as a bonus action or something with throwing a weapon with your offhand at the cost of having to use your weapon one handed - or some sort of buckler which allows you to switch sword + board and two handed styles round to round. But in the absence of those versatile weapons are no better than non-versatile one handed weapons when used one handed, are worse than two handed weapons used two handed and there's no fighting style that fluidly switches between the two. It's a ribbon ability because there's basically no opportunity to use it.And you could change Versatile (d10) to Versatile (d12) and it would change literally nothing - while if you changed it to Versatile (2d6) it would be strictly better than the greatsword. The problem isn't that versatile isn't good at its job; it's that the job isn't one any character actually wants doing.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Neonchameleon, post: 9002380, member: 87792"] The only time I've seen versatile used in practice in any edition was in games of 4e with a brawler fighter who would swing their sword two handed if they weren't using their other hand to put someone in a headlock. And that's the fundamental problem with Versatile as a concept; it shouldn't be as good as a two handed weapon when using the weapon two handed otherwise you make two handed weapons redundant. So in order to be good rather than a ribbon ability it needs to be combined with a fighting style where you sometimes hit two handed and sometimes take one hand off your weapon to do something else. Which means that it's the lack of interesting fighting styles that's the reason Versatile's never used. You could do something with the Grappler feat to grab as a bonus action or something with throwing a weapon with your offhand at the cost of having to use your weapon one handed - or some sort of buckler which allows you to switch sword + board and two handed styles round to round. But in the absence of those versatile weapons are no better than non-versatile one handed weapons when used one handed, are worse than two handed weapons used two handed and there's no fighting style that fluidly switches between the two. It's a ribbon ability because there's basically no opportunity to use it. And you could change Versatile (d10) to Versatile (d12) and it would change literally nothing - while if you changed it to Versatile (2d6) it would be strictly better than the greatsword. The problem isn't that versatile isn't good at its job; it's that the job isn't one any character actually wants doing. [/QUOTE]

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