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Message: <blockquote data-quote="delericho" data-source="post: 6053567" data-attributes="member: 22424">Only if all other factors are equal. The reason to use a dagger instead of a shortsword is stealth. The reason to use a shortsword rather than a longsword is that it's better for massed groups of combatants. The reason to use a longsword instead of a greatsword is that you can use a shield as well. And the reason to use a greatsword is moar damage.The disadvantage of static ED is that it makes the longsword strictly better than the greatsword - if I'm doing 1d8+3d6 damage with the longsword or 1d12+3d6 damage with the greatsword, then giving up on those 2 points of damage (on average) for an AC bonus is a no-brainer. If it's instead 4d8 vs 4d12, that's a different calculation.Actually, you don't even need to hack it my class - make the Death Attack available to anyone using a small enough weapon, and the same calculations get made.Why? The greatsword is a strictly better weapon - unless the shortsword user has access to a shield and friends at his sides, the greatsword-weilder wins every time. Granted, in the real world that's due to greater reach rather than strict damage (since either can kill you easily enough), but in D&D terms that just gets boiled down to greater damage.If you really wanted to model the differences between these weapons accurately, you should allow the shortsword user to spend an ED to double the shield bonus gained by characters to the left and right of him. And that way, the optimal use for that weapon is in massed ranks with shields - which is as it should be.Likewise, you differentiate weapons of similar lethality (the longsword and battleaxe, for example) in a similar way - perhaps spending an ED with the LS can turn a nat-19 into a critical, while spending an ED on a nat-20 with a BA grants several extra damage dice. Or something.</blockquote>

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