Two-Handed Weapons and 1.5 x STR Mod...Too Much?

[Capellan]

What Shin said

Speaking as someone with a STR 19 character, when the choice came to decide on a two-handed weapon, or the AC bonus of the shield, I went for the latter. At 1st level, that +2 is a life-saver, and at higher levels, the bigger pluses mean that you might at least get missed some of the time!

 

[magnas_veritas]

What Shin said

Speaking as someone with a STR 19 character, when the choice came to decide on a two-handed weapon, or the AC bonus of the shield, I went for the latter. At 1st level, that +2 is a life-saver, and at higher levels, the bigger pluses mean that you might at least get missed some of the time!

You get missed *some* of the time? Dude, what's your secret?

It seems that everything we fight has an unfortunate knack for hitting me whenever they target me, and my main guy has a max AC of 45 at 19th level! Mutter.

Brad

 

[theoremtank]

The reason it is is for balance. Why would you use a 2HW if it didn't do more damage? You have to sacrifice a shield for it. Also, with 2 weapon style the bonus is x1 and x.5, so it's basically equal to 2HW. I've never seen a problem with it in the 30 months of d20 games, even with the super strong charcaters.

My point is that the 2-Handed weapon already does more damage and that I'm leaning towards the thought that the 1.5 x STR Mod is too much.

I realize that Two-Weapon fighting would have to be tweaked also, if the rule I am speaking of is to be omitted. In fact I have been trying from time to time to come up with an alternate 2-weapon fighting system but have thus far been dissatisfied with my results next to the current system. (I plan on posting an excel sheet that interactively allows you to analyze the math stats of the fighting styles)

I'm not saying that the topic I originally brought up is a major problem. In fact, I too believe it is very low priority on the list of rules to tweak. I brought this up simply out of passing thoughts on the subject and for the sake of discussion in light of the coming rules revisions.

 

[theoremtank]

I personally think it should take a feat to be able to do x1.5 strengh bonus with a two handed weapon, but I don't feel strongly enough about it rule 0 it for my home game.

I too think this is an excellent idea in light of the minimum two feats required for two-weapon fighting. I am very curious if the official rules revisors have anything planned for any topics we have discussed so far.

 

[Caliban]

You get missed *some* of the time? Dude, what's your secret?

It seems that everything we fight has an unfortunate knack for hitting me whenever they target me, and my main guy has a max AC of 45 at 19th level! Mutter.

Brad

Only 45 at 19th level? That's why you get hit all the time.

If your a front line fighter, your AC should hit around 55-65 when you need it to.

My 9th level character has an AC that goes from 24 to 43 within 2 rounds if he needs it to, and can hit 51 under certain circumstances. This is with a +1 shield and +1 full plate. He has 36,000 gp in equipment, which is what the DMG recommends for a 9th level character.

(The other option is to go for doing as much damage as you can, so that you kill them before they can kill you. Unfortunately, this doesn't work to well with flying, spellcasting opponents.)

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

If there's no way for two handed weapons to gain more damage than 1x strength bonus, people won't use two handed weapons except to gain reach. If two handed non-reach weapon fighting is to be a viable style, there must be a way (and it shouldn't be any more expensive than a feat--and even one feat might be much for non-fighter characters) to gain more damage than simply the strength bonus.

3e is much better than 1e and 2e where the only difference in damage was, at best, going from d8 (longsword) to d10 (two handed sword). However, the difference in damage from dice is still not too significant. At best, two handed weapons do 2d6 instead of a d8--a difference of 2.5 points. More commonly, they do a d12 (greataxe) or a d10 (most other two handed weapons). So they get 1 to 2.5 points of extra damage from dice. That's significant at first level but by the time a PC reaches 7th or 8th level, it doesn't make nearly as much of a difference as to be worth the 2 to 4 points of AC gained by using a shield. Strength bonusses scale with level, however, (through stat increases, strength boosting items, and the availability of Bull's Strength) so, using 1.5x str bonus, two handed weapons are able to maintain their damage advantage.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

I disagree

A character that is using a weapon two handed for more damage does not gain a great deal from it unless they have at least a +4 Str bonus. To get that bonus, they are giving up a Sheild.

I would have to ask you what exactly led you to the conclusion that 1.5 damage for two hands was too powerful? But for the moment, lets go over your four points:

1st) A two-handed weapon already does significantly more damage than single handed weapons even if implemented with the two-weapon fighting style.

Not really. It depends on which weapon your looking at. Many of the one handed weapons do 1d8 damage. Most of the two handed weapons do 1d10 damage, and only the Great Sword and Great Axe can hit 12 damage.

2nd) The extra strength that goes into wielding a larger damage weapon two-handed should be abstractly thought of as the strength required to control the heavy weapon.

[In game physics example: F=M*A]
A lighter weapon is swung faster with less mass.
A heavy weapon is swung slower with more mass.
The heavy weapons already gets more damage, so why add even more with 1.5 x Strenght mod.

Point two is, in my opinion, flawed reasoning. A heavy weapon with the same force behind it will carry more kinetic energy then a light one. That can explain why the weapon has a better dice range. As for two hands being used to get 1.5 damage, that is simple too. With two hands, your applying more force to the weapon, therefore, more kinetic energy. This of course, leads to more damage.

3rd) The damage done by a finessing fighter is small in relation to that done by a high strength, two-handed weapon wielding fighter. A high DEX lower STR fighter alreafy has the disadvantage of lower STR mod and no increase in accuracy.

The reason that the damage is lower is because he is using lighter weapons. Weapon Finesse is meant to improve the fighting ability of weaker melee characters, not make a high Dex equal to a High Str character in damage output.

I see no reason for Dex fighter to inflict more damage then a Str fighter. This does not mean that the Dex fighter is inherently worse. After all, he does have a better Dex bonus to his AC.

4th) Getting rid of the rule would further simplify overall rule mechanics.

Getting rid of the 1.5 Str rule would simply remove one special case that applies to one aspect of play. The rest of the rules are still as complicated as they were before. If your looking to make the rules simpler, your better off taking a shot at Attacks of Opportunity, or the Generation of Monster CR's.

Anyway, why are you so convinced that the two handed use of weapons is so powerful? Has this become an issue in play, or have you simply ran the numbers through and find the results unsettling?

END COMMUNICATION

 

[theoremtank]

Re: I disagree

Anyway, why are you so convinced that the two handed use of weapons is so powerful? Has this become an issue in play, or have you simply ran the numbers through and find the results unsettling?

I am not ultimately convinced (as my original post states). I'm just trying to initiate debate about a subject I only thought a little about. I even mentioned that I myself don't see this as a big priority on the list of rules that may need to be tweaked. I'm just always interested in simplifying rules if they seem gratuitously complex.

 

[LokiDR]

I've seen a number of 2-handed vs 2-weapon debates in my time here. Most have come out on the side of 2-handed. But the fact that 2-weapon has it's adherants tells me 2-handed isn't vastly superior, just marginally. I think fighters need all the help they can get against the spell casters and rogues.

 

[Numion]

When you compare 2-HW to TWF, remember that in essence you get the weapons enhancement bonuses, weapons spec bonuses and other misc bonuses twice. Once for each weapon, and you have almost twice the attacks.

I've come to the conclusion that that is one balancing factor between the different styles. Maybe the feat someone suggested would be in place, since TWF consumes a butt-load of feats, whereas 2-HW takes about none.