Weapon Familiarity: What's the Big Deal?

[Hardhead]

I didn't want to hijack the dwarf thread, so I figured I'd start a new one. Lots of people in htere seemed to hate weapon familiarity. My question is: why?

Dwarves get to use either a one handed weapon, or a sub-optimal two hander as a martial weapon. So? I don't see the big deal. One handed weapons, as we all know, suck hard compared to double and two-handed weapons. And while a free martial weapon prof in a double weapon is nice, the one they get to wield in practice sucks. It deals 1d8/1d6 damage. The same damage you'd get from using a Longsword and a shortsword, which anyone can do (and, sure, the Urgosh can be set against a charge, but how often does that really come up?)

The only other race with Weapon Familiarity are the Gomes, who aren't known for their martial prowess, and also get a sub-par double weapon (though for them, at least the lower-die head gets a better crit multiplier).

 

[Crothian]

It's more a style thing then offereing the best weapon.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

People probably think it's a big deal because one-handed weapons don't "suck" compared to two handed weapons (or especially doubly weapons). Try setting up a low or mid level battle between a well equipped sword and shield fighter and a greatsword wielder. The sword and shield fighter will often win because his AC can be high enough that the two handed weapon wielder has trouble hitting--that goes double if the sword and shield fighter uses combat expertise too. Using a weapon and shield isn't as sexy as using a two-handed weapon because you generally don't kill monsters as quickly. But, in the long run, it's at least as effective.

The Urgrosh doesn't suck as badly as you think it does either. Sure it's d8/d6 instead of d8/d8 like the double sword, dire flail, and double axe. But it's still dramatically superior to a longsword/shortsword combination. Weapon specialization and greater weapon specialiazation apply equally to both ends. And when a full attack isn't possible, the wielder gets str x 1.5 and power attack at 2/1 because it's wielded in two hands. And it's easier to disarm with and harder to disarm. It may not be the best double weapon but it's better than any other dual wielding setup that doesn't require a feat.

All told, weapon familiarity allows dwarves--who already have tons of advantages--to have effectively as many feats as a human fighter who is following one of two common builds. That's the problem with it.

I didn't want to hijack the dwarf thread, so I figured I'd start a new one. Lots of people in htere seemed to hate weapon familiarity. My question is: why?

Dwarves get to use either a one handed weapon, or a sub-optimal two hander as a martial weapon. So? I don't see the big deal. One handed weapons, as we all know, suck hard compared to double and two-handed weapons. And while a free martial weapon prof in a double weapon is nice, the one they get to wield in practice sucks. It deals 1d8/1d6 damage. The same damage you'd get from using a Longsword and a shortsword, which anyone can do (and, sure, the Urgosh can be set against a charge, but how often does that really come up?)

The only other race with Weapon Familiarity are the Gomes, who aren't known for their martial prowess, and also get a sub-par double weapon (though for them, at least the lower-die head gets a better crit multiplier).

 

[Hardhead]

People probably think it's a big deal because one-handed weapons don't "suck" compared to two handed weapons (or especially doubly weapons).

The bonus AC from a shield is almost negligable at higher levels. In general, they're avoided by power gamers.

As for the Urgosh, I realize that they're useful, but still not as good as *other* double weapons, making it, IMO, not really worth a feat when you're figuring up power level.

 

[shurai]

The bonus AC from a shield is almost negligable at higher levels. In general, they're avoided by power gamers.

As for the Urgosh, I realize that they're useful, but still not as good as *other* double weapons, making it, IMO, not really worth a feat when you're figuring up power level.

Avoided they might be, but, and this is a very old argument (as old as 3rd Edition in fact), there is no clear winner between sword and shield and two-handed sword at higher levels. It's true that shields prevent their users from competing with greatsworders for damage, and dealing damage is important no doubt, but there is more to being a fighter than dealing damage.

Based on my experience, the important factor that often gets neglected is the cost efficiency of magic items. As you know, magic item cost is roughly proportional to the square of the power of the item, which means it's cheaper to carry two +2 items vs. a single +4 item. Carrying a shield gives one another vector for armor class bonuses, so therefore the shield user can afford any given AC for less gold than otherwise. This frees up gold for other uses, including compensating for that damage penalty single-handed weapons take.

People more interested in the exact figures than I have figured it out precisely, I'm sure.

-S

 

[Nail]

...there is no clear winner between sword and shield and two-handed sword at higher levels. .....People more interested in the exact figures than I have figured it out precisely, I'm sure.

Yup. I haven't updated my combat sheet to be completely 3.5e compliant, but not much changed there, frankly.

In *almost* all cases, a sword 'n board beats greatsword, regardless of which level you compare. To be fair, for some levels (7 - 10) who wins initiative generally decides who wins the battle. It's that close.

 

[The Souljourner]

The AC from a shield is negligible? Do your characters not have magical shields? Is 7 AC at levels 16-20 really negligible? I doubt it. If reducing an enemy's to-hit probability by 35% is negligible, then you must be playing in an odd game indeed.

-The Souljourner

 

[Spatzimaus]

The bonus AC from a shield is almost negligable at higher levels. In general, they're avoided by power gamers.

Good to know. Got any evidence of this? All of my experience points to the exact opposite. At high levels, a Fighter simply can't out-damage the spellcasters (or even the Rogues), so his main role is to be the Bullet Sponge (tm). For that you need AC, and no, Expertise/Fighting Defensively doesn't cut it unless you go Duellist. Sword-n-Board ends up being the "optimal" style (unless you rely on some non-damage strategy like Glaive+Combat Reflexes+Stand Still), especially when you're facing off against level 20 Rogues with +9d6 Sneak Attacks *shudder*.
The bonus AC from a shield increases really fast as you go up, since its enhancement bonus stacks with that from armor. It's FAR from "negligible".

Take 2 examples:
Fighter 1: +4 greatsword (32k), +4 armor (16k)
Fighter 2: +4 longsword (32k), +3 armor (9k) and +3 heavy shield (9k)
These are effectively the same price (50k vs 48k). The second fighter has an AC of 4 higher, and sacrificed 2.5+(0.5*STR bonus) damage to get it. This is a HUGE swing in power. At 20th level, if you're fighting a 500-HP monster that does 40 points per hit and would hit you on a 11+ (50%), which is more important: an AC shift of 4 (dropping his hit rate to 30%), or doing ~5 extra damage to him per hit?

 

[Kae'Yoss]

I didn't want to hijack the dwarf thread, so I figured I'd start a new one. Lots of people in htere seemed to hate weapon familiarity. My question is: why?......

My two cp about this:

Shield style: Not to be spit at! You can push your AC higher with this, greatly reducing the chance to get hit, plus you can put some defensive enhancements on shields that would go on the armor. It is usually less expansive to spread your magic over two protective items than it is to get one item really high. Two +3 items are 18000 (9000 each), while a +6 item is 36000.
And don't forget that you can use shields to shield bash - with the right feats, you can even keep the AC of the shield.

Dwarven Waraxe: Is simply better than the normal battleaxe - d8 instead of d10. While other fighters must get the battleaxe or waste a feat, dwarves just get the waraxe without any feat wasted. They can either use the effective axe-and-shield style (with or without two-weapon fighting and shield bash), or use two of the buggers (though this gives -4 instead of -2 to attacks, but allows to power attack)

Urgrosh: As already said: you can use this as a two-handed weapon, too, and you can get a double weapon without an exotic weapon proficiency. With this you can pour all your weapon-related feats (Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, Greater WF and WS, Improved Critical, Power Critical, Overwhelming Critical, Devastating Critical....) into one kind of weapon. The damage is the same as the battleaxe/handaxe combo, but feat efficiency doubles.



I might like to add that I don't hate weapon familiarity (my arguments are only against your statement that it doesn't help you at all). I just would like every core race to have some racial weapon or weapons (and I houserule it that way, with the weapons that are found in other rulebooks.).

 

[Staffan]

The effective benefit of sword&board (or, in this case, axe&board) only works out to +2 AC at higher levels though. This is due to being able to get animated shields, and animating being a +2-value ability. So, you either fight with a one-handed weapon and a large shield +3, or a two-handed weapon and an animated large shield +1. Had it not been for animated shields, things would be more in the favor of the shield-user.