I have a player that is a Goliath with 20 strength. I'm considering letting her use a great sword one handed and compromising with 1d10 instead of 2d6 for damage.
The "balance" arguments don't really make sense to me. I see it as a ratio situation. The size/strength of player compared to size/weight of the weapon.
I have a player that is a Goliath with 20 strength. I'm considering letting her use a great sword one handed and compromising with 1d10 instead of 2d6 for damage.
The "balance" arguments don't really make sense to me. I see it as a ratio situation. The size/strength of player compared to size/weight of the weapon.
Thoughts?
If you're DM you can homebrew any rules you want. And of course the game actually encourages you to do so. But as far as base RAW, the great sword doesn't have the Versatile property and the Goliath doesn't have a racial ability to wield two-handed weapons with one hand. As someone said, rules wise a halfling that somehow has str20 can just as effectively wield 2 battleaxes as a Goliath.
You could just as easily create a new item and call it a traditional weapon of Goliath people in your campaign which is versatile to 1d10 1 handed and 2d6 or 2d8 or whatever 2 handed when wielded by a Goliath.
I don't believe balance is unimportant but if the player is running around with str20 I'm guessing they're most likely level 4 or more anyway, so giving them a weapon with a small amount of additional damage compared to standard equipment isn't such a big deal anyway.
That's definitely getting into homebrew and houserules, but I do believe that there's at least some pretext for races like the Goliath, specifically, being able to wield a two-handed weapon with one hand... their Powerful Build feature allows them to be considered a size larger for carrying capacity, which could explain why a Goliath could wield it one-handed while a Halfling with 20 STR couldn't. Still, that would be a DM using a feature to accomplish something it wasn't actually designed to do, but at the very least there's something to build on.
As ACEspinz and TransmorpherDDS state allowing a character to wield a two-handed weapon in one hand would be Homebrew.
As for balance concerns these are the areas to be aware of that I see:
1) This would enable Two-Weapon Fighting with Heavy weapons. Considering the feat Polearm Master exists I don't think this is a serious concern at all. This would increase the average weapon dice damage of the player's bonus action attack from 2.5 to 5.5. However to achieve this while maintaining parity in other areas the player would need to take Dual Wielder, the Two-Weapon Fighting style, and spend twice as much on magic weapons. All of that investment and you are still short the more easily weaponized Reaction that Polearm Master gives you.
2) This would enable being able to use a shield or grapple an enemy while using a Heavy weapon. This is more of a concern as these are mechanics that in the current game system have no way of interacting. Probably the biggest factor is Great Weapon Master as it is one of the most potent feats for increasing damage for melee martials and it especially shines when you can reliably get Advantage. Grappling and Shoving are a great way to get and maintain Advantage and a Battlemaster Fighter can even accomplish this with Maneuvers instead of using attacks. A few other mentionables are the Dueling fighting style, Shield Master, and Bladesong. Basically, now all of these mechanics that were intended to be restricted to one handed weapons can now not only interact with more powerful two-handed weapons, but also with the mechanics that were intended to be restricted to Heavy weapons.
I really like ACEspinz suggestion of homebrewing a racial weapons for Goliaths that fit this need. This would allow you to specify the weapon properties of this racial weapon and have a little more control over what mechanics this will interact with. Also if you can talk it over with the player and understand what they want and what their goals are for their character then you can focus on the much simpler question of is it balanced for them instead of is it balanced in general.
P.S. Only while writing that last paragraph did I realize that Dmurdo was probably meaning balance as in where the center of gravity is for the weapon instead of balanced game design XD.
I have a player that is a Goliath with 20 strength. I'm considering letting her use a great sword one handed and compromising with 1d10 instead of 2d6 for damage.
The "balance" arguments don't really make sense to me. I see it as a ratio situation. The size/strength of player compared to size/weight of the weapon.
Thoughts?
If you're DM you can homebrew any rules you want. And of course the game actually encourages you to do so. But as far as base RAW, the great sword doesn't have the Versatile property and the Goliath doesn't have a racial ability to wield two-handed weapons with one hand. As someone said, rules wise a halfling that somehow has str20 can just as effectively wield 2 battleaxes as a Goliath.
You could just as easily create a new item and call it a traditional weapon of Goliath people in your campaign which is versatile to 1d10 1 handed and 2d6 or 2d8 or whatever 2 handed when wielded by a Goliath.
I don't believe balance is unimportant but if the player is running around with str20 I'm guessing they're most likely level 4 or more anyway, so giving them a weapon with a small amount of additional damage compared to standard equipment isn't such a big deal anyway.
That's definitely getting into homebrew and houserules, but I do believe that there's at least some pretext for races like the Goliath, specifically, being able to wield a two-handed weapon with one hand... their Powerful Build feature allows them to be considered a size larger for carrying capacity, which could explain why a Goliath could wield it one-handed while a Halfling with 20 STR couldn't. Still, that would be a DM using a feature to accomplish something it wasn't actually designed to do, but at the very least there's something to build on.
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As ACEspinz and TransmorpherDDS state allowing a character to wield a two-handed weapon in one hand would be Homebrew.
As for balance concerns these are the areas to be aware of that I see:
1) This would enable Two-Weapon Fighting with Heavy weapons. Considering the feat Polearm Master exists I don't think this is a serious concern at all. This would increase the average weapon dice damage of the player's bonus action attack from 2.5 to 5.5. However to achieve this while maintaining parity in other areas the player would need to take Dual Wielder, the Two-Weapon Fighting style, and spend twice as much on magic weapons. All of that investment and you are still short the more easily weaponized Reaction that Polearm Master gives you.
2) This would enable being able to use a shield or grapple an enemy while using a Heavy weapon. This is more of a concern as these are mechanics that in the current game system have no way of interacting. Probably the biggest factor is Great Weapon Master as it is one of the most potent feats for increasing damage for melee martials and it especially shines when you can reliably get Advantage. Grappling and Shoving are a great way to get and maintain Advantage and a Battlemaster Fighter can even accomplish this with Maneuvers instead of using attacks. A few other mentionables are the Dueling fighting style, Shield Master, and Bladesong. Basically, now all of these mechanics that were intended to be restricted to one handed weapons can now not only interact with more powerful two-handed weapons, but also with the mechanics that were intended to be restricted to Heavy weapons.
I really like ACEspinz suggestion of homebrewing a racial weapons for Goliaths that fit this need. This would allow you to specify the weapon properties of this racial weapon and have a little more control over what mechanics this will interact with. Also if you can talk it over with the player and understand what they want and what their goals are for their character then you can focus on the much simpler question of is it balanced for them instead of is it balanced in general.
P.S. Only while writing that last paragraph did I realize that Dmurdo was probably meaning balance as in where the center of gravity is for the weapon instead of balanced game design XD.
Thank you everyone for your replies! They have been very helpful.
Ace, that's exactly what I had thought about only after my post. The versitile option. 1d10 one hand and 2d6 two handed.
And Fangeye you are correct about what I meant about balance of the weapon.
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