"Heavy" Weapons?

[Starwulf]

So, I was reading a thread the other day, I think it was in this forum. I can't find it now, unfortunately, hence why I'm asking my question. In the thread, it was talking about how you could make weapons "Heavy" to increase their damage(not sure if it increased crit range as well). What book is that in?

[Re'ozul]

A Magic of faerun, page 179.
Weapons are basically made of money (Silver, Gold, Platinum)

[Starwulf]

Unfortunately I don't have that book. Could you tell me the specific details? I'm looking to make a Greatsword +1 with Keening and I'd it to be heavy.

[hivedragon]

http://www.aeropause.com/wordpress/archives/images/2008/08/tf2-heavy.jpg
wat's that sandvich?
kill them all?
good idea!

[Darrin]

Unfortunately I don't have that book. Could you tell me the specific details? I'm looking to make a Greatsword +1 with Keening and I'd it to be heavy.

Pay +7000 GP to make the weapon out of magically-alloyed gold or platinum. Since it's much heavier, you need Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Heavy <blah> to wield it without a -4 penalty. If you could use Weapon Finesse with the weapon before, you can't any longer. There's a table in the book that increases the damage by die type, but except for a few quirks, the table is almost the same as increasing the effective size of the weapon.

[Re'ozul]

Aargh, browser closed due to touchpad interference when i neraly finished typing.

Cost is based on original weapon damage:

up to 1d3: 1,500gp
1d4 or 1d6: 2,500gp
1d8 or larger: 7,000gp

damage die increase (multi-die weapons have each die increased accordingly):
1/1d2
1d2/1d3
1d3/1d4
1d4/1d6
1d6/1d8
1d8 or 1d10/2d6
1d12/2d8

You need EWP(Heavy Weapon) or eat the usual -4.

You'd probably be best served with Strongarm Bracers, a large bastard sword (2d8) and making it heavy (4d6)

[Starwulf]

Aargh, browser closed due to touchpad interference when i neraly finished typing.

Cost is based on original weapon damage:

up to 1d3: 1,500gp
1d4 or 1d6: 2,500gp
1d8 or larger: 7,000gp

damage die increase (multi-die weapons have each die increased accordingly):
1/1d2
1d2/1d3
1d3/1d4
1d4/1d6
1d6/1d8
1d8 or 1d10/2d6
1d12/2d8

You need EWP(Heavy Weapon) or eat the usual -4.

You'd probably be best served with Strongarm Bracers, a large bastard sword (2d8) and making it heavy (4d6)

Hmm, Any reason to not have a two handed weapon? My Shield is enchanted with animated, so I still get the protection from my shield, but I can use both hands for a weapon.

Oh, wait, n/m, a LARGE Bastard sword IS a two handed weapon, and the bracers ensure I can still wield it with one hand. Do you get a bonus for wielding a one-handed weapon with two hands?(since my shield is animated). Or, I guess I could nix the Animated bit, and just go with arrow deflection on my shield instead. Could certainly be useful I guess

Thank you greatly btw! you rock!

edit: Also, can you make Armor or Shields "heavy" and if so, what are the bonuses for that?

2nd edit: One other question. Does making a weapon "heavy" make it Masterwork as well, or do I still need to add in the cost of Masterwork in order to add enhancements on it?

third edit: LOL. also, what kind of weight is added to a weapon when it becomes "heavy"?

[Re'ozul]

Ah yes, I had forgotten to include that bit.

If you wield a heavy weapon one size category smaller than you in two hands you do not suffer the -4 penalty.

So a large Bastard sword wielded in two hands (same strenght bonus as a normally two handed weapon) with strongarm bracers would count as such.
Therefore you wouldn't need to invest into EWP(Heavy weapon).

A large Greatsword would net you 3d6 before and 3d8 after becoming heavy and in oder to wield it proberly you'd need the feat.
The large Bastard sword can by Raw used two-handed as a martial weapon so you bypass two feat requirement (EWP(Bastard) and EWP(Heavy)) in one swoop for the same damage.

EDIT:

The sword become twice as heavy as it was originally.
So a large heavy Bastard sword would be 24lb.

Gold Armor grants resistance acid/fire 2.
Platinum grants cold/sonic 2.

They are 1 category heavier. (light medium heavy)
spell failure is increased 10%
max-dex is decreased by 2
ACP is increased by 3
(Bad deal all around)
Oh yeah, and on top of that it costs 5,000gp


Neither say anything about MW so i assume you have to provide that yourself at additional cost.

[Starwulf]

Awesomeness All around

Thank you very much :) That's awesome to know, I was about to start picking out feats just so I could that weapon, but now I don't have to ^^ Thank you for all that information. I wont' bother making my shield/armor Heavy, no real point in it, plus I'm out of money anways(1.5wbl at level 9 is only 54,000, I'm at 52k now and I still gotta buy me a horse and regular supplies)

[Starwulf]

Hmm, I have one final question: Since I can treat a bastard Sword as a Martial weapon as long as I wield it with two hands, does that mean I don't need Weapon Proficiency:exotic weapons in order to gain Weapon focus:bastard sword?

[Big Fau]

Hmm, I have one final question: Since I can treat a bastard Sword as a Martial weapon as long as I wield it with two hands, does that mean I don't need Weapon Proficiency:exotic weapons in order to gain Weapon focus:bastard sword?

That's for the DM to decide. RAW can go either way.

[darksolitaire]

Dull the edges of your bastard sword so that it deals bludgeoning damage. Then buy your party wizard a scroll of Greater Mighty Wallop. :smallbiggrin:

[herrhauptmann]

Those rules for how 'heavy' changes the damage dice were made back in 3.0, when weapon dice changed differently than they do now.
You're probably better off just using the standard 3.5 rules for changing the size of a weapon.
Human wields a medium greatsword: 2d6.
Human wields large greatsword, or medium heavy greatsword: 3d6.
Human wields large heavy greatsword: 4d6

[Starwulf]

So, how exactly is wielding a Large Heavy Bastard sword in two hands and not having to use the Exotic Weapons Proficiency Heavy Bastard sword RAW legal? I have someone on the thread I"m trying to use the weapon in swearing up and down it's not RAW legal at all. Then I have another person saying it's an extremely cheesy RAW legal. Could I get an explanation, and perhaps a couple of "yays" and "nays" to it being RAW Legal?

[Re'ozul]

Well, the Rule about EWP Bastard Sword comes from the d20srd on my side (so I don't know which corebook it originates from).

Sword, Bastard

A bastard sword is too large to use in one hand without special training; thus, it is an exotic weapon. A character can use a bastard sword two-handed as a martial weapon.

So you can bypass that EWP easily.

The heavy property has some examples that indicate that in 3.0 weapon sizes were calculated differently than in 3.5 as the examples given would mean not one but two sizes smaller than the character size if the esamples were of the largest weapons applicable. (light mace for human, longsword for ogre)
By arguing that the examples do not contradict the text when applied to 3.5 (the weapons are simply smaller than the maximum the rule could be applied to) you can circumvent that EWP as well.

This secondary aspect is a bit cheesy and could be negated by the DM easily via 3.0 - 3.5 discrepancies.

The fact that if he allows this you effectively use a specific combination of two different aspects that make it possible to circumvent a feat tax can be considered cheese.
However, the fact remains that the difference is merely 1 feat either way, or a reduction in damage by 1d6. I think it should be possible to let melee have this nice thing without much problem.

[herrhauptmann]

Well bastard sword in two hands is martial.
So you take EWP: Bastard to wield in 1 handed in your early levels.
Later on, you find/buy/steal a heavy bastard sword. It's still too exotic for you to use. So you need a separate EWP:Heavy Bastard to wield your new blingy sword. :( Even if you hold it in two hands.

Best bet is to talk to the DM and see what s/he says. Maybe he'll let you retrain your EWP:Bastard to EWP:Heavy bastard.

If DM says you need to take EWP twice for a heavy bastard, then I'd recommend just using a standard martial weapon that's heavy.
If he says you only need to take it once, EWP:Heavy bastard, then he'll probably say while you can use the heavy bastard just fine, a standard bastard would feel weird, and you wouldn't be able to use it properly.
Which is probably fine. I imagine by that point you're using it two-handed for power attack bonuses anyway.

On the other hand, he might be very lenient, and say that EWP: Heavy bastard clears you to use both heavy and normal version of a bastard sword. Which is great, but probably unnecessary.