why is monkey grip a bad feat?

[Phaederkiel]

why is monkey grip a bad feat?

while it does not seem to be the bee's knees, it should be at least quite beneficial.

Many meelee-fighters -especially meelee control builds like trip or standstill - stand or fall with the range threatened.

Monkey Grip lets you use a Weapon one category larger, for example a large spiked chain. Shouldn't this be good, since it enhances your range.

What do i not see?

[Dusk Eclipse]

It doesn't enhance your range, reach weapon only double your natural range, so you could have a 100 ft long spear and still you could only attack someone 10 ft away from you (assuming you are medium of course).

And it doesn't even erases the penalty, you are still taking a -2 for an average increase of 1 point of damage or so, even weapon specialization gives more and it is an awful feat.

[Urpriest]

Reach doesn't increase with weapon size. You're thinking of a houserule.

[MesiDoomstalker]

Your mistaking large weapons giving you Large reach. This is not true. To have Large reach, you need to be a Large creature (or have something that explicitly gives you large reach). On average, Monkey Grip gives you a +1 to damage, at a penatly. This is because the increase in damage die will give an average of 1 higher on die rolls. Which is strictly worse than Weapon Specialization due to the penalty.

EDIT: NINJA'S!

[Hiro Protagonest]

Reach property doubles natural reach of the wielder. Large characters have ten feet, therefore making it twenty, but medium characters only have five.

[Phaederkiel]

If it is true that it does not give reach (how do you know?), it is true that MG is an awful feat.

Somehow, i think that RAI it should give you reach. Do you agree that this could be its intent?


the damage bonus clearly isnt worth it. exept perhaps with the greataxe.

[Curmudgeon]

Monkey Grip also provides no benefit with off hand weapons.
[QUOTE=Phaederkiel;12832836]Somehow, i think that RAI it should give you reach. Do you agree that this could be its intent? No, definitely not. That's something that's always stated when there are exceptions (such as whips having 15' reach, regardless of your size). Monkey Grip has specific limitations (like the off hand exclusion), and no specifics regarding reach.

[Urpriest]

If it is true that it does not give reach (how do you know?), it is true that MG is an awful feat.

Somehow, i think that RAI it should give you reach. Do you agree that this could be its intent?


the damage bonus clearly isnt worth it. exept perhaps with the greataxe.

We know it doesn't give reach because there is no rule that says it does. In general when you play a game with rules you only get those abilities the rules say you get.

It's also very clearly not RAI, since 3.5 changed reach weapons from a fixed length to always doubling natural reach, indicating that they wished to avoid precisely this sort of confusion.

[Flickerdart]

Not 1 damage (2d6 -> 3d6 for Medium to Large Greatsword is +3.5). However, simply Power Attacking gives you a better return (+4 damage for a -2 penalty, and scalable too).

Once you get into the larger sizes (Huge+), though, the increase is 2d6 (avg 7) per size category, so it becomes a better trade-off than Power Attack for its penalty. But then you can just get Leap Attack or whatever and kick your PA modifiers up.

So Monkey Grip only has a point if you're a Huge creature that only has one feat to spare. And even then you're getting a tiny bit of damage. Weapon-based King of Smackers are the only people that would care.

[Phaederkiel]

Thank you (especially urpriest) from enlightening me.

[Voyager_I]

Not 1 damage (2d6 -> 3d6 for Medium to Large Greatsword is +3.5). However, simply Power Attacking gives you a better return (+4 damage for a -2 penalty, and scalable too).

Once you get into the larger sizes (Huge+), though, the increase is 2d6 (avg 7) per size category, so it becomes a better trade-off than Power Attack for its penalty. But then you can just get Leap Attack or whatever and kick your PA modifiers up.

So Monkey Grip only has a point if you're a Huge creature that only has one feat to spare. And even then you're getting a tiny bit of damage. Weapon-based King of Smackers are the only people that would care.

Right-o here. For most purposes, it's Power Attack at a fixed rate with a lower ratio of damage gained.

[Eldariel]

Not 1 damage (2d6 -> 3d6 for Medium to Large Greatsword is +3.5). However, simply Power Attacking gives you a better return (+4 damage for a -2 penalty, and scalable too).

Once you get into the larger sizes (Huge+), though, the increase is 2d6 (avg 7) per size category, so it becomes a better trade-off than Power Attack for its penalty. But then you can just get Leap Attack or whatever and kick your PA modifiers up.

So Monkey Grip only has a point if you're a Huge creature that only has one feat to spare. And even then you're getting a tiny bit of damage. Weapon-based King of Smackers are the only people that would care.

Also, there is a very cheap magic item called "Strongarm Bracers" [Magic Item Compendium] that does the exact same thing and they don't stack so you kinda have to decide whether you need few thousand gold or a feat more (tip: always feat).

EDIT: Oh yeah, and Strongarm Bracers negate the To Hit penalty too.

[hex0]

What about monkey grip and oversized TWF. :smallsigh:

[Flickerdart]

What about it? OTWF just eliminates the penalty for wielding a one-handed weapon in your off-hand. It doesn't interact with Monkey Grip in any way.

[Hiro Protagonest]

What about it? OTWF just eliminates the penalty for wielding a one-handed weapon in your off-hand. It doesn't interact with Monkey Grip in any way.

I think he means people who take both feats because they think it's an effective combination to be able to wield two large one-handers.

[lerg2]

Unless you are playing a Goliath with a fullblade, it's a terrible feat. It's only good in Min/Max builds.

[Knaight]

Unless you are playing a Goliath with a fullblade, it's a terrible feat. It's only good in Min/Max builds.

Even in "Min/Max" builds, it is terrible. Moreover, the "fullblade" is a relic of 3.0 that is a large bastard sword in 3.5, and as such isn't even valid.

[hex0]

I think he means people who take both feats because they think it's an effective combination to be able to wield two large one-handers.

Think is the key word here, right?

[eggs]

Even leaving aside its unfavorable comparison to other feats, abilities and items, Monkey Grip typically lowers a character's expected damage per round.

The exceptions are typically when a character's attacks are when a character's lowest attack bonus is equal to the typical target AC, when size bonus stacking gets crazy (Persisted Giant Size + Greater Mighty Wallop users, for instance) or when a character has few enough damage bonuses to be a negligible combatant anyway.

Its character-dependent enough that you'd have to run the math yourself, but its deficiencies usually extend beyond the existence of better alternatives.

[Flickerdart]

Think is the key word here, right?
Yes. Unless you're all about boosting size up to Colossal, weapon dice don't matter. You're far better off investing into Power Attack (for two-handers) or precision dice (for two-weapon fighting) than you are fishing for larger weapon dice,