Monkey Grip

[JumboWheat01]

I've been playing a lot of Neverwinter Nights 2 of late, and there's this feat (that I admittedly never use,) called Monkey Grip, that allows Medium Characters to use a Large weapon with one hand at -2 to hit and the same for Small Characters for Medium weapons. I got thinking about how that could be translated into 5e, and this is what I came up with.

Monkey Grip
A character/creature can use a Two-handed Weapon with one hand and attack with it at a disadvantage.

A Small Size character/creature can use a Heavy Weapon with two hands and attack without disadvantage.


Assuming I remember the rules correctly, that will allow Small characters to use all weapons without a problem, while allowing the weird "greatsword and shield" combo for Medium characters if they want to do so for some unknown reason.

Thoughts?

[SwordChuck]

I've been playing a lot of Neverwinter Nights 2 of late, and there's this feat (that I admittedly never use,) called Monkey Grip, that allows Medium Characters to use a Large weapon with one hand at -2 to hit and the same for Small Characters for Medium weapons. I got thinking about how that could be translated into 5e, and this is what I came up with.

Monkey Grip
A character/creature can use a Two-handed Weapon with one hand and attack with it at a disadvantage.

A Small Size character/creature can use a Heavy Weapon with two hands and attack without disadvantage.


Assuming I remember the rules correctly, that will allow Small characters to use all weapons without a problem, while allowing the weird "greatsword and shield" combo for Medium characters if they want to do so for some unknown reason.

Thoughts?

Just... No.

Attacking with disadvantage is just... Not something you want to automatically do.

Also, why would a larger creature get penalized while a smaller creature gets a bonus with the same ability?

How about...

××××
Monkey Grip
Str 15

Two handed melee weapons become Versitile for you. When wielding them with one hand their damage die/dice decreases by one step (2d6 > 1d12). You may ignore the heavy property.

Additionally when you switch the number of hands using the weapon (as a use item action) you can use a bonus action to make a disarm attempt.

××××

We would need a clause about stacking feats. I doubt TWF + GWF + Monkey Grip is a good idea...

[Falcon X]

I agree. The feat as you stated really isn't much of a feat at all. Disadvantage is effectively a -5 to your attack roll.

5e works innately different than 3rd edition, which Monkey Grip was created for. Feats are a little stronger, and they don't like to give small negatives. I think a 5e feeling feat would be one that straight up says:

"You treat all weapons as one size category smaller for all purposes except damage."

or

"Remove the Heavy Weapon property from any weapon you use."

[Zman]

I'd let a character swing a two handed weapon in one had with disadvantage without a feat all day every day.

For the cost of a feat I'd let them do it without penalty, with the caveat that they lose the heavy tag. I see no problem with wielding a greatsword in one had, but one handing a great sword and using Great Weapon Master.

If a character that takes Dual Wield and the Monkey Grip Feats, I see no problem with them dual wielding Greatswords, in fact, I think it is awesome and would love to do it.

[Santra]

I thought about this the other day

Monkey Grip

Versatile weapons deal damage as if they are being wielded in two hands even when being wielded in one hand.
Two handed Weapons gain the Versatile property. Their damage dice drop by one size when wielded in one hand (ex- 2d6 becomes 1d12, 1d12 becomes 1d10)
A small creature with this feat can wield heavy weapons without disadvantage on attacks
You have advantage on any saves or skill checks to avoid being disarmed.

[JumboWheat01]

I thought about this the other day

Monkey Grip

Versatile weapons deal damage as if they are being wielded in two hands even when being wielded in one hand.
Two handed Weapons gain the Versatile property. Their damage dice drop by one size when wielded in one hand (ex- 2d6 becomes 1d12, 1d12 becomes 1d10)
A small creature with this feat can wield heavy weapons without disadvantage on attacks
You have advantage on any saves or skill checks to avoid being disarmed.


Okay, that sounds much better. I'll admit, I'm not really good at the homebrewing thing. There's reasons I don't DM, hehehe...

[Theodoxus]

(ex- 2d6 becomes 1d12, 1d12 becomes 1d10)

Why do people keep saying this? They're the same... 2d6 is mechanically better in some situations (GWF) and worse in others (Brutal Critical) but otherwise equivalent. 2d6=1d12 and both should drop to 1d10. /rant

[Tenmujiin]

Why do people keep saying this? They're the same... 2d6 is mechanically better in some situations (GWF) and worse in others (Brutal Critical) but otherwise equivalent. 2d6=1d12 and both should drop to 1d10. /rant

While I agree with you for the most part, 2d6 is ALMOST always better. you require a crit focused orc for 1d12 to be better

[Zman]

While I agree with you for the most part, 2d6 is ALMOST always better. you require a crit focused orc for 1d12 to be better

Or Barbarian.

[Boci]

While I agree with you for the most part, 2d6 is ALMOST always better. you require a crit focused orc for 1d12 to be better

Or Savage...Attack? The feat that let's you roll twice and take the better result for damage.

[SwordChuck]

Or Savage...Attack? The feat that let's you roll twice and take the better result for damage.

Shhh, we don't talk about that feat.

[Boci]

Shhh, we don't talk about that feat.

Why not? This seems to be referencing something I don't know about.

Edit: Its considered too weak? I can see that, except for a feat human. Seems decent enough for them.

[Tanarii]

That's a Feat to get +2 AC with no damage reduction for medium creatures, and get +1.5 damage (or +2.5 but -2AC) for small creatures.

Makes it kind of a weird feat, since it has completely different intended purposes for different sizes.

[Zman]

Why not? This seems to be referencing something I don't know about.

Edit: Its considered too weak? I can see that, except for a feat human. Seems decent enough for them.

It is because it is a relatively weak feat compared to things Like PoleArm Master or Great Weapon Master. But, for a Barbarian with a Greataxe it can result in a decent average damage boost and can be situationally amazing.

Say at lowish levels when you have one attack, if you rolled a 1-6, below average you'd average a gain of 3 extra damage, though situationally the reroll could result in 5 less damage or potentially 11 more damage. Anytime you roll below average for damage, which happens on 50% of attacks it raises your average damage. Overall it is a 1.5 Damage /Turn increase before criticals are added in, and that increases to 2.25 Damage/Turn before Criticals when you have a second attack. It is worse with any other weapons that have a smaller damage die.

It increases the average damage from a Greataxe from 6.5 to 8. It really helps on the outliers say when you crits as a Barbarian or a Half Orc and roll a 1 a 2 and a 3, on average the reroll adds 14 damage in that situation and could potentially add as much as 30 additional damage.

It isn't the best feat, but situationally it can add tremendous amounts of damage and is great when you flub rolls, and it'd be fun!

[SwordChuck]

It isn't the best feat, but situationally it can add tremendous amounts of damage and is great when you flub rolls, and it'd be fun!

If by situational you mean one specific class with one type of build... Yeah very very very situational.

It really should have been either put with another feat or built up more. Change weapon master a bit and add savage attack to it and you got yourself a good feat.

I'm fine with niche things, as long as it can be used for multiple niche things. Like Subtle Spell MM. Yeah it is niche but it has a lot of niche areas it helps with.

Not the best but something like this would help savage attack be worth a feat as many different character might want it and it helps with different areas of the game.

Weapon Master
- Gain Proficiency with any three weapons of your choice
- Gain Half Proficiency bonus to any weapon attack that doesn't gain your proficiency bonus.
- Savage Attack
- +1 Strength or +1 Dexterity

It could use some work, yes, but it isnt made for just one class who fights with one specific style anymore.

/shrug

[Basch]

I thought about this the other day

Monkey Grip

Versatile weapons deal damage as if they are being wielded in two hands even when being wielded in one hand.
Two handed Weapons gain the Versatile property. Their damage dice drop by one size when wielded in one hand (ex- 2d6 becomes 1d12, 1d12 becomes 1d10)
A small creature with this feat can wield heavy weapons without disadvantage on attacks
You have advantage on any saves or skill checks to avoid being disarmed.


The only real issue I see here, is that short of a lighter weapon, there isn't really a reason to use a longsword over a greatsword anymore. If they do the same damage in one hand, why give up the option of 2-handing the greatsword for extra damage?

[Zman]

If by situational you mean one specific class with one type of build... Yeah very very very situational.

It really should have been either put with another feat or built up more. Change weapon master a bit and add savage attack to it and you got yourself a good feat.

I'm fine with niche things, as long as it can be used for multiple niche things. Like Subtle Spell MM. Yeah it is niche but it has a lot of niche areas it helps with.

Not the best but something like this would help savage attack be worth a feat as many different character might want it and it helps with different areas of the game.

Weapon Master
- Gain Proficiency with any three weapons of your choice
- Gain Half Proficiency bonus to any weapon attack that doesn't gain your proficiency bonus.
- Savage Attack
- +1 Strength or +1 Dexterity

It could use some work, yes, but it isnt made for just one class who fights with one specific style anymore.

/shrug

It is ok for Half Orcs
It is ok for Barbarians
It is ok for Champions

It should have been... +1 Strength, may reroll weapon Damage Dice.

But, it is a fun feat, so it isn't optimized but could bring a lot of enjoy,net and fun to the game. Problem is some feats are a bit too good, and others not so much.

Weapon Master should have been +1 Strength or Dex and Proficiency in Martial Weapons.

[SwordChuck]

It is ok for Half Orcs
It is ok for Barbarians
It is ok for Champions

It should have been... +1 Strength, may reroll weapon Damage Dice.

But, it is a fun feat, so it isn't optimized but could bring a lot of enjoy,net and fun to the game. Problem is some feats are a bit too good, and others not so much.

Weapon Master should have been +1 Strength or Dex and Proficiency in Martial Weapons.


It's just ok for barbarians and meh for champions.

The biggest issue is that these classes/subclasses already do enough straight damage to keep up and exceed what the game is balanced for. Yeah savage attack gives them a small boost in damage but they don't need a slight boost in damage.

I would rather have fun AND get something useful out of a feat.

I love the idea of macrofeats but they did a poor design balance with them.

Out of all the martial feats I would say sentinel is where things should be balanced.

[Daishain]

Two handed melee weapons become Versitile for you. When wielding them with one hand their damage die/dice decreases by one step (2d6 > 1d12). You may ignore the heavy property.
At which point it becomes always more optimal for S&Bers to take this feat and wield a greatsword or polearm, and for greatsword and polearm lovers to take this feat and pick up a shield. I'm really not a fan of character options that reduce expected diversity, especially in favor of something that would realistically be awkward as hell.

The best way to balance this such that it is a choice to consider rather than a near requirement is with a reduction to attack rolls, just like the original feat. As noted previously, disadvantage is problematic, either the character is crippled by their inability to hit, or they use one of many methods to gain consistent advantage and nullify the penalty. Perhaps a simple -2?



Weapon Master should have been +1 Strength or Dex and Proficiency in Martial Weapons.I get the feeling it was worded that way with exotic and racial weapons in mind. Exotics don't really exist as a category anymore, but the idea of relatively unique weapons that standard martial training wouldn't cover has plenty of potential.

[SwordChuck]

At which point it becomes always more optimal for S&Bers to take this feat and wield a greatsword or polearm, and for greatsword and polearm lovers to take this feat and pick up a shield. I'm really not a fan of character options that reduce expected diversity, especially in favor of something that would realistically be awkward as hell.

The best way to balance this such that it is a choice to consider rather than a near requirement is with a reduction to attack rolls, just like the original feat. As noted previously, disadvantage is problematic, either the character is crippled by their inability to hit, or they use one of many methods to gain consistent advantage and nullify the penalty. Perhaps a simple -2?

In a game like 3e a simple reduction to attack rolls is fine but in a game such as 5e a reduction to attack rolls doesn't balance anything as penalties to attack rolls are worth a lot more.

If I was going to add a penalty to an attack roll I would just say "you can not get advantage in attack rolls from anything other than inspiration, however sources of advantage can still negate disadvantage" or something like that.

This still penalized the attack roll but not in a way that it directly effects the core math.

And really greatsword and shield may be nice but some classes either don't get shields or don't need them. A barbarian would much rather TWF or GWF than sword and board.

Tangent, kinda: This is why I think we need to organize feats I to specific grounds and just straight up say you can work Feats from the same group together. You can't GWF (-5/+10) and TWF at the same time... Much like how Crossbow Expert wouldn't be able to stack with Sharpshooter.

[Foxhound438]

Why do people keep saying this? They're the same... 2d6 is mechanically better in some situations (GWF) and worse in others (Brutal Critical) but otherwise equivalent. 2d6=1d12 and both should drop to 1d10. /rant

i agree that dropping to a d12 is still too strong (greatsword's a greataxe in one hand), but you're bad at math. 2d6 average 7, while a d12 averages 6.5, and the 2d6 has a "curved" damage spread (most likely to roll in the middle).

[Foxhound438]

though situationally the reroll could result in 5 less damage or potentially 11 more damage.

you take the higher roll, so you never lose damage.

[MaxWilson]

I've been playing a lot of Neverwinter Nights 2 of late, and there's this feat (that I admittedly never use,) called Monkey Grip, that allows Medium Characters to use a Large weapon with one hand at -2 to hit and the same for Small Characters for Medium weapons. I got thinking about how that could be translated into 5e, and this is what I came up with.

Monkey Grip
A character/creature can use a Two-handed Weapon with one hand and attack with it at a disadvantage.

A Small Size character/creature can use a Heavy Weapon with two hands and attack without disadvantage.


Assuming I remember the rules correctly, that will allow Small characters to use all weapons without a problem, while allowing the weird "greatsword and shield" combo for Medium characters if they want to do so for some unknown reason.

Thoughts?

One thought: for characters that have a disadvantage canceller in play already (e.g. Darkness spell creates advantage + disadvantage = nothing), adding one more source of disadvantage is no penalty at all.

[Coidzor]

If you're going to let characters onehand Longswords as d10 weapons instead of d8s or onehand greatswords, then don't throw on disadvantage.

If you're going to let characters wield oversized weapons, well, they can already do that with disadvantage from one size up, so you'd have to take away disadvantage and either leave it at that or give a more minor penalty.

I see no issues with taking away the downsides of being a small character wielding a Heavy weapon, though. Might need to give something else in addition to that, though, since, well, feats.

[AvatarVecna]

Why not? This seems to be referencing something I don't know about.

Edit: Its considered too weak? I can see that, except for a feat human. Seems decent enough for them.

The problem with Savage Attacker is that you don't roll each die twice and take the best, you roll all your dice twice, add up the individual totals, and figure out which is better; the end result is that, because of how bell curves work, the more dice you're rolling (regardless of die size), the less benefit the feat is giving you overall. That means that the best this feat ever gets is for somebody wielding 1d12, which usually averages to 6.5, and averages to 8.486 with Savage Attacker...which is an incredibly small difference (1.986 points higher); if that same person got a crit, their damage would be 2d12 before bonuses, which averages out to 13, or averages to 15.786 with Savage Attacker...which is a difference of 2.786, much smaller than if those 2d12 had been from two hits instead of one crit.

And it only gets worse the more dice you have; I ran the numbers awhile back for a high-level Assassin Rogue crit-SAing a target, and the difference between rolling 22d6 once and rolling 22d6 twice taking the better set is so insignificantly small that Google Sheets gave up trying to calculate it. That's obviously an extreme case, but a feat that, at best, gives you +2 damage per damage die (and it's only that "good" when you're rolling just the one damage die every time), is not a feat worth taking.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and it only works once a round, so it's not even +2 damage on every attack using only 1 damage die.

EDIT 2: Of course, that reduced benefit thing still tends to give bonuses...but then you run into how it seems to only apply to weapon damage dice, limiting it's best effort to that +2.7 on a Fighter's Greataxe Crit...and that's as good as it gets.

[Zman]

you take the higher roll, so you never lose damage.

Duh, man I misremembered that. It is quite a bit better that way, still not good. The math gets a bit trickier though.

1: 1-12/2=6.5
2: 2+2-12=6.6 etc
3: 6.75
4: 7
5: 7.33
6: 7.75
7: 8.25
8: 8.8
9: 9.5
10: 10.25
11: 11.1
12: 12

Savage Attack Average 8.5 roll on a D12.

So, it raises the average from 6.5 to 8.5. A 2pt increase in damage, not stellar. It averages better when you toss multiple attacks that hit, or when you crit

For instance if you have a 2d12 Crit you new average is 15.8 or 2.8 extra damage.


1d12
Average of 6.5 with a SD of 3.5
1d12 or 1d12
Average of 8.5 with a SD of 2.8

2d12
Average of 13 with a SD of 4.8
2d12 or 2d12
Average of 15.8 with a SD of 4.0

3d12
Average of 19.5 with a SD of 6.0
3d12 or 3d12
Average of 22.9 with a SD of 4.9

So, it not only increases damage a small to moderate amount it greatly reduces the likelihood of rolling a terrible damage roll and makes moderate to high dice damage more likely.

Just for fun... Sneak Attack
6d6
Average 21 with a SD of 4.2
6d6 or 6d6
Average 23.4 with a SD of 3.5.



The problem with Savage Attacker is that you don't roll each die twice and take the best, you roll all your dice twice, add up the individual totals, and figure out which is better; the end result is that, because of how bell curves work, the more dice you're rolling (regardless of die size), the less benefit the feat is giving you overall. That means that the best this feat ever gets is for somebody wielding 1d12, which usually averages to 6.5, and averages to 8.486 with Savage Attacker...which is an incredibly small difference (1.986 points higher); if that same person got a crit, their damage would be 2d12 before bonuses, which averages out to 13, or averages to 15.786 with Savage Attacker...which is a difference of 2.786, much smaller than if those 2d12 had been from two hits instead of one crit.

And it only gets worse the more dice you have; I ran the numbers awhile back for a high-level Assassin Rogue crit-SAing a target, and the difference between rolling 22d6 once and rolling 22d6 twice taking the better set is so insignificantly small that Google Sheets gave up trying to calculate it. That's obviously an extreme case, but a feat that, at best, gives you +2 damage per damage die (and it's only that "good" when you're rolling just the one damage die every time), is not a feat worth taking.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and it only works once a round, so it's not even +2 damage on every attack using only 1 damage die.

EDIT 2: Of course, that reduced benefit thing still tends to give bonuses...but then you run into how it seems to only apply to weapon damage dice, limiting it's best effort to that +2.7 on a Fighter's Greataxe Crit...and that's as good as it gets.

For your 22d6 Sneak Attack Crit...
22d6 Average of 77.0 with a SD of 8.0 for an expected damage range of 69-85
22d6 or 22d6 Average of 81.5 with a SD of 6.6 for an expected damage range of 74.9-88.1


As a raw damage increase it isn't great, but there is something to be said for greatly increasing the reliability and expected damage range.

And yes, it is only useable with one attack, but once to hit is calculated it does gain a benefit from a character having a second Attack. 60% chance of use with one attack, 84% chance of use with a second attack. If you roll both attack and damages and choose the worst to gain another roll it gets marginally better as well improving its utility.

[rlc]

I would've said 2d4 is one step lower than 2d6.

[Daishain]

I would've said 2d4 is one step lower than 2d6.
In descending order of averages:
2d6 - 7
1d12 - 6.5
1d10 - 5.5
2d4 - 5
1d8 - 4.5
1d6 - 3.5
1d4 - 2.5

Even if you were inclined to skip 1d12, which admittedly there is some reason to, 1d10 is still next on the list.

[Tanarii]

You left out 2d5. Clearly it goes 2d6 --> 2d5 --> 2d4. :p

[rlc]

In descending order of averages:
2d6 - 7
1d12 - 6.5
1d10 - 5.5
2d4 - 5
1d8 - 4.5
1d6 - 3.5
1d4 - 2.5

Even if you were inclined to skip 1d12, which admittedly there is some reason to, 1d10 is still next on the list.

Right, I get that, but I was thinking more in terms of the dice themselves than the averages. D4 is one step lower d6.
It was also 1am.