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View Full Version : D&D 3.x Other Opposite of Finesse?



Ashtagon
2017-12-09, 06:10 AM
3.x allows Finesse weapons to use the higher of Strength or Dexterity.

I want to define certain weapons† to use the lower of Strength or Dexterity as the key ability score. What would be a good term to use? "Clumsy" is my working name for a keyword, but I'm sure there must be something better.

† SRD weapons that would have this are: scythe, orc double axe, spiked chain, dire flail, gnome hooked hammer, two-bladed sword, dwarven axe-spear. Essentially, this list is all cinematic double weapons, plus the scythe.

King of Nowhere
2017-12-09, 06:38 AM
I've never seen anyone use any of those weapons anyway, except for the schyte in some crit-focused build. why do even more to discourage people from using them?

Ashtagon
2017-12-09, 06:45 AM
I've never seen anyone use any of those weapons anyway, except for the schyte in some crit-focused build. why do even more to discourage people from using them?

Because I'm trying to create a set of rules that will allow for more realistic portrayals. I will of course include optional rules to turn the cinematic up to 11, but the core system needs to be able to handle realistic properly.

noob
2017-12-09, 08:28 AM
Did you see a lot of people using scythes?
How would you know it depends more on the combination of strength and dexterity than other weapons?
None of the double weapons are used in real life.(and I do not know for the scythe)
So maybe what you want is not that weird modifier but a straight removal of those weapons from the universe due to how they make no sense in the first place.

About fighting depending on both dexterity and strength it is something that can be told about nearly all the real life melee weapons so maybe for realism you should apply that modifier to all melee weapons.

Ashtagon
2017-12-09, 08:33 AM
Did you see a lot of people using scythes? How would you know it depends more on the combination of strength and dexterity than other weapons?

I've used one myself, both agriculturally and practising the techniques suggested by Mair (http://wiktenauer.com/wiki/Paulus_Hector_Mair). Can we get back to my original request now?

Jormengand
2017-12-09, 08:43 AM
"Unwieldy"?

Fiery Diamond
2017-12-09, 08:44 AM
How about "unwieldy"?

Kantaki
2017-12-09, 08:52 AM
Clunky maybe?

Also, what exactly does „more realistic” mean and wouldn't it be more effective to start from a system closer to your goal?
Or from scratch as the case may be?

Lalliman
2017-12-09, 11:44 AM
I can see the appeal of weapons that require both Strength and Dexterity, to reward people who make the otherwise-suboptimal decision of raising both. For this purpose I would imagine some kind of giant curved sword, which can be swung with great agility if you can lift it in the first place. But surely you realise that applying this trait to the mentioned weapons without considerable alteration will just make them unusably bad, right?

If your primary goal is realism, and you're remaking part of the rules anyways, you'd be better off making Dex into the attack stat for ALL weapons, with Str remaining as the damage stat. That inherently makes sense, whereas your suggestion (no derision intended) is like putting a band-aid on a fundamentally unrealistic system.

But if that's too large of a change, I'll second Unwieldy as a suitable keyword.

SkipSandwich
2017-12-09, 12:19 PM
As part of a set of homebrew rules tweaks I did for 3.5, I changed it so Str handled all melee/thrown/bow damage by default, whereas Dex handled all attack rolls by default. Finesse weapons allowed you to substitute one-half your dex mod in place of str on damage rolls for that weapon, and conversely, Brutal weapons allowed you to substitute one-half your Str mod in place of Dex for attack rolls with that weapon.

Under this system, if you wanted max damage at the expense of accuracy, you max strength and neglect Dex
If you wanted max accuracy at the cost of damage, you max Dex and neglect Str
If you wanted both damage AND accuracy you have to prioritize Str and Dex equally.

Another part of the system was that I split AC into Dodge (Dex-based, vs ranged only unless wearing light or no armor) and Parry (Str-Based, vs melee only unless wielding a shield), with Armor providing DR.