Heavy weapons

[Curelomosaurus]

Weapons made out of alchemical gold or platinum are considered heavy weapons, meaning they deal more damage but cannot be finessed and require EWP.

However, you can ignore the attack penalty for a heavy weapon if you wield it as if it were larger (ie. using a heavy longsword in two-hands).

What if you're not proficient in the non-heavy version? Is the attack penalty still ignored if, for example, a human cleric wields a heavy spiked chain in two hands?

Relevant text here (https://www.realmshelps.net/stores/weapons.shtml#heavy).

[KillianHawkeye]

According to the RAW of the linked text, you apparently don't need to be proficient in the regular version of the weapon if you wield it in two hands. This is likely a simple oversight, and I would house rule it if I was the DM.

Note, however, that this does not apply to the spiked chain, as it is already normally a two-handed weapon and thus does not meet the size requirements laid out for wielding a heavy weapon in two hands. Effectively, you can only do this with light weapons, such as the light mace given in the example. So not even with a longsword, unless it's made for a smaller creature (as the example of the ogre wielding a heavy longsword in two hands that is presumably sized for a Medium creature).

[animewatcha]

A little bit of an oversight in the text within the source which was, IIRC, in 3.0 book with 3.0 handed rules. The idea is that if you made a heavy weapon you needed the next size category of effort if you didn't take the exotic feat for that weapon specificly. A dagger ( under normal circumstances a light weapon ) that is now 'heavy'..instead of it being a light weapon is now a one-handed weapon ( if no taking of exotic feat ). If you took the exotic feat, a medium creature could wield a 'heavy' greatsword. No feat means no wielding heavy greatsword. Sizing penalties are a different matter. And handed versus reach are yet ANOTHER different matter.

Main goal of a 'heavy weapon' is to give up the 'material property' aspect of the weapon for a bigger damage die.

[Saintheart]

A little bit of an oversight in the text within the source which was, IIRC, in 3.0 book with 3.0 handed rules. The idea is that if you made a heavy weapon you needed the next size category of effort if you didn't take the exotic feat for that weapon specificly. A dagger ( under normal circumstances a light weapon ) that is now 'heavy'..instead of it being a light weapon is now a one-handed weapon ( if no taking of exotic feat ).

It's worth noting that when you look at the table of how the size dice increase, 1d10 and 1d12 weapons aren't increased to the 'Large' damage dice version of the same weapon; on the SRD, the Large version of a 1d10 weapon does 2d8 and a 1d12 weapon does 3d6 at Large size. Heavy 1d10 and 1d12 weapons do 2d6 and 2d8, respectively. The 1d8 weapons get the best bang for buck in this space, wield anything larger than that and you might as well just get an oversized weapon.

[Curelomosaurus]

So basically, wielding a heavy weapon you're not proficient with in two hands without penalty works by RAW, but not RAI?


Note, however, that this does not apply to the spiked chain, as it is already normally a two-handed weapon and thus does not meet the size requirements laid out for wielding a heavy weapon in two hands.

My bad, for some reason I was thinking that spiked chains were one-handed.


Effectively, you can only do this with light weapons, such as the light mace given in the example.

Why? What's wrong with a human using a Small heavy longsword two-handed?

[StevenC21]

A small longsword would be a light weapon for a human.

[Bronk]

So basically, wielding a heavy weapon you're not proficient with in two hands without penalty works by RAW, but not RAI?

Why? What's wrong with a human using a Small heavy longsword two-handed?

It worked by RAW in 3.0, but many items from 3.0 need minor revisions - made by individual DMs if there's no errata - to be usable.

In this case, 3.5 completely changed how weapons sizes worked, then added extra penalties for using weapons of inappropriate size on top of the -4 for lack of proficiency.

Inappropriately Sized Weapons: A creature can’t make optimum use of a weapon that isn’t properly sized for it. A cumulative –2 penalty applies on attack rolls for each size category of difference between the size of its intended wielder and the size of its actual wielder. If the creature isn’t proficient with the weapon a –4 nonproficiency penalty also applies.

The measure of how much effort it takes to use a weapon (whether the weapon is designated as a light, one-handed, or two-handed weapon for a particular wielder) is altered by one step for each size category of difference between the wielder’s size and the size of the creature for which the weapon was designed. If a weapon’s designation would be changed to something other than light, one-handed, or two-handed by this alteration, the creature can’t wield the weapon at all.

However, a DM could, for example, decide to ignore those penalties and use the rules as is (maybe heavy weapons have longer hilts or something), or they could just decide they weren't exotic weapons just because they happened to be heavier than normal.

[Curelomosaurus]

Hmmm.

This begs the question: what metal light exotic weapons are worth making out of gold and using two-handed? Gnome quickrazor might be worth it on a factotum to save a feat...

Also, can this trick be used on ranged weapons?

[KillianHawkeye]

It worked by RAW in 3.0, but many items from 3.0 need minor revisions - made by individual DMs if there's no errata - to be usable.

In this case, 3.5 completely changed how weapons sizes worked, then added extra penalties for using weapons of inappropriate size on top of the -4 for lack of proficiency.

Under 3.0 rules, light weapons were considered one size smaller than the wielder's size, while two-handed weapons were one size larger. In 3.5, it's using roughly the same scale as creature sizes, so a light weapon is typically two sizes smaller than the wielder, while a two-handed weapon is the same size.

Based on the examples in the text (a human wielding a heavy light mace and an ogre wielding a heavy longsword), I agree that it's using the 3.0 weapon sizes. Note that in 3.0, an ogre didn't have longswords made for its own size, and simply wielded the standard longsword but as a light weapon. But there wasn't a penalty for wielding a weapon of inappropriate size back then, either.



So I guess the question then becomes: upon converting the heavy weapons to a 3.5 game, do we respect the spirit of the original rule and update it so you still can only wield a light weapon in two hands to ignore the exotic proficiency requirement? Or do we let the text stand and extend the rule to allow wielding a one-handed weapon in two hands without the penalty? And if so, would we allow a heavy light weapon to then be used as a one-handed weapon?

Either way, getting a little extra damage doesn't seem worth all this extra effort to me....

[Vaern]

A dagger ( under normal circumstances a light weapon ) that is now 'heavy'..instead of it being a light weapon is now a one-handed weapon ( if no taking of exotic feat ).
It's not, actually. It's still a light weapon, it just becomes exotic and can't be used with weapon finesse. The heavy quality doesn't affect the light/one-handed/two-handed classification of a weapon. Using a heavy dagger with two hands still only grants +str to damage rather than +1.5x str, as normal with a light weapon.

[animewatcha]

It's not, actually. It's still a light weapon, it just becomes exotic and can't be used with weapon finesse. The heavy quality doesn't affect the light/one-handed/two-handed classification of a weapon. Using a heavy dagger with two hands still only grants +str to damage rather than +1.5x str, as normal with a light weapon.

The dagger aspect was an extrapulation of current 3.5 rules with the size-effort changing present for the longsword.

Previous replies covered different aspects of 3.0 weapons worked versus 3.5. The heavy weapons working under 3.0 rules. Tried to run a comparison of damage die charts in between the editions. Oddly players handbook 3.0 was hard to find and could not help me. However I found what i needed for comparison in Magic of faerun, Savage species ( transition of 3.0 to 3.5, so sometimes called 3.25 ), and monster manual II ( this book was under 3.0 rules ), and 3.5 srd.

Savage species chart of die increases matches that of the 3.5 srd ( likely due to transition ). However, monster manual II natural weapon die size chart for advancing monster size category is the same chart for heavy weapons. It even stops at the 1d12 - 2d8 line. So it should be 'safe' to update the chart of the heavy weapon to 3.5 standard.