Rules on Heavy Weapons

[AchillesReborn]

Hello. I've heard that you can make heavy versions of weapons in 3.5e that do something like increase the damage die of the weapon, but also requires exotic weapon proficiency (not quite sure how it works). I haven't been able to find a source unfortunately. I'm planning to have a heavy large spiked chain made for my character. A large, masterwork spiked chain costs 350 gold. How much extra would it cost to have that weapon also be heavy? Also what are the full rules for heavy weapons?

[Saintheart]

The rules are in Magic of Faerun, page 179. Bear in mind it's technically a 3.0 source that hasn't been updated.

Couple of things:

- If you don't have EWP for that weapon specifically (Heavy Spiked Chain), you take a -4 on the attack rolls. (You can wield a heavy weapon a category size smaller in two hands to avoid the attack penalty, but this is a 3.0 rule and you'll get a DMG to the head if you point out that a spiked chain is always a two-handed weapon; that rule was probably meant to apply to one-handed or light weapons.)

- You can never use Weapon Finesse with a heavy weapon.

- The damage dice does increase. But not necessarily by one size category. That said, weapons with multiple damage dice ... such as the spiked chain with its 2d4 at Medium size ... actually get a bigger boost than other weapons, since the size increase is set out in the table and says, explicitly "Old Damage (Each Die)". Therefore a heavy spiked chain goes from its default 2d4 damage to become a 2d6 damage weapon, i.e. to default Greatsword damage.

- Making it a large weapon means it's pretty much impossible to wield without Strongarm Bracers at Medium size, and it's debatable whether Monkey Grip works on it. That said, if it's a Large weapon, the default damage dice would be 2d6, and a Heavy version of that weapon would do 2d8 instead in keeping with the table for Heavy Weapons.

[gijoemike]

I think that was 3.0 not 3.5

Magic of Faerun p. 179.

see this thread -> https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?133560-Heavy-Weapons

It requires ex weapon prof because the weight and timing of the weapon is completely off. A master of using a longsword would barely understand what to do if that same sword weighed 40 lbs more.


Also more specific to 3.5, weapon sizes and the use of monkey grip. Think FF7 Cloud's buster sword sort of nonsense. I think a huge sized greatsword, using 2 hands and having the feat monkey grip is a -2 attack for 4d6 base damage?

[Prime32]

Magic of Faerun, p179. Deals increased damage dice (1d8 or 1d10 becomes 2d6, 1d12 becomes 2d8), requires taking a specific proficiency feat like Exotic Weapon Proficiency (heavy longsword), and can't be finessed. Tied to weapons constructed from specific special materials, meaning the cost depends on the material used - gold or platinum.

So basically you're spending a feat to get +2 average damage for a greatsword, or +2.5 for a longsword, and it's worthless for most TWF users. Unless you have some class that grants proficiency in all exotic weapons, in which case it's pretty much free.

[AchillesReborn]

Thank you everyone for your quick responses. This was very helpful :smallsmile:

Edit: I've looked through the rules for heavy weapons and I think I have a pretty good understanding, I do still have one question though. If a weapon does 2d8 damage normally and that weapon is made heavy, does the new heavy version of that weapon do 4d6? I'm not sure I fully understand the table for damage changes.

[Saintheart]

Edit: I've looked through the rules for heavy weapons and I think I have a pretty good understanding, I do still have one question though. If a weapon does 2d8 damage normally and that weapon is made heavy, does the new heavy version of that weapon do 4d6? I'm not sure I fully understand the table for damage changes.

You are correct. Let's walk through it, though. Preface: forget about how size changes work. The damage dice increases due to a size change are on a different track to those granted by Heavy weapons.

Per MoF, p. 179, the heavy version of a normal weapon has each damage dice of the weapon increased.

A 1d8 weapon becomes 2d6.

The MoF table says this increase is applied to each of the weapon's damage dice.

Each d8 of a 2d8 weapon has its damage raised to 2d6. Accordingly, as you say, a 2d8 weapon has its total damage dice raised to 4d6 - 2d6 for each d8 in the original weapon.



Where this potentially gets interesting is that there isn't an ironclad rule as far as I can see for the order in which you apply increases from size and increases from the Heavy Weapon material. Eyeballing it, I don't think it's likely to result in much of a practical difference, though, because typically when a size increase is applied resulting in you going from throwing 1 dice to throwing 2, the 2 dice are typically of a smaller number.

Take the example you've got: the 2d8, and thus a maximum of 16, becomes a maximum possible score of 24 on 4d6 -- same as if you'd gone from 2d8 to 3d8, i.e. same as Large to Huge bastard sword. However, 4d6 is less likely to deliver a score of 24 because the more small dice you throw, the more it moderates results towards the middle, i.e. you're more likely to get a result somewhere in the 11-13 range than a 24. It's less likely to throw 4 results of 6 than 3 results of 8.

[the_tick_rules]

i've been trying to find a way to get magic of faerun that won't set off virus checker and won't get in trouble for posting. sometimes the bonus can be worth it more than others, a d12 becomes a 3d6.

[Saintheart]

i've been trying to find a way to get magic of faerun that won't set off virus checker and won't get in trouble for posting. sometimes the bonus can be worth it more than others, a d12 becomes a 3d6.

There is a distinction depending on how you apply the bonuses, even if it ends up in the same place:

Under Default --> Heavy --> Size:

1d12 --> 2d8 --> 3d8.

Under Default --> Size --> Heavy:

1d12 --> 3d6 --> 3d8.


If you have to pick between one or the other, Size bonus beats Heavy weapon for maximum possible damage. And you don't have to spend a EWP proficiency for an oversized weapon, though it might still cost you either Monkey Grip and/or Strongarm Bracers depending how your DM makes sense of them.

If you can get both it makes no difference which order you do it in.

[Zaq]

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