Warmace one-handed, therefore can wield bigger one two-handed...+monkey grip?

[Crake]

Monkey Grip to my mind does have one edge case use: where you want to be the Medium guy wielding a Large Greataxe, paying -4 on every attack roll in return for the kinda-low probability of getting between 13 and 18 on your damage dice instead of maximum 12.

I assume you are arriving at the conclusion that the -2 for inappropriate size, and the -2 for using monkey grip are different penalties, and therefore stack, and that's how you are coming to the conclusion of -4 on attack rolls?

But that's not how monkey grip works. The -2 penalty for using monkey grip IS the -2 penalty for inappropriate size. At no point does it ever say that this -2 penalty is an additional penalty, and the fact that it has a "normal" section, means that the rules on using monkey grip are a replacement to the normal rules, not an addition to them.

Also, there's plenty of use cases for monkey grip outside of being able to weild large 2h weapons, namely being able to wield large 1h weapons in one hand and still have your offhand available, either for twf, or to have a shield.

Unfortunately, Heavy weapons (MoF p. 179) impose the Monkey Grip problem in reverse. You take -4 to your attack rolls with a Heavy weapon unless you have the right EWP feat, and you can only wield a Heavy weapon one size smaller than your own size category in two hands without taking the penalty. A Medium Warmace does 1d12 damage. A Heavy Medium Warmace does 2d8 damage. A Small Warmace does 1d10 damage, therefore a Small Heavy Warmace would do 2d6 damage. Therefore, you could wield a Small Heavy Warmace in two hands with no EWP and no attack penalty for 2d6 damage, i.e. literally no different than if you just wielded a Greatsword, or indeed a regular old Warmace in both hands as a martial weapon.

But yeah, if you're going to take EWP in a weapon anyway, you might as well make it a Heavy weapon for the extra damage dice since it's a EWP either way.

Its worth noting that this is again, a holdover from how 3.0 weapon sizes worked. A weapon itself has a size, and 2h weapons are considered the same size as the creature they were made for. When it says "one size category smaller than his own" it means, for example, a medium sized creature can wield a weapon that is a size of small, not one made for a small creature. A medium longsword, being a 1 handed weapon, has a size category of small, while a small sized greatsword has the same size category, however under 3.5 rules, the longsword would have a penalty when wielded by small creatures and the greatsword would have a penalty when wielded by medium creatures, due to them not being made for those creature sizes.

In essence, it increases the weilding category of a weapon by 1 if you lack the exotic weapon proficiency feat for it. This is made clear by the example of a human swinging a light mace made of gold in 2 hands to avoid the penalty. The mace does not need to be sized for a small creature, it merely needs to be of small size itself (which medium 1 handed weapons are).

Yes, it's very confusing, because weapons both have a size category, and a creature size that they were made for, which is why I think the old system (which is now an optional rule in the 3.5 DMG on page 27 "weapon equivalencies") is just the far more superior and intuitive.