Greathammer from MM4?

[PrGo]

I've found an interesting exotic weapon in Monster Manual IV. The greathammer that greathorn minotaurs use. Its given statistics are solid, except 19-20/x4 crit. That might be a wee bit broken, don't you think?

I'd love to hear your opinions. Thanks

[Zergrusheddie]

Katori Resin Weapon makes any weapon a X4 multiplier. A Keen Katori Resin Kukri is 15-20 X4.

Anyhoo, 19-20 X4 is extremely powerful but it is probably an Exotic Weapon making it's use annoying. Also, what is the size of the weapon? If it is Huge, than nothing other than a Large creature could use it. If there is no catch and it isn't particularly difficult to obtain/use, than it probably is too powerful.

[PrGo]

It has statistics for Small and Medium sizes. But it is exotic.

What is this "Katori Resin" that you speak of?

[magic9mushroom]

I smell Katori Resin Scimitars for Dervishes.

[Zergrusheddie]

It has statistics for Small and Medium sizes. But it is exotic.

What is this "Katori Resin" that you speak of?

First I need to learn to spell (Katori=Kaorti).

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031014a
Apply to a Large Scimitar and go nuts with Power Attack (Off Topic).

But yes, I would say a 19-20 X4 Weapon might be slightly overpowered. You could no apply Keen to it (it's a hammer, right?) but with Improved Critical it could get stupid. Longswords are 19-20 X2 and Axes are 20 X3, so this things trumps both.

[Tyrael]

Katori Resin sounds sexy. Where is it from?

[arguskos]

First I need to learn to spell (Katori=Kaorti).

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031014a
Apply to a Large Scimitar and go nuts with Power Attack (Off Topic).

But yes, I would say a 19-20 X4 Weapon might be slightly overpowered. You could no apply Keen to it (it's a hammer, right?) but with Improved Critical it could get stupid. Longswords are 19-20 X2 and Axes are 20 X3, so this things trumps both.

Note that there is a weapon enhancement that works like keen, but for bludgeoning weapons. It's called Impact, and it's... in the Arms and Equipment Guide, I believe (yes, 3.0 material, but if it's not been updated, than it's fair game).

[RTGoodman]

Note that there is a weapon enhancement that works like keen, but for bludgeoning weapons. It's called Impact, and it's... in the Arms and Equipment Guide, I believe (yes, 3.0 material, but if it's not been updated, than it's fair game).

I'm pretty sure impact HAS been updated somewhere. I think it's probably in Magic Item Compendium if nowhere else.

[Epinephrine]

The greathammer appears again as a Goliath weapon in Races of Stone.

Tellingly, the greathammer is only x4, not 19-20 x4 in the Races of Stone description. I (and other DMs I know) consider this the correct version, and don't allow the other. d12 damage and a x4 multiplier fits the exotic weapon pattern of having a better multiplier than a similarly specced martial weapon (compare to a Greataxe).

[PrGo]

I must have missed it, so can someone point me where it says for the prices of Kaorti weapons? I'm thinking of getting a Kaorti Falchion for a shifter barbarian I'm making.

[Dyllan]

The greathammer appears again as a Goliath weapon in Races of Stone.

Tellingly, the greathammer is only x4, not 19-20 x4 in the Races of Stone description. I (and other DMs I know) consider this the correct version, and don't allow the other. d12 damage and a x4 multiplier fits the exotic weapon pattern of having a better multiplier than a similarly specced martial weapon (compare to a Greataxe).

Actually, I believe these are two distinct greathammers. If I'm not mistaken, the one in RoS is named Goliath Greathammer, not just Greathammer.

And yes, the one in the MM4 is a bit overpowered compared to other weapons.

[Keld Denar]

Hmmm, Kaorti creatures are described in the Fiend Folio (a 3.0 source). It includes a lot of info about them, being from the Far Realm and whatnot, and it talks about their signature weapon (Kaorti Ribon Dagger, 1d4, x4, +2 disarm, exotic) and Kaorti Resin suits, but I'm not seein anything about Kaorti weapons.

[Darrin]

Hmmm, Kaorti creatures are described in the Fiend Folio (a 3.0 source). It includes a lot of info about them, being from the Far Realm and whatnot, and it talks about their signature weapon (Kaorti Ribon Dagger, 1d4, x4, +2 disarm, exotic) and Kaorti Resin suits, but I'm not seein anything about Kaorti weapons.

Check the WotC website:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031014a

"Making magical versions of kaorti items is possible. The item maker must use resin it has excreted itself, and also must have the appropriate craft skill and item creations feats. Kaorti resin is particularly suitable for bladed weapons such as daggers and swords. Any resin item must be made as a masterwork item. A resin piercing or slashing weapon has a critical multiple of x4."

Kaorti are outsiders, so you can call one up with a Lesser Planar Ally/Binding and either negotiate a price or demand the work in exchange for its freedom.

Best Kaorti weapon: Elven Courtblade. 1d10 damage, 18-20/x4 crit, finessable and two-handed. Also counts as a greatsword for weapon focus/specialization/improved crit.

[Fax Celestis]

Oh, come now. a 1d12, 19-20/x4 exotic weapon that has no special features (such as the finessable reach trip/disarming cheese factory that is the spiked chain) isn't broken. It's worth the EWP feat, sure, but that's all: it's worth spending a feat on if you really feel like reducing people's brains to fine paste. Other than that, it's just another hammer.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Oh, come now. a 1d12, 19-20/x4 exotic weapon that has no special features (such as the finessable reach trip/disarming cheese factory that is the spiked chain) isn't broken. It's worth the EWP feat, sure, but that's all: it's worth spending a feat on if you really feel like reducing people's brains to fine paste. Other than that, it's just another hammer.

This. A martial weapon wouldn't be looked at twice by most people that did 1d12x4. This is spending a feat to double the threat range f that, which is perfectly reasonable, even if it does stack with Imp Crit.

[Myrmex]

Oh, come now. a 1d12, 19-20/x4 exotic weapon that has no special features (such as the finessable reach trip/disarming cheese factory that is the spiked chain) isn't broken. It's worth the EWP feat, sure, but that's all: it's worth spending a feat on if you really feel like reducing people's brains to fine paste. Other than that, it's just another hammer.

Doing x4 damage 20% of the time isn't broken if you're a fighter in a party with a roid-raged druid and a douchebag wizard, but if you're playing a lower key game, it can be sort of an issue. That's a pretty high chance of one shotting a monster at any level.

[Fax Celestis]

Doing x4 damage 20% of the time isn't broken if you're a fighter in a party with a roid-raged druid and a douchebag wizard, but if you're playing a lower key game, it can be sort of an issue. That's a pretty high chance of one shotting a monster at any level.

Only a very specific suite of monsters: oozes, constructs, undead, plants, elementals, and anyone in fortified armor will merely shrug it off. Criticals do not very frequently come into play--when they do, they should be effective: that's why they're criticals. And a 19-20 threat range (even a 17-20) isn't that often: 3.5's method of "critical confirmation" makes an actual, effective critical very infrequent.

The other thing to keep in mind is that a *4 crit doesn't mean you roll 1d12, add your Strength modifier, and multiply the result by four. It means you roll 4d12 and add four times your Strength modifier. This gives a bell curve on damage, settling the average damage on a 1d12/x4 crit at 26 damage, before Strength adjustments.

Bell Curve
{table=head]Possible Result | Odds
4, 48 | <.01%
5, 47 | .02%
6, 46 | .05%
7, 45 | .10%
8, 44 | .17%
9, 43 | .27%
10, 42 | .41%
11, 41 | .58%
12, 40 | .80%
13, 39 | 1.06%
14, 38 | 1.38%
15, 37 | 1.76%
16, 36 | 2.17%
17, 35 | 2.62%
18, 34 | 3.09%
19, 33 | 3.55%
20, 32 | 4.00%
21, 31 | 4.42%
22, 30 | 4.79%
23, 29 | 5.11%
24, 28 | 5.36%
25, 27 | 5.52%
26 | 5.57%[/table]



percentages taken from smallroller, so they could be slightly off.

On the other hand, there is no bell curve for a 1d12*4 roll, which gives you something more like this:
Linear Progression
{table=head]Possible Result | Odds
4 | 8.33%
8 | 8.33%
12 | 8.33%
16 | 8.33%
20 | 8.33%
24 | 8.33%
28 | 8.33%
32 | 8.33%
36 | 8.33%
40 | 8.33%
44 | 8.33%
48 | 8.33%[/table]



...which, as you can see, is a much more dangerous progression that would indeed result in the "frequent one-shotting" you speak of.

[Myrmex]

Those are some pretty graphs, fax, but you're ignoring stuff like weapon specialization, power attack, morale bonuses, and magic buffs. I don't know how you play your melee characters, but stacking many small buffs adds up, and with a x4 multiplier, they'll be all over the place. The damage also increases with stuff like enlarge person, monkey grip, or powerful build. Monkey grip (or any size increase) changes average damage on a critical 26 to 42, for instance. Throw in an enlarge and it goes up to 56. And that's without strength or power attack or even a measly +1 magic on it. We could even break out the strong-arm bracers if we wanted.

Out of your list of things immune, in any campaign I've played in, only undead are that common. Everything else has a much lower frequency. Most enemies are humanoid, and, if the DM is putting fortification on everything, the rogue is going to be complaining more than you are.

The greathammer gives your melee-ist great burst capability against most opponents. All the reasons you give for why criticals aren't a valuable source of damage make rogues terrible, since that's where all their damage is coming from. Furthermore, rogues tend to need a full attack to do significant damage, while your average fighter does pretty well with a charge. Of course, our rogue could be using wands to critical strike undead & constructs, which tend to be the more common of opponents immune to crits, but so could a fighter who wants to crit sometimes. A first level dip in rogue or bard gives a bunch of handy skill points, and what better way to spend those two skill points per level on UMD? Even cross-class ranks in UMD would be worth it. Anyone without access to high level magic at high levels is often baggage for the party. Giving your fighter/melee-er UMD cross class might irk those who like seeing fighters fail, so I'll concede that the rogue has more routes available to it for getting around SA limitations than a fighter does.

Crits are underrated because no one bothers with looking at the variation on a d20, and instead focuses on averages. Which is ok over the long run, but in the short, brutal duration of combat, variance is quite significant. A one in five chance to increase your damage by 400% is not insignificant, presuming you picked up something to make crit confirmations more regular, like power critical. I'm not sure what the distribution of criticals is including having to confirm.

[Fax Celestis]

Those are some pretty graphs, fax, but you're ignoring stuff like weapon specialization, power attack, morale bonuses, and magic buffs. I don't know how you play your melee characters, but stacking many small buffs adds up, and with a x4 multiplier, they'll be all over the place. The damage also increases with stuff like enlarge person, monkey grip, or powerful build. Monkey grip (or any size increase) changes average damage on a critical 26 to 42, for instance. Throw in an enlarge and it goes up to 56. And that's without strength or power attack or even a measly +1 magic on it. We could even break out the strong-arm bracers if we wanted.

I'm also not taking into account DR, concealment, cover, mirror images, and AC, so it's about even.

Out of your list of things immune, in any campaign I've played in, only undead are that common. Everything else has a much lower frequency. Most enemies are humanoid, and, if the DM is putting fortification on everything, the rogue is going to be complaining more than you are.

That is true, that will be very DM-dependent.

The greathammer gives your melee-ist great burst capability against most opponents. All the reasons you give for why criticals aren't a valuable source of damage make rogues terrible, since that's where all their damage is coming from. Furthermore, rogues tend to need a full attack to do significant damage, while your average fighter does pretty well with a charge. Of course, our rogue could be using wands to critical strike undead & constructs, which tend to be the more common of opponents immune to crits, but so could a fighter who wants to crit sometimes. A first level dip in rogue or bard gives a bunch of handy skill points, and what better way to spend those two skill points per level on UMD? Even cross-class ranks in UMD would be worth it. Anyone without access to high level magic at high levels is often baggage for the party. Giving your fighter/melee-er UMD cross class might irk those who like seeing fighters fail, so I'll concede that the rogue has more routes available to it for getting around SA limitations than a fighter does.

Not quite the case. The spells that let a rogue sneak attack an immune enemy only grant Sneak Attack, not the ability to crit, so I'm afraid that's a point in favor of the rogue there.

Crits are underrated because no one bothers with looking at the variation on a d20, and instead focuses on averages. Which is ok over the long run, but in the short, brutal duration of combat, variance is quite significant. A one in five chance to increase your damage by 400% is not insignificant, presuming you picked up something to make crit confirmations more regular, like power critical. I'm not sure what the distribution of criticals is including having to confirm.

Okay, sure, let's look at it in the short term. I could have a 10% (19-20) to get x4 damage, or I could have a 15% (18-20) to get x2 on a rapier or kukri. Sure, that's not even. Except for the fact that you don't have to spend a feat on a rapier or kukri. The point of exotic weapons is to do something that you can't normally (see also: finessable two-handed reach trip/disarming spiked chain). A greathammer lets you do that, just with damage rather than options.

[Kyeudo]

I always find this hilarious. Someone finds a weapon other than the Spiked Chain that is worth the cost of Exotic Weapon Proficiency, and everyone smacks it down and calls it broken. No wonder Fighters are mechanically gimped..

Seriously, it's a weapon that has 2 advantages over a greataxe. It's not going to split your game in half. Go complain about Save-or-Die spells instead.

[Thurbane]

Finally, a weapon fit for Thorgrim!

Spoiler

Show

[Myrmex]

I'm also not taking into account DR, concealment, cover, mirror images, and AC, so it's about even.

DR is laughable. I find it hurts those who depend on multiple attacks hurt more by it than someone who wallops something real hard, such as druids, animal companions, and TWFs. The rest of those hurt anyone else with a hammer, spiked chain, or spells about as much as you. They're situational and affect everyone across the board. Leaving out power attack and other static bonuses is misleading, since pretty much everyone's going to have them. Even with a 1d12 greathammer, x4 of your 18 strength (not hard to get), is going to be +24 damage, which is about as much as the average damage of your weapon. You're really looking at around 50 damage in a single hit, at the low, low levels.

Not quite the case. The spells that let a rogue sneak attack an immune enemy only grant Sneak Attack, not the ability to crit, so I'm afraid that's a point in favor of the rogue there.

So it is. I totally overlooked the "doesn't work for crits" clause. That's a huge point in favor of the rogues.

Okay, sure, let's look at it in the short term. I could have a 10% (19-20) to get x4 damage, or I could have a 15% (18-20) to get x2 on a rapier or kukri. Sure, that's not even. Except for the fact that you don't have to spend a feat on a rapier or kukri. The point of exotic weapons is to do something that you can't normally (see also: finessable two-handed reach trip/disarming spiked chain). A greathammer lets you do that, just with damage rather than options.

Look, I'm not arguing that the Greathammer is broken in the context of a CharOp board, but that for some play styles, it is. Virtually every monster of equal CR will go down in about 4 solid hits from the party tank. Dragons are probably one of the few exceptions to this (other monsters of high HD in relation to CR tend to have lower AC, which means more PA). x4 damage is doing that in one go (unless it's construct, undead, etc).

Tripping only works against humanoids of your size that have only 2 legs and aren't flying (getting bigger helps a lot). Disarming only works if they're using a weapon. I'd say tripping mileage varies, depending on the campaign. Tripping is also an opposed check, which increases the chance your opponent rolls high, as opposed to slightly below average (1d20+ mods vs 10+mods). There's also two rolls; one for touch AC, one to do actual damage, which increases your chance of rolling a natural one.

Other than size and strength, what gets your tripping mod higher?

I always find this hilarious. Someone finds a weapon other than the Spiked Chain that is worth the cost of Exotic Weapon Proficiency, and everyone smacks it down and calls it broken. No wonder Fighters are mechanically gimped..

Seriously, it's a weapon that has 2 advantages over a greataxe. It's not going to split your game in half. Go complain about Save-or-Die spells instead.

The burst damage puts it about on par with an at-will save or die, though. Sure, there are cases that reduce your chance of bursting, as Fax has pointed out above, but most of those reduce EVERYONE's chance of hitting. A one in five chance to one shot something is really good. Better than knocking it down, imo. The real advantage a spiked chain grants is reach, as getting AoO gives you more actions.

[Roderick_BR]

I think it was commented once, and I'm pretty sure it's some kind of typo, with the minotaur probably had Improved Critical or something.
In the Races of Stone, there's an exotic weapon called Goliath Greathammer, with base damage 2d6 (medium), with a multiplier of x4, but no 19-20 crit range.
I think somewhere in the Dungeon Master Guide they mention that no melee or ranged weapon, even exotic, can have both increased crit range AND crit multipler above 2, in it's base stats, before adding magic, materials, feats, etc. Only firearms (that are always exotic, except maybe in moderm or sci-fi settings) can do that.

[Eldariel]

By the numbers, 19-20/x4 is broken; it's equivalent to a weapon with x8 crits. That's why no 19-20/x3 weapon exists either; due to the way multiplication works in D&D, that'd have damage output equivalent to 17-20/x2 or 20/x5 weapon.

That said, it can't hurt to improve exotic weapons a bit. As it stands, there're maybe two-three exotic weapons in print worth using an all are worth using solely for their special abilities; no weapon has big enough damage bonus to be worth it over mundane weapons (save maybe the Great Crossbow as you can profittably add size increases to it).


That is, by present weapon balance guidelines, 1 damage die increase (d6 > d8, for example) = 1 critical multiplier (x2 > x3) = 1 threat range increase (20 > 19-20). Exotic weapons as written simply have 1 more "value point" for these, meaning they can do 1 point more damage or some such. That's the problem, such increases just aren't worth it so the worthwhile exotic weapons are the ones that have abilities outside the basic damage variables.

If one really wanted vanilla exotics to be worth it, giving them a second "value point" would be a step in the right direction. A 1d12 x4 weapon is nothing interesting, but 1d12 19-20/x3 weapon just might be.

[Fax Celestis]

Tripping only works against humanoids of your size that have only 2 legs and aren't flying (getting bigger helps a lot).

Whatever gave you that idea? A tripped flyer goes into a stall and falls.

Tripping Flyers: A creature flying with wings can be tripped. If the attempt succeeds, the creature stalls and falls 150 feet. See Rules of the Game: All About Movement for details (and a few unofficial additional rules about tripping flying creatures).

Creatures that fly without wings (and any creature with perfect maneuverability) can't be tripped while flying. If the creature is still in the air after stalling, it must succeed on a DC 20 Reflex save to recover and resume flying. Otherwise it falls another 300 feet. If it hits the ground, it lands prone and takes falling damage.

See also: All About Tripping Part I and II.

[Darrin]

That's why no 19-20/x3 weapon exists either

Awww... now look what you did! The Orc Shotput is sulking in a corner, crying himself to sleep.

[Eldariel]

Awww... now look what you did! The Orc Shotput is sulking in a corner, crying himself to sleep.

*should exist in 3.5.

[Kaiyanwang]

*should exist in 3.5.

I use it has not been updated... I like too much the idea. There is a kinda sword/lance in Underdark with 19-20/x3 ("balanced" with low damage).

[Myrmex]

I use it has not been updated... I like too much the idea. There is a kinda sword/lance in Underdark with 19-20/x3 ("balanced" with low damage).

Pff, as if the elves ever got anything balanced.
Stupid elves.

[Eldariel]

Pff, as if the elves ever got anything balanced.
Stupid elves.

Elves are balanced by the huge number of different breeds. There's always an elf that's going to suck in any given sitiuation.