Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Lineov Dec 19, 2008 1:05:51	This is one feat that I loved in 3.5 and I'm still waiting to see if it comes out for PHB2 or a later book. However, I'm wondering what you think about this take on it as a 4e feat. Monkey Grip Prerequisties: Str 15 Benefit: You may wield any two handed melee weapon in your main hand. If you do, any attack or power that you use with that weapon only uses +1/2 your Strength modifier for attack and damage. (This includes additional attacks and damages that powers may deal.) If you are a creature that is of the small category, you may wield versatile weapons with one hand at the same penalty. any ideas/corrections?
#2 nightwalker450 Dec 19, 2008 9:12:02	Instead of doing 1/2 Str. I'd just do a straight -2 Atk, no penalty based on strength. Otherwise this power is going to get worse and worse as you get higher in level.
#3 rikiji Dec 19, 2008 12:59:34	Instead of doing 1/2 Str. I'd just do a straight -2 Atk, no penalty based on strength. Otherwise this power is going to get worse and worse as you get higher in level. Agreed. Also, no reason to penalize damage. The main purpose of the feat is to increase damage - reducing the STR bonus by 1/2 negates that advantage for even a starting character. Also, while having STR as a prerequisite is reasonable, not every character that takes it is going to use STR based attacks - so you don't want to key the penalty to a specific attribute. Since this is a fairly strong feat and the concept is a little over the top, I'd recommend the feat for paragon tier. It stretches credibility at heroic levels.
#4 nightwalker450 Dec 19, 2008 13:10:06	Str Requirement is good, because you are using a bigger weapon... But yeah you could probably tone it down a bit, I didn't notice you had it at 15 Str. Probably just make it a 13 Str.
#5 shinikama Dec 19, 2008 17:15:17	15 STR is a good amount for Paragon. I would personally make it -2 attack for any power that has the Weapon keyword. Just to make the realists happy.
#6 Lineov Dec 19, 2008 17:22:15	thanks for the replies... I tried to balance it as well as I could. Will take things into consideration.
#7 wyld_mutation Dec 19, 2008 17:32:44	I agree that it should apply a simple -2 penalty to attack rolls instead of halving it. Main problem? In Heroic half attack bonus is going to be an effective -2~3. In epic it will be a -4~5 reduction. Making it EXTREMELY hard to hit your opponent in Epic tier. So my suggestion... Monkey Grip (Heroic) Prerequisites: Stength 15 Benefit: You may wield a two-handed wapon one handed but suffer a -2 penalty to attack rolls with that weapon if you use it in a power with the Weapon keyword. Titan's Grip (Epic) Prerequisites: Stength 24, Monkey Grip Benefit: You reduce the penalty to attack rolls caused by Monkey Grip by 2. There you go. Suitably amazing.
#8 anubis_reynard Dec 19, 2008 19:50:23	Just be prepared for the PG-HBO-Tide of Iron cheese this makes possible.
#9 wyld_mutation Dec 19, 2008 19:59:20	Who cares? You're 1h-ing a FULLBLADE!!! Cheese is worth it.
#10 Shadowfax7 Dec 20, 2008 7:34:48	Monkey Grip (Heroic) Prerequisites: Stength 15 Benefit: You may wield a two-handed wapon one handed but suffer a -2 penalty to attack rolls with that weapon if you use it in a power with the Weapon keyword. Why not simply . . . You may wield a two-handed wapon one handed with a -2 penalty to attack rolls. This would include a Basic Attack, but shouldn't exclude Powers with the Weapon key word.
#11 wyld_mutation Dec 20, 2008 11:21:52	1) In case you use the weapon as an implement 2) Because (no offense meant) people are numb. As can be evidenced by certain questions that have been asked in QA. Also I should change it to... "You may eield a two handed weapon as a one-handed weapon...." Because it fits templating better.
#12 lumovanis Dec 21, 2008 0:07:03	dual-wield oversized executioner's axes as a bugbear ranger? yes plz :P
#13 wyld_mutation Dec 21, 2008 13:59:01	Only using the MM version... I'd think they'll be "removing" the oversized version from PC's. Minotaur lost Oversized so Bugbear will likely be losing it as well.
#14 Qube Dec 22, 2008 4:20:01	dual-wield oversized executioner's axes as a bugbear ranger? yes plz :P as DM, I have the same, but opposite reaction. dual-wield oversized executioner's axes as a bugbear ranger? no thx. In Heroic half attack bonus is going to be an effective -2~3. In epic it will be a -4~5 reduction. Making it EXTREMELY hard to hit your opponent in Epic tier. euh, what? -2 is -2. unless it scales in tier, that will still be -2. I mean, there is no Titan's Power Attack feat, now is there?
#15 wyld_mutation Dec 22, 2008 11:32:32	His original design is -1/2 Ability Mod for the attack. Which is starting at 2-3 loss, and at epic is a 4-5 loss. You missed my first sentence "I agree that it should be a static loss..." I then follow it by WHY I agree. Anyway... Scaling losses by ability score increases is... A problem.
#16 Lineov Jan 07, 2009 17:10:22	I'm finally getting back to this after having been at my parents all break long (it was an long 3 weeks without the internet) thanks for all the replies... I talked it over with my players and we agreed (especially after seeing the posts) that the -2 is a lot more balanced I also really like the idea of titan's grip.
#17 aluman Jan 07, 2009 18:33:58	This is one feat that I loved in 3.5 and I'm still waiting to see if it comes out for PHB2 or a later book. However, I'm wondering what you think about this take on it as a 4e feat. Monkey Grip Prerequisties: Str 15 Benefit: You may wield any two handed melee weapon in your main hand. If you do, any attack or power that you use with that weapon only uses +1/2 your Strength modifier for attack and damage. (This includes additional attacks and damages that powers may deal.) If you are a creature that is of the small category, you may wield versatile weapons with one hand at the same penalty. any ideas/corrections? Yeah, state speicifically, that rangers cannot dual wield two, two handed weapons. Or face the wrath of the bugbear legions of death rangers, who dual wield executioner's axes (2d6 brutal 2)
#18 wyld_mutation Jan 07, 2009 19:03:12	Following the lead of Minotaurs... Bugbears lose Oversized too. Simple houserule... Trade Oversized for something else.
#19 aluman Jan 08, 2009 21:08:50	Even at their base 1d12 brutal 2, is probably too powerful to be swinging two of at a time.
#20 matthewswift Jan 08, 2009 23:43:07	With dual weapons you choose one anyway. It wouldn't reduce damage too much I don't think since you can double attack with one weapon can't you?
#21 aluman Jan 09, 2009 0:22:14	With dual weapons you choose one anyway. It wouldn't reduce damage too much I don't think since you can double attack with one weapon can't you? Thats why I mentioned rangers specifically, they have plenty of powers that let them attack 1 then 2, and have a class ability to wield two weapons of the same size.
#22 matthewswift Jan 09, 2009 0:34:10	Thats why I mentioned rangers specifically, they have plenty of powers that let them attack 1 then 2, and have a class ability to wield two weapons of the same size. Then it doesn't really change anything right? Since you can do two attacks with one weapon as well can't you? oh wait. After reviewing the rules for rangers I have found myself in agreement. Please excuse my previous ignorance. Perhaps having only light weapons as offhands?
#23 aluman Jan 09, 2009 0:46:56	Then it doesn't really change anything right? Since you can do two attacks with one weapon as well can't you? oh wait. After reviewing the rules for rangers I have found myself in agreement. Please excuse my previous ignorance. Perhaps having only light weapons as offhands? Nah the other one handed weapons are fine, and this feat is fine as it doesn't ramp up power for MOST classes, the rangers get to abuse it though, so it would be best if we could stab onto this feat 'can't be used by rangers to weild two twohanded weapons at once.'
#24 Stuntman Jan 09, 2009 15:20:56	Ensure that it is relatively balanced with Power Attack. PA gives you -2 to attacks and bonuses to damage. If it is too good compared to PA, no one who uses one-handed weapons would choose PA over Monkey Grip. If MG sucks too much over PA, then everyone would end up taking PA instead.
#25 parivir Mar 19, 2009 14:28:00	or you could all ways get both power attack and monkey grip My idea for monkey grip Monkey gripheroic allow you to weild 2h as 1h and weild 1h of the creature size bigger than you as 2h in exchange for -2 penelty to attack rolls Improved Monkey grip Paragon reduce the penelty to attack rolls to only -1 instead of -2 Prerequisit: Monkey grip Giants gripepic completly remove the penelty to attack rolls for the monkey grip power Prerequsit: Improved Monkey grip
#26 rowl Mar 22, 2009 3:44:30	This was my version of Monkey Grip: Monkey Grip (Heroic) Prerequisites: Str 15 Benefits: Choose a weapon group: Heavy Blades, Hammers, Axes, or Maces. Two-handed weapons in this category may become one-handed weapons to you, but using them this way incurs a -2 attack penalty. You must be proficient with the weapon in order to use it this way. Using the weapon one-handed changes the trait from two-handed to one-handed. You may not gain this benefit with weapons in the Polearm group or with the Reach property. You cannot wield a weapon in your off-hand while using this feat. You cannot use this feat for double weapons. You may take this feat multiple times, each time selecting a different weapon group. At 11th level, the attack penalty is reduced to -1. At 21st level, it is completely removed. Special: A small character may take this feat to use the chosen weapon group as if you are a medium sized character instead. And the Improved version: Improved Monkey Grip (Paragon) Prerequisites: Str 19, Monkey Grip Benefits: Choose a weapon group for which you have taken the Monkey Grip feat. Your attack penalty to wield these weapons one-handed is negated and they are considered two-handed weapons instead of one-handed weapons for the purposes of additional benefits such as from powers and feats. It's very limiting, but rules out a lot of the issues that various combos might otherwise create while still giving the option for the char to wield a 2H wpn in 1H. (I've always been iffy about the inability to wield an off-hand wpn part, but I leave it in for the sake of the 2-Blade Ranger munchkin.) I like the high Str prereq because it SHOULD require a lot of strength to wield a 2H wpn in 1 hand.
#27 wyld_mutation Mar 22, 2009 11:30:22	Ensure that it is relatively balanced with Power Attack. PA gives you -2 to attacks and bonuses to damage. If it is too good compared to PA, no one who uses one-handed weapons would choose PA over Monkey Grip. If MG sucks too much over PA, then everyone would end up taking PA instead. Only if you've got noting but munchkin powergamers.