So there is a lot of posts about how unbalanced the Greatsword is vs. the Greataxe when used by a fighter with the Great Weapon Fighting class feature.
2d6 vs. 1d12 with rerolls on 1 & 2 gives the Greatsword a clear advantage, even more so with rolling twice on critical hits: 4d6 reroll 1 & 2 vs. 2d12 reroll 1 & 2.
So what is the house rule fix?
1) Do you change Great Weapon Fighting? Maybe reroll only 1 on d6 weapons, reroll 1-2 on d8 weapons, reroll 1-3 d10 weapons, & reroll 1-4 on d12 weapons?
2) Do you give Greataxe a bonus to critical hits? Maybe Brutal Critical 1 = +1d12 on critical hits?
3) Do you change the base damage of the Greataxe? Greataxe is now 2d6 damage like the Greatsword?
4) Do you add to Great Weapon Fighting? Maybe Greataxe damage being changed to 2d6 when you take the class feature, so only fighters have the adjusted base damage?
Personally, I think I will go with either #2 or #4
Thoughts and/or your house rule for Greatsword vs. Greataxe?
I'd just make both 2d6 damage.
On the same note, i'd make both the light hammer and hand axe 1d6 damage. 
Plaguescarred wrote:
I think my current favorite is to change greatweapon fighter to give you 1.5*Str on damage instead of just Str. About the same effect overall, but it doesn't depend on your weapon and plays into what should be a great weapon fighters prime attribute.
jaelis wrote:
Archon007 wrote:
Why not make both weapons d12 and give advantage on damage rolls with GWF? Avg dmg is 8.49. 1.5x Str doesn't help a character with an odd modifier as much as it does one with an even modifier.
Seeing that, on average, a greatsword will do a whopping one more point of damage than a Greataxe with Great Weapon Fighting, I don't plan on houseruling anything. :P There have always been weapons that are objectively better than others.
yep, one point of damage is hardly worth changing rules for. You also have to remember thats an average. The only way to see that one point fully and truely realize itself is if you play an infinite amount of time taking the limit to infinity you will get your precious 1 point. Not even worth bothering in actual gameplay IMO. If you really really really think this completely breaks the game then yeah just make it 2d6 or something,
I am making GWF apply to dicedamage rather than die rolls.
People were complaining before this that 2d6 does more damage than 1d12 and my first read-through I thought this was meant to fix the imbalance. Greataxe would have a 2 in 12 chance of benefitting from this, while rolling a 1 or 2 with 2d6 is only 1 in 36.
In decimals, this version of GWF means a greataxe has a 16.67% chance of getting the benefit while the greatsword has a 2.77% chance to benefit from it.
jaelis wrote:
tubadancross wrote:
SeanCaruso wrote:
It appears to me that greataxe gains .8333 to average damage using GWF. while greatsword gains 1.333. So greatsword has .5 average damage better than great axe. Since greatsword already has .5 average damage better than greataxe, it only increases the average difference to 1. If it really means that much to you that they balance out, just add 1 to damage with greataxe and GWF. Just my opinion.
Archon007 wrote:
I think also what people are missing is the second roll. The Great Sword has a higher chance to roll a 1 or 2 on the second roll than a Great Axe so the potential for less damage is greater. There is a 33% chance you will again roll a 1 or a 2 on the second roll where there is only half that with the axe. High risk but high reward. Axe low risk but good constant dmg.
It's +1 damage on average, that's really all there is to it. If it doesn't bother you, that's great. But it is the same as the damage difference between a longsword and a shortsword, or between a greataxe and a glaive. I think a good number of people would be peeved if short swords were 1d8 or glaives 1d12.
Appearntly GreatAxes are meant to be more of Barbarian weapon. As they get a class feature that lets them roll an extra damage dice.
MonsterEnvy wrote:
There's a tweet from Mearls. But we don't know enough details to say anything definitive.
I still think there's no good reason to make GWF favor one weapon over another.
Two-handed swords were slightly better than greataxes in 3rd Edition as well. The trade-off is that greatswords were reliable and consistent while greataxes could more easily do silly improbable things like 3d12 crits rolling all 10+ for 30-36 damage at level 1 - not terribly useful but it's very fun when it happens. Meanwhile, the greatsword guy is hitting for 7, 7, 8, 6, 7, etc round after round. On average, the greatsword already does 0.5 more damage than the axe, so without a compelling reason to use a d12 damage die, the greatsword would be the obvious mechanical choice.
Two-handed Fighting doesn't really change much, as I think most Fighters would already opt for the greatsword if they wanted the best damage over time. One of the few (very minor) balancing factors between greataxe and greatsword is that the sword costs more.
I do hope there is incentive for some class such as Barbarian to use axes. Not only does rolling a high 3d12 crit feel good conceptually, d12s are just more fun to roll than d6s!
after thinking about that problem for a while i came to the conclusion, that maybe the greataxe is just not meant for fighters. maybe the barbarian will make use of the big damage die. otherwise i may invent a new style for axe fighters.
Re-rolling 1's and 2's represents re-rolling the lower third of the greatsword damage range (per die). Why not apply the same rule to the greataxe? So when using a greataxe, reroll results in the 1-4 range. In general, you get to reroll dice that are in the lower third of their range. D6: [1,2], D8: [1,2], D10: [1,3], D12: [1,4]. It's a little bit awkward to express in the rules, but it seems pretty simple once you've chosen the range for each die.
EntropyAvatar wrote:
It is kind of like the Infinite monkey type writer theory. Where if you had monkeys typing infinintly they would be able to produce all the works of Shakespeare. When actually put to the test for a month one just typed a few pages of the number 3 and one took a **** on one of the typewriters, while many just quit being interested in typing in general. Theory /= reality. Having actually played a few sessions with two different great weapon warriors, one using a great sword and the other using a great axe. Neither is a clear cut DPR winner. The guy with the great sword missed 4/5 attacks out right in one encounter.
This is not an MMO. The "sample size" that is going to be happening is much smaller than what will happen in video games. An encounter with an owl bear I had while playing only lasted one round. That is to small a number to honestly give a significant mechanical advantage to one set of die vs another, which are very simular in number range. Since some dice are actually bias to some numbers(true belive it or not) that will scew this abit as well. However 2D6 does have a slight advantage obviously. It is not that big a deal honestly. I mean getting a magic great axe could change this drastically based on its properties.
Yes.. Monkeys and typewriters.. Anecdotal stories..
Sorry but what the heck are you smoking?
Noctaem wrote:
lol ok, sure....
2Chlorobutanal wrote:
Well, it may create parity for the two weapons in question, but it wouldn't necessarily 'fix things' beyond that. It seems sort of convoluted just to make greataxes good for (Champion) Fighters.
So far in my campaign the Great Axe is doing almost 2 points of damage more. This is from a size of 23 rounds of damage dealing rolls. It's basically 8.33 for the Axe and 6.9 for the Sword. To say the Axe fighter is loving GWF. He has turned all his 1's into 10 or more and the sword guy has actually lost damage more times but still has gained a net. Also he picked up two 2's and snake eyed them. He went from killing a monster to having to go another round.