D&D 5E Improving the Heavy Property

[Chaosmancer]

So, I've been messing with the equipment list and using a few different homebrew sources to add properties and weapons to the list.

While gathering homebrew I ran into an idea of improving the Heavy property because it really doesn't do much of anything (it is a penalty to weapons, I understand, but the main point is to prevent small characters from using them, which isn't interesting)

The idea the poster proposed was to allow Heavy weapons to sacrifice their proficiency bonus to the attack roll and add it to their damage instead. So, a person with prof +3 and strength +4 would roll 1d20+4 and deal 1d10+7 damage.

My issue is, I know enough of the math to know this is a really bad trade most of the time. So, I thought why not double it. So it would instead be 1d20+4 and 1d10+10 damage. Which I like better.

However, it is explicitly supposed to stack with GWM, and that is the same progression (sort of) of -5 from accuracy for +10 damage. It might be okay, but I don't like that it is essentially doubling up on the same ability if you grab the feat.

Any thoughts on this, other ways to go about it? I'm just spinning my wheels I think at the moment.

 

[NotAYakk]

-4 to attack is 20% damage (ignoring crits) lost DPR.
+4 damage is "number of pips after penalty" divided by 5 gained DPR.

So a 1d12+3 attack (average damage 9.5) loses 1.9 damage per round: after the -4 penalty you need to hit at least 9.5 pips (aka 10, aka on an 11+ -- 1.9 * 5).

With +3 stat (16), this aligns with a 14 AC. So plausible. Just not crazy good, like GWM.

However, with advantage, this goes out the window; a much larger range of AC makes this usable.

Having a raw -X for +X means that the ability is good when you don't have GWM (which is better) and you have advantage and the target doesn't have insane AC. This seems reasonable to me.

 

[Chaosmancer]

-4 to attack is 20% damage (ignoring crits) lost DPR.
+4 damage is "number of pips after penalty" divided by 5 gained DPR.

So a 1d12+3 attack (average damage 9.5) loses 1.9 damage per round: after the -4 penalty you need to hit at least 9.5 pips (aka 10, aka on an 11+ -- 1.9 * 5).

With +4 stat (18), this aligns with a 15 AC. So plausible. Just not crazy good, like GWM.

However, with advantage, this goes out the window; a much larger range of AC makes this usable.

Having a raw -X for +X means that the ability is good when you don't have GWM (which is better) and you have advantage and the target doesn't have insane AC. This seems reasonable to me.

So, -prof to accuracy +prof to damage can actually work out to be reasonable? I though each point of accuracy was at least 2 points of damage.

Well, that makes it easier if I decide to implement it.

 

[NotAYakk]

So, -prof to accuracy +prof to damage can actually work out to be reasonable? I though each point of accuracy was at least 2 points of damage.

Well, that makes it easier if I decide to implement it.

It works ... sometimes. GWM/SS works usually.

This being a "free upgrade", if it works sometimes it is an upgrade.

Going further, suppose you have GWM, a 2d6 damage weapon, a 25 strength and a +3 weapon and +6 proficiency.

After using GWM, you have a +11 to hit and 27 damage per hit.

27 * 6/20 is 8.1 DPR lost.
6 * X/20 = 8.1 is the number of pips you need
X = 27
so in this case, using this feature is useless -- obvious, because it deals +6 damage, and you l lost 8.1 DPR.

Now this doesn't work when you had "too much accuracy" (ie, you would need a negative value on the d20 to miss, and you already auto-miss on a 1). At AC 13 or under, using this feature is free -- it doesn't change your accuracy. You gain 5.7 DPR over not using it (.95 * 6).

For each AC over 13, you lose 1.65 DPR (0.05 * 33 per hit). At AC 16 or under, this feature grants increased DPR.

And again, with advantage, this gets better -- probably worth doing at 18 AC.

So a level 1 character can find -prof/+prof useful, as can a level 20 character with a legendary weapon, a belt of giant strength, and GWM.

 

[toucanbuzz]

Sounds slightly like 3rd edition wherein using a heavy weapon added +50% of your STR modifier to the damage (e.g. a 20 STR adds +2 since D&D rounds down). However, these weapons are already inherently beneficial in that their damage dice tend to be higher than other weapons, and you'd have to consider whether this rule would extend to monsters such as giants.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Sounds slightly like 3rd edition wherein using a heavy weapon added +50% of your STR modifier to the damage (e.g. a 20 STR adds +2 since D&D rounds down). However, these weapons are already inherently beneficial in that their damage dice tend to be higher than other weapons, and you'd have to consider whether this rule would extend to monsters such as giants.

I would definitely extend this to monsters (all's fair and it make fights more dynamic)

Additionally, I would point out there is not a single heavy weapon that is not also two-handed, and the Versatile property tells me that Two-Handed is where that damage increase comes from (and is balanced by the loss of a potential shield or free hand) . The only point I can see to heavy is to prevent small races from using the weapon

 

[Stalker0]

I took out GWM myself, and gave heavy the ability to take a -2 penalty for +4 damage. So similar to what you are going for.

 

[Shiroiken]

Heavy isn't really meant to be helpful (other than GWM), but if it's flavor you want, you could also rule that they can't be used to subdue an enemy.

 

[aco175]

I can certainly see, and like, the part about taking away proficiency to add the damage. I would lean to a 1:1 ration instead of double the damage. At least try it to see at first.