We've been debating this internally for a few weeks, so here's our proposal to make 2 handed and double ended weapons more attactive and useful.
Damage boost for 2-handed weapons:
In general, the advantage of a 2-handed weapon is the 1.5 STR bonus to damage. Losing AC to gain this is probably a balanced tradeoff. However, since we introducted damage immunities and damage resistances to shields, it tips the scales in favor of using a shield rather than a 2-hander.
So, two options: you could add defensive bonuses to the 2-hander or you could increase it's damage. The majority opinion internally was that 2-handed weapons shouldn't gain defensive bonuses, but should get greater offensive bonuses.
So, our proposal is to make the damage bonus that's currently applied to 2-handed weapons also be 1.5 times greater than their one-handed counterparts. Also, massive criticals on 2-handers will be 1.5 times as large as the one-handed weapons. So, an example of some 2-handed weapons:
Damage Bonus:
Level 16: 2d10, avg 11 [one handed weapons of that level at 2d6, avg 7]
Level 21: 2d12, avg 13 [one handed weapons of that level at 2d8, avg 9]
Level 25: 2d12 + 1d6, avg 16.5 [one handed at 2d10, avg 11]
Massive Crits:
Level 16: Massive Crits 2d10, avg 11 [one handed weapons of that level at 2d6, avg 7]
Level 21: Massive Crits 2d10, avg 11 [one handed weapons of that level at 2d6, avg 7]
Level 25: Massive Crits 2d10 + 1d4, avg 13.5[one handed at 2d8, avg 9]
Double-ended weapons :
In a similar manner to 2-handed weapons, giving up not just AC but damage immunities and resistances by not having a shield makes using a double-ended weapon fairly pointless. So, we're propsing adding some defensive abilities to double-ended weapons (thought of as using the center of the weapon to block incoming attacks).
Examples of possible changes:
Defensive boosts:
Level 13: 5% damage imm, [shields at 20% imm, 10 resist]
Level 16: 10% damage imm, [shields at 25% imm, 10 resist]
Level 21: 10% damage imm, 5 resist [shields at 25% imm, 15 resist]
Level 25: 10% damage imm, 10 resist [shields at 25% imm, 15 resist]
We'd try to incorporate some of these bonuses into lower level weapons as well, but it gets trickier as you go lower since you can only do things in increments of 5/- or 5%. Maybe 2-handers get keen a level earlier or something.
Comments? Suggestions? Points of view?
