In a lot of games, having a high strength gives you a flat number to add to damage, and heavy weapons like two-handed swords roll bigger damage dice than lighter ones. The end result of this is that the lower your strength, the more you are incentivized to use a heavy weapon, because the larger damage die will mean a bigger percentage increase for you.
Reductio ad absurdum: If your strength damage bonus is 1, going from a regular sword that does d6 damage to a two-handed sword that does 2d6 damage gives you a 78% increase in damage output. If your damage bonus is 1000, going from a d6 sword to a 2d6 two-handed sword gives you an increase in damage output of around 1/3 of a percent.
So you end up with a situation where people with high strengths are incentivized to avoid big, two-handed weapons and prefer to go with something like a sword-and-shield combo, while weaklings are incentivized to walk around toting zweihanders and shit.
This problem exists because many systems don't take into account that people with low strength can't wield heavy weapons. Weapons should have a minimum strength requirement attached to them. In some games (DnD, Pathfinder) however, you get half again your strength for wielding a weapon with two hands, so in that case it benefits strong characters more to wield weapons in two hands, rather than one.
Nolan Cooper
>This problem exists because many systems don't take into account that people with low strength can't wield heavy weapons. Weapons should have a minimum strength requirement attached to them. But the problem still exists, it just has a higher ground floor. The weakest people capable of wielding heavy weapons are the most incentivized to use them.
>In some games (DnD, Pathfinder) however, you get half again your strength for wielding a weapon with two hands, so in that case it benefits strong characters more to wield weapons in two hands, rather than one. This does address the problem, though in my opinion, it's a less than elegant solution for a couple of reasons. First, it's kind of obnoxious to add one-and-a-half times your strength bonus (but then I like shit as simple and streamlined as possible, so others may not understand my point of view). Second, it stacks inflated damage on top of already-larger weapon damage, so things can get a bit out of hand damage-wise. One thing I don't like about it is that it takes away the possibility of a graze--or anything approaching that. If your strength bonus is 4, for instance, the very least damage you can do with a two-handed weapon is 7, which is pretty close to the maximum damage a normal dude does with a normal sword.
In the end, it feels like a patch on a flawed system. With that said, I'm not sure what the ideal solution is. It still bugs me though.
Eli Nelson
The problem exists because those "heavy Weapons" like the 2 handed sword weren't that heavy, and are easier for someone with a lower strength to use for prolonged times.
1. This problem is nowhere common except in very direct D&D clones 2. Even there the modifier is usually multiplied on 2h weapons. 3. Actually, that's accurate. Most likely totally accidentaly, but still. One handed weapons DO benefit from user's physical strength more than two handed ones. Because in case of one handed weapons it is the ONLY factor that drives them, while in case of two handed weaponry the leverage can compensate for it to a large degree.
Colton Cooper
This is why you only make two handed weapons give a strength bonus to damage, other weapon types do not. This means that if you have low or negative strength modifier, you should stick with smaller weapons that way you aren't being penalized for using a big sword.
Asher Davis
You could have all weapons do the same damage and just differ in how much of your strength bonus is applied.
