Jotungrip and Massive Weapons - Look cool but useless?

[MyTThor]

In fluff, the abilities of a Titan Mauler seem really cool, but they're really neutered by the rules as written.

Jotungrip: wield a 2 handed weapon in 1 hand. Sweet!:

You've got a greatsword that you're wielding in 1 hand. Badass. Your damage is 2d6 instead of 1d8, so you're doing an average of 2.5 extra damage. Let's look at a level 1 barbarian with a VERY pedestrian 14 str, power attack. You've lost 1 point of damage from not getting 1.5 str, and another point of damage from the power attack being 1hd instead of 2hd. Got an 18 str? Oh thanks, you've lost another point of damage, for a net LOSS of .5 damage on average.

Raging with your 18 str? There goes another point! -1.5.

Let's say you're level 8, you've bumped your str to 20, your power attack is -3 now, you've lost another 3 points of damage. And so on with stat items, power attack, greater rage, etc.

Stinks, right? Well I didn't even mention that for the benefit of this lost damage, you get to also get -2 to hit and lose uncanny dodge!

I repeat - this ability is a net negative when you ONLY LOOK AT THE "BENEFITS!"

But let's be fair; you have freed up a hand. You can use a shield, get some ac out of it. Or you can be a two-weapon fighter, or even combine the two and TWF shieldbash. You're taking ANOTHER -2 to hit, burning a ton of feats and money on more magic items. I guess if you look at it as a dex-type build possibility, you can eliminate power attack from the equation, take finesse instead? Cool, be an elf, use a curve blade in one hand, light shield in the other, pump dex, have the highest ac of barbarians, put all your feats into it, you might be viable, and I'm not discounting the cool factor of that. But it's an awfully niche build, and it's the only one I can think of to make this ability even break even. And does anyone think that the point of an archetype where you wield 2 handed weapons in 1 hand is to lend itself to dex builds?

Massive Weapons: less text behind this spoiler ;):

First thing's first; they don't work together according to the faq. So what this lets you do is wield a large longsword as you normally would a medium greatsword. A large longsword and a medium greatsword do the exact same damage, so what's the use here? Versatility I suppose; you can actually do something other than sell those ogre weapons you loot.

PRD wrote:

The measure of how much effort it takes to use a weapon (whether the weapon is designated as a light, one-handed, or two-handed weapon for a particular wielder) is altered by one step for each size category of difference between the wielder's size and the size of the creature for which the weapon was designed. For example, a Small creature would wield a Medium one-handed weapon as a two-handed weapon. If a weapon's designation would be changed to something other than light, one-handed, or two-handed by this alteration, the creature can't wield the weapon at all.

IF there was something in this ability that overrode the limitation about effort to use weapons and allowed you to use a 2hd large weapon as a medium character, now that would be something, I suppose. You could use a large greatsword at a -2 for another 1d6 to damage. I have to assume that this is the intent of the ability, and I'd houserule that you can break that guideline. By the way, you also lose trap sense.

The condensed version: these abilities are in one case useless without a houserule, and in the other actually detrimental. I want to like the titan mauler, but the rules aren't letting me. I would really like if someone could prove me wrong.

[Maxximilius]

Nobody is going to prove you wrong on this one, since the Titan Mauler is just broken in the purest sense of the word.

Official answer of the developer + unofficial patch available here, among lots of candy.

[MyTThor]

Maxximilius wrote:

Nobody is going to prove you wrong on this one, since the Titan Mauler is just broken in the purest sense of the word.

Official answer of the developer + unofficial patch available here, among lots of candy.

Thanks for the link; archetypes look cool at first glance, bookmarking for later.

[CaspianM]

I don't understand why you would give Titan Maulers even more damage when they can get larger weapon dice already?

[UltimaGabe]

CaspianM wrote:

I don't understand why you would give Titan Maulers even more damage when they can get larger weapon dice already?

Because, without errata, they don't. That was the whole point of Maxximilius' post.

[CaspianM]

I realize that Maxximilus fixed the wording on larger weapons, but while fixing it there was also another extra static bonus added to that, which scaled upwards with size. I was just wondering why that rider was there.

Edit, nevermind, I forgot to calculate how the penalty reduction progression worked.

[Maxximilius]

The bonus to damage isn't meant to provide a real benefit when wielding a crazy huge weapon, rather it is there to counterbalance the attack penalty by simulating a one-handed power attack (at level 20, -2 to attack for a +4 to damage with weapons 4 sizes category larger).

Now that you say it, I think the bonus to damage comes from a time where the best damage you could do with any weapon was 2d6... this is, before I allowed the Titan Mauler to wield any kind of oversized weapon. They were previously naturally limited to wielding the weapons appropriately, and I guess I forgot to remove the damage bonus. ._.

Let me finish the Sword Dancer bard and I'll come back to the Titan Mauler. Damn editing mistake.

[jonathan aubé 224]

hey dudes you know that the titan mauler can take a two handed weapon just one sized category larger than imself so if take a two handed weapon in both hands it's not so intenses like you say. They just augment of one die their damage, their more effective when they take a two handed weapon with their two hands so her power attack is more effective and her penalty is less.

[KainPen]

oh great necromancer. not sure OP post apply anymore as the abilities have been FAQ at some point and revealed to be it was this bad, and then revised and updated again in Errata after the FAQ. to align it better with the titan fighter archetype, who had a similar ability that actual worked.

[Undead Thread]

Hey, Dude. You know this is a four year old thread?

[LeoricSummers]

I never noticed that ruling so I built a half-giant Titan Mauler feated out to be dual-wielding Colossal++++++ Scythes at level 20... Tehe, oops