DDO: The 2H Weapon Simulator?

George and I were playing Turbine's DnD Online the other day, and he rolled up a 2H fighter, and me a noble paladin with a shield and longsword. DDO is pretty good about sticking to the DnD3 ruleset, so it was cool to see the rules being used in a real-time, practical form.

George's 2H fighter started owning any adventure we went in, doing 40 point crits with his mighty 2H axe (20/x3). My crits were only about 17 or so with my longsword (19-20/x2), so I felt slightly confused by the matter. He min-maxed, and bought as many crit enhancements as he could, while I stuck to a more standard RP-build. After a while, I switched weapons to a 2H axe as well, and started dishing out my own 40-point crits regularly. I walked away with the feeling that in order to do well in the game, I needed to switch to a 2-hander, and wail away.


The trouble with an MMO is it is too often about the numbers game. DnD3 enshrined this, and many MMOs worry about DPS, mitigation, and a whole host of other numeric statistics. Numbers games are fun, but a big part of the draw of tabletop gaming is imagination and creativity. Old-school games get this, and in many of those, combat is not the smartest option, and it is even discouraged. No XP for monsters, XP only for gold; so if you get that 500gp ruby sitting on the wall behind the ogre, you get 500xp - no matter how you do it.

This sort of "exploit to win" design theory is discouraged in tabletop games, where balance is paramount, character builds need to be viable, and exploits are bugs that need to be worked out of the game. DnD4 had regular and voluminous "patches" to the rules for balance and exploits, which in the first version of the game would be unthinkable except for clarifying something written unclearly. DnD3 still has the exploits built into the game, as those are considered to be "good builds" and the secrets of doing well.

And that brings us back to the two-hander DDO builds. In a more-balanced game like an MMO, this would be an exploit, since this is the primary way you do damage, and it would "take away" from the viability of other weapon types - after all, something has to be done for longsword and shield wielding fighters, right? In a "favored build" type game, this is one of the secrets to discover, and you do well by playing along. In old-school games, who cares really? Combat is the last option, and it is all about figuring out how to get that treasure with as little risk and resource usage to the party as possible.