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Fighter level 2 gets Fighting style where you can choose the Duelist fighting style, which gives you +2 damage for weapons with one hand.

Bastard sword's average damage is 5.5 because its damage is 1d10.

The Greatesword's average damage is 7 because its damage is 2d6.

With the Duelist fighting style the Bastard sword does more damage plus you have a free hand for a shield.

Do I have to ban the Bastard sword from the game, because of its high damage?

I found it at https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Bastard_Sword_(5e_Equipment) and I thought that site was official.

SevenSidedDie
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TheGameMaster
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    For future reference, dandwiki is not official. To find official, please visit dndbeyond.com, access the physical books published by Wizards of the Coast, or even take a look at sites like Roll20. Here is a list of all the Official Resources by Wizards. – NotArch Jan 17 '18 at 20:45
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    It might be noted that if your players are looking for specific weapons to use with their characters (ie, a samurai sword or some other weapon not listed in the rules like a bastard sword), you can use the base weapons from the PHB and pretend that it looks like said sword. I am anticipating the possibility that one of your players wanted a Bastard sword and so you looked one up. If that's the case, you can just "reskin" it from a Long Sword. – Premier Bromanov Jan 17 '18 at 20:50
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    Out of curiosity, why are you adding the most advantageous fighting style to the bastard sword, but not the greatsword before making a comparison? With Great Weapon Fighting, the advantage is damage per attack goes to the greatsword, since you have twice the opportunity to re-roll 1's and 2's, and on dice where the difference in these rolls is greater. – keithcurtis Jan 18 '18 at 01:29

3 Answers3

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No need to ban the bastard sword, because it's not part of D&D 5e yet. D&D Wiki is mostly full of things made up by random people on the Internet — the Bastard Sword you link to is some random person's homebrew. You would have to choose to add it to your game, not ban it.

Is it balanced? Meh, doesn't matter. You don't want it, so there's no reason to think about it further.

Avoid D&D Wiki. Use official rules references instead.

Unless you're specifically looking for homebrewed content ideas, you should probably avoid D&D Wiki like the plague, since it has so many problems. Actually, even for homebrew, it's notorious for being full of things with massive balance problems that aren't worth your time.

You can get the official Basic version of the rules from Wizard of the Coast's website at that link. You can also get the content online at one of the more respectable 3rd-party sites that republish the 5e System Reference Document (“SRD”), such as 5eSRD.com. WotC also runs D&D Beyond as their own 1st-party digital online version of the rules.

For rules and game material, the Player's Handbook, SRD, Basic rules, and/or D&D Beyond should be your first source, not some wiki or a Google search. You'll save yourself and your players a lot of headaches.

SirTechSpec
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SevenSidedDie
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    Great point on the difference between Ban and the decision on whether or not to Add outside resources to the game. For @TheGameMaster, it's also good to note that some of the official rules are also Optional (multiclassing, feats, etc.) and you can make decisions there on whether or not have them in your game. – NotArch Jan 17 '18 at 20:58
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    Technically the long sword in 5E is the sword and a half/bastard, since it can be used with one or two hands... historically the only difference was the length of the hilt in most cases. – Slagmoth Jan 17 '18 at 22:06
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    @Slagmoth Aw yeah, the good ol' D&D Sword Taxonomy Is Wrong issue. :) The finer points of that debate are fine enough that there isn't room to do it justice as a side note to an answer, so I'm not even going to open that can of worms! – SevenSidedDie Jan 17 '18 at 22:56
  • @SevenSidedDie Realistically, nearly all sword taxonomy is a post-hoc system created centuries after the fact. – Darth Pseudonym Jan 19 '18 at 22:13
  • @DarthPseudonym I know; I'm passing familiar enough with the issue to recognise how huge the scope of a proper discussion of it would have to be. As I say, a huge can of worms. :) – SevenSidedDie Jan 19 '18 at 23:47
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It's up to you whether you have to ban it, but this is someone's personal invention and it does indeed seem a better choice of weapon than anything official.

I wouldn't allow it, because it adds nothing to the game except more damage for the melee weapon users. Which would likely reduce actual choice, since this weapon is flat-out better than all the others, which all have their own pros and cons.

Erik
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I'll do some Analysis on the actual question of if it's better. As mentioned by keithcurtis if you were to choose the Greatsword then instead of Duelist you would choose Great Weapon Fighting, which lets you re-roll 1s and 2s on both d6s.

Bastard Sword

Normal: 5.5 Damage average Duelist: 7.5 Damage average

Greatsword

Normal: 7 Damage average GWF: 8.33 Damage average

So the ingame Greatsword would still be stronger in this case.

IronSean
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