D&D 4E Weapon Sizes must die in 4E

[Deguello]

I don't think it makes much sense. I can understand why the rule was created. Not all weapons should have the same damage potential. However in a game where health is broken down into something abstract like points. Damage potential is not really a applicable.

What difference to a player does it matter whether a fairy hits you with a rapier for four points or an orc hits you with a battle axe for four points. The effects are exactly the same and nothing else. It is a miniature rule put in a roleplaying game.. Smaller creatures have less damage potential but they make up for it because you can group more people around the larger base. Use it if you like, I would imagine with the direction the rules are going I would expect that rule to stay. It's not really a neccesary rule, but then again roleplayers...

Don't really need rules.. they are nice.. but not a neccessity

 

[MerricB]

The key thing you're missing: The people who don't like it understand it just fine, they just think it's a stupid added bit of bookkeeping that adds nothing -- at all -- to the game.

They were invented when Savage Species came along and completely and utterly broke the 3e weapon size rules.

There are large-size PCs out there. I've seen a few centaurs, and I think it likely there's an ogre or half-ogre as well. And, by the 3E PHB, there is no such thing as a centaur-sized Greatsword.

Heck, a centaur rogue can't even use a *longsword*! They're stuck with the shortsword.

This is the halfling rogue's list of available weapons:
Crossbow (hand or light), dagger, dart, light mace, sap, shortbow, shortsword.

This is the human rogue's list of available weapons:
Crossbow (hand or light), dagger, dart, light mace, sap, shortbow, shortsword; plus club, heavy crossbow, heavy mace, morning star, quarterstaff and rapier.

This is the centaur rogue's list of available weapons:
Crossbow (light), dart, light mace, sap, shortbow, shortsword.

Cheers!

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

They were invented when Savage Species came along and completely and utterly broke the 3e weapon size rules.

Given that Savage Species is a mess on a number of rules fronts, I'm not sure that a response to that mess should have been made core. An Expanded Savage Species probably would have been the correct response.

We still have a lot more to hear about races and monsters as playable characters, but hopefully killing off the "one system for all" thing unifying monsters and player characters imperfectly (at best) in 3E will resolve this issue as well.

 

[IanArgent]

Druther have the 3.5 weapon sizes than not have a Small rapier for a halfling... Yes, I can house-rule it, but the house rules I would have to look very much like the 3.5 weapon size rules.

The 3.0 rules only work for dagger/short-sword/longsword/greatsword (or equivalent axe-class weapons). Where's the Bastard sword, rapier, any double weapon, etc?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Druther have the 3.5 weapon sizes than not have a Small rapier for a halfling... Yes, I can house-rule it, but the house rules I would have to look very much like the 3.5 weapon size rules.

The 3.0 rules only work for dagger/short-sword/longsword/greatsword (or equivalent axe-class weapons). Where's the Bastard sword, rapier, any double weapon, etc?

Even a 3E halfing-kender mutant thing has too much dignity to use a double weapon.

 

[Storm Raven]

Point to the page reference that says that.

Try page 97 of the PHB.

 

[Storm Raven]

In 3e, the halfling rogue is proficient with the *human* sized versions of all of their weapons. They're proficient with the "short sword" but not the "long sword". However, to a halfling, the "short sword" is a long sword! Uh-oh... and what about a halfling-sized dagger? Can they use it?

That's a problem with the rogue weapon list. Not the weapon size rules.

Needlessly overhauling the weapon size rules into a mess because of corner cases is poor design.

 

[MerricB]

Try page 97 of the PHB.

I'll grant you that one. Definitely. The "large longsword" is a greatsword.

What proficiency is the ogre using to wield it? Has to be a greatsword proficiency, despite him using it in only one hand. (See how halfling proficiencies work with the rogue or monk).

How about a small trident? Oops, no such thing. Not on the weapon lists.

It gets even worse... a Colossal giant (I think the Titan can fall into that list) can't find an item that is the equivalent of a Greatsword because there's no item that is "Colossal+"

The halfling can't use a rapier, and so has only one Weapon Finessable weapon, the dagger, unless something is invented that is similar.

The 3e rules are an absolute mess when it comes to weapon sizes.

 

[Hairfoot]

I see some argue that the weapon sizing rules make the small races virtually(or even less-than) useless in combat ... when was the last time you saw an adult or even a pit-bull(the closest RL approximation of a Kobold) get beaten up by a 10-year-old? Small races have no business in melee combat. Ever. This is something even the abstractness of DnD cannot ... nay; SHOULD not, smooth over.

Largely, I agree: small races would generally be mauled in melee combat by anything sized medium or larger. However, the comparison isn't really apt.

Firstly, unlike a ten-year-old, PCs and monsters of small races aren't children; they're small, fully-developed adults, with commensurate muscular strength and co-ordination. Secondly, unlike a pitbull, they're capable of using tactics and training to improve their combat skills. Thirdly, they can use weapons, which makes a huge difference. I'd give an unarmed adult, or even a pitbull, poor odds against a South American street kid or African child soldier armed with a dagger.

 

[MerricB]

The trouble was that the small races were useless in melee combat before 3.5e... the rules change actually made them better. The exception was in finding magic items of the right size (which, I agree, is an absolute pain).

A Halfling Fighter couldn't use a 2-H sword in 3e, nor a longbow.

Worse, a halfling rogue couldn't use a rapier.

Cheers!