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Why is bigger always better?
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<blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 5623020" data-attributes="member: 7006"><p>I think the real point of the rising damages of larger weapons is to just give players more choice and to give those choices meaning.</p><p></p><p>All blades could be 1d6-- dagger, shortsword, longsword, bastardsword, greatsword. If you did that... the choice of weapon for a player would just be a matter of fluff. "I envision my character wielding a big blade!" and thus he does. But at some point... we moved away from that idea and began giving weapons different properties so that each weapon was "unique" and gave us a mechanical reason to wield it in addition to a fluff one.</p><p></p><p>At this point... it comes down to "how do you make all blades unique"? Weapon speeds would be one way to do it... smaller weapons on average can be wielded faster than larger ones... but the weapon speed rules were removed from the game when initiative became circular. So after that... what else is there besides damage dice? Barring getting into very esoteric weapon-fighting simulation rules a la <em>The Riddle of Steel</em> rpg... changing damage is really it (since we're saving the different <em>weapon properties</em> to differentiate the weapon classes, not the weapons within a single class).</p><p></p><p>So once you decide to use damage dice... you pretty much either go low/small to high/large, or low/large to high/small. And based upon years of gaming history... we are all used to and accepting of the methodology that is currently in use.</p><p></p><p>But I think this is the reason why class design occasionally dictates to us what types of weapons we use... in order to give less-powerful weapon a much more powerful boost in the hands of the masters who can use them. Daggers <em>absolutely</em> can be incredibly deadly in the right hands... which is precisely why rogues got bonuses to wielding them. Sneak attack bonus assured that even with a dagger, a rogue would still do more damage than a greatsword wielder. The additional +1 to attack meant that the rogue would hit more often and thus do more damage with them. They were also given a prestige class that gave out one of (if not the only) possible way to get an 18-20 crit range... thus assuring even more damage.</p><p></p><p>So I don't think it's a bad thing that weapons on a generic front have higher damage dice the larger they get. It's a simple method of making different weapons actually mechanically different, this giving players more meaningful choices on what to wield.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="DEFCON 1, post: 5623020, member: 7006"] I think the real point of the rising damages of larger weapons is to just give players more choice and to give those choices meaning. All blades could be 1d6-- dagger, shortsword, longsword, bastardsword, greatsword. If you did that... the choice of weapon for a player would just be a matter of fluff. "I envision my character wielding a big blade!" and thus he does. But at some point... we moved away from that idea and began giving weapons different properties so that each weapon was "unique" and gave us a mechanical reason to wield it in addition to a fluff one. At this point... it comes down to "how do you make all blades unique"? Weapon speeds would be one way to do it... smaller weapons on average can be wielded faster than larger ones... but the weapon speed rules were removed from the game when initiative became circular. So after that... what else is there besides damage dice? Barring getting into very esoteric weapon-fighting simulation rules a la [I]The Riddle of Steel[/I] rpg... changing damage is really it (since we're saving the different [I]weapon properties[/I] to differentiate the weapon classes, not the weapons within a single class). So once you decide to use damage dice... you pretty much either go low/small to high/large, or low/large to high/small. And based upon years of gaming history... we are all used to and accepting of the methodology that is currently in use. But I think this is the reason why class design occasionally dictates to us what types of weapons we use... in order to give less-powerful weapon a much more powerful boost in the hands of the masters who can use them. Daggers [I]absolutely[/I] can be incredibly deadly in the right hands... which is precisely why rogues got bonuses to wielding them. Sneak attack bonus assured that even with a dagger, a rogue would still do more damage than a greatsword wielder. The additional +1 to attack meant that the rogue would hit more often and thus do more damage with them. They were also given a prestige class that gave out one of (if not the only) possible way to get an 18-20 crit range... thus assuring even more damage. So I don't think it's a bad thing that weapons on a generic front have higher damage dice the larger they get. It's a simple method of making different weapons actually mechanically different, this giving players more meaningful choices on what to wield. [/QUOTE]
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