D&D 3E/3.5 D&D 3.5 - Ways to increase the range of a meele weapon?

[Conhail]

Greetings!


I'm currently working on a character relying on getting the enemy flat-footed, a human Samurai/Iaijutsu Master-combination who relies solemnly on his Katana. I won't change anything about the race, class or weapon as I want to keep the flair and feeling of this 'oriental'-style class.


Well, I've figuered out several ways to do so and one of my favourites is to get AoO against them in order to use Mercurial Strike (Dragon Compendium). Everything's fine so far and I came across a pretty neat manuveur, namely Thicket of Blades (Tome of Battle) which states:

"While you are in this stance, any opponent you threaten that takes any sort of movement, including a 5-foot step, provokes an attack of opportunity from you."


So I thought (or hoped) that it might be possible to increase the meele range of my weapon to 10 ft. or so, so that I could get an AoO every time an opponent moves into, in and outside my threatend squares. So far I've only found one feat to do the job, namely Inhuman Reach (Lords of Madness). The point is; from a roleplaying point of view the idea to have monstrous long arms is mere horrible. So I hoped that there might be other feats, items, enchantments to the weapon or whatever to increase the range of the Katana to 10 ft. or so. But I havn't had any luck so far, as the only feat that suits my purposes is Inhuman Reach which is a complete no-go!


I'd be glad for any piece of advice!

 

[Dandu]

The Burning Brand boost from Desert Wind increases your reach by 5 ft.

Also, replace levels of Samurai with levels of Warblade. Same fluff, better mechanics.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

There's also Willing Deformity (Tall) I think in Heroes of Horror? Pretty sure you have to be evil for it, though, and it involves having a deformity.

The Enlarge Person spell is one of the easiest ways to boost reach, and it actually doubles it, not just +5 ft, so with enough reach boosts, it can be pretty scary.

Can you reconsider your race to be a Changeling (Eberron Campaign Setting; MM 3)? They count as humans but are actually descended partly from Dopplegangers also. THey can change their shape into any humanoid form at will and have the shapechange subtype. Look like a human and never change forms ever if you want. The point is the shapechanger subtype, so you can enter Warshaper (C.Warrior), which among other amazing things boosts your reach by 5 ft at 3rd level.

I'm guessing none of this fits your concept as it's all alien anatomy, horrific disfigurement, and hella creepy "my vital organs are in my foot today" type stuff. But...that's how 3E decided a person gets extendo arms...

 

[Dandu]

Refluff the Warshaper abilities as "Though the practice of taijuitsu, I have toughened my internal organs to the point where they are as hard as steel!"

And so on.

 

[Thrallherd]

If you don't mind having extremely long arms, in Lords of Madness there's a feat called Inhuman Reach. It takes another, near-useless feat as a prerequisite, though. It increases your reach to 10 feet.

 

[Vegepygmy]

So I thought (or hoped) that it might be possible to increase the meele range of my weapon to 10 ft. or so, so that I could get an AoO every time an opponent moves into, in and outside my threatend squares.

If I were you, I'd just reskin your weapon. If you can't find anything better, use the kusari-gama stats in the DMG; that will give you a slashing weapon that can be used both at 5' and 10' reach. It's just that your "kusari-gama" is actually a katana.

EDIT: On second thought, even better might be to reskin a glaive and take the Short Haft feat from PHB2.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

If you don't mind having extremely long arms, in Lords of Madness there's a feat called Inhuman Reach. It takes another, near-useless feat as a prerequisite, though. It increases your reach to 10 feet.

*cough*

So far I've only found one feat to do the job, namely Inhuman Reach (Lords of Madness). The point is; from a roleplaying point of view the idea to have monstrous long arms is mere horrible. So I hoped that there might be other feats, items, enchantments to the weapon or whatever to increase the range of the Katana to 10 ft. or so.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Refluff the Warshaper abilities as "Though the practice of taijuitsu, I have toughened my internal organs to the point where they are as hard as steel!"

And so on.

Likewise, use the Morphic Weapons class feature on a pair of horns to gore people with and say it's your "fearsome Oni visage" mask to go with your kabuto helmet, or something.

+4 Str and Con is just you being a super hardcore powerful samurai. Fast healing, ditto, if you go to level 4 in the class. As for level 5...never take level 5.

 

[emoplato]

Well if you are just creating there is the powerful build feat, str. 18 and BAB 1, level one only. There you will start out with a large katana, also there is the totemist. Whether the DM will agree with this is questionable but just thought I throw it out there. If you don't know what this class is it is in the book, Magic of Incarnum, what this class is it creates nature based ethereal items that count as spell-like abilities for qualifications..etc. Anyway the totemist can have a totem which is a free item slot unique to this class that gives certain abilities usually a form of an attack. Well there is a soulmeld(item) called girallon arms basically mystical arms with claws hang outside your body by the rules under Savage Species beings with multiple sets of arms may increase the weapon size category they may wield and an extra str. modifier of damage when adding one other set of arms to hold it. The totem ability comes in at level three. So, you could be wielding a huge katana.

 

[Conhail]

Thanks for all the tips so far, even though most of them (unfortunately) seem to deform my character in one or another way. Of course I could come up with nifty explanations why my Samurai looks like some sort of freak, but that's not what I was planning for. The Warshaper stuff might be an option, though - I mean, at least I look human, even though I was still hoping there might be some other, less clumsy way, but mechanic-wise its the best option so far.

Well if you are just creating there is the powerful build feat, str. 18 and BAB 1, level one only. There you will start out with a large katana, [...]

I've already thought about increasing my weapons size but if I remember correctly, the size of the weapon doesn't increase its range? Otherweise I'd just take Sizing (Complete Adventurer) but I don't think a large Katana would do the job - it'll just deal more damage and give a -2 attack but that's all. Unless I'm mistaken, of course!