I believe he's saying he doesn't agree that the Halfling should get this benefit, and he'd rule that they do not.
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D&D 5E Is Tasha's Broken?
- Thread starter Zardnaar
- Start date
Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
Combat is not the most important pillar by default. None of them are. You generally don't get to combats unless you are exploring and/or using the social pillars. I haven't been in a game where it was just a bunch of consecutive fights with treasure since I was in junior high.
The mental stats don't need to have equal meaning in combat to all PCs.
I'm not seeing this and haven't in 30 years. All stats matter, since there are three pillars and all the stats are useful quite a bit depending on the pillar being used.
That makes no sense to me. If a Halfling can do 2d6 with a greatsword he should be able to do 1d10 with a longsword.
I had a similar debate with a player once. Set the Wayback Machine 3 editions ago. I'd made a Gnome Fighter. As per the rules, a Gnome has to use a size Medium weapon in two hands. I chose the Bastard Sword, which has two stat lines in 2e. One-Handed and Two-Handed. Both are listed as size Medium. So I show up at the game with my bastard sword wielding Gnome with 18/31 Strength (another point of contention, but I pointed out Gnomes have no penalty to Strength in 2e, so there's no reason they can't have exceptional Strength).
When I started doing 2d4 damage for using the sword in two hands, the other player (not even the DM) flipped and tried to say that was the rules for a Medium sized character wielding the weapon in two hands. We went back and forth, but hey, if you insist...
I then revealed I'd taken the Two-Handed Weapon Fighting Style Specialization from the Complete Fighter's Handbook, to lower my speed factor by 3 when wielding a two handed weapon. "But if my wielding a bastard sword isn't considered to be the two handed version, then I get +1 damage for wielding a one handed weapon in both hands, so I'll go from 2d4 to 1d8+1".
The DM was happy to let me have my 2d4 damage, so Royle Gladdenstone eventually went down in history as "The World's Strongest Gnome".
Honestly, I didn't understand the fuss at the time, as Two Weapon Fighting was vastly superior in 2e. How times have changed, lol.
I didn't say Combat is the more important pillar.
I choose my words very carefully. I said : "combat is the most frequent and most impactful pillar of the game (unless the DM states otherwise)"
Combat in 5th edition by default has the most rolls and failure usually equals death, theft, or capture. Your DM would have to go out of their way to have more Exploration rolls and Social Rolls than Combat rolls and give them higher stakes. And any DM who does this would be so far off the norm that they would have to inform the players at Session Zero.
5th edition is not 30 years old. I'm only talking about 5t edition.
3rd edition and 4th edition has base, core, early, and easy ways to make almost every ability score matter in every pillar. 4th edition makes multiple exploration and social rolls core via skill challenges.
5th edition does not do this at base. Your DM either has to use an official or unofficial variant rule to do this. This was done on purpose to make the edition simpler and empower DMs.
3e and 4e has base "Charisma Check to Demoralize" with rules for it. 5e doesn't and makes it a DM adjudication. So until the DM tells the player their style, the player is in the dark on Int/Cha usefulness in combat and their experience of it will automatically vary greatly between tables.
DND_Reborn
The High Aldwin
The bastard sword was a bit of a beast in AD&D! That 2d8 vs. Large opponents was huge and just a hair under the 3d6 for a two-handed sword.
2E removed the table that 1E had about minimum and maximum strengths:
But even in 1E your gnome with Strength 18/31 would have been within the gnome male maximum.
So, I say kudos on the gnome!
FWIW, as for the size rule in 2E, we did a slightly different version. For instance, why couldn't a halfling have a "smaller" version of a glaive or other polearm? Instead of using the size rule, we adjusted the damage die down one step.
A halfling or gnome could wield a two-handed sword (for them), but instead of 1d10/3d6 it did 1d8/3d4 (about the equivalent of a longsword's 1d8/1d12 used by a medium creature). We also halved the weight for the weapon.
So, your gnome's bastard sword at our table would have gone from this:
to this: Bastard sword: cost 25 gp, weight 5 lb., size: n/a, slashing, speed 6 (2H: 8), damage: 1d6 / 1d10 (2H: 2d3 / 2d6)
But, since we allowed them to use their version of a two-handed sword, you probably would have used that anyway.
I knew about that table, since that had the infamous strength limit for ladies- long after we switched to 2e, people would make comments about this or that thing being "too strong". In a world where belts of giant strength existed, I always found such ideas to be academic, but what did I know? I was still "the kid".
It didn't make sense to me why Gnomes were ridiculously strong for their size, but playing a super strong Gnome amused me greatly, even if he was nowhere near as optimal as "Generic Elf Fighter with 2 longswords and exceptional Strength" that became all the rage when someone finally noticed two weapon fighting was broken levels of good (and that the Complete Fighter's Handbook had an option to wield two equal size weapons).
It didn't make sense to me why Gnomes were ridiculously strong for their size, but playing a super strong Gnome amused me greatly, even if he was nowhere near as optimal as "Generic Elf Fighter with 2 longswords and exceptional Strength" that became all the rage when someone finally noticed two weapon fighting was broken levels of good (and that the Complete Fighter's Handbook had an option to wield two equal size weapons).
DND_Reborn
The High Aldwin
Yeah, even in AD&D the max press for Strength was only 480 lb., which made no sense to me since the established world-record at that point was over 500 lb.
The limitations never bothered me (still down) because I know (for humans anyway) they are based in reality. I won't say more than that about it, though.
As for other races, which have no "reality", PCs could be as limited or not as the game designers intended. In that sense, FWIW, I have no issue if a table plays RAW with no limits on STR-carry weight based on race or sex because it is a fantasy world so maybe the "humans" in your world have a slightly different make-up than humans in the real world? Personally, I don't like to play that way, but others of course and do as they please and will get no argument from me (maybe a discussion, but no argument).
Yes, two-weapon fighting was brutal in 2E if you built for it, especially after the splat-book surge and the CFH came out.
Oofta
Legend
Personally, I go with the new tech.Can't forget the 10' pole! How would you play D&D without one? (I keep one around at the table, useful for poking players who are spending time on their smartphone when it is there turn...
Oofta
Legend
Shh! Don't you know that your personal experience (or mine, or anyone else's) matters? Only people who see the issue get to decide it's an issue.
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