D&D 3.x [3.5] Weapon size and use

[Conaill]

Here's a question, how does the scaling of weapons effect reach weapons? Since there can now be a Small Spiked Chain or Longspear (which are ordinalily Medium weapons in 3.5) it's possible to have a Halfling barbarian weilding a spiked chain w/o Monkey Grip.

Reach weapons double the reach of the wielder. Regardless of the size of the reach weapon.

So yes, a Halfling Brb will be able to wield a Small spiked chain to get a 10' reach.

What's interesting is that this also opens up the possibility of one-handed reach weapons! For example, a human could be wielding a Small spiked chain one-handed, at a -2 penalty. Even better, he could wield a Small heavy lance as a light weapon. Luckily, Small heavy lances are also easy to conceal because they are Light weapons.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Reach weapons double the reach of the wielder. Regardless of the size of the reach weapon.

Although the Savage Species (or was it A&EG?) rules tidied that up a little.

-Hyp.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Gah.

 

[Lotus]

I don't like the penalty; I think it should be more of a proficiency issue.

A human should be able to pick up a halfling's greatsword and use it almost exactly like a longsword, or a giant's shortspear and use it exactly like a longspear. These rules don't seem to account for that, unless I just missed something in there...

 

[Hypersmurf]

A human should be able to pick up a halfling's greatsword and use it almost exactly like a longsword, or a giant's shortspear and use it exactly like a longspear. These rules don't seem to account for that, unless I just missed something in there...

Except that a giant's shortspear will not be exactly like a human longspear.

They'll be similar, but I would expect the giant shortspear to be significantly heavier than a human longspear. Enough to throw the balance off sufficiently to impose, oh, say, a -2 penalty to someone proficient in longspear...

-Hyp

 

[Brown Jenkin]

Except that a giant's shortspear will not be exactly like a human longspear.

They'll be similar, but I would expect the giant shortspear to be significantly heavier than a human longspear. Enough to throw the balance off sufficiently to impose, oh, say, a -2 penalty to someone proficient in longspear...

-Hyp

But for a fighter who is proficient in all martial weapons this should not be an issue. The fighter who has always used a longsword and nothing else is allowed to pick up and use a scimitar without any penalty even though it is balanced significantly different.

 

[Lotus]

Ah, I did miss the note that the DMG will include an equivalency table. That's a bit better -- both in terms of common sense and cheese prevention.

I.e. a dagger for a Collosal sized creature is a greatsword for a Medium character, and therefore not finessable.

 

[Droogie]

Are you telling me that a small longspear, which can't be much longer than a medium spear, provides a 10' reach to a halfling?

 

[Saepiroth]

Are you telling me that a small longspear, which can't be much longer than a medium spear, provides a 10' reach to a halfling?

IME, there is a large class of people who like to make rules as confusing as possible--either because they're dense, because they want to make fun of the rules system (not that they matter--they'd find some way to make fun of it no matter what), or because they think they've figured out a way to weasel some strange advantage out of two deliberate misinterpretations and one confused ruling).

 

[Hypersmurf]

Originally quoted by Saepiroth
IME, there is a large class of people who like to make rules as confusing as possible

I'm not sure what you're trying to convey with that quote, but given the quotes from Andy Collins at the top of the page, a Small Longspear will grant 10 foot reach to a halfling.

If Andy's information is accurate, it's not confusing at all... what was your intended interpretation of the EB quote?

-Hyp.