D&D 3E/3.5 3E versus 3.5E: Weapon Size

[Dausuul]

Among the various changes between 3E and 3.5E, one was the shift in how weapon size is handled.

In 3E, all weapons had a fixed size. A greatsword was, by definition, Large. A shortsword was Small, and so forth. You could use weapons of your own size in one hand, and weapons of one size larger in two hands. So a halfling fighter looking for a two-handed sword would use a longsword.

This had the advantage of making weapons more accessible. If you killed an ogre wielding a sword in one hand, that sword was a greatsword and the party fighter could pick it up and swing it in two. On the down side, it limited the options for different-sized characters, and it offered no guidance for what happened when you cast enlarge on the fighter.

In 3.5E, each weapon could be scaled up or down to any size. A greatsword could be Small, Medium, Large, Huge, whatever. Human and halfling fighters would both wield greatswords, but the human's would be a Medium greatsword dealing 2d6 damage, while the halfling's would be a Small greatsword dealing 1d10.

This expanded the range of weapon options available. It did, however, mean that an ogre's longsword could not be picked up and used as a greatsword. A human fighter could use the ogre sword in two hands, but you got -2 on the attack roll, and you treated the weapon as a longsword for purposes of Weapon Focus and the like.

Which system did you, or do you, prefer? And why?

 

[Ahnehnois]

I found the 3.5 system confusing when I read it. In practice, however it seemed to make more sense. Does a large creature wielding a short sword treat it as a dagger (and thus gain a throwing range and bonus to conceal it)? Neither system was 100% clear on those scenarios, but 3.5 was more clear.

 

[TerraDave]

Blast from the past! (at least for some of us).


Oh, and the 3.0 approach. Overall, maybe still the best take on weapons in D&D. Or it would have been if they left out the spike chain and double sword.

 

[delericho]

The 3.5e approach was more 'correct', but in practice I never ever managed to get together a group where everyone at the table understood it. That being the case, 3.0e wins every time. (Of course, 3.0e did have the quirk that a lot of weapons had to be listed as "quarterstaff, halfling", or whatever...)

However, ultimately I think the big mistake in 3e (both versions) comes in trying to deal with all of this at all. It might well have been best to just ignore the size difference between 'small' and 'medium' versions of the weapons entirely (as "not worth worrying about"). For monsters and NPCs, assign them a damage independent of the weapons they weild.

So, that Ogre carries "a massive sword and a huge shield", or "a huge club and shield", or "a two-handed club that might actually be a small tree", or whatever... but regardless, it has AC 20 and does 4d6+8 points of damage (or whatever). The players aren't ever going to see the behind-the-scenes math for all these things, and are unlikely to care at the finest level of detail anyway, so why go to the extra effort?

(Of course, this raises the question of what happens when the PCs kill the Ogre and claim its sword/club//tree. But there, the DM just has to make a ruling - either it's a greatsword/greatclub, or it's just too big for the PCs to use effectively. Oh, and the enlarge spell should give a flat damage bonus - it shouldn't cause the weapon damage die to change - that's way too much effort!)

 

[DEFCON 1]

3.0. Any system that opens an individual weapon to more uses for more people is better... especially when you start bringing magical weapons into it. So that +1 "longsword" the Large creature was swinging could actually be a +1 "greatsword" for the medium fighter character in 3.0. As opposed to it being another item to just be sold off in 3.5.

In order for any band of Large humanoids to have any workable treasure for a party in 3.5, you pretty much had to presuppose that those creatures just kept a useless magic weapon around in their packs for absolutely no reason.

 

[Celebrim]

3.0 approach.

Note that the 3.0 approach still allowed you to create a dagger for a Large sized monster. It would be a small rather than tiny weapon, have stats as a dagger, but one die higher damage.

The only thing the 3.5 approach gives you is a little realism, in as much as it is reasonable that a big dagger isn't exactly the same as a shortsword and that a medium sized creature might not find it fitted to his hand or balanced to his arm length. However, that's a very small gain in comparison to losing the elegance of the 3.0 system, and if you really need that realism back you can always write it into whatever custom weapons that you create that PC's are likely to use. Quite often of course, none of the bigger or larger weapons you create are even appealing to PCs compared to their own magical loot, so the issue of the extra realism is completely moot. Equally so, its easy to address the realism issue by noting that things which are not human, like halflings for example, don't necessarily have the same proportions as humans and don't necessarily therefore need weapons particularly sized to them. For example, Halflings might have oversized hands for their size, that lets them use human weapons quite easily without the need for specially sized weapons. (In fact, the Tolkien source material seems to indicate this.)

 

[frankthedm]

The other thing the 3.5 "upgrade" did was make sure someone couldn't get around not having martial weapon proficiencies but wind up swinging a large heavy mace for a 2-handed 2d6.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

I prefer 3.0, I find 3.5's major contribution to the game has been screwing over non-medium PCs when it comes time to hand out loot, and effectively lower the base weapon damage from how it worked in 3.0. For example, iirc a Halfling Rogue with a shortbow dealt d6 in 3.0, but only d4 in 3.5.

 

[Ahnehnois]

The other thing the 3.5 "upgrade" did was make sure someone couldn't get around not having martial weapon proficiencies but wind up swinging a large heavy mace for a 2-handed 2d6.

That's true. Of course, weapon proficiences are also an area with a lot of room for improvement.

I prefer 3.0, I find 3.5's major contribution to the game has been screwing over non-medium PCs when it comes time to hand out loot, and effectively lower the base weapon damage from how it worked in 3.0. For example, iirc a Halfling Rogue with a shortbow dealt d6 in 3.0, but only d4 in 3.5.

Given how powerful small PCs are (and how D&D makes them much better at combat than a humanoid that size would realistically be), I have no problem with that.

 

[Spatula]

Both takes have their issues. I like the 3.5 take in that small characters have the same weapon selection as everyone else, which did solve some issues. Personally, I would chose that system, except that characters should be able to use weapons within one size of themselves without penalty, and have that weapon treated as the appropriate type as far as proficiencies and feats go.

So for example, a human could wield an ogre longsword, but it would be a greatsword to him or her. Likewise a halfling with a human longsword. Or a human could use a halfling greatsword as a longsword. But a human could not use a Huge-size shortsword without penalty.

If forced to chose using one or the other as written, I would go with 3.0.