Advice wanted: 3.5 weapon sizing

[Particle_Man]

This will sound horrible, but you could give all weapons, everywhere, the magical ability to resize to their wielders to prevent some of the more egregious abuses. You still have to figure out missle weapon ranges for other sizes though.

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

There's a neat cinematic system I've seen on these boards where all of the weapons do the same damage that I'd be tempted to try out if my group weren't mostly newbies.

You're talking about DanMcS' "Weapons as Special Effects" system, right? I highly suggest that for newbies. Just have them tell you what they want to wield, you decide the qualities it has in the system, and there's no fuss about proficiencies and such. Very clean.

 

[ARandomGod]

i felt 3.5 weapon size rules were a severe overeaction to RPGA based play. I can understand tweaking the rules to make sure the large mace doesn't create a simple man sized 2d6 weapon, but begruging the halfling rogue his man sized shortsword is urinating in the face of fantasy tradition.

I agree.

It's just silly to say a halfling can't have a man sized shortsword, or a man sized dagger. And I don't like the mathematics/implied physics of the idea either.

On the other hand, it is easier to just leave it as is. However it's also pretty easy to ignore it, like 3.0 did. So do what works best. It won't break the game either way.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Pokemounts??

A new tweak on the 3.5 rules?

That instead of just having a warhorse, you can summon and dismiss your celestial steed (like summon monster, but it lasts forever). Ostensibly designed to thwart the "leave the horses outside to be attacked by some random monster while I enter the cavern alone" problem and to encourage the paladin's special mounts (a key component of their power) to be used more in more situations.

Some think it's completely asinine that you can call forth or dismiss your mount whenever you want, others say it does the job it set out to do. IMXP, no one has questioned the logic of summoning paladin's horses in a world where you can call a fiendish squid out of nothing, but some feel it turns the game into more of a game-like feel, breaking the narrative, and thus hurting the game for them.


.....as to the topic at hand, it still baffles me that people have no problem with something two feet tall with hands so small they need two to hold their sippy-cups wielding a weapon designed to balance against a human's weight, and just using two hands and calling it even. I can buy that it's never really that big of a deal for most games, but that always bugged the heck out of me -- even in Tolkien, it bugged the heck out of me.

 

[DungeonMaster]

.....as to the topic at hand, it still baffles me that people have no problem with something two feet tall with hands so small they need two to hold their sippy-cups wielding a weapon designed to balance against a human's weight, and just using two hands and calling it even. I can buy that it's never really that big of a deal for most games, but that always bugged the heck out of me -- even in Tolkien, it bugged the heck out of me.

But you have no problem with a 16 strength female halfling being able to run around unencumbered with 57 pounds on it? Or carrying up to 172 pounds on it?
Does using two handed a 4lbs 3 foot of steel longsword really look out of proportion?
Many sword arts start teaching children when they're very young. We give the kids a "child bokken" and some women (my wife for instance) prefer them.
These bokken are often used for yae-do training, which is roughly one-handed sword style (though the handle is long enough for two hands to grip it is largely one-handed). It would be the D&D equivalent of a longsword.
If you give them a blunt sword (all the kids want to try it) made for a man using Sangsu style, two handed, they have some real difficulty swinging it. The angular momentum is too much. If you give them a blunt yedo sword they have no problem using it two handed.

I honestly have more problems with a 3 strength 124 lbs wizard being able to use a club or quarterstaff at all.

 

[FireLance]

So tell me your experiences with the 3.5 weapon sizing. Did you initially hate it but learn to love it? Like it but grow to loathe it? Or did experience confirm your initial reaction?

My initial reaction was, "Finally! Halflings can finesse rapiers!" Really, who did the old weapon equivalency rules actually benefit?

Players of Small characters? The new weapon size rules actually give them an even greater variety of weapons than the old rules.

People who want to re-create the historical accuracy of a halfing using a elf-sized dagger as a short sword? There are the weapon equivalency rules for that, if that's how you want to play it.

People who don't want to deal with the greater complexity of the new system? In my view, the trade-off was worth it because the game got a lot more sensible to me in exchage for a small increase in complexity that I managed to assimilate quite rapidly. Of course, that's only my personal experience and opinion.

All in all, I think the revised weapon size system works great.

Thanks for the help. Now, tell me what you think about the pokemounts...

You might want to start a new thread. I think it was a good change, since it made the paladin's warhorse into an actual benefit rather than an often-neglected class ability.

 

[Henry]

I've picked up sabres, foils and epee. I can pick up a bokken, or sword and immediately tell you the "balance" and how to use it - and will adjust my cut accordingly.
In fact if you give me any stick, or stick-like object, or sword like object I can tell you how I would use it most effectively in combat.

Devil's Advocate: Can you pick up a coat-rack and use it with exactly the same level of precision you would a katana?

For our games, the 3.5 weapon sizes were not better or worse -- merely different. It solved a couple of problems that we had previously solved by DM adjudication, same as Francisca had.

 

[azmodean]

Devil's Advocate: Can you pick up a coat-rack and use it with exactly the same level of precision you would a katana?

I think that falls under the -4 improvised weapon penalty anyway.

The problems I have with the 3.5 weapon size system are the -2 "wrong size" penalty and the names of the weapon size classes. In D20, "light", "one-handed", and "two-handed" are not adequate descriptors for the size of a weapon since there are a plethora of rules that make them innacurate.

Similar is the use of "off-hand" to describe a secondary attack, especially since the ambidexterity feat has been done away with. Quite a few rules suddenly make sense if you just refer to that second group of attacks as your "secondary" attacks instead of "off-hand". IMO, the rules have been adjusted to be less medium humanoid-centric, but the names of various things have not been altered to match.

 

[Storyteller01]

Devil's Advocate: Can you pick up a coat-rack and use it with exactly the same level of precision you would a katana?.

No, but odds are it would make a great quaterstaff or halberd equivalent.

As mentioned earlier, to each there own.

Observation: Is it me, or do the 3.5 weapons sizing rules tend to most bother those who've had several years of combat training (the 5-8 year range, where we know just enough to be dangerous [especially to ourselves ])?


Pokemounts: Now that I know what they are, I can't say it bugs me. Might not fit in all campaigns, but that's on the DM. My campaign allows you to swap the mount for a weapon that grows with you, or half off are particular magic items.

Matter of fact, this option would work extremely well in my DS campaign!! Thanks for the info...

 

[babomb]

You might want to start a new thread. I think it was a good change, since it made the paladin's warhorse into an actual benefit rather than an often-neglected class ability.

Not to hijack my own thread, but that was just a joke, actually, as that's the OTHER devisive 3.5 change. As the player of a 3.0 paladin who had so many problems with having to leave the mount behind that my DM gave me a pokeball for it, I welcome the change. I might tweak it a little for flavor, though.