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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Quickleaf" data-source="post: 9272094" data-attributes="member: 20323">Sure, I gotcha. As you know, the DMG p.277 rules cover the PC fighter wielding the ogre's Greatclub (2d8), basically the fighter suffers disadvantage to attack with it.So... there is a trade-off. The fighter can immediately use the Large Greatclub to deal more damage at the expense of suffering disadvantage to hit.OTOH, there's no such rule covering a not-spell like Arcane Blast. So defaulting to the general "wizard learning new spells", the trade-off is...spend time and gold... record the spell in spell book which you may then prepare. A found spell cannot be used immediately like the Greatclub.There's a trade-off in both situations, just it looks different.There are two issues...The 1st issue is Arcane Blast is set up such that a player would assume it functions like a spell (and thus subject to "wizard learning new spells"). Why? Because the NPC is called an Apprentice Wizard and casts wizard spells like burning hands, disguise self, and mage armor. The 2nd issue is that of power scale. In the fiction we readily buy into "that's a big ogre, it's gonna wreck things with its club." Whereas an apprentice wizard being better than our 3rd level wizard at slinging a cantrip? There's a narrative jarring there because wasn't our 3rd level wizard also once an apprentice? (The fighter was never once an ogre in their backstory - unless it's a wild backstory!) This 2nd issue is why I'd say Arcane Blast is objectionable on an apprentice wizard NPC, but the higher-level Evoker wizard NPC it works just fine for.EDIT: I shouldn't have to restate this since I used it in my preceding example, but for completeness I'm restating it. From the player's perspective there's a 3rd issue: It's very possible they'll perceive the Apprentice Wizard as casting eldritch blast (since Arcane Blast resembles it closely), which could evoke false narrative concept for the PCs theorizing why these apprentices are in league with an extraplanar entity.I'll add that I'm not taking into account potential 5.5e changes. Maybe they're boosting a lot of cantrips, or how classes interact with cantrips, or even making Arcane Blast a cantrip. Any of those design choices would require me to reevaluate the way I'm thinking about Arcane Blast currently.[SPOILER="Oversized weapons rule"]If a monster wields a manufactured weapon, it deals damage appropriate to the weapon. For example, a greataxe in the hands of a Medium monster deals 1d12 slashing damage plus the monster’s Strength modifier, as is normal for that weapon.Big monsters typically wield oversized weapons that deal extra dice of damage on a hit. Double the weapon dice if the creature is Large, triple the weapon dice if it’s Huge, and quadruple the weapon dice if it’s Gargantuan. For example, a Huge giant wielding an appropriately sized greataxe deals 3d12 slashing damage (plus its Strength bonus), instead of the normal 1d12.A creature has disadvantage on attack rolls with a weapon that is sized for a larger attacker. You can rule that a weapon sized for an attacker two or more sizes larger is too big for the creature to use at all.[/SPOILER]</blockquote>

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