Do you prefer the 3.5 or the 3.0 weapon size rules?

[green slime]

A giant druid is screwed in 3.0. Scimitar? Nope, it's too small. Club? Same problem. Maybe a spear it can weild as a dart. And a druid throwing a boulder will probably lose her powers in 3.0...

poppycock. As has been said before, the 3.0 rules allowed for the creation of specific-sized weapons for non-human races. It was expected that the DM display a minmium of intelligence, and actually read the rules.

Page 162 in the 3.0 DMG has a table of how to scale the damage for different sized weapons.

It is easily ascertained that the halfling rapier deals 1d4 damage, or that a Huge scimitar deals 2d6 (two size changes, 1d6 - 1d8 - 2d6).

 

[ARandomGod]

EVeryone keeps saying 3.5, but the votes are almost balanced. Could someone from the 3.0 crowed give us his reasoning?

3.0 makes more sense logically to me, and is a better application of real world physics than 3.5. While I admit that physics has a limited viability in a realm where some people cast fireball, it still seems like it should apply to, say, blades.

Small creatures are getting a massive hidden strength penalty in the size rules, on top of normally giving them an actual strength penalty. I think the game designers should be more "honest", and only have actual penalties apply there.

 

[Gnome]

3.5 for the weapon variety for small characters.

 

[Psion]

poppycock. As has been said before, the 3.0 rules allowed for the creation of specific-sized weapons for non-human races. It was expected that the DM display a minmium of intelligence, and actually read the rules.

This is true. The problem really lied with the fact that the class descriptions for weapon proficiencies didn't really take this into account and were more of less worded with regular adventurer race characters in mind.

 

[I'm A Banana]

And you do that in the middle of the Underdark how exactly?

Not to be a shill for a company that never paid me, but:

http://www.bastionpress.com/Merchan...Code=BPS&Product_Code=BAS-1015&Category_Code=

The Cave Hermit is a hermaphroditic, carapaced merchant who scours the Underdark for magic items and then sells them to desperate parties at exhorbitant prices.

To add more to the convo, I prefer the 3.5 rules as *far* more intuitive. Tolkein can bite it, Bilbo took a -2 penalty the entire time as far as I'm concerned.

It makes more sense that a halfling would craft their own weapons, and be limited in the martial equipment granted.

There are some issues -- armor doesn't scale with size, ranges don't scale with size, hit points don't directly scale with size...size is almost an afterthought in D&D, and it needs to be more tightly integrated than it is even now.

 

[harmyn]

I am not overly wild about the 3.5 version for the big reason stated above, screwing the small characters. They have a Strength penalty because they are smaller but then also have the amount of weight they can carry reduced an additional amount and now a die code reduction so that they lack the same max potential as a medium creature.

They do have the option of weapon equivalents so that a human shortsword would be a halfling longsword, but that is still flawed, as an example of why I say this I give you the "club" as stated in the Optional RAW. For a medium creature it is considered a "normal club", for a halfling it would be a "great club" and require 2 hands, and finally for an ogre (a large creature) it is listed as a "sap". So the halfling could heft that item up and bash you over the head to eventually kill you, but if the ogre picked up the same stick it would deal only non-lethal damage as it is considered a sap. Common sense could easily correct this error, but that is not the preferred method the rules seem to infer you use given the detailed way they are written.

 

[ThirdWizard]

I think it helps the Small charcters. Now they can wield greataxes, rapiers, bastard swords, etc. Aside from the aesthetics of a gnome with a greataxe, what was the 1d10/x3 weapon that Small characters could use in 3.0? What was the 1d6/x4 weapon (Small Scythe 3.5)? Looks to me like they have more, and superior, options available to them than the previously had.

So the halfling could heft that item up and bash you over the head to eventually kill you, but if the ogre picked up the same stick it would deal only non-lethal damage as it is considered a sap. Common sense could easily correct this error, but that is not the preferred method the rules seem to infer you use given the detailed way they are written.

Errrr... what? Page number? I have no clue what that is. What Optional Rule? Anyway, if it is an Rules Variant, that's the first time anyone has brought it up in this thread and has no bearing on the actual 3.5 weapon rules.

 

[FireLance]

Small creatures are getting a massive hidden strength penalty in the size rules, on top of normally giving them an actual strength penalty. I think the game designers should be more "honest", and only have actual penalties apply there.

This is also true in 3.0, by the way. A halfling could use a 3.0 shortsword, but he couldn't finesse it. In fact, he used it in pretty much the same way as he would use a 3.5 Small longsword. A halfling could use a 3.0 dagger and could finesse it, but that is practically the same as using a 3.5 Small shortsword. Small characters that could only use simple weapons are disadvantaged by the rules. A halfling wizard could use a 3.0 dagger, but cannot use a 3.5 Small shortsword. On the other hand, Small characters that are proficient with martial weapons are slightly better off in 3.5. A halfling could use a 3.0 longsword as a two-handed weapon, but the 3.5 Small greatsword does more damage (1d10 compared to 1d8).

 

[FireLance]

poppycock. As has been said before, the 3.0 rules allowed for the creation of specific-sized weapons for non-human races. It was expected that the DM display a minmium of intelligence, and actually read the rules.

And if we did this for every weapon, we will end up with the 3.5 system. All that's different is the terminology, and I personally feel that a size descriptor plus a weapon name is neater than trying to come up with a different name for each weapon in each size category. What do you call a storm giant's greatsword? Or an advanced (Gargantuan) titan's greatsword? If you're going to prefix the name of the creature using it, like a halfling kama, you might as well prefix the size.

Quite frankly, apart from weapon equivalency and the legacy of Sting, I don't see any reason to use the 3.0 rules.