Enlarge Person question

[Pinotage]

More powerful than a potion of Cure Light Wounds that takes you from unconscious to fully functional???

Definitely. There's no single character concept (combination of race/class) that can abuse a potion of cure light wounds. But there are loads of character types that can benefit tremendously from Enlarge Person. Reach, increased weapon damage, more hp, damage etc. Imagine for a moment a human fighter with the monkey grip feat, wielding a large greatsword downing a 50 gp potion and turning that large greatsword into a gargantuan greatsword and having reach. All at 1st level mind you, where 50 gp is easily affordable. I don't even know what the damage on such a sword is.

Pinotage

 

[Nail]

Animal growth would be a superior spell if were not for the fact that it effects ONLY animals. That limits it's effectiveness.

As opposed to Righteous Might, which enlarges anythi.....err, just the caster.

How is that less limiting, again?

 

[Nail]

I don't even know what the damage on such a sword is.

4d6 dam.

It would be a Huge greatsword, not Gargantuan.

The Monkey Grip feat ain't all that, actually. The -2 penalty to hit quite easily compensates for the extra damage. Run the numbers.

 

[Pinotage]

4d6 dam.

It would be a Huge greatsword, not Gargantuan.

The Monkey Grip feat ain't all that, actually. The -2 penalty to hit quite easily compensates for the extra damage. Run the numbers.

Yes, I know. I briefly played a disarming fighter with the Monkey Grip feat, and that -2 hurt a lot. In any event, I wanted to point out the damage. Got confused with Shillelagh which does increase a quarterstaff by two size categories, I believe. Take a modest Str 16, on a fighter 1, give him 50 gp enlarge person, and he's easily doing 4d6+6 on a two-handed strike, average 20 hp. A bit much for a first level character and a 50 gp potion, IMO.

Pinotage

 

[dcollins]

The main problem with all of these spells is that d20 does not even follow its own rules for size increases (from M.M. Table 4-2: Changes to Statistics by Size). Every single one of these spells (above) uses a different set of stat changes.

That's also true for the actual creature descriptions. If you look in the Monster Manual "Animals" section, for creatures with a variety of listed sizes (snakes, spiders, etc.) they don't follow the table increases, either. Most often a size increase gives about +4 Str, for example.

 

[Storm Raven]

Yes, I know. I briefly played a disarming fighter with the Monkey Grip feat, and that -2 hurt a lot. In any event, I wanted to point out the damage. Got confused with Shillelagh which does increase a quarterstaff by two size categories, I believe. Take a modest Str 16, on a fighter 1, give him 50 gp enlarge person, and he's easily doing 4d6+6 on a two-handed strike, average 20 hp. A bit much for a first level character and a 50 gp potion, IMO.

The same character with Power Attack instead of Monkey Grip, using it for two points (to exactly simulate the loss on the attack roll that Monkey Grip causes) would deal 2d6+8 damage, or 15 on average. For 50 gold you get the ability to deal 5 more hit points per hit on average for ten rounds (and you aren't guaranteed to hit every round). Given that most 1st level fighters miss more often than they hit, and these guys are going to be worse than most in that regard (+1 BAB, +3 Strength, -2 for Monkey Grip or Power Attack, the bonus to Strength from Enlarge Person is exactly offset by the size penalty to attacks, total +2 to attacks, will miss an AC 15 opponent quite a bit), that's a net gain of about 1-2 points of damage per round on average. That doesn't seem that out of line.

 

[Pinotage]

Hmm. That makes sense. Thanks!

Pinotage

 

[Nail]

The interesting bit of Storm Raven's Point, just in case you missed it: Power Attack is better than Monkey Grip.

2-hd Sword, Str 16, Power Attack for 2: 2d6+8 --ave: 15 hp dam

Large 2-hd Sword, Str 16, -2 Atk from Monkey Grip: 3d6+4 --ave: 14.5 hp dam

Get it?

 

[dcollins]

Quick follow-up: If you analyze the MM sharks, snakes, centipedes, scorpions, spiders (stuff with at least 3+ size categories defined), you find it's pretty consistent to get +4 Str, no Dex change, mostly no Con change, some variation in Natural Armor, per size increase. (Exact same for 3.0 skeletons & zombies.) In fact, that's what I use when I'm actually designing or advancing monsters on my own.

 

[Wonko the Sane]

IIRC, the size increase-related Strength, Con, Natural Armor, etc. boost table is for creature advancement, and nothing else.