Excerpt: Weapons (MERGE)

[Wulfram]

The main thing they seem to be doing with dual wielding is ensuring that it won't work with (non-ranger) powers.

This makes in a lot easier to balance - all they have to do is make sure that the dual wieding powers are as good as other powers of a similar level and they're fine, with no worries about synergies with other powers making it too good.

 

[parvatiquinta]

From the Paragon Paths article:

Paragon feat
Spear Push Str 15, Dex 13 Add 1 square to distance pushed with spear or polearm.

Polearms and spears push. A lance is probably qualified as 'spear'.

That's what I thought too the first time I saw that, but on second thought, it doesn't really imply that spears or polearms push. The push effect could have to come from a power.

 

[Lizard]

I wouldn't be surprised if there is more into weapon size categories they don't want out yet. I can't imagine a smaller person would make a normal sized weapon when they can't use them properly. Simplicity or no, that's just silly.

To you it's silly. To me it's silly. To the designers and a certain segment of the local populace, it's "thinking too hard about fantasy".

3.5 weapon sizing made perfect sense. Halflings do not wield human longswords two-handed, they wield halfling-sized longswords. The 3.0 system was broken and was fixed; why re-break it for 4e? It does not make sense.

 

[hong]

To you it's silly. To me it's silly. To the designers and a certain segment of the local populace, it's "thinking too hard about fantasy".

Indeed. And soon, you too will learn the benefits of not thinking too hard about fantasy.

3.5 weapon sizing made perfect sense. Halflings do not wield human longswords two-handed, they wield halfling-sized longswords. The 3.0 system was broken and was fixed; why re-break it for 4e? It does not make sense.

This is easily solved by simply banning halflings.

 

[AZRogue]

What's the difference between a halfling sized longsword and a shortsword? I ask because I didn't play 3.5 but didn't have a problem with the 3.0 system, so this doesn't seem that different to me.

Isn't a halfling sized longsword basically a shortsword anyway?

EDIT: Probably doesn't seem that much an issue to me since I've only once, over the last 20+ years, had a player choose a gnome or halfling PC. That one halfling was one of the most memorable PCs we've ever had, of course, but it was the only time. No one's ever played a character that didn't match their own sex, though, either. Every group is different, I guess.

 

[hong]

What's the difference between a halfling sized longsword and a shortsword? I ask because I didn't play 3.5 but didn't have a problem with the 3.0 system, so this doesn't seem that different to me.

Isn't a halfling sized longsword basically a shortsword anyway?

The fact that D&D is not and has never been a size-equivariant ruleset continues to cause angst among those who persist in thinking too hard about fantasy.

 

[Aloïsius]

I don't like the way reach is supposed to work. So, a guy with a lance can fight an adjacent ennemy without problems ? And, even more, he can take AoO against adjacent targets, but not against those that are at the intended distance of use of the weapon ? House rule at 11...

 

[hong]

I don't like the way reach is supposed to work. So, a guy with a lance can fight an adjacent ennemy without problems ? And, even more, he can take AoO against adjacent targets, but not against those that are at the intended distance of use of the weapon ? House rule at 11...

Have you SEEN Seung Mina at work?

 

[Lizard]

Ah, thank god for that. I hated with a passion the complexity that was introduced with 3.5.

Halflings do not warrant an entire category of weapon size specifically for them, especially if they're not a dominant race with their own cities and culture.

Second dumbest rule in 3.5.

And if your campaign features, as the one I'm in does, small, medium, and large PCs, with access to size-changing spells, or changes in size with level gain (Savage Species)?

Simply shifting weapon damage up or down is easy. Remembering complex if/then rules is harder.

The 3.5 rules acknowledged that many campaigns went well beyond core and didn't assume the only small race was halflings, or that there would be no huge or tiny PCs. It made it easy to give frost giants maces and pixies crossbows. 4e seems to be much less flexible.

 

[med stud]

Weapon sizes, especially concerning halflings: Good! It was more of a hassle than it was worth in 3.5.

Two weapon fighting: I think this is the only way to get it right. In 2e it was overpowered, in 3e it was underpowered. As many have brought up before me, two weapon fighting might still be viable since some powers demand a light blade while other powers demand something else. There will most likely be powers for two weapon wielding as well.

Weapon groups: I'm fairly neutral on this.

PS: A historical long sword is a one and a half- hander, much like bastard swords. The main difference between a bastard sword and a long sword is that the bastard sword is more modern and has a more tapered point. The D&D longsword is more like an arming sword or a wide bladed cut-and-thrust sword. The defenition of broadsword is that it is a sword with a wider blade than a rapier, essentially any sword.

The only historically confirmed fighting style involving two equal length long blades that I know of is Musashi's style and the Italian case of rapiers. The latter is fencing with two rapiers.

Finally, trying to prove anything about two weapon fighting by swinging swords or kitchen knives in the air is futile. BTW, that goes for any swinging in the air.