Huge Balor's reach with whip

[kreynolds]

A standard balor, large, has 20 ft reach with his whip. Would a huge balor have 25 ft reach or 30 ft reach? Medium creatures can normally attack up to 5 ft away, but the whip triples that distance. For a large creature, it only doubles it. What about huge?

 

[prospero63]

A standard balor, large, has 20 ft reach with his whip. Would a huge balor have 25 ft reach or 30 ft reach? Medium creatures can normally attack up to 5 ft away, but the whip triples that distance. For a large creature, it only doubles it. What about huge?

The whip doesn't triple the distance per se though. It has a fixed distance of 15 ft.

A whip deals nonlethal damage. It deals no damage to any creature with an armor bonus of +1 or higher or a natural armor bonus of +3 or higher. The whip is treated as a melee weapon with 15-foot reach, though you don’t threaten the area into which you can make an attack. In addition, unlike most other weapons with reach, you can use it against foes anywhere within your reach (including adjacent foes).

Now, reach weapons are defined as:

Most reach weapons double the wielder’s natural reach, meaning that a typical Small or Medium wielder of such a weapon can attack a creature 10 feet away, but not a creature in an adjacent square.

Obviously the whip description supercedes that. So how to handle the Balor? I would adjudicate it as thus

1) Normal reach of a balor whip is defined as 20ft.
2) Large to huge increases normal reach by 5ft
thus
3) Reach of a Balor with a whip that has somehow become huge is 25ft

Under the same logic, a normal whip would increment to 20ft when a medium creature becomes large (which happens to coincide with the reach of a balor, further strengthening the logic IMO)

 

[Baby Samurai]

I would say 30 ft.

 

[prospero63]

I would say 30 ft.

Under what logic?

 

[chriton227]

I would treat the whip at having +10' reach. So for a medium creature with a reach of 5', that would be 15'. For a large Balor with base 10' reach, that would be 20'. For a huge Balor with a base of 15', that would be 25'.

The only counterarguement coming to mind is that all of the other reach weapons are multiple of base reach, so a Large balor with a spiked chain would have 20' reach, and a huge Balor with a spiked chain would have 30' reach. I have always viewed the advantage of the whip as its ability to strike beyond normal reach range (which makes up for the rest of the horrible game stats for the weapon). I would not have any issue with a GM making a house ruling that the whip tripled reach (so 30' for a large Balor and 45' for a huge Balor).

 

[Baby Samurai]

Under what logic?

The rules.

 

[UltimaGabe]

The rules.

Ha ha, come now... we all know the the rules and logic are two completely separate entities.

That said, simply saying "the rules" with no rules citation doesn't really mean anything to anyone.

 

[IanB]

IMC, it would be 25', but I house rule reach with creatures larger than medium for balance reasons (a reach weapon is a flat +5, there is no doubling, etc., in my game. Thus a whip would be a flat +10.)

 

[mvincent]

1) Normal reach of a balor whip is defined as 20ft.
2) Large to huge increases normal reach by 5ft
thus
3) Reach of a Balor with a whip that has somehow become huge is 25ft

Having a huge whip give less reach than say, a huge spiked chain doesn't make much sense (and goes against precedence).

Besides, I don't believe a balor's whip is treated as a "normal" whip anyway, i.e. it can entangle people, it probably still does damage to armored opponents, and it is described as "a long, flexible weapon with many tails tipped with hooks, spikes, and balls. The weapon deals bludgeoning and slashing damage".

At huge size, I would have to say it would have similar reach to a huge spiked chain: 30'. This would seem to fit precedence

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Having a huge whip give less reach than say, a huge spiked chain doesn't make much sense (and goes against precedence).

A whip isn't a reach weapon, it is special unto itself. Comparing the effects on size to it and that of reach weapons doesn't work. Another vote for 25', considering the examples sited, it seems to hold the most consistency.