Reach weapons and big creatures.

[RangerWickett]

A longspear doubles a human's 5-ft. reach to 10 ft. A whip triples it to 15 ft.

For a troll, would a large longspear double his reach to 20 ft? Would his whip reach 30 ft?

A colossal titan has a reach of 25 ft. Can he whip things from 75 ft. away? Can he whirlwind attack everything in a 75-ft. radius? Sure, it's just a whip, but a colossal creature's whip does (assuming a 34 Str) 2d6+12 damage. It's rather hard to close the distance on such a foe.

 

[Pax]

Yep - Reach weapons double the wielder's natural reach, if the weapon is appropriately sized for the wielder (a troll wouldn't get 20' of reach from the Human-sized longspear, but form a troll-sized spear, he would!)

A Collossal titanwith a collossal Longspear has a reach of 50', yes.

The Whip isn't written as being "triple natural reach", but that certainly makes sense, and I'll happily *yoink* that idea for my campaign, with many thanks! ^_^

[Edit]Oh, keep in mind - the Whip does NOT threaten the squares within it's "pseudo-reach", so no AoO's for closing on a whip-wielder, sorry to say.[/Edit]

 

[Liquidsabre]

This one has always puzzled me: a halfling with small-sized spiked chain, still has a reach of 5-10ft?? The same as a human with a medium-sized spiked chain, weird.

 

[Pax]

Small and Medium creatures have the same reach - 5'. Thus, with an appropriately-scaled reach weapon, they still have the same reach - 10'.

 

[RangerWickett]

[Edit]Oh, keep in mind - the Whip does NOT threaten the squares within it's "pseudo-reach", so no AoO's for closing on a whip-wielder, sorry to say.[/Edit]

True, but if he can whirlwind attack every round, you'd better be able to move faster than 75 ft. *grin*

 

[Methos of Aundair]

That’s one problem I have with the spiked chain. Take a large creature wielding a huge sized spike chain, your talking a 20’ reach! And they get to attack opponents adjacent to them.

 

[Kaleon Moonshae]

Is this right? I haven't found anything that says it doubles. I always thought it just added the size category reach onto it. A large creature with a 10' reach using a longspear would have a 15' reach. If someone can show me where it talks about doubling I would appreciate it since we are playtesting some of my dm's rules this weekend and my half-ogre is wielding a collosal glaive (monkey grip), what would his reach then be with that? By your logic a large glaive (reach weapon) would give him 20ft reach, or would only a huge glaive give him that? IF a large glaive gives him 20ft reach and then you scale it up two notches would that then be 40ft reach? We had been playing it as though he got a 25' reach (large glaive = 5' reach, huge flaive = 10' reach, colo glaive = 15' reach + natural reach of 10')

 

[Pax]

First off, my answer uses 3.5e rules, not 3.0 rules. In 3.0, you should refer to Savage Species instead.

Open your DMG to pages 308 through 310 - those are the exact areas threatened by creatures of various size, both with and without Reach weapons. In all cases, the "with" is twice as much as the "without".

Now turn to page 29 of the same book; in theleft hand column, about 2/3of the way down, is the heading Big Creatures; the first sentence under that reads:

Large or larger creatures with reach weapons can strike out to double their natural reach but can't use their weapons at their natural reach or less.

That good enough?

 

[Kaleon Moonshae]

First off, my answer uses 3.5e rules, not 3.0 rules. In 3.0, you should refer to Savage Species instead.

Open your DMG to pages 308 through 310 - those are the exact areas threatened by creatures of various size, both with and without Reach weapons. In all cases, the "with" is twice as much as the "without".

Now turn to page 29 of the same book; in theleft hand column, about 2/3of the way down, is the heading Big Creatures; the first sentence under that reads:


That good enough?

I don't own the dmg (and our DM is runing a highly tweaked setting), so the page numbers aren't a help;P I use the SRD cause frankly I kinda have better things to spend my money on (like the IKCG and the new Dragonmech) but I do thank you for telling me where it is, will tell my dm and see if he wants to use that 3.5 varient. I don't know though, it sounds based on the whole relative weapon size thing which I still think is the worst rule I have ever seen. Let's make it even harder on the halflings and gnomes where treasure is concerned, not to mention harder on the dm now that he has to roll the size of every single piece of weaponry we find and make sure that we fight at least one halfling or gnome npc of equal level so we can be sure that our halfling gets a fair share of the loot and doesn't get jipped. We still use a lot of 3.0 and are still finding all these little differences that seperate aren't very changing but taken together means we have to completely learn the system anew.

end rant: Now, I like a lot of the stuff in 3.5, don't get me wrong. I just feel that it is a pain to have relearn the entire system. People say you don't have to, just learnt he new rules... well since the new rules are so small and spread out throughout the entire thing the only real way to handle that is to relearn it all over. I think 3.5 is a great game and is great for people who haven't played 3.0, but for some of us who played 3.0 since the beginning and have huge swathes of areas memorized we now have to second guess everything we think we know, lol. It kinda makes you feel like an idiot.

Thanks for the info, starting to feel like I don't know any of the 3.5 rules anymore

one other question then: Do larger weapons with reach effect that? Or is it always just double?

 

[Hypersmurf]

I don't know though, it sounds based on the whole relative weapon size thing which I still think is the worst rule I have ever seen.

It uses relative weapon size, but it's essentially identical to the core 3E rules. In the 3E PHB, you'll find the same rule - a Large creature or larger with a reach weapon doubles its natural reach.

It doesn't even mention "of appropriate size" in the 3E PHB, so strictly, a Cloud Giant wielding a normal longspear as a light weapon threatens 20', 25', and 30', as written.

Savage Species suggested a variant rule whereby a given weapon modifies the wielder's reach by a certain amount, but you can't really claim "3.5 made up a horrible new rule for reach weapons", because it's the same rule that was in the 3E PHB.

-Hyp.