Kaleon Moonshae
When TrueNight falls
Hypersmurf said: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.
Actually this is one time you read me wrong hyp But thank you for the reply. What I said was I disliked the relative weapon size rules. It had nothing to do with reach. I specifically named halflings and gnomes. The rules I am talking about are those atrocious ones that state a halfling must wield a halfling weapon or he takes penalties. I am sorry if I have never seen this done in literature. Even in tolk the humans are able to wield sting as a dagger or the halflings wield it as a short sword, as in 3.0. I just find it a clunky rule that menas the dm has to spend extra as long on treasure figuring out if each item is size x or not. He also has to be sure to place enough small sized weapon wielding critters in his campaign so that the halfling doesn't get jipped on treasure.
"Oh another dagger, too bad pip over there would take a negative for using it, guess that means I'll get this one too. Don't worry pip, eventually we'll find an opponent your size, even though we are in predominantly human area."
Yes, the halfling can have things specially made, which takes time and money and is no where near as fun as finding loot. I just agree with our DM in saying it was a wasted effort, it's been tried in games before and it always punishes the smaller (and larger) characters.
Another point. In a mainly human country where halflings and gnomes are encountered rarely (which can be found in many adventures and settings) how many small town blacksmiths are going to know how to forge a halfling longsword? What are they going to do? They are going to make a short sword and then hand it to the halfling and say "here's your longsword sir." It is a nice bit of flavor they could have put as an optional rule in the dmg, but as a standard rule it harms to the players of small characters.
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