Reach weapons for large creatures.

[Ysgarran]

Simple question, do reach weapons 'scale up' in reach for large creatures? For example. if an Ogre decides to use a Halberd does he have a 10' reach or a 15' reach? Any rules for this.

thanks,
Ysgarran.

 

[belligerent bard]

Yes, they scale up, so long as the creature uses a weapon that is appropriately sized. For example, if the ogre mentioned were to use a "human-sized" halberd ( a Large weapon), then its reach would only be 10 feet. If the ogre were to use a Huge halberd (which would fit an ogre as the Large halberd fits the human), then it would have a reach of 15 feet.

 

[nathanL]

yes but IS the halbred a reach weapon.
not according to my PHB... could be errata though...

but it does make for a nice one handed axe for an ogre (doing d10 dmg no less) unless it is a huge weapon which means it does 2d6 but is two-handed.

but ya the bard is right on this business of reach as i understand it.

 

[Ketjak]

The Sage says...

Coincidentally, the Sage just replied to me along the same lines:

1. Does a large weapon with reach (for example, a glaive) retain or lose reach when it is scaled down to size: medium for small characters to use?

2. Does a medium weapon with reach (for example, a heavy lance) retain or lose reach when it is scaled down to size: small for small characters to
use?

For each size increase of a reach weapon, increase reach 5 feet. A Huge guisarme has a reach of 10 feet, for instance, while a Gargantuan guisarme has a reach of 15 feet. Decreasing the size of reach weapons quickly makes reach irrelevant. Having a reach of only 5 feet is normal for Medium-size and Small creatures. The important difference is that Tiny creatures using Small reach weapons can fight in melee as if they had 5 feet of reach, meaning they do not have to enter an opponent's area to attack.

- Ketjak

 

[Archer]

Excellent. Its good to have a sage ruling because I forgot where in the core books it mentioned the working of reach weapons for large creatures.

An ogre with a one handed reach weapon has +5' reach and can't attack adjacent, with a two handed reach weapon he has +10' reach and can't attack within 10'. Makes sense.

 

[dcollins]

Excellent. Its good to have a sage ruling because I forgot where in the core books it mentioned the working of reach weapons for large creatures.

I'm pretty sure that there is no place in the core rulebooks which explicitly deals with this issue. It is only implied by particular MM entries which have longer reach with different weapons (Ogre for example, which itself can't fix a particular answer -- it says 10 ft. reach normal, "15-20 ft. with longspear").

 

[Archer]

The monster manual is a core rulebook and it could be extrapolated from the Ogre entry. I knew it was somewhere and I just couldn't find it. The ogre entry... thanks for reminding me. No wonder I couldn't find it. It was bugging me because I knew it was somewhere and I knew what the rule was but I couldn't whip it out and show someone.

 

[Ysgarran]

Thanks for the help.

If you are curious as to what I'm planning:

The characters in my campaign are trying to clean out a temple to the Spider God. They will happen to run into some Driders (large creatures) wielding huge weapons (Glaives increased by one size category).

The Driders will just happen to be fighting from the ceilings...


Ysgarran.

 

[Crothian]

Thanks for the help.

If you are curious as to what I'm planning:

The characters in my campaign are trying to clean out a temple to the Spider God. They will happen to run into some Driders (large creatures) wielding huge weapons (Glaives increased by one size category).

The Driders will just happen to be fighting from the ceilings...


Ysgarran.

Good plan. You can have them drop tings, too. Oil and glue are always good, but so is acid and caltrops.