Setting Spears against a Charge...

[ptolemy18]

Hello everybody,

My players have just acquired a bunch of magic longspears. Reading the description of longspears, I see that they do double damage when readied against a charging opponent.

But...! Longspears are also a two-handed weapon! :/ And (unless I'm mixing up 3.0 and 3.5 rules in some way) two-handed weapons allow characters to use 1.5x their normal strength bonus to damage. (Right?) So that, for instance, if a character with an 18 STR is using a two-handed longspear, they do 1d8+6 instead of 1d8+4.

So my question is: if a longspear is set against a charging opponent, do you apply the 1.5x strength bonus for using a two-handed weapon, and THEN double the total damage? In the above example, would the character do 2d8+12 damage? (!?!?!)

I know that it's standard D&D 3.0/3.5 that, when something is doubled twice, it's tripled instead. But what about in this case, since it's a 1.5 multiplier to STR, and *then* a 2x multiplier to the whole damage, presumably including STR?

Any help would be awesome!

Thanks,

Jason

 

[Lord Pendragon]

(dice + 1.5 str) x 2.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Double damage really means "roll damage twice."

So, they'd do: 1d8+6 + 1d8+6 = 2d8+12

 

[Crothian]

and it really isn't that bad. most people don't charge when you notice the enemy is holding spears

 

[azmodean]

unless they're invisible spears! Or spears majiked to look like kitchen knives!

But seriously, what about invisible weapons or weapons under an illusion spell of some kind? How would that work?

Oh, and er, it doubles the total damage, as has been said.

 

[Crothian]

But seriously, what about invisible weapons or weapons under an illusion spell of some kind? How would that work?

I imagine that would work very well.

 

[ptolemy18]

(dice + 1.5 str) x 2.

Wow. My on-the-fly judgment was right... but it really is a lot... Particularly since this was a raging-barbarian-half-orc holding the spear for a total of...

1d8+9 x 2 = 2d8+18 (!!!!)

I guess in future, enemies will STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM THAT CHARACTER when he's got a spear readied.

Jason

 

[IcyCool]

Wow. My on-the-fly judgment was right... but it really is a lot... Particularly since this was a raging-barbarian-half-orc holding the spear for a total of...

1d8+9 x 2 = 2d8+18 (!!!!)

I guess in future, enemies will STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM THAT CHARACTER when he's got a spear readied.

Jason

I find it a bit odd, thematically speaking, that the raging barbarian set his spear and waited for the enemy to come at him rather than run screaming at them with the intent to bury said spear in their chest. But YMMV.

 

[Shin Okada]

Long Spear is good against animals with pounce ability. But intelligent creatures will rarely charge when they see spears are readied. So this tactics is rather a kind of deterrent. It will discourage people to charge. But you will rarely actually inflicts that double damage.

Of course, Steadfast Boots (from AEG) and Long Spear is an excellent combination and changes everything.

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

And here I thought this was a thread about this



AR