Vorpal weapons

[Gilwen]

In your various worlds do you consider the size of a creature as a factor to weather or not someone can chop off it's head with a vorpal weapon?

Last week my players where fighting a 30 ft titan. At the time it seemed kind of silly to let the player chop of the things head when the player couldn't even reach the head. It was just a side plot so I let the beheading occur.
Any thought on this?

Thanks,

Bryan

 

[Darkness]

There was a rule for that in 2e.

If the target was "larger than man-sized," you needed to succeed by 1 point more than usually.

 

[dcollins]

DMG p. 187, "Vorpal... The DM may have to make judgement calls about this sword's effect."

Can't reach it, can't cut it, that's this DM's call.

 

[Gilwen]

Thanks!

 

[kreynolds]

Last week my players where fighting a 30 ft titan.

The vorpal weapon severs both of the Titan's legs at the calf, mortally wounding it with a single blow. That's this DMs call. Sometime's Vorpal can be wierd (which is why I eventually ended up using my own version), but I try not to make +5 market price enhancements worthless.

 

[Gilwen]

I had thought about that or kicking up the weapons crit multiplier for such creatures.

Bryan

 

[Jeremy]

Time seemed to slow down for our heroes as the titan's mighty swing came down, diving out of the way he saw that the titan's miss had caused it to stumble, and it's head with it's huge wheel-sized eyes were wide as he tried to catch his balance doubled-over and his head was seperated from his shoulders. It made a thunderous crash as it slammed into the ground, it's expression one of disbelief.

Circumstances can be stretched to make it fit, or not as you see fit.

But that's one situation I can see. A swing of a 30 ft creature down to a 5'11" foot creature is going to have the creature well bent over, if he really puts something in it, then misses, he could very well stumble and have to put a hand out to catch his balance, bringing his head even lower to lower his center of gravity and catch his balance.

Can't be easy to fight a creature that barely comes up to your ankle when he doesn't just squish on impact and you really have to clobber him to put him down. Especially when he's got AC 50 due to magick.

 

[Gilwen]

LOL If I was 30ft+ tall i'd just kick and stomp the snot out of them, would never have to bend over. Of course then again I like Titan monks too

Bryan

 

[magnas_veritas]

Re: Re: Vorpal weapons

The vorpal weapon severs both of the Titan's legs at the calf, mortally wounding it with a single blow. That's this DMs call. Sometime's Vorpal can be wierd (which is why I eventually ended up using my own version), but I try not to make +5 market price enhancements worthless.

But what about that vorpal kukri? What does it do to the titan?

A sort-of house rule we have is that if the weapon's too small to behead the target, the vorpal part doesn't fully activate. I'm not sure if there's an auto-coup-de-grace save involved, given that we haven't used any vorpal kukris on any fire giants lately. But slashing their throat open, even if the head doesn't come off, should be hard to live through.

Brad

 

[Victim]

If you have a Vorpal weapon, but don't have a way to Fly, then your priorities might be wrong.