silentounce
First Post
Ok, I understand the reasoning behind this rule change for 4e. Basically, it's less complicated and makes for a smaller weapons table. But I have two issues which I'd wish to house rule. The first is relatively simple but involves the second.
1. I'm going to add small size weapons to the PHB, and to my game in general. Pretty much every weapon in the PHB will have analogs on the small end for gnomes, halflings, goblins, and the like. If you're going to go into realism (not that you have to) hand/grip size is a big reason that you shouldn't see a halfling wielding a weapon made for a human, etc. Plus, if you don't give small PCs the option to use weapons sized for themselves it really handicaps their weapon selection. It just makes sense to me that a halfling should be able to use a weapon that was made for his size, ANY weapon. Okay, so that's easy enough, but it leads me to the second problem. The way they have the damage scaling to size in the PHB. I figured that I can just go in reverse of the tables listed to scale to small and then I noticed I didn't like how they did the scaling.
2. All right, this is the scaling in the PHB:
One handed: d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, 2d6, 2d8, 2d10
Two handed: d8, 2d4, d10, d12, 2d6, 2d8, 2d10
I find it a bit weird that it's exactly the same but they threw in a 2d4 in two-handed section. Was that just to make two different sets? I don't see why it's necessary as it further complicates things. *shrug* Okay, let's crunch the average numbers using the one-handed progression: 2.5, 3.5, 4.5, 5.5, 6.5, 7, 9, 11. Ok, there's obviously a slight hiccup when you go to the 2d numbers. Previously, it was +1, but then a +.5, followed by +2s.
Now, two-handed: 4.5, 5, 5.5, 6.5, 7, 9, 11. All kinds of messed up, +.5, +.5, +1, +.5, +2, +2. This is what drew my attention to begin with. I had a PC who made a minotaur great weapon fighter. This allowed him to wield large size weapons. He chose greataxe. So, we look in the book to find out what to adjust the d12 to. 2d6? A whopping .5 higher? And not only that, it only increases his average, it does nothing to his max. He'd still crit the same, too, granted, with a higher average on his crit roll.
In my opinion this unbalances the system. The weapons in the PHB are balanced very well with trade offs between Prof bonus, Damage, 1vs2 handed, Properties, etc. But when you don't bump the large size weapons consistently this breakdown. Let's make a few comparisons.
Medium Battleaxe, +2, d10, Axe, Versatile
Medium Greataxe, +2, d12, Axe, High crit
Large Battleaxe, same but d12
Large Greataxe, same but 2d6
In the medium case the two handed weapon had high crit and did 2 points more damage on average. Now, with the large, the two handed weapon has high crit but only does .5 more damage on average??? It gets even better if a character decides to wield the large battleaxe with two hands because it's versatile. It will do MORE damage on average. Yeah, the high crit balances this out. But the medium weapon also has that property in addition to doing more average damage even when both are wielded with two hands. In the majority of cases the one-handed weapons get a greater benefit from a size increase than the two-handed ones.
My quick solution to my PCs problem was to house rule that a large greataxe does 1d12+1 damage. Now, I'm going to propose an overhauled system. The main principle is that in order to maintain the balance built into 4e weapon design that weapon scaling should be more consistent.
Here goes, I'm coming up with this as I type so bear with me.
All weapon damages listed in the PHB: d4, d6, d8, 2d4, d10, d12, 2d6, 2d8, 2d10.
A quick fix would be simply to say that all large weapons do +1 or +2 damage and all small weapons do -1 or something like that. Personally, I like dice rolling, it adds fun to the game. The subtraction for smaller weapons can cause a problem with getting 0 damage as well. And, adding pluses to base weapons damages could be confusing in the long run. I'm going to relist the above damages as averages: 2.5, 3.5, 4.5, 5, 5.5, 6.5, 7, 9, 11. To me, the problem lies in the middle because you go from a one point increase to a half point then back, and then to a two point. I don't have a problem with an overall increasing trend, it kind of makes sense in a way. But the fluctuation causes problems.
Solution:
Medium weapon damage followed by equivalent small weapon damage, this scaling only goes one way:
d4 d2
d6 d4
d8 d6
2d4 2d3
d10 d8
d12 d10
2d6 d4+d6
Increasing weapon damage from medium to large, one way only:
d4 d6
d6 d8
d8 d10
2d4 d4+d6
d10 d12
d12 d12+1
2d6 d6+d8
I really don't like the +1 for the d12 but anything else threw off the balance. It really only applies to the greataxe anyway, why did they do that? They should have put the d12 to rest with this edition, or gave it to more than one weapon. I just made it a -1 to go to small and a +1 to go to large with every weapon. The other thing I did was make sure that damages with one die roll stayed that way and the same with two die rolls. This keeps the bell curve nature of multiple dice rolling as well as exploding properties consistent with each weapon regardless of size. The above should keep all the balance they built into the system (well done for them, I think) while allowing more flexibility for large or small PCs/NPCs. Well, that's the best I've got right now, my brain's fried from this so I'll back off and see what you guys think. PCs of huge size and greater are a rarity, so I'm not going to tackle that now. Especially, because enlarge person is gone, isn't it? That'd make for a cool ritual. Anyway, I think an increase of more than 1 above the large damages would be necessary.
I hope I haven't babbled too much. Feel free to critique and suggest other methods.
On another note:
I also noticed that the "versatile" trait becomes a handicap for small creatures. Unless I'm reading the rules incorrectly, it seems to me that a small PC has to use two hands to wield a battleaxe, flail, longsword, warhammer, or war pick, yet they can use a scimitar one handed just fine? Throw mace and spear into the two handed pile as well. This basically means that any small character that wishes to use a weapon one handed has two choices, wield a scimitar, or suffer a severe handicap. Adding small size weapons fixes this issue, but it's still weird.
I'm not sure whether or not to keep the rule allowing small characters to wield medium weapons, I may just keep it, adding a similar rule for medium characters to wield large weapons. The way I've scaled the damages it should have little mechanical effect. But we still run into the scimitar problem. I can see PC drow rangers lining up now to dual wield large scimitars. Megadrizzt, yikes! Yeah, I think I may just have to throw out allowing characters to wield weapons of a different size category without a penalty. But forcing small rogues to use a d2 dagger seems like a big punishment as well. Hmmm... it appears that tackling this may be the next issue.
1. I'm going to add small size weapons to the PHB, and to my game in general. Pretty much every weapon in the PHB will have analogs on the small end for gnomes, halflings, goblins, and the like. If you're going to go into realism (not that you have to) hand/grip size is a big reason that you shouldn't see a halfling wielding a weapon made for a human, etc. Plus, if you don't give small PCs the option to use weapons sized for themselves it really handicaps their weapon selection. It just makes sense to me that a halfling should be able to use a weapon that was made for his size, ANY weapon. Okay, so that's easy enough, but it leads me to the second problem. The way they have the damage scaling to size in the PHB. I figured that I can just go in reverse of the tables listed to scale to small and then I noticed I didn't like how they did the scaling.
2. All right, this is the scaling in the PHB:
One handed: d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, 2d6, 2d8, 2d10
Two handed: d8, 2d4, d10, d12, 2d6, 2d8, 2d10
I find it a bit weird that it's exactly the same but they threw in a 2d4 in two-handed section. Was that just to make two different sets? I don't see why it's necessary as it further complicates things. *shrug* Okay, let's crunch the average numbers using the one-handed progression: 2.5, 3.5, 4.5, 5.5, 6.5, 7, 9, 11. Ok, there's obviously a slight hiccup when you go to the 2d numbers. Previously, it was +1, but then a +.5, followed by +2s.
Now, two-handed: 4.5, 5, 5.5, 6.5, 7, 9, 11. All kinds of messed up, +.5, +.5, +1, +.5, +2, +2. This is what drew my attention to begin with. I had a PC who made a minotaur great weapon fighter. This allowed him to wield large size weapons. He chose greataxe. So, we look in the book to find out what to adjust the d12 to. 2d6? A whopping .5 higher? And not only that, it only increases his average, it does nothing to his max. He'd still crit the same, too, granted, with a higher average on his crit roll.
In my opinion this unbalances the system. The weapons in the PHB are balanced very well with trade offs between Prof bonus, Damage, 1vs2 handed, Properties, etc. But when you don't bump the large size weapons consistently this breakdown. Let's make a few comparisons.
Medium Battleaxe, +2, d10, Axe, Versatile
Medium Greataxe, +2, d12, Axe, High crit
Large Battleaxe, same but d12
Large Greataxe, same but 2d6
In the medium case the two handed weapon had high crit and did 2 points more damage on average. Now, with the large, the two handed weapon has high crit but only does .5 more damage on average??? It gets even better if a character decides to wield the large battleaxe with two hands because it's versatile. It will do MORE damage on average. Yeah, the high crit balances this out. But the medium weapon also has that property in addition to doing more average damage even when both are wielded with two hands. In the majority of cases the one-handed weapons get a greater benefit from a size increase than the two-handed ones.
My quick solution to my PCs problem was to house rule that a large greataxe does 1d12+1 damage. Now, I'm going to propose an overhauled system. The main principle is that in order to maintain the balance built into 4e weapon design that weapon scaling should be more consistent.
Here goes, I'm coming up with this as I type so bear with me.
All weapon damages listed in the PHB: d4, d6, d8, 2d4, d10, d12, 2d6, 2d8, 2d10.
A quick fix would be simply to say that all large weapons do +1 or +2 damage and all small weapons do -1 or something like that. Personally, I like dice rolling, it adds fun to the game. The subtraction for smaller weapons can cause a problem with getting 0 damage as well. And, adding pluses to base weapons damages could be confusing in the long run. I'm going to relist the above damages as averages: 2.5, 3.5, 4.5, 5, 5.5, 6.5, 7, 9, 11. To me, the problem lies in the middle because you go from a one point increase to a half point then back, and then to a two point. I don't have a problem with an overall increasing trend, it kind of makes sense in a way. But the fluctuation causes problems.
Solution:
Medium weapon damage followed by equivalent small weapon damage, this scaling only goes one way:
d4 d2
d6 d4
d8 d6
2d4 2d3
d10 d8
d12 d10
2d6 d4+d6
Increasing weapon damage from medium to large, one way only:
d4 d6
d6 d8
d8 d10
2d4 d4+d6
d10 d12
d12 d12+1
2d6 d6+d8
I really don't like the +1 for the d12 but anything else threw off the balance. It really only applies to the greataxe anyway, why did they do that? They should have put the d12 to rest with this edition, or gave it to more than one weapon. I just made it a -1 to go to small and a +1 to go to large with every weapon. The other thing I did was make sure that damages with one die roll stayed that way and the same with two die rolls. This keeps the bell curve nature of multiple dice rolling as well as exploding properties consistent with each weapon regardless of size. The above should keep all the balance they built into the system (well done for them, I think) while allowing more flexibility for large or small PCs/NPCs. Well, that's the best I've got right now, my brain's fried from this so I'll back off and see what you guys think. PCs of huge size and greater are a rarity, so I'm not going to tackle that now. Especially, because enlarge person is gone, isn't it? That'd make for a cool ritual. Anyway, I think an increase of more than 1 above the large damages would be necessary.
I hope I haven't babbled too much. Feel free to critique and suggest other methods.
On another note:
I also noticed that the "versatile" trait becomes a handicap for small creatures. Unless I'm reading the rules incorrectly, it seems to me that a small PC has to use two hands to wield a battleaxe, flail, longsword, warhammer, or war pick, yet they can use a scimitar one handed just fine? Throw mace and spear into the two handed pile as well. This basically means that any small character that wishes to use a weapon one handed has two choices, wield a scimitar, or suffer a severe handicap. Adding small size weapons fixes this issue, but it's still weird.
I'm not sure whether or not to keep the rule allowing small characters to wield medium weapons, I may just keep it, adding a similar rule for medium characters to wield large weapons. The way I've scaled the damages it should have little mechanical effect. But we still run into the scimitar problem. I can see PC drow rangers lining up now to dual wield large scimitars. Megadrizzt, yikes! Yeah, I think I may just have to throw out allowing characters to wield weapons of a different size category without a penalty. But forcing small rogues to use a d2 dagger seems like a big punishment as well. Hmmm... it appears that tackling this may be the next issue.
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