Weapons that scale to the wielder?

[Drake M]

I was wondering if there's a weapon ability that causes the weapon to scale in size to the wielder (i.e. it would be tiny for a tiny owner, medium for a medium owner, colossal for a colossal owner, etc.)?

If not, what kind of modifier would that run? +1? +2?

 

[Jackinthegreen]

The Sizing weapon enhancement in the Magic Item Compendium on page 43 is a flat 5,000 gold. It is a command activation enhancement that's a swift action to use and will change the weapon's size into any size until another swift action is used to change it, or its ability gets suppressed by something like Dispel Magic.

 

[Razjah]

I've run games where magic gear re-sized to someone who attuned to it. This took a couple hours. Then it re-sized to allow a hafling to use a giant's sword or anything in between.

I don't give out too much treasure so letting the PCs re-size gear wasn't a big deal. Plus the world has stuff like owlbears, a magic sword that fits the user isn't out of place at all. I wouldn't bother with it, unless it is plot relevant somehow. Just let all magic gear change sizes, or create a low-level spell that someone in the party can memorize periodically to give the PCs the ability to use some new gear.

If you went with the modifier, it would be +1 at the max and more likely to be a flat fee of N thousand GP. It is a really weak ability that is only used when the weapon changes hands. Plus it just seems like more work, I say let the PCs get a new toy!

 

[delericho]

Huh, that's odd - I would have sworn there was a rule that magic items automatically resized for the user, but I can't find it now.

I don't think such an ability is even worth a +1 enhancement - it's more like a +1,000gp enhancement, if even that. To be honest, I'd just let things resize automatically.

(Note that even in this case the sizing enhancement [MENTION=6678119]Jackinthegreen[/MENTION] mentions is still somewhat useful - some few characters can make use of items that are larger than their own size, and so may want an 'oversize' magic item.

 

[Rath the Brown]

Huh, that's odd - I would have sworn there was a rule that magic items automatically resized for the user, but I can't find it now.

You may be thinking about the rule regarding clothing or jewelry...

Size And Magic Items

When an article of magic clothing or jewelry is discovered, most of the time size shouldn’t be an issue. Many magic garments are made to be easily adjustable, or they adjust themselves magically to the wearer. Size should not keep characters of various kinds from using magic items.

There may be rare exceptions, especially with racial specific items.

Armor and Weapon Sizes

Armor and weapons that are found at random have a 30% chance of being Small (01-30), a 60% chance of being Medium (31-90), and a 10% chance of being any other size (91-100).

Also note the exception for armor and weapons, since they do not normally resize.

The DMG has further text, to clarify that the rule is there so as not to penalize people wanting to play characters of a certain weight/body type/gender etc.

When an article of magic clothing or jewelry is discovered, most of the time size shouldn’t be an issue. Many magic garments are made to be easily adjustable, or they adjust themselves magically to the wearer. As a rule, size should not keep overweight characters, characters of various genders, or characters of various kinds from using magic items. Players shouldn’t be penalized for choosing a halfling character or deciding that their character is especially tall.

Only say “It doesn’t fit” if there’s a good reason. Cloaks made specifically by the selfish, self-absorbed drow elves might fit only elves. Dwarves might make items usable only by dwarf-sized and dwarf-shaped characters to keep their items from being used against them. Such items should be the exceptions, however, not the rule.

 

[Jackinthegreen]

Rath has it perfectly. The original rules were that armor and weapons don't resize. Part of that is they were envisioned to be the most significant items for most characters. Another part is that the materials the armor and weapons are made from can be valuable in their own right and have costs per pound or something similar; thus, simply having such items resize negates some of the rules for those items and materials.

The biggest example of special materials having size limits is with dragonhide armors. Here are the rules for them. Basically, a suit of full plate dragonhide armor for a medium creature would require killing a colossal dragon.

In practice, even a cursory analysis of the economy of D&D reveals it's a joke and thus the rules for those special materials really won't mean much overall. It's certainly possible to make a scenario or story hook where the amount of materials matter and even be a significant part of the story, but it's also entirely possible to handwave them to get on with other things.

 

[delericho]

You may be thinking about the rule regarding clothing or jewelry...

Could be. I did check both my 3.0e and 3.5e DMGs and so saw the rules you quoted but not the ones I thought I remembered.

 

[nijineko]

just beware allowing your monk player to take that one necklace with sizing, unless you want a whole lot of immature jokes.