Why is bigger always better?

[Plane Sailing]

It has been touched on a couple of times already, but worth re-stating - I think the most significant omission in D&D is weapon reach. When I first started D&D many, many years ago lighter weapons were 'intuitively' much faster. But a few years later when watching or having pretend duels with re-enactment guys (and given that these are not real fights, not real weapons yadayada) reach was THE most significant thing.

The guy that had reach dominated the duel. Swords vs daggers? Spears or halberds vs swords? It was only when you got to absurd lengths like Pike (which I believe are expressly for formation fighting?) that it might fall down.

This is also why people hunted boars with boar spears rather than boar daggers, and why any half-way realistic adventurers would want spears or the like to take on ogres, giants and pretty much anything that was size Large or bigger.

So I guess if I personally wanted to make a nod towards realism in D&D I might reduce the significance of damage die (so that weapon choice was a matter of style) and introduce much more granularity in weapon reach - and make reach more significant; perhaps using reach to determine primary initiative and 'rolled initiative' only to decide between people who are at the same reach.

Cheers

 

[Kzach]

But doing so while simultaneously fetishizing knife-fighting and agility as the end-all and be-all of combat?

Fetishizing? That's not even a word.

I never said a dagger was the be-all and end-all of combat. I simply wanted to point out that a small weapon can be just as deadly as a large weapon and that this isn't represented in any real way in D&D.

And trying to repeatedly claim that only your viewpoint represents reality?

By all means, please point out where I've done this, ever.

It's an accepted fact that the D&D system isn't very realistic. Are you going to argue that? Hence why I said, either you accept the game as it is (fun) or you try to make it more realistic (reality). Fun or reality.

I never even HINTED at the viewpoint, "MY WAY IS REALISTIC AND YOU'RE ALL WRONG!" And if I haven't even done that once, then I can hardly "repeatedly claim" it.

If your goal is to ask, "How can we make the utility of daggers in combat more accurately represented in D&D or other RPGs?", then I recommend actually addressing some of the concerns and comments folks have made about your claims.

If your goal instead is simply to ask, "How can we make daggers the most super-awesome weapon in the game, just as they are in real life?"... well then, continue to ask away, but I don't think you'll be finding any useful suggestions from anyone else in this thread.

Now you're just making things up.

Daggers are just one form of weapon which I happened to use as an example a few times to represent my argument that bigger doesn't necessarily equate to more lethal. Hence the question I posed from the get go, "Why is bigger always considered better?"

 

[Kzach]

So I guess if I personally wanted to make a nod towards realism in D&D I might reduce the significance of damage die (so that weapon choice was a matter of style) and introduce much more granularity in weapon reach - and make reach more significant; perhaps using reach to determine primary initiative and 'rolled initiative' only to decide between people who are at the same reach.

And, as I tried to mention earlier, reach is something I wish could be better represented in D&D. Unfortunately because of the way 4e is geared towards miniatures and each PC occupying a 5' cube of "Mine not Yours", it's essentially impossible to do that with anything other than a 'reach' weapon.

I would consider the major advantage of a greatsword to be its reach over a longsword or dagger. Given that it's heavier and more unwieldy than a longsword, I'd say the damage is roughly the same since you'd be able to put more oomph behind the longsword but the natural leverage of the greatsword combined with its mass would compensate. Any strength advantage would be represented by... dun dun DAAAAAH!!!! the Strength mod.

If I had to choose between fighting the world's greatest knife fighter, he having a knife, and I having a baseball bat or Fighting a one legged moron, he having the bat and I the knife, I'd choose the bat every time, unless I was locked in a closet with him.

I get that you're trying to insult me but you might want to try reading through this again and perhaps adjusting your grammar so that you don't end up just insulting yourself.

 

[S'mon]

My 4e Thief PC is very effective and only carries one weapon, his dagger "Mr Pointy".

 

[Water Bob]

One of the things that has always bothered me about D&D and many other systems I've delved into, is the pervading assumption that bigger weapons do more damage. Reality seems to contradict this assumption.

Take daggers as a for instance.

I think that Gygax & Co., when developing the game, wanted to encourage characters to fight with swords and shields--the basic fantasy/medieval tools of war. All other weapons seem to be scaled up or down from that base line.

But, to add to your question, what about bows or crossbows? In 1E AD&D, melee combat was abstract, as it is today. A "hit" scored by a character on an NPC doesn't necessarily mean that the character shoved his sword deep into his enemy because of the hit point system. And, doing a "hit" for 6 points of damage might have meant one swipe of the sword for 6 points, a slash and a stab for 2 points and 4 points respectively, six nicks and cuts that wear the target down, or a lot of other combinations--all because of the abstract nature.

Bows and Crossbows and other distance weapons were treated a tad differently. While damage was still abstract, the actual attack wasn't. The combat round equaled one minute of real time, and in that time, a low level archer could fire his bow twice. This used up two arrows. This mean that each actual attack was not abstract the way it is in melee. Bow and other distance weapon attacks represent actual attacks.

So, if you fire your bow twice, hit twice, and do 9 points of damage to a target NPC that has 32 hit points as a 5th level fighter...what really happened? We know that two arrows were fired a the target. His 32 hit points is reduced to 23 hit points. But, he's not otherwise effected.

He did take some type of wound, too, because, if he healed naturally, it woud take him a week or more to heal back up.

Yet, there are no other wound effects--the character has no penalties placed on him for the wound except for the loss of hit points.






And...let take this one step further to a point that is more in-line with the OP.

You play a 5th level fighter with 32 hit points. You're naked except for a loin cloth, and you're captured. Two guards are walking you to the courtyard to be interrogated by the garrison commander. The two guards walk behind you, both with leveled crossbows at your back.

How many times will a character in this postion try something? Why not? What's the risk? Will the character die? Nope. Even if both guards roll Critical Hits, we're looking at a character with plenty of hit points to keep on fighting.

I've always had a problem with that scenario. Sometimes, I would house-rule the situation (this was before 3E and the Massive Damage rule) to where the character would have to roll a Save vs. Death if either crossbow hit since the guards "had the drop" on the character.

 

[RangerWickett]

If you still have 23 hit points, you're not even 'bloodied.' That crossbow bolt twanged and you wrenched yourself out of the way at the last second. You strained your muscles and banged your knee as you dove out of the way, but the bolt never touched you.

 

[JamesonCourage]

Fetishizing? That's not even a word.

Good one

I never said a dagger was the be-all and end-all of combat. I simply wanted to point out that a small weapon can be just as deadly as a large weapon and that this isn't represented in any real way in D&D.

To humans, knives are a real threat. However, one average knife wound does not equal one average broadsword wound.

Additionally, if you take the scope of creatures faced in D&D, the lower damage die makes some more sense. Dagger versus dire bear, or greatsword versus dire bear? Hand crossbow versus frost giant, or heavy crossbow versus front giant?

These sorts of creatures aren't uncommon in D&D. The idea that you're dealing significant damage to some of these creatures with a greatsword -much less a dagger- is somewhat suspect. Normal bears are hardy enough in real life. Giant, dire bears? Good luck.

As always, play what you like

 

[El Mahdi]

I said swords were better than daggers, not swords were better than all other weapons. Still, point taken--daggers would have vanished too if they didn't have their uses.

That said, swords popped up all over the world as soon as metallurgy was advanced enough to make them. Various combinations of spear, bow, and sword were the weapons of choice for most armies from antiquity to the Industrial Revolution. Daggers have never, to my knowledge, been anything but a sidearm. That should tell you something.

Aahhh. I misunderstood the context of what you posted. My Bad.

You're right. As concerns war and combat, daggers are essentially just a sidearm - a backup weapon at best. They were used predominantly for eating and utility, occasionally for a battlefield coup de grace, and as a weapon only when nothing else was available.

I disagree with the OP in that I believe in single combat, a knife wielder is at a disadvantage against an opponent armed with a sword - any sword. But as to potential lethality, a sword is only more lethal because it has a higher likelihood of inflicting a lethal wound due to it's reach - not because the wounds it produces are bigger. This to me means that mechanically, I think weapons shouldn't have significantly different damage ratings, but should have attack bonuse to model things like reach (I think they should also have defensive bonuses, but core rules don't use Defense...)

 

[Water Bob]

If you still have 23 hit points, you're not even 'bloodied.' That crossbow bolt twanged and you wrenched yourself out of the way at the last second. You strained your muscles and banged your knee as you dove out of the way, but the bolt never touched you.

Sure. That's the way I usually reason it out, too. I'll say something like, "One crossbow bolt zipped right past your chin, leaving a bloody trench in your neck where it grazed you. The other shot, you sidestepped, twisting your foot a little."

And, the week, plus or minus, that the character will have to rest for natural healing is how long it takes for those two wounds to heal.

You're missing my point, though...and part of the point of the OP: It is NEVER possible for two guardsmen with crossbows leveled at you to kill you if you've got a few levels under your belt and the hit points to go along with those levels.

At 1st level, sure, those two guardsmen are scary.

At 2nd level, less so, but they can still kill you.

At 3rd level, you're starting to think about doing something stupid (heroic?) to get away.

At 4th level, you'll probably try it.

At 5th level and up, why not do something stuipd? You've got little to lose because your hit points will easily cover any damage done by the crossbows if they hit.

 

[RangerWickett]

I don't think it's a problem if "random guys with crossbows" can't hold a higher-level PC prisoner. It's a problem when "elite guards with crossbows" can't do it. HP scale; damage practically doesn't.



Switching to an earlier topic, how would you model reach in an RPG? 3e had AoOs, 4e has threatening reach, but those only worked for giants vs. men. What about spear vs. knife?

Should you just always get an OA if someone attacks you with a weapon that's shorter than yours? We'd need to add 'reach' entries to weapons, probably short, long, and very long. This highly encourages catching enemies flat-footed if you've got a small weapon. Or feinting so they leave an opening you can rush through.

Or would it be simpler than that? Keep reach categories, but if your weapon is shorter, you take a penalty to attacks?

Maybe make it so close weapons are great in a grapple, and long weapons aren't. People like monks could have moves so when someone attacks them, they can deflect the attack and grab the enemy, giving them the advantage since now you're in close combat.