Why is bigger always better?

[Water Bob]

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?

I like the way it is done in the Codex Martialis. There are three range categories: Onset, Melee, and Grapple.

Two of those ranges are already in d20 3.5 games: Melee and Grapple (Grapple range is inside the same square as your opponent).

Onset is used for the fist attack in a melee, but after that, a character has to try to maintain some distance from his opponent if he has a long weapon (kind of like a reach weapon in a d20 game). The spearman would want to maintain Onset range, while the character with the dagger would prefer either Melee or Grapple range.

Mechanically, how this is done in the game is that the weapon is given attack bonuses/penalties a different ranges.

For example....

One-Handed Hunting Spear: +4 to hit at Onset Range; -4 to hit at Melee Range; +2 to Defense.

A typical small dagger: -4 to hit at Onset Range; +2 to hit at Melee Range; -4 to Defense.



So, the spearman will keep trying to keep the range at Onset between himself and the fighter using the dagger. At Onset range, the spearman is +4 to hit and +2 to his AC.

At that range, the dagger user is -4 to hit and -4 to Defense.

Thus, the dagger user will try to get in close, under the spearman's guard. He wants to keep the range at Melee--or even go into Grapple range where the dagger can be used but the spear cannot.

At Melee range, the dagger user has the advantage. He's +2 to hit (the spearman is -4 to hit).



I think that's a pretty good way to integrate the concept with the d20 system. Wish I had thought of it first.

Should you just always get an OA if someone attacks you with a weapon that's shorter than yours?

Is that how it's handled in 3E (or 4E?) D&D? Since I play the Conan game, some of the D&D rules are sketchy to me.

This is handled in Conan, and it's handled in a similar manner that the Codex addresses these issues.

In Conan, it's a +1 bonus to defence for the longer weapon, per weapon category, and it's a -1 penalty to defense for the shorter weapon, per weapon category: Light, One-Handed, Two-handed.

There is no penalty or bonus if the weapons are from the same category.

If there is a one-step difference in category, the user of the smaller weapon receives a -1 AC plenalty while his foe gets a +1 AC bonus.

If there is a two-step difference, the bonus and penalty increases to +2/-2 AC.

Thus, if a character with a dagger (Light weapon) is fighting a foe with a greatsword (Two-Handed weapon), the dagger user would be -2 AC and the greatsword bearer would be +2 AC.

In our situation above, with the one-handed spearman vs. the dagger wielder, the dagger dude would have -1 AC and the spearman would get +1 AC.

 

[S'mon]

Fetishizing? That's not even a word.

Yes it is - see eg here: It is time to stop fetishising hospitals - let's let the axe fall - Telegraph

 

[Aberzanzorax]

fet·ish·ize verb /ˈfetiˌSHīz/ 
fetishised, past participle; fetishised, past tense; fetishises, 3rd person singular present; fetishising, present participle; fetishized, past participle; fetishized, past tense; fetishizes, 3rd person singular present; fetishizing, present participle

1. Have an excessive and irrational commitment to or obsession with (something)

 

[Aberzanzorax]

And wait a second...

Bigger ISN'T always better. I mean, in some cases it is, as with bigger weapons of the same type in rpgs (e.g. dagger to short sword to long sword) or making a weapon a larger size (e.g. making a dagger for a giant) did follow that pattern in 3e.

Weapons :: d20srd.org

However, if we look at different weapons, we see that:

the 9 lb, two handed longspear does 1d8 versus
the 8 lb, two handed greatsword (2d6), falchion (2d4), and greatclub (1d10) versus
the 8 lb, one and a half handed, dwarven waraxe (1d10) or 6lb bastard sword (1d10)

 

[JRRNeiklot]

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.

Please feel free to show me where I insulted you. If I wanted to insult you, I'd, oh I don't know, call you an asshat or something.

And other than a missing hyphen, my grammar is fine. You're missing a comma, btw.

 

[RangerWickett]

Guys, c'mon, chill out. It's a messageboard discussion. Nothing worth getting heated emotions over. We don't need to give the moderators work on the weekends.

 

[Kzach]

We don't need to give the moderators work on the weekends.

It's people like you who undermine the Economy and allow Illegals to work in this great country without paying taxes to our Illustrious Monarch!

I, on the other hand, intend to continue my efforts to preserve and maintain the integrity and security of Moderator Employment. Without them our nation would crumble into Anarchy!

 

[Aus_Snow]

So where do we go from here? Is this a sacred cow now? Is there a way to step back from this Abyss? Do you even care?

It depends what you're modelling, if anything. If that happens to be a reality/history-based thing, in any significant way, then larger weapons - to an extent, and within reason - do indeed pwn.

Take a dagger to a swordfight, and you die. Take a sword to a spearfight, and you die. And so on. Sure, there are exceptions, as there always will be. But rules is the other aspect there.

And as for damage, that is a bit of a trickier beast. Any medieval weapon will mess you up, should you not be armoured and/or defending yourself sufficiently. Concussion, blood loss, shock, haemorrhage, broken bones, punctured lungs, slashed throat, pierced eyeball, disemboweling... the fun never ends!

But whether it makes sense for a sword to be d8 and a dagger d4? Feh. May as well be, really, for all the "simulation" that is being provided anyhow.

 

[Umbran]

Bigger is better in game weapons for the same reason that an amplifier that goes to 11 is more desirable.

 

[RedTonic]

So, I'll just pipe in with my one year of knife fighting experience--did it during kickboxing. Our instructor was an odd dude and insisted we learn knife fighting before unarmed knife defense. What I got from it is that I never, ever want to be in a knife fight.

Barring throwing your knife or doing something sneaky, in a straight fight, the guy with the longer reach will basically always win. I'm just 5'7"; I sparred with gentlemen between 5'9" and 6'6"-ish, IIRC. (This was a pretty formative, and informative, point in my life, so I do remember it pretty well despite intervening years.)

The fighter A with longer reach will have better success at keeping his shorter-reach attacker B away from vital points, even if A takes a number of wounds. Those wounds are likely to be mainly superficial (considering lethality--even if a tendon is cut, you're probably not going to die from it). Meanwhile, A is more likely to be able to touch B in B's special soft lethal places.

My A beat me around the head and in general was extremely effective at keeping me from doing more than attacking his wrists. Being battered and stabbed is an awful way to be.

Now, when I sparred with someone within my size category, things were more even, but possibly even more grisly (had we been using normal knives).

You can more or less get longer reach in one of two obvious ways: 1. be bigger! 2. use a longer weapon!

If I had to fight a guy with a knife... I'd just run away, personally.

So, in terms of damage, it's easy enough to say, with an already abstract system, that the dagger's restricted damage potential is related to the number of superficial wounds likely to be given before a lethal strike.