3.5 Weapon Size Rules

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Username17
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Re: Complete Divine Preview

Post by Username17 »

Please tell me where it says either of those things are possible in the rules, and I'll concede you have a point, because those scenarios are indeed rediculous.

However, I don't think it says that.


If a weapon is "one handed" for a creature of size X, it is "light" for a creature of size X+1, and "two handed" for a creature of size X-1 (and so on). It also acrues various penalties for some reason - even if it is a weapon such as a spear or orcish shotput which has no special gripping surface. But the really important thing about the 3.5 rules here is the rule on when you can't use weapons at all.

The restrictions on what weapons you can and can't use are:

You can't use a melee weapon which is smaller than Light or larger than Two Handed. Period. End of frickin story.

So, since for items not listed as weapons, the weapon size is defined as being one handed for a medium creature if it is small, light for a medium creature if it is tiny, and two handed for a medium creature if it is medium - then a medium character cannot use any dimminutive object in melee unless it has been crafted as a Light Medium Weapon.

A bottle has not been crafted at all, and therefore cannot be used for the same reason that a human cannot fight with a Halfling's short sword - it's too small.

Meanwhile, there is no rule about using ranged weapons of any size in 3.5 - which is why you can throw small rocks and kitchen knives (even if it is impossible to stab people with kitchen knives in 3.5).

So yes, you can't hit people with a bottle. It's a light weapon for a halfling, and therefore is too small a human to use in melee. You can fire a Titan's Greatbow, because there is no lower or upper bound on what ranged weapons you can use.

Sorry Count, the 3.5 weapon size rules are completely absurd from the ground up. They don't do whatever it is they are supposed to do, and have no practical advantages at all. If you were hoping to find a way to have less flat absurdity in the game - these rules don't even come close.

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Count Arioch the 28th
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Re: Complete Divine Preview

Post by Count Arioch the 28th »

Well, I'll be damned.

I completely missed that.

Would it help any if I said what I thought they were made sense? I guess not, huh. :uptosomething:

Alright, you guys win.
In this moment, I am Ur-phoric. Not because of any phony god’s blessing. But because, I am enlightened by my int score.
RandomCasualty
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Re: 3.5 Weapon Size Rules

Post by RandomCasualty »

I still don't see the big deal. Yeah even if a small creature uses a collosal longbow, that's going to be a -2 per size catagory to the attack, so it's about a -8 or -10 penalty. Not sure why that causes a big problem. Sure it's stupid, but it's stupid mechanically too, so players won't bother doing it anyway.

As for the improvised weapons, that's a DM adhoc thing anyway. I don't see why it really matters that the rules don't work perfectly for improvised weapons, because the system really doesn't care much about them.

The 3.0 flaws were very real. You could wield a large shortsword and gain the benefits from weapon focus (shortsword), when you're really using a longsword. An elf was automatically proficient in greatswords too, he just calls it a large longsword and not a greatsword. And then there's the oversized kukri crap.

I fail to see how the 3.5 system is worse than the 3.0 system. The 3.0 system was imbalanced, confusing and altogether clumsy.
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Re: 3.5 Weapon Size Rules

Post by Username17 »


The 3.0 flaws were very real. You could wield a large shortsword and gain the benefits from weapon focus (shortsword), when you're really using a longsword.


Actually, that was a DM call - since it didn't say one way or the other whether the "Medium Shortsword" was the same weapon for purposes of weapon focus as the "shortsword". So if that was your problem, you could just as easily rule it the other way. Same thing with specific weapon proficiencies like that possessed by the Elf. While the "Large Longsword" is a martial weapon equivalent to the Greatsword, the rules are flat silent on the issue of whether proficiency in the one kind of Longsword makes you proficient in the other.

And 3.5 still doesn't answer that question. So no advantage there either.

So far all of the "advantages" of the 3.5 weapon system really have come from people either misunderstanding the 3.5 system or misunderstanding the 3rd edition system.

Anybody got any real complaints, instead of just made up stuff?

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Re: 3.5 Weapon Size Rules

Post by The_Hanged_Man »

There's really not much diffeence between 3.0 and 3.5. There's two main changes, the -2/size difference, and missile weapons aren't sized. There's another level of rules between the actual weapon size and what size the weapon was called - which is either more or less confusing based on your POV (more to me). Other than that, not much changed.
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Re: 3.5 Weapon Size Rules

Post by RandomCasualty »

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1084225892[/unixtime]]
Actually, that was a DM call - since it didn't say one way or the other whether the "Medium Shortsword" was the same weapon for purposes of weapon focus as the "shortsword". So if that was your problem, you could just as easily rule it the other way. Same thing with specific weapon proficiencies like that possessed by the Elf. While the "Large Longsword" is a martial weapon equivalent to the Greatsword, the rules are flat silent on the issue of whether proficiency in the one kind of Longsword makes you proficient in the other.

There was just one martial weapon proficiency that let you use long swords, and monsters didn't have a variant of it for bigger weapons. A minotaur fighter had the same martial weapon proficiency feat a human figther did and that let him use weapons regardless of size. Otherwise if the human got polymorphed he wouldn't be proficient with the larger versions of the weapons, which obviously isn't the case. You allow fighters polymorphed into giants to be proficient with their new larger weapons and they don't need a new feat for it.

You've already answered this question.

So, I don't see where your argument is coming from, aside from blind desperation to win a debate. Martial weapon proficiency is martial weapon proficiency. you're proficient with one long sword you're proficient with an LS of any size. A halfling can use both a halfling sized longsword and a human sized shortsword in 3.0. No differentiation is made between size and proficiency.

If this is the best defense you've got of the 3.0 system, then you might as well not even bother defending it, because this is one of the weakest arguments I've seen out of you in a while.
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Re: 3.5 Weapon Size Rules

Post by Username17 »

For the last god damned time, fix your stupid tags. If you hit the "quote" button on, you have to turn it off. This isn't rocket science.

A Large Greatsword and a Huge Greatsword are both Martial Weapons, but it is never stated that they are the same weapon. There's no reason to belive (or not believe) that Weapon Focus applies across categories, or whether there are conditions under which it applies across catehories and to what extent.

There was just one martial weapon proficiency that let you use long swords,


Bullshit. There was the general "All Martial Weapon Proficiency" which let you use any martial weapon - whether it be a short sword, a medium short sword, or a large short sword.

But there was also the "Single Martial Weapon Proficiency", as granted by the Elf. That only affected one weapon. And for that purpose it was never stated that the "Longsword" and the "Large Longsword" were the same weapon.

So if a human fighter gets polymorphed up in size, he's still familiar with his huge greatsword, because it's still a martial weapon. It is not at all clear that the elven wizard is still familiar with his large longsword when he's big.

And since your complaint was all about taking specific weapon bonuses and proficiencies and applying them across size categories - and it was never ever stated anywhere that you could actually do that... your complaint is total and unmitigated bullshit from the shoes to the hair gel.

It's not that people don't play the way you are complaining about, but that the rules equally support playing the opposite way. So if your complaint is that you don't like this being in the RAW - it's not, so you have no valid complaint.

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Re: 3.5 Weapon Size Rules

Post by RandomCasualty »

Even just simple weapons.

Normal (size tiny) dagger 1d4 19-20/x2
Large (size small) dagger 1d6 19-20/x2
Huge (size medium) dagger 1d8 19-20/x2
Gargantuan (size large) dagger 2d6 19-20/x2

Wow, well what do you know? Using 3.0 rules, all you need is simple weapon proficiency to use a greatsword.

How is this good again?
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Re: 3.5 Weapon Size Rules

Post by The_Hanged_Man »

All you need is simple weapon proficiency under 3.5, as well. Look at weapon equivalency in the DMG. The weird thing about 3.5 non-optional rules is that you have the worst of several worlds. A medium creature can't even use a dagger in melee that is a light weapon for a huge creature, functionally equivalent to a greatsword for a medium creature (note how cumbersome it is too actually talk about 3.5 weapons). However, the medium creature could hurl it.
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Re: 3.5 Weapon Size Rules

Post by RandomCasualty »

Weapon equivalencies are just that, equivalencies. You can weild a longsword bigger than you as a greatsword, but you're now treating it as though it were a greatsword in all ways, because legally you can't wield a large longsword at all.

So mechanically it doesn't break the system.

As for the whole thrown weapon thing, again you're taking massive penalties to throw the thing, and people throw crap they can't wield effectively as weapons all the time, like barrels. Just because it's too big for you to fight with doesnt' mean you can't throw it. You just shouldn't be able to throw it very far.
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Re: 3.5 Weapon Size Rules

Post by Username17 »

You just shouldn't be able to throw it very far.


But the 3.5 ranges have absolutely nothing at all to do with the size of the weapon. In 3.5, Grig Longbows go just as far as human Longbows which go just as far as Titan Longbows.

The whole concept that maybe larger creatures should be able to send missile weapons farther was in 3rd edition and has been removed from 3.5.

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Re: 3.5 Weapon Size Rules

Post by RandomCasualty »

Yeah, 3.5 doesn't do ranged weapons very well, that's for sure. But, it's not really a big mechanical problem because you won't actually see a human trying to use a titan's long bow, the -2 per size catagory penalty tends to be much too steep, even if the DM does allow him to do it.
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Re: 3.5 Weapon Size Rules

Post by Username17 »

It's not a mechanical problem that mountain giants in 3.5 can reach farther with their spears than they can throw them?

Is this some new definition of "not a problem" that I'm not aware of?

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Re: 3.5 Weapon Size Rules

Post by The_Hanged_Man »

Reach weapons are just as ludicrous as missile weapons in 3.5. It's just at the simulation level, not the mechanics level. There are mechanical problems, like Frank pointed out. Also the problem that that giant gets the same reach from a longspear two sizes smaller. But the real problem is conceptual.

No one - and I mean no one - can explain why small longspears have the same reach as medium longspears. It's there purely for balance. It makes no sense. [/b]NONE[/b].

People whined b/c small guys couldn't have the same reach as medium. Instead of saying "Deal with it, they're smaller," the laws of time and space are altered in dumb ways.
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