Weapon Sizing

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souran
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Post by souran »

Quantumboost wrote: That depends on whether the object is a "Large-sized sword" or a "Large-sized shortsword". If it's the former, why should it matter whether someone 4x as big as you would be using it as a stabbing implement rather than a hacking implement?
"I don't care about what anything was DESIGNED to do, I care about what it CAN do."
Well here is the crux of the thing though. Is it a large sized shortsword (and thus a thrusting sword) or is it just a "large sword" and therefore presumablly a hacking/chopping sword. Presumably the giant was carrying the sword because he knew how to use it. He is going to try and skewer people with his shortsword.

One possible path of the rules says "big shortsword = greatsword" The flaw with this system is that it basically means that anyweapon larger or smaller than those in the phb really is just window dressing. You can describe the giant swinging his massive two handed axe but really he just does monster dice damage. Presumably fairies manufacture a whole slew of weapons of all different types to fight agianst each other but they are all just needles.

The other option is that a large shortsword remains a shortsword in function. You still need shortsword prof. to weild it. Its just a really big one. With the right set of feats and abilities you can even wield it like normal.

Whats really at stake here is who gets what when oversized magic items drop. If a shortsword is always a shortsword no matter the size then your shortword using rogue might pick up the neccessary abilities to wield a giant one. However if a shortsword can be a greatsword for a smaller person then the giants +4 shortsword is actually an upgrade for your barbarian or fighter type.

If it isn't a "Giant's thinblade" or whatever (i.e., the specialized weapon you seem to think it should be/is), this is not a concern. Here you seem to be railing against the idea that a Giant would even use a shortsword, rather than Medium-sized people actually being able wield such an item as a greatsword (under the 3.0 system being discussed). That may or may not be the case (I don't care at the moment), but it's not pertinent.
Allright you got me. This was a little off topic. However, I would still protest that short swords are NOT just small longswords. They do a different type of damage. They represent a different class of weapons.

As for the rest, yeah in the end sufficiently large creatures probably stop using recognizable weapons against medium humanoids. They would likely use tools and see it as little diffent than getting rid of vermin.
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Post by Username17 »

Souran wrote:One possible path of the rules says "big shortsword = greatsword" The flaw with this system is that it basically means that anyweapon larger or smaller than those in the phb really is just window dressing. You can describe the giant swinging his massive two handed axe but really he just does monster dice damage.
What the fuck are you talking about?

Could you at least read the 3e weapon sizing rules before you go off on another gibberish parade?

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Post by Quantumboost »

souran wrote:Well here is the crux of the thing though. Is it a large sized shortsword (and thus a thrusting sword) or is it just a "large sword" and therefore presumablly a hacking/chopping sword.
No.

At the level of abstraction where a weapon has (a) a type (axe, sword, spear) and (b) a size (Tiny, Small, Medium, Large, Huge), a "Large sword" isn't a "hacking/chopping sword". It's a "sword". It presumably is visualized as having something resembling a pointy end, since the giant is stabbing with it, and it presumably has something resembling an edge, since the human is chopping with it, but beyond that what the sword looks like and how exactly it's used are raw fluff.

And that's presumably the level of abstraction 3.0 weapon sizing rules use. I don't have the actual rules text in front of me, so I have to make *some* guesses (like whether or not that is how it's handled), but if it's the "Large sword and thus used by a Giant as a shortsword" case, then I am specifically not supposed to know nor care how exactly the sword is structured and intended to be used to wield it as a greatsword. In exactly the same way that I imagine you aren't expected nor required to know nor care about the difference between the design and implementations of Blowfish and DES when trying to crack an EUE cipher in Shadowrun or a modern-era RPG.
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Post by NativeJovian »

I think what he's referring to is the the fact that, in 3.5 at least (I don't have 3.0 sources in front of me so I can't vouch for that), a short sword is a piercing weapon (ie you stab with it) while a longsword is a slashing weapon (ie you cut with it).

It's perfectly fine if you want to run things where you have a weapon type (sword or axe or whatever) and a weapon size and say that a halfling longsword and an orc shortsword are both "small swords" and give them identical stats. But that's not how 3.5 works -- a shortsword is a stabbing weapon (it does piercing damage) while a longsword is a cutting weapon (it does slashing damage), and the weapons are presumably designed around this function, so a halfling can't use a medium shortsword like a small longsword, because it's still a piercing weapon instead of a slashing weapon. So instead he has to use an oversized shortsword, which incurs penalties.

It's certainly an option to use the "small sword" interchangeable as a halfling longsword and orc shortsword, but only if you want to ditch weapon damage types (which honestly I wouldn't miss) and chuck a whole hell of a lot of weapons (daggers and shortswords are both "small swords" to a medium creature), which honestly ruins some of the warrior's fun by limiting their options. This isn't what 3.5 decided to do -- take it or leave it, but at least try to understand what they were doing with it.
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Post by Koumei »

Souran is now sounding like the gun-nuts in modern games who want to know/list every single spec of their gun - 18th century oak grip, hair trigger, soft-eared barrel, hollow-point teflon-coated diamond-plutonium mix bullets filled with mercury and white phophorus, precise rate of fire...

You know. The creepy guy who everyone backs away from in the game, and who no-one is surprised to find arrested for attempting to shoot the president.
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Post by CatharzGodfoot »

For everyone who lacks the 3e books: the third edition short sword is piercing only (just as it is in 3.5e). So the weapons aren't truly interchangeable: one is 2d6 P crit 19-20 x2 and weighs 20 lbs, the other is 2d6 S crit 19-20 x2 and weighs 15 lbs.
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Post by Quantumboost »

CatharzGodfoot wrote:For everyone who lacks the 3e books: the third edition short sword is piercing only (just as it is in 3.5e). So the weapons aren't truly interchangeable: one is 2d6 P crit 19-20 x2 and weighs 20 lbs, the other is 2d6 S crit 19-20 x2 and weighs 15 lbs.
Ah, okay. So the longsword/sized-up shortsword distinction is in there. I apparently need to have my books around more, thanks.
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Post by violence in the media »

CatharzGodfoot wrote:For everyone who lacks the 3e books: the third edition short sword is piercing only (just as it is in 3.5e). So the weapons aren't truly interchangeable: one is 2d6 P crit 19-20 x2 and weighs 20 lbs, the other is 2d6 S crit 19-20 x2 and weighs 15 lbs.
Out of curiosity, what is the justification for the short sword dealing only piercing damage when the dagger does piercing/slashing?
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Post by CatharzGodfoot »

violence in the media wrote:
CatharzGodfoot wrote:For everyone who lacks the 3e books: the third edition short sword is piercing only (just as it is in 3.5e). So the weapons aren't truly interchangeable: one is 2d6 P crit 19-20 x2 and weighs 20 lbs, the other is 2d6 S crit 19-20 x2 and weighs 15 lbs.
Out of curiosity, what is the justification for the short sword dealing only piercing damage when the dagger does piercing/slashing?
The 3e dagger does only piercing as well. Evidently whatever led to that change wasn't followed through with the other blades.
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souran
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Post by souran »

violence in the media wrote:
Out of curiosity, what is the justification for the short sword dealing only piercing damage when the dagger does piercing/slashing?
D&D shortswords have always done piercing damage. If you have the 2e arms and equipment guide they had an extensive discussion of why. It really has to do with the nature of existing historical weapons.

The short sword is nominally any of the swords that derived from the gladius. Although the gladius had sharp edges the weapon was a thrusting sword. Basically, short swords were weapons designed to be used from a shield wall. A person doesn't have to let the shield out of the way of their attack.

Slashing/chopping swords and the later "cut and thrust" type swords developed for use by a person on horseback or with a round or oblong shield. Again the idea was that the shields design does not interfer with the use of the weapon.

The wide array of existing daggers means defining them as just slashing or piercing is inaccurate. Although, propoerly any tool that has a definitive edge and a partial or incomplete edge on the other side is actually a knife.
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Post by violence in the media »

In other words, because a Gladius was primarily for stabbing fools in situations where you couldn't get a good swing in, D&D shortswords can't cut people.

However, we totally can't apply that logic to daggers, as that would be un-historical. Got it.

:roll:

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Post by souran »

violence in the media wrote:In other words, because a Gladius was primarily for stabbing fools in situations where you couldn't get a good swing in, D&D shortswords can't cut people.

However, we totally can't apply that logic to daggers, as that would be un-historical. Got it.

Yes, its thrown in there for the simulationists. Look at older editions of dnd, they have weapon lists that list every kind of pole arm you can find in a history book. Also like history most of them are terrible.

Look, quite simply a thrusting sword doesn't have to be as long to be an effective weapon. A slashing sword requires a greater length because the weaponized portion is along the edge rather than at the end.

There are a number of legacy items in dnd that have to do with the games writers understanding (and sometimes missunderstanding) of history.

Also, in your picture the first three weapons are the sort of thrusting swords we are talking about, infact all three look to be remakes of preiod gladius themselves.

The others are the egyption cycle sword and the last one looks like a movie prop more than anything but I won't dispute its as a real weapon.

Note that the sickle sword is in the linage of the scimitar an existing class of weaposn in 3e that do shortsword type damage but have the slashing type weapon mechanics.
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Post by angelfromanotherpin »

souran wrote:The others are the egyption cycle sword and the last one looks like a movie prop more than anything but I won't dispute its as a real weapon.
It's a kukri, the knife that chops.

Also, gladii were (and are) totally able to cut. A lot.
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Post by Quantumboost »

angelfromanotherpin wrote:Also, gladii were (and are) totally able to cut. A lot.
This is the important bit, because the (CR < 25) monsters that you actually care whether a weapon can deal slashing damage are: treants, hydras, and zombies. If you care about the historical use of weapons against zombies and other "doesn't care if you stab them" monsters, I refer you to The Zombie Survival Guide, which describes the Roman Legions themselves using their swords to decapitate zombies. Not stab, decapitate. Which is slashing. Because that's how you kill zombies, and you totally can do that with a gladius.

Again, "I don't care about what anything was DESIGNED to do, I care about what it CAN do."

Naturally, I'm talking about rendering the actual real-world gladius into D&D 3.x rules, not the existing "short sword" weapon. Just so there's less confusion.
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Post by NativeJovian »

violence in the media wrote:In other words, because a Gladius was primarily for stabbing fools in situations where you couldn't get a good swing in, D&D shortswords can't cut people.
Yes, exactly.

Seriously, that's how it works. D&D decided that swortswords are stabbing weapons, and accordingly they do piercing damage. So you can't take a medium shortsword and use it as a small longsword because it's still a stabbing weapon, not a cutting one. You can still stab with it if you're small, but you take penalties.

You don't have to use this system, but that's the logic behind it. If you want to play with medium shortswords and small longswords being indistinguishable, then by all means, go right ahead. But if you want to use that system in D&D, then you run into issues like where a small warhammer (one-handed bludgeoning weapon) does 1d6 damage but a medium light hammer (light bludgeoning weapon) does 1d4 damage, or where there are two light slashing weapons (dagger and shortsword) that deal different amounts of damage (1d4 and 1d6, respectively), so which do you use?. It also runs into issues with weapons proficiency -- can a medium creature with simple (but not martial) weapons proficiency wield a small longsword? It's a light slashing weapon for a medium creature -- but is it a dagger or a shortsword? How about the other way around -- does a small creature get to use a medium dagger (simple weapon) as a longsword (martial weapon)? How about reach weapons -- does a small two-handed reach weapon become a medium one-handed reach weapon, a medium two-handed non-reach weapon, or a medium one-handed non-reach weapon? What about weapons that don't exist in particular categories (there's no light version of a spear, for example)?

Taking penalties for using off-sized stuff may be annoying, but at least it's consistent. If you want to declare that there are no penalties for off-sized stuff, you're opening up another whole can of worms.
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Post by PoliteNewb »

angelfromanotherpin wrote: It's a kukri, the knife that chops.
Pardon my nerdness, but no it's not. It's either a falcata (an Iberian chopping sword) or a Kopis (a Greek chopping sword, much similar). While both are similar to the Kukri (a Nepalese chopping knife), you can recognize a kukri both by it's shorter length and the disk-like pommel (and the notch at the base of the blade).

You are correct in that yes, in D&D terms, all of these would probably be considered "Kukri", though...because D&D doesn't give a shit if they butcher weapon etymology, and to them "Kukri" means "short chopping sword/knife". Just like "Rapier" means "thin stabby sword".
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Post by CatharzGodfoot »

So, out of curiosity, what rules do all of you actually use in D&D games? 3e? 3.5? Hybrid? House-ruled?

In pretty much every game I've played in, we've used the 3rd edition rules. As far as daggers go, we read the rules as meaning that halflings can use human-made daggers as simple light weapons, but they consider short swords one-handed. The edge cases (really big daggers) never came up, and I'm not sure how we would have dealt with them.
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Post by violence in the media »

I can honestly say that I have never had to deal with any weapon sizing shenanigans beyond Enlarge Person. It's simply never come up. This probably has something to do with having very few instances of gaming with/DMing for people who elected to play fighter types.
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Post by Koumei »

angelfromanotherpin wrote: Also, gladii were (and are) totally able to cut. A lot.
Gladiuses. Suck it up.
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Post by Avoraciopoctules »

CatharzGodfoot wrote:So, out of curiosity, what rules do all of you actually use in D&D games? 3e? 3.5? Hybrid? House-ruled?
I'm assuming you are talking about the rules we use for weapon sizing. For me it's generally one of two options.

1. "You want to use a longsword? Sure, just use whatever the stats are in PCGen. Wait, what? No, of course you can stab with it if you want. Man, who was it that said you can only slash? Oh well. You can club with the flat end for 1d4 if you want, too." [later] "Oh, you're Large now? I think you need to scale up the damage for your weapons. Have fun with that. There's probably rules in the SRD if you need them."

2. "Okay, you fire the rocket pods on your steam suit. Since we haven't actually written down any rules for how they work, I'm just going to mostly MTP it. If I roll a 1 on a d100, it malfunctions."
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angelfromanotherpin
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Post by angelfromanotherpin »

Koumei wrote:
angelfromanotherpin wrote: Also, gladii were (and are) totally able to cut. A lot.
Gladiuses. Suck it up.
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