Stacking increased weapon sizery?

[Mindstab_Thrull]

OK.. since I can't seem to find the Search button at the moment o.o I'll have to toss a quick post..
A friend of mine wants to make a character based on wielding as oversized a weapon as he can. For example, a Kobold wielding a Huge Greatsword. So.. how hard is it to be able to pull off more than one weapon-size increase on the same character?

[tyckspoon]

Actual physical weapon size is tricky; it's easy to get one, but I'm not entirely sure of any way to do two. Virtual weapon sizes/increased damage categories are relatively easy to get, tho.

(One notable exception on the physical weapon: the Major Titan Bloodline eventually lets you wield a Gargantuan Warhammer, and specifically and only a Gargantuan Warhammer, as per the Titan's excessively specific Oversized Weapon ability.)

[Rejusu]

It's very difficult to be able to wield a weapon more than one size category larger than you without penalty. Most of the things that let you do it explicitly don't stack.

I mean the three things that let you use larger weapons are: Powerful Build (racial trait), Monkey Grip (feat), and Strongarm bracers (magic item).

The wording of Powerful build states that you: "can use weapons designed for a creature one size larger without penalty".

The wording on Monkey grip is: "You can use melee weapons one size category larger than you are with a -2 penalty on the attack roll, but the amount of effort it takes you to use the weapon does not change."

Emphasis mine. Powerful Build and Monkey Grip can't stack because they're based on your characters size.

Now Strongarm bracers is worded a little differently. First off it explicitly states that it doesn't stack with Powerful build so that's out but by RAW it also doesn't stack with Monkey Grip:

“You can wield weapons as if you were one size category larger than normal”

Now it might look like it does, but remember this item doesn't change your actual size category. And since Monkey grips effect is based off your actual size category they don't work together.

Basically if you're a medium creature the bracers let you wield a large weapon as if you were a large creature. And Monkey grip would let you wield a wield a weapon one size category larger than you ie a large weapon. So no way to wield a huge weapon.

There is one way... a feat from Complete Warrior called Wield Oversized weapon which states:
"You can treat any weapon as if it were one size
category smaller than normal and one category “lighter” for
the purpose of determining the amount of effort it takes to
wield."

Meaning that it can stack with any of the other three things. Sadly though it's an epic feat.

So to answer your question: there's no way I know of to wield a weapon more than one size category larger than you are pre-epic. Best thing you can do is pick up one of the above and wield something one category bigger.

[Darth_Versity]

The Enlarge Weapon spell from Complete Scoundrel should stack with Strongarm Bracers getting a weapon two catagories larger without penalty. And since Enlarge Person can be made permenant, it wouldn't be a far stretch for a DM to allow Enlarge Weapon to be as well.

[Rejusu]

That's bizarre. There must be some errata for that spell. Because under RAW you could conceivably cast it on a gargantuan weapon, turn it into a colossal weapon and still wield it.


When your weapon is affected by this spell, you do not take a penalty for wielding an inappropriately sized weapon.

There's actually no prerequisite for you to be able to wield the weapon in the first place.

[PlzBreakMyCmpAn]

The OP can look in my build compendium for the brute force maximum to

[Darth Stabber]

Look up the "king of smack" build, it heavily utilizes weapon size shenanigans (though primarily natural weapons).

[Person_Man]

Comprehensive list of ways to increase size, effective size, and reach (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=127732).

You might be thinking of the Titan Bloodline (Major, sorta mostly 3ish Level Adjustment). The Use Oversized Weapon ability lets you use a gargantuan two-handed warhammer (but oddly, not any other weapon) regardless of your current size without penalty. Remember that the size of your weapon doesn't effect reach, so it's possible to have a Fine character with 0 ft of reach using a using a 25 ft long warhammer.

But that's not the most efficient method. There's probably dozen or so better ways to get effectively Colossal or bigger sized claws or unarmed strike.

[Kuulvheysoon]

Or, if you want to get silly, there's always Tiny VonBigMcLargeHuge (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=6428.0). Become any size from Fine to Colossal in the space of a turn! At it's most basic, you simultaneously count as Tiny, Small, Medium and Large.

[Doughnut Master]

Make your weapon out of gold. Superfly.

[Rejusu]

Or, if you want to get silly, there's always Tiny VonBigMcLargeHuge (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=6428.0). Become any size from Fine to Colossal in the space of a turn! At it's most basic, you simultaneously count as Tiny, Small, Medium and Large.

Sadly as cool as it is, it's incredibly invalid under RAW. I'm pretty sure it's debunked in that thread too. The sizes the character can actually become are limited to Diminutive (augmented compression), Tiny (compression), Small (actual), Medium (expansion), Large (augmented expansion). And the EFFECTIVE sizes the character can be are Fine up to Huge, but it can't do gargantuan or colossal, and of course what effective size they can count as is dependant on their actual size at the time.

At any one time they can count as being one size category smaller (Slight Build) or one size category larger (Touchstone feat) than their actual size. However they can also count as being large, regardless of whatever their actual size category happens to be at the time (which is kind of ridiculous on a diminutive creature). This is because Jotunbrud is specific about what size category you can count as, and you can only use it to be treated as large. Also since effective size increases are normally always based off your actual size category rather than your effective size category they don't stack with each other. If you're small you can use touchstone to count as medium or Jotunbrud to count as large, but you can't combine them to count as huge.

Though honestly I'm not sure what the author of that thread was thinking when he thought that expansion (unaugmented) could be used with jotunbrud to count as huge. It's very specific about what situations you can treat yourself as large in, and one situation that you can't treat yourself as large is determining your size for the purpose of effects which increase your size. Expansion on a small character with Jotunbrud would just make them medium with the ability to be treated as large.

I mean there's some cool things that came out of that, but the core build is based on a flawed understanding of the rules. The quickest way to get up to an effective colossal size is to play a half-giant or goliath (for powerful build) and then apply the half-minotaur template to become large and take enough levels in a manifesting class (normally PsyWarr) to manifest an augmented expansion. That will take you from Large to Gargantuan and Powerful Build lets you count as colossal (though you don't have any of the other bonuses or penalties of being colossal e.g. extra reach and strength). This can be done at ECL9 (PsyWarr 7, LA+2), I'm not sure there's a method to get up to such a size sooner than that.

With such a build though you can only go as low as small size with an augmented compression. Using expansion/compression powerful/slight build (or variants of) you're always going to have 2 size categories that are inaccessible. Which these are depends on whether your base size is Small (Gargantuan and Colossal off limits), Medium (Fine and Colossal), or Large (Fine and Diminutive).

[Mindstab_Thrull]

Thanks everyone for the responses. Though I'm not entirely certain that the Titan ability only allows for the Warhammer. Even under RAW, it makes sense given the name of the ability (Oversized Weapon) that this is "merely" common, and could be applied to any other weapon.


The OP can look in my build compendium for the brute force maximum to

I tried looking through the site in your sig and I couldn't find it. Could you pass on a link for me?

[PlzBreakMyCmpAn]

Its the 5th link down (blacktowerclan.com/forums/index.php?topic=169.0)... if that's too far to look, don't bother reading the maximum charge multipl