Houserule on Weapon Reach

[Doughnut Master]

I'm considering making some alterations to reach calculations, and would appreciate any input y'all might have on the strengths and weaknesses of this approach.

In general, my thought is to separate things out, giving weapon classes their own reach that would just be added to the character's natural reach.

E.g.
Regular weapons up to Medium: Reach 0 (adds nothing)
"Reach" weapons Small - Medium: Reach 5 (adds 5 ft)
Large Regular Weapons: Reach 5
Large "Reach" Weapons: Reach 10
...+5/ category.

Hopefully, this will make the scale of reach a little more smooth as well as add some interesting tradeoffs when picking up weapons.

Thoughts?

Thanks!
-DM

[Sword-Geass]

I guess you now that reach weapons strike those squares 10ft out from the wilder (considering he is medium or small) but can't hit those squares that are within 5ft of him.
As I read your changes, a reach weapon adds reach, but doesn't make you unable to hit adjacent squares. If that's right, you are making reach weapons an always better option, no matter what, since they lack the "disadvantage" of reach weapons. Also, reach has always been based of the base reach of the creature, ie. if the creature can normally strike up to 15ft away from him, while using a reach weapon you double that, and remove the normal area (the one that he can strike with a non-reach weapon) from his threatened area.

[Doughnut Master]

Hmm. That's a good point. So what if the "subtract natural reach" still applied for "reach" weapons?

E.g.
Medium Creature

Med Longsword - 5 ft
Med Longspear - 10ft (without threatening 5 ft)
Large Longsword- 5-10ft
Large Longspear - 10-15ft

Large Creature

Large Longsword - 5-15 ft
Large Longspear - 10-20 ft


It seems like the upshot is spears lose their comparative advantage the larger you go.

Alternative: "Reach" weapons double the reach of regular weapons of the same size.

I'm willing to sacrifice a little elegance/do a little math to have a smoother progression. It always struck me as absurd that some really strong dude with a Large Greataxe could still only hit someone right next to him.

-DM

[ExLibrisMortis]

I don't see the point of this houserule. I think it adds too much reach to swords, doesn't properly model the reach advantage of long arms for huge and larger creatures, and doesn't bring any simplicity or elegance to the system.

For example, a colossal, 30' tall giant with 25' natural reach would get 25'-50' with a glaive. This is basically a 6' human with 5' natural reach getting 10' with a glaive, scaled by a factor five. With a sword, the giant now gets a 20'-45' reach, exactly five feet less than a reach weapon. Applying the same factor five, this corresponds to a human who can't attack things within 4', but can engage enemies up to 9' away. I'm not an expert, but I don't think the sword attack range for a 6' human is 4'-9', including the step (backwards or forwards) before striking.

More than that, though, I don't see why you are changing the way creatures fight equally-sized opponents, depending on some arbitrary size category. By default, colossal creatures in D&D fight just like medium creatures, and that's awesome, because it's simple, effective, and gives cool giant tripper vs. giant übercharger fights. With your houserule, giants basically never invented the spear, because there's no point at all.


Note: the rule is also funny for creatures with relatively short natural reach, such as centaur-type creatures (iirc centaurs proper use medium weapons, but there are variants, maybe zelekhut). For example, a troll and a centaur-type using a glaive would have 10'-20' and 5'-15' reach respectively, with the troll doubling its reach, and the centaur-type actually tripling it, despite having shorter arms, which has to hurt your ability to reach, even if your weapon is bigger.

[Doughnut Master]

All fair. I suppose with that in mind, I'll just keep things as they are.

Thanks guys!

[StreamOfTheSky]

Why not just use 3.0's rules for reach weapons? Basically just adds +5ft to your reach and adds a 5 ft "donut hole" you don't threaten with it. Simple.
If you wanted to nerf reach weapons, I'd go with that.