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Old 01-12-2014, 03:54 PM   #1
simply Nathan
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Default [DF] Tiny Tools, Huge Weapons, and Shield Scaling

I have some questions regarding small characters and weapon scaling:

First, the skills Knife, Shortsword, and Broadsword all cover basically the same kind of weapons but with given lengths of up to a foot, one to two feet, and longer than two feet as I recall.

Do these skills scale to the proportions of the user? I suspect that is the intent, with Knife being for swords up to 1/6 the length of the wielder's height, Shortsword being for 1/6 to 1/3, and Broadsword being for all swords longer than 1/3.

How does this interact with a small race using a weapon designed for a larger race? Do halflings use the Broadsword skill when wielding a human's shortsword? Do pixies use the Broadsword skill on even daggers and small knives?

Does a shortsword still use Shortsword skill when it was made for an SM-4 Leprechaun, even when being wielded by an SM-6 Pixie, or does the Pixie use the Broadsword skill?

Or do I just give pixie-sized races the Knife skill for all their one-handed blade and club needs?


And then there's the questions about shields:
How do I scale the effects of shields? Without the Deflect enchantment, the DB of standard shields goes up to 3; a simple -1 per SM difference won't cut it here; a halfling's Large Shield would give a DB of 1 and pixie- or leprechaun-sized characters couldn't have shields at all, even when facing opponents with weapons on their own scale instead of threats meant for human-sized delvers.

Do the Huge Weapons(SM) perks allow unpelanized use of a larger race's shield as well as weapons?



As a lover of both tiny characters and sword-and-board fighting styles, I'm really itching to know.
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Old 01-12-2014, 04:03 PM   #2
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Default Re: [DF] Tiny Tools, Huge Weapons, and Shield Scaling

For shields, I'd give them the normal DB value, but knockback is going to be very easy against smaller opponents. A mouse-sized combatant vs an SM0 will probably just be stepped on instead of hit with a blockable weapon.
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Old 01-12-2014, 07:32 PM   #3
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Default Re: [DF] Tiny Tools, Huge Weapons, and Shield Scaling

On weapons: The necessary skill should be based on the weapon's size relative to the character. Otherwise, a human could use Knife to wield something the size of a greatsword - provided it were originally designed for a much larger race.

On shields: Shield DB is best to think of as "active cover," which means the more of your character the shield can cover, the greater the DB. Thus, something that gives a pixie the same relative cover as a DB3 shield gives a human grants said pixie DB3.

On Huge Weapons: I suppose this would be up to the GM, but I personally see nothing wrong with having it apply to shields as well as weapons. After all, in GURPS, "shield" is really just a special case of "weapon."
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Old 01-12-2014, 08:55 PM   #4
simply Nathan
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Default Re: [DF] Tiny Tools, Huge Weapons, and Shield Scaling

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Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
On weapons: The necessary skill should be based on the weapon's size relative to the character. Otherwise, a human could use Knife to wield something the size of a greatsword - provided it were originally designed for a much larger race.
In this case I will give my mouse warrior Broadsword instead of Knife for his one-handed melee skill. And it should be useable for his (relative) SM+2 boomerang in melee as well as various swords and knives.
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Old 01-14-2014, 11:35 PM   #5
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Default Re: [DF] Tiny Tools, Huge Weapons, and Shield Scaling

The realistic weapon scale rules are in GURPS Low-Tech Companion 2. I recall there are rules for it somewhere in DF for DF style scaling but I don't remember where
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Old 01-15-2014, 10:54 AM   #6
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Default Re: [DF] Tiny Tools, Huge Weapons, and Shield Scaling

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kenneth Latrans View Post
Do these skills scale to the proportions of the user? I suspect that is the intent, with Knife being for swords up to 1/6 the length of the wielder's height, Shortsword being for 1/6 to 1/3, and Broadsword being for all swords longer than 1/3.
In a DF or similar settings that ignore realistic scaling, sure why not?

"Realistic" shrinking ought to leave most of your physical skills seriously penalized or useless, that is if you are 1 foot tall you can't use a 6 inch blade with *either* the same set of moves a human would use with a broadsword or a small knife. You should need a new skill, you could go ahead and call it Broadsword (Pixie) if you want, but ignoring this sort of detail for shapechangers is traditional - it's not much fun, and "realistic" and "shrinking" don't fit together well anyway.

Quote:
How does this interact with a small race using a weapon designed for a larger race?
Does it matter? As long as the character doesn't change size, he'll always be using the same skill with the same size blades. It doesn't particularly matter what the names are.

Quote:
Or do I just give pixie-sized races the Knife skill for all their one-handed blade and club needs?
No, you can't do that. If you want to keep the human weapon and skill names, pixies will need additional skills human's can't buy for weapons that are too small to be of any use to humans, so if you are using Knife for 12 inch blades (incidentally I suppose this is a two handed skill for pixies), they are going to need Long Needle and Short Needle skills or something for lighter ones.
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Old 01-15-2014, 10:56 AM   #7
simply Nathan
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Default Re: [DF] Tiny Tools, Huge Weapons, and Shield Scaling

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Originally Posted by roguebfl View Post
The realistic weapon scale rules are in GURPS Low-Tech Companion 2. I recall there are rules for it somewhere in DF for DF style scaling but I don't remember where
The weapon and armor downward-scaling rules are in DF 3 where the small races are, and upward-scaling for SM+1 is in DF 1 where the barbarians with Gigantism make an appearance.

The weapon scaling rules in DF don't tell me how to scale shields down so far as I can tell or what weapon skills a character uses to wield scaled down versions of bigger weapons when the difference comes down to how big the weapon is supposed to be rather than how it is held. Hence this thread.


We have a single Axe/Mace skill for attacking with any axe one-handed, from hatchets to halberds so it doesn't really face this issue so much. We have three Sword skills for doing the same with swords and knives, depending on either their relative length compared to the wielder (the likely intent, and the interpretation I will go with) or their absolute length (a literal reading).
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Old 01-15-2014, 11:10 AM   #8
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Default Re: [DF] Tiny Tools, Huge Weapons, and Shield Scaling

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Originally Posted by Kenneth Latrans View Post
The weapon scaling rules in DF don't tell me how to scale shields down so far as I can tell or what weapon skills a character uses to wield scaled down versions of bigger weapons when the difference comes down to how big the weapon is supposed to be rather than how it is held. Hence this thread.
You use the same weapon skill as the wepon you scaled.

You scale a sword that uses a Broadsword skill down to pixie side the Pixies use Broadsword skill with it, that the point of Scaling weapons they are small vertion for small people.


Otherwise there is Zero point in scaling. then the small person just use a new weapon entrierly with it's own new skill. Which was a concept rejected on 4e principles. 3e did go here a new skill for new stuff even if it just a rename of an existing skill. But 4e said we dont want to go that route.

So when faced with the rules being silent on that take the mean more inline with the general designed. Reuse existing skills.
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Old 01-15-2014, 02:28 PM   #9
simply Nathan
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Default Re: [DF] Tiny Tools, Huge Weapons, and Shield Scaling

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Originally Posted by roguebfl View Post
You use the same weapon skill as the wepon you scaled.
So you are saying that despite being SM-6, my pixie-sized warrior with 6 levels of the Huge Weapons perk uses the Knife skill to wield a dagger and Shortsword to wield a shortsword that are designed for humans, while a human would use Broadsword if he was trying to wield an SM-6 pixie's broadsword despite it being the same size as his pocket knife?

That ruling sounds wonky to me, even if it does have internal logic to it.

Pixies using Broadsword skill for scaled-down broadswords feels logical to me, since after all it has been scaled down by the same relative amount. But what is the real difference between an SM-2 halfling using a human shortsword and a halfling broadsword? Why would one use the Shortsword skill and the other use the Broadsword skill instead of both using the same skill as each other?
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Old 01-15-2014, 02:37 PM   #10
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Default Re: [DF] Tiny Tools, Huge Weapons, and Shield Scaling

Bo I'm saying this is the norm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kenneth Latrans View Post
Pixies using Broadsword skill for scaled-down broadswords feels logical to me, since after all it has been scaled down by the same relative amount. But what is the real difference between an SM-2 halfling using a human shortsword and a halfling broadsword? Why would one use the Shortsword skill and the other use the Broadsword skill instead of both using the same skill as each other?
if the Sword blade is broadsword on your scale you use the Broadsword skill with it, if the same blade is only knife on your scale, you use the knife skill with it.

also remember a blade can be both a knife or a short sword for two different people on same scale. That is to say two humans of roughly the same height can use different skills with the exact same weapon. There is some fizzy overlap because it not JUST length of the blade that counts, but How you use it.
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