[DF] Tiny Tools, Huge Weapons, and Shield Scaling

[simply Nathan]

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.