Crotchety Rant: the Weapon Size Table


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion


The table of Tiny and Large Weapon Damage (table 6-5) makes my head hurt. I find it difficult to read. Neither of the two axes follows a single progression, and the omission of Small (space-saving though it is) makes life as a halfling ranger harder.

The horizontal axis goes "Medium Tiny Large" instead of the more natural progression of "Tiny Medium Large".

The vertical axis is organized around the number of dice that are being rolled, instead of damage output. First come all the 1dX values, then all the 2dX values. But that only works logically in the "Medium" column. When you hit the 1dX-2dX transition in the "Tiny" column, it goes "1d8, 1d4, 1d8", and "Large" goes "3d6, 2d6, 3d6". Either way that breaks the progression increasing damage output that the first seven rows of the table follow.

I suspect that the most common use of this table is when resolving the effects of the spells "Lead Blades" or "Gravity Bow". But it's lousy for that. If you're going from a Medium to a Large weapon, then Tiny is interposed in the middle.

If you're going from a Small to a Medium weapon, you can't use this table at all because Small weapon sizes are omitted to save space. Instead you have to find the weapon in the full list of weapons.

I suppose it's not fair of my to grouse so much about the table design. Neither Lead Blades nor Gravity Bow had been written when it was designed. But still - I'm smart enough to start from the middle column if I have a medium weapon. It's only three columns wide. And the number-of-dice sorting just doesn't make any kind of sense at all.

I would design it small-to-large horizontally, and "ow" to "oh god oh god my leg" vertically, with 2dX values right next to equivalent 1dX values. And I'd stripe the Medium column a different color than the others to draw attention to it. Like THIS:

http://jsfiddle.net/AqV5V/embedded/result/

So there. It even has a print stylesheet that shrinks the table so you can tape it to your "Lead Blades" card.

I had to guess the last two values in the "Small" column. There are no medium 2d8 or 2d10 weapons in the weapons chart.

Note: IE 8 and lower users won't see the stripe color on the Medium column. Your browser is not cool enough. Time to upgrade to IE 9, or better yet pick up Firefox, Chrome, Opera, or even (ugh) Safari.

Silver Crusade

Smalls move up to the medium level which is already produced in the equipment tables. I find the table fairly easy to use.

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