I'm just getting started in Pathfinder Society and my character is a halfling samurai who uses his dead master's daisho. He's Small size category, and his mentor was a Halfelf, so her katana and wakazashi were Medium size.
I'd thought that since I was using a weapon that was a one handed weapon (if you have proficiency) that it'd just be a two handed weapon. But now that I actually have the book, it seems like it's actually a -2 penalty on top of that? Is that right? Am I basically screwing myself by taking a weapon of the wrong size for personality/fluff/d8 instead of d6?
I really like the idea of a cute little halfling samurai using a larger weapon (if nodachi had been one of the samurai's Weapon Expertise choices, I'd have used that) but especially if I'm playing a cooperative game with random people I, don't want to make my character worse when I'm already playing something as unoptimal as a halfling melee fighter.
Basically, is this a Bad Idea?
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It will be rough early on when that -2 is a significant difference to your attack score, but so long as you have a decent strength score, the difference in size will be a benefit to you.
I would personally say go for it. Samurai gets full BAB, so this wouldn't be much harm to you in the long run. Consider that you aren't simply increasing the damage by 1d, you're also using the weapon two handed. That changes the Katana from being 1d6+Str to 1d8+1.5*Str. Just watch yourself at low levels and you'll be fine.
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You could use a katana your size and say you shaved it down or had it magically shrunk, or perhaps reflavor it as your mentor's wakizashi?
Zhayne wrote: You could use a katana your size and say you shaved it down or had it magically shrunk, or perhaps reflavor it as your mentor's wakizashi? This is what I would do. Say you took your master's wakizashi and are using it as your katana. In all actuality it would be a small katana, which you could still use with two hands and still get 1.5xStr bonus with.
Another important thing to point out is that this concept will simply not work for a Weapon Finesse build. The first reason is that weapon finesse can only be applied to weapons appropriately sized for you. So, if we assume that the Wakizashi functions as a small Katana and that the Katana functions as a small Nodachi, you run across the second problem. Weapon Finesse can only be applied to a light weapon, or a one handed weapon with the finesse quality. This disqualifies the Katana and anything larger. So unless you're doing a high strength build, I would reconsider.
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Couldn't you use a regular small Nodachi and just say it's your Master's katana?
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Vamptastic wrote: Couldn't you use a regular small Nodachi and just say it's your Master's katana? I would totally do that.
I don't think I can really get away with refluffing it as something else, since this is for Society play. I was also kinda dead set on using the big sword once I realized I couldn't do a finesse build with the katana. And unfortunately my Strength is pretty crappy due to my size... My Strength Bonus is basically negated by the -2.
I guess I'm essentially always going to be using a not-as-good Power Attack :/
Then again, I think I'm better off, since it's [+7 to hit with 1d6+2 damage] versus [+5 to hit for 1d8+4 damage] with my Str +2. And at +5 it's still my highest attack bonus until I get other Masterworked weapons.
Worrying about these numbers makes me want to just take a step back and remember I'm a tiny samurai riding a wolf, and that this is the cutest thing ever.
You could do that but get none of the samurai weapon expertise bonuses on anything but one of:'katana, longbow, naginata, or wakizashi'.
That said if you were not intending to get specialization or other fighter specific feats you could do as above suggests and get a SWEEEeeT no-dachi and select your weapon expertise as longbow - quick draw for a longbow exp.if have a mount means an auto at will ranged ability.
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Samurai don't get the bonuses to hit fighters/barbarians/rangers get and as such -2 hit for +1 damage is sub-optimal at best. It will bite!
Inspired and cool back story. If its a dex build you could use the tanto your master committed seppuku with as your wakasashi.
Strictly speaking, there is a difference between a Medium Wakizashi and a Small Katana; the size of the hilt. A Medium Wakizashi has a hilt designed for a medium creature to grasp so it would be overly thick in the hands of a Halfling (the -2 to attack). Even if you just shave it down (something rather unfeasible given the location of the tang), that alters the relative balance of the weapon so you've gained nothing. It's flavorful, but you're going to take that -2 hit either way. One way around it would be to dip Titan Mauler as Massive Weapons lets you reduce the attack penalty for oversized weapons. But that will hamper the progress of your Challenge. Instead of making yourself hit harder, maybe make the target easier to hit? Shatter Defenses will render them flat-footed so pick it up, along with Corrungun Smash.
Would depend on build of wielder and hand size which fluctuates wildly. Some slight tian gent might have smaller hands than a halfling with man hands!
Also sword design - katanas etc - most of the hilt is filling-easy to cut down the filling and just have the tang tightly wrapped.
For non throwing weapons balance is a bit of cinematic nonsense. Like saying a pen or saw has good or bad balance. You can get comfortable with anything.
insaneogeddon wrote: For non throwing weapons balance is a bit of cinematic nonsense. Like saying a pen or saw has good or bad balance. You can get comfortable with anything. I would have to disagree with you there completely. The balance of a sword is very important to the way a weapon is handled. While it is true that with time, a skilled user can adjust, but the fact is that a poorly balanced blade hinders the efficiency of the swordsman's movements, even if just slightly. It is no myth that many duels were decided by a split-second delay, and that's what a poorly balanced weapon equates to.
To OP: If you plan to have him use his master's Daisho, then there really is no way around the penalties. It isn't an optimal way to go, but it is flavorful. I would consult your group on it if you yourself are alright with said penalties. It will be difficult to overcome the halfling's low damage if you decide to stick with a melee build. I would suggest a heavier focus on range. If you can't bring yourself to do that, perhaps a Naginata?
Something to consider; the Bastard Sword is an example of weapon balance in action. It has too much weight in the blade for such a short, light hilt; it's essentially a Greatsword blade on a Longsword Hilt. To compensate, the pommel (the little dooblie-do at the end of the handle) is made big and heavy to serve as a counter-balance to the weight of the blade. If you re-handled a Katana or Wakizashi so that it was a Medium blade with a Small grip, you'd have to compensate for the shift in balance by adding a large pommel at the end of the hilt to bring the balance back.
Now, how the Bastard Sword in the game represents this is that if you aren't trained to know how that counter-balance works, you'd probably swing a Bastard Sword around as if it were just a Greatsword with a wimpy hilt (if you lack EWP, you cannot one-hand it because you don't understand the whole counter-balanced center of gravity principal). But once you learn to easily manipulate that center of gravity, it takes less effort to wield and you can flip it around in just one hand. The Katana already has a principal like this so maybe go a step farther and say that this modified Katana, which you'd normally need EWP(Katana) for a Halfling to wield it as a 2-h weapon anyway, either cannot be wielded until he takes something along the lines of Weapon Focus or maybe even with the alteration, he still suffers the -2 to attack until he takes Weapon Focus because he's swinging it around as if it were a Nodachi/Dai-Katana rather than a Katana with an altered hilt. For the Medium Wakizashi with the hilt altered in such a fashion, he could treat it the same way as you'd normally treat a Katana; he can wield it under Martial as a two-hander but needs EWP to treat it as a one-hander. But, mind you, all these are, essentially, close to houserules. There are no codified rules for how you'd "alter" a weapon in such a manner, but the rules don't exactly say that you can't, either.
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