Reach weapon, Lunge Feat, and enlarge person.

[Linkman81]

This is going to be a hard post to reply to without posting or referencing pictures. since we're dealing with extended threat ranges, but I'll see if I can describe my issue as clearly as possible. First off, check out this page.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/combat/space-reach-threatened-area-te mplates

(paizo will break the link by putting a space in there somewhere, take that out to make the link work again.)

Ok, I have a trip character that uses a reach weapon and has the lunge feat. Lunge adds 5 extra feet of offensive threat. The big question is when you are enlarged and now are one size bigger, are your threat ranges multiplied? or added? If you look at the link for a large (tall) creature the threat range of a reach weapon is no longer just single square ring around the creature, it is a double square ring in parts. The same goes for the non-threatened area inside the reach weapons threat. This makes me think that the threat ranges are multiplied... meaning you are twice as big, so your range is twice as far. SOOooo.... if you add a feat that adds 5 feet of extra threat... does it jump to 10 feet for a large size creature. Half of me says no... because the feat doesn't specify anything about sizes of creatures. And this 5 feat of reach would apply the same to small player characters as well. But this combat system was obviously designed around medium sized creatures being the standard, and everything else seems to scale with the increasing size of the creatures as seen in the threat range charts on the link... so why wouldn't the effects of a feat? What do you guys think?

[Vinedragon]

Linkman81 wrote:

This is going to be a hard post to reply to without posting or referencing pictures. since we're dealing with extended threat ranges, but I'll see if I can describe my issue as clearly as possible. First off, check out this page.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/combat/space-reach-threatened-area-te mplates

(paizo will break the link by putting a space in there somewhere, take that out to make the link work again.)

Ok, I have a trip character that uses a reach weapon and has the lunge feat. Lunge adds 5 extra feet of offensive threat. The big question is when you are enlarged and now are one size bigger, are your threat ranges multiplied? or added? If you look at the link for a large (tall) creature the threat range of a reach weapon is no longer just single square ring around the creature, it is a double square ring in parts. The same goes for the non-threatened area inside the reach weapons threat. This makes me think that the threat ranges are multiplied... meaning you are twice as big, so your range is twice as far. SOOooo.... if you add a feat that adds 5 feet of extra threat... does it jump to 10 feet for a large size creature. Half of me says no... because the feat doesn't specify anything about sizes of creatures. And this 5 feat of reach would apply the same to small player characters as well. But this combat system was obviously designed around medium sized creatures being the standard, and everything else seems to scale with the increasing size of the creatures as seen in the threat range charts on the link... so why wouldn't the effects of a feat? What do you guys think?

The lunge feat doesn't specify anything for large creatures, so 5 foot more range on the attack is all it gives for official play. For home games? An argument could be made it increases as you increase in size, though I would run it as it says. Someone's free to correct me, but I don't see anything that would say that anything increasing reach is multiplied as you get larger. This would also be the case for the spell Long Arm and it doesn't specify anything either.

EDIT- Scratch that, now I see. The real question is "Does it increase my natural reach by 5 feet or my total reach by 5 feet". The former meaning it goes up in size, the latter meaning it does not. But then where would the 5 feet of reach for for the large creatures with reach weapons?

[Linkman81]

EDIT: whoa!... I hadn't even thought about it that way... does lunge increase NATURAL reach?.., which obviously scales... hmmmm

natural threat range is double with reach weapons in spite of your size. The charts on that link pretty much settle that. What my real question is... does the effects of the lunge feat scale with your size as well. It's reasonable to assume that feats were designed around medium sized characters. Would HUGE or larger creature with the lunge feat only get an additional 5 feet of threat when fighting PCs? Intuitively, you'd assume that it would scale with their size, but it's not spelled out, and I'm not sure there's a FAQ post that would cover it. I think the default answer would be a big NO, it does not scale, you get what the feat says no matter what the size. But an extra 5 feet of threat to a colossal creature is hardly a lunge, more of a slight lean. lol. There is merit to either side of the argument.

[Nefreet]

Recent discussion on the matter.

[Linkman81]

Nefreet wrote:

Recent discussion on the matter.

there are many discussions exactly like mine, but none are pressed to look into the lunge question. Mostly they just argue over threat range with or without a reach weapon when they are enlarged. Lunge is my question... and does it scale like natural reach does. The feat breaks once you increase the size of the creature too far, if it remains only an increase of 5 feat of threat.

[Nefreet]

I'm not seeing any issue here.

Lunge wrote:

You can increase the reach of your melee attacks by 5 feet until the end of your turn

If you're trying to claim you can Lunge more than once, that's a different argument (which you'll have equally dismal chances of trying to make).

There is no implication that this increase scales with creature size, natural reach, or threat range with reach weapons.

A tiny-sized creature gains the same benefits as a colossal-sized creature.