Item sizes and the Giant Totem abilities

[Sanmei Long]

Hoo. One of our players wants to play a barbarian with the Giant Totem and the more I dig into it, the more issues seem to arise.

To begin with, wielding weaponry of a size inappropriate to your own doesn't appear to be specifically addressed anywhere in the book -- the Items and Sizes page (191) only references cost and bulk of larger than normal weapons.

In 1E, weapons of different sizes did different amounts of damage. In 2E, it appears all weapons have exactly the same damage, whether your club is the size of a twig or the size of a tree. Can characters not normally wield weapons of an inappropriate size? Because if they can, I don't see what stops the from trading in their weapons for tiny-size equivalent (same damage, half as much bulk!)

But the giant totem is all about wielding larger weapons, so let's set that aside. Under the totem ability, it says that wielding a large weapon doubles the conditional damage bonus from raging, but imposes Sluggish 1 as long as the weapon is wielded.

Sluggish imposes a penalty equal to the increment on AC, attack rolls, DEX-based skill checks, and Reflex saves. Sluggish 1 is therefore a significant penalty, but having double the damage bonus is pretty significant as well, due to how 2E doesn't have ways of getting immense STR scores or feats like the 1E Power Attack.

Alas, you won't benefit from the conditional bonus to damage from Inspire Courage or other spells, which is kind of odd.

I feel like this works out to roughly a "push" as far as mechanics go. -2 AC is a significant penalty in 2E due to the increased likelihood to be critically hit and the tendency of monsters to have higher attack bonuses than a PC of the same level and I'm not sure the damage bonus makes up for it.

Then there are the abilities:

Quote:

You grow to incredible size. You become Large and increase your reach by 5 feet until you stop raging. You have the sluggish 1 condition (see page 324) while your size is increased.

Your equipment grows with you. If you’re using the titan mauler ability, your weapon’s even larger size causes it to have the same effects as normal for that ability.

The phrase "the same effects as normal" is always problematic when establishing a concept for the first time. You have Sluggish 1 if you are wielding a larger than normal weapon. Does that mean you have Sluggish 1 twice? I'm guessing this is intended to mean that your Sluggish condition increments to Sluggish 2 in this case.

Ouch. Now you're effectively taking a -3 penalty to AC, -2 to attack rolls, -2 to Reflex, and are significantly more likely to fail a DEX skill check (which, let's face it, you were likely going to fail anyway because skill DCs tend to be no better than a coin toss for a fully optimized character). And in return you get... what?

The spell Enlarge grants a +2 conditional bonus to damage (which increases to +4 when heightened to increase the character's size to huge). Neither Giant's Stature nor Titan's Stature reference the spell nor the conditional damage bonus, so we must assume it doesn't receive any. That means the only benefit is the increased reach.

Given that attacks of opportunity are now strictly limited by class and the only way Barbarian gets anything similar is through Come And Get Me and Vengeful Strike, this would appear to make this skill extremely circumstantial, as there is now functionally very little difference between being size medium or size huge beyond forcing some opponents to take a Step or a Stride action on their turn (it mattering very little which, because you are unlikely to be able to make an attack of opportunity) or possibly managing to hit opponents who are at higher elevation.

Oh, and Giant's Lunge just increases your reach some more. Again, chances are that you won't have many ways to take advantage of this. It's not as if most monsters will connect with all three attacks anyway, so forcing them to give up an attack at -10 to get closer to you doesn't feel very strategically significant. Having an advantage over larger monsters with attacks of opportunity of their own, well... again, circumstantial situation.

All in all, it's a very flavorful feat tree that doesn't appear to have any particular mechanical benefits, working out to a push at best and usually negative on average.

Changes I would recommend:

1) Change the conditional damage bonus to a typeless damage bonus in order to allow the barbarian to benefit from allied spellcasting, and:
2) Add the same conditional damage bonuses as seen on Enlarge to the N Stature abilities.

As for Giant's Lunge, I suggest an addendum: If Giant's Lunge would enable you to make weapon or unarmed Strikes against an opponent who would ordinarily be outside your reach, that opponent is flat-footed against all such attacks.

[dnoisette]

Sanmei Long wrote:

Can characters not normally wield weapons of an inappropriate size?

This is never explicitly stated anywhere in the core rulebook but I assumed upon first reading the Giant Totem that characters simply could not wield weapons that are not their own size.

Considering the fact that having larger weapons does not result in a higher damage dice, players would indeed have a strong incentive to go for Tiny weapons, which I imagine is the reason why they would not be able to wield a weapon that is not their size in the first place.

Sanmei Long wrote:

You have Sluggish 1 if you are wielding a larger than normal weapon. Does that mean you have Sluggish 1 twice? I'm guessing this is intended to mean that your Sluggish condition increments to Sluggish 2 in this case.

Conditions do not stack, hence, by RAW, you would still be only Sluggish 1 when using this ability.

If the intent were to make your character Sluggish 2, then I believe they could have easily put that in an errata but they have not yet done so.

This makes me think you're supposed to just stay Sluggish 1 and that part of the ability is just there in case you happen to be using it without wielding a Large weapon in the first place.
I could be wrong of course, and this could be an oversight, but I do not believe it is.
The ability just states that, whether you're wielding a larger-than-your-size weapon or not, you're still Sluggish 1 when you use it.

Sanmei Long wrote:

Given that attacks of opportunity are now strictly limited by class and the only way Barbarian gets anything similar is through Come And Get Me and Vengeful Strike, this would appear to make this skill extremely circumstantial, as there is now functionally very little difference between being size medium or size huge beyond forcing some opponents to take a Step or a Stride action on their turn (it mattering very little which, because you are unlikely to be able to make an attack of opportunity) or possibly managing to hit opponents who are at higher elevation.

There is one added benefit to forcing opponents to Step or Stride to get to you: they now have one less action which they can use to attack you.

However, I totally agree with you that this ability is very lackluster.
Today's errata fixed some issues with the Dragon and Superstition totems but Giant really needs to be next.

This totem's abilities are truly underwhelming right now, apart from the base benefit of doubling your rage bonus.
The whole thing just seems to beg for you to take the Fighter archetype, just so you can have that sweet AoO and finally make the best use of your totem.

Sanmei Long wrote:

1) Change the conditional damage bonus to a typeless damage bonus in order to allow the barbarian to benefit from allied spellcasting, and:

2) Add the same conditional damage bonuses as seen on Enlarge to the N Stature abilities.

Yes to both suggestions.

The first one actually seems to be an oversight, however.
It's the same thing with Magic Fang providing an item bonus...that animal companions are expressely forbidden to make use of.
Seems odd that a Druid would be able to enhance the natural attacks of a random animal they meet in their travel but not their lifelong companion.
Seems just as odd that Barbarians would be unable to benefit from a Bard's Inspire Courage.
Do they have a beef with music? Are they simply so awesomely brave that it's impossible to give them any more courage than they already have? :D

[Chess Pwn]

Mark commented that you get sluggish one twice and that that's one of the perks of this, you can go large and not lose effectiveness.

[Sanmei Long]

Thanks for clarifying that, Chess Pwn. The ambiguity of the phrase "same effects as normal" really needs to be addressed.

Even you don't gain Sluggish 2, however, the effects are still rather underwhelming given how hard it is to actually take advantage of your increased size in any way.

dnoisette wrote:

There is one added benefit to forcing opponents to Step or Stride to get to you: they now have one less action which they can use to attack you.

I did think of that, but as I noted under Giant's Lunge, preventing the opponent from making a third attack at a -10 penalty is... well, okay, monsters tend to have high attack roll bonuses, but they're still not overly likely to connect with that third attack anyway, so preventing them from using it is kind of "ehhh" at the best of times.

Unless you're fighting something that outclasses you even more so than the average monster, in which case why are you letting yourself be Sluggish oh stars you're gonna die