Splash vs different size targets

[PlantThings]

Splash
Splash Trait

"If an attack with a splash weapon fails, succeeds, or critically succeeds, all creatures within 5 feet of the target (including the target) take the listed splash damage."

We always assumed it meant "within 5 feet of the target square" but as written, doesn't it technically scale with the target's size?

[Squiggit]

Most splash weapons don't even target squares in the first place, so I don't think that first interpretation makes much sense.

It scales with size insofar as that a 2x2 character has more squares adjacent to them than a 1x1 character though, yes.

[PlantThings]

Neat. And thank you!

Targeting a gargantuan creature with splash is now officially on my bucket list.

[TwilightKnight]

I dunno if it’s the intention of the designers that splash weapons are better vs larger targets or not, but by the rules that is exactly what seems to happen regardless of how ridiculous that sounds. It would make a hell of a lot more sense to add some rules that indicate if your target occupies more than one square, the thrower must decide which five-foot square of the target to aim at (soft cover penalties apply). I’m somewhat amazed they didn’t address this in the errata.

[Thezzaruz]

TwilightKnight wrote:

I dunno if it’s the intention of the designers that splash weapons are better vs larger targets or not, but by the rules that is exactly what seems to happen regardless of how ridiculous that sounds. It would make a hell of a lot more sense to add some rules that indicate if your target occupies more than one square, the thrower must decide which five-foot square of the target to aim at (soft cover penalties apply). I’m somewhat amazed they didn’t address this in the errata.

The problem with that is that then the targeted creature would also occupy some of those squares that splash damage would apply too and the only logical inference would then be that the targeted creature thus would take several instances of the splash damage.