Do Large weapons use larger damage dice?

[Sephalopod779]

It doesn't state specifically in the description of the Giant Instinct whether the Large weapon the barbarian gains access to uses larger damage dice. It says "It has the normal Price and Bulk for a weapon of its size" but nothing about the damage dice. I checked out the latest version of the pre-gen barbarian, which shows the Large bastard sword stats as dealing 1d8 slashing with the two-hand d12 trait, which are the same stats as a Medium bastard sword.

If the damage dice aren't increased, what is the benefit of using a Large weapon that's bulkier, more expensive, and imposes the clumsy condition? Would the two-hand trait use the same d12 if the Large bastard sword is supposed to do 1d10?

[Nefreet]

No increase in damage dice.

The Barbarian Instinct gives you a larger flat damage bonus instead.

Same situation if you look at the statblocks for actual giants.

[PossibleCabbage]

The general rules (Page 295 CRB) are:

Quote:

Small or Medium creatures can wield a Large weapon, though it’s unwieldy, giving them the clumsy 1 condition, and the larger size is canceled by the difficulty of swinging the weapon, so it grants no special benefit.

The Giant Barbarian instinct however does grant a benefit for using an oversized weapons. But unless you have something that grants that kind of bonus, there's no reason to use oversized weapons.

[Sephalopod779]

Gotcha, thank you both for the help in understanding that! My barbarian player had been using a d12 for his falchion, I'll have to break the new to him ^^'

[Zapp]

Sephalopod779 wrote:

It doesn't state specifically in the description of the Giant Instinct whether the Large weapon the barbarian gains access to uses larger damage dice.

That's a rule from d20 and Pathfinder 1.

In Pathfinder 2 a given weapon gives the same damage no matter whether its small or large or huge or tiny. The rules doesn't state this anywhere. It just never says weapon size influences weapon damage.

The benefit of using a Large weapon that's bulkier, more expensive, and imposes the clumsy condition is detailed in the class text:
"When wielding such a weapon in combat, increase your additional damage from Rage from 2 to 6..." and later to 10 and even later to 18.

So you end up doing more damage, only this is tied to you (the Barbarian) and not to the weapon. You get 6, 10, 18 as your rage damage. As a comparison, the Animal and Dragon Instinct barbarians get 2 and 4 (instead of 6), 5 and 8 (instead of 10), and 12 and 16 (instead of 18).

Whether the extra damage is worthwhile is questionable, but your larger size and reach is definitely useful.

[Claxon]

Yeah, Giant Instinct get's the extra damage from the features of being a Giant Instinct barbarian. Not from the big weapon itself.

Basically, no one except a giant instinct barbarian should ever use larger size weapons.

As to whether or not it's good enough for the drawbacks...
It does provide the highest static damage bonus and you can get big reach, which is helpful if you pickup attack of opportunity.

It's not a slam dunk win, but it's pretty good.

The bulk and expense aren't really much of a penalty at all. And clumsy, while not good also isn't that bad of a penalty either.

[PossibleCabbage]

The rules for "using wrong sized weapons" for people who aren't giant barbarians are mostly for "you find yourself without a weapon, but there's a dead giant so you can borrow his sword". You technically can do this, but you're going to want to get a right-sized sword ASAP.

In the future there might be other options to let people productively use large weapons, but right now we just have the one.

[Nik Gervae]

Here you go.