Thoughts on the disadvantage when a small race uses a heavy weapon

[suplee215]

A greatsword isn't a giant sword for a Medium creature--it's a size not uncommon in real life. For a gnome? You bet it is. It'd be like a real human wielding a 12' long sword.

If a player goes "My sword is as big or bigger than Cloud's" do you really think a DM (ok maybe a super duper strict one) will tell them "but it won't work, so no, it is unrealistic, now get back to fighting zombie dragons"?

[PhoenixPhyre]

If a player goes "My sword is as big or bigger than Cloud's" do you really think a DM (ok maybe a super duper strict one) will tell them "but it won't work, so no, it is unrealistic, now get back to fighting zombie dragons"?

I'm not one to talk, I gave a player a Cloud-sized greatsword. But that was explicitly magic, and he was normal size. And yes, if someone said that with a normal weapon that didn't have a "you can ignore the size" property, I'd look at him funny and he'd get disadvantage on attack rolls, just as if he were wielding an inappropriately-sized weapon. Which is what that would be.

But the point is that wielding huge (relative) weapons is not part of D&D's base aesthetic. It's a particular aesthetic that doesn't really fit very well here.

[suplee215]

I'm not one to talk, I gave a player a Cloud-sized greatsword. But that was explicitly magic, and he was normal size. And yes, if someone said that with a normal weapon that didn't have a "you can ignore the size" property, I'd look at him funny and he'd get disadvantage on attack rolls, just as if he were wielding an inappropriately-sized weapon. Which is what that would be.

But the point is that wielding huge (relative) weapons is not part of D&D's base aesthetic. It's a particular aesthetic that doesn't really fit very well here.

If it effects 0 mechanical parts of the game it fits pretty damn easily.

[PhoenixPhyre]

If it effects 0 mechanical parts of the game it fits pretty damn easily.

Mechanics are the least important part of the game. Narrative is more important.

[loki_ragnarock]

the rules let you hold oversized swords, even let you wield them. Just not without a penalty, find us a video of someone weighing 30 pounds with a two handed sword actually using it (effectively), or I suppose a video of someone wielding a 20+ pound sword and ill consider that an argument but those pictures don't prove anything.

Images I can absorb at a glance. Videos I'd have to spend weeks searching for, and I am not made of time. Were it but so! I'd know so much more... although I'd probably still find a way to squander infinite time playing video games.

Even so, I'd bet money that old feller could use it without disadvantage. Possibly because his subclass is Samurai, and just chooses to use it without disadvantage a couple of times per day. Or maybe he's just proficient with Odachi, and the weight people are putting on the "inconceivable" portion of their thinking is a bit overblown.


But even so, taking into account the proportions for the edge cases depicted, it isn't particularly unreasonable for an exceptional three-ish foot tall person to use a four foot sword if you use these photos of real people as an example. A four foot sword could reasonably qualify as a greatsword - certainly it would be a two handed, heavy weapon. With proper metallurgy, you could probably get such a sword to weigh between 4 and 6 pounds. I can accept that this could also be interpreted as a large longsword, but either is probably valid.

Further, the idea that there aren't bigger and beefier halflings than the normal range given in the players handbook doesn't mesh well with how some people put forward their characters for other races; humans top out at 6'4, half orcs at 6'6. All those 7 foot tall barbarians we've all sat down and played amongst shouldn't exist for the purposes of our discussion; they don't exist, even as an edge case, any more than a halfling pushing 3'7 as a Scotty Pippen of his kind.

So looking at edge cases, the biggest weapons you can conceive of would be perfectly capable of being used by a five foot, 114lbs human; IE the smallest viable human. They can use a 6-7 foot sword without problem or penalty. A 4 foot, 119lbs dwarf could likewise swing a 6-7 foot sword without any additional difficulty. That it is inconceivable that a halfling of unusually large size couldn't wield a sword at the lower end of that range is the part I find perplexing. Edge cases coinciding lead to a picture that I can actually imagine.

I don't have a problem with the rule existing; it's a rule that makes a certain amount of sense. However, there's a certain subset of objections in this thread that fall into the "I can't imagine this" category. I can understand game balance concerns, certainly. I can also understand genre protection; even as I think this edition mostly tried to usurp some of those notions, maintaining others is a clear design choice. But "I can't imagine this" as a defense in a game that is specifically about imagination needs to be gently challenged, especially when there are so many *real* examples that a simple image search can yield.
The edge cases are worth considering before we embrace inconceivable.


It's weird that no one has proposed a character option to open it up, after so many pages of deliberation on the subject.
So what about a feat that lets small characters use big weapons? Sure, it's an additional feat tax, which is annoying, but if you're committed to the image, why not make it so?

Carry a Big Stick
Prerequisite: Small Size
You've learned to play with the big kid's toys. Whenever you use a weapon with the Heavy property, you gain the following benefits:
- You don't attack with disadvantage.
- On the first round of combat, you have advantage on all attacks because no one can believe this is real.
- If you attack someone and miss, you may immediately choose an adjacent enemy to re-roll the attack against. You may only do this once per round.


There, now goblins and gnomes can treat people's insides as body paint just as much as dwarves and dragonborn.

[Wryte]

{Scrubbed}

[suplee215]

Mechanics are the least important part of the game. Narrative is more important.

I disagree highly. The PHB does very little for narrative. What it does is provide mechanics and it is up to the players to decide the tone and narrative to the very loose layers there. Do you want the game to be super gritty and dark and stuff? Ok you can make that work. THrow your party against a bunch of wolves. Do you want the game to be silly and absurd? Ok and instead of wolves they are fighting corgis who have the same stats as wolves. A player may even pet them. Want to describe weapons as realistically as possible? Go right ahead (although be careful using the weights from the books as they are off). Want to add more pizzaz to them to make them more noticeable or bigger or smaller or whatever? Feel free. You can describe the same basic scene in a dozen different ways to change the tone, genre, setting, whatever. The narrative is important to the game but that is not dictated much by the books unless you are playing the modules and even then you can put your spin on things. At the end of the day does it matter if a PC is using an axe that is described as being so big no one will be able to carry in real life if it does just as much damage as a normal size one will? Of course this depends on what is agreed upon in session 0 but unless a ultra realistic game was agreed upon I do not think a reasonbale DM will have a problem with weapons that function the same as the book but look different. And quite frankly if anyone at the table can't suspend their disbelief enough to imagine a dragborn can carry a great sword that even Mark Henry will struggle with needs to have said dragonborn spit fire or acid in their face. Ok this is a much longer rant than I suspected but it just astounds me that martial classes are supposed to abide by the law physics in a game where people can just rain fire and destroy a small army.

[Tanarii]

I disagree highly. The PHB does very little for narrative.

I don't think I've seen someone make that claim about 5e before. Narrative driving mechanics, yes, it's pretty light on that. But it's usually considered a relatively "fluff" heavy edition by people that think in such terms, or rather it has plenty of aspects that flow from narrative. At least in comparison to the previous / recent editions at least. Certainly by non-D&D RPG standards it's pretty baked-in-story light.

Afaik, at least from comments made by other posters who follow such things more than I do, the developers consider narrative / story to be a somewhat significant part of 5e.

[ad_hoc]

If it effects 0 mechanical parts of the game it fits pretty damn easily.

I don't want my game to be a mush of mechanics.

Even in board games, where mechanics are more important, theme still matters (otherwise they are abstract games which have merit but not as much to me).

This comes up time and time again. More options is not always better. If everyone can do everything then nothing matters.

[ad_hoc]

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

{Scrubbed} I'm pretty sure I didn't do any bashing of any type.

I just said that D&D is not an anime game. That isn't bashing anime if that is what you mean.

[Tectorman]

{Scrubbed}

Called it: "not an honest broker".

My "narrow interests" are specifically framed so as to not interfere with other people's (unless you can provide such an example, but since that's what I just asked you to do and instead of answering, you went with this dismissive tirade, I'll just take that as you conceding the point).

That's... the very definition of "being able to see past one's own interests".

[Sindal]

Ok,

So I’ve had to put this in a word document to try and collate all my thoughts about this trivial, to me, matter to make sure that I’m being as objective as possible to everyone involved. I don’t feel like the argument I’ve made has really been given the same treatment but never the less. I won’t feel good about myself just leaving it on the floor and walking away.

Feel free to skip to the bottom for my TL DR statment. Otherwise, strap in.

So! Lets tackle some of the replies I got to my question:
“Why do you believe this specific rule is out of place”

I likely won't touch on everything because I'll be here all day if I did...

1) It unfairly penalizes small races to the point that there's no reason to ever play one for a strength build.

I’m sorry. I’m very sorry but this just isn’t true. An overarching blanket statement like that doesn’t work in this system, especially where opinion and preference are more weighed. It’s a penalty to a subsect of weapons that fall under the strength build category.

Generally, when you think of strength (and by extension, mostly melee) builds, there are three normal states.
-Two handling a weapon, either one that is versatile or one that is heavy
- ‘Sword and board’, which focuses on more defense while still doing respectable damage
-Dual wielding. This is admittedly more of a dex associated playstyle, but is still possible for strength builds as all weapons light enough to be dual wielded are supposed to default to using strength (see hand axes)

Any small race is capable of doing all three of the above. The latter two have no visible disadvantage in the rules and would not be given a second glance. The remaining first one is still possible, using a versatile weapon instead of a heavy.

Versatile weapons being Battleaxes, Long swords, Warhammers, Spears and tridents, to cover all of the base types of damage. Each one has a ‘heavy’ counterpart that must always be held in two hands, gating itself out of the other two playstyles automatically where they can choose to be one or the other at a moments notice. Greataxe, Greatswords, Glaives, Halberds, Mauls and Pikes.

In most cases, Versatile weapons when handled in two hands deal a d10’s+ worth a damage with the exception of the spear and tridents. 3 out of the 6 heavy weapons do the same amount of damage, because they also have reach. Because they’re basically just a sword or an axe on a really long stick.

There’s an outlier, lances. But I’ll get to that a little later. For now, I want you to take in that a strength build is both ‘viable’ and ‘possible’ for small races.

“Why should you?” compared to bigger races? I dunno. Because you want to play a strength-based build on a smaller race and have fun? Because you can do it. You shouldn’t be comparing yourself to other players when you decide what you want to play. They are your team mates, not your competition. They aren’t secretly sitting around the campfire going “Gosh I wish Sally Starbright hadn’t picked a strength build. It’s really harshing my mellow”. If they are then that’s firmly their problem and they’re probably not fun players to begin with cause they seem pretty hostile to you wanting to try something uncommon.

The only feasible reason I could see someone adamant about using a heavy weapon, for mechanical reasons, is that they want to use Great Weapon Master. A feat (that are optional at your table. Do not assume that it is the standard just because people have sorta come to accept it as given/ The question ‘do you allow feats’ is a question you have to ask) that capitalizes specifically on heavy weapons.

Now HERE, I can be persuade to see your side and work in your favor.
-Small people, are a race. A living, breathing, organism that has clear mannerism that you can touch and interact with and have a lot of lore likely tied into them regarding what they typically do, how they typically act and what they tend to prefer.
-Feats, are a concept. They are a list of abilities and powers that anyone can take provided you meet all of the requirements.

It makes a lot more sense to me to change THESE, instead of removing something about the race. Because there’s no baggage attached to the feat besides what it’s supposed to be able to achieve.

I would have absolutely no problems, as a DM, making GWM work with any weapon you hold in two hands instead of heavy weapons. Because the balance of feats is far shakier and based around ideas rather than concrete comparison. More importantly, this limiter being removed or changed, removes it for EVERYONE. Everyone gets to enjoy the perks.

2)…but isn't consistent with how small races interact with any other kind of weapon

Why does it need to be? Why do small races have to be catered for in this regard? For mechanical reasons? I’ve already mentioned that they’re capable and that they have options available to them.

What is the point of them being small then in a system that cares about size. Why bother to make it unique about them with its set of pros and cons. How are they able to make smaller weapons perform like larger weapons when larger races cannot make do the same thing? Because if a medium fighter could make a short sword DO what a long sword does, he probably would. And yet this option isn’t extended to them. Because it makes no sense. Making a weapon change EVERY single trait depending on your size, but not changing how much damage it does, is a needless amount of work that you COULD do, or you could ween out the ones that are actually problems logically. The ones that are too bulky. Not heavy. Bulky.

3) And it's not at all necessary. Every small race in the game is already strongly predisposed away from Strength builds and toward Dexterity builds. A player wanting to play a Strength build on a small race is already giving up a lot to do so, it's not remotely necessary to make it mechanically nonviable.

Your giving up at most:
-a potential +2 damage on a dice
-the functional access to half a feat that pertains to heavy weapons.
-The inability to shove a large or greater creature.
The stat bonus argument can to be said for any other race that doesn’t specialize in strength, and there are a ton. And that’s just the mechanical side. The roleplay and fluff side can be done as long as you’re playing the game, as a character. And you can still wear heavy armour, since the rules don't stop you from doing that and assumes that the armour was made to fit you, because that's what Armour does. T

4) it's not reasonable. It unfairly penalizes small races with no trade off, in a way that medium races aren't penalized in any aspect of the game.

Why must you be compensated for picking something that clearly wasn’t designed, physically, for something. A disadvantage is a disadvantage, and people aren’t scales that ‘need’ to be tipped up and down. All races have them regardless of size. Some races are ‘better’ than others because they have less disadvantages. That’s why they will excel at what they are good for instead. They make the good things more impactful and more unique to what you associate the rate with, because the race is probably smart, wants to survive and uses their strengths (hehe) seemly just for the sake of being able to do it.

I probably did use a hyperbole. I was gesturing to the entire system being the balance of every other race and questioning why they don’t get the same kind of treatment. If the argument is ‘because they are medium and therefore have everything, they could ever need from a balance point of view’, you risk upsetting players who look at that and think “Well that’s not fair. How come he gets to change a rule about his race. Why don’t you change my race to fit my build too?” What people consider to be fair and reasonable can get subjective at times.

Clearly, as we’re having this discussion ☺

5) The good things about being a small race:

So I’ve talked about all these apparent pros to being small that help alleviate some of the cons they have. It’s probably time that I actually mention them instead of referring to them as some sort of nebulous concept. Some of these have been brought up before but I’ll bring them up again just to create a nice comprehensive list. Your all also probably aware of the cons and they’re cons to be sure, because this thread wouldn’t exist without them so I won’t go into them in too much detail ☻

a) Small creates can access areas that medium races can’t. Like period. Medium races just can’t, without magic or significant difficulty. This is admittedly on a case by case basis and depends on what your dealing with, but in the situations that you need it, it’ll show.

b) Small races can mount medium creatures. Now while this isn’t my taste, it is something that is enabled by smaller races. Medium races have to bring a large creature. And you’re not bringing that into a dungeon. You could offset your walking speed issues by simply having a mount. If anyone is really into the idea of mounting and riding into battle on a pony, or a mastiff, they can do it. This one is an example of a build or circumstance that is flat out inconvenient to maintain on a medium race. Technically possible, sure, but very much not a good idea. Just like heavy weapons are technically possible, but not a good idea.

Funnily enough, coming back to a point, lances are a thing. They do a d12 and can be held in one hand assuming that you’re on a mount. They also effectively give you reach all the time because of the weird way they are designed which I’ll admit is a bit strange. So, you can charge into battle with a d12 weapon and a shield on your mount, moving further than the medium races nearby because mounts typically have 40 ft of movement. We can even direct our attention to a specific small race: Goblins. Goblins have a passive that lets them disengage as a bonus action without any investment. So you could get on your mastiff (or worg, like goblins tend to do) Lance into battle, and then when they close the gap on you, just bonus action out of 5ft range and stab them again. What else were you using it for anyway?

c) Small races can easily use other people as cover, as well as use cover more easily in general. If you aren’t directly hiding behind them, at the very least you can use them as an AC boost.

Cover is a bit finicky, I will admit, and technically in all fairness anyone can use another creature as cover as long as they are covering at least half of their body. Small races have smaller bodies, so the requirement is effectively half for them. I understand that this doesn’t directly translate to strength builds, but it’s a boon non the less and your probably gonna have to hide behind something at some point in your career.

d) A small race’s racial perks are generally pretty good as a default.

There are 4 small PC’s that are official.

Goblins, Halflings, Kobolds and Gnomes.

Halflings, at base, can move though larger creatures and have a much harder time rolling a 1. In combat, this is ‘free advantage when I’m supposed to fail miserably’. Out of combat, it helps you naturally turn things in your favor as any odds that you can bend are good odds. All it takes is that one special roll that due to probably changes from a 1 to a 20. Pretty brave too. So that’s…a mini paladin’s aura of courage or part of lvl 1 spell for free? None of these have a usage limiter. They’re just on. All the time. The subraces give a little extra hiding and resistances too. Very solid and useable

Goblins have the aforementioned disengage and hide to encourage interaction in melee fight distances (or run away). They stick with you regardless of class and not many classes besides rangers and rogues (who the ability is redundant for, adding a con to a dex character). They also make the cut as the only small race that doesn’t have a speed of 25, instead being 30. Fury of the small is ‘possibly underwhelming’ but it is nearly always available to you in combat. Chances are your gonna be fighting A LOT of things that are taller than you. It scales too.

Gnomes have one that really stands out, in that they have advantage to all Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma saves against magic. Magic is typically the thing that stuffs people up in the most annoying of ways. A fighter usually has trouble dealing with a mage who tries to disable or control them, but in that scenario, the only saving throw you don’t have covered is dex. The forest gnome gives you a little there, and lets you talk to animals easier. Hey! Another rider helper. The deep gnomes are also a race that have improved dark vision, but don’t have the drawback of sunlight sensitivity like drow or Kobolds. You’re gonna be working at night or in dark places a lot as an adventurer, probably.

Speaking of Kobolds, these poor guys really got the short end of the stick. And that’s a race problem, not a size problem. I have NO problems removing the -2 to strength because that affects ALL weapons they wield and not just the heavy ones. But after that, there’s an ability to make everyone around you with advantage for a turn which is pretty solid and can lead to some clutch moments in a party. Sunlight sensitivity is crappy in the light, but pack tactics comes in the try and save it. In the dark, pack tactics is lovely.

IN A WEIRD IRONIC TWIST OF FATE, Kobolds have a way of getting around the heavy rule. Because disadvantage doesn’t stack and they already would get disadvantage on rolls from sunlight sensitivity, a Kobold using his or her pack tactics would roll normally when using a heavy weapon. Go teamwork! You could make a ranger and get a beast with you to help you always trigger it (Though that’s a different beast of a discussion entirely)

When I review them, I can see some complementing features that makes a strength fighter more viable in general, because of how broad the passive are. Being able to move around in battle with more ease, grant advantage and resist magic in general sounds pretty good for being there in the fray. That’s not saying that there are races who don’t have strong passives as well, but you can’t discount the power behind the ones the small races have.

e) Fighting in cramped spaces is easier. You don’t know what your dm’s gonna throw at you. IF they throw you into a kobold tunnel to get a shiny you’re the only person who’s gonna be able to deal with it properly unless the wizards just decide the blow the place up with a fireball (Which you can do if you’re a wizard too)

Moving along..

6) Because 5e takes a lot of things older people see as tradition and just says "eff it".

I haven’t played the previous additions so I can’t really comment on the edition issue, but player perception is not a reason for a system to change itself. Perceptions can change. Rules shouldn’t, if there is a good/logical/lore reason behind them. Those rules will probably help shape someone’s perception. BUT THE REST OF THE RULES ALSO DO. I can THINK a rule a dumb. It doesn’t mean there isn’t a backing reason the rule exists.

So if you came to my table, and you said “Hi, I want to play a strength-based Goblin. I see I can’t use heavy weapons. Is it still possible?” and I’ll be something like “Hi dude, you can use literally any of the other strength weapons and still manage to kick someones butt. The rules and guidelines of your class say so.”

7) The anime comments that went around…

Guys, please, no. Don’t be rude. Don’t do that. Don’t ‘blame’ this on something and use it as a reasoning.

The architype of ‘Dude with a big weapon’ is in a lot of cultures. Anime may be a contributor because they can be over the top, but the standard image of a barbarian wielding an big axe comes from media in general. In more modern media would show it as it’s a big ‘gun’ instead of a big axe. Because big weapons are perceived to be cool and a show of power.

In systems that don’t care about size, small boi with big weapon happens. In systems like DnD, it doesn’t. Atleast, not with difficulty. Because he’s still a small boy.
And I LOVE things that make people special. Because for better or worse, you're special as small person distinctly. You get an entire different lease on life, all different problems, all different scenes to make.

WHEW!
TLDR time

With all of that out of the way, I want to say this:

-You can change this rule. Sure. Go ahead. No one is probably going to bat an eye if you do to make the game more accessible to a certain subset of people who have an interest in it.
-Would it hurt? Probably not much.
-Should you have to? I don’t think so. Being small brings about unique things and playstyles and not having large weapons helps emphasis that. It might suck, but there are alternatives.
-This kind of discussion really only matters if you’re having it with your DM. If you’re the DM, you’ve probably already removed it. A beauty of DnD is that it actively tells you to change the rule if you don’t like it. So some ‘should it have been’ arguments are ultimately pointless back and forth of people with different opinions because in game, whatever rules are enforced are the ones that matter.

I understand that it kinda sucks for strengths builds. I see your point that shifting the rule isn't going to throw our world into a maelstrom of chaos. But should I HAVE to as a default, when a rule logical rule exists and explains to me why? No.

-I likely haven’t changed anyone’s mind, but I needed to get this out of my system. If I have atleast made you think about it, thank you for being willing to hear me out.
-I apologize if I came off as antagonistic or rude to anyone. This was not my intention at all.
-I hope that maybe if your against the idea: give it a chance, see if it is fun, and then tell your friends it is fun if you had fun. That changes perceptions better than any rule can.

I'm running away, before I get more upset. Mostly at myself, for caring this much

Kind Regards
Sindal

[Cybren]

Mechanics are the least important part of the game. Narrative is more important.

I would strongly argue that having a “normal” great sword and a buster sword use identical stats would demonstrate a specific failure of the mechanics. This is a roleplaying game. even if the mechanics aren’t attempting a high-fidelity simulation of the world they should still correspond to the things and events within them. (Which is in fact the entire premise behind the heavy weapon limitation)

[noob]

Now I want to play a halfling that use as a weapon a 5 foot by 5 foot block of smoothed granite.

[Cybren]

Now I want to play a halfling that use as a weapon a 5 foot by 5 foot block of smoothed granite.

Does it occupy the same space as you or?

[noob]

Does it occupy the same space as you or?

I have no clue.

[jh12]

you went with this dismissive tirade,

Tirade? You call that a tirade? I have not yet begun to tirade. And I won't, because you complaining about the rules not catering to your individual desires isn't important enough to deserve a tirade.

[Hail Tempus]

If a player goes "My sword is as big or bigger than Cloud's" do you really think a DM (ok maybe a super duper strict one) will tell them "but it won't work, so no, it is unrealistic, now get back to fighting zombie dragons"?

You’re confusing realism with verisimilitude. Zombie dragons and other fantastical monsters are part of the setting. A human swinging a silly anime-style weapon is not.

If a player in my campaign wanted to use a weapon better suited to giants, he could. But, he’d have to do so at disadvantage and without proficiency, since the weapon in question is not on the list of simple or martial weapons.

[Brookshw]

.
This is nothing but gatekeeping nonsense with racist overtones.

I was unaware that artistic or literary styles were now classed as races. Now I understand what was meant when I overheard "surrealism is taking our jobs!"

I'll go back to my popcorn now.

[mephnick]

Welp I've already been called a racist for understanding DnD, so I think I'll ask for this thread to be locked.

[Hail Tempus]

I was unaware that artistic or literary styles were now classed as races. Now I understand what was meant when I overheard "surrealism is taking our jobs!".

Okay, I’d love to read a story about people losing their jobs to surrealism.

[viaFAMILIAR]

Does it occupy the same space as you or?

They're mounting it.

[suplee215]

{scrubbed}

[noob]

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

Culture is not race.
Use another term when people are discriminating on culture (it is an awful thing to do but it is not racism).
It is discriminating all the people that exists both on race and culture when you arbitrarily decide that culture and race are the same thing.
You are trying to offend each and every human in the world by saying "what you learned in school is your race and nothing else".

You created an asymmetry in the universe by talking about western standards specifically as if this region was special in any way and before you say that it was because you did think the posters here were using those standards I can tell you had no proof the people here were from that region nor that they were using those standards and not other standards that have similar results.
And also western standards includes most of the cultures because it is a huge region and people travels a lot so for any given cultural element you have a high odd of having people following it in this region.
For making more vague categories of standards you would need to climb to the planetary scale or the interplanetary scale.

[awa]

While I think this is super off topic and not (and I am not even saying this is what happened in this case) but opinions on artistic or literary style from other cultures one of the many ways racism can show. Holding up western standards or styles of art as superior and others as inferior is racism. While that is not what is blatantly what is going on here, there were a lot of posts dedicated to decrying anime and how it doesn't belong anywhere close to DND (I am paraphrase and perhaps using hyperbole). That said, getting back on track giant weapons is not exclusive to anime. Theres a reason there is even a GWM feat and GWF style in the game. And while one can claim "those aren't bigger than real life" at the very least most examples of real life weapons we have come from display and formal weapons that rarely if ever saw battle and were made larger to be more impressive for occasions. Hell going all the way back to Greek Mythology Heracles was said to have a club so big no one else could raise it and Thor's hammer required both a magic belt and gloves to grant a god enough strength to hold it.

People aren't discriminating against anime its not discrimination to not want to mix to opposing ascetics. Thors hammer may be heavy and slightly overlarge but its nothing compared to say clouds sword. Off the top of my head I can think of very few modern western fantasy stories where giant weapons were just a normal thing. Different games/ stories have different artistic influences if you combine them in a mindless slurry it makes an illogical setting which works fine for comedic game but less fine for anything that wants to have any kind of realism.

Spoiler: thors hammer

Show

Spoiler: anime version of the same hammer

Show

Claiming racism because people don't want to mix anime tropes with their setting is mildly offensive first it’s insulting but it’s also trivializing real racism.
Your claiming that we are saying western tropes are superior to anime but that not what’s happening, if we were doing that we would be demanding that cloud get a realistic sword and advocating that anime needed to change. What you are demanding is that we hold anime tropes as the one true art form and must insert its conflicting artistic style in every western game regardless if it fits the tone.
As should be obvious from this thread for a lot of people realism is a virtue that should be strived for when the circumstances allow and giving it up just so the Halfling can have a slight damage boost is unappealing.

[mephnick]

All I said was that DnD's inspiration was Western fantasy fiction. That is a fact.

DnD's goal as a system is to give an experience that mimics that Western fantasy and pulp fantasy (Tolkien, Arthurian, Conan). That is a fact.

That is why the archetypes are built the way they are. They are character archetypes from Western fiction.

I do not think it would be wise for them to stretch this goal into being unrecognizable by accounting for all kinds of fiction from across the planet. That's how you get terrible generic systems with no clear theme. That's what other systems are for. DnD has never been there to pander to everyone. It is a specific system with specific goals.

Then I get called a racist. Sweet.

[suplee215]

Culture is not race.
Use another term when people are discriminating on culture (it is an awful thing to do but it is not racism).
It is discriminating all the people that exists both on race and culture when you arbitrarily decide that culture and race are the same thing.
You are trying to offend each and every human in the world by saying "what you learned in school is your race and nothing else".

No need to make up a new term when academically it is an accepted fact that acceptance of literary styles by other cultures/races is often tied to racism. There are whole courses on the subject. Also race is an extremely vague term that keeps changing and while it is slightly different than culture the two are still intermingled.

[suplee215]

Spoiler: thors hammer

Show

Spoiler: anime version of the same hammer

Show

But it still takes a belt that multiply a god's strength by 10 in order to lift THor's hammer. THat is still an extremely heavy weapon that is just as unrealistic to use as the anime example.

[noob]

No need to make up a new term when academically it is an accepted fact that acceptance of literary styles by other cultures/races is often tied to racism. There are whole courses on the subject. Also race is an extremely vague term that keeps changing and while it is slightly different than culture the two are still intermingled.

Race is not even close to culture in meaning.
culture is a set of knowledge you have(ex: knowledge about stories or about voting or the lack of voting in country X and so on).
race is whatever morphological criteria and/or familial ties individuals decided to use to pick people to consider as different.
You are trying to conflate distinct stuff.
People who discriminate on race also often discriminate on culture but it does not means race is a term similar to culture.
If somehow people who did hate hats also always unconditionally hated the number 3 it would not mean that hats are similar to the number 3.

[awa]

But it still takes a belt that multiply a god's strength by 10 in order to lift THor's hammer. THat is still an extremely heavy weapon that is just as unrealistic to use as the anime example.

So? The fact that a god uses a heavy weapon doesn't change the fact that massively oversized weapons are not part of the modern western artistic style. Thors hammer was used as an example of oversized weapons but while its heavy and it is oversized it actually proves my point very nicely western oversized is tiny compared to the anime equivalent.

As has been mentioned repeatedly using a weapon bigger than you are bugs some people, thors hammer while heavy is not that big (comparatively speaking). Unrealistic weapon weights are a separate topic entirely. Besides thors a god hes allowed to have a heavy weapon.

The people saying western characters use oversized weapons have yet to actually show an example being used that actually oversized, heavy and big are related but not the exact same thing. Besides which if the only examples you can find are gods and demi gods that's not a good argument. But ill agree the god of the haflings can probably use a great-sword without penalty if that's what he wants to do I have no problem with that.