Enlarge spell and weapon damage question

[cloaker]

Heres the situation. I was DMing a 5th level adventure and the wizard cast the Enlarge spell on the Fighter who uses two bladed gauntlets (he wants to become Cat Lord PrC).
The spell says the fighter will grow 50% and for each 20% he grows he gains +1 or +2 Str. Ok till here. The spell says all equipment increases in size also, and the player said that his weapon would then change size and so change damage, from 1d6 to 1d8 (one size up).
Is this correct ? Does casting Enlarge on the fighter make his weapon do more damage, or does an enlarged character only gain Height, Weight and Strength ?

(Im kind of new in DMing and didnt want to disrupt the combat so I allowed the weapon to change damage, but it did seem wrong at the time, and now Im not sure)

 

[Dr. Zoom]

I don't think the 50% growth for this weapon would change its base damage. It may be possible for other weapons, though. Usually, only what the spell description specifically says the spell does, it does. If it does not say that the weapon changes size categories, then it does not.

 

[Asheron]

The spell says the fighter will grow 50% and for each 20% he grows he gains +1 or +2 Str. Ok till here. The spell says all equipment increases in size also, and the player said that his weapon would then change size and so change damage, from 1d6 to 1d8 (one size up).
Is this correct ? Does casting Enlarge on the fighter make his weapon do more damage, or does an enlarged character only gain Height, Weight and Strength ?

I thought that rule only went up with de righteous might spell (lvl5) of a cleric. If a weapon gets bigger, its just a bigger weapon, is it not?

Ash

 

[reapersaurus]

I am actually quite sick of people trying to neuter Enlarge.

First, the argument was that a 6'6" guy gets Enlarged to 9'9", but inexplicably is NOT 'considered' Large for any game-mechanic purposes, even though it is quite clear- absoultely unchallengable- that this guy is now in the Large size category..

I can accept that, only from an unbalancing argument - that it's a 1st level spell and all.

But now people are trying to take away something that it does state in the rules - that your gear grows 50% in size.

Take a short sword - how long is that?
Increase the size 50%.
I'll bet you that it is now in the Medium weapon size category (if they ever actually defined what that was, that is).

If you take away the weapon category increasing, than what does the spell actually DO?
Make you bigger but no benefit (no reach), heavier (a disadvantage usually), and give you +1 or +2 to STR.

If they wanted the effect of Enlarge to only be a small, brief enhancement to STR, than that's a pretty inappropriate benefit to an Enlarge spell.

Since it simply is NOT exactly defined in the rules (quite clearly, it could go either way "by the rules"), than it's a judgment calll for every DM out there.

And here's the crux: do you actually think that raising the weapon size category (usually providing an average of +1 damage) is unbalancing or inappropriate for a Level 1 spell that's cast by a 5th level mage?

If so, I think you should look back on some of the other spells out there for a power comparison (Shield, Mage Armor, Grease, Magic Missle, Entangle).

 

[dcollins]

A size increase requires a full doubling of height, regardless of the original size. In this particular case, a mere 50% size increase to gauntlets does not suffice to increase their size category.

You don't get extra sauce out of the enlarge spell because you declared your character to be 3 ft.-11 in. or 6 ft.-6 in.

www.superdan.net/dndmisc/enlarge.html

 

[Saeviomagy]

Not a particularly good reference there. "Here's my opinions, and to back it up... here's my opinions and a table which doesn't make sense".

I'm not seeing the reference to a creature having to double in size to gain a size increase in the SRD. Could you quote the relevant sentence? What I DO see is a table which clearly states the dimensions a creature needs to have in order to be a certain size category.

 

[Jondor_Battlehammer]

I think you handled it correctly. If you have the S&F book, it gives you the size vs. damage modifiers. If you take a 2 1/2 - 3 foot sword, and it turns into a 4 - 4 1/2, I think this qualifies for a damges increase. The full blade in S&F is 18 inches longer than a two handed sword, thus comprimising less than 50% of a two handed sword's length, and you still have to be a large creature to weild it.

I would only change damage if you were able to go the full 50%, but you did right, on the ruling and in not stopping game over a minor situation. An extra 1-2 points of damage is not the end of the world.

 

[Caliban]

I am actually quite sick of people trying to neuter Enlarge.

We aren't trying. It has been neutered in 3e. Don't ascribe malicious intent to people who are trying to honestly answer the question.

But now people are trying to take away something that it does state in the rules - that your gear grows 50% in size.

No one is tryign to take it away. Your gear does increase 50% in size. Your melee just doesn't do any extra damage because of it, although a thrown boulder might (due to the damage from falling object rules, which specifically take mass into account).

If you take away the weapon category increasing, than what does the spell actually DO?

We aren't taking it away, the spell description is.

Make you bigger but no benefit (no reach), heavier (a disadvantage usually), and give you +1 or +2 to STR.

Yup, that's pretty much it. It also stacks with Bull Strength. Basically it's a 1st level spell that can give you a +1 on to hit and damage eventually.

If they wanted the effect of Enlarge to only be a small, brief enhancement to STR, than that's a pretty inappropriate benefit to an Enlarge spell.

That is apparently all they wanted. You can house rule back to what it was in second edition if you want, but I wouldn't recommend it. It was pretty overpowered in 1st/2nd edition.

I think it would be pretty reasonable to rule that a larger weapon does more damage (i.e. upping the damage dice one rank), but I don't think that is the intent of the spell (mainly because a greatsword going from 2d6 to 2d8 and then critting can be pretty damn scary). I could be convinced otherwise though.

 

[dcollins]

Not a particularly good reference there. "Here's my opinions, and to back it up... here's my opinions and a table which doesn't make sense".

At no point did I refer to the linked article as support. I provided it as an expansion of the ideas posted above, to those who are curious.

If you couldn't "make sense" of a 5-line table that requires exactly one sentence of provided explanation, then I certainly can't help you any further.

 

[reapersaurus]

You can house rule back to what it was in second edition if you want, but I wouldn't recommend it. It was pretty overpowered in 1st/2nd edition.

Leave it to you to suck the fun out of a rules discussion, Cal.

Sometimes the fact that this is a Rules Forum takes away some of the fun, but I'll stay within Rules boundaries.
(I DO believe you understood the intent of my position, as evidenced by your personal coments at the end.)

As for rules:
Enlarge does NOT say that it doesn't increase the weapon size category.
It DOES say that your gear grows bigger.
It does NOT say that it does gain a size category.

If you take the rules approach that "unless it explicitly states it in the rules, it doesn't happen", than you are treading a slippery slope.
There would have to be about a hundred different places that they don't specifically re-word or clarify something, but they intend for something to happen.
The rulebooks would be thousands of pages thick if they didn't use the contextual assumptions inherent in 3E rulebooks.

Now whether you believe that a longsword that increases in size by a full 50% to be an increased size category (which you could easily prove by taking measurements) is not as important of a question as do you think the weapon should gain the benefit of the increased size category.

Going back to the discussion we had about Enlarge and character size, the arguments against Enlarge increasing the characer's size category were 2-fold:
1) It would overpower a first level spell (even if it took a 5th level mage to do it)
2) If memory serves, the only in-game rationale for denying a 9'9" PC the benfits of reach and size category were that he and his system were not 'natively' Large size, and he couldn't properly take advantage of that size, since he didn't normally spend time in that form.

Now both of those approaches are not applicable to a weapon-size increase, don;t you agree?

1) in my strong opinion, It is not unbalancing to grant the size increase here.

2) How can a larger size weapon possibly be nerfed to not do more damage? That the cell structure of the metal gets weaker as it expands, so it's not as dense, since it's not natively a Larger weapon?
Come on....

How do you argue that a weapon that classifies as one level larger, isn't actually a size larger?
The weapon is a larger size now.
(too bad there isn't a specific table for weapon sizes to 'prove' this, but i think most people would agree that a Longsword that is increased by 50% would now 'technically' be a larger weapon size.)