Question About Weapon Damage/Target Size

[Shiftkitty]

Found some old character sheets and a question popped into my head. I know the answer is probably in the book somewhere, but I'll ask anyway:

Why do some weapons do greater damage against Large targets while others do less?

[Pladohs Ghost]

I don't recall any specific explanations in the books, though there may be.

The line of thinking behind that seems to be that large weapons can only do so much damage to medium/small creatures because there's only so much medium/small creature tissue to be damaged at one time--can't hurt what's not there. Large critters have more tissue to damage, so more of the energy from the weapons gets translated to damage.

If you drive a nail into a 1/4" board, only the quarter inch gets damaged, despite the nail being 2" long. If you drive that nail into a 4" board, a whole 2" of board gets damaged by the nail. Make sense?

[AuldDragon]

There's also an interesting element in how the weapons most commonly favored by warriors deal extra damage against large creatures, while those usable by priests and wizards tend to deal less damage. So it also functions as a class ability for warriors.

Jeff

[Loma]

If you look at broadswords, they do less damage against large creatures. This is because they are not suitable for stabbing with. They're made for slashing. You can't overpenetrate a small creature with a slashing attack and you can't get the broadsword's round tip all the way into the dragon.