I have never really played a character that utilized a reach weapon before, and now I'm thinking of playing on but the race size is "Small".
Does the reach distance granted on a Glaive for instance (10ft) get changed at all by the size of the Character? If I'm playing a 3 and a half foot tall Harengon, if they wield a Glaive, do they still get a 10ft reach (essentially 2.5 the distance of their body heigh haha)
ah that's right, there is that inherent disadvantage. Proves that I've gotten too dependent on DnD Beyond character sheets, they don't show the disadvantage on the sheet automatically so I totally forgot that rule.
But good to know that my Harengon can at least have the ability to be wildly sweeping their Glaive still lol
Side Note: can I add that disadvantage marker to the attacks manually? I know I'm going to continue to forget to apply it because I suck at remembering things that aren't written down on the sheet.
Yeah, when playing a Small character you have to avoid weapons with the Heavy property. There are two Reach weapons without the Heavy property, the Whip and the Lance.
The Whip is an awkward weapon to optimize around but it does have a niche for Rogues who want to Sneak Attack with a Reach weapon.
The Lance is great for mounted combat which is much easier to do as a Small character due to being able to use a Medium sized mount.
Thanks @fangeye, the lance is actually a great idea and could potentially be useful for what I think I want to do with my character... but it's sad that the Lance doesn't work with the Polearm Master feat, which is what I really wanted to use the Glaive/ heavy reach weapon for.
If I start doing some roll testing and find that the disadvantage is really really hurting me, I might switch my tactic ideas and go for the Lance though, thanks for the suggestion
If what you wanted out of Polearm Master is the Opportunity Attack when an enemy enters your reach then you are pretty much out of luck for non-heavy reach options. So if you want to use Sentinel to immobilize an enemy when it enters your reach, potentially before you are in their reach, heavy weapons are your only option.
Damage wise if you are just looking at Polearm Master on its own as a small PC, it just isn't worth the disadvantage. A single lance is always better than a glaive with disadvantage, even a one handed longsword is better in most cases.
The reason the glaive is so often the go to weapon for damage optimization is because you can combine Polearm Master with Great Weapon Master. If you take both then a glaive does become a better option so long as you can get advantage to cancel the inherit disadvantage and your enemy has average or lower AC. If one of these two conditions isn't met then a lance with no feat investment at all is still the better option.
However, if what you wanted was a Bonus Action attack then you can actually do this with a lance using the Dual Wielder feat. Beware this only works while mounted though. If you instead want to stick with Polearm Master for the flavor of it and don't mind giving up reach then the spear is an excellent choice too.
If you are curious about the math behind my claims I can share it, but for brevity I have left out the nitty gritty details.
Yeah, when playing a Small character you have to avoid weapons with the Heavy property. There are two Reach weapons without the Heavy property, the Whip and the Lance.
The Whip is an awkward weapon to optimize around but it does have a niche for Rogues who want to Sneak Attack with a Reach weapon.
The Lance is great for mounted combat which is much easier to do as a Small character due to being able to use a Medium sized mount.
Those are both Martial weapons, though, so rogues are not naturally proficient in either.
True, but there multiple ways to get whip proficiency on a rogue, either through multiclassing, feats, or racial abilities.
I have never really played a character that utilized a reach weapon before, and now I'm thinking of playing on but the race size is "Small".
Does the reach distance granted on a Glaive for instance (10ft) get changed at all by the size of the Character? If I'm playing a 3 and a half foot tall Harengon, if they wield a Glaive, do they still get a 10ft reach (essentially 2.5 the distance of their body heigh haha)
RAW you get the reach of the weapon, although if it's a heavy weapon and you're a small creature, you'll be at disadvantage on your attack rolls.
ah that's right, there is that inherent disadvantage. Proves that I've gotten too dependent on DnD Beyond character sheets, they don't show the disadvantage on the sheet automatically so I totally forgot that rule.
But good to know that my Harengon can at least have the ability to be wildly sweeping their Glaive still lol
Side Note: can I add that disadvantage marker to the attacks manually? I know I'm going to continue to forget to apply it because I suck at remembering things that aren't written down on the sheet.
Yeah, when playing a Small character you have to avoid weapons with the Heavy property. There are two Reach weapons without the Heavy property, the Whip and the Lance.
The Whip is an awkward weapon to optimize around but it does have a niche for Rogues who want to Sneak Attack with a Reach weapon.
The Lance is great for mounted combat which is much easier to do as a Small character due to being able to use a Medium sized mount.
Thanks @fangeye, the lance is actually a great idea and could potentially be useful for what I think I want to do with my character... but it's sad that the Lance doesn't work with the Polearm Master feat, which is what I really wanted to use the Glaive/ heavy reach weapon for.
If I start doing some roll testing and find that the disadvantage is really really hurting me, I might switch my tactic ideas and go for the Lance though, thanks for the suggestion
If what you wanted out of Polearm Master is the Opportunity Attack when an enemy enters your reach then you are pretty much out of luck for non-heavy reach options. So if you want to use Sentinel to immobilize an enemy when it enters your reach, potentially before you are in their reach, heavy weapons are your only option.
Damage wise if you are just looking at Polearm Master on its own as a small PC, it just isn't worth the disadvantage. A single lance is always better than a glaive with disadvantage, even a one handed longsword is better in most cases.
The reason the glaive is so often the go to weapon for damage optimization is because you can combine Polearm Master with Great Weapon Master. If you take both then a glaive does become a better option so long as you can get advantage to cancel the inherit disadvantage and your enemy has average or lower AC. If one of these two conditions isn't met then a lance with no feat investment at all is still the better option.
However, if what you wanted was a Bonus Action attack then you can actually do this with a lance using the Dual Wielder feat. Beware this only works while mounted though. If you instead want to stick with Polearm Master for the flavor of it and don't mind giving up reach then the spear is an excellent choice too.
If you are curious about the math behind my claims I can share it, but for brevity I have left out the nitty gritty details.
True, but there multiple ways to get whip proficiency on a rogue, either through multiclassing, feats, or racial abilities.
If your table allows some homebrew, theres the lance master feat this discord server Im on allows
https://www.dndbeyond.com/feats/1147969-lance-master