One thing I noticed in the D&D One UA was that some races have a size option for Small or Medium and some do not. I probably just never paid attention to this in the PHB - likely I relied on whatever I had read in past editions. Or maybe this came up more recently with some lineages? Anyway, there are a couple things that stand out to me causing me to ask if we can make the choice between small and medium options consistent across all races?
1. Movement speed is the same regardless of size.
2. With grappling becoming more common (hitting with an unarmed strike vs opposed checks), it seems really odd a 2' tall halfling could headbutt a 7' tall orc and then move them 30'. I'm all for streamlining and I get that we are sacrificing realistic physics for that, but I don't think players are usually comparing actual character heights. Rather, they are comparing the buckets the races fall into - some are tall, some are short (and some can be either), such that a tall race and a short race seem opposed, like there is a huge gap between them. I could very well have a 4' halfling grappling a 5' orc, but it still would be perceived as the other extreme of a 2' tall halfling grappling a 7' tall orc. If orcs could be small, it might help with that perception.
3. Mechanically, size matters. Heavy weapon penalty, mount sizes, squeezing, character weight, the squat nimbleness feat, halfling nimbleness, and whatever else might come up. There seem to be a number of cool things players may want to do that being small facilitates. Like using reduce and traveling via mage hand or an artificer riding on its steel defender. I just like the idea of being more free when building a character rather than restricted from picking some races if I decide I want to make a character that gets advantage from being small instead of medium or vice versa.
4. Assuming that surely there is some variation more than the 1' ranges presented (I assume these are a range for average heights which would vary across different groups), these are negligible differences. If I take the height ranges from the races and consider +1' for a small size and -1' for a medium size as in the halfling and orc example above, it's negligible. Also, a dwarf being 4'-5' is medium but a gnome being 3'-4' is small - so a 4' Gnome is small but a 4' dwarf is medium? I suppose girth or even density plays a role in a size category, but really, a 4' gnome with a higher strength is less able to use a heavy weapon than a 4' dwarf with a lower strength?
I'd rather not let all races choose the size category. Given that even dwarves are medium, small races are basically midgets, and that doesn't fit all races' image and identity. It's okay for, say, tieflings to have varying sizes, since tiefling is a broad term describing all kinds of heritages with different fiends somewhere down the bloodline. But, say, orcs? Let's not streamline too much.
I would like to see size play more of an issue in 5e and in extent 1D&D but that does not seem to be the way the game is headed.
The way size is dealt with causes some "cartoonish" things to happen and in the past when I have seen things mentioned like this it has been said the GM has to step in and say no that cannot happen.
Halflings are small, sneaky tricksters that live Under ground, akin to leprechauns, that traditionally favor the rogue class (versus illusionist/bard for gnome), which differentiates them from small humans.
Orcs have the powerful build trait, so it's weird to have them small.
All the races without small options have a close relative that fits the same archetype. Or they double as part-giant PC option.
EDIT - I am not saying it excuses the decision, but rather its something worth taking note of.
Their express reasoning was there are small humans in real life out there as well. So my guess its some inclusive move, which fine though under 4ft is way way outside the norm.But if that is the reasoning, there should be tall halflings, shorter dwarves, short elves etc, the idea only humans and tieflings have a range is just weird. We are talking like 1 in 100,000 rare here.
I'd rather not let all races choose the size category. Given that even dwarves are medium, small races are basically midgets, and that doesn't fit all races' image and identity. It's okay for, say, tieflings to have varying sizes, since tiefling is a broad term describing all kinds of heritages with different fiends somewhere down the bloodline. But, say, orcs? Let's not streamline too much.
How does a 4' tall small aardling/tiefling and a 4' tall medium aarding/tiefling simultaneously fit image and identity? Why is a 4' gnome small but a 4' dwarf is medium? It's literally a choice that comes down to the mechanics of being small vs medium. Or it emphasizes how divorced the actual physical height of a character is from the size buckets they are wedged into.
How does a 4' tall small aardling/tiefling and a 4' tall medium aarding/tiefling simultaneously fit image and identity? Why is a 4' gnome small but a 4' dwarf is medium? It's literally a choice that comes down to the mechanics of being small vs medium. Or it emphasizes how divorced the actual physical height of a character is from the size buckets they are wedged into.
I actually support making sizes more optional across race lines, but the explanation for this is that size is more than just height.
The current thinking is that Dwarves are medium despite being short, because they are also broad and basically take up most of a 5ft cube on their own, while Halflings and Gnomes are not just short but also lithe and more than one of them could share the space of a 5ft cube without pushing each other out if they had to.
Halflings are small, sneaky tricksters that live Under ground, akin to leprechauns, that traditionally favor the rogue class (versus illusionist/bard for gnome), which differentiates them from small humans.
Orcs have the powerful build trait, so it's weird to have them small.
All the races without small options have a close relative that fits the same archetype. Or they double as part-giant PC option.
EDIT - I am not saying it excuses the decision, but rather its something worth taking note of.
It is interesting that Powerful Build totally ignores the small category. That is a good related issue - thanks for identifying that. It doesn't really make sense that small and medium creatures have the same carrying capacity other than it is convenient to have the same carrying capacity for player characters which are all small or medium.
I guess Powerful Build is a sort of Medium+ indicator. You say part-giant, which seems applicable for goliaths, but thinking about orcs and luxodons as well, it's something of a monstrous race indicator. I could see exceptions for "monstrous humanoid" races, but maybe that is the question. Are there "monstrous humanoid" races in D&D, or just humanoid races, all subject to the same variations as humans? How much is size a part of the identity of the various races?
Well, for halflings, being small is a part of their identity too - their nimbleness is tied to size, as well as the lore of small trickster spirits that they, and hobbits in general, were associated with.
Gnomes, when they were first designed, where chosen to be a mix of elf, dwarf and halfling, and the small trickster part was the part taken from halflings, along with magically inclined from elves and crafty-inclined from dwarves. So, they inherited small being important as their identity.
Goblins seem to be modeled off smeagol/gollum, who was an evil hobbit, and being child size has become part of their identity, as opposed to the human sized hobgobolins. Kobolds, imps, mephits, minions from Despicable Me... the small evil minion seems to be a cliche. Most of which with a taller counterpart.
Fairies / sprites / nixies are, well, they're known for being tinkerbell sized, so again smol identity.
On the other side, goliath and firbolg (and I suppose trolls and ogres) are all technically categorized as giants, and giants as a whole are, well, giant by definition.
Orcs are big hulking.... actually, are they basically Incredible Hulks? Never really thought about that. Likewise with the goblinoid version of orcs, the bugbears.
Hm. Those are the only ones I can really think of for whom size really matters. At least of humanoids.
Relatedly! Faerie dragons! Small dragons that are cat sized. That size is apparently so related to the identity that Fizben's created an entire new Moonstone dragon for what amounts to larger sized faerie dragons. Seems like same personality, same kinda lairs/territory, just writ larger body.
How does a 4' tall small aardling/tiefling and a 4' tall medium aarding/tiefling simultaneously fit image and identity? Why is a 4' gnome small but a 4' dwarf is medium? It's literally a choice that comes down to the mechanics of being small vs medium. Or it emphasizes how divorced the actual physical height of a character is from the size buckets they are wedged into.
I actually support making sizes more optional across race lines, but the explanation for this is that size is more than just height.
The current thinking is that Dwarves are medium despite being short, because they are also broad and basically take up most of a 5ft cube on their own, while Halflings and Gnomes are not just short but also lithe and more than one of them could share the space of a 5ft cube without pushing each other out if they had to.
I have always thought of the situation with occupying a 5' square as a reach issue, with reach being related to height. The Heavy property for weapons says a heavy weapon’s size and bulk make it too large for a Small creature to use effectively. The size of a weapon being usable seems related to the height of the creature using it, and the bulk of the weapon being usable is related to the strength of the creature using it. Creatures with similar reach - which generally means similar heights - should probably be taking up the same portion of the 5' square mechanically speaking, and able to use the same weapons (without penalties.) I think movement, too, as I have heard explanations around the 5' square including that the creature is not standing still but moving around, repositioning (somehow always around a center of gravity in the middle of the 5' square - I felt like this is where the 5' step came from). But that kind of falls apart if we think about smaller creatures being more nimble, as they would probably move around more then a larger creature, probably taking up relatively more space than their size. After all, any repositioning is in relation to the creatures around you, right? You have to move just as far to keep a creature in front of you or to maintain the same distance from creature or to feint at a creature regardless of your size.
We might want to say other physical characteristics like some kind of supernatural density or nimbleness plays a factor in the size of a creature. Or that a race is broader/has a disproportionate reach. But if every race, small or medium, can have the same physical attributes, has the same relative carrying capacity (Powerful Build not withstanding), and has the same movement speed, then can we really say that they have these other physical characteristics?
I'd rather not let all races choose the size category. Given that even dwarves are medium, small races are basically midgets, and that doesn't fit all races' image and identity. It's okay for, say, tieflings to have varying sizes, since tiefling is a broad term describing all kinds of heritages with different fiends somewhere down the bloodline. But, say, orcs? Let's not streamline too much.
How does a 4' tall small aardling/tiefling and a 4' tall medium aarding/tiefling simultaneously fit image and identity? Why is a 4' gnome small but a 4' dwarf is medium? It's literally a choice that comes down to the mechanics of being small vs medium. Or it emphasizes how divorced the actual physical height of a character is from the size buckets they are wedged into.
I think the issue of dwarf vs other small races can be solved by looking back at how races were described in the past. Dwarves were in general hard working (physical labor) now and in the past (ie fathers and mothers) so they did damage as med creatures even though their size was small. Other races 1/2ling, gnome + others evolved by being more flighty then the dwarves so they were treated as small creatures.
In general if we look at humans today everyone does not benefit the same from the same amount of exercise or everyone would be in the Olympics.
Before things get too crazy; In general I think inclusiveness is good but the idea can be stretched to the point that it is used against inclusiveness. Also inclusiveness can depend greatly on the type of game your run and the setting you are playing in. In a cartoon like setting where an Iron PC (yes that device you iron your cloths with) is the same as a dog PC is vastly different then the Lord of the Rings. Also the rules of the plane you are on can vastly influence what is possible, with a good example of being a lot of descriptions of what the"Faire Realm" would be like (often with people not knowing that things do not work like they do on their own home plane, for example movement in some plane is based on your Int+Wis stats (round to nearest 5' to make things easy)
So in general I like races that have benefits and drawbacks and make them different then others. Note simply not having a benefit vs another race can be not a real area of difference or it can be a huge benefit to make the race really stand out.
How does a 4' tall small aardling/tiefling and a 4' tall medium aarding/tiefling simultaneously fit image and identity? Why is a 4' gnome small but a 4' dwarf is medium? It's literally a choice that comes down to the mechanics of being small vs medium. Or it emphasizes how divorced the actual physical height of a character is from the size buckets they are wedged into.
Because tieflings don't have consistent biology; tiefling is more of a broad term that ties together descendants of all kinds of fiends, and fiends can look likу anything, from a tiny imp to a huge balor, from a beautiful succubus to an abhorrent sibriex. So it's reasonable if their sizes vary, too.
Also dwarves are 4-5 feet tall, with heavy build, around 150 pounds, about as heavy as a human. Gnomes are 3-4 feet, 40 pounds. Halflings - 3 feet, 40 pounds. Makes sense why dwarves are medium and halflings and gnomes are small. For a human to be small, you'd need to find a human that is not only 4 feet tall, but also weighs around 40 pounds...
I agree that there needs to be better rules and restrictions for sizes. It doesn't make sense that a halfling would have 18 strength and would be able to wield a Two-handed Sword like a battle ready Orc.
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To know the light, you must sometimes experience the dark.
I agree that there needs to be better rules and restrictions for sizes. It doesn't make sense that a halfling would have 18 strength and would be able to wield a Two-handed Sword like a battle ready Orc.
Small creatures can't use weapons with heavy property. Best they can do is two-hand a versatile weapon like a longsword for 1d10 damage.
One thing I noticed in the D&D One UA was that some races have a size option for Small or Medium and some do not. I probably just never paid attention to this in the PHB - likely I relied on whatever I had read in past editions. Or maybe this came up more recently with some lineages? Anyway, there are a couple things that stand out to me causing me to ask if we can make the choice between small and medium options consistent across all races?
1. Movement speed is the same regardless of size.
2. With grappling becoming more common (hitting with an unarmed strike vs opposed checks), it seems really odd a 2' tall halfling could headbutt a 7' tall orc and then move them 30'. I'm all for streamlining and I get that we are sacrificing realistic physics for that, but I don't think players are usually comparing actual character heights. Rather, they are comparing the buckets the races fall into - some are tall, some are short (and some can be either), such that a tall race and a short race seem opposed, like there is a huge gap between them. I could very well have a 4' halfling grappling a 5' orc, but it still would be perceived as the other extreme of a 2' tall halfling grappling a 7' tall orc. If orcs could be small, it might help with that perception.
3. Mechanically, size matters. Heavy weapon penalty, mount sizes, squeezing, character weight, the squat nimbleness feat, halfling nimbleness, and whatever else might come up. There seem to be a number of cool things players may want to do that being small facilitates. Like using reduce and traveling via mage hand or an artificer riding on its steel defender. I just like the idea of being more free when building a character rather than restricted from picking some races if I decide I want to make a character that gets advantage from being small instead of medium or vice versa.
4. Assuming that surely there is some variation more than the 1' ranges presented (I assume these are a range for average heights which would vary across different groups), these are negligible differences. If I take the height ranges from the races and consider +1' for a small size and -1' for a medium size as in the halfling and orc example above, it's negligible. Also, a dwarf being 4'-5' is medium but a gnome being 3'-4' is small - so a 4' Gnome is small but a 4' dwarf is medium? I suppose girth or even density plays a role in a size category, but really, a 4' gnome with a higher strength is less able to use a heavy weapon than a 4' dwarf with a lower strength?
I'd rather not let all races choose the size category. Given that even dwarves are medium, small races are basically midgets, and that doesn't fit all races' image and identity. It's okay for, say, tieflings to have varying sizes, since tiefling is a broad term describing all kinds of heritages with different fiends somewhere down the bloodline. But, say, orcs? Let's not streamline too much.
I would like to see size play more of an issue in 5e and in extent 1D&D but that does not seem to be the way the game is headed.
The way size is dealt with causes some "cartoonish" things to happen and in the past when I have seen things mentioned like this it has been said the GM has to step in and say no that cannot happen.
Small dwarves are rock gnomes.
Small elves are forest gnomes.
Small dragonborn are kobalds.
Halflings are small, sneaky tricksters that live Under ground, akin to leprechauns, that traditionally favor the rogue class (versus illusionist/bard for gnome), which differentiates them from small humans.
Orcs have the powerful build trait, so it's weird to have them small.
All the races without small options have a close relative that fits the same archetype. Or they double as part-giant PC option.
EDIT - I am not saying it excuses the decision, but rather its something worth taking note of.
Their express reasoning was there are small humans in real life out there as well. So my guess its some inclusive move, which fine though under 4ft is way way outside the norm.But if that is the reasoning, there should be tall halflings, shorter dwarves, short elves etc, the idea only humans and tieflings have a range is just weird. We are talking like 1 in 100,000 rare here.
How does a 4' tall small aardling/tiefling and a 4' tall medium aarding/tiefling simultaneously fit image and identity? Why is a 4' gnome small but a 4' dwarf is medium? It's literally a choice that comes down to the mechanics of being small vs medium. Or it emphasizes how divorced the actual physical height of a character is from the size buckets they are wedged into.
I actually support making sizes more optional across race lines, but the explanation for this is that size is more than just height.
The current thinking is that Dwarves are medium despite being short, because they are also broad and basically take up most of a 5ft cube on their own, while Halflings and Gnomes are not just short but also lithe and more than one of them could share the space of a 5ft cube without pushing each other out if they had to.
It is interesting that Powerful Build totally ignores the small category. That is a good related issue - thanks for identifying that. It doesn't really make sense that small and medium creatures have the same carrying capacity other than it is convenient to have the same carrying capacity for player characters which are all small or medium.
I guess Powerful Build is a sort of Medium+ indicator. You say part-giant, which seems applicable for goliaths, but thinking about orcs and luxodons as well, it's something of a monstrous race indicator. I could see exceptions for "monstrous humanoid" races, but maybe that is the question. Are there "monstrous humanoid" races in D&D, or just humanoid races, all subject to the same variations as humans? How much is size a part of the identity of the various races?
Well, for halflings, being small is a part of their identity too - their nimbleness is tied to size, as well as the lore of small trickster spirits that they, and hobbits in general, were associated with.
Gnomes, when they were first designed, where chosen to be a mix of elf, dwarf and halfling, and the small trickster part was the part taken from halflings, along with magically inclined from elves and crafty-inclined from dwarves. So, they inherited small being important as their identity.
Goblins seem to be modeled off smeagol/gollum, who was an evil hobbit, and being child size has become part of their identity, as opposed to the human sized hobgobolins. Kobolds, imps, mephits, minions from Despicable Me... the small evil minion seems to be a cliche. Most of which with a taller counterpart.
Fairies / sprites / nixies are, well, they're known for being tinkerbell sized, so again smol identity.
On the other side, goliath and firbolg (and I suppose trolls and ogres) are all technically categorized as giants, and giants as a whole are, well, giant by definition.
Orcs are big hulking.... actually, are they basically Incredible Hulks? Never really thought about that. Likewise with the goblinoid version of orcs, the bugbears.
Hm. Those are the only ones I can really think of for whom size really matters. At least of humanoids.
Relatedly! Faerie dragons! Small dragons that are cat sized. That size is apparently so related to the identity that Fizben's created an entire new Moonstone dragon for what amounts to larger sized faerie dragons. Seems like same personality, same kinda lairs/territory, just writ larger body.
I have always thought of the situation with occupying a 5' square as a reach issue, with reach being related to height. The Heavy property for weapons says a heavy weapon’s size and bulk make it too large for a Small creature to use effectively. The size of a weapon being usable seems related to the height of the creature using it, and the bulk of the weapon being usable is related to the strength of the creature using it. Creatures with similar reach - which generally means similar heights - should probably be taking up the same portion of the 5' square mechanically speaking, and able to use the same weapons (without penalties.) I think movement, too, as I have heard explanations around the 5' square including that the creature is not standing still but moving around, repositioning (somehow always around a center of gravity in the middle of the 5' square - I felt like this is where the 5' step came from). But that kind of falls apart if we think about smaller creatures being more nimble, as they would probably move around more then a larger creature, probably taking up relatively more space than their size. After all, any repositioning is in relation to the creatures around you, right? You have to move just as far to keep a creature in front of you or to maintain the same distance from creature or to feint at a creature regardless of your size.
We might want to say other physical characteristics like some kind of supernatural density or nimbleness plays a factor in the size of a creature. Or that a race is broader/has a disproportionate reach. But if every race, small or medium, can have the same physical attributes, has the same relative carrying capacity (Powerful Build not withstanding), and has the same movement speed, then can we really say that they have these other physical characteristics?
I think the issue of dwarf vs other small races can be solved by looking back at how races were described in the past. Dwarves were in general hard working (physical labor) now and in the past (ie fathers and mothers) so they did damage as med creatures even though their size was small. Other races 1/2ling, gnome + others evolved by being more flighty then the dwarves so they were treated as small creatures.
In general if we look at humans today everyone does not benefit the same from the same amount of exercise or everyone would be in the Olympics.
Edit: spelling
Before things get too crazy; In general I think inclusiveness is good but the idea can be stretched to the point that it is used against inclusiveness. Also inclusiveness can depend greatly on the type of game your run and the setting you are playing in. In a cartoon like setting where an Iron PC (yes that device you iron your cloths with) is the same as a dog PC is vastly different then the Lord of the Rings. Also the rules of the plane you are on can vastly influence what is possible, with a good example of being a lot of descriptions of what the"Faire Realm" would be like (often with people not knowing that things do not work like they do on their own home plane, for example movement in some plane is based on your Int+Wis stats (round to nearest 5' to make things easy)
So in general I like races that have benefits and drawbacks and make them different then others. Note simply not having a benefit vs another race can be not a real area of difference or it can be a huge benefit to make the race really stand out.
Because tieflings don't have consistent biology; tiefling is more of a broad term that ties together descendants of all kinds of fiends, and fiends can look likу anything, from a tiny imp to a huge balor, from a beautiful succubus to an abhorrent sibriex. So it's reasonable if their sizes vary, too.
Also dwarves are 4-5 feet tall, with heavy build, around 150 pounds, about as heavy as a human. Gnomes are 3-4 feet, 40 pounds. Halflings - 3 feet, 40 pounds. Makes sense why dwarves are medium and halflings and gnomes are small. For a human to be small, you'd need to find a human that is not only 4 feet tall, but also weighs around 40 pounds...
I agree that there needs to be better rules and restrictions for sizes. It doesn't make sense that a halfling would have 18 strength and would be able to wield a Two-handed Sword like a battle ready Orc.
To know the light, you must sometimes experience the dark.
Small creatures can't use weapons with heavy property. Best they can do is two-hand a versatile weapon like a longsword for 1d10 damage.
Its also notable that Grappling rules are new, improved, and the size difference there is going to hurt halflings too.