Size Difference in RPGs

[JonSetanta]

For 50 years the interaction between Sprites, Humans, and Ogres is difficult to consider numerically.

2e and older affected the damage dice for weapons hurting larger-than-human goes.

In 3e it was stats all over the place, literally +8 strength, for being taller.
This leaves no variation for "tall but lanky" or "wide but tough without actually being stronger".
This is in addition to the +4 to combat tricks such as grapple, trip, and disarm, yet again assuming that everything a few feet taller is as bulky as an Ogre.

4e we can skip unless anyone has good advice on how that handled it.

My least favorite is the 5e version, which is best represented with the Enlarge spell granting a vanilla +1d4 to melee damage.
Craptastic.

What I'm considering for my heartbreaker is a numeric value assigned to each "double" or "half" in overall height and width, such as Size 0 for Humans, Big 2 for Ogres, Trolls and Minotaurs, and Small 2 for all the goblin, "weefolk/halflings/hobbit, various Fey, and whatnot, and even smaller Small 4 for Gnome and Sprite Fey.

Big (value) adds that much to Resist (a reductive damage defense, but also a bonus to a kind of "Fortitude save" roll) and Push (melee attack option to shove a target or targets a number of spaces equal to damage dealt, opting with or without physical damage dealt with the initial attack) and multiply that much by the average Carry Limit.
Subtract that value from Dodge and Stealth.

Small (value) does the exact opposite.

So, ultimately there's no stat boosting, the Trait selection of how Strong, Agile, Dextrous, and Tough a being is does scale every 5 levels, along with the Big status maximum also increased to ensure that Ogres and magically enlarged Human-sizes fall within expected number ranges (level 6 is when such sizes are expected to appear if all goes well), so it is very well possible to have something 12 feet tall that is not 8 times stronger, heavier, tougher, etc.
Hell, I'm planning on having the trio of Ogre, Troll, and Minotaur each have their own selection of star-like traits and other abilities rather that just having a Troll as "Ogre that regenerates" and Minotaur as "Ogre with horns", as I have noticed a trend in the 3e MM series.

[deaddmwalking]

Is being bigger an advantage? Is being smaller a disadvantage?

If size changes make a creature either a stronger or weaker challenge, you should price the size changes into whatever system you use to determine overall challenge. For our system, monsters get a number of upgrades based on their level. Choosing a size increase is one option, but so is choosing a special attack like Blood Drain, or a special defense like being a plant. Being larger does include some built in downsides (like making it harder to hide) and some built in advantages (like increased reach, larger weapons, etc). With just that we didn't feel that it provided ENOUGH benefit. We include a +2 to STR and a +1 to Endurance.

If there is a monster that shouldn't be strong/tough even though they're large, we can give them a racial penalty to one or the other, which allows them to buy some other special ability that is more appropriate.

An an example of what we were thinking, take an Elephant. They're big creatures, they're strong, they're tough, but they're also normal animals. Including the bonus for size lets us represent that without having to give them a ton of levels.

Mostly this is around what makes it easy to make new monsters. If I'm making a creature bigger, I probably EXPECT them to be bigger and tougher, so including that with the size increase allows me to build the monster in fewer steps. In the rare case that I need a large weak creature, I have extra work to do, but I'd rather do the extra work for the exceptions rather than the rule.

[Foxwarrior]

In 3.5e, because carrying capacity is exponential (at this point some people might wonder if this is actually my favorite rule in the whole game), then increasing in strength by +15 represents an appropriate amount for someone who has scaled up in every dimension by a factor of 2. Except that size category doubles your carrying capacity as well so you only need a +10. And since scaling up gives you a +8, it actually makes you lankier and thinner when you increase in size
Of course in 5e then increasing in size one category should make your strength score increase by a factor of 4 instead.

[PseudoStupidity]

In 3e it was stats all over the place, literally +8 strength, for being taller.
This leaves no variation for "tall but lanky" or "wide but tough without actually being stronger".
This is in addition to the +4 to combat tricks such as grapple, trip, and disarm, yet again assuming that everything a few feet taller is as bulky as an Ogre.

This is a pretty pointless digression, but representing getting significantly taller and heavier with a strength increase is very sensible if you're abstracting things as much as D&D does. Being taller means you have more mass and muscle, making you stronger. Height also lets you build more momentum, resulting in more powerful strikes. There are edge cases and certain situations where being short is better (low center of gravity! Less distance to move things!), but also who cares about incredibly specific types of lifts in a TTRPG? A tall person with the same build is stronger than a short person with the same build. They can lift heavier things, punch/kick harder, and do sick slam dunks.

Remember that force = mass times acceleration, and while force isn't strength we're talking about TTRPGs. In TTRPGs when we're talking about Strength a big portion of it is "how hard can I hit/swing something?" Having a large increase in mass and getting more room to accelerate for your strikes is going to make you hit a hell of a lot harder.

If you want tall but lanky you can just make creatures that are weak in spite of their bigness. If you want wide but tough then you can also make a creature that is wide but tough, but their width will make them stronger for the same reason that tall things are stronger. There's more mass, and mass is what moves mass.


This is all assuming similar builds. Obviously a short person who is 5'5" and 170lbs of pure muscle is going to be stronger than a 6'5" 170lb skeleton.

[Pedantic]

Fantasy Craft has some all over the place handling of size, but one thing I particularly liked was making carrying capacity/lifting/encumbrance scale with both size and strength, instead of just scaling strength with size. So a Strength 15 giant can lift more than a Strength 15 orc, but the accuracy/damage math is the same for both.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

Not seeing much talk on the advantage of being a small creature. It sucks for the "default" medium size if they don't have any bonuses, but that's honestly something I can live with if it means big creatures are tough and bad at stealth while small creatures are hard to hit and good at stealth.

[Kaelik]

I decided to go with an unconventional style in F&F of "describing size with concreate measurements of length and width" and then having the "advantage" of size be that you are big, and the advantage of small be that you are small.

[Thaluikhain]

Not seeing much talk on the advantage of being a small creature. It sucks for the "default" medium size if they don't have any bonuses, but that's honestly something I can live with if it means big creatures are tough and bad at stealth while small creatures are hard to hit and good at stealth.

Well, you'd also have big advantages in, say, small tunnels, which you'd imagine small creatures would be more likely to build. If the dwarves don't build giant corridors, the balrogs and cave trolls are going to have a hard time fighting in them. Now, sure, they might like big corridors, but you'd expect normal doors to be sized appropriately for them which would be easier to defend against something much larger.

[JonSetanta]

Ok. I apologize for not being able to quote and respond to all of you, but I must state that these are all fantastic comparisons and thank you all.

So, selectively, deaddm: My counterpoint to the notion of all bigger-tgan-human animals resembling elephants in mass, speed, height, and so on are...

Giraffe (tall, reach, fast)
Lion/Tiger (long but not tall, fast, agile, strong, not tough)
Rhino (long but not tall, fast, strong, tough)

All of these variants of "big" have special properties but the only thing they share in common is that they are at least twice the size of an adult human.

Applying weakness to negate a universal size-based boost to represent a "tall but lanky beast" seems like extra steps and more for a DM to keep track of.


PseudoStupidity: indeed I use F = ma as the basis for things from sports analysis to martial arts/MMA to RPG design, such as a decade ago when I asked why Shadowrun cyborgs with Wired Reflexes don't deal more than basic unarmed damage even if they punch faster than the speed of sound.

I COULD factor in Strong Trait, size of weapon, Melee Reach, a charge attack velocity, and other fiddly aspects... But I'd be reinventing the Uber charger on one hand, and with the other be asking "What about recoil on a heavy swing, something like spend an action or more to lift a 12-foot sword back to a readied position?"

And as for Medium (Size 0) being vanilla, I needed a baseline for comparison.
Almost all RPGs use 5-6 foot tall humans as the standard to which everything is compared to in scale.

After reading this thread 24 hours later I also reconsidered the Push attack as more of a Strong Trait option, and while not all larger beings even have manipulative limbs, a numeric boost (smaller NOT being penalty to Reach) would work fine. Maybe.
Adding to melee and thrown damage as well as opening options for other abilities that might or might be better used universally, such as Trample (deal a set amount of Bash damage to everything the character shoves into) and I do recall Koumei wondering years ago why Kaiju and giants don't have increased range with their racial and spell abilities....
My answer for that is "restrict maximum size by level gating", meaning a 100-foot tall lightning-dude casting a lightning spell would have equally higher-level range, area, and damage boosts.
Shrinking a character would not exactly be a penalty but the real Earth prevalence of tiny, weak, mostly harmless insects, rodents, birds, fish, and spiders (except the Black Widow spider) shows me that yes indeed if you can hit or catch the darn things there is pretty much no struggle.

[JonSetanta]

Not seeing much talk on the advantage of being a small creature. It sucks for the "default" medium size if they don't have any bonuses, but that's honestly something I can live with if it means big creatures are tough and bad at stealth while small creatures are hard to hit and good at stealth.

Well, you'd also have big advantages in, say, small tunnels, which you'd imagine small creatures would be more likely to build. If the dwarves don't build giant corridors, the balrogs and cave trolls are going to have a hard time fighting in them. Now, sure, they might like big corridors, but you'd expect normal doors to be sized appropriately for them which would be easier to defend against something much larger.

I plan on giving a "tribe" based monster trait called Devour, similar to the D&D version, to pretty much every blob-thing, saurian or avian carnivore beast (includes all varieties of dragon), and maybe to some demons too.

If a creature at least two sizes smaller is Grappled, as an action the Devour ability may be used to swallow them whole.
Yada yada Acid and Bash damage at the end of every turn to all Organic beings in the stomach, but I think about a minute should pass before the eater restores a portion of Health and Stamina.


As far as simulated food chains go, I'd say being small is a disadvantage.

I'll have to devise a "Swarm" option to make it even.
Not half solid damage like in 3.5e but a Surround mobility option that allows automatic damage each turn.

Goblin Swarm vs. a Giant. Ideally, an evenly matched encounter.

[JonSetanta]

One last thing: A side concept, but I need feedback for naming and categorizing "beings that are corpses or regenerating organic bloodsuckers" rather than the Stoker's invented catchall term Undead.

Within 1 month and dozens of articles read, I have split the "negative energy fueled thing" trope into these types:

1. Mutan, the "shambling, mindless, animated corpse" controlled by spell, item, or power if a location.
Since I'm removing "positive" and "negative" energy from this Heartbreaker, replaced with Growth (healing and bio-altering), Photon, and Entropy damage, there are no more "negative energy undead".
Likewise, Zombies are technically organic, yet decomposing. For some reason their Pokevolved form the Ghoul is not decayed and can actually heal.
So, I'll have to split the magic tropes into: Cure (a spell that regrows cells and removes disease and damage), Nekromantia (talk with/summon/control spirits), Orthomantia (make bone items/animate skeletons/at later levels break and heal bones of others), and whatever a spell is called that "animates and controls corpses.

2. Zerks, the "28 days later" infection victims. Fast, tough, violent, constantly active, strong, contagious by bite, but ultimately don't survive longer than a month due to organ shutdown from the constant surges of motion and adrenaline.
Organic, living, can be controlled with mind influence spells but not Social Tactics. Not mindless but in a permanent state of an altered Anger status, which causes the affected to approach and harm everyone, in this case all non-Zerks.

3. Spirits are not undead. Ever. A ghost using a Phase spell to manifest between the astral and "midworlds" has thoughts, emotions, desires, regrets, and perhaps even be really, really angry or spiteful, something formed of thought and immaterial energy can't possibly be "anti-energy". Sure, a mean ghost mind use some spell or ability to suck the Stamina out of someone but that's about the extent of their harm. The inclusion of spirits in this RPG Domain is for social interaction and information gathering and perhaps even a "soul economy" of the Underworld, but not 40+ varieties of Petitioners and memetic incorporeal Undead species.
Personally I do like the Gothic feel of Wraiths and Shadows but it doesn't fit with panpsychism as a core basis for a fantasy setting.

4. WTF is a vampire anyway? I've been trying to define the origins, the lore, the modern tropes, and none of it adds up.
The best I can do is add a "Blooddrinker" dietary change, a "Bite" attack, and make it infectious and/or just a kind of shapeshifting fey and/or demon option.
Seriously, if you want the article that broke my preconceived motions of what vampires are, look up the Scottish myth of the fey/demon/vampire "White Woman" aka "Baavan Sith" aka "Lady in Green".
Oh and they have hooves, fly, turn invisible, and double in size/become terrifying/huge claws when they find a man.
That's what I'll be going with for design goal.

5. Lastly, the Revenant and Draugr, one being a spirit animating it's corpse for a righteous last quest, the other doing same out of anger or greed.
Functionally more powerful than any Mutan, since such entities combine the deadly injury resistance of something that doesn't need organs to survive, as well as all the knowledge and abilities of the possessive spirit.
A Draugr just might use magic to control the bodies of other corpses, or imbue the Mutan of violent and depraved people with similarly spiteful spirits for an army of thinking, reacting zombies.

Lich, a European word for "corpse", will not be used.
Ghouls might just be a separate degenerate necrophagous species of humanoid, like the Lovecraftian variant.
Other types will be dissected and abilities distributed between the types listed above.

[Thaluikhain]

I like the idea of the ghoul (maybe under another name, though) as being living creatures that are into eating people. Might want to have some ghouls that look like normal people, and some that are ogre sized or bigger, and give them the devour ability you mention above.

I agree with splitting undead up, but I might go a bit further. You don't need to stick all reptilian or invertebrate monsters together just because they share a common feature, no need to have all dead things be similar at all. Mummies can just be fundamentally different from zombies who are different from vampires.

[JonSetanta]

For reptile/lizard/saurian beasts and pretty much all beasts of the "beast tribe" it's not the genome or whatever that I'm planning on using as defining things like locomotive options (mostly pick one from biped, quadruped, serpent, and mix with hands, wings, or fins), how tough the skin is, diet/either bite or horns, and finally pick hooves, claws, or paws. Tossing the Aquatic trait (Amphibious is air and water, Gilled for free with the caveat that they can't breathe air) on top like a cherry is afterthought since you can do this to anything in a damn game.
Outliers such as "Long Tail" for a tail whip with reach and exactly what feathers and fit do mechanically compared to scales, it will be just simple bonuses, attack forms, mobility, resistance, and passive bonuses.

It's not about Gygaxian ecology within a game world, it's about how the Quantum Beast Encounter interacts with the players.

The "ooze" tribe is called Protean, which mostly is a catchall for anything that has unusual/non-bilateral symmetry, such as a Mimic, Slime, Giant Psionic Lump of Meat that is Definitely Not A Zerg Overmind, Pre-universe Giant, Elemental, Ancient Angel, and others. That's all. Think of it like Pokemon element types determining moveset but without any weaknesses.

[Thaluikhain]

Ah, ok, if your system lumps angels in with slimes, then lumping Dracula and the Mummy doesn't seem inappropriate.

[JonSetanta]

Not All Angels.
Just the most powerful ones. You know, wheels with eyes, etc.

I'll make a thread later about how the hominid form became an interdimensional fad in the Domain lore and backstory after proto-humans invented the sharpened stone, like a fashion craze for supernatural beings that have been bored for millions of years, to the point where pretty much every demon, supernatural beast, angel, "bug tribe", and also the hybrids, have the option to switch between a biped with upright stance and hands or their natural shape, one being for Combat Mode and the other for Appropriate Social Attire.

Fey (Zaegric Collective) are an evolutionary offshoot of biological hominids rather than "Here Be Fey. It is a mystery." and have a strange symbiotic relationship with midworlds. Some Fey are part demonic (Druja tribe) such as the Fomorians, many others part Bug (Abara tribe) or Beast (Fera tribe), and the oldest "deities" are either Protean/Zaegric or Protean/Aurean (celestial/angel) that taught the first true-breeding Fey the magic arts and shaped the Twilit Realm out of the astral.
I could go on but that shall be another day.

The "monsters" that don't put on Formal Attire either can't or simply state "No. What are you going to do about it?"

Regardless, the "player-selectable default races" are all hominid, multiversally labeled "Kynd".
The first two drafts of this game had at least a dozen different "animal people" selections but those are now lumped as Fera tribe, things such as Lycans (non-infectious, pretty much just wolf-shifters), Kitsune, Felar (because seriously, every fantasy setting converges to "I want to play a cat person), Minotaur, Faun/Satyr, and of course a Skaven-like species since if a setting has animal-people, you MUST include the Nutcracker Suite variety.

[OgreBattle]

Protean covers the range of Kirby bosses so that's convenient

Size is important for combat grids, tabletop base contact. How would you handle a big snake though, I don't like D&D's square horses but it's convenient

[JonSetanta]

Unlike 4e, the default assumption is that distance in almost all encounters will be a certain number of spaces between "frontline" members and the first round looks more like most Final Fantasy games more than a chess board.
If melee combat is inevitable, a grid wouldn't even matter, but the rules for spaces occupied/reach/Flank/Backed are there so a group can if they want.

Personally I see it as a series of status effects but that might just be from 25+ years of playing RPGs without maps or minis.
Even now in 5e it seems like wasted effort Sacred Cow's from 4e but I'm used to it, like a radio skit fan watching a TV season.

[erik]

3e size in DnD did a pretty good job of giving benefits to smaller and larger sizes, while not making them deal breakers for archetypes. You could still have a viable small melee character or a large caster (assuming you found a way to get large size without wasting caster levels).

The numbers and encumbrance values all play out pretty well. Not sure what there is to really focus on fixing. The only thing really missing is allowing characters to just burn a feat to push their size +/- 1 category.

[JonSetanta]

Protean covers the range of Kirby bosses so that's convenient

Size is important for combat grids, tabletop base contact. How would you handle a big snake though, I don't like D&D's square horses but it's convenient

Ok. I put this in the back of my mind and had a few dreams where, no joke this is how a lot of my writing and music is created, someone or something literally showed me the end-result of what I've been trying to do.
In this essay I shall


It was mostly begun with your mention of snakes and horses, but I found at least six discussions online describing the same issue of "size large" vs "size medium but tall, strong, heavy, and wide", which functionally are the same thing in RPGs, but to slap on a lump sum of a size category is the simple yet lazy approach to it

I gathered a few "body type" descriptors. Each time one is added to a being, double the property it affects each time and add the numeric bonuses cumulatively.

Tall: double height and Reach
Heavy: double weight and +2 to Physical tactics such as Grab, Disarm, and Trip (offense and defense)
Long: double length, character can still fit in passages as normal for their width and if not making any Move actions can curl up to count length as the same as width, +2 to defense against Trip
Wide: double area occupied horizontally, to Flank such a character it requires twice as many Move actions while in Melee range

Still thinking up the "smaller" options but it will probably be just reversed.

With these I can make a Treefolk (tall, heavy), an Ogre (tall, heavy, wide), a lanky and fast Troll (tall), a large cat such as Lion or Tiger (long, heavy), a giant snake (long x3), and even a group of Goblins (wide x3, "Surround" tactic)
This isn't including the "stat boost traits" of Strong, Tough, Agile, and Dextrous, but you can assume what goes where.