2E and Weapon sizes

[PhoneLobster]

I'm saying someone out there wants to be halfling Conan.

They want to put all their attributes into a big pile on strength and pick up a big sword and smash stuff. Then maybe wrestle some big things to the ground with their mighty heroic mighty mouse type might.

Its actually not an altogether out there character concept, it would be nice if the answer wasn't house rules, obscure sub races and wierd feats to reach a standard moderately below par compared to a human who chose to pile all their advancement resources towards the same concept.

The simplest solution is that when a player wanting to build halfling Conan asks how the GM says, hey, you just can, exactly the same way you can build dwarf Conan and elf Conan.

That works best without sized based limitations on fighting styles. Like grapple penalties and inferior weaponry.

I'm not saying the size based rules should go away entirely. I'm saying they should restrain themselves to being how big you are and not have anything to do with needlessly penalizing a vast swathe of midget strong men for daring to dream of a not altogether original character concept.

[RandomCasualty]

How does a +1 to attack, +1 to AC and -1 to damage totally crush the hopes of halfling barbarians?

So your max damage number is 1 lower? It's more than made up for by your extra +1 to hit and AC. Like I said before, all you have to do is power attack for 1 point all the time and you'll now be at an advantage over a human.

[erik]

1136652975[/unixtime]]How does a +1 to attack, +1 to AC and -1 to damage totally crush the hopes of halfling barbarians?

Partly it's because those numbers are totally wrong.

It is +0 to attack, +2 to AC, -2 to damage... unless you are two-handing a weapon, in which case it is likely -3 to damage.

And then comes the -5 (-1 Str, -4 Size) penalty to grappling, bull rushing, overrunning, disarming, sundering and tripping. Of course the size penalty for intimidate is just gravy.

I've played a halfling conan with moderate success in 3.0... that is to say he died in his first encounter, but the DM was a dumbass and it was 6 deinonychuses (one leader with advanced HD) vs a 3 member party. The moderate success is that I took down one and a half before they got me, all in all I was happy how he performed, considering. Their hopes aren't totally crushed, no. But they do have a heaping stack of disadvantages going against them. When a non-small wizard has decent odds at grappling a halfling barbarian, something stinks.

Ah, and if there's still the size limitation still for polymorphs of only going up one size (I'm not up on my 3.5 poly-fu), halflings are hosed there too.

They're not hopeless, just a lot harder to pull off.

[Crissa]

Yeah, why aren't wizards penalized for being small?

-Crissa

[Fwib]

The size-modifiers are in there (I guess) because the designers wanted 'realism' - they didn't want a character the size of a toddler to be able to grapple and melee on an even footing with one the size of André the Giant.

Of course, if the actual numbers they chose are sensible or if we even want to prevent babies grappling giants in fantasy, that is a different thing.