Homeruling Small and Tiny bonuses to AC

[MrUberGr]

So, a player wants to play a pixie, and we all agree that it's only logical to be hard to hit a flying thingy that's 15cm tall.

So, we've come up with the following rule


Small: 0 AC vs Melee, +1 AC vs Ranged,
Tiny: +1 AC vs Melee, +2 AC vs Ranged

Area, blasts and bursts work normally.

Do you think this is too much? Up to now no one has wanted to play a small char and one of the reasons are all the restrictions with no benefits.

Also, a question about blasts.
So, lets say the party is being attacked by a young silver dragon that desides to fly over them, use his breath weapon and then land and fight. The blast would be a circle on the floor, with a radius of 5?

[Kurald Galain]

Do you think this is too much?
Yes, actually. Pixies are one of the best races in the game and don't need the boost. I'm not seeing a lot of restrictions on small races in 4E, other than getting one square less of movement rate, and there's ways to deal with that.



So, lets say the party is being attacked by a young silver dragon that desides to fly over them, use his breath weapon and then land and fight. The blast would be a circle on the floor, with a radius of 5?
Well, a square, but yes.

[MrUberGr]

I'm talking about the weapons they can't use etc. They don't come to mind atm.

Well, the breath is a blast and in 3.5 it would've been a cone. I doubt dragons breathe squares :smalltongue: But, is that the rule? The "footprint" would be a 25 square, square area?

[Epinephrine]

I'm talking about the weapons they can't use etc. They don't come to mind atm.

Well, the breath is a blast and in 3.5 it would've been a cone. I doubt dragons breathe squares :smalltongue: But, is that the rule? The "footprint" would be a 25 square, square area?

The blast is a cube 5 squares per side, so yes, the footprint is a 5x5 area. And don't worry, it's a square *and* a circle, thanks to the use of the Tchebychev distance as the metric in 4e space. As weird as it might seem, the square is a circle (a circle being the locus of points in a plane equidistant from a given point). Since the distance from any point along the boundary of the 5x5 area is equal, it is a circle. Since it is made up of 4 straight lines of equal length and 4 right angles, it is a square.

[Kimera757]

I'd be a bit reluctant. Just like in 3e, Small races make great spellcasters. A pixie rogue can use a dagger just fine, or even a short sword, and a fey warlock would enjoy the benefits without any penalties.

Simply put, some races are bad at some roles. They don't all need a boost. In 4e, halflings were given racial abilities where their size made sense. Second Chance could be a frantic dodge, their small size makes it harder to hit them with an opportunity attack, and they have feats that give them AC bonuses when next to larger creatures. A feat that makes a pixie harder to hit seems fair, but I don't see why pixie rogues and warlocks should get a boost for free when they don't need one.

[tcrudisi]

Pixies are one of the most powerful races in 4e. They get flight out of the gate, which is amazingly powerful. Their ability to share squares cannot be understated. They can't use medium-sized weapons? No biggy. They have a lot of tricks that more than make up for it.

What you are looking for almost exists in feat form for Pixies. They have a feat which gives them automatic cover when they are sharing an allies square. It's kinda funny when you get 2 pixies together who both have that feat.

The balance in 4e is pretty darn good. I'd encourage you not to mess with it until you really get a feel for the system ... and when you do, you'll realize that you really don't want to mess with things because it works pretty darn well without any tinkering.

[Yakk]

Do I have to build a kick-ass pixie barbarian to demonstrate the error of your ways?

[masteraleph]

And- something else no one here has mentioned- they get a resistance to being knocked prone if they're one square up; flying creatures "knocked prone" fall, but they don't land prone unless they take damage. So you actually have to knock a flying pixie prone twice for them to actually be prone on the ground.

[Cloud]

I probably wouldn't give out more AC for small sizes, particularly because for the pixie they're already really good. Races that are small and smaller though tend to have racial powers and/or feats that help with their defenses.

[Airk]

Pixies are one of the most powerful races in 4e. They get flight out of the gate, which is amazingly powerful. Their ability to share squares cannot be understated. They can't use medium-sized weapons? No biggy.

I never really understood how this restriction was supposed to interact with the Pixie "Shrink" power, which basically makes a weapon pixie-sized. Are they somehow unable to shrink a longsword ENOUGH to make it usable by someone their size, or what?

[Kurald Galain]

I never really understood how this restriction was supposed to interact with the Pixie "Shrink" power, which basically makes a weapon pixie-sized. Are they somehow unable to shrink a longsword ENOUGH to make it usable by someone their size, or what?

The Shrink power isn't intended to make sense, no. It's intended to make pixies count as small creatures when convenient for the rules, and at the same time tiny creatures when convenient for other rules.

[Yakk]

They shrink a longsword ENOUGH that they can use it two handed, but not one handed.

They cannot shrink a fullblade ENOUGH to use it two handed.

[Airk]

They shrink a longsword ENOUGH that they can use it two handed, but not one handed.

They cannot shrink a fullblade ENOUGH to use it two handed.

This is how I read it, but it still seems ridiculous. Though it is why my Pixie Swordmage used a rapier. :P

[VeliciaL]

I'd presume that if you shrink a longsword much further it just becomes a shortsword.

[Airk]

I'd presume that if you shrink a longsword much further it just becomes a shortsword.

That makes no sense at all; The proportions and build of the weapon are completely different. That's like saying "If you shrink a mace too much, it becomes a club."

The only way it makes any sense for a pixie to be unable to shrink an item to an appropriate size is if Pixies somehow have different proportions than a human, but that's pretty firmly at odds with the fiction, I think.

[Yakk]

Then it becomes a weapon shaped like a longsword that acts like a +3 proficiency d6 damage light blade.

[Airk]

Then it becomes a weapon shaped like a longsword that acts like a +3 proficiency d6 damage light blade.

Becauuuuse...shrinking something down to the size of a table knife keeps it as able to do d8 damage, but ANY SMALLER and now it must do d6? And besides, you don't even have this option. If you find a +3 longsword, you can't shrink it into a +3 shortsword equivalent.

You won't catch me arguing that it wouldn't make sense to ACROSS THE BOARD reduce the damage done by pixie weapons, but the rules as written are inconsistent, confusing, and generally dumb.

[VeliciaL]

You won't catch me arguing that it wouldn't make sense to ACROSS THE BOARD reduce the damage done by pixie weapons, but the rules as written are inconsistent, confusing, and generally dumb.

It makes sense when you consider the design intent, which is to allow Pixies to use the same gear as everyone else. 4th edition is largely designed around workable mechanics first, and fitting the lore around it second.

[Airk]

It makes sense when you consider the design intent, which is to allow Pixies to use the same gear as everyone else. 4th edition is largely designed around workable mechanics first, and fitting the lore around it second.

That's fine, but why would they make pixies count as small races if they're using gear that they shrink down to their own size? Not only does this do a terrible job of fitting the lore, it makes the mechanics unnecessarily confusing. It's all part of the "Wee Warrior" feature anyway, so it would have been exactly as easy to add, say, a -2 damage mod or whatever, instead of making you wonder why it's impossible to make an 8 inch tall fullblade. :P

Of course, at this point, the small creature modifier is so weirdly applied that it doesn't make any sense anyway, so...