Houserule re Small Creatures in combat

[Firechanter]

This is probably something that most people just won't care about, and might have a certain nerdrage potential among enthusiastic halfling and gnome players. But I am not posting this to troll, in fact it is my honest opinion.

So, how should I put this?
Small creatures should have more trouble in melee combat vs Medium sized ones.

The core of the problem I am having with the standard combat rules is the granularity of the Reach rules, covering only 5' increments, in opposition to general plausibility and verisimilitude / SoD.
Thing is: if you are a 3 foot runt brandishing a 1 foot weapon, you do not have 5 foot reach. As simple as that. Anyone who practises (armed) martial arts of some kind will tell you that Reach is King. Even if you're 170cm tall (5'7") and fight someone who's 190cm (6'3") you are not gonna have much fun. Now I don't mean to simulate this difference, just trying to say that being <4' and not suffering reach penalties breaks SoD for me.
[Those who do not practice MA themselves, but have seen a certain episode of GoT, will also know what I am talking about.]

And no, "being smaller and lighter also makes you quicker" does not balance this. Even if a Small race weighs only ~60 pounds, they have to move their whole body while a Medium humanoid only needs to move their weapon (which will weigh around 3 lbs) to intercept the attack. So the inertia is much bigger for the runt.

Thus, I am thinking of a houserule like the following:

The standard reach of Small creatures fighting larger creatures is considered "2.5 feet". When they attack, they always draw an AoO if the target threatens adjacent squares.
This does not apply when fighting creatures with 10' reach or greater (here you have to get through their defense perimeter anyway).
Being mounted does not increase your Reach, on the contrary you must use a Reach weapon to effectively attack at all, and then also only at 5'.
Besides, Small creatures should not get a Size bonus on attack rolls. At all. They may keep their AC bonus.

This drawback can be offset in various ways:
- using a Reach weapon doubles the reach to 5 feet, so with these they can attack adjacent squares without risking an AoO.
- options like the Tumble skill or the Spring Attack feat avoid AoOs as usual. As the attacker needs to enter an occupied square but does not intend to pass through, I suggest the Tumble DC should be 20.

Side note: for simplicity reasons, I would say Small creatures still threaten adjacent squares, even without Reach weapon. You could say they are opportunists accustomed to taking any shot they can get.

Now all of this may incur an outrage from all those Mounted Strongheart Halfling Lancer players out there, but frankly, that is exactly the kind of ridiculous nonsense I am trying to stop.
As a matter of fact, I believe this houserule would encourage Small characters to focus on more archetypical roles, like fighting in light armour and using Tumble to avoid AoOs (which would be impractical with heavy armour), or staying out of melee entirely.

Other ideas?

[Ehcks]

It looks like you're forcing players to take and use the Low Blow feat without gaining any bonuses.

[Firechanter]

I actually never looked at the Low Blow feat, but now that I do, it is in fact the other way round: Small characters could use the feat without additional _penalties_. Low Blow provokes AoOs but makes the target flat-footed against your attack. With my houserule, Small ones provoke AoOs anyway so they only get the upside of making the target flat-footed.

And as I said, I would fully expect players of Small races to work around the AoOs by optimizing Tumble or suchlike. Which would be totally okay in my book. I just have a problem with 3' runts in full plate being a mechanically better choice than a warrior twice that size and four times the bulk.

[A.A.King]

I think this is a very bad idea.

The house rule creates only drawbacks for small characters without giving them anything in return. This is bound to annoy anyone who wants to play a small character and it feels very vindictive. If you really want to make it realistic by making it unreasonably difficult for small characters to do melee then at the very least you should also increase the size bonus to AC. If you're swinging a huge piece of metal the size of your opponent and your opponent is very agile then you're very likely to miss.

It is also very arbitrary. One of the reasons they didn't create a similar difference between small and medium characters (apart from the fact that they want all races to be able to play all things) is that the difference between "Small" and "Medium" isn't so rock solid as you think. Don't forget that a Dwarf is basically a Small size creature but because they are build so strong they made him a Medium creature to express that. This was possible because they didn't worry about reach so the difference between a Dwarf classified as Small and a Dwarf classified as Medium is expressed mainly in Weapon Size. This does however not change the fact that the difference between an average Gnome and an average Dwarf is smaller then the difference between an average Dwarf and an average Half-Elf, Human or Half-Orc. And that is only the Player's Handbook. When it comes to reach alone, shouldn't a Dwarf have way more trouble fighting a Goliath (which is the same size category) then a Gnome has fighting a Dwarf? Your house rule isn't making combat seem more realistic, it's just another thing for which you need SoD because it is based on arbitrary Size Categories instead of actual height differences.

And lastly: Why would you want to encourage small characters to focus on more archetypical roles?

[Hand_of_Vecna]

It seems reasoable enough to me. It's alays felt weird to me that if you ran your world in a simulationist fashion and at an optimization level where all classes mattered about equally on a global scale Strong Heart Halflings would win everything forever.

I've thought about implementing something like this in reverse with a bully feat that gives medium creatures the medium>small advantages you described above. I would like to suggest one small benefit to grant small creatures; a 2.5 ft space.

[Sir Chuckles]

As a matter of fact, I believe this houserule would encourage Small characters to focus on more archetypical roles, like fighting in light armour and using Tumble to avoid AoOs (which would be impractical with heavy armour), or staying out of melee entirely.

This is the biggest point as to why I dislike this houserule. You're mistaken in saying that it encourages focus, it rather punishes those who break the mold. The carrot is better than the stick.

I have my fencing broadsword within arm's reach, and I understand where you're coming from with the realism. However, realism in D&D is something that does not work, or at least rarely does.

A 5ft grid is pretty wonky itself, and that seems to be the umbrella problem.

[Curmudgeon]

The thing is, 5' reach just means you can attack into adjacent squares. Because characters move around within their spaces, that "5 foot" attack might only take inches of reach to deliver.

I think your house rule just isn't needed.

[VoxRationis]

You might have to do something to address the dwarf problem mentioned above, but otherwise, it makes sense. The small and medium reach in standard 3.5 is especially silly when it shows pictures of all the different weapons, including Small lances and Medium lances. The Small lance is about 60% as long as the Medium lance, or even less, and is wielded by a smaller opponent, but somehow they both reach 10 feet.

[StoneCipher]

While it makes IRL sense, you have to ask yourself. "Is it all that game-breaking?" Small creatures are already penalized for having to use smaller weapons, so I mean I think it's balanced right off the get-go.

If you're going to try to make sense of the small details like this, you'll be pulling your hair out at all of the non-sensical things that the rules break. I mean just look at epic level skills.

[DarkSonic1337]

I think this doesn't make sense at all.

1. As Curmudgeon pointed out, characters are not stationary in their squares. They are always moving and thus do not always need 5ft reach to actually hit their opponent.

2. Within the same size category there are a lot of size differences already. Half-Giants can be 8'4" and they're still medium creatures.

3. There are other size category differentials that do not have a difference in reach (see large (tall)->huge (long))

4. D&D is NOT realistic. Dropping to 1 hp does not reduce your capabilities in any way, armor does not have "holes" through which you can more easily damage a target (and it also doesn't reduce damage, only your chance of taking damage at all), terminal velocity does not exist, ect, ect. Maybe small races really ARE more agile than medium races (maybe it's all muscle and they have the strength needed to mitigate inertia as a factor, idk) and that's why they have 5 foot reach. Or maybe that much realism is simply detrimental to people who want to play as small races and that's all the explanation needed.

Also to the person that said strong heart halflings rule all...well I'd rather be a human (or rather one of the many human variants). Silverbrow human for dragonblooded goodness, illumian for their silly sigils, Azurin for bonus essentia, or Mongrelfolk for +4 Con . I like human paragon, able learner, the chameleon prestige class, ect, ect. I'd also like to be medium size over small any day of the week, since becoming large from enlarge person or HUGE from expansion for extra reach is awesome, and is so much better than +1 AC and +1 to hit.

[Anlashok]

There's nothing more "realistic" about this change because there's no inherent realism in the concept and you're talking about making an abstraction more "realistic" without actually taking away the abstraction. Which is silly.

It's already fairly hard to justify fighting that way as a small character with a couple minor exceptions so I don't see what good it does

[Hand_of_Vecna]

Small creatures are already penalized for having to use smaller weapons, so I mean I think it's balanced right off the get-go.

Only it's not, that weapon damage matters less and less as levels increase, while +1 hit/+1 AC stays relevent forever unless you decide to tank AC in favor of misschance in the mid levels.

Put identical build Human and Strong Heart Halflings precision based two weapon fighters against each other and the Halfling will always have the edge.

[Heliomance]

Only it's not, that weapon damage matters less and less as levels increase, while +1 hit/+1 AC stays relevent forever unless you decide to tank AC in favor of misschance in the mid levels.

Put identical build Human and Strong Heart Halflings precision based two weapon fighters against each other and the Halfling will always have the edge.

Well, yes, precision damage builds being exactly the archetype that small characters were always intended to shine at.

[DarkSonic1337]

Or I could be a silverbrow human Dragonfire Inspiration bard instead (or a silverbrow human/sorcerer for the small dragonblooded bonuses on some spells), or a Mongrelfolk Dragonfire Adept with that delicious +4 CON, or an Illumian Shadowcraft Mage (Illumians are actually interesting in some gish builds, due to their ability to shift bonus spells to STR or DEX). All while still getting the bonus feat.

Wanna pair your strong heart halfling reach/control build against any of the human variants?

Btw +1 to hit is pretty minor past low levels (aka weapon focus is a bad feat and is only taken as a gateway to better feats). The extra reach from enlarge person is a much bigger boon and imo is more than enough reason to stick to medium size.

+1 to AC is slightly better...but still not a big deal. Unless you invest A TON in ac, the enemies are simply going to hit you (such is the nature of scaling attack bonuses vs non scaling defenses). You are better off getting just enough AC to feel like iteratives have a chance to miss you and then spending your money on other things (or just dumping AC entirely as you mentioned. Miss chances are pretty awesome and by the time they get mitigated the enemies already have ways to not even deal with your AC).

[Zanos]

Only it's not, that weapon damage matters less and less as levels increase, while +1 hit/+1 AC stays relevent forever unless you decide to tank AC in favor of misschance in the mid levels.

Put identical build Human and Strong Heart Halflings precision based two weapon fighters against each other and the Halfling will always have the edge.
Wow, a different race is better at something than a human? Let me play the human a song on the world's smallest violin.

Small races aren't overpowered in the slightest. This change is unnecessary from a mechanics point of view. I don't want the rules for my RPG's to be written by an MMA fighter saying that they don't correctly represent his MMA fighting either.

[titans4ever]

Here is something else not mentioned so far. You want small creatures to focus on light armor and tumble. Are going to give all small creature the tumble skill for free? A fighter Halfling with few skill points can only gain .5 to tumble each level. There is no way he will ever get his score high enough to make it relevant.

Use your rules now. A Halfling moves in to 2.5' to take a swing at someone. He provokes and AoP? Is that still not a 5' step that doesn't provoke an AoP for anyone else? The reason a small creature gets a +1 to AC is now that he is only 2.5' away, a med creature cannot take a natural swing with his weapon and still strike. He is having to swing lower than normal and not get full extension to cause normal damage (think of a baseball player trying to hit an inside pitch vs. one over the outside part of the plate). Since a med creature is taking a partial swing closer to his body, does a small creature only take 3/4 damage? Does he have to take a 2.5' step back to get a full swing at a small creature causing an AoP since he is leaving the small creatures threatening area?

[StoneCipher]

Just say to yourself - "When it doesn't make sense, a Wizard did it."

But I mean, as someone mentioned before, your 5 foot box isn't where your character is currently located. If both characters are located on the edge of their 5 foot box, what would be the distance between them? If you want to harp on realism, just remember that life isn't made of 5 foot boxes and nobody fights 5 feet from each other at all times.

[Hand_of_Vecna]

Wow, a different race is better at something than a human?

It's not about it being human it's about it being small vs. medium. If I knew a case races that were a better case of "all else equal, but one is medium the other is small" I'd use it. The point is it's a small creature and a medium creature unstealthily stabbing each other in the face and the small race is better at it.

As a rule Small is better than Medium at everything except Strengh based melee damage.

[Khedrac]

As a rule Small is better than Medium at everything except Strength based melee damage.
Personally I don't agree with the above statement, however taking it apart:

Magic control > Magic-based Damage > physical damage.

Your suggested role does nothing to casters so you can ignore this part of the question.

So looking at physical damage:

90% of the time:

Strength based > Dex based

So small creatures are better at the worst type of causing damage in the game. And you want to make sure that if they go for damage it has to precision based - the thing you say they are better at!

There is already a major disincentive for most small characters to go for strength-based damage, you are just making it an absolute. You are not doing a thing to casters - who are the bigger problem with benefiting from being small.

To be honest, for most small melee types they have a significant problem with their reduced movement speeds. Small melee characters are already sufficiently not-advantaged that all your suggested rule will do is stop them being played at all. Sorry, but there it is.

[Arbane]

Oh, goodie - big monsters become even MORE obnoxious.

I would suggest ignoring all these wrongheaded notions of 'realism', but hey, it's your game. Just add some extra extra rules to allow the runts to jump on people's backs and hold on while stabbing. You know, for "realism'.
Oh, and hamstringing. REALISM!

And groin-shots....

[Firechanter]

First off, as for the Dwarf (or Goliath for that matter), I don't intend to subject them to special rulings here. They are Medium-sized, and that's good enough for me. But do note that between all the Size Categories, S <--> M is the _only_ one that doesn't incur a Reach advantage for one size.

I am well aware that I will sway none of you who are opposed to such a houserule. That's fine. I am also willing to listen to counter-arguments, or even better, constructive criticism how else to better reflect the Small guys' inferior bulk and reach in combat. But I have opened this thread because I do not feel that "it is fine as it is".


Here is something else not mentioned so far. You want small creatures to focus on light armor and tumble. Are going to give all small creature the tumble skill for free? A fighter Halfling with few skill points can only gain .5 to tumble each level. There is no way he will ever get his score high enough to make it relevant.


Yeah, tough luck for the Halfling Fighter, then, eh? Maybe he better pick up some class that gives Tumble as a class skill instead. Might be Swordsage for all I care.
The point is, carrot or stick, stick or carrot, there are some races that are better suited for certain jobs, and their actual suitability should at least halfway match intuitive expectations. 40-pound-halflings should not be good frontline fighter material.

[AMFV]

The fundamental problem with this is that you're going to have to start measuring the battlefield in 2.5' squares. Which is going to make a lot of abilities confusing and difficult to implement. It'll hurt small characters a lot, but they will get much much better at squeezing courtesy of the grid now being better able to represent it. On the whole I think that whatever realism you'd gain from it would be so bogged down by having to keep track of the area and having to suddenly change a wide variety of movement and area rules.

Also talking about combat accuracy in a game where a 5' step is a thing at all, seems pretty preposterous to me. Particularly where a person can take a 5' step and have it be notionally no effort at all.

Edit: After all I may not have done a lot of martial arts, but I've done marching and I can tell you a 5' step is ridiculously huge. In any case I wouldn't apply the rule UNLESS your players have been complaining about it. The worst houserule is a houserule that adds no enjoyment to the game and doesn't fix anything. Have your players been complaining that this is unrealistic?

[VoxRationis]

I don't think the 5-foot step is supposed to actually be a single step, no more than a single attack roll represents a single slash or stab. It's just a quick adjustment of position. That's not too hard to swallow.

[AMFV]

I don't think the 5-foot step is supposed to actually be a single step, no more than a single attack roll represents a single slash or stab. It's just a quick adjustment of position. That's not too hard to swallow.

Not really, but I was pointing out that having people move inside a 5' square is a lot easier to believe than a literal five step, it was hyperbole, or at least was intended to come across as such. Because if you are defining people as standing in one spot in their five foot square, then a five foot step to a spot five feet away ceases to be a small adjustment, and is now a sudden leap.

[Curmudgeon]

But do note that between all the Size Categories, S <--> M is the _only_ one that doesn't incur a Reach advantage for one size.
Well, that's plainly not accurate. There's no reach difference in all of the Fine-Diminutive-Tiny range.

[Zanos]

Well, that's plainly not accurate. There's no reach difference in all of the Fine-Diminutive-Tiny range.
There's no reach difference between medium and large for long creatures either.

[Anlashok]

Yeah, tough luck for the Halfling Fighter, then, eh? Maybe he better pick up some class that gives Tumble as a class skill instead.

So the whole thing is just "Screw you, play the class I want you to play"?

Well more power to you I guess.

[Kantolin]

using a Reach weapon doubles the reach to 5 feet, so with these they can attack adjacent squares without risking an AoO.


Now all of this may incur an outrage from all those Mounted Strongheart Halfling Lancer players out there, but frankly, that is exactly the kind of ridiculous nonsense I am trying to stop.

Doesn't your rule not at all stop Mounted Strongheart Halfling Lance wielding units? A lance is a reach weapon.

In addition, even if it /did/ work on a mounted halfling lance user, couldn't they still do whatever they were doing but now they take an AOO for it? It sounds like (due to the phrase 'ridiculous nonsense') this is a balance issue - does it suddenly become more balanced to be a Mounted Strongheart Halfling Lancer if the Lancer takes an AOO from the enemy (say) wizard amidst accomplishing it?

Now, this would probably remove the idea of the halfling fighter. It'd also probably get rid of the halfling rogue, as getting sneak attacks are a bit harder now (You have to make a DC 20 tumble check every time you want to hit something without getting smacked, which is pretty horrible for a d6 HD rogue, especially at low levels when this isn't guaranteed yet, and then it eats up your 20ft movement).

Or well, at least it would get rid of the halfling rogue with a knife or similar. You could still play a halfling rogue with a longspear or something, which is kinda funny albeit not very thematic at all.

Also, they could possibly spend three feats to be able to swing once at an opponent, which overall means 'Halflings make bad rogues now'. Compare human thief, who has to do none of these things.

In addition, presuming this rule does discourage any of your PCs from playing small physical units (I presume that's the goal, right? You have someone who enjoys playing small physical units and want them stopped?), then you've really just made many monster types even less relevant. Now /goblins/ make entertainingly poor sneaks - and there's even less incentive to be worried about kobolds.

...unless everything becomes a caster, which would then make this rule bad for physical types of any size as now all goblins throw color sprays or something.

Finally, halflings, gnomes, goblins, kobolds, and in fact most small races have a strength penalty to show that they are both using smaller weapons and aren't as large as medium compatriots. Thus, all four are encouraged to go with dexterity-based builds over strength-based builds or they simply won't be as good at it as a medium unit (Especially halflings!). So if your goal is encouragement, then it seems unnecessary as they're already encouraged. If your goal is punishment, then you may as well decree, 'Halflings aren't allowed to be fighters in my setting' or something, and set up what halfling players are allowed to play.

Although I suppose, if you do have someone that says, 'Well, I'm going to play a halfling fighter with a longsword and shield anyway', will this rule help? It sounds like the goal (Or a goal) is that if you play a halfling fighter/rogue you die for it, while encouraging halfling wizards?

Edit: Either way, I'm not sure - if you do have someone who will play a small physical unit with these rules, I presume they will either deal with the AOOs (encouraging tanky style roles), or avoid attacking (I can't attack since I'm surrounded by nine ogres and they'll murder me if I try). If this means 'nobody plays a small physical unit because these rules are too much', then you could really just say 'No being a halfling physical unit' without incidentally requiring some optimization for a halfling rogue to be able to 'attack things'. Otherwise, you're saying 'Oh I want halfling fighters, but they have to be optimized and carefully built to work', or 'Halfling physical units need to be more optimized classes than fighters or rogues', or possibly, 'All halflings are wizards'.

Anyway, uh... does this also apply to touch attacks? If so, halfling healer-types also don't exist as they'd be violently stabbed when they left the person they're healing's square.

(Which I note once again tends more towards limiting weak options while promoting powerful ones; halflings can still use haste or orb of fire or gate or planar ally or polymorph or most other heavy hitters, but not inflict spells or bull's strength?)

[Piggy Knowles]

Would a medium-sized creature wielding a dagger also suffer these penalties when fighting another medium-sized creature wielding, say, a greatsword?

[DarkSonic1337]

It's not about it being human it's about it being small vs. medium. If I knew a case races that were a better case of "all else equal, but one is medium the other is small" I'd use it. The point is it's a small creature and a medium creature unstealthily stabbing each other in the face and the small race is better at it.

As a rule Small is better than Medium at everything except Strengh based melee damage.

Actually, the medium creature is better at it due to higher average damage output most of the time (besides the weapon size, small creatures tend to have a STR penalty). The small creature taking -4 on combat maneuvers also hurts if we start talking about trip/grapple. Where small characters shine is STEALTHY builds because of the dex boost and the size bonus to hide/move silently.

Of course large creatures are even better at stabbing things in the face unstealthily because of the free reach, strength bonus (from enlarge person or whatever made them bigger), and larger weapon.

Reach is a huge freaking deal at low levels because characters cannot consistently make that tumble check to avoid AoOs. And against anyone who doesn't invest in tumble (which is a lot of characters and monsters actually), it remains a big deal. A medium guy with a spiked chain and enlarge person (get it from an item, a friendly caster, whatever) has a TWENTY foot threatened area! Throw on stand still or knock down and melee battlefield control is actually a usable tactic (a small character base would be terrible for this).

[Firechanter]

Thanks everyone for the thoughts and insight you've provided, especially to Kantolin who brings some interesting aspects on the table. I'll have to think about all of that a bit, do not think I am ignoring the thread now or anything.

[Fax Celestis]

Also keep in mind that due to rules wonkiness, if you have 0' reach, you have to have Spring Attack to fight in melee, since you have to enter your opponent's square to attack but can't finish your movement in an illegal square.

[Kantolin]

As one additional note, I believe the suggestions of 'Be a halfling/gnome mounted charger instead of a human one' are mostly because 'it is hard to get a large sized mount into a dungeon', not because the former is at all better. After all, when you're stacking multipliers you want to start from a larger number, and halflings do not have larger numbers.

(Now, there is a halfling-only prestige class in halfling outrider, but presumably if you don't want halflings to be riders then you'll also ban the halfling outrider class or open it up to anyone).

So if you wanted to go the other way and encourage mounted units to be larger, ensure your games take place in larger areas.

This is especially true with size-increasing buffs; an enlarged halfling and his mount becoming medium/large is meh, an enlarged human and his mount becoming large/huge is terrific.

Also on that route, while halflings are already heavily encouraged to go dex-based, playing up the prevalence of stealthy dex-based options may help there. Maybe give free 'Small races can use strength or dexterity for climb or several other strength-based checks' out. If everyone got weapon finesse for free, for example, a halfling is more likely to lean towards his race's natural strengths.

(Also do note - halflings are totally encouraged to go dex-based, heh)

[Hamste]

How would halflings that are not casters survive through the first level? Let's say for a moment I'm a level 1 rogue halfling who duel wields (With a flaw to allow for duel wielding, weapon finesse and one other feat), I have 20 Dex and max ranks in tumble for a +9. I attack an opponent and roll tumble...I have a 55% chance to get attacked the first time I do it and then again the second attack, with a total of 10 health (with max at first level and 14 con) I can get seriously hurt very quickly trying this. It also runs into the problem of making dex focused builds that use small creatures less likely to happen at all, they tend to be severely stretched for skill points already needing hide, move silently, listen, spot, search, disable device and possibly some face skills. That already puts them at at least 6 of their 8+int skill points and now you want them to put points in tumble as well? Meanwhile, humans get 9+int skill points, don't have to take a flaw to get the feats they need, don't have to invest in tumble or worry about failing their tumble at low levels, 4 less in hide and 2 less in move silently but in reality it hardly matters most of the time as a lot of things don't have maxed perception stats, are 1 point less accurate but do 1 more point of damage and have 2 less ac (the ac hurts a bit but you make up for it at low levels by not being attacked as much and at higher levels by it not mattering). Why would you ever want to be a halfling in this scenario when you can be a human?

Then compare it to a normal halfling/human fighter.
Halflings are slightly more accurate, their bonus to dex hardly matters once you can afford heavy armor, do 1.5 less damage (two handing of course), are just as accurate as normal, do 1.5 less on their greatsword, has 2+int skill points per level and they have +1 ac. Humans on the other hand deal more do normal damage with a greatsword, has 3+int skill points, has an extra feat that isn't fighter restricted and has one less ac than halflings. Why ever play a halfling in this scenario when you can be human?

As it is, small creatures aren't common as non-dex based fighters and I don't really know how many you have seen that you feel that they are common. Do you really want them to be not be common at all except as casters?