Improved Disguise Self?

[Baptor]

Hi PG,

I have a player who is playing a halfling wizard who wants to be able to make a spell that allows him to disguise himself as a medium creature. Currently there don't seem to be any spells capable of doing this, not even high level illusions.

All he wants is a disguise self that simply adds that he can appear to be a size larger than normal. It still doesn't hold up to scrutiny and if someone tried to shake hands with him it would likely just pass through the image revealing the forgery.

I think this is a reasonable request, but am wondering what you think, and what level it should be. I think conservatively it could be 3rd level without much issue.

Thoughts?

[Aett_Thorn]

Does Alter Self not work for you/them?

"You take on one of three physical adaptations: aquatic, appearance, or natural weapons.

Aquatic adaptations allow you to breathe underwater and swim as fast as you walk.

Adapting your appearance can involve any of your natural physical features, even to that of another race, though your statistics stay the same and you cannot change your basic body structure.

And you can grow fangs, claws, horns, or any other natural weapon you choose with the natural weapons adaptation. If you take the natural weapons adaptation, your unarmed strikes will then deal 1d6 damage of the most appropriate of bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing. The natural weapon you grow is also magic and gives you a +1 bonus to both the attack rolls and damage you deal with it."

I would think that the bolded part would allow for a height gain ("I want to look like an Elf!") Certainly it's not breaking anything if you allow this spell to change them into any type of medium humanoid.

[PhantomSoul]

Does Alter Self not work for you/them?

"You take on one of three physical adaptations: aquatic, appearance, or natural weapons.

Aquatic adaptations allow you to breathe underwater and swim as fast as you walk.

Adapting your appearance can involve any of your natural physical features, even to that of another race, though your statistics stay the same and you cannot change your basic body structure.

[...]

Alter Self explicitly says you have to choose an appearance that matches your size:

You also can’t appear as a creature of a different size than you, and your basic shape stays the same; if you're bipedal, you can’t use this spell to become quadrupedal, for instance.

[Baptor]

Alter Self explicitly says you have to choose an appearance that matches your size:

Yup, earlier today I thought Alter Self was the answer until I read it more closely.

So any ideas? Would a level 3 disguise self that is the same spell but allows you to mimic a creature a size larger break the game?

[Aett_Thorn]

Alter Self explicitly says you have to choose an appearance that matches your size:

Hmmm...the source I was using must have gotten the words wrong. My bad.

[Asmotherion]

On a side note, Alter Self used to be "within one size category" for this specific reason in older editions... Kinda weird that they removed that clause, but I'm not one to play short races anyway.

Hombrew the Clause Back?

The most Raw I could see this happening would be a casting of Enlarge followed by Disguise Self; Since the Illusion would initially have a "fitting" body it could "follow him" for the duration, eventhough the duration of Enlarge would be gone (Obviously, if you're willing to "see it that way" as a DM). If you give it to him, be ready for arguements over augmented AC/Be prepared to shut it down.

[No brains]

Disguise Self and wear stilt shoes. Make your disguise include a cape to hide your odd leg movements.

Also, if you don't need to move, make your disguise include a cape or skirt that would hide where your legs aren't while sitting down.

[JackPhoenix]

Potion of Growth will increase your size by one category, lasts 1d4 hours and doesn't requires concentration. It's uncommon consumable item, so it shouldn't be that hard to obtain.

[Baptor]

In 3.5 there used to be advantages to being small sized.

In 5e I can't see that small creatures have any advantages, mechanically, to medium creatures. Both occupy a 5x5 space and there is otherwise no mechanical difference.

That being said, I don't really see any reason I can't allow him to disguise or alter himself to look like a medium sized creature. It's not like he'd have an advantage that others wouldn't that I can tell. It's just punishing him for choosing halfling instead of human.

[pygmybatrider]

In 3.5 there used to be advantages to being small sized.

In 5e I can't see that small creatures have any advantages, mechanically, to medium creatures. Both occupy a 5x5 space and there is otherwise no mechanical difference.

That being said, I don't really see any reason I can't allow him to disguise or alter himself to look like a medium sized creature. It's not like he'd have an advantage that others wouldn't that I can tell. It's just punishing him for choosing halfling instead of human.

I’d just let him do it with the normal spell.

The worst thing I can see happening is that another medium sized PC would want to use it to appear small, and given the limitations of the spell, is that really so awful?

[sambojin]

Give him the Firbolg version, reversed. Just let it add up to 3' and minus 1'.
It's not game breaking as a 6'4" Firbolg (where you can shrimp down to 3'4") and is almost considered a racial ribbon.

Problem solved. Littlens get the embiggering version, because biguns get the enlittling one. Balance :)

[Talionis]

I think you might use a disguise kit that is specially designed for allowing creatures to impersonate Medium creatures could be allowable. Something like it conveys no positive benefit to the character but allows him to impersonate medium sized creatures.

That way you can give a pretty good weakness to the ability so that while its in use it make the character use the worse for them of the being sized Medium or Small.

I could see allowing the same weaknesses to a spell similar to Disquise Self.. It should be balanced Homebrew. Maybe for fluff, its a spell type of Disquise self designed for the Halfling Race. But I wouldn't do much to change the spell by increasing its level or anything.

[Dalebert]

Just give hiim a Staff of the Magi. It has Enlarge/Reduce at-will for zero charges.

[MaxWilson]

Hi PG,

I have a player who is playing a halfling wizard who wants to be able to make a spell that allows him to disguise himself as a medium creature. Currently there don't seem to be any spells capable of doing this, not even high level illusions.

All he wants is a disguise self that simply adds that he can appear to be a size larger than normal. It still doesn't hold up to scrutiny and if someone tried to shake hands with him it would likely just pass through the image revealing the forgery.

I think this is a reasonable request, but am wondering what you think, and what level it should be. I think conservatively it could be 3rd level without much issue.

Thoughts?

I'd make it 1st level, but with a very tiny penalty on the spell research roll, e.g. DC 12 instead of DC 10 to research. It's not much of a power boost. Disguise Self would already let a 3' tall halfling look like a 4' tall human, so letting him look like a 6' tall human is mostly just a matter of correcting for the angle of his illusionary eyes relative to his real eyes, if you don't want to look like you're always looking over people's heads.

If you're letting him learn the spell by fiat on level-up instead of by researching it, then I'd just flat out give it to him as a variant spell, no questions asked.

[Xihirli]

If you want to add:
When you cast this spell with a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, you can increase the difference of height by one foot for every spell slot level above first.

You, as the DM, can do that.

[guachi]

+1 to the above. The ability to upcast spells to greater effect without needing to invent a new spell is a definite plus of 5e.

[Grey Watcher]

On a side note, Alter Self used to be "within one size category" for this specific reason in older editions... Kinda weird that they removed that clause, but I'm not one to play short races anyway.

If I had to guess, it was probably designed to patch over an unintended side-effect of collapsing Tiny, Diminutive, and Fine into one size category; since Tiny is one size category off of Small and Tiny covers everything from a house cat down to a mosquito, a Small sized PC could rules lawyer the spell into letting them become so small as to be able to crawl through a keyhole.

That said, especially since Disguise Self is visual only, I'd be inclined to let it do this even at 1st Level. Instead of size categories, just say "you can appear anywhere from half to double your current height". Since it doesn't change you physically, a human passing as a gnome is going to get a lot of weird looks for always ducking when going through doors, and a halfling posing as a human has to remember to react to stuff going on over his head. And you decide whether the spell corrects for eyelines or not.

[MaxWilson]

+1 to the above. The ability to upcast spells to greater effect without needing to invent a new spell is a definite plus of 5e.

Ironically, in this case you need to do both: invent a new spell in order to upcast it.