[3.x] is there a feat (or other thing) for reducing size penalties

[DeTess]

Pretty much as the title says. Is there a feat or spell or item in DnD 3.5 that reduces penalties to hitting and to AC for being larger than medium?

[Zaq]

I've learned to never say never in this game, but I'm not aware of any such game elements. Mostly because WotC had the impression that all PCs are Medium forever, no matter what. Yes, you and I both know that this assumption is not true, but it really seems to be an assumption that WotC was working with.

Of course, from a practical standpoint, since you're just talking about relatively minor penalties, it's likely to be easier to just find another arbitrary bonus to effectively cancel out the penalty in question. (For actual monsters, the devs would usually just throw on arbitrary STR buffs and/or natural armor if they felt like the numbers were too low; you have to actually expend resources here, but the basic concept is the same.)

[MisterKaws]

Usually the penalty is out-weighted by the Strength/NA bonuses. The size modifier itself is inherent to your current size and cannot be changed in any way other than changing sizes. The only exceptions to this are Powerful/Slight Build, but other than that, the only way to counteract it is simply stacking a bigger bonus on top of it.

[Bphill561]

There is nothing that I know of that directly removes the penalties without changing size, but...

There is the shrink collar in the Arms and Equipment guide, page 80, that changes your size to small. It stats that it does not change any of the creatures other attributes. Read what you want other attributes to mean, but I always thought that was the changes in ability scores and natural armor. Never considered that the AC mods might also not change, but not certain.

There is the Malleable armor property in the Underdark book. It lets you move through confined spaces as if you were smaller. This is not a direct AC changer, but it does allow a creature to retain it's Dex score when in a confined space. The Tunnel fighting feat is similar from Dungeonscape.

Kobold slight build from the web enchancement makes them count as being a size small for some things, but it does not list AC as an example.

There is the Dungeonbred monster template that reduces size, but does not have an LA.

[DeTess]

Thanks for the input everyone! I reckoned there probably wasn't something like this after google turned up nothing, but I reckoned it was better to check the playground hivemind just in case. It's true that the penalties are generally fairly small, but they tend to become bigger once you're about gargantuan in size or so :smallwink: , so if there had been a feat that made you count as one size smaller for those penalties or something like that in an obscure source, it would have made quite the difference.

[Thurbane]

There is the shrink collar in the Arms and Equipment guide, page 80, that changes your size to small. It stats that it does not change any of the creatures other attributes. Read what you want other attributes to mean, but I always thought that was the changes in ability scores and natural armor. Never considered that the AC mods might also not change, but not certain.

I was unaware of this item before. Thank you. A steal at 10,000gp! I assume the intention was for it to only work for animals etc. but that isn't stipulated.

I can see some hilarious shenanigans involving this collar in my near future! :smallbiggrin:

[Sian]

Thanks for the input everyone! I reckoned there probably wasn't something like this after google turned up nothing, but I reckoned it was better to check the playground hivemind just in case. It's true that the penalties are generally fairly small, but they tend to become bigger once you're about gargantuan in size or so :smallwink: , so if there had been a feat that made you count as one size smaller for those penalties or something like that in an obscure source, it would have made quite the difference.

The closest thing i can recall is Kobold counting as Tiny whenever it's favourable