When would you allow Small knock over Large?

[jaappleton]

The Shove rules say you can only shove something up to one size larger than your character. A Medium creature can Shove a Large one, and a Small creature can Shove up to a Medium creature.

What do you do if something grants you strength beyond normal limits?

Say, a Kobold Bearbarian at lv6, how their Strength score is doubled when considering how much you can push, pull and lift. Would you let the Kobold Shove a Large creature?

Or if the Kobold got a magical item to give it Powerful Build? Belt of Fire Giant Strength? Etc.

Are you in the camp of, “No, it’s Small so the limit is Medium, end of story” no matter what? If not, at what point can a Small feasibly knock over a Large creature?

[OldTrees1]

When would I allow Small to knock over Large? If they win the opposed check. I have no problem with expanding the size limits on those actions.

[stoutstien]

Depending on the circumstances in question but I wouldn't be apposed to it.
Just having a few magical items would not cut it. If you can describe how you are attempting the shove I would be more inclined to allow it.

[Galithar]

I personally hate the distinction of small and medium. It's but both not a big enough difference and too much at the same time.

I mainly say this because of small PC races. It's a HUGE penalty for very little or no benefit.

What I mean when I say too much and too little:
Too much: Small PCs lose a lot of actions or receive penalties. Want to play a small Barbarian? Too bad you suck with your classes optimum weapons (Heavy two-handers). You can't push or grapple the same things either. If you're a caster you can't help your half-orc barbarian out of (or into) a situation with dimension door and the like.

Too little: You take up the same space. A small and medium creature both have to follow squeezing rules if moving into a space smaller than their 5' occupied space even if you're a 2'6" gnome by the rules you squeeze when the 6'8" Goliath does (I might have heights slightly off I didn't look them up)

I have basically removed all distinction of it in my games.

If there were no small PC races I'll admit that I wouldn't care about any of this. I just don't like how it punishes PCs.


Also of note, I let powerful build allow a creature to grapple, shove, etc as a creature of one size larger. So a Medium Goliath PC can grapple Huge creatures for example. An enlarged Goliath can grapple as if they were Huge. (So basically anything except for gargantuan+ creatures.) I will also say that I homebrew Athletics or Acrobatics proficiency into a lot of my monsters so that grappling isn't as easy to guarantee without serious investment.

[KorvinStarmast]

I personally hate the distinction of small and medium.
Get rid of halflings, get rid of gnomes, problem solved. :smallbiggrin:

*ducks*

[Galithar]

Get rid of halflings, get rid of gnomes, problem solved. :smallbiggrin:

*ducks*

I sooorrrt of got rid of halflings... I basically rewrote them as gnomes though. My setting has about 12 different types of Gnomes now! :smallbiggrin:

They are still labeled as small though again I have removed all distinction between the two except that they can still use a medium creature as a mount. Now being small is a positive feature of your race instead of a minor positive with many restrictions.

[Mastikator]

Are you in the camp of, “No, it’s Small so the limit is Medium, end of story” no matter what? If not, at what point can a Small feasibly knock over a Large creature?

That point is where you cast enlarge on the small one to make them medium thus allowing them to knock over large targets.

If there are circumstances where a small can knock over a large target, those circumstances should allow a medium to knock over a huge, and a large to knock over a gargantuan.

[TyGuy]

I'm leaning towards keeping it black and white. I don't want to open the flood gates for more fishing for leniency or end up with a ton of pocket situation rules.
Besides, strength isn't everything. Leverage is crucial. If an animated barbie doll had the strength of 5 athletes it would still be limited by size on how much it can push 6' me around.

[KorvinStarmast]

That point is where you cast enlarge on the small one to make them medium thus allowing them to knock over large targets.

If there are circumstances where a small can knock over a large target, those circumstances should allow a medium to knock over a huge, and a large to knock over a gargantuan. This is the issue at hand, to me, in terms of opening the can of worms.

[Galithar]

This is the issue at hand, to me, in terms of opening the can of worms.

I say open it. Honestly how much is it going to break your game to let an enlarged Goliath Barbarian grapple an Ancient Dragon? Probably not at all. What it will do is make your high Tier Barbarian feel like he single handedly allowed the party to stomp on an ancient dragon because he pinned its little wingys down. (Barbarians don't give credit to the puny Wizard that sacrificed their concentration to enlarge him)

[stoutstien]

This is the issue at hand, to me, in terms of opening the can of worms.

Not really that big of a can. Travel size at most.

When we are talking about the upper tiers of size and CR we also have massive stat bonuses to this check, good chance of prone immunity, and it's no more powerful than nailing them with the grease spell.

Big T can be knocked over by ball bearings RaW so it's not like we are shifting power up.

[SirDidymus]

There are at least some ways to do it that are straight RAW. The 14th level Wolf Totem ability doesn't have any size restrictions.

[da newt]

I'm of the opinion that small and medium ought to be combined for PCs ("normal sized") and treating it as one size.

Is this entirely realistic - NO, no mater how strong the Kobold is, if it weighs 45 lbs it just can't move stuff like a 450 lb Warforged or Orc even if they have the same ST - but it does simplify a bunch of things and level the playing field in a way that I think is good.

[clash]

Honestly I would remove any distinction based on creature size regardless of the size. Any specific interaction should just be specified in the stat block rather than swiping generalizations.

[JackPhoenix]

Too little: You take up the same space. A small and medium creature both have to follow squeezing rules if moving into a space smaller than their 5' occupied space even if you're a 2'6" gnome by the rules you squeeze when the 6'8" Goliath does (I might have heights slightly off I didn't look them up)

Not true. Medium creatures can't squeeze, because squeeze refers to a space for a creature one size category smaller. A small creature can squeeze into a space for a tiny creature, a medium creature can squeeze in a space for a small creature, which takes the same space as medium.

[Ettina]

I have been tripped by a cat IRL (ie Tiny creature tripping Medium creature), so I don't think there should be size restrictions on a shove action. Maybe if you're a lot smaller it's an Acrobatics check instead of Athletics to shove them.

[NecessaryWeevil]

This feels like the thread on Small characters using big weapons all over again...

Anyway. One of my DMs likes to assign a handful of character-specific quirks at character creation depending on race, build and backstory. For example, my Kobold barbarian had disadvantage on Persuasion checks vs humans but advantage on Deception.
Maybe that's a way forward? "You specifically can ignore Size limits when shoving opponents, due to X trait or in Y situation. This is your particular heroic schtick and is no way a precedent."

[OldTrees1]

This feels like the thread on Small characters using big weapons all over again...

Honestly this sounds closer to "Can my Half Orc Barbarian grapple the Roc that is attacking me?".

Aside: I said yes, but there will be degrees of success and size helps the Roc. What would normally grapple a Goliath might only let you hold onto its claw/wing. Which still leaves room for a nigh impossible result being even more effective.

[KorvinStarmast]

The Shove rules say you can only shove something up to one size larger than your character. A Medium creature can Shove a Large one, and a Small creature can Shove up to a Medium creature.
Wait a sec. Can't you make a halfling Fighter Battle Master who uses the Tripping Attack Maneuver? :smallcool:

[JackPhoenix]

I have been tripped by a cat IRL (ie Tiny creature tripping Medium creature), so I don't think there should be size restrictions on a shove action. Maybe if you're a lot smaller it's an Acrobatics check instead of Athletics to shove them.

Tripping over something and being intentionally pushed by someone (or something) are two different things.

[Ravens_cry]

I'd just allow it as long as they make the check. It makes a cool scene, and I don't see a need to penalize a character concept needlessly.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

I'm sort of torn with this. On one side is the issue of balance for strength builds/ martials, as many spells (even low level ones like Thunderwave) have the ability to move massive creatures around regardless of their size. On the other hand it stretches the limits of believability if humans are allowed to wrestle elephants to the ground.
I've generally used advantage/ disadvantage for things where rules aren't clear or manipulating creatures 2 sizes larger or smaller.

[stoutstien]

I'm sort of torn with this. On one side is the issue of balance for strength builds/ martials, as many spells (even low level ones like Thunderwave) have the ability to move massive creatures around regardless of their size. On the other hand it stretches the limits of believability if humans are allowed to wrestle elephants to the ground.
I've generally used advantage/ disadvantage for things where rules aren't clear or manipulating creatures 2 sizes larger or smaller.

Well the OP was asking about shoving specifically so its closer to a human tripping up an elephant than a wrestling match.

[Sception]

To me the issue is that shoving and tripping have been rolled into the same combat action for convenience. To me a size-based limitation on shoving makes sense, but a size based limit on tripping does not, which is how I'd probably make it work as DM.

[Telok]

On the other hand it stretches the limits of believability if humans are allowed to wrestle elephants to the ground.

Could level, prof, & strength gate it. T1 = nope. T2 = disadvantage & prof & Str 18+. T3 = Str 18+ & prof, or one of those and disadvantage. T4 = go ahead and try.

[Sception]

Could level, prof, & strength gate it. T1 = nope. T2 = disadvantage & prof & Str 18+. T3 = Str 18+ & prof, or one of those and disadvantage. T4 = go ahead and try.

Tier gating is another good point. A level 17 fighter or barbarian isn't a mere mortal warrior, they're Beowulf. They're Hercules. Straight up wrestling giant monsters is something they really should be able to do.

[jaappleton]

Tier gating is another good point. A level 17 fighter or barbarian isn't a mere mortal warrior, they're Beowulf. They're Hercules. Straight up wrestling giant monsters is something they really should be able to do.

While not a bad idea, and I get the concept behind it, its an issue for me in particular because my table only plays Tier 1 and 2, really.

[Greywander]

There's another aspect to this that's kind of weird. If you look at the space each size occupies, you'll notice that it mostly scales by the square root of 2 (about 1.41). Going one step down from medium, we would divide 5 feet by the square root of 2, ending up with roughly 3.5 feet. This is why small creatures still occupy the entire square, since there isn't enough room to fit two in the same square. However, you should be able to stack them 3x3 inside a 10 foot square, while medium can only do 2x2. Dividing again by the square root of 2 yields 2.5 exactly.

Going bigger, if we multiply 5 feet by the square root of 2, we get about 7.07 feet. This is a "missing" size, and does not exist in the game (but would be perfect for something like a goliath if it did, horses would probably fall here, too). If it did exist, it would likely occupy a 10 foot square (like a small creature occupies a 5 foot square), but you could stack them 2x2 inside a 15 foot square, and you could almost fit 3x3 in a 20 foot square. Multiplying by the square root of 2 again gives us 10 feet exactly. Multiplying once more gives about 14.1 feet, which rounds off to 15 feet, and multiplying one more time gives exactly 20 feet, which are our remaining size categories.

Interestingly, if we keep going bigger, then multiplying once (from 20 feet) more gives us about 28.3 feet, which rounds off to 30 feet, and then multiplying one more time gives exactly 40 feet. D&D used to have sizes larger than gargantuan (and smaller than tiny), I'm not really sure why 5e dropped them except to simplify things (there's also the fact that each size currently has an associated hit die size, and all die sizes are already spoken for).

Given that the tiniest creatures are capable of grappling or shoving halflings and gnomes, I wouldn't be opposed to expanding the size system. I feel like minimum we need one size smaller than tiny, since all playable races seem to be either small or medium, so that we can designate creatures that are too small to grapple small PCs. Adding a size between medium and large, and making it available to playable races, might also be interesting.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I sooorrrt of got rid of halflings... I basically rewrote them as gnomes though. My setting has about 12 different types of Gnomes now! :smallbiggrin:

They are still labeled as small though again I have removed all distinction between the two except that they can still use a medium creature as a mount. Now being small is a positive feature of your race instead of a minor positive with many restrictions.

I've done away with gnomes, but I'm likely to bring them back eventually (they exist in universe, just not playable right now). But my gnomes are effectively goblin subraces, being the genasi-equivalent (except also including fey-touched) for goblins. Halflings are mutant goblins, but they breed true and have a fixed place.

But that's all for world reasons, not mechanical ones.

[Gignere]

There is also an optional rule on “grappling” creatures two sizes larger than you. It’s either an athletic or acrobatics check and works kinda like grapple/shove.

It’s not an option for medium creatures to do it to a large creature but it is for a small creature to do it to a large creature. If the small creature is successful they get advantage to attacks on the larger creature until the larger creature can throw them off. So although the game does penalizes small with heavy weapons and unable to shove it does give them an advantage to use a different tactic for large creatures that medium creatures can’t.

[Greywander]

There are also a couple of things to consider that both present good reasons why it would be hard to grapple someone that much bigger than you.

First is simple inertia, or the size to weight ratio, or the square-cube law, if you will. As noted in my previous post, each size step is about 1.41 times bigger than the previous one, with two steps being double the size. Two steps up (which is the smallest size too big to grapple) is about 4 times stronger but 8 times heavier. Now, we're less interested in the implications of the square-cube law and how a creature will quickly get so big that they can't even support their own weight, the main point is that bigger creatures are flippin' heavy! As a rough estimate, let's say we're a 200 lbs. medium human. A large monster that weighs 565 lbs. is small enough that we can grapple and shove them, but a 1600 lbs. huge monster is just too big for us! Now, in theory, with superhuman strength you might be able to do is, and I think that would be a great feature for high level martial characters, but it would be impossible for anyone with normal human strength, no matter how much they trained.

The second is a matter of force, or pressure. When Superman picks up a bus, the bus should impale itself on his arm just by its own weight. All that force concentrated on one spot is not going to shove or throw something, it's just going to go through it. This is handwaved by Superman having something called "touch telekinesis". Basically, when he touches something, he can envelope it in a telekinetic field that distributes the force of his strength evenly across the entire surface of the object. Without an ability like this, a shove is not really different from a lethal punch, through grappling might still be feasible.

Thirdly, or rather going back to the issue of inertia, because I just remembered something I forgot, but every force has an equal and opposite reaction. If you shove the enemy, then you are also shoved in the opposite direction. Now, it is assumed that you brace yourself against the ground so that you don't move, but the heavier your opponent is, the stronger that force will need to be. Eventually, an enemy just gets so heavy that no matter how you brace yourself, you're going to go flying if you successfully shove them. This applies to grappling as well, albeit not quite as much.

[PhoenixPhyre]

There are also a couple of things to consider that both present good reasons why it would be hard to grapple someone that much bigger than you.

First is simple inertia, or the size to weight ratio, or the square-cube law, if you will. As noted in my previous post, each size step is about 1.41 times bigger than the previous one, with two steps being double the size. Two steps up (which is the smallest size too big to grapple) is about 4 times stronger but 8 times heavier. Now, we're less interested in the implications of the square-cube law and how a creature will quickly get so big that they can't even support their own weight, the main point is that bigger creatures are flippin' heavy! As a rough estimate, let's say we're a 200 lbs. medium human. A large monster that weighs 565 lbs. is small enough that we can grapple and shove them, but a 1600 lbs. huge monster is just too big for us! Now, in theory, with superhuman strength you might be able to do is, and I think that would be a great feature for high level martial characters, but it would be impossible for anyone with normal human strength, no matter how much they trained.

The second is a matter of force, or pressure. When Superman picks up a bus, the bus should impale itself on his arm just by its own weight. All that force concentrated on one spot is not going to shove or throw something, it's just going to go through it. This is handwaved by Superman having something called "touch telekinesis". Basically, when he touches something, he can envelope it in a telekinetic field that distributes the force of his strength evenly across the entire surface of the object. Without an ability like this, a shove is not really different from a lethal punch, through grappling might still be feasible.

Thirdly, or rather going back to the issue of inertia, because I just remembered something I forgot, but every force has an equal and opposite reaction. If you shove the enemy, then you are also shoved in the opposite direction. Now, it is assumed that you brace yourself against the ground so that you don't move, but the heavier your opponent is, the stronger that force will need to be. Eventually, an enemy just gets so heavy that no matter how you brace yourself, you're going to go flying if you successfully shove them. This applies to grappling as well, albeit not quite as much.

While this is very true, beware of mixing physics and D&D, unless you've got a grudge against female tabaxi. Seriously, we've already done away with conservation of mass and momentum, and all sorts of creatures break the square-cube law by their very existence. And Newton's laws aren't looking so hot either.

On the main topic, meh. I'm not really feeling one way or another with any strength. I'd likely take it case by case.

[Greywander]

Too true. I just ran some numbers, and if we (a) add one size between medium and large (so that large has 4x the carry capacity of a medium creature), (b) add two sizes above gargantuan, colossal and titanic, and (c) assume that the average weight of a medium sized creature is 160 lbs., then we end up with a titanic creature weighing an average of 81,920 lbs. and having a carry capacity of 28,800 lbs... at STR 30. At STR 10, or average strength, they only have a carry capacity of 9600 lbs. They can lift only slightly more than 1/10 of their own weight...

And this, folks, is the paradox known as the Square-Cube Law, and it's here to ruin your day if you're playing with very large creatures or robots. I'm not sure what the best solution is; either we scale up weight more slowly to match the increase in strength more closely, or we scale up strength faster to more closely match the increase in weight. Maybe there could be a "Super Strength" trait that causes your carry capacity to scale up at the same rate as your weight, so that no matter how big you are you're basically always acting like a medium sized creature in terms of how much you can carry proportional to your size.

As an aside, while a lot of sci-fi focuses around some special material or discovery that enables faster than light travel, something else that I think would be interesting for a sci-fi setting would be a special metamaterial that ignores the square-cube law.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Not just carry capacity. Bone strength goes with area. Mass with volume. Hence why super sized insects aren't so big and why factory raised turkeys run real risks of breaking their legs just trying to walk.

Physics is a harsh mistress. Hence why realism isn't one of my priorities in TTRPGs--once you make more than token nods in its direction, you either get total inconsistent messes or you get the real world. Sort of an uncanny valley effect. Drink deeply or not at all.

[Ortho]

I've always interpreted the shoving rules to be more about leverage than actual brute strength.

So no, I wouldn't allow a small creature to shove a large one, unless you could explain where that extra leverage comes from.

[Sception]

Having thought about it some more, I think what I'd do is give creatures disadvantage on checks to shove creatures two or more sizes larger than them, and give all creatures with three or more legs advantage on checks to resist being shoved. So a halfling's going to have a hard time knocking over a horse, but it isn't impossible for particularly athletic halflings, and I'll leave it to the player to come up with a suitably epic way to describe exactly how they manage it should they succeed.

[stoutstien]

Having thought about it some more, I think what I'd do is give creatures disadvantage on checks to shove creatures two or more sizes larger than them, and give all creatures with three or more legs advantage on checks to resist being shoved. So a halfling's going to have a hard time knocking over a horse, but it isn't impossible for particularly athletic halflings, and I'll leave it to the player to come up with a suitably epic way to describe exactly how they manage it should they succeed.

Sure footed is the NPC feature for adv on str/dex checks and saves against prone. I know mules have it but I can't remember if horses have it.

[Dragonsonthemap]

Get rid of halflings, get rid of gnomes, problem solved. :smallbiggrin:

*ducks*

Can't give up on my precious, precious kobolds, though.

[Sception]

Sure footed is the NPC feature for adv on str/dex checks and saves against prone. I know mules have it but I can't remember if horses have it.

I'd just make sure that all creatures with greater than 2 legs have it, unless being particularly unbalanced is part of their narrative concept.

[OldTrees1]

Can't give up on my precious, precious kobolds, though.

Of course not. Kobolds get shrunk to tiny size! With some species features / advantages for that small size.

Actually the old small size (8 in a cube) worked very well for kobolds

[Tvtyrant]

Too true. I just ran some numbers, and if we (a) add one size between medium and large (so that large has 4x the carry capacity of a medium creature), (b) add two sizes above gargantuan, colossal and titanic, and (c) assume that the average weight of a medium sized creature is 160 lbs., then we end up with a titanic creature weighing an average of 81,920 lbs. and having a carry capacity of 28,800 lbs... at STR 30. At STR 10, or average strength, they only have a carry capacity of 9600 lbs. They can lift only slightly more than 1/10 of their own weight...

And this, folks, is the paradox known as the Square-Cube Law, and it's here to ruin your day if you're playing with very large creatures or robots. I'm not sure what the best solution is; either we scale up weight more slowly to match the increase in strength more closely, or we scale up strength faster to more closely match the increase in weight. Maybe there could be a "Super Strength" trait that causes your carry capacity to scale up at the same rate as your weight, so that no matter how big you are you're basically always acting like a medium sized creature in terms of how much you can carry proportional to your size.

As an aside, while a lot of sci-fi focuses around some special material or discovery that enables faster than light travel, something else that I think would be interesting for a sci-fi setting would be a special metamaterial that ignores the square-cube law.

Once the square cubed law gets invoked you have to do away with a ton of monsters anyway. All vermin larger then tiny, large+ flyers, any land mammal much bigger then an elephant. If you invoke the guy at the gym rule then I think you have to invoke the "dragons suffocate under their own weight" rule and the game becomes something else entirely.

[Greywander]

Once the square cubed law gets invoked you have to do away with a ton of monsters anyway. All vermin larger then tiny, large+ flyers, any land mammal much bigger then an elephant. If you invoke the guy at the gym rule then I think you have to invoke the "dragons suffocate under their own weight" rule and the game becomes something else entirely.
I mean, it's not that hard to just assume that a creature of any size has no trouble supporting their own weight. Encumbrance doesn't even take the creature's own weight into account (though realistically it probably should). So it's more a question of how much weight in addition to their own they can carry. On the one hand, it's weird (even if it is realistic) if they're unable to carry or even drag another member of their species, e.g. if they get injured and need to be brought to a healer. On the other hand, scaling carry capacity at the same rate as weight allows larger creatures to carry a massive number of items.

With all these things in mind, if we expect a larger creature to behave like a medium sized creature, but bigger, then perhaps it makes the most sense to scale up weight more slowly, at the same rate as carry capacity. This makes larger creatures much lighter than they're supposed to be, and smaller creatures much heavier, which could be a problem. I suppose you could scale carry capacity up faster, at the same rate as weight, but as previously noted this allows them to carry a ridiculous number of items.

The problem with ignoring physics is that the fantasy world still has physics, even if it's not like the physics of our world. Once you start changing how the physics works, you start breaking things that you want to keep but no longer work under your new rules of physics. You also enable new exploits of the physics system that wouldn't be an issue with RL physics. Basically, physics can't be ignored, it can only be changed to something that enables the things we want.