How to make larger creatures "feel" large? (3.x hack)

[erik]

Perhaps if weapon size >= (target size + 2) then it gets a free bullrush attempt on a hit. For natural weapons use size+3.

So huge weapons vs medium, and gargantuan beast vs medium are our starting points.

[infected slut princess]

Back to the point:
Bringing down big creatures via a slogfest of HP attrition is boring; and there's currently no real way to differentiate between hacking at a dragon/giant/etc. and hacking at a level-15 Pixie barbarian. And quite frankly, that makes me sad.

Ok cool, so why are you playing in a system that uses hit points. Seriously.

Players should want to have to make Ride checks as they hold on to the dragon and stab at its wing joints in an effort to ground the thing to make it more manageable. They should want to scale the Mountain Giant via Climb checks so that they can stab out its eyes while everyone else works at tripping hit down. And having to do this should be a feature of how these kinds of encounters should run. They're no longer just "encounters"; they're now their own mini-adventures in their own right. And that desire should be accommodated with something other than MTP/DM-fiat.
After reviewing the feats from Races of War, that certainly helps some. Some. And this thread has now given me quite a bit to tinker with.
Or maybe I'm just wanting too much.

Grab On accomplishes pretty much everything you want and it's not a huge pain in the ass, so why fuss so much.

Realistically, no one wants to dick around with a million rolls just to grab a big monster and attack it. Changing everything and making it way more complicated might seem better and more "realistic" but I promise you, it will suck when you actually want to do it in the game. I mean seriously, you want big monsters to auto-bullrush on each attack? That sounds horrible.

Also, why do you hate the fighting dudes so much. Fighting dudes are going to have to climb and ride the giant monsters to set up their ultimate stabbing attack, but spellcasters are just going to shoot lasers and battlefield control and not care about any of that stuff. So you are just making it harder for fighting dudes to play in fights with big enemies.

[OgreBattle]

While we're on this topic, I think anything giant that flies by wings should require more effort to take off into the air. Even something like a black vulture needs a good amount of space to ponderously take off by flapping.

Like... a full round action that leaves them 'flat footed' and provoking OA's as they flap their wings to start lifting themselves off the ground. Combined with rules for targeting specific parts like wings, this gives groundsloggers the chance to fill the wings with arrows or grab on to them.

It makes fighting gryphons and dragons a bit easier for melee types in that once these big flyers are grounded they can't just take off at-will. Compound that with "huge things taking falling damage" and it makes dragons taking off in the middle of dudes stabbing it a risky prospect.

I know D&D has maneuverability class rules that nobody uses, but I figure they can be revisited in a smoother manner.

[codeGlaze]

This particular issue was something I was trying to think around as well.

As far as toes, fingers, limbs, etc being damageable with out actually killing a creature...

What about an HP+Wounds kind of thing?

HP would scale quickly with level. Being a multiple of your wound points.
HP would recover quickly and be a representation of how much of a beating you can take and keep on ticking.

HP would recover quickly, as in taking a breather between combat scenarios.

Wounds (WP) would represent severe damage. Missing arms, punctured arteries, eye-stabs, etc.
Wounds would largely be gifted from critical successes or be the end result of taking X HP damage.

Wounds would require extended time, or magic, to heal.

Quick example...
Giant = 100 HP : 5 WP

1. The fighter bashes a giant's arm for 23 HP, breaking the arm and causing 1 WP.
   The arm no longer functions and something like a called shot would not cause any more WP damage.
2. A halfling crits the same giant in the eye.
   Blinding him and causing 2 WP.... maybe a bleeding effect that starts to drain his HP (which would slowly lead to more WP damage over time).

I guess WP could just be, or be a replacement for, CON.

[infected slut princess]

Don't do it. Seriously, don't do any of it.

OgreBattle, don't make it take longer for giant things to take off. I don't know why you think the maneuverability rules are so baffling, but they actually work fine, and they already take into account clumsier fliers having greater difficulty flying up. Don't add more special rules where nothing good is gained.

CodeGlaze, don't do it. Please. Don't create death spirals where you become progressively shittier as you lose more hit points. Critical existence failure and hit points is one of the things that makes D&D so awesome. If you dick with that, you are ruining D&D. If you want wound points so bad, just take all your D&D books and burn them.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Critical existence failure and hit points is one of the things that makes D&D so awesome. If you dick with that, you are ruining D&D. If you want wound points so bad, just take all your D&D books and burn them.

I prefer Critical Existence Failure for games like D&D, but let's get real here; it's not an unmitigated good thing. For one, Critical Existence Failure is the number-one cause of one-sided butchery, people doing coup de graces in the middle of combat, and focus fire. All of which fuck over PCs more than the opposition in the long run and made the low levels disproportionately difficult.

[Dean]

OgreBattle, don't make it take longer for giant things to take off. I don't know why you think the maneuverability rules are so baffling, but they actually work fine, and they already take into account clumsier fliers having greater difficulty flying up. Don't add more special rules where nothing good is gained.

I actually really like the idea. It would be a great way to simplify the flying rules to separate them into Clumsy, Good, and Perfect flyers where Clumsy fliers had to spend a move action to initiate flying before they could begin moving, Good flyers didn't have to do that but couldn't hover, and Perfect flyers don't have to do that and can hover. It would add a nice feel to have Ythrak's have to beat their wings up and down a few times before taking off into the air and it would help melee types who would get some extra time to beat on things that would otherwise totally outmaneuver them.

[MfA]

For one, Critical Existence Failure is the number-one cause of one-sided butchery, people doing coup de graces in the middle of combat

More a result of the ease of getting someone back in the fight quickly.

and focus fire.

I'd prefer a suppression mechanic over a death spiral.