Why does Melee combat deal with Size, but Magic does not?

[Crissa]

Why does Melee combat deal with Size, but Magic does not?

-Crissa

[PhoneLobster]

It's a complex question with a complex set of answers.

But I'm going to go with it boiling down to nothing but "Tradition".

[MagnaSecuris]

How would size affect magic? Would Mindflayers be more powerful mages, but easier to hit? Would bigger 'minds' equal better, or would the small-minded have certain advantages?

Or are we talking about hitting people with fireballs? So a Flame Giant has fireballs that cover 40ft and a fairy's fireballs are only the size of your head?

[Crissa]

I dunno. I was thinking a reverse size bonus -1 for two size categories, -2 for three, -4 for four, just like armor class. Secondly then move range/area down one category for two sizes, two for three, etc for effect. And lastly, damage give a tiny minus, but that would be it... Not sure.

But that's what we have with melee, right?

Dunno about mental combat. I just figure it's harder for something small to affect something larger, and the bonus from being small seems to mean that tiny mages are the best while medium combatants are the best.

-Crissa

[virgil]

Spells that have attack rolls have this modified already. Making an attack roll means you apply your size modifier, and ACs already have their size modifier factored in.

As for ranges, bows don't actually have less range when used by smaller creatures.

For areas/damage, when did muscles mean anything to casting a spell? The reason size influences melee combat in that regard is because you actually use your size to move the weapon about. Being bigger doesn't make you think harder.

[PhoneLobster]

when did muscles mean anything to casting a spell?

So... it's like that because of a stupid "realism" argument?

Like I said, basically it's just tradition.

[virgil]

Right, the tradition for size to mean something in melee combat is the very same one for size to not mean anything for magic.

[CatharzGodfoot]

when did muscles mean anything to casting a spell?

So... it's like that because of a stupid "realism" argument?

Like I said, basically it's just tradition.

"Realism" isn't necessarily stupid. Even when we're dealing with real-world things, going for realism is often less stupid than going against it. For example, having no gravity in a 16th century European Renaissance setting is probably a lot dumber than having it, even if 'gravity is imba'.

That said, if you're using size modifiers, they should apply to some spells. And in D&D at least, they do. A spell designed to make creatures larger should never make them smaller because of a fixed resulting size category, while a spell designed to change a character into something of a specific size (a cat, for example) can safely ignore the initial size of the target.


Area and other spell size effects are a weird issue. It just seems odd to have a fine creature throwing a giant firestorm, or a gargantuan creature creating a fan of flame it can hardly notice. It's even worse for a giant to be stuck with 'flame toothpicks' while a pixie has a 'flame tower'. At the same time, although a 100' long dragon calling up 5'x5' of entaangling vines seems absurd, it's perfectly reasonable for either a pixie or a human to do so.


The best rule of thumb in such cases is to always make 'weapons' of the appropriate size, and scale up areas to some minimum. Anything else should probably be more ad hoc.

[PhoneLobster]

For example, having no gravity in a 16th century European Renaissance setting is probably a lot dumber than having it

That isn't realism, that's maintaining genre consistency.

It's still a fluff argument, but lets not pretend it's because your goal is to accurately represent some form of "reality", your goal is simply to accurately represent something without zero G fluff.

Any realism argument is by nature stupid because it is effectively some guy just saying "I FEEL that this should be like so" only he mistakes his often unexplained preferences for an accurate understanding of reality that can and should be implemented in a game which unlike reality has specific and divergent goals.

edit: Ah, worth noting that Virgeliso didn't SAY he was making a realism argument, it looked like one, but it could easily have been a more honestly baseless fluff/personal preference argument.

Size is an excellent example because we can sit here and argue fluffy reasons for spells being bigger or smaller to the cows come home and call them all arguments in favour of "realism".

I'd rather hear explanations of why small and dexterous fighters are screwed by big brutes while the reverse happens, to a lesser degree in magic. And why that is good for game play.

I'm pretty confident that totally screwing the goblin dagger fighter compared to the trollish halberdier and giving a minor advantage to the halfling enchanter over the fire giant evoker is not actually a particularly good or balanced thing to do.

I mean are there ANY reasons for that other than "I Just Like It Like That" or that at some point in the past some other guy said exactly that and it got left that way?

[virgil]

I'm not trying to argue from a 'baseless' position. Why should size influence melee combat? The very same tradition that says an ogre hits harder, farther, and with less precision than a gnome is the same tradition that allows the faerie to entrance a hill giant as easily as it does a human.

[Draco_Argentum]

I'd rather hear explanations of why small and dexterous fighters are screwed by big brutes

Funnily enough it should work the opposite way to maintain genre consistency.

[Maxus]

I'd rather hear explanations of why small and dexterous fighters are screwed by big brutes

Funnily enough it should work the opposite way to maintain genre consistency.

It seems to work best in video games and writing. I mean, it's fine and all that Drizzt's able to dance around frost giants or ogres and nick them to death, but the current game mechanics are set up to favor big and burly, and people get upset when you try to suggest means to mitigate that.

I suppose the big problem is for dodging to be your prime form of defense, you need a really big Dodge bonus to your AC. For that, you need a lot of Dexterity, and heavy armor almost always provides more AC to you than your dodgyness does.

I dunno. Maybe someone could cook up a feat that gives you a dodge bonus equal to, say, the enemy's Armor Check Penalty, Size modifier, and maybe the result of Strength bonus minus Dex bonus. And it only works if you're in no or light armor.

[SunTzuWarmaster]

I blame it mostly on the 'round' system for while small little guys get screwed in combat. In games such as God of War where you routine take out big monsters, it is usually through a combination of dodging and more attacks. At level 5 when you fight a 5-headed hydra, it is Huge and has 5 attacks/round to your single attack (maybe 2). At level 4 when you fight a Giant Crocodile, it has 1 attack to your 1 despite being Huge in size.

In the video game environment, larger monsters hit slower and harder while smaller ones hit softer and faster. This is a solid balance point that D&D has mostly ignored by giving a Large Troll 3 attacks compared to a TWF dagger-goblin's 2. The fact that a small creature has approximately the same AC as a larger one further exacerbates the matter.

[Voss]

Is there any particularly reason that gimpy little midgets should be magically faster than real people or big monsters? There doesn't seem to be anything inherent in being small that includes being able to stab people more frequently in less time. Or being able to do anything with spells that other people can't.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Is there any particularly reason that gimpy little midgets should be magically faster than real people or big monsters? There doesn't seem to be anything inherent in being small that includes being able to stab people more frequently in less time. Or being able to do anything with spells that other people can't.

Apparently what you're talking about right now is "realism" and therefore inherently stupid, because PL feels that it's not a part of "genre consistency".


D&D is its own genre by now, and in D&D mean ability increases with size while max power remains approximately constant. It's intentional that using the advancement rules to increase a monster's power also increases its size.

[Talisman]

Is there any particularly reason that gimpy little midgets should be magically faster than real people or big monsters? There doesn't seem to be anything inherent in being small that includes being able to stab people more frequently in less time. Or being able to do anything with spells that other people can't.

There's no reason being small should make you faster...but being more agile should indeed make you faster. If you put a slim, quick, agile human armed with a willow-wand up against a large, hulking, clumsy human armed with a knobby club, Slim is going to be faster, and hit more often, than Hulk. OTOH, if Hulk connects, he'll probably take Slim out with one blow.

As for magic...I agree, it's weird. I always chalk it up to the fact that D&D is a human-centric game, and the spells/magic/what-all assumes a human(oid) caster. When you get too far from the human standard, it gets weird.

[Voss]

Is there any particularly reason that gimpy little midgets should be magically faster than real people or big monsters? There doesn't seem to be anything inherent in being small that includes being able to stab people more frequently in less time. Or being able to do anything with spells that other people can't.

There's no reason being small should make you faster...but being more agile should indeed make you faster. If you put a slim, quick, agile human armed with a willow-wand up against a large, hulking, clumsy human armed with a knobby club, Slim is going to be faster, and hit more often, than Hulk. OTOH, if Hulk connects, he'll probably take Slim out with one blow.

And he also isn't going to care when he does get hit, which is mysteriously never covered. But that wasn't the issue anyway. It was that small creatures should get faster attacks, not that dex guy should get more attacks than strong guy.

As for magic...I agree, it's weird. I always chalk it up to the fact that D&D is a human-centric game, and the spells/magic/what-all assumes a human(oid) caster. When you get too far from the human standard, it gets weird.

Where does it get weird though? Apart from some somatic/material component stuff which is just shy of being handwaved, It doesn't matter if the caster is a giant, a midget or a puddle of goo. Magic still happens- fairly independent of the form of the caster.

[SphereOfFeetMan]

Is there any particularly reason that gimpy little midgets should be magically faster than real people or big monsters?

If you watch MMA fights, you can see the difference in quickness across different weight divisions. Smaller people are not "magically faster," they are in fact non-macially faster.

The reason for this is simple. The square-cube law/the law of inertia makes larger creatures more ponderous in their movements. This is also why most renowned quick martial artists are smaller. Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan were/are smaller and relatively slight of build.

So the fact that smaller creatures are faster is actually based in reality. Whether this should or should not be assumed in the worlds of Rpg's is debatable.

What inherent problems do people have with the above when applied to Rpgs?

[Voss]

And they do proportionally less damage. Which in RPGs, they do. So... done!
Its covered the abstraction of the attack/damage rolls.

Actually, in retrospect, they possibly do too much damage. +1 attack isn't balanced by dropping a die category on the damage roll... its a clear benefit. Halfling greatswords should drop to 2d3.

[PhoneLobster]

Apparently what you're talking about right now is "realism" and therefore inherently stupid, because PL feels that it's not a part of "genre consistency".

Well, actually Voss is currently arguing that based on his views about realism and small dudes being clumsy "gimpy midgets" (tasteful!)

That therefore we should screw all small melee concepts.

That is EXACTLY the sort of stupidity I was talking about.

[Voss]

Except the 'small melee guy' isn't screwed in D&D. He's better because he gets attack and AC bonuses, and the damage penalty is fucking trivial.

The most amusing 3e character I ever played was a min-maxed halfling barbarian that could kick the ass of every single melee combatant we came across. He bullied orcs with class levels for shits and giggles and cut down fucking trees in a single axe-swing.
And was 3 fucking feet tall. The game doesn't screw small melee concepts at all.


It does stupid things to dex builds, but thats regardless of size. You can have a 20 dex 14 strength ogre if you want, and the way the weapon finesse rules work, he's still screwed. In fact, he's more screwed than the halfling, both while attacking and for carrying properly sized equipment.

And finally, midgets are never not funny. Especially when you knock them on their backs. But if you meet one you can't take in a fight, you take pictures and let me know.