[Not Suitable For Work] Build a Tiny Race

[EP]

A very interesting concept, here. Would it be considered a racial trait to ignore tremorsense since the soul mote only flies?

I'd think that wouldn't be needed at all and would just be a common sense thing that flying creature do not attract tremorsense. But if it's not written down anywhere, probably safe to have it there all the same.

 

[EP]

Well my small race ATM are gremlins. They look and act like crazy destructive monkeys with no tails and a lot less hair. They walk with their hands (well one of them) and move like four.. err.. three legged beasts. Being always crouched, they can drop prone quickly. Their racial power lets them jump on a larger creature's back and grant CA to all aliies while boosting their damage. A mix between the rogue powers Close quaters and Garrote grip.

Nice. Fey creatures seem to be the likely choice for a tiny creature and the idea of a gremlin sounds familiar but open to a lot of interpretation. Just so long as your version doesn't live inside printing presses. (shudder)

 

[EP]

Nice work everyone. I'm going to start up Exercise #2 tonight and you will be asked to handle the space and reach of a tiny creature... I'm just working on the particulars of the exercise. Once this is done, we can look at specific attacks/damage types for tinies in week 3 and then there will be a "final submission" exercise in week 4 where you take material posted in the previous weeks to create a full version of a tiny race.

 

[Vaxis]

wait, why is this NSFW? what are you doing with these tiny creatures?

 

[CapnZapp]

wait, why is this NSFW? what are you doing with these tiny creatures?

Either

or
This has nothing to do with the usual meaning of "NSFW", it's just clever acronym-play. (See the first post for answers)

(can't tell if you're serious or not)

 

[CapnZapp]

My big issue is this: Four tiny creatures fit in a square, yeah? And it has a reach of 0, so it has to move into the square to attack. Do you think it's necessary to indicate what side of the square it occupies? Before anyone says, "no, why would it?" allow me to say: flanking. How the heck does flanking work with tiny creatures? I can't seem to figure it out/find it in any book. Is it buried in the DMG somewhere that anyone knows of?

Now, the easiest way to deal with this is to just say, no, it can't flank.
<snip>

Any thoughts or resources for this issue?

As far as I am aware, there are no rules requiring a Tiny creature to specify which side of a square it occupies, so my answer would be "no" on that one.

Also AFAIK, there is no rule saying Tiny creatures don't flank either, so that means they flank just fine.

Now, I don't know the final answers. But I can tell you need to read the rulebook the way it was meant. And that means you need to assume any perceived rules omission is intentional rather than accidental.

In other words, if the rulebook doesn't say Tiny creatures work differently when it comes to determining squares and flanking, then they simply don't work differently! It isn't that the rulebook "doesn't cover tiny creatures" - it's that tiny creatures work exactly the same as everybody else, except when specifically mentioned otherwise.

(Besides, requiring Tiny creatures to keep track of square sides is complicated. And 4E isn't about complicated. It doesn't sound like a 4E rule to me. And denying Tiny creatures a central concept like flanking is, as you say, completely out of the question. Not getting to do OAs - without a reach weapon - is bad enough.)

The rulebook simply leaves it up to you to explain or picture how this works...

And if you ask me (again, assuming no one finds any rules references to the contrary) I would interpret this that 1-4 Tiny creature(s) whizzes about inside its square, continuously covering it in its entirety, thus providing flanking just like a Medium character.

 

[EP]

wait, why is this NSFW? what are you doing with these tiny creatures?

Actually, the question is what are YOU going to do with these tiny creatures?

(And I don't know about you, but there are few bosses who can understand you weren't able to attach the new cover sheets to the TPS report because you ran into an issue with the flanking abilities of a tiny creature no bigger than the hand he uses to write out your pink slip. Not suitable indeed.)

 

[EP]

In other words, if the rulebook doesn't say Tiny creatures work differently when it comes to determining squares and flanking, then they simply don't work differently! It isn't that the rulebook "doesn't cover tiny creatures" - it's that tiny creatures work exactly the same as everybody else, except when specifically mentioned otherwise.

There are a couple of matters that would have to be addressed somehow. Tiny creatures have a reach of 0 and there is nothing written down for how tiny creatures wield weapons featured in the PHB. They can also stand within the same square as their target and attack but can you flank from the same square - the rules state you must be standing adjacent. So there are some things we can clarify to avoid issues even if the rules never mention it because they are not needed. There are a couple of issues in tiny PCs that I can see players and GMs disagreeing on.

 

[EP]

Excellent work, everyone. There's quite a few options available here to consider when we come down to the final builds at the end of the month. Be sure to keep an eye on this thread because future exercises will make use of what's been built here.

The next exercise is all about reach and space, which makes sense because it came up quite a bit here. These can be designs to fix what you feel is a specific problem for tiny creatures or just something involving reach and space that would be crazy cool. Enjoy and keep it up.

 

[77IM]

Sorry for the late entry! I did not see a specific time limit on the initial post...

Also, are these entries meant to be original for this not-a-contest? This is from a race I designed some time ago, so, feel free to disqualify it if that violates the spirit of the not-a-contest.

Pixie
Flight: You can fly 6 squares as a move action. You can fly in any direction, and can take double moves and use the run action while flying. Because you can hover, you can shift and make opportunity attacks while flying, and don't need to maintain a minimum speed or spend a move action to stay aloft. If you are knocked unconscious, you fall to the ground. If you are knocked prone or crash into something, you descend safely for six squares; if you don't reach the ground by then, you fall the rest of the way. You can't fly if you are carrying more than a light load.


Note: Flying, available right from first level, can complicate the game (mostly, challenges involving climbing or crossing chasms become much easier, and pit traps much less dangerous). But, tiny races also add complexity, and some gaming groups don't mind this added complexity. This race is for them.


And an attack power (probably available as a feat power, or part of a racial paragon path)

Buzz / Pixie Racial Power
You flutter around a foe, darting past his defenses.
Encounter * Weapon
Standard Action / Melee weapon
Targets: One creature
Effect: Before the attack, shift up to your speed, moving through enemy spaces.
Attack: Dexterity vs. AC. You gain a +1 bonus on your attack roll for each square of your shifting which passed through the target creature's space.
Hit: 1[W] + Dexterity modifier damage.
Level 11: 2[W] + Dexterity modifier damage.
Level 21: 3[W] + Dexterity modifier damage.


-- 77IM, declares himself winner of the not-a-contest ;}