pawsplay
Hero
AFAIAC, yes.
Why aren't there short, fat PC races?
AFAIAC, yes.
Emirikol
Adventurer
Not obese..corpulent is more likely what i'm looking for by definition. Plump, short.. Is there a D&D race, by defnition that fits that?
Obese (grossly obese), is like JABBA or the OGRES of previous editions that can't get off their beds after they choke on a Big Mac and the cause of many career-ending work-comp injuries suffered by EMT's. Grossly obese doesn't make much for a good PC unless they float on a carpet or something..although we've had PC's like that in our Conan D&D games (we had an obese Kothian with a dex of 18 and the RUN feat in 3.5..now there was a cool character!)
For some reason, plump no longer fits within the "normal" artwork of the game. Only anorexic, sickly, starved-elves and races that look like dying Ethiopian children seem to make the frames nowadays.
jh
(btw, I'm tall and scrawny, but I appreciate that MOST of the world of gamers is not)
Mercurius
Legend
First of all, you are creating an either/or dichotomy that either you are "tall and skinny" or "short and fat" with little room in-between. What about medium and curvacious? Solid and well-built? Tall and full? Short and slim? Etc. I mean, I hear what you are saying but by espousing that dichotomy you are merely reinforcing the "problem". Sort of like saying "Why aren't there any fat Hollywood actresses?" It only places anything outside of the narrow box into the "short and fat" category, as if either you are Twiggy or you are Fatty. The scary thing is that when there are Hollywood actresses that don't fit the tall-and-slender stereotype, they often end up on a workout regime that gets them there, or as close as they can get (think Scarlett Johannson or Christina Ricci). The problem is that we live in a pathological media-based culture that generally honors only one body type, at least for women.
As for your question, the quick and obvious answer is dwarves (as you must know). But you can play around with any race to suit your needs. What about the human wizard with a "sweetmeats" belly? What about the alcoholic elvish bard with a potbelly? All this assuming you actually want someone that is overweight and short rather than just different body types, which is merely up to your imagination.
Pbartender
First Post
Why not? They're your characters. Make them look like you want them to look.
Barastrondo
First Post
Actually, back in the days of 2nd edition, there was at least one artist prone to depicting plump adventurers. And I have to admit that at the time (and bear in mind I speak as someone not as skinny as I used to be) I would look at his illustrations in Return to the Tomb of Horrors and say "Man, you'd expect people who survive an adventure like this to have more of a runner's build." Excellent cardiovascular health just seemed like one of those things you'd need to make it through a meat-grinder.
Lord Zardoz
Explorer
I think the reason that there are no short and fat PC races is because Obesity is not a particularly compelling racial ability. It would not make much sense for the publisher to spend any amount of page count on it within a combat based adventure rulesset.
If you want to play a short and fat character, your best bet would be to do what you would have to do for any other character trait that has no impact on the chacter sheet outside of the description block. Pick any small race and declare him fat.
END COMMUNICATION
If you want to play a short and fat character, your best bet would be to do what you would have to do for any other character trait that has no impact on the chacter sheet outside of the description block. Pick any small race and declare him fat.
END COMMUNICATION
For the record, I'm 5'7" and currently 260lbs. I have been as light as 193lbs to as big as 279lbs in my adult life.
Besides just scribbling a below average height and above average weight on your character sheet, you can also do things like use Dex as a "dump stat" to reflect the difficulty someone like that might have getting around. Similarly, you could use Con as a "dump stat" to reflect the effect of their weight on their overall health.
(Now, I realize that it is a limitation in the D&D system that stats cover a panoply of attributes- someone who fat may be slow or clumsy of foot, but may be a master of prestidigitation or even a contortionist. Similarly, someone who is obese may have health issues but may otherwise be tough as nails- but hey, its the system! You want more accuracy in that regard, try HERO.)
In addition, you could assign certain mechanical effects to those attributes, much like Deadlands does, in the form of flaws or traits.
Besides just scribbling a below average height and above average weight on your character sheet, you can also do things like use Dex as a "dump stat" to reflect the difficulty someone like that might have getting around. Similarly, you could use Con as a "dump stat" to reflect the effect of their weight on their overall health.
(Now, I realize that it is a limitation in the D&D system that stats cover a panoply of attributes- someone who fat may be slow or clumsy of foot, but may be a master of prestidigitation or even a contortionist. Similarly, someone who is obese may have health issues but may otherwise be tough as nails- but hey, its the system! You want more accuracy in that regard, try HERO.)
In addition, you could assign certain mechanical effects to those attributes, much like Deadlands does, in the form of flaws or traits.
In-game reason: The adventuring lifestyle is far too active for "corpulent" characters in the sense of "soft and pudgy." Even if a given race tended toward such a look, its adventuring members would have to have plenty of muscle to haul all that fat around, and you'd end up with a race looking like, well, dwarves.
Out-of-game reason: Not enough people want to play soft, pudgy characters to justify making a soft, pudgy race. Dwarves, sure. Hobbits, not so much.
...That said, I'm looking over the PHB and PHB2 art, and I do agree with the OP to the extent that there's far too much sameness in terms of physical build. You could take the half-orcs in the PHB2, put bags over their heads, and nobody would be able to tell them apart from half-elves, or (absent a yardstick) halflings for that matter. Surely a half-orc ought to be built broad and powerful?
Out-of-game reason: Not enough people want to play soft, pudgy characters to justify making a soft, pudgy race. Dwarves, sure. Hobbits, not so much.
...That said, I'm looking over the PHB and PHB2 art, and I do agree with the OP to the extent that there's far too much sameness in terms of physical build. You could take the half-orcs in the PHB2, put bags over their heads, and nobody would be able to tell them apart from half-elves, or (absent a yardstick) halflings for that matter. Surely a half-orc ought to be built broad and powerful?
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OTOH, there were the Giff of Spelljammer.
Apply a "Small" template, and there you go.
Apply a "Small" template, and there you go.
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