But that's simply not always the case. And it that doesn't answer my points re: infected wound, holding breath, running long-distance and so on. CON is far more than just +HP and dosage-based poison saves. It's things like disease saves too - and large animals are absolutely NOT better at dealing with disease - nor a bunch of other things CON covers. Tie CON to the creature, not the size. Tie HD to the size if you want HP.
But that's simply not always the case. And it that doesn't answer my points re: infected wound, holding breath, running long-distance and so on. CON is far more than just +HP and dosage-based poison saves. It's things like disease saves too - and large animals are absolutely NOT better at dealing with disease - nor a bunch of other things CON covers. Tie CON to the creature, not the size. Tie HD to the size if you want HP.
When correlating size and Strength, I suggest the following prereqs. A smaller creature can be strong. But larger creature is to some degree inherently stronger relative to other creatures. (In my preference to avoid negative numbers, 12 is average, and 10 is below average.)
Minimum Requirements for Both Strength and Constitution: Size
27-30: Gargantuan+
23-26: Huge
19-22: Large
15-18: Medium (Heavyweight) (Powerful Build)
11-14: Medium (Lightweight)
7-10: Small
3-6: Tiny−
For example, a player character that has 20 Strength and 19 Constitution can be Large, if the player wishes. A Heavyweight has at least a 15 in both Strength and Constitution.
In this way, a halfling can be any Strength. But larger creatures tend to be stronger.
No I'm talking about animals as well as people. An elephant is not less likely to die from an infected wound or poison than a human is. But by saying larger = higher CON you are saying it is. Nor is it likely to be better at holding its breath or running long distance (indeed, I'm pretty sure elephants are significantly worse than humans at the latter).
If you want higher HP, which makes some sense, for larger creatures, use HD, not CON.
If I were entrusted with destroying the worlds most popular RPG by injecting a lot of my own ideas with no oversight...
I might start by wondering about replacing Str and Con with a "Fitness" ability. And then carrying capacity, weapons useable, and hitpoints would come from that combined with a size/build category of some sort. Could make the three physical stats be Fitness, Agility, and Dexterity.
But then it feels like "Fitness" of a sort and "Size/Build" are both related to the agility part of Dex for what humans do too? So could have Fitness and Size/Built be two proto-stats that helped determine Str, Agility, and Toughness. But didn't determine Dexterity (the aimy part of agility) or Stamina (the cardio/disease/poison parts of Con). And I will admit that it feels odd to have anything called fitness that didn't relate to Stamina...
But now I'm up to five physical stats with two proto-stats... I guess Str and Toughness could be combined (that seems to be a common suggestion). This would give Strength, Agility, Dexterity, and Stamina and could just have Strength and Agility be restricted by the Size/Build of the character and not need the idea of underlying fitness show up anywhere.
(Note: Spoiler hides things that belong in another thread and would derail this one.)
Anyway, Feels like a rabbit hole for the current game! And can you imagine how this place would blow up if they proposed it? So that's why I can see WotC just going with not caring about how size matters.
If I were entrusted with destroying the worlds most popular RPG by injecting a lot of my own ideas with no oversight...
(Note: Spoiler hides things that belong in another thread and would derail this one.)
I might start by wondering about replacing Str and Con with a "Fitness" ability. And then carrying capacity, weapons useable, and hitpoints would come from that combined with a size/build category of some sort. Could make the three physical stats be Fitness, Agility, and Dexterity.
But then it feels like "Fitness" of a sort and "Size/Build" are both related to the agility part of Dex for what humans do too? So could have Fitness and Size/Built be two proto-stats that helped determine Str, Agility, and Toughness. But didn't determine Dexterity (the aimy part of agility) or Stamina (the cardio/disease/poison parts of Con). And I will admit that it feels odd to have anything called fitness that didn't relate to Stamina...
But now I'm up to five physical stats with two proto-stats... I guess Str and Toughness could be combined (that seems to be a common suggestion). This would give Strength, Agility, Dexterity, and Stamina and could just have Strength and Agility be restricted by the Size/Build of the character and not need the idea of underlying fitness show up anywhere.
Anyway, Feels like a rabbit hole for the current game! And can you imagine how this place would blow up if they proposed it? So that's why I can see WotC just going with not caring about how size matters.
The way I would do similar is having eight ability scores.
Physical:
Strength and Constitution
Dexterity and Athletics
Mental:
Intelligence and Perception
Charisma and Wisdom
Athletics gets the agile bonus to AC, instead of Dexterity that focuses on cautious precision.
The second of each four pairings tends to be a major saving throw, where Perception is the save against hiddenness and illusion, Athletics reflex and against falling.
Each of these eight is distinctly meaningful and about equally useful during gameplay. By assigning the same score to each of a pair, a table can easily reduce these down to four abilities. For example, assign a 14 to both Strength and Constitution for a 14 "Toughness" score.
I wonder if discussing which stats we'd each use in our own game if we made one is one of the the few semi-common topics that come up on ENWorld that leads to long discussions (or thread derailments) that doesn't end up with people yelling at each other in overflowing frustration and anger.
I'm at four physical stats that do roughly what yours would do in my head. For mental I've come to not like Int or Wis being stats and so would nuke those and put in Willpower. Seven stats feels so awkward though with its lack of symmetry (like the six in D&D or nine in WoD
(Note: Spoiler hides things that belong in another thread and would derail this one.)
I wonder if discussing which stats we'd each use in our own game if we made one is one of the the few semi-common topics that come up on ENWorld that leads to long discussions (or thread derailments) that doesn't end up with people yelling at each other in overflowing frustration and anger.
I'm at four physical stats that do roughly that in my head. For mental I've come to not like Int or Wis being stats and so would nuke those and put in Willpower. Seven stats feels so awkward though with its lack of symmetry (like the six in D&D or nine in WoD
The eight abilities are helping the traditional abilities make more sense and be more balanced with each other.
Perception with "Passive Perception" are already a defacto saving throw as well as a must-have skill, and elevating it to an ability helps simplify the gaming engine.
Treating Perception as an ability allows it to use the Stealth skill to find a hidden creature, the Animal Handling skill to notice animal tracks, the Nature skill to identify a chemical, the Investigation skill for clues to some puzzle, and so on. Perception works better as an ability.
And this is what I would want. The strongest Goliath, should always, outside of Magical Items (which I also do not like the handling of in 5e) be stronger than the strongest halfling.
I just looked up 3e Goliath and it got a nice +4 Str modifier, on top of Powerful Build. Halflings +2 Dex, -2 Str.
I just want a nod to that, but as I noted we wont agree on this, and thats fine. I've accepted that what I want in this regard isnt the direction the game went, I lost out at Tashas.
I disagree, in that you can have little to no talent (i.e. fairly average scores or even worse) and still become a successful and heroic adventurer; or you could be born blessed with 18s in everything and still never leave the safety of your home town.
As a character, the numbers reflect what you are. What you then do - and how you do it - is entirely up to you.
