Critique my House Rules

[Einlanzer0]

I can understand the malus to Strength, but Con? Just because something is small, that doesn't mean it's fragile. Also, 5E uses hit points in place of high AC and/or large save bonuses to keep characters alive (bounded accuracy and all that). Reducing their hit points by 2 per level is a pretty serious drawback. I'd suggest dropping the malus to Con.

Strength and Constitution are generally both scaled along with increased size at roughly the same level. Being smaller actually does mean they're more fragile, including things like succumbing to poison more easily. There are probably a handful of exceptions that are str- or con- based checks where being small would have no effect or would even be a benefit, but they are most definitely the exception and not the norm. Regardless, I'll be keeping an eye out for it and will probably bake into features.

I understand that it's a fairly significant drawback, and that's kind of the point. Keep in mind, though, that the +1 AC they'll get from the Dex bonus is nothing to shake a stick at. Moreover, it's fairly easy to build a character in such a way that you maximize strengths and mitigate the penalties. But, obviously, it's not my goal to simply make smaller races gimpy and unplayable, which is why I added a couple of new racial features for both halflings and gnomes. I suspect the halfling one is more generally powerful and useful than the gnome one, so I may end up expanding or adding more for the gnome.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Moreover, it's fairly easy to build a character in such a way that you maximize strengths and mitigate the penalties. But, obviously, it's not my goal to simply make smaller races gimpy and unplayable, which is why I added a couple of new racial features for both halflings and gnomes. I suspect the halfling one is more generally powerful and useful than the gnome one, so I may end up expanding or adding more for the gnome.

You can definitely work around the Strength penalty, but not the Constitution penalty. Con is an important stat for every character, pretty much without exception.

Personally, I don't think that the modifications you've made to the small races balance out. The racial abilities are useful but overall minor, in no way equivalent to a -4 Con penalty. Without the Con penalty, I think it would be roughly balanced.

 

[Einlanzer0]

You can definitely work around the Strength penalty, but not the Constitution penalty. Con is an important stat for every character, pretty much without exception.

Personally, I don't think that the modifications you've made to the small races balance out. The racial abilities are useful but overall minor, in no way equivalent to a -4 Con penalty. Without the Con penalty, I think it would be roughly balanced.

I don't, because without the Con penalty there's basically no penalty at all (since, as you said, you can work around the Str penalty) and I'm just overpowering them with +2 dex and some extra survivability boons that are in no way insignificant.

It's also worth mentioning that part of these houserules are designed to rebalance the usefulness of the different attributes, so that you get really good stuff from the mental scores that makes them more competitive with stats like Con anyway.

Now, I will accept the prospective argument that the feature updates are not enough to compensate for the -4 con, in which case I'd like to hear suggestions for other features that are flavorful and balanced.

 

[Croesus]

Now, I will accept the prospective argument that the feature updates are not enough to compensate for the -4 con, in which case I'd like to hear suggestions for other features that are flavorful and balanced.

Well, -4 Con means -2 hp per level and -2 Con saves vs. a Medium race. The Tough feat would make up for the loss of hit points (but not the -2 to Con saves), so perhaps you should offer the small races a free feat at 1st level. If you don't use feats, then something comparable, though I'm not sure what - depends on what role you want small races to have in your game.

Then again, you may not feel the Con malus is a big deal, in which case I suggest trying it. If it's not an issue in actual play, great. If it is, then modify or remove it. Testing with an NPC is a good way to do so without putting a player's character at risk.

 

[ccs]

1) What do your actual players think of your changes?
You've stated that you basically don't care if any of us think your ideas are bad, but do you care what the 3-6 or so real people sitting around your table think on the matter?

2) What method of stat generation do you propose to use? This is important.
Because if you say PB? Then weather you want to hear it or not, your Str/Con penalties for small races are incredibly bad & need further thought. Not only can't you're players get high stats in those scores, they have to pay premiums just for a mighty +0 modifier (14 pts total if opting for 10s, 18! pts for 11s). And the player of one of these races virtually HAS to invest in these two scores- because if they don't? Then they get to play with Str/Cons of 4....

But wait! It gets WORSE!
How?
Because with this virtually mandatory 14-18 pt premium you've decided to inflict on your small-race player you've reduced their effective PB total to 9-13 pts! All because the player is merely trying to achieve a +0 mod on str/con

 

[77IM]

Yeah, -4 to Str and Con is too nasty. You want to weaken the small races, not cripple them. I think you can rein in those numbers to retain the "feel" you are going for without impacting the game math quite so much.

I'd do: -2 Str, -1 HP/level, half carrying capacity. This makes the small races noticeably weaker and frailer than the big ones -- but not enough to gimp them. And instead of +2 Dex, which is really potent, I'd give +1 to attack and AC, due to size (the 3E rationale). That's still super awesome, but no longer feels unfair to rogues of other species. Basically, I think you should attempt the minimum ability score adjustments required to represent that "size matters."

 

[77IM]

The rest of your house rules look pretty good.

I'm not sure why you're changing the fighter's 20th-level ability; your replacement seems fine, but very unnecessary. I'm curious also about your theologian, since it might be easy to overdo it with "expanded spellcasting." Especially since certain clerics don't have much weapon and armor proficiency to relinquish in the first place.

I'm very interested in how the recursive inspiration works out. I could imagine a high-Cha party built to pass inspiration back and forth each day.

For the tactical points, I might suggest that you can spend one to get an extra action, reaction, or bonus action (but only once per turn). When I think of "tactical" I think more about positioning, about being in the right place at the right time.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Personally, I don't think that the modifications you've made to the small races balance out. The racial abilities are useful but overall minor, in no way equivalent to a -4 Con penalty. Without the Con penalty, I think it would be roughly balanced.

The problem goes back to the premise, which simply isn't suited to the way that 5E is written - the OP wants small races to be worse in a straight-up melee, and 5E wants all races to be comparable in all roles.

If that Con penalty wasn't there, then small races would be -4 Strength and +2 Dex, which is a pure boost to any Dex-based character. It would actually make small races better than medium ones, for the purposes of accuracy and damage and AC. A penalty to Strength doesn't factor at all into power balance for a melee character who uses Dex.

Even if you dropped the Con penalty to -2, then that would make it a more-or-less even trade-off. Small characters would be +1 to hit and damage and AC, at the cost of -1 HP per level. Small characters are different in melee, but they are purely worse, as is the desired case here.

Honestly, I think the best solution would be to get rid of finesse weapons. With those gone, you could give small races -4 Strength and +2 Dex and it would still achieve the desired goal.

 

[Einlanzer0]

Here's an interesting video about Halfling strength, as an aside: https://www.facebook.com/dorksofyore/videos/387210331402800/

So, the estimation is that the average halfling would have a strength of 6 to a human's 10.5 when it comes to absolute measures. This means that, yes, a -4 gives you a good approximation for what a halfling's or gnome's strength would be based around the average values. I'm honestly pretty certain I'll leave it in place. But I would also have think out how to deal with heavy, light, and finesse weapons.

Now, I am definitely considering, in light of the veracity of arguments, that Con would be more appropriate at -2 instead of -4. But I would actually worry that what I proposed giving them in terms of features would then be a little much. Maybe my intuition is just wrong, and it wouldn't, though.

 

[Einlanzer0]

The rest of your house rules look pretty good.

I'm not sure why you're changing the fighter's 20th-level ability; your replacement seems fine, but very unnecessary. I'm curious also about your theologian, since it might be easy to overdo it with "expanded spellcasting." Especially since certain clerics don't have much weapon and armor proficiency to relinquish in the first place.

I'm very interested in how the recursive inspiration works out. I could imagine a high-Cha party built to pass inspiration back and forth each day.

For the tactical points, I might suggest that you can spend one to get an extra action, reaction, or bonus action (but only once per turn). When I think of "tactical" I think more about positioning, about being in the right place at the right time.

Yeah, that's a good suggestion regarding TP.

Regarding Veteran Warrior, it's to address two very different concerns. First, I like the idea that the fighter capstone gives them both an offensive and a defensive benefit, rather than just one or the other. I tried to make it almost exactly as valuable as the extra attack, and I believe it comes pretty close. Second, I just don't like how they get four attacks in a round while no other class gets more than two. Conceptually, it feels weird, and it's also immersion-breaking with how attacks work in 5e, especially with action surge. Three attacks with some benefits just feels more right to me than four.

For the Theologian, it's still very much a work in progress. I've gone through a few iterations and it needs significant playtesting. But, all clerics have at least medium armor and simple weapon proficiency. They also have d8 HD. Dropping all of that to rock bottom is pretty significant. Especially to AC, since I wasn't planning to give them a free Monk-style Wis-to-AC feature.