Difference in size...

[Primitive Screwhead]

There have been a couple threads recently on how 4e doesn't handle differences in size very...realistically , and I had a dash of inspiration from WEG Star Wars rules...

What do y'all think of having the following rule:

A creature gains resist all 1 for each size category larger than the attacker, or vulnerable 1 for each size category smaller than the attacker. This stacks with all other resists or vulnerables.

Of course, it kinda sucks for the Halfings


{edit, thanks to Tequila Sunrise for pointing out my improper use of the word 'well'}

 

[KahnyaGnorc]

The problem with that is monsters are more likely to be bigger than the PCs than the other way around, especially if you have small PCs and don't have large PCs in the group. (Except for lower levels, the vast majority of monsters PCs usually face are at least medium in size, often large or larger.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

mmm.. thanks for the reply, however is that a problem?

I mean, sure the monster design as it stands could be considered to take into the size difference by the increase in hit points or whatever other abstract you want... but what about the difference between a Halfing fighting a Giant and a Human fighting a Giant... should the difference in size make a difference in combat?

I prefer there to be some differentiation rather than keeping it completely abstract...
of course, I also tend to run very human-centric campaigns where most of the bad guys are medium sized.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

There have been a couple threads recently on how 4e doesn't handle differences in size very well...

This is the first time I'm hearing of this. How exactly doesn't 4e handle size differences very well?

They're not realistic but well, welcome to D&D.

 

[nnms]

Another problem with giving monsters extra resistance is that it might make combat longer.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Totally not seeing where the issue is in the first place: this is D&D where dragon killing is supposed to be a relatively common experience.

Monsters tend towards larger sizes at higher levels, and therefore big things are tough. The change you propose is effectively assigning a difficulty increase to certain monsters at random. Is an elephant really tougher than a wisp? And if it is, shouldn't that be reflected in it's role and level, not it's size?

 

[Arlough]

One additional problem is vulnerability. Each damage type is a seperate damage, so if I have vulnerability 1 to all, then I get 1 point of damage extra for each type keyword in the damage expression.