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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5847025" data-attributes="member: 54877">My quote is from the OP. You seem to have confused my reply to our combustible magic using friend as to why range size and starting point of the range are two different things, as an appeal to start hit bonuses somewhere else. The only good reason I can think of to start hit bonuses a bit higher (usually) is to simply not deal with negatives on a regular basis.  Though you'll note that D&D does often start feasible hit chances in the +4, +5 territory. I had that fact in mind in the crit thread when I suggested that if you wanted to make crits partially a function of competence, without a confirmation roll, that adding the attack bonus as damage on crits is one way to do that. Naturally, that would rather suck for, say, a Basic cleric at first level. So even here, expanding options can help. But I'll grant that is an unusual example. (Translating attack bonus to straight damage is something that D&D has traditionally been loathe to do, even when in this case it would be extremely fast in play.)   Here, you are shifting the argument, though. However we define the usefulness or lack thereof of a wizard attacking in melee, if we want him to get a fair shake from the math and all options, chances are he'll do better with a slight shift up in the damage range scale. And if you take your position 100%, then why even let wizards attack at all in melee? They have traditionally had those lousy options for a reasons, especially at low levels where this can matter. My position is that a character bothers to carry a weapon, gets forced into melee, then the weapon should matter. It might be a relatively poor option, but it shouldn't be so terrible that it is dismissed completely out of hand, all situations.  This same kind of reason, BTW, is why Monte Cook removed the d4 as a hit point die size in Arcana Unearthed/Evolved. The "magister" (closest wizard analog) gets d6, and not everyone shifts up a die size, either. Besides, you do not have to account for the exceptionally weak niche cases for these kind of effects.  If you want to account for them in D&D, you'd need to start at around +10.  Start the normal scale at around +4 or +5, and a tiny pixie with 3 Str might end up with enough penalty to net +0.  So a human, 10 Str wizard gets that baseline, and might occasionally take a swing at a kobold or goblin, while the pixie fits your criteria.  Hooray, playing the pixie matters now!  If you set it up so that all (or nearly all, excluding 16 Str weirdo wizards) don't dare engage in melee, ever--then the pixie paid less for that small size and lousy Str, than the system first suggests.</blockquote>

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