Strength and Size question

[milo]

Arctic Dwarves from Monsters of Faeurun have a +6 str adjustment

 

[whatisitgoodfor]

My argument isn't that no small races should have a penalty, or that no large races should have a Str bonus, simply that they shouldn't get an "automatic" bonus or penalty based solely on their size.

Personally, I think that having a weapon damage entry of 2d6 + 25 looks just a little bit silly. It just doesn't look right to have the Str bonus to damage be close to 4 times the average rolled damage.

 

[Crothian]

There are some small races that don't get a penalty to strength. Sure, the two in ter PHB do, but how would you like them to be? Halflings get -2 to Int and gnomes a -2 to wisdom?

 

[CRGreathouse]

1) carrying capacity: Smaller races shouldn't be able to carry as much, and should therefore have a lower Str.

1r) This is wrong because there is already a multiplier that changes carrying capacity based on Str. Fixing a problem twice is never a good idea.

Your reasoning here is flawed - neither the Str penalty nor the lifting modifier completely fixes the problem. Indeed, I think that the combination of the two methods still makes halflings too strong.

2) Damage dealing: Smaller races can't bring as much leverage and body mass into a blow, and should therefore deal less damage on every attack.

2r) This is moot because smaller races are already required to use smaller weapons. Since smaller weapons deal less damage, this problem has already been adressed, and should not be "fixed" again.

See above. Two fixes aren't necissarily wrong if they're intended to be used together.

3) Skills: Smaller races should be inherently worse at skills that require raw strength.

3r) The skills that require Str are Climb, Jump, and Swim. Each one of these skills deal with moving your own body somehow, and should have the character's body weight factored in. Therefore, either smaller races should get a bonus to these skills similar to their bonus to hide, or the Str penalty should be removed from the general description of smaller races.

That's why there's a lifting penalty instead of a larger Str penalty. With Str -4, thet'd end up lifting about the same amount if the 3/4 was ignored - but they'd be worse at these skills.

4) Psionic Powers: Everyone knows that the most feared Psions are those that are larger.

4r) Using the Optional Core Psionic rules, along with the MM, the larger the base creature, the better it is at using Psychometabolism and Psychokinetic powers. I'm fairly certain that this was never intended.

Since I don't use psionics, I have no comment at this time.

 

[whatisitgoodfor]

Your reasoning here is flawed - neither the Str penalty nor the lifting modifier completely fixes the problem. Indeed, I think that the combination of the two methods still makes halflings too strong.

If neither fixes the problem completely, then they simply should have been larger. If -2 wasn't enough, then it should have been -4. If 3/4 wasn't enough, then it should have been 1/2.

Two fixes aren't necissarily wrong if they're intended to be used together.

Nothing personally against them, but I don't think the R&D group was thinking this deep into it. IMO, they did one and it didn't "fix" it, so started piling stuff on until it worked.

That's why there's a lifting penalty instead of a larger Str penalty. With Str -4, thet'd end up lifting about the same amount if the 3/4 was ignored - but they'd be worse at these skills.

So, you think that the smaller a race is the worse they should be at any skill that involves moving themselves? Following your reasoning, it becomes necessary to start including "patches" to cover up the places where the system stops working. A good example of this is in the MM, where any small animal that climbs or swims has to have a special ability where it uses Dex instead of Str for that skill. This just demonstrates a weakness in the system mechanics handling of size scaling.

The major question is, I think, whether small races are simply weaker, or proportionately weaker.

(For reference, I don't think that Halfings should have Str +0, and the Small carrying capacity modifier should be 1/2)

 

[Cthulhudrew]

Strength and Size

>My argument isn't that no small races should have a penalty, or that no large races should have a Str bonus, simply that they shouldn't get an "automatic" bonus or penalty based solely on their size. <

Whatisitgoodfor summed up my point a lot more succinctly than I did in my long winded question.

The point I was trying to make wasn't that halflings (or gnomes, or fairies) are too weak, but rather just a general dislike of the whole "Smaller gets less Strength/Larger gets more Strength" in addition to the "Size affects Carrying Capacity" rule. It seems to me it should be one or the other, but not both. Smaller races already are penalized by doing less damage than larger ones, and larger races get increased damage (from larger weapons), so why should they also get Strength penalties or bonuses (respectively)? Strength scores should scale within size categories, and not simply bound up and down the range of 1-whatever regardless, IMO.

 

[Cthulhudrew]

>(For reference, I don't think that Halfings should have Str +0, and the Small carrying capacity modifier should be 1/2)<

Interesting. Should the other size carrying capacity modifiers then scale down at an opposite scale to the larger races, then (ie, Tiny 1/4, Fine 1/8, Diminutive 1/10... I think that's right. I'm at work and my books are at home).

I take it you'd keep the halflings at -2 Strength then? (I'd suggested the earlier +0 just for example, but you seem to know exactly the point I'm making.)

What would you do on the other end of the scale (the large end)? Modify the carrying capacities, or the Strength modifiers?

 

[whatisitgoodfor]

The relevant section of the SRD.

As you can see, for the larger than "normal" creatures, their carrying capacity is equal to 2^n * normal (where n is the number of steps they are larger than medium).

However, for smaller than normal creatures, there is no easy formula. If you shift it one space (and fill in the gap for Fine) then it becomes 2^n *normal (n is still how many steps larger they are, so it's negative now).

That suits me fine, since it follows both my ideas about unification and elegance (meaning simple) when solving a problem.

However, if anything this is still too liberal.
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Wait, I'm wrong. For a minute there, I was trying to go by the average weights in the PHB. Has anyone else noticed how messed up those are?

They have a 3.5 foot tall gnome weighing in at a whopping 45 pounds. And a 3 foot tall halfling wieghing 35 pounds.

I seem to recall that in 3rd grade I was around that height and weighed something like 80 pounds.

Anyway, I do think that halflings should keep the -2 penalty, but that gnomes should definitely lose it, taking the penalty to either Dex or Wis.

 

[Feaelin]

Similarly, why should Small and smaller creatures have Strength penalties as a matter of course (as seems to be the situation in most cases). Halflings and Gnomes, for example, are already penalized by having only 3/4 the carrying capacity of a Human (or other Medium-sized creature); why the additional -2 to Strength?

Actually, that's not as much of a penalty as it appears. Sure the carrying capacity is reduced by 25%, BUT: Armor weight is reduced by 50% (see the special note at the bottom of the armor table), and many kinds of equipment are reduced by 75% (again special note at the bottom of the equipment table).

So if we assume the same die roll used for strength:
(unlikely, since one tends to arrange one's scores to avoid things like str 8).

Human (str 10)
Carrying Capacity: 0-33,34-66,67-100
Chainmail: 40 lbs.
Backpack: 2 lb.
Traveler's Outfit: 5 lb.
Total: 47 lbs. (Medium Load)

Gnome (str 8)
Carrying Capacity: 0-19,20-39,40-60
Chainmail: 20 lbs.
Backpack: .5 lbs.
Traveler's Outfit: 1.25 lbs.
Total: 21.75 lbs. (Barely Medium Load)

Hmm. Interesting. As a matter of fact, this appears to place the gnome at an advantage, if all relevant things come into play. And you compared a greater quantity of "general" items such as the backpack (e.g. Sacks, tents, water pouches, etc.) the difference actually truly becomes an advantage. Hmm. I wonder if I can cram my human wizard into a gnome-tent.

Weapons selection clouds the issue, since a smaller character is going to usually select smaller weapons which deal less damage, but weigh less.

And this is assuming that the "small" creature is like the gnome and has a str penalty. I believe there are some that are small, and have no str penalty definitely have an advantage...the load above becomes a definite light load at str 10 for small creature.

'course, re-reading this makes me re-wonder about large creatures. Presumably they intend (and it may be mentioned somewhere I didn't see), that items made for larger creatures are correspondingly heavier? Hmm. 80 lb. Chainmail, anyone?

 

[CRGreathouse]

Let's go with a sample from this point of view. (If I misunderstand any of the points, please let me know; the numbers I choose are arbitrary but IMO workable):

Gnome +0 Str, carry 1/2
Human +0 Str, carry 1

A given gnome and human wield identical (not scaled) weapons: shortswords. Both can lift 150 pounds over their heads. Both are first level warriors with average hit points and stats (other than Str, obviously). Neither wears armor.

Gnome: hp 5; AC 11; Melee shortsword +6 (1d6+6/crit 19-20); Str 18.
Human: hp 4; AC 10; Melee shortsword +2 (1d6+1/crit 19-20); Str 13.

Do you see my point? The example could have been worked differently, but the core remains the same.