D&D 5E The Fate of the Smol

[Horwath]

Yup. It's just the nature of d20.

this is why 3d6 is far better than d20.

still allows for some exceptions but not that often.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

You have this weird habit of just going to the furthest extreme with every single time you give a counter example. Is everything just "all or nothing" with you?

I merely follow where the logic of your statements takes us.

 

[Hussar]

If you don't want the species to impact the rules, I don't understand why you would need dedicated species rules at all. Why not just use rules of goliath and refluff it as halfling?

Why are you answering my question with a question?

Why do you get to force your preferences on other people?

Because the entire point of rules is to enforce limitations, i.e. things you can't do, and some of those limitations are going to go toward supporting a sense of verisimilitude insofar as making choices appear to have meaningful impacts.

If you want to have a "halfling titan" who regularly beats goliath bodybuilders in arm-wrestling contests, there's nothing narratively wrong with that idea. But as it stands in D&D 5E, if we take it as a truism that a goliath bodybuilder will have a Strength of 20, then that means the best your halfling can do will be to beat them 50% of the time, since even if they also have a Strength of 20, that's the maximum Strength they can have under the rules (and even then, the goliath's powerful build feature will mean that they outclass your halfling in terms of lifting and carrying).

The simple truth of the matter is that no RPG supports all character ideas, nor do they attempt to, and the further you push past the intended goals of the system the more you'll find that your character idea doesn't fit the game very well. If you love superheroes, for instance, your attempts to play The Flash in your D&D 5E game won't be very satisfying. Neither will playing Goku if you're a fan of shonen manga.

It's the difference between the ideas of "you can be whatever you want" and "you can attempt to do anything." The latter is the RPG credo that I'm familiar with, but more and more people seem to want it to be the former, and chafe at finding out that it's not as expansive as they thought.

Which is more than fair enough. I'm not sure why you are arguing with me then. It's @Crimson Longinus who insists that your halfling MUST NEVER have as high of a strength as that Goliath character.

Which is the point I'm replying to.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Why are you answering my question with a question?

Because I am trying to understand the logic of your position.

Why do you get to force your preferences on other people?

How I am forcing anything on you?

This is a discussion forum. People constantly say things like "I'd prefer a mechanic X to work in way Y." This is not forcing one's views on anyone. And even if against all likelihood the designers would read our posts and be influenced by them, that is just part of normal design process and gauging the opinions of potential customers, and still not forcing anything on you.

 

[Hussar]

Because I am trying to understand the logic of your position.



How I am forcing anything on you?

This is a discussion forum. People constantly say things like "I'd prefer a mechanic X to work in way Y." This is not forcing one's views on anyone. And even if against all likelihood the designers would read our posts and be influenced by them, that is just part of normal design process and gauging the opinions of potential customers, and still not forcing anything on you.

You are insisting that no halfling can EVER be as strong as a strong race. No matter what. All halflings at all tables MUST abide by your preferences.

How is that not forcing your preferences on others?

 

[CreamCloud0]

You are insisting that no halfling can EVER be as strong as a strong race. No matter what. All halflings at all tables MUST abide by your preferences.

How is that not forcing your preferences on others?

I think it’s more generous to view it from the position of ‘wants the STR races to be noticeably stronger than an ‘average STR’ race’, particularly once the STR cap has been reached by both, meanwhile the halflings should be getting an equivalent advantage in DEX so they’re better at the things they’re meant to be better at, and so on with all the things each race is meant to be good at

 

[Horwath]

So the reason why people want the ability modifiers to the races is because they can't fathom how a 3' halfling could compare strength-wise with a 7' goliath. It doesn't "make sense" and breaks their believability. But for you, so long as goliaths are only 30% stronger than halflings, that's all you need to see? Am I understanding that correctly?

Well... I'm going to go ahead and say that that doesn't make any logical sense either. If we are talking "believability" here... goliaths would not be just 30% stronger that halflings-- they are more than twice the height and what... probably 10 times the weight? If we were worried about any sort of "realistic" interpretation here... 30% stronger would not even come close.

So what does that mean? It means quite frankly that any attempt at realism is not going to hit the mark. And thus there's no reason whatsoever to pay the barest of lip service to it by giving something like goliaths a +2 to STR and halflings like a -2. That's doing absolutely nothing for representing realism, so why are we wasting time? At this point we move right over to the other side like WotC is doing, which is letting players play these races any which way they want-- including having a halfling as stronger if not stronger than a goliath, "averages" be damned.

contested rolls could be sorted with advantage/disadvantage.

halfling would have disadvantage for opposite athletics vs. goliath. and as goliath could be counted as large for many purposes, we have 2 size difference. So smaller character has disadvantage and larger has advantage in contested rolls.

That way we keep utility in combat for both, attack and damage rolls based on STR(with heavy weapon limitation) and have real difference in wrestling/grappling or similar constest.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

You are insisting that no halfling can EVER be as strong as a strong race. No matter what. All halflings at all tables MUST abide by your preferences.

How is that not forcing your preferences on others?

How is this forcing happening? Have you seen me in your gamming sessions, ripping any character sheets of halflings with unreasonably high strength? Because I'm relatively sure that I haven't done that.

I am expressing my preference for game design that supports verisimilitude, coherence and niche protection. And these are the things the game is build on (granted, sometimes with mixed-success.) And the game is literally is made of rules that 'force' things on you. They 'force' your halflings to not have dark vision or wings, they 'force' your paladins to be unable to cast fireballs, and countless other things. Your position that me wishing rules to have some limitations is somehow forcing things on you is utterly nonsensical. A desire to have any rules at all would be similarly be 'forcing' things to others, as the mere existence of rules means setting some limits. That's what rules literally are: things that say what can and cannot be done in the game.

 

[DEFCON 1]

How is this forcing happening? Have you seen me in your gamming sessions, ripping any character sheets of halflings with unreasonably high strength? Because I'm relatively sure that I haven't done that.

I am expressing my preference for game design that supports verisimilitude, coherence and niche protection. And these are the things the game is build on (granted, sometimes with mixed-success.) And the game is literally is made of rules that 'force' things on you. They 'force' your halflings to not have dark vision or wings, they 'force' your paladins to be unable to cast fireballs, and countless other things. Your position that me wishing rules to have some limitations is somehow forcing things on you is utterly nonsensical. A desire to have any rules at all would be similarly be 'forcing' things to others, as the mere existence of rules means setting some limits. That's what rules literally are: things that say what can and cannot be done in the game.

Okay, so I guess we're good then! You have a preference that the game no longer supports, so any formatting you feel you need you will have to add into the game yourself. Discussion seems to have reached a conclusion! Yay us!

 

[DEFCON 1]

contested rolls could be sorted with advantage/disadvantage.

halfling would have disadvantage for opposite athletics vs. goliath. and as goliath could be counted as large for many purposes, we have 2 size difference. So smaller character has disadvantage and larger has advantage in contested rolls.

That way we keep utility in combat for both, attack and damage rolls based on STR(with heavy weapon limitation) and have real difference in wrestling/grappling or similar constest.

Yep... there are any number of ways a particular player could amend their game to really show off the size and strength differential between goliaths and halflings if that really mattered to them. And for the rest of the players who just want to be able to play a strength-based halfling fighter because it sounds like fun... they can do so while keeping their attack and damage bonuses on par with all the other characters in the game.