Two Shapechanging Questions

[Tetsubo]

The first is about size and scaling.

If someone assumes the form of a Tiny animal, say a wren, and is attacked by a Small animal, say a cat, would the attacker do normal damage or more? The size difference is only one scale different. A cat can't really harm a Medium human effectively, but why can't it do more harm against a Tiny animal? Or is this too much realism for D&D?

The second question is one about size and food.

A spellcaster in the form of a mouse eats their fill. They then return to their Medium normal size. Are they still full? Or does the food remain at the size it was when it was consumed?

Any thoughts?

 

[hong]

D&D isn't really a system intended to represent extremes of size; you run into problems of granularity at the small end.

As for food, if the player is willing to have their character eat nothing but cheese, I would let them remain full. This is, needless to say, very cheesy.

 

[Rashak Mani]

The Cat does its normal damage only... hope it doesnt stuff the bird in the mouth thou... could be indigestive...

Why couldnt he just bite off the birds head ? No good answer... its not a bird ? Hitpoints system isnt very logical at times. Otherwise shapechanging would be deadly everytime you transformed into small prey.

I would say that while a mouse he will feel full... but for longer periods he could suffer malnutrition. After all he´s not a 1 hitpoint creature... all those hitpoints need feeding. When he turns back into a human size he should be somewhat hungry.

In Earthdawn we had similar issues with Windlings eating same size rations as the bigger PCs... but Windlings are very magical creatures... but then so is a polymorphed spellcaster.

 

[Kwalish Kid]

3E is designed to give bigger creatures more damage on their attacks, to that size difference is to some extent taken into account. Look at the section in the MM on advancing monsters of the Dragon article on designing monsters and you'll see the system.

If you want gritty realism, 3E is not for you, for obvious reasons.