User:Tarkisflux/Rants/Revised Creature Scaling

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Relative Creature Scaling

I'm kind of over absolute creature scaling. The difference between fine and diminutive is the same as the difference between small and medium, but the attack/ac bonus difference is 4 times as large. If you're a fine creature attacking another fine creature with an appropriately sized weapon, you're lucky to kill them in a few ages because weapon scaling has dropped the damage on your weapon to 1(ish). Large creatures have the opposite problem. The piles of damage that get assigned to them so that they remain relevant while still being "mundane" make it such that they also need a large pile of hit dice to take more than a hit or two one of their companions, effectively setting level 1 for big things to several hit dice (with all of the attendant hd based bonuses to rolls and skills). All of that together makes it really hard to have a low CR big creature encounter, and that's kind of sad because of the short shelf life on those types of encounters. So the numbers are weird and lead to weird things, things that relative scaling wouldn't.

I think I can get around this nonsense with relative creature scaling.

  • Premise the zeroth: Creatures take a penalty / bonus to hit / ac equal to the steps between them and their attackers. The static chart is nice, and a useful reference, but medium isn't the only creature size players use, and so making that the non-moving base point isn't helpful.
  • Premise the first: Creatures of any size should be able to have 1 hit die so they can be low CR encounters, even if they're never actually used that way.
  • Premise the second: Creatures of any size fighting with the size equivalent of a shortsword should die in about as long as medium creatures would.

These two premises lead to a really straightforward conclusion: As long as you and your target are the same size, an appropriately sized shortsword should deal 1d6 damage. You can go ahead and substitute any medium weapon in the chart at this point, because the actual weapon named and the damage it does is entirely interchangeable. So I'm going to go ahead and say that there are size appropriate weapons for every weapon in the chart at this point, and when you fight someone your size, you deal the listed damage regardless of what size you actually are.

  • Premise the third: Bigger objects deal more relative damage.

This is trivially true within a size category, where greataxes deal more damage than daggers. Since a "shortword" in the hands of a giant is a lot bigger than a "shortsword" in the hands of a dwarf, it will need to deal more damage to dwarfs and other smaller creatures as well. But making someone look up damage when they hit different sized targets is a pile of ass. So we're not going to do it. Instead I want to just take the attack size adjustments and give the same value (times -1) as a bonus on damage. So an Ogre (large) with a shortsword fighting a dwarf deals 1d6+2 damage and has a -2 to hit. The dwarf fighting back, if also wielding a shortsword, would deal 1d6-2 damage and have a +2 to hit. I'm inclined to take it farther than that, by making that bonus apply once for the weapon, and then once more for each bonus die (sneak attack, flaming, whatever), and then double it if the attack is made with a two-handed melee weapon.

Since this is basically adding in size based damage reduction / increases, you don't need to do bizarre things for different sized creatures hit points or strength. Want a rat to die in a hit? You don't need to give it a hit point or con penalty, any medium creature that hits it has a +4 damage. And you don't need to give it a crappy bite base damage, it already has a -4 damage against medium creatures. Want bigger creatures to live longer? They already hit harder, but they also take less damage from normal character attacks.

Actual Proposal

Here's what the above translates into:

Table: Creature Size and Scale
Size
Category 		Height or
Length1 		Weight2 Space3 Natural Reach3 Carrying Capacity Mulitplier
Tall Long Biped Quadruped
Fine 6 in. or less 1/8 lb. or less 1/2 ft. 0 ft. 0 ft. ×1/8 ×1/4
Diminutive 6 in.–1 ft. 1/8 lb.–1 lb. 1 ft. 0 ft. 0 ft. ×1/4 ×1/2
Tiny 1 ft.–2 ft. 1 lb.–8 lb. 2-1/2 ft. 0 ft. 0 ft. ×1/2 ×3/4
Small 2 ft.–4 ft. 8 lb.–60 lb. 5 ft. 5 ft. 5 ft. ×3/4 ×1
Medium 4 ft.–8 ft. 60 lb.–500 lb. 5 ft. 5 ft. 5 ft. ×1 ×1-1/2
Large 8 ft.–16 ft. 500 lb.–2 tons 10 ft. 10 ft. 5 ft. ×2 ×3
Huge 16 ft.–32 ft. 2 tons–16 tons 15 ft. 15 ft. 10 ft. ×4 ×6
Gargantuan 32 ft.–64 ft. 16 tons–125 tons 20 ft. 20 ft. 15 ft. ×8 ×12
Colossal 64 ft. or more 125 tons or more 30 ft. 30 ft. 20 ft. ×16 ×24
  1. Biped's height, quadruped's body length (nose to base of tail)
  2. Assumes that the creature is roughly as dense as a regular animal. A creature made of stone will weigh considerably more. A gaseous creature will weigh much less.
  3. These values are typical for creatures of the indicated size. Some exceptions exist.


Table: Scaling Combat Bonuses

Attacker Is Attack Modifier Damage Modifier1 Special Attack
Modifier2 		Special Conditions
Five sizes smaller +16 —16 3 -64 You must enter the creature's space to attack it. Damage dealt to creature is only applied to the limb that you can reach. Damage may be deal to normal hit point total, but you must be able to reach the creature's vital areas to do so.4
Four sizes smaller +8 —8 3 -32 You must enter the creature's space to attack it. Damage dealt to creature is only applied to the limb that you can reach. Damage may be deal to normal hit point total, but you must be able to reach the creature's vital areas to do so.4
Three sizes smaller +4 —4 -16 You must enter the creature's space to attack it. Damage dealt to creature is only applied to the limb that you can reach. Damage may be deal to normal hit point total, but you must be able to reach the creature's vital areas to do so.4
Two sizes smaller +2 —2 -8 You must enter the creature's space to attack it.
One size smaller +1 —1 -4
Same size
  		- - -
One size larger -1 +1 +4
Two sizes larger -2 +2 +8
Three sizes larger -4 +4 +16 You are considered to have Improved Grab against your target. You can throw most targets as if they had a range increment of 5'.
Four sizes larger -8 +8 +32 Attacks with melee weapons are resolved as touch attacks. You are considered to have Improved Grab and Trample against your target. You can throw most targets as if they had a range increment of 10'.
Five sizes larger -16 +16 +64 Attacks with melee or ranged weapons are resolved as touch attacks. You are considered to have Improved Grab, Trample, and Swallow Whole against your target. You can throw most targets as if they had a range increment of 20'.
  1. Damage modifier is applied once for the weapon, and then once more for each bonus die rolled (from sneak attack, the flaming property, etc.).
  2. This modifier applies to the bull rush, grapple, overrun, and trip special attacks.
  3. Unlike normal damage rolls, the minimum damage for these rolls is 0.
  4. If you deal damage to the vital area of a much larger creature with a melee attack (because you climbed or otherwise reached the vital area) it is treated as two sizes smaller for the purposes of your attack.
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