I was just wondering how people feel about size modeling in pathfinder.
on the one hand i feel that the simple changes to STR, DEX, AC and bonus to his are way to simple, and lead to some ridiculous comparisons
on the other hand I know that complicating the process is a slippery slope.
Do you know of any alternate systems that work well?
what ideas have you considered or implemented for size increments?
I have considered a few very simple ones but they do lead to some changes the GM would have to be wary of (enlarge spells become much more powerful)
do you think it works well enough as is... or do you think a hypothetical revamp of the paizo system could readdress this in a simple but functional way?
Things that bother me-
1) What Would Happen If You Kicked a Chihuahua?
When big creatures hit smaller creatures, it should move them. It should be built right into the size mechanics. Awesome Blow isn't good enough. If a Stone Giant hits a Halfling, that Halfling shouldn't stay in the same square it started in. My house rule is Any creature who hits a creature two or more size categories smaller than itself can initiate a Bull Rush as a free action. Use the Grenade Scatter rules to determine the direction of the Bull Rush.
2) Big Things Take Big Steps.
Imagine the Terrasque making a 5' step. Why would it even bother? It's stride is around 60 feet. Why should it be limited to a 5' adjustment. That would be like a human only being able to adjust six inches.
Now look at it from the other end of the spectrum. A Toad is about the size of the palm of your hand. It has a speed of 5 feet. It can 5' adjust.
A good fix is to make a creature's in-combat Adjusting Step equal to the creatures own Space.
3) Fleas Can't Actually Jump Very Far.
When you think of a Flea jumping, it seems like a big deal because of how tiny a flea is compared to how far it goes. In game terms though, a Flea actually would have a Jump modifier of -10 or so. That means most of the time it's jumping about a foot, and at max it's going 10 feet. That's still huge for a flea, but mechanically it's pretty sad.
What's even sadder is if you Enlarged that flea, it's Racial Jump bonus stays the same. A Huge Flea can only jump about 6 feet further than a normal sized flea. Does that seem right to you?
Now let's flip the scale.
The Terrasque has a possible jump check (if it rolls a 20 and uses a special ability) of 107. That means it can jump 107 feet across and ~28 feet up. That seems impressive until you consider it's size. It's comparative jumping ability is actually less than a human's. If you Shrunk the Terrasque, it's Jump modifiers wouldn't change much. Even if it was Medium size it could still jump about 100 feet. This makes no sense.
Racial bonuses to jump checks should scale with size. In fact, the Jump skill itself should have a sized based multiplier, much like Encumbrance does. Then, modling creatures that jump really well would be really easy. Instead of needing huge bonuses, all that would be needed is an ability stating this creature Jumps as though it were two size categories larger than it is. (or something like that).
1) What Would Happen If You Kicked a Chihuahua?
When big creatures hit smaller creatures, it should move them. It should be built right into the size mechanics. Awesome Blow isn't good enough. If a Stone Giant hits a Halfling, that Halfling shouldn't stay in the same square it started in. My house rule is Any creature who hits a creature two or more size categories smaller than itself can initiate a Bull Rush as a free action. Use the Grenade Scatter rules to determine the direction of the Bull Rush.
In addition, what happens when a chihuahua runs right in front of you while you're walking? You trip, super easily if my experience is worth anything. I don't know if smaller creatures should have a penalty to trip at all.
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First off, there are the Combat Maneuver rules, where which combat maneuver a character can use against another are restricted by their sizes. These have got to go.
I agree. "Can't" isn't nearly as fun as "Probably won't be able to because the roll is so hard." It would be reasonable for certain maneuvers to give a very large bonus/penalty for each difference in size category.
Secondly, Weapon Size Categories are double-dipping bonus damage onto creatures who already have massively higher strength scores than their smaller contemporaries.
Yes! Also, weapon sizes play havoc with die sizes and introduce strange inconsistencies. Personally, I would tone down some of the STR bonuses a bit and make weapon damage add a die for each additional size category. (But I would also eliminate weapons with more than one die of damage.)
Third, is the existence of the Small Size being so damn similar to Medium. Why have the size if it's going to take the same space and have the same reach dammit. For my own games I'm actually working on eliminating the Small Size, moving creatures in it to either Medium or Tiny.
Biggest Gripe Ever! Well, biggest gripe about size. The most common sizes are the ones that don't follow the rules? Bah!
1) What Would Happen If You Kicked a Chihuahua?
When big creatures hit smaller creatures, it should move them. It should be built right into the size mechanics. Awesome Blow isn't good enough. If a Stone Giant hits a Halfling, that Halfling shouldn't stay in the same square it started in. My house rule is Any creature who hits a creature two or more size categories smaller than itself can initiate a Bull Rush as a free action. Use the Grenade Scatter rules to determine the direction of the Bull Rush.
I like your house rule a lot!
2) Big Things Take Big Steps. ... A good fix is to make a creature's in-combat Adjusting Step equal to the creatures own Space.
Another good house rule, although I prefer the way D&D Next handles it. If you move out of an opponent's reach, you provoke. Period. No measuring, no tricks, the rule introduced in 3.0 that was intended to keep people from fleeing without a moment of vulnerability is used to prevent fleeing rather than as a geographic movement limit.
3) Fleas Can't Actually Jump Very Far.
I don't actually care about this one, but I commented on the rest. In my experience this problem is exceedingly rare, and can be handled with simply logic by the GM.
Note: if you're implementing the free Bullrush rules, you should allow the attacker to choose the direction in a cone from his own position. Kicking a chihuahua doesn't send the thing flying behind you, nor does it happen in a random direction. It happened in the direction you kicked.
I think that allowing the attacker to pick the direction makes the ability a little too powerful. I agree with you in principle though. In my home games I usually treat any grenade scatter bull rush result that isn't in a forward cone as "straight forward." I just felt like writing that out would be too complicated.
I have no problems with larger sized weapons..If I had to choose between being hit with a great sword sized for a halfling..and one for a stone giant..I will take the halfling every time. Rather like choosing to be hit with a limb..or the whole tree..size DOES matter.
The issue with getting rid of Small size is what do you do with the grey area between a human and a cat? The reason there IS a small size is not about reach,or space as much as to fill that gap. If the listed halflings as Medium..people would complain because despite their size they had no bonuses. It represents the small and agile yet not so small you can pick it up in one hand. Compare the real world "reach" of say..a spider monkey, and a human with dwarfism, and a typical human..add real world movement to that, in place of a static gamebord.
I do wonder if smaller sizes should get a "sneak attack" bonus to trip in specific circumstances..like a cat on a set of stairs. Thats always fun...
Wow. A few things here i had not considered.
I always agree with the awesome blow thing. I mean.... It should just be a feature of being big... In fact i would not even make the awesome blow a choice... Big thing hits little thing should be auto bull rush Attempt. IMO
I also agree with the combat maneuver thing.... Except that you would start to need a bunch of new rules for the rediculous variants. What if you kept the size limits but created feats. That allowed you to surpass them.... For example GREATER combat feat would allow one to go beyond the size limit.
I dont agree with the weapon damage issue.... I alwayse felt that they do not do enough extra damage.. i kinda think that weapon damage and hitpoints should be doubled per size category after all other mods and rolls. An ogre for example would average 60 hp and deal (2d8+7)2