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Are you trying to tell people how they can build a small character to be as effective a combatant as a medium-size one, or convince them that the decreased damage from being small isn't all that important in the long run? Points 3 and 5 address the former, while 2 and 4 address the latter. Point 1, meanwhile, seems to just be saying "don't build small characters for martial combat" which is completely the opposite of what I'd expect from the title.
Recommend revising your points or else re-titling it to "5 reasons to play a small character." Even then sneak attack (2) is basically a sub-set of class features (4) unless you want to talk about the racial stealth bonuses or halfling dex (initiative) bonus making it easier to get sneak attack in the first place.
Other ideas:
Risky Striker, a significant damage boost for halflings.
The Charisma bonus on both halflings and gnomes is a significant advantage for paladins.
Taunt is maybe worth mentioning as it makes a demoralization build plausible, though it doesn't really make them better than for example a half-orc who spent a feat on Intimidating Prowess instead.
DOT
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#6: Just do it anyways. Because I mean, a Halfling with a greataxe is -2 to damage and +1 to attack over a human. That's a pretty trivial damage loss past very low levels and on any enemy risky striker works on you're actually coming out ahead.This is accurate.
A Halfling and a Human melee type built exactly the same at 10th level will have virtually identical DPR. The average weapon die damage difference will be around 1 or 2, and the average static bonus strength damage difference will be 1 or 2. On a worse case scenario, the Halfling will be doing 4 less damage per hit (but, should be hitting more often because of the +1 size bonus to hit from being small).
The difference in damage output between small and medium characters is really only significant at lower levels before static damage bonuses start to overshadow the damage dice.
The difference is a bit bigger than that. First, for a strength-based character, the hit bonus for being small is cancelled out by the reduced strength bonus to hit. Second, you're also not including the opportunity cost of not getting a strength bonus. A greatsword-using human who puts their racial +2 in strength has +1 attack and +4.5 damage compared to a small character. And if you hit both characters with Enlarge Person (or at high levels Righteous Might), the damage difference goes up to 5 points and only the medium-now-large character gets reach. That difference certainly does get less significant at higher levels when you have more sources of bonus damage, but it's not so trivial that it doesn't need to be addressed in some way.
Medium greatsword avg damage = 7 + (1.5*4) damage from 18 Strength
13 - 8.5 = 4.5
Enlarged Small = 7 + (3+1) = 11
Enlarged Medium = 9 + (5+2) = 16
Now, a guy in my group played a halfling titan mauler barbarian, house-ruled to be in line with developer intent such that by the end of the campaign he was using a large-sized adamantine earthbreaker one-handed, with a shield in the other hand (total -2 to hit). The character was quite strong defensively, partly due to the size bonus to AC and racial bonuses to Dex and saves. The Dex bonus also came in handy offensively when he picked up Come and Get Me, giving him an extra attack in some circumstances. Finally, he was a riot at the table, especially since he was fond of disguising himself as a human child and taking people massively off guard.
One of the things I really liked about that character isn't just that he was thematically against the grain, not just that he was effective despite being smaller, but that he was in some ways effective because of being smaller.
A Halfling will be down 4 Str vs. a Human, b/c you assume the floating bonus goes to Str. Standard array of 15, 14, 13, 12, 10 8 for 15 point buy give you array like this
STR 17, Dex 14, Con 13, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 8
But taking advantage of the +2 to Dex and Cha to rearrange point buy, you can end up with an array like this:
STR 15, Dex 14, Con 12, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 9
Your mod for Str is only 1 less, and everything else is equal. This would be a net +0 to hit and +1 AC. Assume a Greatsword (2d6 vs 1d10) you have Human average at 3.5 x 2 + 4 (Str x 1.5) vs. Halfling average 5.5 + 3 (Str x 1.5) or 11 vs 8.5. However this is an artifact of the Greatsword having 2 dice.
If you use a Greataxe, Human damage drops .5 to 10.5 (6.5 + 4), where the Halfling stays same at 8.5.
So net +0 hit, -2 dmg and +1 AC. At upper to mid levels when your damage is mostly from Power Attack and static bonuses like weapon training or Rage bonuses or Smiting, that 1pt damage from small weapon is mostly negligible.
If you assume that the medium race is elf or dwarf or used floating in something other than Str, a halfling has a net +1 to hit -1 dmg and +1 AC, since 1 to hit is worth more than 1 dmg, you are actually coming out ahead.
Dervish dance lets you finesse a scimitar.
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@j b 200 - That's a good point, though if you use rolled stats like my group you can't sacrifice secondary stats to increase your highest stat.
The goal, Weirdo, is to offer ways around the negatives one takes to Strength, and the difficulty of wielding small-sized weapons. For players whose entire experience in combat is, "big weapon, big Strength score," playing someone small can require and adjustment in thinking. The goal is to point out there are other ways to be an effective combatant than superhuman strength combined with a greatsword.
I've never had this mindset, so I needed to think about it a bit from that perspective. And I think it's still more than one goal.
Goal 1: Describe options for playing a character who isn't "big weapon, big strength score." Because if that's really your entire experience, you'll need someone to explain the advantages of being an archer, swashbuckler, or mage. But this could just as easily be explaining to someone why they should consider an elven swashbuckler or dwarven monk instead of a half-orc barbarian. Indeed, nothing in your point 4 is at all particular to small characters, and while 2 suggests that sneak attack is particularly useful to small characters it doesn't actually sell the idea of a halfling rogue compared to a human one.
Goal 2: Describe how small characters in particular can fill these roles. 1, 3, and 5 all address this, though it's worth extending 5 a bit to contrast a small dex-based character with an elf (size bonus to AC/hit outweighs low damage die, no Con penalty, advantage of Cha for some builds). And as I mentioned previously, 2 and 4 both essentially make the same point that in the long run weapon die and racial strength modifier do not contribute a whole lot to your damage output - except that you never actually state that point!
The other thing to keep in mind is that as you see in this thread there are a lot of people who actually want to play a small character with a big weapon, or at least a strong small character, and are looking for that issue to be addressed when you talk about overcoming the difficulties small races have in melee. Again, points 2 and 4 start moving in that direction but it's worth making that more clear and also pointing out j b 200's point buy trick or the usefulness of combat abilities specific to small characters. In addition to mount maneuverability (point 3) you could point out good racial defenses or the Risky Striker feat. Notably the good racial defenses are also useful for small casters or dex-based fighters.
Halflings are good at dual-wield, which works well with Piranha Strike or Risky Striker. The off-hand will get the full damage bonus, meaning potentially more bonus damage per round than a two-handed weapon gets.
Gnomes profit from Gnome Weapon Focus, beside that they have a few unusual FCBs: Faster bloodline progression for bloodrager and more available weapon properties for magus (consider vicious...).
A single level of Small Titan Mauler provides +1 AB and AC most of the time - more often than Medium sized creatures would get it. You can go further or dive into Titan Fighter, but the level 1 dip should be the most efficient way here.
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Swoosh, said greatax is actually more like a battleax if you're small sized. Though a Titan Fighter halfling is fun to contemplate.
A small greataxe is 1d10. A medium battleaxe is 1d8. Granted the str penalty hurts, but all other things equal, a 16 str hafling with a greataxe is doing more damage than a 16 str dwarf with a battleaxe.
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Or you can go crazy on the weapon damage and rely entirely on Sneak Attack. I've got a Wayang who uses reduce person with Longarm to have reach and sneak attack while tiny, who uses an Inubrix kukri (so, diminutive damage = 1d2, but ignores metal armor) and greater invisibility to do 6d8 sneak attack per hit.
But, you ARE dependent on if the thing CAN be sneak attacked.
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When looking at small sized characters it may be worth noting the weirdness you can get into with carrying capacity. Your carrying capacity is 3/4 that of a medium sized character, but weapons and armour and some gear sized for you weigh 1/2 that of medium sized gear... so if you stick to that stuff you can technically carry more (size appropriate) gear than a medium-sized character. That's somewhat offset by the gear that is one weight for anyone, but if you're looking to load-up mainly on weapons (say, if you were a Quick Draw / TWF / Rapid Shot throwing knife specialist or something) you're (once more) better off being small sized.
Even for wayangs the size bonus to accuracy only matches the accuracy lost to the lack of a strength bonus leaving them down typically 4 damage per two handed hit with no compensatory accuracy advantage. Kobolds, of course, are even worse than other small races.
Hmm. If you are not set on being Str based, Small But Deadly is an interesting feat (and appears in Kobolds of Golarion for a reason):
You ignore your Strength penalty to damage when making attacks with your racial natural weapons and weapons for which you have the Weapon Focus feat.
A kobold with Str 7-4 would still get +0 to damage and (assuming point-buy) free up 4 ability points, but of course such an extreme score has other drawbacks.
Honestly a small character won't impact most builds too much. The size dependent ones I can think of are mounted charger/skirmisher (who benefits really from the 5-foot corridor weakness removal) reach (pretty big hit as pushing assault is size dependent) anything maneuver based (which from what I hear is worthless at medium level unless you go against mid/low BAB PC classes because every monster paizo makes have way too much strength) and non-druid vital strikers (which isn't the best style unless you're a war-priest, and even they are served better with other styles.)
So yeah, they lose out on what makes one of the best combat styles in the game awesome, but they take another of the best combat styles and make it better than it already is.