Combat Value of "Shrink"?

[Sylvan Scott]

Hey there, fellow gamer-folk,

Has anyone else noticed that "Reduce Person" (now known as "Shrink") requires a "willing target"?

How is this spell useful in any but the most limited cases? Also, how is there not a higher-level spell that reduces size requiring a Saving Throw?

Does anyone think this could be a typo or oversight? Or is the game just ruling out that kind of transmutation attack?

Yours,
Sylvan

[PsychicPixel]

There's really no combative benefit for shrinking allies it seems to be more for exploration/infiltration. Since it doesn't change anything for combat other than reach.

If you were to be able to use it on enemies however, it would be so ridiculous against large or larger creatures because you eliminate their range. Kraken attacking with it's 60ft range? Shrink it and now it has to enter your square to attack.

[Sylvan Scott]

PsychicPixel wrote:

There's really no combative benefit for shrinking allies it seems to be more for exploration/infiltration. Since it doesn't change anything for combat other than reach.

If you were to be able to use it on enemies however, it would be so ridiculous against large or larger creatures because you eliminate their range. Kraken attacking with it's 60ft range? Shrink it and now it has to enter your square to attack.

Yeah, exactly!

I would think that there would be a version of the spell that can be used to diminish enemies (albeit not to "Tiny" size at one go ... more like 1 size category at lower levels and more at higher...)

[PsychicPixel]

The issue with that is it would just trivialize too many high end encounters. The best course of action for any fight would be use shrink until success upon success you win basically, since you could at that point wall the creature into an area and plink it to death.

Though I could see using shrink as a fun encounter surprise. Break into a wizards lab find a cute tiny dragon chilling in a jar. Let dragon out. Dragon walks into target square. Tiny blender of death.

[Sylvan Scott]

PsychicPixel wrote:

The issue with that is it would just trivialize too many high end encounters. The best course of action for any fight would be use shrink until success upon success you win basically, since you could at that point wall the creature into an area and plink it to death.

Surely, though, that's an argument for bolstering ... once the target makes the save, they're immune to such attempts for a day, afterwards, or something.

Mind you, that's just off the top of my head.

[DerNils]

It would not be overpowered, and I actually have no idea why there is no Anti-Enlarge with the same simplified rules.
One Point may be that they Kind of negated almost all differences between small and medium creatures - it would feel weird if you shrank a human to small size and he gets weaker, while Gnomes and Goblins actually use the same reach, damage die, etc.
Then again, Enlarge already ignores all of this as well by hardcoding turning someone from any size to Large, so... I don't know. For some reason, they didn't want to have you flexibly going from one size category to another.
Maybe to avoid unwanted Combos with Giant totem barbarians?