The actual size of Dragonkin?

[Ixal]

So while trying to imagine how triaxian cities would look like I started to wonder how large dragonkin actually are. After all as integrated as they are nearly all buildings would likely be dragonkin sized with some if them even having space for actual dragons.

The book says 15-20ft. Which seems awfully large and making them tower over most normal 1 story buildings. Good luck playing Against the Aeon Throne with a dragonkin this large.

Then I noticed that the description say 15 to 20 feet long and not heigh. Imo thats a very weird way to measure a bipedal creature which dragonkin are supposed to be in my understanding. After all you don't measure the tail for Vesk.
Still, if one assumes that the tail is 1/3 if the length it would make them 10 to 13 feet tall, a imo much more reasonable number.

Then there is the question if how upright they actzally walk. The art in Starfinder shiws them as completely upright while in Oathfinder they seem to be more bend down. And there is still the question why their length is measured and not their height as if they were quadrupled.

So how do you think dragonkin look like? Hiw upright do they walk and hiw much soace do they need to walk normally? Do you simply extrapolate the 3rd dimension from the combat spacing, making them 10x10x10 blocks and leave it at that or do you require 15ft. or even the full 20ft. ceilings for them to walk normally? (either as pure flavor or even mechanically to not be considered squeezing?)

[SuperBidi]

Ixal wrote:

The book says 15-20ft. Which seems awfully large and making them tower over most normal 1 story buildings. Good luck playing Against the Aeon Throne with a dragonkin this large.

Spacefaring dragonkin are twice smaller.

For terrestrial dragonkin, they should be Huge size.

[Pantshandshake]

From AoN:
Average Height 8–20 ft.
Average Weight 500–2,500 lbs.
And:
The average terrestrial dragonkin is 15 to 20 feet long and weighs roughly 2,000 pounds, while the spacefaring variety can be as small as half that size.

So, realistically, there’s a huge range as to how tall a dragonkin can be. As far as mechanical effects, you and the GM (or if you are the GM, you and the player) should have a conversation about character and ceiling height, if there’s a worry about that. Speaking for myself and my tables, we tend to abstract the 3rd dimension. A medium creature takes up a 5x5x5, a large is 10x10x10, etc.

[Ascalaphus]

Yeah when the third dimension comes into play we also start working with 5ft cubes instead of squares. It's the easiest model we could come up with.

[Shar Tahl]

That's where large creatures need to be thought long and hard about by the GM when it comes to PC race options. I exclude them in my games because of building logistics and going though doorways and such. If they really have their heart set on it, I would say you houserule a spacefaring version that is on the upper end of medium, similar to the Nuar size (8 feet) and have the mods be something like +2 Str +2 Wis (for being more traveled) -2 dex.

[Ascalaphus]

Well if the large race PC is one of the few large citizens in the setting then maps sized for smaller creatures are going to make him miserable. But since this is a sci-fi setting, why must it naturally be that everyone is approximately human-sized?

Rather, imagine a society that has about 30% small creatures, 45% medium creatures, 20% large creatures and 5% other sizes. Public venues are generally built to accommodate both medium creatures, smaller creatures that need high stools to reach the table, and lower stools that almost put a large creature on eye level with the other patrons. And so on: a city where "medium" is not quite such a hard assumption.

[FormerFiend]

Alien Archive 2 lists their height range as being 8-20ft. I disregard Paizo's listed weight ranges in Starfinder because of the absolute nonsense they list for half-orcs, but the height, sure, though I think they play a bit fast & loose with the use of the word "average".

It's worth noting that out of the (as of this writing) 79 playable races, only 9 of them are large sized; dragonkin, haan, ithisarians morlamaw, sarcesians, shobhad, trox, uplifted bears, and urogs. However, barathus, anacites, and formians have non-playable large-sized variants, and several of the "medium" races push the boundaries of medium size; vercites, nuar, draeliks, playable formians, phentomites, vesk, and witchwyrds can all reach eight feet(nine for vercites).

So with all that in mind I don't think it's unreasonable for starships & space stations designed with larger creatures in mind to be fairly common; Starfinder societies are mostly past the challenges that have us keeping our own space-tech as small as possible and it's not an insignificant portion of the population that needs the extra room.

[Ixal]

The only adventure where I noticed large size being an issue is against the aeon throne 2 with the pipes.
But I did not check every description for how heigh the corridors are.

Aeon Throne 1 might also be a problem depending on how you read the size entry. If you read it as 15-20 ft. heigh a dragonkin would have trouble to stealthily enter the colony buildings. In fact even approaching the colony without being detected would be hard as the dragonkin would tower above the buildings.

If you accept that for some reason dragonkin are measured as long like the Alien Archive 1 description for them says it becomes much more reasonable as it would mean the maximum is 13 ft. height.

And then there is the question of how they walk. All Starfinder art shows them as completely upright, while in the old Pathfinder adventure they are mostly hunched. Maybe they can do both? It would certainly be hard to ride them when they walk upright.

Not that riding a dragonkin is supported very well by Starfinder as there is no carrying capacity increase for being large and the adventure says that carrying a medium creature is 16 bulk.

[Nyerkh]

I think we can safely assume the PF Dragonkin were not the spacefaring subrace.
Their look and description is likely a good fit for the terrestrial ones though. Those push up the higher limits of large size, Spacers are closer to the lower mark. The blurb outright states they've given up a lot of their size and flight ability - and arguably the ability to get rode on - in exchange for the power of actually fitting in most spaceships and buildings.

As for architecture, Triaxus has always had to deal with needing to house both big large sized and very average medium sized inhabitants, so they've got to know how to do it.
Elsewhere, more average large races are enough of a thing that most modern places should able to handle everyone. It's not harder than fitting both medium and small, really. One more thing to take into account, sure, but probably not the hardest : non-standard anatomy, especially in locomotion methods and senses, is probably trickier to adapt to.

[Dracomicron]

I like to assume that Dragonkin are just solid 10'x10'x10' masses, like a Gelatinous Cube, but more dragon-y.

[Pantshandshake]

...mint jelly dragonkin?

[SuperBidi]

Nyerkh wrote:

Elsewhere, more average large races are enough of a thing that most modern places should able to handle everyone. It's not harder than fitting both medium and small, really. One more thing to take into account, sure, but probably not the hardest : non-standard anatomy, especially in locomotion methods and senses, is probably trickier to adapt to.

I'm now imagining a starport with lines for tiny, small, medium, large and huge creatures, for visual, auditory, olfactory sensory types, for the ones who speak common, and the ones who can't due because they lack a proper mouth, for walking, flying creatures, for those who need water in their spacesuit to survive, the vegetarians and the carnivorous, and the ones who eat strange things...

And I just throw my characters in there and aks for a Will Save against confusion!

[Ixal]

SuperBidi wrote:

Nyerkh wrote:

Elsewhere, more average large races are enough of a thing that most modern places should able to handle everyone. It's not harder than fitting both medium and small, really. One more thing to take into account, sure, but probably not the hardest : non-standard anatomy, especially in locomotion methods and senses, is probably trickier to adapt to.

I'm now imagining a starport with lines for tiny, small, medium, large and huge creatures, for visual, auditory, olfactory sensory types, for the ones who speak common, and the ones who can't due because they lack a proper mouth, for walking, flying creatures, for those who need water in their spacesuit to survive, the vegetarians and the carnivorous, and the ones who eat strange things...

And I just throw my characters in there and aks for a Will Save against confusion!

"Did you bring any or are you foreign fruits to this planet?"

"Do you consider any of the following resident sentien species to be food?"

Yes, immigration would look a lot like Men in Black.

Back to the size. Is there any adventure besides Aeon Throne 2 were being large is an issue? Most corridor descriptions I have seen are at least 10ft. heigh, if not higher.
Only accomondations might be a problem when you look at the layout of many starships, but there are no rules associated with that anyway.

And I would really like to know if Paizo intended dragonkin to be 20 ft heigh or long (I tend to the latter) and also why they are measured as long in the first place. Are they supposed to be quadrupled?

And don't get me started on the traditional dragonkin riders not really being possible according to the rules because of bulk limits.

[Ixal]

Dang, I just noticed that in Starfinder "Length" means to the base of the tail and not the tip.
That throws off my whole calculation and would make dragonkin gigantic again.

I think I will just go with twice as high as a human + a little extra that doesn't matter mechanically and ignore the official entry. That roughly matches the picture in the Pact Worlds book which looks about right to me.

[Nyerkh]

Terrestrial dragonkin are 15-20, spacefarers average around half that and are the ones PCs will play and meet the most of. Ignoring it doesn't make it less true.
Hence the 8-20 is the entry, from the shortest spacer to the hugest terrestrial.
From the wording, I'd actually expect terrestrial dragonkin to be a separate subrace, with slightly different rules, but who knows.

Anyway : 10ft and change isn't insane in Starfinder.
Trox are 10-12, Bears are 9-11, Haans are 8-10. Sarcesians are 10 to 15ft tall, Shobhads 11-13.
Urogs are 10 to 15 feet tall, despite being mostly horizontal buglike beasties more fit for "long" largeness, making them probably the biggest race one can play.
Morlamaws and Ilthisarian are less clear, but can't be that much smaller, as they still have reach where bears don't.

In other words : Even a 15ft tall spacer dragonkin wouldn't be that big a problem, and they apparently rarely - if ever - get that big. I'd assume 10 to 12 is closer to what you can expect.

[Ixal]

When I think about it, the PCs being exlusively of the modified variant is probably the intention, but it is imo not communicated very well.
It would provide an explanation why the flight speed of PC dragonkin is so much lower than the one of the NPC dragonkin entry.