Ok, I was responding to a post about Goliath's and after a bit I realized it had far less to do with Goliath's than trying to streamline how size categories actually work, than the original topic so I decided to take this post and put it in a new thread in Homebrew, as that seems more appropriate location.
Note that some posters wish for a Medium ancestry that is considered Large for some purposes. The Giant instinct for Barbarians might provide a good basis. But in itself it is problematic: if your character is Medium but considered Large for this instinct, they can wield Huge weapons. Which starts sounding awkward.Can't small races wield large weapons with this? Seems like a similar comparison: 2 sizes larger.Good point. I must say that I find the blending of Small and Medium rather distasteful and do not wish to see it contaminate other Sizes but you are right.
I wish PF2 only had one Size for Small and Medium so that Size steps always had the same impact.
I kind of agree with you, that it seems cumbersome that we have two distinct sizes which are being treated as one size with practically no mechanical differences, but when you take the next size steps there are distinct mechanical differences.
I understand there was a historical differences allowing for small and medium sized heritages, and I understand that they wanted to give some of the smaller heritages a more level playing field in some areas, but it does make handling the other size steps now seem much more cumbersome and problematic.
It almost seems like it would have been easier to have simply made an Standard size that took over small and medium sizes from previous editions. Then weapons and armor could be of Standard size.
One impact I suppose would be that goblins being standard size, would if riding a size larger, would need to ride a 'large' mount, meaning they would be riding Wargs not wolves, and halflings riding horses not pony's.
Then you'd need the small and medium again traits, to allow small creatures in Average size to ride creatures with the Medium trait of the same size category. [at which point we are kind of back where we are now] Although I suppose at least then we'd know when something changed size, it impacted bulk calculations, instead of now where in some cases it does, and others it doesn't.
So what if you renamed Medium to Average, and made anything Small into Medium with an additional Small trait. Small creatures are on the smaller side of their size category and can ride creatures that don't have the small trait if they have more than 2 feet?
Then if you want some additional variance, you could create Small Large creatures which are bigger than a person, but can ride other large creatures on the larger side, but not huge.
Average creatures would probably then range from 2 to 8 range, with small ones running more like 2-4. Large creatures might actually run from 6-18 with, the small ones being 6-12 and slimmer and the larger ones being larger and stockier. Small huge creatures might range from 16 - 24 from the range of 16 to 36 or whatever the normal huge range is.
Actually, creatures that are quadruped getting some sort of bulk boost for carrying capacity makes sense, and could easily then make sense why a quadruped might be able to carry small creature from its own size category as long as it doesn't have the small trait itself. You could probably, without really creating any balancing issue, allow quadruped creatures get something like a +5 bulk to their max they can carry while encumbered. Honestly, I could see giving them a +2 bulk bonus for what they can carry before becoming encumbered, but that might have game balance impacts, potentially. And yes, it would assume they remain on fours. If they stand up, they would lose the boost and perhaps become encumbered or over-encumbered.
That would get rid of the small size as a category of its own, and treat it like it is otherwise being treated rules wise. but converting small to the combined size category with a small trait, you simply add a rule allowing mounts that have more legs than 2 would have the ability to allow someone from the same size ride them if the rider is small and they aren't small.
For naming convention I'd not use Medium, so people would be able to differentiate it from the Medium in core documents. Small would become Standard with the additional trait Petite. Petite creatures can ride non-Petite creatures in the same size category if the ridden creature is a quadruped (or likewise stocky/surefooted)
Anyone have better names for quadruped, stocky, or surefooted? Something that would include the quadruped, as well as any other beasts of burden with multiple legs or a legless creature such as a snail perhaps that might be a beast of burden that is good at spreading out load? But I'm concerned about saying sure-footed, as there might be some bipedal goat creature that might be considered sure-footed (even dwarves for instance) but shouldn't necessarily be a good beast of burden.
The idea being to make changes in actual size categories grant consistent predictable effects on game mechanics, which the small and medium really makes counter intuitive, at least in my opinion.
If you have a standard weapon, anyone of Standard size can use it (be they small/petite or human/medium size). Riding rules becomes a little more complicated, as far as it is written. But that is because you get rid of much of the prior duplication of size information between small and medium. Instead petite or small just modifies the given size (which may generally only get seen in Standard size, due to player options, and low level foes) The introduction of quadruped and allowing them permitting petite riders from their own size (as long as they aren't petite) takes care of allowing goblins and halflings to ride ponies, wolves, and goblin dogs. And potentially allowing quadrupeds to have a bulk bonus would help make sure the creature can actually hold the armored rider.
What does this fix? Just adding random rules for the sake of it? Small and Medium characters can already handle "standard" sized weapons (indeed, undersized weapons don't seem to have any mechanical weight, only oversized).
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I'd rather make all "standard" playable ancestries Medium, then give the old small folks some fixed feature that lets them treated as one size smaller for certain small benefits (mostly determining squeezable space sizes, though). It also has the benefit of making certain inter-species romances less icky (in a visual manner) for those who care deeply about such stuff...
Years late, but if you wanted to reduce confusion, the burden could be shifted to the mount trait itself instead of messing with size categories.
I strongly agree that they over did it when "leveling the playing field" between small and medium creatures. They definitely don't feel nearly as distinct as they did in PF1. And I personally enjoyed the differences in playing as a small ancestry.
My Gnome Ninja, Frigg, was an unforgettable character!
Successfully grappling a giant scorpion while wearing a small treasure chest as an improvised disguise in my very first session of PF1e left quite an impression on everyone.