User:IGTN/Feral Libram/Chapter 6
Green's in Style
Blah blah intro text
Size Matters
So, the size rules are, like the rest of the game, broken. This doesn't exactly come as a surprise to anyone. The most glaring flaw is that big creatures have to have enormous strength scores to be as strong as they're supposed to be, which breaks everything when different ability scores are supposed to be comparable and other ability scores don't scale as rapidly. In anything where size comes into play (fighting over a door, or trying to trip someone), a giant already gets size bonuses over a human, they don't need to mess with their stats, too.
So, we're revising the way size works here. This will tie in with the carrying capacity revision in Chapter 9. Ideally, this would be modular enough that this can be pulled out to have another reworking of size plugged in here and all you'd have to do is recalculate all stats ever. It's not going to be quite that simple to switch systems, but needless complexity will be avoided.
Before we begin, let's lay out an understanding of what size means. Creatures at different scales behave differently. A tiny brownie can jump and roll out of the way of a death beam no problem. Titans only do that in myths to explain oddly-shaped lakes. What this means in practical terms is that creatures fill up more of their space at larger size than they do at smaller size unless they're standing in pike thicket formations or something like that. What it also means is that big creatures have a harder time dodging things and it's easier to aim at them. Since the relative ease of hitting something depends pretty much entirely on relative size, this will be modeled with a bonus or penalty to the attacker. Also, little weapons are like tiny pinpricks to big creatures, while big weapons utterly smash little creatures. This will be a damage bonus or penalty for size difference. This replaces the usual weapon scaling rules, and also the strength gain for going bigger or smaller.
The next thing we want is to reduce the enormous gain of power that a size increase gives. Under the current rules, a size increase is an enormous gain in power for any strength-based character, a nerf for a stealth-based character, and neutral with maybe a slight power gain if you play your cards right for a casting character (AC penalty, but it comes with a natural armor bonus and Con bonus by the monster manual rules). Since players can, for the most part, control whether their character uses the MM size change rules, in practice that means that size increases are an enormous unmitigated power increase to characters that need them, making playing a medium-size fighting character who has the option to grow bigger a clearly inferior option. Since we like our stalwart heroes facing off against monsters several times their size, this has got to go.
An added benefit of this is that it lets us have low-level heroes fight big creatures. While creatures on a truly epic scale should be saved, in most cases, for adventurers with a similar scale of accomplishments, there's no reason to make, say, giants or ogres nearly as powerful as they are. Really. Large and potentially even huge creatures should be viable enemies at level 1, and a medium strength-based opponent should remain viable all the way to 20.
Big Monsters Need Big Rules
Having discussed these matters at length, we can now develop a rules system for them. Note that using this rules system will require conversions of creatures in the monster manual. Selected conversions will be given in an appendix. When a creature attacks a creature of a different size category, it gains a bonus or penalty to hit depending on the size difference. A creature one size category larger than its target takes a -1 penalty to hit; one category smaller, a +1 bonus. For each additional size category smaller it is, it gains a +2 bonus to hit; for each size category bigger, it takes a -2 penalty. Larger creatures, however, do more damage when they hit, gaining a +5 bonus to damage, +10 more for each size category larger beyond the first. Smaller creatures merely take a -3 damage penalty, -5 more for each size category smaller beyond the first. Unlike other damage penalties, this can reduce damage to zero (but not below).
Size and Precision Damage
Precision damage (like sneak attack) only works when you can deal damage without it. You don't need to actually roll your damage dice without it, check, and then roll sneak attack; just compare the most you could roll, with all your appropriate modifiers, against the damage penalty for the size difference. The normal rules for dealing precision damage also apply. Otherwise, the attack cannot penetrate deep enough to hit the creature's vitals, and so does not do precision damage.
This rule applies separately to critical hits and non-critical hits. That is, a halfling rogue with a nonmagical battleaxe, strength 10, and no other modifiers (size small, max damage 8) deals no damage to a large creature, and so cannot sneak attack it, except on a critical hit (maximum damage 24), where it can damage, and so sneak attack, a creature five size categories above it (anything up to Colossal).
Power attack can likewise affect your ability to do precision damage, by increasing your maximum damage. By using power attack, said halfling can, on a non-critical hit, sneak attack a Large creature (+1 BAB), Huge creature (+3 BAB), Gargantuan creature (+6 BAB) or even Colossal creature (+8 BAB), so long as they take the requisite penalty to hit.
Size and Space
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So, the space/reach rules. Except when size differences get really big, these actually work pretty well. Small creatures fill smaller portions of their spaces than big creatures do, which is intentional because small creatures are much more nimble and able to maneuver within their space than big creatures are, even with similar dexterity. This isn't quite good enough for long creatures, which need bigger spaces; we'll get to that on the final table.
This also explains the 5' step rules. Creatures close to medium size take 5' steps even when they're much larger because they're much less mobile, relative to their size, than medium creatures are. Really large creatures make larger adjustments. These will be given on the final table.
Really tall things do occupy bigger spaces while prone, though, since they're flat against the ground. Prone tall creatures occupy the same space as a long creature of their size.
The Foot-Grinder
It's possible to slowly grind a really tall creature down, hacking at its feet until there are no more feet to hack at, stabbing its leg arteries, until it keels over dead. There isn't actually a problem with hacking things apart from the bottom like that; people can die from blood loss from leg injuries, and hacking something's leg to pieces can bring more within reach.
But encircling a giant monster and pounding on it until it dies is kinda anticlimactic. People are supposed to swarm over these things. So we keep the normal rule where a size difference of three steps means you can exist in eachother's space just fine and add that if you're attacking a creature in melee from outside its space, your to-hit bonus for size difference is capped at +6. If you have a reach weapon, you can bypass this cap if you are within your natural reach of it (and it's still in your normal reach on account of it being really big). Ranged weapons ignore this completely
Also, people want to have cinematic fights where they climb on top of monsters and hack at them from there. This is an awkward angle for the monster to hit from, so the damage bonus the monster gets for being big is halved if it's attacking you while you're aboard (to +3, +5 per size category beyond the first, the same as the penalty you were getting). Likewise, the damage penalty you get for being small is halved (to -1, -3 per size category beyond the first). This makes having a large size differential and power attacking away your attack bonus into a winning strategy. Go nuts.
Giant Hammers
Big monsters also have big attacks. When a big creature makes a melee attack, it can target a space the size of a tall creature two sizes smaller than it and attack every creature in that space, using the same attack roll. This doesn't apply when its attacking into its own space, though, and doesn't apply to special combat maneuvers like tripping, lifting, and so on.
Giant Steps
Since we don't want melees to degenerate into set-position battles where a big thing gets surrounded by a bunch of little things and worn down until it dies, we want to make these battles more mobile. So here are a few rules to do that.
Big monsters, while their inherent mobility is a lot less than yours, are also really hard to stop. If you're at least three size categories larger than someone, you don't provoke attacks of opportunity from them for moving. Also, you can make free unarmed attacks while you move, again without provoking an attack of opportunity. These are area attacks that affect an area equal to the area of your normal melee attack (as above), and you get one for free every time you use land or climb movement to move a distance equal to half your space. You can spend that much movement to make one in place, too. This must be directed into your space (an exception to the general rule that area attacks cannot be directed into your space). This attack does lethal damage if you have claws, scales, or shoes on your feet. The only defensive advantage they get is that they can set weapons against a charge and get the full benefit against this attack even though you aren't charging them. Plus, if you're damaged by an attack made by someone as you step on them, it counts as a Caltrop.
The Size Table
Table goes here, eventually.
Feats
Monster Feats
Right, so the system of having Fiend and Elemental feats was fine when there weren't nearly as many kinds of monsters. Since now we have feats for Dragons, Animals, Fey, a few for Giants, in addition to Elementals and Fiends like we used to, and a lot of them want the same feats, we clearly need a unified system.
So here that is. Feats that labelled [Monster] have a list of monster types, sometimes only allowing certain subtypes of them, that can take them. If you are that kind of monster, you can take monstrous feats as if you were. Some monstrous feats work slightly differently (slightly different benefits or prerequisites) for different types. When you take the feat, you pick one type and take it as that type; if you're a fiendish dragon, you take Huge Size as either a [Fiend] or a [Dragon] feat. This will handle issues like the one where they all need Large Size.
Feat Listing
Placeholder keeping all the feats made for this book together.
And feat categories
Spells
A lot of epic spells to reshape the terrain actually kind of suck. Here are a bunch of spells to do that, and also some spells to pad out the spell lists of other people and fix spells that don't work in the Player's Handbook.
Plant Growth
Raise Island
Raise Mountain
Raze Island
Raze Mountain
Verdigris
Add stuff to make forests, deserts, swamps, springs, and so on.
Incantations
Introduced in Unearthed Arcana, Incantations are ways for groups too low-level to cast a spell to cast that spell by making a bunch of skill checks over several hours. The idea isn't bad, and is actually really well-suited to the terrain reshaping spells, although the mechanics may merit re-examination.
Wild Spheres
The centerpiece of the Wild Spheres that we're doing with spheres here will be the Terrain spheres, as a subtype of the broader Wild spheres. To get a Terrain sphere, you have to live in a certain kind of terrain, or at least have lived there for a significant event or portion of your life. This way, dragons, faeries, and unicorns can get magical powers drawn from the land around them. Unless your sphere-granting class says otherwise, Wild spheres use Wisdom to set their saving throw DCs.
Other Wild spheres are based on things like seasons, weather, and so on. They still have prerequisites based on the climate of your home. You can't have the Summer sphere if there isn't a recognizable Summer where you live. You can't take the Monsoon sphere without a Monsoon season.
Also have a few spheres of other types, just to fill out the list available to dragons and fairies; there'll be rules for which Elemental spheres are accessible to which kinds of dragon, for instance.
Astral Spheres Preview
Astral Spheres will be introduced, fittingly, in the Astral Libram. They allow creatures to draw power from the fundamental ideas of the cosmos. A few are given here as a preview because some essential dragon spheres are Astral.
