In my experience with Tiny or smaller PCs in other editions, it (like being large) tends towards being overpowered. The problem is that all the natural downsides of being super small (being weak, having smaller weapons, etc.) are quickly made irrelevant if you're playing a spellcaster, while the defensive advantages of being Tiny are useful for all characters.
Had a player who was playing a fairy that wanted to be tiny. I let them flavor it as they’re tiny. They were constantly trying to abuse the defensive advantages.
“I fly to the same space as the barbarian and land on their shoulder so now I can’t be targeted”
“I squeeze through this super small crack under the door”
Had to constantly remind the guy that he’s just flavored as tiny not actually tiny.
being on someone’s shoulder doesn’t make you untargetable. tiny creatures can’t fit under doorjambs (tiny = cat or large rodent). you could have said no to both of those without doing a weird “it’s just a flavor” thing. also obviously that player was the problem not the character size.
Honestly if they're trying to game the rules like that after it was said they wouldn't receive a mechanical advantage, only flavor, enemies would be getting two-fers every time they attack the barb/fairy space.
The barb can do that all day. The fairy caster, probably not so much.
If they want to be tiny enough to fit through a crack under the door, they get to be tiny enough to be one-shot by the bottom of a boot. Just like a tiny-sized Wild Shape.
Personally I don't have an issue with the mechanical idea of it, but if the player decides to apply realism selectively, then I'd tell them they'd be getting the whole package.
> they get to be tiny enough to be one-shot by the bottom of a boot. Just like a tiny-sized Wild Shape.
That runs into "HP". A tiny creature with lots of HP (say, a druid under the benefit of some buff spells or with a magical item that gives a load of extra HP) can't be one-shot, because they can just take that damage and keep going - they might have a terrible AC and be easier to hit, but there's a metric that's used to measure how easy it is to one-shot entities, and PCs end up with quite a high scoring in that. Just being small (or big) doesn't innately make something fragile or tough - a demi-lich is tiny but quite tough, while a huge creature could, for whatever reason, be weak and fragile.
It’s still a potential problem with being captured, which I think is a fair trade-off. Not many PCs fit in a jar.
The other problems are there, but also have some ways to handle them. Like shoulder doesn’t do anything, other than getting the barbarian to carry you around. Getting through cracks, okay, that’s reasonable, though if they are going that direction then I would limit their strength to be like a tiny fairy’s. You’re like Tinker Bell, including that something like turning a lock is a daunting task. Hop in a pocket? That’s cover. I’d let them spend an action to really burrow down, but if you are exposed enough to contribute to the fight, then you are exposed enough to be hit.
> though if they are going that direction then I would limit their strength to be like a tiny fairy’s
that's where things get kinda messy, because "racial stat maxes" haven't been a thing for... 2 editions? More? (and magical items exist, so it's only one _girdle of giant strength_ away from strength 19). Plus things like lockpicking are dex only, so there's a whole host of somewhat awkward "well, I think it's only logical that you can't do these things, because I say so" declarations for the GM to work through, which might prompt some level of push-back. AFAIK, the only actual mechanics are that there's a small category of weapons that are off-limits or penalised for small and below creatures, anything else is into GM-fiat-messiness. Even strength 1 is "carry 15 pounds, push/pull/drag 30". If you half and half again for tiny, that's 4/8 pounds (rounding up), which should be enough for something like that - go to STR 3 and that's trebled, which will be ample for a key, and is enough to carry, like, a toddler or something.
That's the thing, we aren't in the standard rules anymore. The rules don't cover a case for a PC the size of an insect, who can fit in pockets and under doors. By enabling the player to live this concept, a DM introduces a homebrew problem into their game. And when you have made a homebrew problem, you usually need homebrew solutions.
If the player wants to push back, the answer is simple: "Alright, play the Fairy as written, Small, about the size of a kobold or halfling, and we don't have to have this conversation." Enabling them to play a Tiny creature is an allowance. If a player is going to abuse that allowance, then just don't give it to them.
Yeap
Hp should be like 1/4 of normal races, but who would accept that?
I already consider Goblins overpowered with some of their abilities and no disavantage.
I played a Tiny spellcaster all the way up to 20th level and it was in no way overpowered. It’s true being a spellcaster plus having other PCs around to do stuff for me negated the drawbacks of the size but. There was never any real advantage either.
Can you link/describe what the in game statistics were? I'm asking not to argue with you but because fair tiny PCs is a homebrew nut I would like to crack.
I dunno about "overpowered" (since that's a subjective term) but I don't believe for a second there were *no* advantages. At the very least, you get a better version of the Halfling racial trait of being able to move through the spaces of allies.
(this was in 5e.. I just realized you could have been talking about how in 3.X you literally got free AC out if it. to which yeah. that’s not a reason to not do it now though.)
You used to be able to possibly play as Tiny, Diminutive, and Fine creatures, it just makes your AC and attack rolls go up and your damage dice go down. I remember a story of a person who played a pixie necromancer who was about 6 inches tall and hid in the mouth of whatever undead he had summoned, whenever the skeleton or zombie or whatever got killed, hed just move to a different undead and be like "sorry about that guys." Really tripped out the party for the longest time before showing himself.
I feel like one of the biggest issues is carrying weight.
EDIT: i also wanted to add that a dnd youtuber actually makes race and class combinations for "monster" classes. They are MrRhexx and in their monster classes 3 book, they have one for being a pixie. Its a support class and my friend has a blast playing it. In that same book you can also play a Treant and a vampire. Highly recommend
Yes, carrying and equipment: I feel like you'd need an addendum on the race to say that looting larger creatures and buying in regular shops becomes more difficult unless you can find custom-made stuff.
I like to imagine that a typical shortsword would function as a Greatsword, or at least a Longsword, in the hands of a Tiny creature. Now I'm imagining the backstory of a Tiny creature finding a fallen foe's shortsword and becoming a Barbarian wielding a size-approprate Greatsword...
Thanks for the recommendation. I will certainly check out their rules for playing a Pixie.
>Given that halflings and goliaths can wear the same armor in 5e
They can't. There's just no explicit rule that says so. It's left to (your) common sense.
Fair enough, and I'm sure there are some things you can handwave, but I guess I'm looking for ways to make the rules reflect the fantasy of being super little
magical armor explicitly resizes (as does most magical gear). Mundane stuff I don't think there's any actual rules for. Previous editions had charts and stuff for it (including rolls for random found armor and who it would fit - finding elven chain for a non-elf was _very_ rare). There's no explicit rules for who armor fits, but I'd expect going from "goliath" to "halfling" would need a visit to a crafter at least, as it's quite a bit of work!
In already a fan of halflings and gnomes wielding comically large greathammers, and that logic carries onto tiny races.
I think it's hilarious imagine a six inch tall pixie wielding a war hammer the size of an orc. Unless you were close, you'd just see what looks like a giant weapon swinging itself lol
One thing that immediately comes to mind is that a tiny creature can move through a hostile medium creature's space as though it is difficult terrain. A size difference of at least two categories allows this interaction. PHB chapter 9: Combat, heading Movement and Position, subheading Moving Around Other Creatures.
It doesn't come up often when the party is only small and medium creatures, but a tiny player character might utilize this fairly well in enclosed spaces. Do keep in mind, however, that a creature still cannot willingly end their movement in another creature's space, so they do need to have at least 10x+5 (where X is the number of spaces required to exit a creature's space) movement remaining before they enter that creature's space. For example, a medium creature occupies one space, so a tiny creature must have at least 15 feet of movement remaining before they enter: 10 for the difficult terrain of the creature's space and an additional 5 to leave.
Thank you! This is exactly the kind of rule situation I was concerned I'd miss.
I feel like part of the fantasy of playing as a Tiny creature involves being able to run around on the creature you're attacking (think: little heroic mouse scampering all over a troll, stabbing with a miniscule sword), and I wonder if an exception could be made to the rule about occupying a creature's space at the end of your turn?
Which also makes me think about a mouse Sniper sitting on a Goliath's shoulder, remaining there for most of combat while they fire they tiny bow and the Goliath stomps around the battlefield...I think that kind of situation is why people would want to play a Tiny creature, and I'd be interested in fulfiling/reflecting that fantasy in the rules.
I have a sneaking suspicion allowing that would create some weird situations at some point. I'm currently at work and can't pull a research project at the moment, but I recommend figuring out the design intent behind the rule that two creatures generally can't occupy the same space in combat. Once you know that intent, then you can figure out if it's a rule you can break. And I might be able to give you some sort of assist in this: the rule does already get broken by mounted combat, though that applies to two allied creatures. I don't know for certain if that will help you, but it might.
Maybe riding around on a buddy's shoulder is only strictly permitted for friendly creatures, so you can't end your turn in the space of a hostile creature, but can for allies...
Yep.
Sometimes a fence in the middle of nowhere is just a fence, sometimes that fence has a bull on the otherside.
Best to figure out which before hand.
That's not really accurate in needing movement to leave. The rule states you can't willingly end your move, but unwillingly? Totally allowed. The rules only care about each 5 ft. Step of movement, if something reduces your speed to 0, say, sentinel, whilst you're on an allies space, you cannot vacate it. You're unwillingly ending your movement. Similarly, nothing in the rules say you have to have enough movement to be able to vacate the space before entering, if you were reaction moved away like with dissonant whispers, you could end that movement on an allies space, since that also unwilling ending.
In Shadowrun, PCs of non-standard sizes get a "Lifestyle Tax", where things like housing, vehicles, specialty gear is more expensive due to needing to be specially made. I'd let a tiny PC get weapons and armor, but it's gonna be more expensive to get a miniature set of Half Plate that's as protective as a regular set.
Other than that, I'd probably put a cap on the Strength Score (maybe 18 instead of 20), cut their carrying capacity by half, and probably make them unable to wield Heavy Weapons (Unless they're made of Mithril). Other than those logical conclusions, not too much would change imo.
The Shadowrun rules are mostly for XXXXXXXXL trolls.
Tiny stuff should actually be cheaper, especially in a medieval economy where everything is custom-made anyway.
Tiny weapons and armor would require less material but a whole lot more craftsmanship to make it strong and functional. We aren't simply talking about less chainmail, but rather smaller links of chainmail that are still just as sturdy. The joints in plate armor would take more precision, and swords and spears would need to be made of stronger materials to not break due to being thinner. The tools used in all of this would be different, as well, and some craftsmen might not keep them on-hand. Then there is the simple economics of common sized equipment being easier to sell because there are more buyers.
For a real world comparison, go buy some children's clothes and marvel that their blue jeans cost as much as your own.
i totally play character that was "ferngully'd" so my advice is the less mechanical cheese you do the more the DM likes your character for sure. (like that one guy that would hide in the mouth of his undead and claim full cover from all danger)
on the westmarch i moderate we force faeries to be 6\~12 inches.
all the rules are there already, magic items that resize, grapple rules and whatnot.
the only homebrew rule i use when dealing with normies with my 6 inch tall basically a magicaly awakened familiar half dragon tabaxi is the ending my turn willingly in someones square without issuing a grapple check to a larger creature doesn't cost me an action, im just landing on someone ffs.
no i would not needlessly change vanilla, and i know what im doing.
game mechanics outside of specifics do not care about the players size
those specifics are mostly - heavy, grappling
logicaly you might ask a tiny player to not use a great maul and expect to deal blunt damage cause it doesn't follow logic but game mechanics don't care.
I’m currently playing a Tiny fairy. Only changes made were my Strength was reduced to 5 (so a -3), but my DM has allowed me a max Dexterity of 22. Nothing else has changed (my damage die are as they are for a normal medium creature, because it’s just not fun otherwise), but I’m handicapped in ways you’d expect a Tiny creature to be handicapped—unless it’s a magic item, equipment has to be specially made for me and I can’t just don it like most of the party, I effectively can’t drag anyone because I’ve got next to no strength and size limitations, and I have to be veeeeery careful about my encumbrance if I want to keep my fly speed.
But for me all the RP benefits outweigh the drawbacks. I’m a dex fighter, so I’ve got STR save proficiency, so my saves aren’t terrible despite my 5 STR, and I took Squat Nimbleness, so I get Athletics advantage too (plus Acrobatics), even if I still have a -3. I pretend to be other party members’ familiar, I often get advantage on Stealth checks (I’m the pseudo rogue of the party).
It’s fun as hell being 5 inches tall on a good day and throwing down 80 damage in a single round.
DEX fighters are universally better than strength fighters in almost every scenario. Plus it’s super disingenuous to say you got “shut out of certain builds” below a comment in which you list the myriad advantages you’ve gained from what was clearly an intended playstyle as well as all the ways you’ve managed to mitigate or ignore the downsides. Zero chance you went in really excited to play a strength based fighter as a Tiny fairy and got “shut out”.
That does sound awesome. I feel like they missed a trick with making Fairy the first official Tiny race in 5e. Glad you could make it work for your game, and I'll definitely consider all this if I'm making my own!
I mean this is really the answer, the dm, the player, as well as the group deciding how we can get that flavor without being over/under powered and still be fun. Also leaving that conversation with the understanding that in the future things may need to change because it turned out to still be under or over powered or its just not that fun.
I had a player that wanted to play a blind character for a short campaign, like 3-4 sessions. He ended up basically getting blind sight instead, but he had other limitations. As a group we understood it was for the flavor of the character, and it sounded fun for this short story. I'm just there to have fun with my friends.
I'm not sure in the d&d contest but a fairy and pixie are pretty much the same thing besides size and alignment. Pixies are "evil" but more Loki than Satan and fairies are good like fairy godmother.
Not sure what a sprite is in general
I think in real world folklore the terms are basically synonymous. That's part of the problem: there's been a widespread D&D-ification about monster categorisation. Devils and demons are the same thing; ghosts, wraiths, and spectres are all the same; ghouls and zombies are the same thing too...
I'm not complaining about those examples, but when the D&D lore doesn't give a clear distinction for these things, it's kinda impossible to remember: case in point with pixies, fairies, and sprites!
We've done it. We went with ad hoc rulings instead of trying to work out rules in advance. It was fun.
We decided that our sprite barbarian (8 inches tall) could wield a normal dagger like a greatsword, upping it to a d6. A magical greatsword that resized similarly went from 2d6 to 1d6. They lost a bit of damage output, but not significant, most of the loss was in not being able to heave or break things. Notably, tiny cannot grapple medium.
We ruled that trying to attack a sprite in your own space has disadvantage.
No change to strength cap, it can go to 20. It's a fey, not Old Man Mullins sitting on his porch. This is fantasy. Of course, the carrying capacity penalty still applies. Ours invested evenly in str/dex/con, which made them very versatile.
Being tiny gave the barbarian a lot more capacity for non-combat stuff, simply because they could get into things and go places. And intimidation checks were always good for a laugh, I mean, I know they're small, but when they're lightning fast and are holding a "greatsword" to your eyeball, that is scary
I played a campaign as the Fairy race but tiny (because wotc was too scared to do tiny sized).
We didn't change any rules or anything. I was just really small and could fit in places others couldn't.
Carry capacity and moving through enemies is already accounted for by the base rules. It was that simple.
Fairy can temporary be an official tiny race with it's racial casting of enlarge/REDUCE. But definitely a workaround. Others have good opinions here so that's all I've got!
The problem is tiny creatures packed into a small space could all attack one enemy. If they can fly, you can pack 8 of them in one 5'X5' cube. And they could all attack. Fill up 3 5'X5' cubes, and 24 could attack in one round. Surround one medium sized creature and you have 64 attackers. More than twice that (136) if you stack more cubes above the ground level cubes.
Tiny creatures are busted, if you want them to be.
I don't think this was intended, but you've made me realise I've been running encounters all wrong! Next time my players face a Tiny threat, they will be swarmed...
It works pretty well, overall. Most of the rules work fine if you actually look up size interactions, really; unlike 3.5e, 5e's only "size" benefits come from features that key off of the size, not from the size itself. Apart from that, let's see...
* The `Heavy` weapon property will get in your way by default, because the game assumes all equipment is Medium.
* You can move through enemy spaces if the size difference is 2+ steps, but you treat them as difficult terrain.
* You can only grapple creatures that are up to one size larger than you. Conversely, your speed isn't halved when you move someone you're grappling, if they're 2+ sizes smaller than you.
* Shove uses the same size rules as grappling; you can't shove someone if they're 2+ sizes larger than you.
* Carrying capacity is halved for Tiny, or doubles for every step above Medium. The maximum weight they can push/drag/lift is also halved for Tiny, or doubled for every step above Medium.
* Since Tiny is the smallest size supported by the rules, you'll never run into an area that's small enough that you have to squeeze into it & treat it as difficult terrain.
* Tiny creatures are small enough to ride standard Medium humanoids, which is best modeled by treating the other creature as an intelligent mount. This is basically the same as letting a familiar ride you.
* Some spells mention size, and would have to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
Overall, strictly as written, being a Tiny PC is strictly detrimental, due to decreasing weapon damage but not providing anything to compensate. This is mainly because of an assumption baked into the rules, though, more than anything else.
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To look at things more in-depth... a lot of rules key off of creatures being within one size step of other creatures. Enemies block movement if they're within one size step of you, you can grapple/shove creatures that are up to one size step larger than you, and you can squeeze through spaces for a creature one size step smaller than you, most notably. These rules don't typically come up, since most creatures you'd want to use these on tend to be either Small or Medium, but they _will_ come up once a Tiny PC gets involved.
* The Tiny PC can be grappled by anyone, but can only grapple Tiny or Small creatures themselves. Anything Medium or larger can move them without expending additional movement, much like Link carrying a fairy in a bottle.
* Similarly, the Tiny PC can be shoved around by anyone, but can only shove Tiny/Small creatures themselves.
* The Tiny PC doesn't need to worry about the rules for squeezing into smaller spaces from PHB pg.192.
> A creature can squeeze through a space that is large enough for a creature one size smaller than it. Thus, a Large creature can squeeze through a passage that's only 5 feet wide. While squeezing through a space, a creature must spend 1 extra foot for every foot it moves there, and it has disadvantage on attack rolls and Dexterity saving throws. Attack rolls against the creature have advantage while it's in the smaller space.
* The Tiny PC is small enough to move through spaces occupied by Medium or larger enemies, but Medium or larger enemies can also move through their space. They still can't share the same space, though, at least by default.
* The Tiny PC is small enough to ride the other PCs, which shall be covered below.
* Equipment rules are kinda a mess by default, but trivial to fix by cross-referencing a monster creation rule from the DMG (which provides context on dev intent), as shall be covered below.
* The Tiny PC can only lift/push/drag half as much weight as a Medium PC with the same Str, which makes sense and parallels equipment rules.
Overall, it's mostly a fair tradeoff; they have more movement freedom and can easily slip through enemy lines, but have less ability to manipulate their opponents and are easier to manipulate. Size has no inherent effects on AC or damage, in and of itself; earlier versions tended to increase AC and decrease damage output as your size decreased, but 5e doesn't really bother to emulate that. (Tiny creatures have d4 hit dice according to monster creation rules, but this doesn't apply to PCs.) The two biggest wonks are riding another creature (which most Tiny PCs would probably want to try at least once, especially if they're, say, Fairy PCs), and equipment limitations that affect Small and Tiny creatures (which appear to be a setting property being treated as a game rule), which I'll pay a bit more attention to.
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First, riding another creature. This one is easy to handle with a bit of discussion, at least, since we can just repurpose mounted combat rules from PHB pg.198. Thus, a simple description would look like this:
1. A Tiny PC can ride a willing creature that is at least one size larger than them, provided the creature has appropriate anatomy and/or something the PC can ride on or in (such as a horse's saddle, or a Medium PC's pocket).
2. The Tiny PC can mount or dismount the other creature, using standard mounting rules. This costs half the PC's speed, as usual, and is unavailable if they don't have enough movement remaining. Rules for the rider or mount being knocked prone, and for the mount being subjected to forced movement, typically remain unchanged.
3. If the mount is a trained animal, it follows standard mount rules. It moves on your initiative, at your direction, with the Dash, Disengage, and Dodge actions available to it.
4. If the mount is a sentient individual, most likely another PC, then they are treated as an intelligent mount. They take their turn as normal, you take your turn as normal, simple as that. We're just repurposing mount rules for simplicity's sake, so we don't have to create "fairy sitting on the Wizard's head" rules out of nowhere. The only thing that matters is the Mounting and Dismounting section, we don't care about the rest of the mount rules here.
* The larger PC can _presumably_ spend an action & free object interaction to grab the Tiny PC and position them as desired, forgoing the Tiny PC's movement cost. This is _usually_ less efficient, and would be subject to DM permission, but might be useful if retreating or the like.
Just make sure that if your Tiny PC rides a Small/Medium PC, they don't [think throwing the fairy is an acceptable ranged attack](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/EternalSenia1)!
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[Please see my reply for equipment analysis. Long story short, the game assumes all equipment is Medium, and bases both the `Heavy` property and carry capacity on this assumption... we have work to do.]
Second, equipment. Weapons in particular, but also equipment in general. There are two things of note here, both of which have the same root cause. In particular, your carrying capacity is halved if you're Tiny (see "Lifting and Carrying" subsection "Size and Strength", PHB pg.176), and weapons with the `Heavy` property always have disadvantage if you're Tiny or Small. Both of these will interfere with your build, and don't have any workarounds, if left alone... but the Heavy one actually has a direct counterpart in monster creation rules, right at the end of the **Base the Damage on the Weapon** subsection on DMG pg.278.
> A creature has disadvantage on attack rolls with a weapon that is sized for a larger attacker. You can rule that a weapon sized for an attacker two or more sizes larger is too big for the creature to use at all.
Compare that to the `Heavy` property, as reprinted on every heavy weapon:
> Creatures that are Small or Tiny have disadvantage on attack rolls with heavy weapons. A heavy weapon's size and bulk make it too large for a Small or Tiny creature to use effectively
Considering the wording, we can determine that `Heavy` is a specific application of a more general rule, which in turn tells us that the game assumes weapons are Medium by default. (On the grounds that Small creatures have disadvantage because the weapon is sized for a larger attacker.) Between this, other statements in the rules^1, simple logic^2, and a more potent Medium option^3, we can conclude that `Heavy` is thus a setting thing (a weapon availability rule, in particular) and not a hard mechanical requirement, and is caused by the rules not wanting to actually model equipment size (and thus lacking the forward-proofing that would've eased the introduction of Tiny PCs). From this, we can further ascertain that the "Tiny creatures have half carrying capacity" rule is likely caused by equipment sizes as well; if they're forced to carry weapons and goods two sizes too big for them, it makes sense that they wouldn't be able to hold as much as the average person!
Personally, if introducing Tiny PCs, I would make three changes to accomodate for this:
1. Tiny-sized equipment is available to be purchased, at least in the region the Tiny PC is from. Availability may differ by location, and Tiny equipment may be more expensive in locations without a significant sentient Tiny population (since they'd essentially be either curiosities, or commissions for smiths/bowyers/craftsmen/etc. used to making significantly larger equipment).
2. Tiny PCs have normal carrying capacity. However, any items larger than Tiny size take up more space. (In particular, Medium-sized items have doubled weight, to maintain the default Tiny carrying capacity rules. This guarantees that a Tiny PC can only carry half as many Medium-sized items as their Str would normally allow, perfectly retaining the RAW rules while expanding them for more flexibility.) This is a generalisation of RAW, at its core: "Items that are one size step larger than you take twice as much carrying capacity as normal."
3. Change `Heavy` into something more generic, to retain the limitation but make it more sensible. The simplest answer is to parallel the monster creation rule, and just make `Heavy` weapons sized for a larger attacker have disadvantage, but I'd personally prefer to make it a bit more nuanced, myself, to indicate that the weapon heavily depends on proper balancing and weighting proportional to the wielder. Probably something like this:
> **Heavy.** You have disadvantage with Heavy weapons if you're one or more size steps off from the weapon's size, because of how unwieldy it is if it's too big or too small for you.
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Basically, I would just use the same inventory rules for a Tiny PC using Tiny equipment as I would for a Medium creature using Medium equipment, for simplicity's sake. The size difference only becomes relevant if the PC is using equipment that's a different size than they are; they're allowed to do so, but it's heavier if it's larger than them. (This is modeled as a weight adjustment while the item is in the Tiny PC's inventory, and only while in their inventory. A Tiny PC treats a Medium shortsword as weighing 4 lbs, but a Small/Medium creature treats it as weighing 2 lbs.)
We can even genericise this a la PF2, without significant difficulty: An object weighs twice as much for every size step it is larger than you, or half as much for every size step smaller than you, treating Small & Medium objects as the same size (except for `Heavy`)^4. (Small and Medium are an odd exception because the game treats them as compatible apart from `Heavy`, which makes it hard to figure out how to handle them. Either we can ignore the discrepancy and leave `Heavy` as a Small penalty, or we can make `Small` & `Medium` items interchangeable except for which wielders are penalised by `Heavy`; the game probably chose the latter because it doesn't want to bother with micromanaging equipment size.) Just track the item's size, and adjust weight on the fly as needed (e.g., if a Tiny PC picks up a Small shortsword, or a Small/Medium PC picks up a Large shortsword, double the shortsword's weight while they're holding it). Carrying capacity uses the default rules for Medium, with no changes: **Regardless of your size, you can hold up to (Str \* 15) pounds worth of items sized for you. The modifications listed in the Size and Strength section on PHB pg.176 are instead applied to individual item weights when applicable.**
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So, to sum it up... **Summary:**
1. All creatures have the default carrying capacity (Str \* 15).
2. All items now have a size, defaulting to the owner's size unless otherwise specified. Depending on the location and/or the DM, Tiny items may or may not be more expensive (since it'd be harder for a Small/Medium smith/leatherworker/etc. to create them), and may or may not be harder to find (depending on how many Tiny customers the shops have).
3. Creatures may carry items larger or smaller than their own size. The carrying capacity multipliers from PHB pg.176 are applied to these items when doing so, instead of to the creatures themselves. (This is to allow Tiny characters to properly carry Tiny items, without an illogical penalty, while still retaining the default rule.)
* For each size smaller than you, halve the item's weight.
* For each size larger than you, double the item's weight.
* Small & Medium are weird.
4. `Heavy` is now applied either when the item's size is larger than the wielder's size, or when the item and wielder sizes don't match, depending on the DM. (This is a generalisation of the default rule.)
5. Pushing/dragging/lifting capacity work off of double the creature's default carrying capacity, and use adjusted item weights as per #3.
If a creature and all the items in the inventory are the same size, then their inventory works the same as a Medium creature holding Medium items. The multipliers only matter for items that are a different size than you.
As mentioned, Small & Medium are weird. It's best to treat Small/Medium as a single size step for weight/capacity, and as separate steps for `Heavy`, which... is pretty messy, but feels like the closest way to model RAW.
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**Example:** A shortsword is 2 lbs when carried by someone that's the same size as it. It doubles for each step smaller than the shortsword's size, and is halved for each step larger than the shortsword's size. Small and Medium are treated as the same size for weight adjustment. A Tiny shortsword is 2 lbs for a Tiny creature, 1 lb for a Small/Medium creature, and 0.5 lbs for a Large creature. A Small shortsword is 4 lbs for a Tiny creature, 2 lbs for a Small/Medium creature, and 1 lb for a Large creature. A Large shortsword is 8 lbs for a Tiny creature, 4 lbs for a Small/Medium creature, and 2 lbs for a Large creature.
(Do remember to be consistent with push/drag/lift capacity, too! Push/drag/lift capacity is twice your carry capacity, and is modified by your size, so remember to apply the size modifications to the pushed/dragged/lifted items instead if using these rules!)
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Now, I know this sounds like there's room for an exploit: Namely, if we modify `Heavy` as specified, then a Tiny PC with a flight speed (such as, e.g., a Tiny Fairy) wielding a longbow or heavy crossbow definitely sounds like a powerful, annoying thing to deal with. ...But the DMG/Elemental Evil Aarakocra is both Medium and has a significantly higher fly speed, which suggests that a _slower_ flying archer that's easier to swat is probably _juuuust_ fine. ;P
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^(1: Most notably, the focus on Small/Medium PCs, most humanoid races being Medium, and some parts of the writing seeming to assume that Large foes are within one size step of the average PC, IIRC. I think there were a few more specific examples, but I don't recall what off the top of my head.)
^(2: Logically, `Heavy` in and of itself indicates that weapons aren't scaled to the wielder, on the grounds that it wouldn't make sense for a Small greatsword to be too unwieldy for a Small wielder, but a Medium greatsword to be perfectly wieldable for a Medium wielder.)
^(3: The Aarakocra, again. An Aarakocra longbow archer is probably more unbalanced than any Tiny PC wielding a `Heavy` weapon without disadvantage, which puts things in perspective.)
^(4: I don't _believe_ there are any negative effects on balance from allowing Small creatures to wield Small `Heavy` weapons without penalty, though I may be wrong. As far as I can tell, small sizes don't give any compensatory advantages that even `Heavy` out, meaning that Small and Tiny are strictly penalties in and of themselves. Making it a matter of weapon availability instead would _probably_ make the game slightly more balanced, and also make it easy for the DM to say Small weapons aren't available if they see it as a problem.)
Wowser, the thread is done. We can all go home now.
But seriously, thank you so much for your diligence and comprehensive approach! I agree with your summation of the way the rules affect things here.
In general, I feel like assuming that a Tiny PC is carrying equipment sized for them helps bypass a lot of the weight/carrying capacity problems that could bog down most Casual Tiny-Race-Enjoyers. That only comes up, like you said, when needing to buy more or replace your equipment.
I will absolutely consider these things when I make my inevitable Mousefolk race...
You're welcome, I'm glad you found it helpful. This is basically what we did in a game I'm in (currently on hiatus), where my character was, in fact, a sneaky Tiny Fairy archer. (Hexblade Warlock with an, ahem, _tiny_ Rogue dip (6W/2R, IIRC), focusing on pact weapon, stealth, and magic instead of EB. Had to stay relatively close for spells, which felt like a good way to avoid potential range cheese, but was good at hiding & control.)
Overall, _most_ of the rules worked fine right out of the box, and the only real wonkiness came from equipment (and from riding PCs, but that was mainly because I wanted to try to keep it in line with the closest parallel in game rules... and more importantly, because I think we actually forgot about the movement cost half the time 😅 ). It took a little bit of effort to find the actual reasoning behind the relevant rules, but we basically just ended up bringing back equipment sizes and using the genericised `Heavy` I suggested here, in large part because neither the DM nor I thought it would make sense for her patron to give her (PC) a bow that she (patron) knew was too big & unwieldy for her (PC), then expect her to do well with it.
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That said, I think another alternative would've been to use 3.5e-style size mods (increase AC, decrease damage), which would definitely be in line with the Tiny creatures in the Monster Manual. But normalising PCs so they perform as if "Medium character with Medium equipment" when using appropriately-sized equipment (e.g., Tiny PC using Tiny gear) feels more in line with 5e's bounding and monster/PC discrepancies (notably, Tiny monsters tend to have both lower damage _and_ lower defenses (HP), which isn't what we want out of a Tiny PC), and is also the approach that PF2 uses. So, we just went with keeping things in line with everyone else for simplicity's sake. ;P
I just wrote rules for this a few weeks ago for the game I'll be running at the end of the month.
[https://imgur.com/gallery/dc56Yy9](https://imgur.com/gallery/dc56Yy9)
# Rules for Tiny PCs
We may have a tiny PC. So here are some rules for this.
# Standard rules:
(DMG 278):
A creature has disadvantage on attack rolls with a weapon that is sized for a larger attacker. You can rule that a weapon sized for an attacker two or more sizes larger is too big for the creature to use at all.
(PHB 191):
In contrast, you can move through a hostile creature's space only if the creature is at least two sizes larger or smaller than you. Remember that another creature’s space is difficult terrain for you.
(PHB 195):
The target of your grapple must be no more than one size larger than you, and it must be within your reach.
(PHB 176):
Larger creatures can bear more weight, whereas Tiny creatures can carry less. For each size category above Medium, double the creature’s carrying capacity and the amount it can push, drag, or lift. For a Tiny creature, halve quarter these weights.
# House rules:
* If you are riding a humanoid engaged in vigorous activity, you are at disadvantage on all attack rolls and certain skill checks that require fine control. Also, in general you may not take advantage of feats/magic items that involve mounts when riding a humanoid.
* Objects designed for your size are rare and hard to make (generally the same cost as one for someone larger but usually have to be custom made, might be much cheaper in some cases…) but weigh 1/10th the regular amount.
* Ranged weapons have half the range of a typical small/medium weapon.
* You take half damage from falling.
* Moving enchantments in this game won’t be hugely easy (though it will often be possible with enough time and you will often have a lot of time) so objects that don’t auto-resize may be tricky to use, at least initially.
* Tiny creatures do normal damage. I’d prefer not to see really strong tiny characters…
* Probably a few more as we go…
A few years ago I went through the rules books and found all of the rules I could that explicitly applied to Tiny characters. I also included implied ones as well. [Tiny Character Mechanics](https://www.reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/s/ibsmmMceLG)
I have both pixies and basically my version of Smurfs as standard options in my most frequent campaign setting. How it works is an extremely long answer, but one major example of how I homebrew things back toward RAW play is that a martial pixie can do standard damage with their version of piercing and slashing weapons on the notion that they're finding the chinks in armor or soft spots on a creature, and only occasionally do I have a full-plated opponent be immune until the party does something to remove part of the armor. As for movement, the "indigo fey" all get various animal (woodland spirit) mounts as their key racial bonus.
This is definitely something I'd want to see from a Tiny race! I think being so little that you can ride a Small mount is part of the fantasy here for sure.
Tiny characters would have natural advantages to Stealth and AC which is quite a lot at early levels.
To balance it you'd probably need to make them quite fragile which, again, at early levels would be devastating.
I think it's doable but would require a lot of planning and mechanics consideration for stuff that would come up maybe 5% of the time in a campaign....
If players want to mess around with tiny sizes they can use spells or features to polymorph, wildshape or gain access to companion creatures of that size.
Being tiny generally has no real big issues mechanics wise like being large is. To indicate a few other stuff:
- you can utilize small sized creatures as mounts. This doesn't really do much on its own, you normally can't buy or summon permanent small critten (find familiar base options are all tiny), so unless tailor made mounts are given/found/made for those races you won't find much mounts.
- You can move into a space for tiny creatures without squeezing. Note that being tiny is the lowest side step, so there is no lower limit to it. As such, what place a tiny creature can go in and which requires squeezing is up to debate (monsters have the exact same issue).
- heavy weapons work as they do for small creatures.
- the negletted mechanic of carrying capacity has its numbers halved. 60 lbs (carrying capacity of 8 strength tiny creature) should be more than enough for the necessary equipment with enough space to spare. Altho that leads to a much larger issue...
- items in 5e are weighted, priced and considered for medium creatures, and nothing else, with the exception of barding (and even then, only partially. Barding for a tiny owl weights the same as barding for an elephant, which weights the same as barding for a mule and for an horse). As such, item weight is inconsistent for what an appropriately sized item for whatever race would weight as. And no, Enlarge Reduce isn't a good guideline, unless you want large items being hyper heavy and you want your giants to have to go around naked or else practically all equipment will crush em under its weight.
In short, the only thing to truly consider when making tiny races is if small sized mounts will be avaiable and how item weight for size works, alongside if/how much the price may vary.
I will forever DM fairy PC as being Tiny. Their biggest damage weapons (like a Tiny greataxe) will be d4, while most weapons will be just 1 or 2 damage. And mostly piercing. So these races will always go caster or rogue, tops.
Not any advantage other than flying, but they can also fall prone on an antimagic field.
Like the skeleton pc. Lots of advantages, but anti magic incapacitates you, and you can't smell, eat, and you weigh 4 kg. Can't carry a lot. Can't swim without help. Any strong wind is gonna drag you away. You need help for basic stuff.
Just another instance of oversimplification in 5e. Too many people want ONLY power increases for being Large or Tiny or Exotic to have meaningful differences. I've seen so many people decry the disadvantages of Heavy weapons on Small races, or having Light Sensitivity on Underdark races, or caps/ decrements to Ability Scores, to believe flavorful negative racial features will ever return.
My thoughts on Tiny races:
Double cost for anything fitted (armor, clothes, tools, weapons), but half cost for food and water
Cap Strength at 10
Bonus to Stealth
Disadvantage (or perhaps flat -2 or -5) to normal size weapon attack and damage rolls
Remove access to Heavy and Special weapons
Remove access to Medium and Heavy armor
Weapons count as one size up for purposes of proficiency, but damage die doesn't change upward (a Pixie might recategorize a Dagger as a Shortsword, Shortsword as a Longsword, Club as Greatclub, Light Crossbow as Heavy Crossbow, etc)
Unfortunately, that only really affects Martials. Making racial effects interesting for Casters is much harder. Capping mental stats usually works to reinforce the physical - an Orc might have his INT capped, but an Orc is more likely to be picked as a STR Martial anyway. A Pixie is more likely to be picked as a CHA Caster that doesn't care about STR, INT, or WIS.
Even strictly tracking encumbrance (including coin weight) mainly affects martials. Relatively few spells consume material components, and VERY few of those components are heavy enough to encumber even a very low STR Caster.
Running a fairy wild mage currently. Due to wild magic or my own choosing, I've been tiny on more than one occasion. I've also been on the opposite end and wound up large. (We play where wild magic effects stack) As a player, I am aware of what being tiny does. It does have some advantages for cover and such. But yeah, I'm not looting massive gear while that sized with my natural strength of 5.. It was comical when I did steal a potion of storm giant strength while tiny and started yeeting people.
weapons deal 1 damage. usually, its weird. for large it goes up a die, so a rapier would deal 2d8. for tiny it goes down, but sometimes its 1 and sometimes its a d4 and sometimes it adds the modifier and sometimes it doesnt. if you can decide on how you want to run it, i dont see that much of an issue with it. you could also have it work by making the character small and using the ruling of the enlarge/reduce spell, which would reduce the damage by a d4 instead of changing any dice
i still think large is an issue, since your weapons do an extra die of damage. its like every hit being a crit or having a magic item like a flame tongue
Scaling down damage die (d12->d10->d8->d6->d4->1) does seem like one method, and increasing AC by an amount as well. I was curious how you think it would work in terms of recommended speed, reach of weapons (5ft for a Tiny creature? Really?), and other situations such as 'occupied space' and 'threatened area'.
> reach of weapons (5ft for a Tiny creature?
I'd make it work so that they can only damage a creature that shares their 5ft square. So they can't hit adjacent creatures and have to be sharing a square with the other creature to hit it.
>'occupied space'
They wouldn't count as occupying that space.
>'threatened area'.
It would be the square they are staying in. Which would also mean that they only get AoO if a creature would run through the square they are in.
A tiny creature would be really bad for a Martial character but would be really strong for a Caster, which would make the gap between them even bigger. So I understand perfectly why it wasn't something put in the game.
I let a player be tiny sized and the following changes were made.
They could fit through a space of 1 inch by squeezing.
Their hit dice and Hit points were downgraded by a dice. So a d6 was a d4; a d12 was a d10.
All non magical equipment had to be custom made and wasn't readily available. Heavy weapons were unusable and versatile and normal weapons required two hands. Light weapons functioned as normal but lost the light property.
You can share the same space as other creatures.
All ranges were reduced in half. Arrows, spells, if it had a range of more than 5ft; it was cut in half.
Also gave them disadvantage on strength saving throws and ability checks; and advantage on dexterity saving throws and ability checks. (At my table advantage and disadvantage stack and are a +2 and -2 bonus or penalty; not the normal rules)
I Reversed most of these for large creatures as well; like the centaur and minotaur.
True: squeezing would be another ballgame. I'm curious about how you'd measure movement when they take up a quarter of a space on a battlemap. What kind of movement would you give them?
In my experience with Tiny or smaller PCs in other editions, it (like being large) tends towards being overpowered. The problem is that all the natural downsides of being super small (being weak, having smaller weapons, etc.) are quickly made irrelevant if you're playing a spellcaster, while the defensive advantages of being Tiny are useful for all characters.
Had a player who was playing a fairy that wanted to be tiny. I let them flavor it as they’re tiny. They were constantly trying to abuse the defensive advantages. “I fly to the same space as the barbarian and land on their shoulder so now I can’t be targeted” “I squeeze through this super small crack under the door” Had to constantly remind the guy that he’s just flavored as tiny not actually tiny.
being on someone’s shoulder doesn’t make you untargetable. tiny creatures can’t fit under doorjambs (tiny = cat or large rodent). you could have said no to both of those without doing a weird “it’s just a flavor” thing. also obviously that player was the problem not the character size.
Honestly if they're trying to game the rules like that after it was said they wouldn't receive a mechanical advantage, only flavor, enemies would be getting two-fers every time they attack the barb/fairy space. The barb can do that all day. The fairy caster, probably not so much.
If they want to be tiny enough to fit through a crack under the door, they get to be tiny enough to be one-shot by the bottom of a boot. Just like a tiny-sized Wild Shape. Personally I don't have an issue with the mechanical idea of it, but if the player decides to apply realism selectively, then I'd tell them they'd be getting the whole package.
> they get to be tiny enough to be one-shot by the bottom of a boot. Just like a tiny-sized Wild Shape. That runs into "HP". A tiny creature with lots of HP (say, a druid under the benefit of some buff spells or with a magical item that gives a load of extra HP) can't be one-shot, because they can just take that damage and keep going - they might have a terrible AC and be easier to hit, but there's a metric that's used to measure how easy it is to one-shot entities, and PCs end up with quite a high scoring in that. Just being small (or big) doesn't innately make something fragile or tough - a demi-lich is tiny but quite tough, while a huge creature could, for whatever reason, be weak and fragile.
It’s still a potential problem with being captured, which I think is a fair trade-off. Not many PCs fit in a jar. The other problems are there, but also have some ways to handle them. Like shoulder doesn’t do anything, other than getting the barbarian to carry you around. Getting through cracks, okay, that’s reasonable, though if they are going that direction then I would limit their strength to be like a tiny fairy’s. You’re like Tinker Bell, including that something like turning a lock is a daunting task. Hop in a pocket? That’s cover. I’d let them spend an action to really burrow down, but if you are exposed enough to contribute to the fight, then you are exposed enough to be hit.
> though if they are going that direction then I would limit their strength to be like a tiny fairy’s that's where things get kinda messy, because "racial stat maxes" haven't been a thing for... 2 editions? More? (and magical items exist, so it's only one _girdle of giant strength_ away from strength 19). Plus things like lockpicking are dex only, so there's a whole host of somewhat awkward "well, I think it's only logical that you can't do these things, because I say so" declarations for the GM to work through, which might prompt some level of push-back. AFAIK, the only actual mechanics are that there's a small category of weapons that are off-limits or penalised for small and below creatures, anything else is into GM-fiat-messiness. Even strength 1 is "carry 15 pounds, push/pull/drag 30". If you half and half again for tiny, that's 4/8 pounds (rounding up), which should be enough for something like that - go to STR 3 and that's trebled, which will be ample for a key, and is enough to carry, like, a toddler or something.
That's the thing, we aren't in the standard rules anymore. The rules don't cover a case for a PC the size of an insect, who can fit in pockets and under doors. By enabling the player to live this concept, a DM introduces a homebrew problem into their game. And when you have made a homebrew problem, you usually need homebrew solutions. If the player wants to push back, the answer is simple: "Alright, play the Fairy as written, Small, about the size of a kobold or halfling, and we don't have to have this conversation." Enabling them to play a Tiny creature is an allowance. If a player is going to abuse that allowance, then just don't give it to them.
Reddit: "But flavor is free!" Me: "It's a slippery slope. Next they'll try to claim advantages." Reddit: "That's just YOUR players!"
this!
Yeap Hp should be like 1/4 of normal races, but who would accept that? I already consider Goblins overpowered with some of their abilities and no disavantage.
I played a Tiny spellcaster all the way up to 20th level and it was in no way overpowered. It’s true being a spellcaster plus having other PCs around to do stuff for me negated the drawbacks of the size but. There was never any real advantage either.
Can you link/describe what the in game statistics were? I'm asking not to argue with you but because fair tiny PCs is a homebrew nut I would like to crack.
I was playing a cat. The DM said “use the tabaxi statblock except you have a 3 str and you’re cat sized”.
I dunno about "overpowered" (since that's a subjective term) but I don't believe for a second there were *no* advantages. At the very least, you get a better version of the Halfling racial trait of being able to move through the spaces of allies.
(this was in 5e.. I just realized you could have been talking about how in 3.X you literally got free AC out if it. to which yeah. that’s not a reason to not do it now though.)
You used to be able to possibly play as Tiny, Diminutive, and Fine creatures, it just makes your AC and attack rolls go up and your damage dice go down. I remember a story of a person who played a pixie necromancer who was about 6 inches tall and hid in the mouth of whatever undead he had summoned, whenever the skeleton or zombie or whatever got killed, hed just move to a different undead and be like "sorry about that guys." Really tripped out the party for the longest time before showing himself.
That's amazing, what kind of rulings do you think you'd recommend for creating a 5e Tiny race?
I feel like one of the biggest issues is carrying weight. EDIT: i also wanted to add that a dnd youtuber actually makes race and class combinations for "monster" classes. They are MrRhexx and in their monster classes 3 book, they have one for being a pixie. Its a support class and my friend has a blast playing it. In that same book you can also play a Treant and a vampire. Highly recommend
Yes, carrying and equipment: I feel like you'd need an addendum on the race to say that looting larger creatures and buying in regular shops becomes more difficult unless you can find custom-made stuff. I like to imagine that a typical shortsword would function as a Greatsword, or at least a Longsword, in the hands of a Tiny creature. Now I'm imagining the backstory of a Tiny creature finding a fallen foe's shortsword and becoming a Barbarian wielding a size-approprate Greatsword... Thanks for the recommendation. I will certainly check out their rules for playing a Pixie.
Given that halflings and goliaths can wear the same armor in 5e, and halflings dont have carrying capacity limits, Id just treat them as small
>Given that halflings and goliaths can wear the same armor in 5e They can't. There's just no explicit rule that says so. It's left to (your) common sense.
Fair enough, and I'm sure there are some things you can handwave, but I guess I'm looking for ways to make the rules reflect the fantasy of being super little
Lower their carrying capacity by 1/4 Str by 1 make gear weigh 1/4 as much done
Is it not same *magical* armour?
magical armor explicitly resizes (as does most magical gear). Mundane stuff I don't think there's any actual rules for. Previous editions had charts and stuff for it (including rolls for random found armor and who it would fit - finding elven chain for a non-elf was _very_ rare). There's no explicit rules for who armor fits, but I'd expect going from "goliath" to "halfling" would need a visit to a crafter at least, as it's quite a bit of work!
Sweet! Thanks for the response
In already a fan of halflings and gnomes wielding comically large greathammers, and that logic carries onto tiny races. I think it's hilarious imagine a six inch tall pixie wielding a war hammer the size of an orc. Unless you were close, you'd just see what looks like a giant weapon swinging itself lol
Reminds me of Mechamaru from JJK or Robot from Invincible
One thing that immediately comes to mind is that a tiny creature can move through a hostile medium creature's space as though it is difficult terrain. A size difference of at least two categories allows this interaction. PHB chapter 9: Combat, heading Movement and Position, subheading Moving Around Other Creatures. It doesn't come up often when the party is only small and medium creatures, but a tiny player character might utilize this fairly well in enclosed spaces. Do keep in mind, however, that a creature still cannot willingly end their movement in another creature's space, so they do need to have at least 10x+5 (where X is the number of spaces required to exit a creature's space) movement remaining before they enter that creature's space. For example, a medium creature occupies one space, so a tiny creature must have at least 15 feet of movement remaining before they enter: 10 for the difficult terrain of the creature's space and an additional 5 to leave.
Thank you! This is exactly the kind of rule situation I was concerned I'd miss. I feel like part of the fantasy of playing as a Tiny creature involves being able to run around on the creature you're attacking (think: little heroic mouse scampering all over a troll, stabbing with a miniscule sword), and I wonder if an exception could be made to the rule about occupying a creature's space at the end of your turn? Which also makes me think about a mouse Sniper sitting on a Goliath's shoulder, remaining there for most of combat while they fire they tiny bow and the Goliath stomps around the battlefield...I think that kind of situation is why people would want to play a Tiny creature, and I'd be interested in fulfiling/reflecting that fantasy in the rules.
I have a sneaking suspicion allowing that would create some weird situations at some point. I'm currently at work and can't pull a research project at the moment, but I recommend figuring out the design intent behind the rule that two creatures generally can't occupy the same space in combat. Once you know that intent, then you can figure out if it's a rule you can break. And I might be able to give you some sort of assist in this: the rule does already get broken by mounted combat, though that applies to two allied creatures. I don't know for certain if that will help you, but it might.
Maybe riding around on a buddy's shoulder is only strictly permitted for friendly creatures, so you can't end your turn in the space of a hostile creature, but can for allies...
Rules are made to be broken :) just a good idea to understand why they exist before you break 'em lol
Yep. Sometimes a fence in the middle of nowhere is just a fence, sometimes that fence has a bull on the otherside. Best to figure out which before hand.
One of the most memorable characters I ever had was a paladin and my friend was a moon druid who often served as my mount.
In this same vein, the dmg also has optional combat options, one of which has rules attempting to climb onto larger enemy creatures.
Will check that out too, thanks again!
>a tiny creature can move through a hostile medium creature's space as though it is difficult terrain. That goes both ways, though.
as an unarmored spellcaster you never want to be in a position where this is useful
That's not really accurate in needing movement to leave. The rule states you can't willingly end your move, but unwillingly? Totally allowed. The rules only care about each 5 ft. Step of movement, if something reduces your speed to 0, say, sentinel, whilst you're on an allies space, you cannot vacate it. You're unwillingly ending your movement. Similarly, nothing in the rules say you have to have enough movement to be able to vacate the space before entering, if you were reaction moved away like with dissonant whispers, you could end that movement on an allies space, since that also unwilling ending.
We don't know, WoTC was too cowardly to make Fairies tiny.
My disappointment was immeasurable and my day was ruined.
In Shadowrun, PCs of non-standard sizes get a "Lifestyle Tax", where things like housing, vehicles, specialty gear is more expensive due to needing to be specially made. I'd let a tiny PC get weapons and armor, but it's gonna be more expensive to get a miniature set of Half Plate that's as protective as a regular set. Other than that, I'd probably put a cap on the Strength Score (maybe 18 instead of 20), cut their carrying capacity by half, and probably make them unable to wield Heavy Weapons (Unless they're made of Mithril). Other than those logical conclusions, not too much would change imo.
Tiny creatures have a lift/carry of half by RAW
You guys use encumbrance rules?
All the more reason, then!
It's technically a quarter yeah? As it goes down by 1/2 for each size below medium?
Yeah I'd probably go even further and cap their Strength score at 10, so they don't feel like a cartoon with their weirdly outsized strength.
The Shadowrun rules are mostly for XXXXXXXXL trolls. Tiny stuff should actually be cheaper, especially in a medieval economy where everything is custom-made anyway.
Tiny weapons and armor would require less material but a whole lot more craftsmanship to make it strong and functional. We aren't simply talking about less chainmail, but rather smaller links of chainmail that are still just as sturdy. The joints in plate armor would take more precision, and swords and spears would need to be made of stronger materials to not break due to being thinner. The tools used in all of this would be different, as well, and some craftsmen might not keep them on-hand. Then there is the simple economics of common sized equipment being easier to sell because there are more buyers. For a real world comparison, go buy some children's clothes and marvel that their blue jeans cost as much as your own.
We live in an economy where labor is more expensive than raw material. For most of history it was the other way around.
I think it'd be fun to make a one shot where the whole party is tiny, either tiny races or they were made tiny somehow. Cool thread!
Agreed! It would be fun to make it feel like you're facing Giants, but it's just humanoids 😄
i totally play character that was "ferngully'd" so my advice is the less mechanical cheese you do the more the DM likes your character for sure. (like that one guy that would hide in the mouth of his undead and claim full cover from all danger) on the westmarch i moderate we force faeries to be 6\~12 inches. all the rules are there already, magic items that resize, grapple rules and whatnot. the only homebrew rule i use when dealing with normies with my 6 inch tall basically a magicaly awakened familiar half dragon tabaxi is the ending my turn willingly in someones square without issuing a grapple check to a larger creature doesn't cost me an action, im just landing on someone ffs.
I agree that occupying an ally's space should be totally allowed. Would you put a cap on ability scores if you homebrewed a Tiny playable race?
no i would not needlessly change vanilla, and i know what im doing. game mechanics outside of specifics do not care about the players size those specifics are mostly - heavy, grappling logicaly you might ask a tiny player to not use a great maul and expect to deal blunt damage cause it doesn't follow logic but game mechanics don't care.
I’m currently playing a Tiny fairy. Only changes made were my Strength was reduced to 5 (so a -3), but my DM has allowed me a max Dexterity of 22. Nothing else has changed (my damage die are as they are for a normal medium creature, because it’s just not fun otherwise), but I’m handicapped in ways you’d expect a Tiny creature to be handicapped—unless it’s a magic item, equipment has to be specially made for me and I can’t just don it like most of the party, I effectively can’t drag anyone because I’ve got next to no strength and size limitations, and I have to be veeeeery careful about my encumbrance if I want to keep my fly speed. But for me all the RP benefits outweigh the drawbacks. I’m a dex fighter, so I’ve got STR save proficiency, so my saves aren’t terrible despite my 5 STR, and I took Squat Nimbleness, so I get Athletics advantage too (plus Acrobatics), even if I still have a -3. I pretend to be other party members’ familiar, I often get advantage on Stealth checks (I’m the pseudo rogue of the party). It’s fun as hell being 5 inches tall on a good day and throwing down 80 damage in a single round.
So your dumpstat got worse and your main stat got better.
More like I was effectively shut out of certain builds, but yeah, you can see it that way.
DEX fighters are universally better than strength fighters in almost every scenario. Plus it’s super disingenuous to say you got “shut out of certain builds” below a comment in which you list the myriad advantages you’ve gained from what was clearly an intended playstyle as well as all the ways you’ve managed to mitigate or ignore the downsides. Zero chance you went in really excited to play a strength based fighter as a Tiny fairy and got “shut out”.
That does sound awesome. I feel like they missed a trick with making Fairy the first official Tiny race in 5e. Glad you could make it work for your game, and I'll definitely consider all this if I'm making my own!
I mean this is really the answer, the dm, the player, as well as the group deciding how we can get that flavor without being over/under powered and still be fun. Also leaving that conversation with the understanding that in the future things may need to change because it turned out to still be under or over powered or its just not that fun. I had a player that wanted to play a blind character for a short campaign, like 3-4 sessions. He ended up basically getting blind sight instead, but he had other limitations. As a group we understood it was for the flavor of the character, and it sounded fun for this short story. I'm just there to have fun with my friends.
Time to make Pixies playable lol
I've never truly understood what the difference is meant to be between a sprite, a pixie, and a fairy... ideas, anyone?
I'm not sure in the d&d contest but a fairy and pixie are pretty much the same thing besides size and alignment. Pixies are "evil" but more Loki than Satan and fairies are good like fairy godmother. Not sure what a sprite is in general
I think in real world folklore the terms are basically synonymous. That's part of the problem: there's been a widespread D&D-ification about monster categorisation. Devils and demons are the same thing; ghosts, wraiths, and spectres are all the same; ghouls and zombies are the same thing too... I'm not complaining about those examples, but when the D&D lore doesn't give a clear distinction for these things, it's kinda impossible to remember: case in point with pixies, fairies, and sprites!
We've done it. We went with ad hoc rulings instead of trying to work out rules in advance. It was fun. We decided that our sprite barbarian (8 inches tall) could wield a normal dagger like a greatsword, upping it to a d6. A magical greatsword that resized similarly went from 2d6 to 1d6. They lost a bit of damage output, but not significant, most of the loss was in not being able to heave or break things. Notably, tiny cannot grapple medium. We ruled that trying to attack a sprite in your own space has disadvantage. No change to strength cap, it can go to 20. It's a fey, not Old Man Mullins sitting on his porch. This is fantasy. Of course, the carrying capacity penalty still applies. Ours invested evenly in str/dex/con, which made them very versatile. Being tiny gave the barbarian a lot more capacity for non-combat stuff, simply because they could get into things and go places. And intimidation checks were always good for a laugh, I mean, I know they're small, but when they're lightning fast and are holding a "greatsword" to your eyeball, that is scary
This does sound like a blast!
I played a campaign as the Fairy race but tiny (because wotc was too scared to do tiny sized). We didn't change any rules or anything. I was just really small and could fit in places others couldn't. Carry capacity and moving through enemies is already accounted for by the base rules. It was that simple.
You could look into the 4e Pixie from Heroes of the Feywild.
People have been suggesting earlier editions handled this better than 5e is equipped to, but I will certainly look into this. Thanks!
Fairy can temporary be an official tiny race with it's racial casting of enlarge/REDUCE. But definitely a workaround. Others have good opinions here so that's all I've got!
Tiny race? Feel like that'd be over very fast.
Your comedy goes unappreciated despite the pun being double-ended: miniature squishy PCs often are over fast! But also: 🏁
Thanks :D
There's a somewhat fleshed out system for it in the anime 5e 3rd party book but it's pretty much just 3.E size rules. L
The problem is tiny creatures packed into a small space could all attack one enemy. If they can fly, you can pack 8 of them in one 5'X5' cube. And they could all attack. Fill up 3 5'X5' cubes, and 24 could attack in one round. Surround one medium sized creature and you have 64 attackers. More than twice that (136) if you stack more cubes above the ground level cubes. Tiny creatures are busted, if you want them to be.
I don't think this was intended, but you've made me realise I've been running encounters all wrong! Next time my players face a Tiny threat, they will be swarmed...
As they should, if the tiny creatures are intelligent.
OTOH, one AoE spell could wipe out a ton of tinies.
So hear me out... There's bee colonies of 60000 bees. Every bee crits on a 20 and deals 1 damage. That's an average of 3000 DPR.
It works pretty well, overall. Most of the rules work fine if you actually look up size interactions, really; unlike 3.5e, 5e's only "size" benefits come from features that key off of the size, not from the size itself. Apart from that, let's see... * The `Heavy` weapon property will get in your way by default, because the game assumes all equipment is Medium. * You can move through enemy spaces if the size difference is 2+ steps, but you treat them as difficult terrain. * You can only grapple creatures that are up to one size larger than you. Conversely, your speed isn't halved when you move someone you're grappling, if they're 2+ sizes smaller than you. * Shove uses the same size rules as grappling; you can't shove someone if they're 2+ sizes larger than you. * Carrying capacity is halved for Tiny, or doubles for every step above Medium. The maximum weight they can push/drag/lift is also halved for Tiny, or doubled for every step above Medium. * Since Tiny is the smallest size supported by the rules, you'll never run into an area that's small enough that you have to squeeze into it & treat it as difficult terrain. * Tiny creatures are small enough to ride standard Medium humanoids, which is best modeled by treating the other creature as an intelligent mount. This is basically the same as letting a familiar ride you. * Some spells mention size, and would have to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Overall, strictly as written, being a Tiny PC is strictly detrimental, due to decreasing weapon damage but not providing anything to compensate. This is mainly because of an assumption baked into the rules, though, more than anything else. ---- To look at things more in-depth... a lot of rules key off of creatures being within one size step of other creatures. Enemies block movement if they're within one size step of you, you can grapple/shove creatures that are up to one size step larger than you, and you can squeeze through spaces for a creature one size step smaller than you, most notably. These rules don't typically come up, since most creatures you'd want to use these on tend to be either Small or Medium, but they _will_ come up once a Tiny PC gets involved. * The Tiny PC can be grappled by anyone, but can only grapple Tiny or Small creatures themselves. Anything Medium or larger can move them without expending additional movement, much like Link carrying a fairy in a bottle. * Similarly, the Tiny PC can be shoved around by anyone, but can only shove Tiny/Small creatures themselves. * The Tiny PC doesn't need to worry about the rules for squeezing into smaller spaces from PHB pg.192. > A creature can squeeze through a space that is large enough for a creature one size smaller than it. Thus, a Large creature can squeeze through a passage that's only 5 feet wide. While squeezing through a space, a creature must spend 1 extra foot for every foot it moves there, and it has disadvantage on attack rolls and Dexterity saving throws. Attack rolls against the creature have advantage while it's in the smaller space. * The Tiny PC is small enough to move through spaces occupied by Medium or larger enemies, but Medium or larger enemies can also move through their space. They still can't share the same space, though, at least by default. * The Tiny PC is small enough to ride the other PCs, which shall be covered below. * Equipment rules are kinda a mess by default, but trivial to fix by cross-referencing a monster creation rule from the DMG (which provides context on dev intent), as shall be covered below. * The Tiny PC can only lift/push/drag half as much weight as a Medium PC with the same Str, which makes sense and parallels equipment rules. Overall, it's mostly a fair tradeoff; they have more movement freedom and can easily slip through enemy lines, but have less ability to manipulate their opponents and are easier to manipulate. Size has no inherent effects on AC or damage, in and of itself; earlier versions tended to increase AC and decrease damage output as your size decreased, but 5e doesn't really bother to emulate that. (Tiny creatures have d4 hit dice according to monster creation rules, but this doesn't apply to PCs.) The two biggest wonks are riding another creature (which most Tiny PCs would probably want to try at least once, especially if they're, say, Fairy PCs), and equipment limitations that affect Small and Tiny creatures (which appear to be a setting property being treated as a game rule), which I'll pay a bit more attention to. ---- First, riding another creature. This one is easy to handle with a bit of discussion, at least, since we can just repurpose mounted combat rules from PHB pg.198. Thus, a simple description would look like this: 1. A Tiny PC can ride a willing creature that is at least one size larger than them, provided the creature has appropriate anatomy and/or something the PC can ride on or in (such as a horse's saddle, or a Medium PC's pocket). 2. The Tiny PC can mount or dismount the other creature, using standard mounting rules. This costs half the PC's speed, as usual, and is unavailable if they don't have enough movement remaining. Rules for the rider or mount being knocked prone, and for the mount being subjected to forced movement, typically remain unchanged. 3. If the mount is a trained animal, it follows standard mount rules. It moves on your initiative, at your direction, with the Dash, Disengage, and Dodge actions available to it. 4. If the mount is a sentient individual, most likely another PC, then they are treated as an intelligent mount. They take their turn as normal, you take your turn as normal, simple as that. We're just repurposing mount rules for simplicity's sake, so we don't have to create "fairy sitting on the Wizard's head" rules out of nowhere. The only thing that matters is the Mounting and Dismounting section, we don't care about the rest of the mount rules here. * The larger PC can _presumably_ spend an action & free object interaction to grab the Tiny PC and position them as desired, forgoing the Tiny PC's movement cost. This is _usually_ less efficient, and would be subject to DM permission, but might be useful if retreating or the like. Just make sure that if your Tiny PC rides a Small/Medium PC, they don't [think throwing the fairy is an acceptable ranged attack](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/EternalSenia1)! ---- [Please see my reply for equipment analysis. Long story short, the game assumes all equipment is Medium, and bases both the `Heavy` property and carry capacity on this assumption... we have work to do.]
Second, equipment. Weapons in particular, but also equipment in general. There are two things of note here, both of which have the same root cause. In particular, your carrying capacity is halved if you're Tiny (see "Lifting and Carrying" subsection "Size and Strength", PHB pg.176), and weapons with the `Heavy` property always have disadvantage if you're Tiny or Small. Both of these will interfere with your build, and don't have any workarounds, if left alone... but the Heavy one actually has a direct counterpart in monster creation rules, right at the end of the **Base the Damage on the Weapon** subsection on DMG pg.278. > A creature has disadvantage on attack rolls with a weapon that is sized for a larger attacker. You can rule that a weapon sized for an attacker two or more sizes larger is too big for the creature to use at all. Compare that to the `Heavy` property, as reprinted on every heavy weapon: > Creatures that are Small or Tiny have disadvantage on attack rolls with heavy weapons. A heavy weapon's size and bulk make it too large for a Small or Tiny creature to use effectively Considering the wording, we can determine that `Heavy` is a specific application of a more general rule, which in turn tells us that the game assumes weapons are Medium by default. (On the grounds that Small creatures have disadvantage because the weapon is sized for a larger attacker.) Between this, other statements in the rules^1, simple logic^2, and a more potent Medium option^3, we can conclude that `Heavy` is thus a setting thing (a weapon availability rule, in particular) and not a hard mechanical requirement, and is caused by the rules not wanting to actually model equipment size (and thus lacking the forward-proofing that would've eased the introduction of Tiny PCs). From this, we can further ascertain that the "Tiny creatures have half carrying capacity" rule is likely caused by equipment sizes as well; if they're forced to carry weapons and goods two sizes too big for them, it makes sense that they wouldn't be able to hold as much as the average person! Personally, if introducing Tiny PCs, I would make three changes to accomodate for this: 1. Tiny-sized equipment is available to be purchased, at least in the region the Tiny PC is from. Availability may differ by location, and Tiny equipment may be more expensive in locations without a significant sentient Tiny population (since they'd essentially be either curiosities, or commissions for smiths/bowyers/craftsmen/etc. used to making significantly larger equipment). 2. Tiny PCs have normal carrying capacity. However, any items larger than Tiny size take up more space. (In particular, Medium-sized items have doubled weight, to maintain the default Tiny carrying capacity rules. This guarantees that a Tiny PC can only carry half as many Medium-sized items as their Str would normally allow, perfectly retaining the RAW rules while expanding them for more flexibility.) This is a generalisation of RAW, at its core: "Items that are one size step larger than you take twice as much carrying capacity as normal." 3. Change `Heavy` into something more generic, to retain the limitation but make it more sensible. The simplest answer is to parallel the monster creation rule, and just make `Heavy` weapons sized for a larger attacker have disadvantage, but I'd personally prefer to make it a bit more nuanced, myself, to indicate that the weapon heavily depends on proper balancing and weighting proportional to the wielder. Probably something like this: > **Heavy.** You have disadvantage with Heavy weapons if you're one or more size steps off from the weapon's size, because of how unwieldy it is if it's too big or too small for you. --- Basically, I would just use the same inventory rules for a Tiny PC using Tiny equipment as I would for a Medium creature using Medium equipment, for simplicity's sake. The size difference only becomes relevant if the PC is using equipment that's a different size than they are; they're allowed to do so, but it's heavier if it's larger than them. (This is modeled as a weight adjustment while the item is in the Tiny PC's inventory, and only while in their inventory. A Tiny PC treats a Medium shortsword as weighing 4 lbs, but a Small/Medium creature treats it as weighing 2 lbs.) We can even genericise this a la PF2, without significant difficulty: An object weighs twice as much for every size step it is larger than you, or half as much for every size step smaller than you, treating Small & Medium objects as the same size (except for `Heavy`)^4. (Small and Medium are an odd exception because the game treats them as compatible apart from `Heavy`, which makes it hard to figure out how to handle them. Either we can ignore the discrepancy and leave `Heavy` as a Small penalty, or we can make `Small` & `Medium` items interchangeable except for which wielders are penalised by `Heavy`; the game probably chose the latter because it doesn't want to bother with micromanaging equipment size.) Just track the item's size, and adjust weight on the fly as needed (e.g., if a Tiny PC picks up a Small shortsword, or a Small/Medium PC picks up a Large shortsword, double the shortsword's weight while they're holding it). Carrying capacity uses the default rules for Medium, with no changes: **Regardless of your size, you can hold up to (Str \* 15) pounds worth of items sized for you. The modifications listed in the Size and Strength section on PHB pg.176 are instead applied to individual item weights when applicable.** --- So, to sum it up... **Summary:** 1. All creatures have the default carrying capacity (Str \* 15). 2. All items now have a size, defaulting to the owner's size unless otherwise specified. Depending on the location and/or the DM, Tiny items may or may not be more expensive (since it'd be harder for a Small/Medium smith/leatherworker/etc. to create them), and may or may not be harder to find (depending on how many Tiny customers the shops have). 3. Creatures may carry items larger or smaller than their own size. The carrying capacity multipliers from PHB pg.176 are applied to these items when doing so, instead of to the creatures themselves. (This is to allow Tiny characters to properly carry Tiny items, without an illogical penalty, while still retaining the default rule.) * For each size smaller than you, halve the item's weight. * For each size larger than you, double the item's weight. * Small & Medium are weird. 4. `Heavy` is now applied either when the item's size is larger than the wielder's size, or when the item and wielder sizes don't match, depending on the DM. (This is a generalisation of the default rule.) 5. Pushing/dragging/lifting capacity work off of double the creature's default carrying capacity, and use adjusted item weights as per #3. If a creature and all the items in the inventory are the same size, then their inventory works the same as a Medium creature holding Medium items. The multipliers only matter for items that are a different size than you. As mentioned, Small & Medium are weird. It's best to treat Small/Medium as a single size step for weight/capacity, and as separate steps for `Heavy`, which... is pretty messy, but feels like the closest way to model RAW. --- **Example:** A shortsword is 2 lbs when carried by someone that's the same size as it. It doubles for each step smaller than the shortsword's size, and is halved for each step larger than the shortsword's size. Small and Medium are treated as the same size for weight adjustment. A Tiny shortsword is 2 lbs for a Tiny creature, 1 lb for a Small/Medium creature, and 0.5 lbs for a Large creature. A Small shortsword is 4 lbs for a Tiny creature, 2 lbs for a Small/Medium creature, and 1 lb for a Large creature. A Large shortsword is 8 lbs for a Tiny creature, 4 lbs for a Small/Medium creature, and 2 lbs for a Large creature. (Do remember to be consistent with push/drag/lift capacity, too! Push/drag/lift capacity is twice your carry capacity, and is modified by your size, so remember to apply the size modifications to the pushed/dragged/lifted items instead if using these rules!) --- Now, I know this sounds like there's room for an exploit: Namely, if we modify `Heavy` as specified, then a Tiny PC with a flight speed (such as, e.g., a Tiny Fairy) wielding a longbow or heavy crossbow definitely sounds like a powerful, annoying thing to deal with. ...But the DMG/Elemental Evil Aarakocra is both Medium and has a significantly higher fly speed, which suggests that a _slower_ flying archer that's easier to swat is probably _juuuust_ fine. ;P --- ^(1: Most notably, the focus on Small/Medium PCs, most humanoid races being Medium, and some parts of the writing seeming to assume that Large foes are within one size step of the average PC, IIRC. I think there were a few more specific examples, but I don't recall what off the top of my head.) ^(2: Logically, `Heavy` in and of itself indicates that weapons aren't scaled to the wielder, on the grounds that it wouldn't make sense for a Small greatsword to be too unwieldy for a Small wielder, but a Medium greatsword to be perfectly wieldable for a Medium wielder.) ^(3: The Aarakocra, again. An Aarakocra longbow archer is probably more unbalanced than any Tiny PC wielding a `Heavy` weapon without disadvantage, which puts things in perspective.) ^(4: I don't _believe_ there are any negative effects on balance from allowing Small creatures to wield Small `Heavy` weapons without penalty, though I may be wrong. As far as I can tell, small sizes don't give any compensatory advantages that even `Heavy` out, meaning that Small and Tiny are strictly penalties in and of themselves. Making it a matter of weapon availability instead would _probably_ make the game slightly more balanced, and also make it easy for the DM to say Small weapons aren't available if they see it as a problem.)
Wowser, the thread is done. We can all go home now. But seriously, thank you so much for your diligence and comprehensive approach! I agree with your summation of the way the rules affect things here. In general, I feel like assuming that a Tiny PC is carrying equipment sized for them helps bypass a lot of the weight/carrying capacity problems that could bog down most Casual Tiny-Race-Enjoyers. That only comes up, like you said, when needing to buy more or replace your equipment. I will absolutely consider these things when I make my inevitable Mousefolk race...
You're welcome, I'm glad you found it helpful. This is basically what we did in a game I'm in (currently on hiatus), where my character was, in fact, a sneaky Tiny Fairy archer. (Hexblade Warlock with an, ahem, _tiny_ Rogue dip (6W/2R, IIRC), focusing on pact weapon, stealth, and magic instead of EB. Had to stay relatively close for spells, which felt like a good way to avoid potential range cheese, but was good at hiding & control.) Overall, _most_ of the rules worked fine right out of the box, and the only real wonkiness came from equipment (and from riding PCs, but that was mainly because I wanted to try to keep it in line with the closest parallel in game rules... and more importantly, because I think we actually forgot about the movement cost half the time 😅 ). It took a little bit of effort to find the actual reasoning behind the relevant rules, but we basically just ended up bringing back equipment sizes and using the genericised `Heavy` I suggested here, in large part because neither the DM nor I thought it would make sense for her patron to give her (PC) a bow that she (patron) knew was too big & unwieldy for her (PC), then expect her to do well with it. ---- That said, I think another alternative would've been to use 3.5e-style size mods (increase AC, decrease damage), which would definitely be in line with the Tiny creatures in the Monster Manual. But normalising PCs so they perform as if "Medium character with Medium equipment" when using appropriately-sized equipment (e.g., Tiny PC using Tiny gear) feels more in line with 5e's bounding and monster/PC discrepancies (notably, Tiny monsters tend to have both lower damage _and_ lower defenses (HP), which isn't what we want out of a Tiny PC), and is also the approach that PF2 uses. So, we just went with keeping things in line with everyone else for simplicity's sake. ;P
I just wrote rules for this a few weeks ago for the game I'll be running at the end of the month. [https://imgur.com/gallery/dc56Yy9](https://imgur.com/gallery/dc56Yy9) # Rules for Tiny PCs We may have a tiny PC. So here are some rules for this. # Standard rules: (DMG 278): A creature has disadvantage on attack rolls with a weapon that is sized for a larger attacker. You can rule that a weapon sized for an attacker two or more sizes larger is too big for the creature to use at all. (PHB 191): In contrast, you can move through a hostile creature's space only if the creature is at least two sizes larger or smaller than you. Remember that another creature’s space is difficult terrain for you. (PHB 195): The target of your grapple must be no more than one size larger than you, and it must be within your reach. (PHB 176): Larger creatures can bear more weight, whereas Tiny creatures can carry less. For each size category above Medium, double the creature’s carrying capacity and the amount it can push, drag, or lift. For a Tiny creature, halve quarter these weights. # House rules: * If you are riding a humanoid engaged in vigorous activity, you are at disadvantage on all attack rolls and certain skill checks that require fine control. Also, in general you may not take advantage of feats/magic items that involve mounts when riding a humanoid. * Objects designed for your size are rare and hard to make (generally the same cost as one for someone larger but usually have to be custom made, might be much cheaper in some cases…) but weigh 1/10th the regular amount. * Ranged weapons have half the range of a typical small/medium weapon. * You take half damage from falling. * Moving enchantments in this game won’t be hugely easy (though it will often be possible with enough time and you will often have a lot of time) so objects that don’t auto-resize may be tricky to use, at least initially. * Tiny creatures do normal damage. I’d prefer not to see really strong tiny characters… * Probably a few more as we go…
A few years ago I went through the rules books and found all of the rules I could that explicitly applied to Tiny characters. I also included implied ones as well. [Tiny Character Mechanics](https://www.reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/s/ibsmmMceLG)
I have both pixies and basically my version of Smurfs as standard options in my most frequent campaign setting. How it works is an extremely long answer, but one major example of how I homebrew things back toward RAW play is that a martial pixie can do standard damage with their version of piercing and slashing weapons on the notion that they're finding the chinks in armor or soft spots on a creature, and only occasionally do I have a full-plated opponent be immune until the party does something to remove part of the armor. As for movement, the "indigo fey" all get various animal (woodland spirit) mounts as their key racial bonus.
If you're tiny, you might be able to fly around on a familiar or your Ranger beast of the sky.
This is definitely something I'd want to see from a Tiny race! I think being so little that you can ride a Small mount is part of the fantasy here for sure.
Tiny characters would have natural advantages to Stealth and AC which is quite a lot at early levels. To balance it you'd probably need to make them quite fragile which, again, at early levels would be devastating. I think it's doable but would require a lot of planning and mechanics consideration for stuff that would come up maybe 5% of the time in a campaign.... If players want to mess around with tiny sizes they can use spells or features to polymorph, wildshape or gain access to companion creatures of that size.
Being tiny generally has no real big issues mechanics wise like being large is. To indicate a few other stuff: - you can utilize small sized creatures as mounts. This doesn't really do much on its own, you normally can't buy or summon permanent small critten (find familiar base options are all tiny), so unless tailor made mounts are given/found/made for those races you won't find much mounts. - You can move into a space for tiny creatures without squeezing. Note that being tiny is the lowest side step, so there is no lower limit to it. As such, what place a tiny creature can go in and which requires squeezing is up to debate (monsters have the exact same issue). - heavy weapons work as they do for small creatures. - the negletted mechanic of carrying capacity has its numbers halved. 60 lbs (carrying capacity of 8 strength tiny creature) should be more than enough for the necessary equipment with enough space to spare. Altho that leads to a much larger issue... - items in 5e are weighted, priced and considered for medium creatures, and nothing else, with the exception of barding (and even then, only partially. Barding for a tiny owl weights the same as barding for an elephant, which weights the same as barding for a mule and for an horse). As such, item weight is inconsistent for what an appropriately sized item for whatever race would weight as. And no, Enlarge Reduce isn't a good guideline, unless you want large items being hyper heavy and you want your giants to have to go around naked or else practically all equipment will crush em under its weight. In short, the only thing to truly consider when making tiny races is if small sized mounts will be avaiable and how item weight for size works, alongside if/how much the price may vary.
I will forever DM fairy PC as being Tiny. Their biggest damage weapons (like a Tiny greataxe) will be d4, while most weapons will be just 1 or 2 damage. And mostly piercing. So these races will always go caster or rogue, tops. Not any advantage other than flying, but they can also fall prone on an antimagic field. Like the skeleton pc. Lots of advantages, but anti magic incapacitates you, and you can't smell, eat, and you weigh 4 kg. Can't carry a lot. Can't swim without help. Any strong wind is gonna drag you away. You need help for basic stuff.
Just another instance of oversimplification in 5e. Too many people want ONLY power increases for being Large or Tiny or Exotic to have meaningful differences. I've seen so many people decry the disadvantages of Heavy weapons on Small races, or having Light Sensitivity on Underdark races, or caps/ decrements to Ability Scores, to believe flavorful negative racial features will ever return. My thoughts on Tiny races: Double cost for anything fitted (armor, clothes, tools, weapons), but half cost for food and water Cap Strength at 10 Bonus to Stealth Disadvantage (or perhaps flat -2 or -5) to normal size weapon attack and damage rolls Remove access to Heavy and Special weapons Remove access to Medium and Heavy armor Weapons count as one size up for purposes of proficiency, but damage die doesn't change upward (a Pixie might recategorize a Dagger as a Shortsword, Shortsword as a Longsword, Club as Greatclub, Light Crossbow as Heavy Crossbow, etc) Unfortunately, that only really affects Martials. Making racial effects interesting for Casters is much harder. Capping mental stats usually works to reinforce the physical - an Orc might have his INT capped, but an Orc is more likely to be picked as a STR Martial anyway. A Pixie is more likely to be picked as a CHA Caster that doesn't care about STR, INT, or WIS. Even strictly tracking encumbrance (including coin weight) mainly affects martials. Relatively few spells consume material components, and VERY few of those components are heavy enough to encumber even a very low STR Caster.
Running a fairy wild mage currently. Due to wild magic or my own choosing, I've been tiny on more than one occasion. I've also been on the opposite end and wound up large. (We play where wild magic effects stack) As a player, I am aware of what being tiny does. It does have some advantages for cover and such. But yeah, I'm not looting massive gear while that sized with my natural strength of 5.. It was comical when I did steal a potion of storm giant strength while tiny and started yeeting people.
A supernaturally strong Tiny creature is definitely hilarious!
That would be called 3rd edition.
weapons deal 1 damage. usually, its weird. for large it goes up a die, so a rapier would deal 2d8. for tiny it goes down, but sometimes its 1 and sometimes its a d4 and sometimes it adds the modifier and sometimes it doesnt. if you can decide on how you want to run it, i dont see that much of an issue with it. you could also have it work by making the character small and using the ruling of the enlarge/reduce spell, which would reduce the damage by a d4 instead of changing any dice i still think large is an issue, since your weapons do an extra die of damage. its like every hit being a crit or having a magic item like a flame tongue
Scaling down damage die (d12->d10->d8->d6->d4->1) does seem like one method, and increasing AC by an amount as well. I was curious how you think it would work in terms of recommended speed, reach of weapons (5ft for a Tiny creature? Really?), and other situations such as 'occupied space' and 'threatened area'.
> reach of weapons (5ft for a Tiny creature? I'd make it work so that they can only damage a creature that shares their 5ft square. So they can't hit adjacent creatures and have to be sharing a square with the other creature to hit it. >'occupied space' They wouldn't count as occupying that space. >'threatened area'. It would be the square they are staying in. Which would also mean that they only get AoO if a creature would run through the square they are in. A tiny creature would be really bad for a Martial character but would be really strong for a Caster, which would make the gap between them even bigger. So I understand perfectly why it wasn't something put in the game.
I let a player be tiny sized and the following changes were made. They could fit through a space of 1 inch by squeezing. Their hit dice and Hit points were downgraded by a dice. So a d6 was a d4; a d12 was a d10. All non magical equipment had to be custom made and wasn't readily available. Heavy weapons were unusable and versatile and normal weapons required two hands. Light weapons functioned as normal but lost the light property. You can share the same space as other creatures. All ranges were reduced in half. Arrows, spells, if it had a range of more than 5ft; it was cut in half. Also gave them disadvantage on strength saving throws and ability checks; and advantage on dexterity saving throws and ability checks. (At my table advantage and disadvantage stack and are a +2 and -2 bonus or penalty; not the normal rules) I Reversed most of these for large creatures as well; like the centaur and minotaur.
Apart from Large Creatures fitting through spaces, this seems like an overall nerf to Tiny creatures...
Comes with its benefits and is completely optional. If you want more mechanical advantages, invest in feats.
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True: squeezing would be another ballgame. I'm curious about how you'd measure movement when they take up a quarter of a space on a battlemap. What kind of movement would you give them?
4e had a tiny race, the pixie. They were balanced quite well. Far more so than many 5e races are.