Small Race Melee Fighters

So, a pet peeve that I always had with standard fantasy is how small races (gnomes, half-lings, goblins etc.) would have the exact same martial classes as their larger counterparts, and would do the same things and fight the same.

I think it's fair to say that a short race would develop their own, unique fighting style, that would use advantages of their size and avoid the inherent weaknesses that it provides.

So what kind of a close quarters fighting style would a goblin or gnome fighter have? What weapons and what kind of equipment would they favor?

For the sake of the exercise let's say there is no magic involved, and let's say an average gnome/goblin fighter is surprisingly strong for their size, but still on average weaker than a well trained human fighter.

>needing a class for something that is easily just fluff

Spears. Always spears.

The AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide warned us about this mindset.

they would be some melee class that used pole arms and shit?

The AD&D DMG can suck my dick.

Well, in D&D terms, small races usually have racial dex bonuses, which increases their AC when wearing the proper armors, making them harder to hit. I'd say that's a fair representation of a smaller fighter.
Add in fighting styles and fluff to your liking

gnommic krav maga
50 ways to hit 'em in the jewels

or is that regular krav maga

pics or it didn't happen

It also promoted a system where the only class with actual skills without adding options were Rogues, and it used a raw percentile dice to decide their outcome.

GURPS wins again...

The solution to being physically small relative to your expected opponents is to use long-reaching weapons and not give too much mind to the idea of using a shield.
The solution to being physically weaker than your opponent is to focus on stabby things rather than smashy things.

If you want to match your mechanics to what would be easiest flavor-wise, then use an estoc, or something.

Back in the campaign setting I made with my friends in college, we had halflings culturally have a specialization in using chains and ropes in combat, either as navigation (half were the primary "trader race", and so had lots of experience on ships) or on mounts (because they were halfling mongols who would use rope harnesses to do crazy bullshit.). Now this setting was pretty magic-heavy, so a lot of the finer reasoning got handwaved away, but I think the idea of halflings using ropes, weighted darts, and other hazards to trip or tangle up larger opponents always made sense to me from a tactical standpoint.

Gnomes in that setting were barely-sane expressions of True Fey on reality though, so I've got nothing for them.

Sounds fucking lame so no it doesnt win shit

I always Imagine them fighting Yoda style.
Constantly jumping around, being quick and hit vulnerable spots

>The solution to being physically weaker than your opponent is to focus on stabby things rather than smashy things.
This is not necessarily true of halflings and the like. While their proportional lifting ability would indeed be lesser due to simple mass differences, as long assuming that they develop like adults do (and not assuming that they all get round and fat like a Rankin-Bass cartoon), they could in theory get equally as physically strong as a human in terms of muscle density and fitness.
Mind you a human would still comparatively hit far harder just due to simple mass differences (which ultimately matter a lot more here), but you could compare a very fit warrior halfling to something like a Tasmanian Devil or a wolverine; sure they’re tiny, but they’ll also fuck up creatures much larger then they are (wolverines kill MOOSE sometimes, which is insane to think about).

Now think about that sort of creature armed with a knife or proportionally sized sword and a trained knowledge of where your soft bits are and you kind of have an idea of how halflings might fight.

It's almost like the combat mechanics are an abstraction or something.

If the existance of ogres and hillgiants have not invalidated the human swordsman, why would human swordsmen invalidate gnomish warriors? A gladius kills as surely as a greatsword.

Also, there are usually racially slanted traits, advanced classes, and/or weapons to address this desire somewhat.

...

To me, the polearm theory seems self defeating. You're relying on your weapon to put you simply on even ground with your opponent. A smaller fighter would much prefer bringing their opponent down. They would use daggers or sickles to strike their opponents from unexpected angles and trip them up. Ideally moving quickly around their legs to ensure they can't land a solid blow. Then once their opponent is grounded the fight is practically over.

>image.gif (4.51 MB, 835x351)
Nope

Are you that scared to open a gif man? Its a fight between Yoda and Dooku

I'd think they would take down larger enemies by attacking nerves and tendons and stuff in their lower bodies, D&D doesn't have rules for that sort of thing but maybe you could homebrew a new combat maneuver for it.

>Its a fight between Yoda and Dooku
That's quite scary.

>So what kind of a close quarters fighting style would a goblin or gnome fighter have? What weapons and what kind of equipment would they favor?
In combat sports, smaller fighters tend to rely on volume and speed. They spin/scramble, manage distance, distract with feints and volume, catch opponents at the right moment.

In MMA, guys like Demetrious Johnson and Frankie Edgar are the type. In boxing, Roman Gonzales battered larger men with dozens of punches.

When you add weapons, you probably look at things like eskrima up close. And remember, trips, knee taps and sweeps are easier when you can scramble inside range.

For Dwarves, you can still have "tough" kind of fighters, wide with heavy hands and rock jaws. They will get befuddled by transitions and feints doe.

kind of like my Goblin Monk

Like how 5e addressed this by small races having a disadvantage with heavy weapons

Way back in the day, I had a halfling cavalier that used a lance and rode a large, winged black panther. (I was a big fan of Wormy in the back of Dragon Magazine)

It was a whole party of halflings, a thief/acrobat who used poison weapons, a druid, and a wizard. (I know halflngs weren't allowed to be wizards back then, but we didn't care.)

If there was ever a dmg you did want sucking your dick the 1st ed ad&d is absolutely not it.

>I know lets give the races with the smallest lungs blowdarts and then call it a martial art.
>Will it be any different than the other "options" in this fluffy generic wankfest?
>Of course not, but it will be fluffy nonsense with blowdarts.
Such a wonderful system gurps is.

Shadaversity pls

The problem is dnd or pathfinder would make it a full round maneuver and your still outclassed by a druid.

...

I've been meaning to homebrew some races of more competent small humanoids. Small !goblins (not-goblins) who specialize in forest ambushes with bows, followed by retreats into the undergrowth where they can hide easily, as well as some being that's shorter and leaner than a human but with wide shoulders and greater strength, since not all muscles are created equal between species. I'm open to ideas and willing to rip off anything good anyone else has done on the topic of small beings.

chimps with shortbows

That'd be more of a cross between the two and horribly OP.

I can't think of a system that has "small" playable races that doesn't give a penalty for being small.

It's like an Orc wizzard. He gets a -2 int. Sure he can do it, sure he can do it very well. But if he was a human he'd get a +2 instead meaning he will always have a handicap of 4 compared to a human wizzard.

People need to play DnD before they talk about it.

S small race like goblin will get a -2 Str but a +2 dex (or something like that depending on the system).
A human will get a +2 that means a goblin will have a 10% handicap in terms of hitting stuff hard enough and 2 points less damage than a human would deal. That goblin will also deal a size die lower. A human might roll 2d6 for a great sword while a goblin might roll a 1d6 or something smaller than 2d6.

Being a small race fighter means your with intent/ignorance playing at a handicap and a poor play style. The small race would be much better off aiming for a class that uses his advantages meaning he would use a completely different class/fighting style.

Shadiversity and Shadman are different people. Shadiversity yells about historic/fantasy stuff on YouTube (Though a lot of the time he forgets to do proper research on whatever it is he's rambling about, like his critiques on Castle Black).

This thread got me thinking exactly about how I would make a small-race fighter.

>5e kobold rogue
>Rogue does extra damage called "sneak attack" which I refluffed as my kobold hitting a vital spot that does more damage
>Between his racial trait and the Roguish archetype swashbuckler, he can hit his sneak attack on every single melee attack.

Mechanically it's pretty good, reliable damage.

In-universe, he's a small, fragile fighter that makes up for his lack of strength and constitution with agility and perfect aim

That guy throwing numbers and logic at a shitpost thread.

That and pretty much all his "what weapons would ______ really use" can be summed up with "a spear"

It would literally be non-existent. No magic is super fucked. They would be ranged fighters and rely on a lot of dirty tricks.

I think with giants he went with clubs.

>small subsection of a subsection
>representative of the entire system

wew lad

also need to look up what a "martial art" is

Also a scythe

My impression was that it's always the longsword in his videos.

Skallagrim made a video about this too. I don't remember the conclusion though, apart from large shields.

He said orcs wouldn't even be familiar with the concept of longswords

>Gumbo is a halfling fighter who delights in the absurd strength packed into his small stature. He left his village when his mother advised him that no one there was going to humour his changeable moods, and over the next few years he became used to solving things the way larger creatures do: through violence. He always lacked the subtlety of the other halflings that make it in the wider world, however, and never thought much of sneaking around. Instead, Gumbo is a great believer in breaking the door in and battering down anyone behind it. Mostly he has made a living by getting friends to bet on his fights; they tend to get good odds. His survival has thus far been largely thanks to the greater wisdom of the friends he takes for granted, who convince him to leave town before the unhappy associates of the losers come for him with crossbows or poison.

couple of years back one of my players brought this dude to a game (text copied from files), and we had ourselves a good time. STR16, DEX16, used a regular warhammer two-handed. got thrown around by the party's goliath ranger.

he wasn't maxed for strength, but 16's pretty good for a little guy, and the dex meant he could climb around, drop on people, swing on things. he was full of little maneouvres and didn't waste his time on shields and suchlike.

3.5 and pathfinder only lose out on damage, since small races have a bonus to hit that counters the -2 strength. Based on weapon dice and the penalty, it's either -2 or -3(2h) to per connecting attack.

In 5e there is no penalty to strength and no bonus to hit, which means they only lose out on the weapon dice (-1 average per hit).

There are two true penalties to being smol. First, damage multipliers like enlarge person or lead weapon spells. A halfling d6 rolls into a human d8 (+1 average) but the d8 rolls into 2d6 (+3 average. (Pathfinder, 3.5). Coupling that with the difference in reach as well makes it far less enticing. In 5e, the damage bonus is a static +1d4 and I don't think it affects reach so this point can be ignored.

The second problem is on opposed checks and anywhere that directly compares size categories(grapple, swallow whole, bull rush et cetera) some of which can be countered via racial archetypes and feats.

I personally love the idea of going the opposite direction and making a halfling with permanent reduce person but going from small to tiny changes your reach so much (pathfinder) that you literally need to be in your opponent's space to do any damage or 1 square away with reach.

The conclusion I've come to is the stat block LOOKS worse than the reality, but the reality still kind of sucks.

It actually interests me because I want to play as a hobbit, a very zealed militiaman of his village, who would be traveling to preemptively kill threats to his village.

Minotaurs were greatsword or tower shield, fairies were a 3-5 inch spike or a razor, and I think centaurs had mounted archers as their best weapon. Only one I can think of that really came down to spears were angels, and then only to finish off targets wounded by dropping flechette.

Fucking ew.

BTW, ki is not magic.

moar gobbo qts pls

but user, that's my magical realm

Scythes make perfect sense if you're fighting enemies that only come up to your ankles.

Headbutt inna balls

Both Yoda and Palpatine were diminished in the prequels by having them fight with light sabers.

That guy is called Veeky Forums. Behold him, for he is glorious.

And in MMA/boxing they don't let big guys fight small guys because it's rightly seen as a major and unsporting advantage.

>centaurs
>mounted archers
What are the centaurs mounted on
>as their best weapon
So they're using a man on a horse as a bludgeon or what?

No, they put a man on their backs so that he shoots arrows. A brilliant idea technically, but I doubt we'll ever see it anywhere.

...

...

>a short race would develop their own, unique fighting style

I had told to me a story from my dad about a Wild West PnP RPG he used to play where he'd play a dwarf and put all his points towards high HP, thick head armour (that was a stat), and headbutting as an attack.

He'd use every round to walk up to an opponent, and then promptly headbutt them in the nuts, usually to deadly effect, which the DM would have to describe.

Because it was a Wild West game, everyone (NPC included) would try to specialise in pistol/rifle combat and usually try to aim for the head for a quick kill. Bullets just bounced off of this dwarf's head, and he would just keep running up to people and headbutt them in the nuts. Glory moment being headbutting someone in the nuts so hard they flew across the saloon and into the piano, getting sliced to pieces by the breaking strings.

I don't think his character ever died, but was forcefully retired by the DM due how gimmicky and obviously non-serious it was. Still, a fun story.

Still can't for the life of me remember the name of that game. :/

Can confirm.

Fucking yordles.

Yeah, Death Battle laboured that point pretty heavily and the Goku fans were still butthurt.

Very simple elegant solution

You say this like Dwarves aren't headbutting people in the groin and cutting their legs with axes like they're trees.