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Small instead of Medium; How?

   
Small instead of Medium; How?

Looking at making an NPC for my custom campaign and I am wondering how I should go about making a catfolk small instead of medium. Do I simple treat it as a permanent "reduce person" spell and apply +2 Dex, -2 Strength to the NPC? Or something else all together.

FYI - The NPC is going to be the Sensei for the Dojo at a Monastery's my PC find themselves at. He is going to be called Mr. Meowgi and I envision him being a short fat white cat. I plan on having the Sensei be a Peaceful Sensei (Ki Mystic/Monk of Lotus/Sensei) who will help guide my PCs through a lesson on honor, martial combat, and a combat obstacle course. Any help on this will be appreciate.

Is a strict adherence to making everything as realistic as you possibly can a thing you value in your setting? If yes, you might just want to create a subtype for the race that is smaller, or find an already existing template that reduces size. If not, just make them small and slap the appropriate size modifiers (the same thing that other small races have as their size modifier) to them and call it a day. No need to make it more complicated than that.

If we want to go into more detail about why these things don't really matter, for example with the ability scores: you're creating an NPC from scratch. You can assign whatever stats you want for them, and only after applying the -2 str, +2 dex seems a bit... superfluous? They already have arbitrary stats, so you'd be best off applying only the regular size modifiers. I believe these are the things in PF: "a +1 size bonus to their AC, a +1 size bonus on attack rolls, a –1 penalty to their Combat Maneuver Bonus and Combat Maneuver Defense, and a +4 size bonus on Stealth checks." As opposed to their ability scores, the size modifiers aren't as arbitrary as they are derived from ability scores and such, and act as an addition to them.

Either way, it's mostly a case of "for a custom NPC, make custom rules". Will the players know that you've customized the rules ever so slightly to create the mechanics for a custom NPC? What more, will they even care if they find out how you've made the NPC?

@Actana: Permanent Reduce Person would also give those benefits.

OP do what you want. Just saying "oh and he's small" won't break the game. Since I presume you are going to fluff it as catfolk are small in this universe it's not like the fluff of whatever legitimate mechanical contrivance you use is going to matter.

As an alternate contrivance you could just build him as a halfling and give him a skin condition.

From the race builder, I think that both Medium and Small size are 0 RP, which means they're theoretically equal. The only thing you'll have to adjust is speed down to 20ft, then everything else will be equal.

Quote:
Originally Posted by AtLastForgot View Post
From the race builder, I think that both Medium and Small size are 0 RP, which means they're theoretically equal. The only thing you'll have to adjust is speed down to 20ft, then everything else will be equal.
If you're going with the Race Builder process, speed and size are independent. The fact that most Small races have a base land speed of 20 seems just to be the product of convention, not rule.

Thanks for all the help. I just wanted to make sure that I was on the right track as one of my players is quite the rules lawyer. I will apply the following:

-2 Str, +2 Dex, +1 to hit and AC, +2 Stealth (catfolk already get +2) and base speed of 20ft.

FYI - just Mr. Meowgi is going to be small not all Catfolk. Thinking perhaps he was a runt or was cursed by a witch.





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