Size is an important element in the Viridian TTRPG as the core game balance does not oversimplify or diminish the sheer physical power and advantages that giant size can grant to an individual. Increasing Size gives giants linear scaling in many important factors including their health, damage output, healing output, movement speed, reach and the magnitude of how they affect smaller creatures and how smaller creatures affect them. Giants can be extremely powerful as they increase in size, but with that said, smaller creatures also have their own advantages that can prove vital to an adventuring group, in ways that not even normal or giant sized adventurers can replicate.

The power of Giants are usually balanced against The Cost of Living, the Progression Adjustment and Scenario Design: Giants are more expensive to maintain and affording/acquiring equipment for them is also much more expensive. They also tend to level up a bit slower than other smaller races, allowing other smaller races to keep up with their power. While they excel in physical combat, enclosed environments and non-standard scenarios can often leave giants at a disadvantage the larger they become, and they sometimes must rely on smaller companions to perform tasks they cannot (or be forced to shrink down to compensate, where available).

Smaller creatures are likewise weaker than human-sized individuals, but are subject to Shallower Size scaling, Accelerated Progression and Unique Interactions and Navigation opportunities. Small and Tiny sized races have their statistics scaled down at a shallower curve as to not to make them too much weaker in comparison to others. Smaller races also gain experience at a faster rate to give them the skills and abilities necessary to succeed in their adventure and keep up with their companions. Smaller races are often able to take advantage of small spaces that larger creatures cannot, including secret passageways. They also require a fraction of the cost to acquire resources and equipment, allowing them to take advantage of high quality equipment earlier than bigger adventurers.

Size is treated as a relative factor in Viridian. It does not matter how large or small two creatures are, if the size of two combatants are the same they will be as equally effective against each other as if it were two human-sized opponents. The size difference between creatures is just as important as their size in relation to the surroundings. Although there are many solutions to problems found in an adventuring setting, adventurers are encouraged to employ solutions by using the charactistics of their size and vary the composition of their adventuring party to be able to access as many size-based solutions they can. Inversely, campaigns revolving around adventuring parties of a certain size can mix up the challenges and solutions of the same scenario.

Glossary

Size-Rating (size)

A character's Size-Rating (size) is an important statistic to determine physical power and presence of a character/creature in the world setting. The default size value 1 refers to a character who is comparable to a medium-sized creature, like a Human. When a creature changes size, their size-rating will change to suit their new dimensions. With larger sizes, the creature's physical token size will increase to a number of steps/squares wide and deep as their size-rating. Small or smaller creatures whose tokens are generally a fraction of a Medium-sized token, will generally still count as only one square in diameter on a grid but occupy less space in reality.

Below is a guide on what Named Size Categories correlate to Size-Rating in the Viridian TTRPG:
* Diminutive: 0.2
* Tiny: 0.4
* Small: 0.7
* Medium: 1
* Large: 2
* Huge: 4
* Gargantuan: 8
* Colossal: 16
* Titanic: 32

Notes on Size-Rating
While a token with a size-rating of 2 is generally twice as big, a token of 0.7 is not necessarily 70% of Medium. Smaller creatures have a shallower adjustment to their size-rating to prevent them from being too weak compared to their larger counterparts.

Size Difference (sizediff)

A character's Size difference (sizediff) is a token stat automatically calculated in Maptool. While Size (size) scales character stats by a constant, sizediff takes two targets and compares them to determine the size difference between them. Sizediff only occurs during contested events, affecting the magnitude and duration of certain spells and abilities that don't deal direct damage or healing. Some effects become more powerful while other times it can be lowered, or even negated if the size difference is too extreme between user and target. The Maptool script command Set Target is given to all characters and is used to set the target token's name in Maptool to help populate placeholder text and mechanics in other commands. The [Auto] version will try to grab the named token's size automatically (if spelt correctly), otherwise the manual version of the command will ask you to enter the target token's size stat.

Examples
If one creature is size 4, but the other is size 2, the sizediff against the larger creature will be 0.5, whereas the smaller will be 2.

If both creatures are size 16, then the sizediff will be treated as 1, as they are the same size as each other.

Roleplaying considerations for size differences

Below this line describes roleplaying supplements you can use to understand the consequences and properties of large size differences. It may prove useful if a character you create is that of a Giant or a Tiny race.

Token Aspects affected by size:

Health

Damage/Healing

Movement distance/speed

Armour-rating and Defence/Evasion

Range/Reach

Crafting and Purchasing Expenses

Accuracy (Giants gain an advantage in melee, smaller creatures gain an advantage at range.)

Reduced Stealthing potential as a giant while greatly increased potential as a tiny

Cover bonuses/opportunities or lack thereof for larger sizes

Difficulty or inability to navigate enclosed areas as a giant, or difficulty in navigating any terrain if tiny-sized

♦ Advantages/Disadvantages (Giant)

Giants are extremely powerful, but have issues regarding practicality and subtlety. They are expensive to upgrade and maintain.

• The effectiveness of equipment scales up with the size of the giant, if it is keyed to their size. Armour will grant more defense and Armour-Rating, Weapons will deal more damage and have greater range. The necessary materials and cost to create or buy weapons scales up with size, and it is not always possible to have giant-sized equipment made if the outfitters/manufacturers lack the facilities to make them.

• Giants resist effects that knock targets down, reducing the effect to Stagger instead. Knock effects are negated if the foe is less than half the user’s size.

• If the user is double the target’s size or more, they can pass through foes spaces, inflicting Knockdown if it connects.
• If the user is four or more times the target's size, they can use the [Stomp] command to inflict damage equal to their unarmed strike and inflict knockdown and pinned status upon their target. [Stomp] will leave the target knocked prone and pinned.

• Special/secondary effects, spells and powers may be more effective against smaller targets, increasing the magnitude or duration of such effects.
The greater the size difference, the more pronounced the magnitude/duration.

• Intimidate skill becomes easier to use against smaller targets.
However, using other Social skills may result in a penalty unless the Giant's reputation is positive.

• Stealth skill becomes harder to use, cover options may become more limited and movement will be harder to conceal the user’s presence.

• Evasion and Defence remain unchanged, however the accuracy to hit smaller targets is reduced and smaller targets will gain extra accuracy for their attacks.

• Inventory space expands with size, allowing the user to carry more items sized for smaller creatures.
Although the amount of equipment they can hold designed for their size is about the same as someone of human size.

• Giants can carry smaller allies and NPCs with varying degrees of ease, if the size difference is great enough the giant character may even be able to store other creatures in their pockets or bags.

• Giants have trouble with interiors and enclosed areas not designed for them. At best, they may have to bow or kneel under low clearance and sidle through narrow paths and worst they will be forced to squeeze into small passage and doorways. Squeezing into small spaces hampers movement and available actions for all creatures, but giants are more prone to this scenario.
• It is entirely possible a giant character may be too big to fit inside an area, and they will be forced to stay outside. Unless they have some means to shrink down to fit within the enclosed space.

• Giant characters are less likely to be intimidated by those smaller than themselves by skill alone.

• The bigger the giant, the larger the Area of Effect their attacks gain. Even if a giant misses their target, a smaller foe must expend AP to move outside the attack's AoE or take splash damage.

♦ Advantages/Disadvantages (Tiny)

Smaller races are comparatively weaker in comparison but excel in efficiency and subtlety. They are incredibly easy to upgrade and maintain.

• Smaller character gain an advantage in accuracy against larger foes, and large foes have less accuracy against hitting them. Giants are still favoured in Melee Combat but not so much in ranged or precision-based combat.

• Smaller characters have huge bonuses to Stealth, being able to use more objects as cover and being virtually silent while moving. They can at times even use larger creatures as cover.

• Smaller characters use only a fraction of resources and expenses compared to other characters. It is also far more likely that weapons and equipment will be available or craftable for smaller users than giants. Fortunately, Small-sized equipment maintains its effectiveness, it does not decrease like it does when giants scale up.

• Contested spell and power effects will have reduced magnitude and/or duration on larger foes. If the foe is more than four times bigger than the smaller character, the spell/power may fail to affect them entirely. For Damage/Healing, these effects scale by the user’s size and do not typically fail like contested effects do.
• Small characters can meta-modify Spell/Powers to be treated as a larger size by increasing its spell/power level by 2 per doubling of size. Doing so consumes more resource points however.

• Smaller characters cannot move as fast across flat ground as larger characters do and they’re slowed down further in difficult terrain. Many smaller characters have to jump and climb to reach places not designed for them.
• Small-sized characters (2 to 2'9ft) generally have trouble with door handles, table or counter-tops of human-sized settlements. Sitting on a chair or traversing stairs requires climbing.
• Tiny-sized characters (5-8in) generally can't reach door handles without climbing and must be resourceful when encountering closed doors with no exploitable gaps. It takes them longer to climb up objects they can climb including stairs.

• Smaller characters have less inventory space and not able to carry objects designed for larger creatures. However, when it comes to items and equipment sized for them, they can carry similar amounts of load as someone of human size.

• If the size difference is great enough, smaller characters can be carried by larger allies and even reside within their inventory space, such as their pockets or bags.

• Smaller character have unique accessibility to openings and passages that humans may not be able to fit into. Crawlspaces and narrow gaps may be traversed by smaller characters with little to no impedance on their movement.

• Smaller characters are less likely to intimidate people larger than themselves, they are also easier to be intimidated by hostiles larger than themselves.

Visual Guide

Size Category Visual-Guide
Index.php?title=File:Tiny.png

Tiny Size (8" / Size 0.4)
Index.php?title=File:Homan7.jpg

Small Size (2'6" / Size 0.7)
Index.php?title=File:Human1.png

Medium Size (6ft / Size 1)
Index.php?title=File:Large.jpg

Large Size (16ft / Size 2-3)
Index.php?title=File:Huge.jpg

Huge Size (33ft / Size 4-6)
Index.php?title=File:Gargantuan.jpg

Gargantuan Size (70ft / Size 8-12)
Index.php?title=File:Colossal.png

Colossal Size (135ft / Size 16-24)
Index.php?title=File:Titanic.jpg

Titanic Size (270ft / Size 32+)

Size

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