An Attempt to Stat Children

[Celestia]

There should probably be an extra age category stuck between child and toddler.

How does that in any way answer the problem of you declaring toddlers to be diminutive?

[Jormengand]

Character progression by class levels. Or is that too obvious

Depends. By "Too obvious" do you mean obvious enough that I already suggested it?

How does that in any way answer the problem of you declaring toddlers to be diminutive?

I mean, other way around, sorry. They should probably be the same age (and therefore size) category as the one above. Or we assume that a toddler is never actually standing up at full height even in combat, or that they break the normal rules for creatures of their size category because reasons. Alternatively you could start the size category decreases for each category below teenager rather than below child, which probalby makes more sense because teenagers are probably more dwarf height than halfling height.

[Frozen_Feet]

Yes, I know D&D officially has starting ages for classes, but honestly, do racial hit dice sound like a better way around that than just ignoring that age limit?

RHD is an awful solution, but ignoring the age limit is worse. Why? Well - that 2d6 years you need to start off as a wizard, to give an example, is meant to model the time you need to learn the basics of your profession and raise the funds for starting your career. It's a measure of difficulty. In essence, the rules are saying that becoming a wizard is hard enough to take a 15 year old human two to twelve years, with the average being seven years. To give a real life comparison, this is comparable to 3 years in high school and 4 years in polytechnic. After you've finished 9 years of elementary schooling.

So if you can class levels at arbitrarily low levels... the implication either is that you can master that profession at the cognitive level of a child, or that the child is a genius. And if the child doesn't have exceptional ability scores, the latter assumption doesn't make a lick of sense. Maybe you can justify that rare INT 18, WIS 18 character mastering elementary, high school and polytechnic curriculums and becoming economically independent at eight... but INT 10 and WIS 10? Nooope.

Or to put it another way: children taking adventuring classes only makes sense if you're trying to model child superheroes. It doesn't make sense if you're trying to model normal children.

[hamishspence]

Some classes might be a bit more plausible than others.

If you're creating a "D&D-style Oliver Twist" theme, a child might be able to take a level of Rogue pretty early.

For an OotS example:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0673.html

those thieves are noticeably shorter than adults.



Or if you're taking inspiration from real-world child soldiers, a level in Scout or Fighter could work.

[noob]

Except pc adventurers commonly are superheroes.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

RHD is an awful solution, but ignoring the age limit is worse. ...

So if you can class levels at arbitrarily low levels... the implication either is that you can master that profession at the cognitive level of a child, or that the child is a genius. ...

Or to put it another way: children taking adventuring classes only makes sense if you're trying to model child superheroes. It doesn't make sense if you're trying to model normal children.

That's what PC classes are in general aren't they, extraordinary people? The question I was reacting to was what to do with child characters who have to be competent past the level of one level in an NPC class. You're free not to have any of those in your campaign, but if you do want to have them, PC classes. I find it no less unbelievable that a child would learn the secret of becoming really angry when fighting than that it would gain multiple hit dice, either through a human creature template or even through multiple levels in an NPC class (say level 3 warrior). In fact, I'd probably find it more believable if such an exceptional child would start learning magic than if they grew the physical attack strength and constitution of an experienced adult warrior. Being outsmarted by a 12 year old I could handle, being outskilled as well, being physically outwarrior'd would be kind of weird. But that may just be me and my real life constitution score talking.

[Jormengand]

RHD is an awful solution, but ignoring the age limit is worse. Why? Well - that 2d6 years you need to start off as a wizard, to give an example, is meant to model the time you need to learn the basics of your profession and raise the funds for starting your career. It's a measure of difficulty. In essence, the rules are saying that becoming a wizard is hard enough to take a 15 year old human two to twelve years, with the average being seven years. To give a real life comparison, this is comparable to 3 years in high school and 4 years in polytechnic. After you've finished 9 years of elementary schooling.

So if you can class levels at arbitrarily low levels... the implication either is that you can master that profession at the cognitive level of a child, or that the child is a genius. And if the child doesn't have exceptional ability scores, the latter assumption doesn't make a lick of sense. Maybe you can justify that rare INT 18, WIS 18 character mastering elementary, high school and polytechnic curriculums and becoming economically independent at eight... but INT 10 and WIS 10? Nooope.

Or to put it another way: children taking adventuring classes only makes sense if you're trying to model child superheroes. It doesn't make sense if you're trying to model normal children.

There was already a problem with barbarian 1/wizard X technically meaning that you're a wizard X starting from younger than if you were just a wizard X. The starting ages make no sense anyway, so there's no real sense trying to enforce them. Very few classes have any good reason why a child couldn't become one at a young age - wizard is the only one where that even begins to make sense in core (I would comfortably represent some children as having barbarian, fighter, monk or rogue levels in real life, and the rest are just "God likes me", "Nature likes me", "One of those, plus a mundane class's justification" or "My ancestor smashed with a dragon". Not even sure what the justification for bard is, but it's mainly just being good at music, like very much so. Which is pretty much the epic backstory of every famous composer in the observable universe, apparently), and there are very few (maybe truenamer and archivist) where it makes sense outside of it.

[Frozen_Feet]

Except pc adventurers commonly are superheroes.

Which is good for the PCs.

Now, what about everybody else?

The thread starter isn't interested in modeling solely super kids. They don't particularly want to model superhuman kids at all, as evidenced by "I don't like it when 20% of 8-year-olds are stronger than the average adult".

So your comment, while true, is completely besides the point.

---

@Jormengand: The lowest starting age for difficult classes is 2 years (for humans). The lowest starting age for multiclass easy+difficult class is 1+N, where N is the time taken to level. The average for such multiclass is 2.5+N.

So f.ex multiclass Barbarian/Wizard becoming a wizard sooner is not much of a flaw with the rules. Especially when you factor in that the no-cheese chance of getting to level 2 is just 4.4. (80% survival chance for average encounter, 14 encounters taken to level). The multiclass character is someone who opted to take immense risks to learn the more difficult class faster on top of their first class training, while the single class character opted to reach that difficult class in safety of their training environment.

And all of the classes have good reasons why somebody couldn't achieve them at arbitrarily low age. A 1st level barbarian isn't just someone who gets angry. A 1st level Barbarian is someone who has been trained to proficiency with multiple martial weapons, light and medium armor and shield, who is economically independent with a fortune in savings, who can feed at least themself by foraging in the wild etc. Just those weapons take significant chunk of time. You know what the chinese in real life use to say about that? "10 days to learn the staff, 100 days to learn the sabre, 1000 days to learn the straight sword". That's the bare minimum for three common weapons.

Similarly, a 1st level Bard isn't "good at music". They are good at music and have significant martial training and have significant magical training and are equally good at 5 different skills in addition to music. Learning instruments in real life is subject to similar guidelines as weapons. 100 hours to learn the basics. 10,000 hours to master. Speaking of famous composers, you've probably heard of Mozart. A genius, they say. Composed music at age of five. The thing is, Mozart could start practicing super early because both of his parents were performing musicians and relatively wealthy. And none of the works he made as a kid are among those he is actually remembered for. Those early compositions were doodlings of a child. They were remarkable in that he could do them at all, not in their quality.

Do you want me to give examples of every core class? I can do that. The only notable exception among them is the sorcerer, who explicitly gets their abilities as a matter of inheritance. But they are also explicitly supernatural, so completely useless for real-life comparison or as a baseline for normal kids.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Which is good for the PCs.

Now, what about everybody else?

They're first level commoners, optionally zeroth level (although there are several possible interpretations of what that even is) and/or with an ability score penalty in everything but dex and cha or something. (There really isn't a lot of room in D&D to make a character less powerful than a standard adult human, and why bother if those are already so weak compared to anything else?) Or if they're really young, their stats are "you beat them", because there aren't a lot of reasons why you'd ever need stats for a five year old, unless maybe they're Mozart and they're entering a composing competition or something. In which case: first level expert or bard.

I feel like we're going in circles a little.

[Jormengand]

A 1st level Barbarian is someone who has been trained to proficiency with multiple martial weapons, light and medium armor and shield, who is economically independent with a fortune in savings, who can feed at least themself by foraging in the wild etc. Just those weapons take significant chunk of time.

I'm sorry, but do you know who else is proficient in multiple martial weapons?

Elves. Just by existing.

You're confusing proficiency (Can use this weapon without a massive penalty) and being actually good with a weapon (has feats which buff the use of the weapon). Racial proficiencies are gained just by being brought up as part of a culture which values them (which is explicitly why half-humans get them and half-elves don't). A weapon proficiency is not "Good enough with that weapon to serve in the Chinese army" by any stretch of the imagination. It's "Good enough to wield the weapon properly". Nonproficiency in a weapon is sorta Arya Stark stick-em-with-the-pointy-end at best. Being able to wield weapons properly wasn't some amazing feat: it's what children in some societies actually did: all it means is, and I quote, "You understand how to use that type of weapon in combat". Not exactly revolutionary stuff.

Similarly, the bard has five skills that aren't perform. Say they're all knowledge. Do you know who also has a 3/4 chance to be able to answer basic questions on four different topics (and never mind that I said that kids should have INT penalties)? Primary school children, that's who! Who has a decent chance of being able to lie to someone who isn't massively good at detecting lies? Kids. Who has access to the ancient and forgotten art of making friends with people who were indifferent to you (but only on, like, 50% of attempts)? Like, freaking toddlers?

And a first-level bard with 4 ranks in perform and a 16 in charisma - that is, a charisma in the top 5% - will only give even a routine performance 9/10 of the time, which means that our child prodigy, with maximum skill ranks, will sometimes fail to give even a decent performance.

[Freezy]

I had a system once that divided your starting stats across levels, these levels did not grant a lot of skillpoints or hit die.
It did grant hit points, up to initial class hitpoints.

Depending on which classes you took, it granted more skills, feats, hitpoints, etc.
Ability scores were distributed, decide an amount you think is fair to start with.

Just make sure that you realize that a CR 1 is a very challenging encounter for such youngsters ;-)

Instead of starting at 8 with a pointbuy 32, you could say you start at 4 (or even lower), and you can buy more as you gain points across your early life levels.
Each year (early level), you gain a bit of stats (going up to 8) and you can buy points.
To streamline these changes, imagine a stat table; start with 8 in each stat, then add a -4 young penalty. As you level up the penalties decrease and you gain some additional points to spend.

Skill points would be the amount your intended 1st level class would provide, split across your early years.
Feats start late, though the DM might rule that some are talents you simply have a knack for and grant them earlier.
Most feats however would cost a few years to master (once every third or second year would be fair).

It would be totally ok to give these kids access to stuff they can't really afford (like potions) if they need to get busy dodging axes.
Ancestral inherited items would need passing down, so you could work in the death of a family member.

all in all, this is great stuff to work with.
Just design a simple enough system to work the way up to level 1, pick a class for 1st level and divide everything you would have gotten across years.

[SirNibbles]

*does pounds to kilograms conversions*

*takes a look at dogs*

Dude, "20 to 50 pounds" is big enough to include smaller German shephers and wolves. These creatures have bite strength great enough to break adult human bones. Poodles and corgis may look funnier, but their bite strength is still considerable. They can cause severe injuries to humans.



And this is wondrous how? 10 feet is 3 meters. An uncontrolled fall from that height can kill you and accidents involving 10 ft. ladders are so common in real life that they actually banned such ladders in our work safety regulations.

Maybe the HP rules are closer to reality than you give them credit for.

German Shepherds, even on the small end, are 65+ lbs, as are the smallest types of wolves. A bigger wolf can be over 150 lbs. Either your conversions are inaccurate or your knowledge of dog sizes is completely wrong.

___

How many times have you seen children fall out of trees and not even have any broken bones? It hurts, but at that height it's rarely fatal unless you land on your head.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMQFhoHIVdA

Here's a very high fall from a tree.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K74-54YiaP8

And even if you do fall on your head (from 22 feet in this case), you can recover with proper medical treatment. Immediate death is unlikely. In fact, the man was ambulatory after this fall. When he's not even unconscious, death seems like a huge stretch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDoD0WHFgDE

Here's an unfortunate recent news story where a hiker in Utah fell over 100 feet. He's still alive, but in critical condition.

http://abcnews.go.com/Lifestyle/wire...ional-47895149

I maintain that a human being would have at least 9 HP at adulthood.

__

There should probably be an extra age category stuck between child and toddler.

By the age of 1, an average boy will be over 16 inches tall.

I mean, other way around, sorry. They should probably be the same age (and therefore size) category as the one above. Or we assume that a toddler is never actually standing up at full height even in combat, or that they break the normal rules for creatures of their size category because reasons. Alternatively you could start the size category decreases for each category below teenager rather than below child, which probalby makes more sense because teenagers are probably more dwarf height than halfling height.

A rat is Tiny. I don't see how a newborn could be anything smaller than that.

__

I'm sorry, but do you know who else is proficient in multiple martial weapons?

Elves. Just by existing.

You're confusing proficiency (Can use this weapon without a massive penalty) and being actually good with a weapon (has feats which buff the use of the weapon). Racial proficiencies are gained just by being brought up as part of a culture which values them (which is explicitly why half-humans get them and half-elves don't). A weapon proficiency is not "Good enough with that weapon to serve in the Chinese army" by any stretch of the imagination. It's "Good enough to wield the weapon properly". Nonproficiency in a weapon is sorta Arya Stark stick-em-with-the-pointy-end at best. Being able to wield weapons properly wasn't some amazing feat: it's what children in some societies actually did: all it means is, and I quote, "You understand how to use that type of weapon in combat". Not exactly revolutionary stuff.

Similarly, the bard has five skills that aren't perform. Say they're all knowledge. Do you know who also has a 3/4 chance to be able to answer basic questions on four different topics (and never mind that I said that kids should have INT penalties)? Primary school children, that's who! Who has a decent chance of being able to lie to someone who isn't massively good at detecting lies? Kids. Who has access to the ancient and forgotten art of making friends with people who were indifferent to you (but only on, like, 50% of attempts)? Like, freaking toddlers?

And a first-level bard with 4 ranks in perform and a 16 in charisma - that is, a charisma in the top 5% - will only give even a routine performance 9/10 of the time, which means that our child prodigy, with maximum skill ranks, will sometimes fail to give even a decent performance.

I agree with most of what you said.

I think those child prodigy types would have class levels in Expert or something of that nature. I think you need to listen to some of the very young ones (5 years old or so). Most of the time they really aren't that good compared to an amateur adult. They just appear more exceptional because of their young age. Of course, there are the types who practice 8 hours a day and are truly exceptional, even compared to adults.

Compare trumpeter Geoffrey Gallante when he appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (at age 5) to how he sounded when he was 11 to how he sounds now. The earlier performance, if you ignore his age making him seem comparatively better, would probably represent a 9. His later performances are probably 20+.

Secondly, why wouldn't someone with a +8 Perform just take 10?

EDIT: Added story about hiker falling 100 feet and surviving.

[Thurbane]

20-50 lb breeds include:

• Australian Cattle Dog (Blue Heelers as we call them)
• Bull Terrier
• Staffordshire Bull Terrier

...if I was the kind of unbalanced individual to wager on one of these vs. a child, I know where my money would be.

I had a Staffordshire Terrier/Red Heeler cross who was in this weight range, and she could have done some serious damage to me if she wasn't so well natured (I'm 6'3" and was around 300 lbs at the time I had her). In a tug of war with her favorite rope toy, she could pull me off balanced unless I was well braced.

So before you mock people for their lack of dog knowledge, be aware that not everything D&D lists as a non-riding dog is a toy poodle or similar.

[edit] Dingoes and African Wild Dogs also fall into this weight range, if you want to take wild breeds into the mix. [/edit]

[SirNibbles]

20-50 lb breeds include:

• Australian Cattle Dog (Blue Heelers as we call them)
• Bull Terrier
• Staffordshire Bull Terrier

...if I was the kind of unbalanced individual to wager on one of these vs. a child, I know where my money would be.

I had a Staffordshire Terrier/Red Heeler cross who was in this weight range, and she could have done some serious damage to me if she wasn't so well natured (I'm 6'3" and was around 300 lbs at the time I had her). In a tug of war with her favorite rope toy, she could pull me off balanced unless I was well braced.

So before you mock people for their lack of dog knowledge, be aware that not everything D&D lists as a non-riding dog is a toy poodle or similar.

[edit] Dingoes and African Wild Dogs also fall into this weight range, if you want to take wild breeds into the mix. [/edit]

I'm not mocking people. People are naming breeds and saying they weigh much less than they actually do. A debate requires each side to present an opinion and the facts that support that opinion. Pointing out that one side made an opinion based on incorrect facts is perfectly valid.

One of the ones you named, the Bull Terrier, weighs 55-65 lbs.

"Generally, males weigh 55 to 65 pounds and females 45 to 55 pounds. They stand about 21 to 22 inches at the shoulder. The Miniature Bull Terrier stands 10 to 14 inches tall at the shoulder, and weighs about 25 to 33 pounds."

Being able to pull you off balance or injure you is not the same as dropping you from full health to dying with a single bite, which is what the statted dog can do to an average Commoner.

[Thurbane]

I'm not mocking people. People are naming breeds and saying they weigh much less than they actually do. A debate requires each side to present an opinion and the facts that support that opinion. Pointing out that one side made an opinion based on incorrect facts is perfectly valid.

One of the ones you named, the Bull Terrier, weighs 55-65 lbs.

"Generally, males weigh 55 to 65 pounds and females 45 to 55 pounds. They stand about 21 to 22 inches at the shoulder. The Miniature Bull Terrier stands 10 to 14 inches tall at the shoulder, and weighs about 25 to 33 pounds."

Being able to pull you off balance or injure you is not the same as dropping you from full health to dying with a single bite, which is what the statted dog can do to an average Commoner.

I'll concede bull terrier - looks like I may have been looking at a wrong line on a chart.

Commoner vs African Wild Dog? Yeah, I know who I'd back in that one.

Also remember that hit points in D&D are fairly abstract. A single knife thrust can, and often does, kill in one hit IRL. In the reality of D&D it does about the damage as a dog (assuming wielder has +1 strength bonus). In D&D a dog can attack once every six seconds; IRL it can maul someone fairly savagely in six seconds once it gets a grip. But I feel this is not a point you're willing to give ground on: you have a fixed mental image in your head of what the D&D stat block of "Dog" represents.

Trying to justify D&D mechanics with real world pseudo-science rarely ends well.

If you and your players are OK with adding (IMHO at least) confusing and unnecessary extra sets of rules, and it makes the game more immersive and enjoyable, then I genuinely wish you all the best.

[Frozen_Feet]

@SirNibbles:

1) 20 to 50 lbs. converts to 9 to 22.5 kg. That covers up to smallest female German shepherds (22 to 32 kg; males are 30 to 45 kg) and smallest grey wolves (20 to 50 kg). It also covers coyotes (11 to 25 kg) and several other wild canines with bite strength comparable to or higher than German shepherd. (Domestic canines have lower bite strength than wild ones of comparable size due to neoteny.)

2) A dog's bite does 1d4+1 damage. These values don't model playfull nibbling, they model a dog crushing your wrist, leg or throat with its jaws, as is typical of canine hunting methods. In real life, there is nothing wondrous about an adult human dying to a single bite to the throat. An adult human can easily die from shock or blood loss caused by single bite to a hand or leg if a fang pierces major artery.

3) Speaking of shock and bloodloss, people in d20 do not die at 0 HP, they become incapacitated (lethal damage) or staggered (non-lethal damage) instead. Death only happens at -10 hitpoints. When in the negatives and dying, you lose 1 HP per round with a chance to stabilize each round. This means even a 1 HP character has a chance to survive a dog bite or a 10' fall.

4) A dog only has 60% to hit an average human and 50% chance to roll 3 or better for damage. Average HP roll for commoner is 2.5. This means a dog succesfully incapacitates or lethally wounds an average commoner during first round of combat 30% of time.

5) when landing on soft ground, first 1d6 of falling damage is automatically converted to non-lethal damage. Ditto for controlled falls. So even a 1 HP character can fall from 10' and suffer no injury. The Jump and Tumble DCs for ignoring first 1d6 falling damage is 15, so even someone with -4 penalty can walk off the fall 5% of time.

6) default rules assume average array for animals (10,10,10,11,11,11) and standard array for commoner humans (13,12,11,10,9,8). Neither are representative of all members of their species. For large populations, you ought to assume variance along the 3d6 bell curve, from which both stat arrays are derived. This means there are dogs significantly weaker than average and humans significantly stronger than average.

7) the actual average HP for human 1st level commoners is above 2.5. For one, penalties to stats can't lower HP below 1, but bonuses can raise it higher than 4. 37.5% of commoners have Con of 12 or above, and 25% of those roll 4 for hitpoints. For two, humans have two free choice feats. Any human commoner could have Endurance and Diehard, allowing them to act at negative hitpoints, or 2 x toughness for +6 HP. An example 1st level human commoner could have 4 (roll) + 1 (13 con, standard array) + 6 (2x toughness) = 11 HP. This gives a miniscule chance to survive even a fall from 200' (20d6 damage) with -9 HP.

Tl;dr: you underestimate default human durability under d20 rules because you are not looking at the rules holistically. Look at the rules explanations above and then tell me if they can't cover all examples of humans surviving falls you posted.

---

@Jormengand:

1) Elves don't get proficiency by existing. Elves aren't considered mature untill over a century in age. That is the reference point for when elves have those traits. The rules do not tell you that immature elves have these traits, they tell you nothing at all about immature elves. Hence this entire discussion.

2) basic proficiency with a weapon is exactly what's good enough for ancient Chinese army. The saying was made against the assumption that you start with a fresh peasant levy/conscript. So 10 days to learn the staff means that's what people who actually fought with staffs considered minimum time for a commoner to learn how use simplest of simplest weapons properly. Sabres and straight swords compare to martial weapons, and having proficiency with them is what sets commoners and f.ex. fighters apart in both class and starting age.

3) Your example of skill DCs is wrong because you ignored Take 10 and Take 20 rules. Someone with +4 modifier doesn't fail DC 10 tasks 30% of the time, in controlled environment they don't fail at all. A human with 4 ranks in survival and modifier of 0+ is skilled enough to always come back with enough food for three when going to woods he knows. Same for Profession, and that human is earning 7 gold pieces for week, 70 times that of untrained labor. Same for craft and you always craft any DC 10 item with value less than 14 gp in a week. With masterwork tools (+2), you can do quick crafting for DC 5 items. That's three skills; any average human could do this. Bard gets four maxed skills more.

+5 modifier means the same for DC 15 checks. It also means hitting DC 25 with a Take 20. So for a knowledge skill, rather than "75% of knowing routine knowledge", that means "Always remember trivia off the top of your head, 75% chance of remembering routine knowledge off the top of your head, knowing all routine and difficult information on the subject when given time to think, and if given time to reference sources, can return answers to questions which are intractable to people without both training and natural aptitude".

Does that sound like an elementary student?

4) the highest modifier a 1st level human bard can potentially have in any skill is 4 (ranks) + 4 (18 stat) + 3 (Skill Focus) + 2 (Alertness etc. Skill feat) = +13. Look at what DCs that hits and tell me what kind of dedication and training you think that takes. Even a commoner with +0 stat can pull off +9 modifier in one skill, meaning they never fail routine tasks without significant outside interference.

[Max Caysey]

@SirNibbles:

1) 20 to 50 lbs. converts to 9 to 22.5 kg. That covers up to smallest female German shepherds (22 to 32 kg; males are 30 to 45 kg) and smallest grey wolves (20 to 50 kg). It also covers coyotes (11 to 25 kg) and several other wild canines with bite strength comparable to or higher than German shepherd. (Domestic canines have lower bite strength than wild ones of comparable size due to neoteny.)

2) A dog's bite does 1d4+1 damage. These values don't model playfull nibbling, they model a dog crushing your wrist, leg or throat with its jaws, as is typical of canine hunting methods. In real life, there is nothing wondrous about an adult human dying to a single bite to the throat. An adult human can easily die from shock or blood loss caused by single bite to a hand or leg if a fang pierces major artery.

3) Speaking of shock and bloodloss, people in d20 do not die at 0 HP, they become incapacitated (lethal damage) or staggered (non-lethal damage) instead. Death only happens at -10 hitpoints. When in the negatives and dying, you lose 1 HP per round with a chance to stabilize each round. This means even a 1 HP character has a chance to survive a dog bite or a 10' fall.

4) A dog only has 60% to hit an average human and 50% chance to roll 3 or better for damage. Average HP roll for commoner is 2.5. This means a dog succesfully incapacitates or lethally wounds an average commoner during first round of combat 30% of time.

5) when landing on soft ground, first 1d6 of falling damage is automatically converted to non-lethal damage. Ditto for controlled falls. So even a 1 HP character can fall from 10' and suffer no injury. The Jump and Tumble DCs for ignoring first 1d6 falling damage is 15, so even someone with -4 penalty can walk off the fall 5% of time.

6) default rules assume average array for animals (10,10,10,11,11,11) and standard array for commoner humans (13,12,11,10,9,8). Neither are representative of all members of their species. For large populations, you ought to assume variance along the 3d6 bell curve, from which both stat arrays are derived. This means there are dogs significantly weaker than average and humans significantly stronger than average.

7) the actual average HP for human 1st level commoners is above 2.5. For one, penalties to stats can't lower HP below 1, but bonuses can raise it higher than 4. 37.5% of commoners have Con of 12 or above, and 25% of those roll 4 for hitpoints. For two, humans have two free choice feats. Any human commoner could have Endurance and Diehard, allowing them to act at negative hitpoints, or 2 x toughness for +6 HP. An example 1st level human commoner could have 4 (roll) + 1 (13 con, standard array) + 6 (2x toughness) = 11 HP. This gives a miniscule chance to survive even a fall from 200' (20d6 damage) with -9 HP.

Tl;dr: you underestimate default human durability under d20 rules because you are not looking at the rules holistically. Look at the rules explanations above and then tell me if they can't cover all examples of humans surviving falls you posted.

---

@Jormengand:

1) Elves don't get proficiency by existing. Elves aren't considered mature untill over a century in age. That is the refer The rules do

A couple of things

1) Don't you get full hit points for the first class die at level 1? Or is that something I'm imagining? Or is that only for PCs and not NPCs?

2) PHB says the average human has 10 or 11 in all stats... Are you using the non-elite array there?

[Frozen_Feet]

I'm using d20 SRD because I don't have the books around for easy reference. To address what you said:

1) Max HP at first level is optional rule for PCs. It's not standard for NPC classes.

2) the sections on monsters and improving monsters tell they're using average array for stat blocks. They also recommend standard array for humanoids (etc.) that advance by NPC class.

From none of this follows that either standard or average array is representative of the whole species. They're average stats for average members of a species, given for ease of use and reference for when you don't actually want to randomize NPCs. From actual in-game perspective, you'd expect much greater variance. To model this variance for huge numbers of creatures, you ought to assume 3d6 distribution, since that is what the 3 to 18 ability score range is derived from, and from where both standard and average arrays are derived from.

Assuming no variation is RAIS (rules-as-stupidly-interpreted) due to causing verisimilitude and worldbuilding issues .

In the above post, I noted for each example either which ability score or which array I was using. Is there an example which is not clear?

[Jormengand]

@Jormengand:

1) Elves don't get proficiency by existing. Elves aren't considered mature untill over a century in age. That is the reference point for when elves have those traits. The rules do not tell you that immature elves have these traits, they tell you nothing at all about immature elves. Hence this entire discussion.

2) basic proficiency with a weapon is exactly what's good enough for ancient Chinese army. The saying was made against the assumption that you start with a fresh peasant levy/conscript. So 10 days to learn the staff means that's what people who actually fought with staffs considered minimum time for a commoner to learn how use simplest of simplest weapons properly. Sabres and straight swords compare to martial weapons, and having proficiency with them is what sets commoners and f.ex. fighters apart in both class and starting age.

3) Your example of skill DCs is wrong because you ignored Take 10 and Take 20 rules. Someone with +4 modifier doesn't fail DC 10 tasks 30% of the time, in controlled environment they don't fail at all. A human with 4 ranks in survival and modifier of 0+ is skilled enough to always come back with enough food for three when going to woods he knows. Same for Profession, and that human is earning 7 gold pieces for week, 70 times that of untrained labor. Same for craft and you always craft any DC 10 item with value less than 14 gp in a week. With masterwork tools (+2), you can do quick crafting for DC 5 items. That's three skills; any average human could do this. Bard gets four maxed skills more.

+5 modifier means the same for DC 15 checks. It also means hitting DC 25 with a Take 20. So for a knowledge skill, rather than "75% of knowing routine knowledge", that means "Always remember trivia off the top of your head, 75% chance of remembering routine knowledge off the top of your head, knowing all routine and difficult information on the subject when given time to think, and if given time to reference sources, can return answers to questions which are intractable to people without both training and natural aptitude".

Does that sound like an elementary student?

4) the highest modifier a 1st level human bard can potentially have in any skill is 4 (ranks) + 4 (18 stat) + 3 (Skill Focus) + 2 (Alertness etc. Skill feat) = +13. Look at what DCs that hits and tell me what kind of dedication and training you think that takes. Even a commoner with +0 stat can pull off +9 modifier in one skill, meaning they never fail routine tasks without significant outside interference.

Half-humans get proficiency for being brought up by elves rather than by humans. Plus, if we take the median of your 10/100/1000, then there's little way that a 15-year-old Half-Orc Barbarian could have spent the time to learn the 60-or-so simple and martial weapons by the time they're an adult; your figures clearly don't make sense. My skill check DCs don't take into account taking 10 becase I assume that kids will be able to answer "Really easy" questions a fair bit of the time and "Basic" questions some of the time even when distracted, and will be able to - if really good - give decent performances a fair bit of the time even when distracted; I don't give Taking 10 much credit in these kinds of discussions because it makes everything into a binary can/can't and I don't know of any DM who really lets you Take 10 on a knowledge check. Finally, I don't give massive skill optimisation ANY credit in these kinds of discussions because all it tells you is "You can do really odd things with the skill system" - it does indeed seem odd that someone with no experience (because XP do really represent experience) can balance on a 2-inch beam with very few problems while being shot at, and it doesn't become much weirder if said person is a child.

[SirNibbles]

@SirNibbles:

1) 20 to 50 lbs. converts to 9 to 22.5 kg. That covers up to smallest female German shepherds (22 to 32 kg; males are 30 to 45 kg) and smallest grey wolves (20 to 50 kg). It also covers coyotes (11 to 25 kg) and several other wild canines with bite strength comparable to or higher than German shepherd. (Domestic canines have lower bite strength than wild ones of comparable size due to neoteny.)

2) A dog's bite does 1d4+1 damage. These values don't model playfull nibbling, they model a dog crushing your wrist, leg or throat with its jaws, as is typical of canine hunting methods. In real life, there is nothing wondrous about an adult human dying to a single bite to the throat. An adult human can easily die from shock or blood loss caused by single bite to a hand or leg if a fang pierces major artery.

3) Speaking of shock and bloodloss, people in d20 do not die at 0 HP, they become incapacitated (lethal damage) or staggered (non-lethal damage) instead. Death only happens at -10 hitpoints. When in the negatives and dying, you lose 1 HP per round with a chance to stabilize each round. This means even a 1 HP character has a chance to survive a dog bite or a 10' fall.

4) A dog only has 60% to hit an average human and 50% chance to roll 3 or better for damage. Average HP roll for commoner is 2.5. This means a dog succesfully incapacitates or lethally wounds an average commoner during first round of combat 30% of time.

5) when landing on soft ground, first 1d6 of falling damage is automatically converted to non-lethal damage. Ditto for controlled falls. So even a 1 HP character can fall from 10' and suffer no injury. The Jump and Tumble DCs for ignoring first 1d6 falling damage is 15, so even someone with -4 penalty can walk off the fall 5% of time.

6) default rules assume average array for animals (10,10,10,11,11,11) and standard array for commoner humans (13,12,11,10,9,8). Neither are representative of all members of their species. For large populations, you ought to assume variance along the 3d6 bell curve, from which both stat arrays are derived. This means there are dogs significantly weaker than average and humans significantly stronger than average.

7) the actual average HP for human 1st level commoners is above 2.5. For one, penalties to stats can't lower HP below 1, but bonuses can raise it higher than 4. 37.5% of commoners have Con of 12 or above, and 25% of those roll 4 for hitpoints. For two, humans have two free choice feats. Any human commoner could have Endurance and Diehard, allowing them to act at negative hitpoints, or 2 x toughness for +6 HP. An example 1st level human commoner could have 4 (roll) + 1 (13 con, standard array) + 6 (2x toughness) = 11 HP. This gives a miniscule chance to survive even a fall from 200' (20d6 damage) with -9 HP.

Tl;dr: you underestimate default human durability under d20 rules because you are not looking at the rules holistically. Look at the rules explanations above and then tell me if they can't cover all examples of humans surviving falls you posted.

1. You're using rounded conversions to make the breeds fit. A quick search says a German Shepherd will be 49-71 lbs (female)/66-88 lbs (male). If you want to say that breed (where 99% of the population is 50+ lbs) is represented by the 20-50 lb category, fine. We'll agree to be at an impasse.

2. My sister was mauled by 2 dogs. Her injuries were nowhere near life-threatening. They had multiple rounds of combat on her as well, not just a single attack.

3. I know people don't die at 0 HP, but if you get dropped, you're going to die soon after, especially if you're unconscious. At the very least, getting knocked unconscious by a single bite is absurd.

4. Your maths are incorrect. A dog's damage will be 2/3/4/5 (ignoring crits). A human's HP (assuming 10 Con) will be 1/2/3/4. If we grid this out into the 16 distinct combinations, we see that for any hit, the probabilities are as follows:
3/16: Positive HP (1 to 2 HP remaining)
3/16: Disabled (0 HP remaining)
10/16: Unconscious and Dying (-1 to -4 HP remaining)

Its hit chance is 55%. Let's grid that out again:
45%: Miss (no damage)
34.375%: Hit, Unconscious and Dying
10.3125%: Hit, Disabled
10.3125%: Hit, Alive

5. What's your point? I showed two examples of people falling onto hard surfaces, including one from over 30 feet up. Tumble is a trained-only skill, and none of my examples showed people deliberately jumping. People are pretty resilient when it comes to moderate fall damage, and the HP system does not reflect that if you're going to say that most people have around 3 HP.

6. Variation is equal in both directions and generally cancels out. 66.7% of the population are within 1 SD of the mean, so most variation is pretty minor.

7. Feats represent training (or, more rarely, some innate ability). I don't think that kid who fell from the tree had the IRL Diehard feat. I don't think the guy who fell off the cliff had Toughness x2. They're just average people with no specific training to make their bodies tougher.

___

An aside: what are your thoughts on Gestalting the RHD?

[Lazymancer]

Do you really want hit points for toddlers in the land of "if it has stats, we can kill it"?

Spoiler: people are way ahead of you

Show

Though, I admit - statting a fetus is something I've never seen before. Not sure even if FATAL went that far.


On topic: I'd say children should not receive penalties to stats, but maximums (that get raised as they age).