Shrink to Fit
You know that one scene with Isildur in “The Fellowship of the Ring?” This one. Look carefully kids, and remember it well. That’s what a convenient plot device looks like.
Doesn’t matter if you’re writing a novel or running a game. If you’re working within the bounds of fantasy, science fiction, or any of the other genres predicated on the construction of a secondary world, you’re going to have to make some concessions to expediency. Consider the ever-popular language known as “the common tongue.” Translator microbes fall into the same category. Then there’s the timely eclipse. The self-destruct mechanism. The wonderfully non-specific precursor / forerunner / unimaginably ancient civilization that populated your setting with strange and mysterious artifacts. Every Macguffin you meet and evil twin you duel is a concession to the demons of expediency.
In the case of Tolkien, you’ve got to get the ring onto Frodo’s finger. But wait a minute…didn’t the Dark Lord where that thing? Sauron sure as crap isn’t fun-sized. Oh I know! We’ll just make it shrink to fit, the better to tempt its new bearer.
Now consider the case of D&D. You’ve got a world filled with magical whatsits, but you’ve got party members of variable size. That’s why we get these wonderful lines courtesy of the 3.5 SRD: “When an article of magic clothing or jewelry is discovered, most of the time size shouldn’t be an issue. Many magic garments are made to be easily adjustable, or they adjust themselves magically to the wearer. Size should not keep characters of various kinds from using magic items.” That is rock solid design, and a great application of this principle of expediency. That’s why it’s so baffling to me that the designers felt the need to exclude weapons and armor. Why should a cloud giant’s circus tent sized cloak shrink to fit a pixie, but not his broadsword? If anyone would like to hazard a guess (or better yet if Monte Cook happens to be a reader) I’m genuinely curious about the reasoning. So, for that matter, is Fighter.
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My guess? Probably an exploit where someone would play a Tiny character and auto-shrink things to save on encumbrance. Weapons and armor are both heavy and most likely to need redundancy, so it’s where that has the biggest impact.
Now I’m picturing a chain of item shrinking boutiques run by entrepreneurial pixies. This game is full of unintended consequences!
I try not to question the mindset of mismatched details like that and just assume it’s the same kind of thing that involves that ever-present, ever-aggravating limiting class/race stat lineups. And my solution is much the same, ignore the bad stuff and say that the giant sized longsword shrinks down to fit your halfling’s hands and that your halfling can have +2 Int and +1 Con or whatever because you want to be a halfling wizard without feeling like you shot yourself in your excessively hairy feet.
Since you brought up ancient precursor races…. fun story. In the 5e game I run the precursor “race” is actually all the normal races due to backstory nobody in the world knows involving the remnants of a world that got destroyed being merged with their previous smaller world by the gods as a patchwork solution. Thanks to the gods having messed with people’s memories as part of the fix and it being the same races with different stories there are really conflicting and confusing myths about where races come from and old buried ruins nobody knows how got there. It also conveniently explains weird stuff like places where planes overlap, tears in reality that allow aberrations to just be around, and any weird geography I want to put anywhere it shouldn’t actually be.
I dig your “patchwork world” story line. It’s ultimately a better thought out “a wizard did it,” but I think it’s a good idea to have a lore-based event to point toward rather than a vague handwave in the direction of “whatever dude, it’s magic.” Good show!
shieldhero used something like that (too bad shieldhero sucks)
The way I handle this conundrum is that all magical armors and weapons have a free optional enchantment of “adjusting” (similar to how there is a free option to make a weapon glow). This enchantment allows armor or weapons to adjust to fit whoever picks them up. The limitation is that it cannot adjust any item by more than one size category unless said item is a Legacy item or an Artifact.
one of my players (playing a Kobold Paladin) greatly appreciates this minor game adjustment.
Now that is a solid house rule. I may just adopt it.
More importantly though… kobold paladin? Paladin of what? Grimtooth?
Depends…
Could be a redeemed kobold who gets a shiny new metallic color to match his previous element to his new alignment.
Or it could be the almighty power of backstory and special snowflake-ness like mine is…
DnD is after all about those people who stand out in their world, and the things that happen to them.
I bet molting into a new color itches like a sonofabitch.
For weapons, I know that there are some styles of combat built around intentionally using a weapon one size category too large for your character. Goblins can use Medium sized rifles in Pathfinder, and I know Amari is rocking with that large sized Bastard Sword. There are also some archetypes and various 3.X shenanigans related to it as well. Auto-sizing weapons would invalidate all of that pretty fast.
Armor? Your guess is as good as mine. It’s especially odd since magical -clothing- resizes itself.
What’s stranger yet is the fact that, if I recall correctly, magical items that resize for your character have the same weight regardless of size. That fancy Blinkback Belt will weigh 2 lbs on the waist of a pixie and on the waist of a Titan.
I suppose we can only fall back on the tried and true excuse of “Wizards TM & © did it.”