Creature Size DnD 5E Combat

Hello adventurers of all shapes and sizes! Welcome to my spellbook and thank you so much for checking out the 6th episode of our combat series. Today we’re gonna be taking a look at size categories which is actually really interesting one and i have a lot of really cool thoughts to share on this so yeah i’m looking forward to it.

So a big, small something in between regardless of your shape, regardless of your size, come on with me. Let’s take a look at what is a creature space, doesn’t really rhyme i’m sorry but like i’m not really good at this impromptu stuff so…

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What is a Creatures Space?

Creature Sizes 5E

Each creature takes up a different amount of space. The Size Categories table shows how much space a creature of a particular size controls in combat. Objects sometimes use the same size categories.

Space

A creature’s space is the area in feet that it effectively controls in combat, not an expression of its physical dimensions. A typical Medium creature isn’t 5 feet wide, for example, but it does control a space that wide. If a Medium hobgoblin stands in a 5‐foot-wide doorway, other creatures can’t get through unless the hobgoblin lets them.

A creature’s space also reflects the area it needs to fight effectively. For that reason, there’s a limit to the number of creatures that can surround another creature in combat. Assuming Medium combatants, eight creatures can fit in a 5-foot radius around another one. Because larger creatures take up more space, fewer of them can surround a creature. If four Large creatures crowd around a Medium or smaller one, there’s little room for anyone else. In contrast, as many as twenty Medium creatures can surround a Gargantuan one.

Now contrary to popular belief “A creature space demonstrates the area a creature controls, this area also represents the space a creature needs to fight effectively.” It does in most regards relate to size but not always, i’ll explain that later.

Squeezing Into a Smaller Space:

A creature can squeeze into a space 1 size smaller. While squeezing each foot of movement requires one extra foot of movement, (so if they move five feet they actually have to spend ten feet worth movement) The squeezing creature has disadvantage on attack rolls, and dexterity saves; attack rolls against it are made with advantage.

Really cool stuff! And to be quite honest makes a lot of sense when you really think about it. Make sense of something occupying the space that isn’t conducive to either its size or its fighting habits or anything like that would make it quite a bit worse in terms of combat effectiveness. Let’s take a look at the full size breakdown. Reall cool stuff!

Size Breakdown

Starting off with tiny. The tiny size occupies two and a half by two and a half feet. What that means is about half of a standard grid cube. Yeah pretty pretty small.

Small is five by five so a full square, medium is 5 by 5 so a full square as well, the large is 10 by 10 so about four cubes total, huge is 15 by 15 so about six cubes total and gargantuan is 20 by 20 or larger so sky’s the limit.

So just to clarify before i move out my personal thoughts. The reason for this is actually to prevent or encourage parties to get overwhelmed or not, there’s a couple other things as well but there are more of you, they get with a meili striking distance of a gargantuan creature then you would be able to a small or medium creature. That makes sense, that being said, let’s take a look at my personal thoughts.

Thoughts

Personally, i think it would be a super cool to have a small looking creature like let’s say something like a slime or oos you know like small, medium, tiny but it extends outward like has like super long tendrils that technically make it qualify as a large or a huge creature while in combat. I think that would be really really cool like you’re just a great concept to play with.

Just because of the definition of space it would occupy a larger space while within combat and a smaller space well outside of combat. I think that’d be really cool personally.

Conclusion

That being said, if you have any cool ideas in reagrds to size categories or interesting concepts or any questions please feel free to take it down beneath in the comment section, i really appreciate it. That being said, thank you so much guys i really appreciate it and i hope you all have a wonderful day and as always happy adventuring.

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