I'm making a new setting right now. After doing a setting roulette (inspired by the Dice Pool), one of the traits of our world is Redwall-style animals. So all of the PCs are small mammals, ranging from mice to squirrels to badgers. I've adjusted silhouette perspectives so that a squirrel is the standard for Sil 1.

I've cooked up a bunch of archetypes that vary from Silhouette 0 to 2. I didn't want their characteristics to be limited by their silhouette, so some large animals have low Brawn and some small animals have high Brawn. But I do want a bit more mechanical heft to silhouettes beyond small target/big target presented in the CRB. So how does this sound:

Silhouette 0 PCs add a setback to all Brawn based checks. Silhouette 2 PCs add a boost to all Brawn based checks.

Does that seem too unreasonable?

It's not unreasonable, assuming that something (such as starting XP) makes up the difference.

Encumbrance could be slightly adjusted for Silhouette too, Silhouette 1 could be 3+Brawn, Silhouette 2 is Then 7+Brawn. Or you could simply give a Silhouette 2 creature an ability that increases the maximum Encumbrance.

An ability similar to Durable could be a good way to distinguish a Silhouette 2 creature as well, reducing the severity of every Crit they take by 10.

A boost to Brawl Damage could be appropriate to a larger creature too

The Boost and Setback idea you have is good, but I don’t think I would make it something that always applies. Some Athletics checks involve lifting ones own body weight, such as climbing or not falling from something like an out of control carriage, in that case your Brawn is relative to your size and having a Silhouette 2 could actually be a hindrance.

Then you have things like Stealth, a Silhouette 2 creature is going to find it much harder to be stealthy than a Silhouette 0 creature, Coordination could be affected too. Does a Silhouette 2 creature get a bonus to Perception since they have an elevated perspective and can see over more things? Or does the small creature have an advantage since they can typically turn faster to look around themselves?

I think what I’m getting at is you should perhaps consider creating a crib sheet of situations that could be beneficial or detrimental to both Silhouettes. You should probably also encourage players to think of their silhouettes and try to incorporate it into their descriptions for a chance of getting boost or Setback

Chewed on this for a bit. What do you think of doubling the Brawn bonus for Melee, Brawl, WT and Encumbrance, but all their gear (weapons, armor, etc) costs 1.5x more?

The exact cost need to be adjusted to make it fair.

12 hours ago, Zenferno said:

Chewed on this for a bit. What do you think of doubling the Brawn bonus for Melee, Brawl, WT and Encumbrance, but all their gear (weapons, armor, etc) costs 1.5x more?

The exact cost need to be adjusted to make it fair.

I get the idea but that would be massively in favor of the smaller characters because this is a modern setting where combat will be mostly guns