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Changelings have the ability to change their height and weight, but not so much they change a size category:

[...] You can also adjust your height and weight, but not so much that your size changes. [...]

While they start out as a Medium creature, there is scope for them to be affected by something like Enlarge/Reduce, which would then enable them to change their height (and weight) to any size within that size category.

As a result, I'm looking for height (and weight) ranges for each size category in the game. (I've not been able to find such a chart)

If there isn't a size chart in 5e, answers from other editions are welcome.

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    \$\begingroup\$ It's worthwhile to point out, I am a DM and looking at this from a DMs perspective, so I can come up with a reasonable set of metrics to work with, but that isn't especially relevant to the question (the fact I'm a DM), as the idea behind the question is to get a set of ranges that enable both sets of people at the table, to make informed decisions on choices and rulings, given the specific mechanics of this race. Outliers, while potentially useful for "rule-bending", are just that, outliers, but the most useful information is actually the range where two categories overlap... \$\endgroup\$
    – illustro
    Jan 20, 2022 at 1:23
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    \$\begingroup\$ ...as it gives an idea that the true answer is actually somewhere in that overlap range, or at the less extreme edges of it on either side (eg larger end of a potential Small/Medium overlap for the lower limit on Medium creatures and the lower end of that limit for the upper size range of Small creatures) \$\endgroup\$
    – illustro
    Jan 20, 2022 at 1:25
  • \$\begingroup\$ Are you interested in applications most useful for changelings (i.e. humanoid forms), or heights and weights more broadly? There is data for the former if you're interested, but only for Medium and Small creatures. \$\endgroup\$
    – BBeast
    Jan 20, 2022 at 6:01
  • \$\begingroup\$ @BBeast I'm interested in heights and weights more broadly, as the changeling restriction limits their changes in height and weight to size category limits. So while they are limited to humanoid forms, they are not limited to staying within the normal height bounds for those forms (so they could make themselves be an abnormally large dwarf, for example, that towers over all humans). \$\endgroup\$
    – illustro
    Jan 20, 2022 at 9:36
  • \$\begingroup\$ Scaling weight is easy if you have height scaling and a base weight. Doubling height translates to a roughly eight-fold increase in weight assuming all dimensions increase proportionately (they probably do) and density is preserved (it probably is). \$\endgroup\$ Jan 20, 2022 at 14:37

6 Answers 6

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While there doesn't appear to be a simple table in Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition , there was one in the Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 Dungeon Master's Guide 2003, 29. Though it's not as necessary in 5e to have a 'rule for everything', size in 5e is almost exclusively defined by the space a creature takes up in combat. The rest of the dimensions, height, length, width, weight, et al. are left somewhat nebulous. For the changeling, one might start with the height and weight ranges for other medium humanoids, as far as those numbers exist as statistics, for example.

It may be helpful to use the table from the 3.5 DMG as a basis to start your descriptions and rulings from. Truncated below:

Size Category Maximum Height Max. Weight Space
Fine 6in. or less 1/8 Lb or less 1/2 ft.
Diminutive 1 ft. 1 Lb 1 ft.
Tiny 2 ft. 8 Lb 2 1/2 ft.
Small 4 ft. 60 Lb 5 ft.
Medium 8 ft. 500 Lb 5 ft.
Large 16 ft. 4000 Lb 10 ft.
Huge 32 ft 32000 Lb 15 ft.
Gargantuan 64 ft. 250000 Lb 20 ft.
Colossal 64 ft. or more 250000 Lb or more 30 ft.

Height is also length for 'long' rather than 'tall' creatures.

Weight is for creatures made of flesh.

Space is usually what is listed, but exceptions exist.

The linked SRD page (correctly) extrapolates the changes as minimums as well as maximums.


I view this as a good starting point for description and hammering my monsters to fit the scales of D&D.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ This is precisely what I was looking for that doesn't (currently) exist in 5e. I've been able to replicate the height portion of this using the little information 5e has on Height and size linking, and it matches these 3.5e ranges (weight is much fuzzier). As such I'm happy to use the 3.5e table and ranges. \$\endgroup\$
    – illustro
    Jan 21, 2022 at 17:08
  • \$\begingroup\$ 5e mostly moved away from this style of table, and it seems intentional - so while this might work well for the querent, it is unfortunate that the answer doesn't go into more detail about what 5e has to offer in this regard. \$\endgroup\$ Jan 22, 2022 at 10:10
  • \$\begingroup\$ Would you prefer something along the lines of "Though it's not as necessary in 5e to have a 'rule for everything', size in 5e is almost exclusively defined by the space a creature takes up in combat. The rest of the dimensions, height, length, width, weight, et al. are left to the DM to flesh out, at his preference. The table from the 3.5 DMG can be used as a basis to start your descriptions and rulings from, if it helps you." @Akixkisu? \$\endgroup\$
    – Chemus
    Jan 22, 2022 at 14:27
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Chemus Yes, something like that — when does exact size matter? Mostly in encounter situations - and then we are talking about controlled space which the changeling can't change - and in all other situations from a mechanics point only space matters; and when size matters e. g. for an intimidation check - it is only important that the shape is looming dangerous, tall and heavy/agile all of which are narrative features and none of which rely on exact measurements. \$\endgroup\$ Jan 22, 2022 at 17:08
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Akixkisu Some of that is simply play, or narrative, style. Having a reasonable starting point for being able to gauge whether a description fits within a particular size category can be a useful tool for those who want it. \$\endgroup\$
    – Chemus
    Jan 22, 2022 at 22:19
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No official guidance is given in the rules, however rather than looking at exact height/weight ranges, you can instead look at this list I made and ask yourself if the player is closer in size to a sheep than a human, or weighs more like a horse than a normal person.

Size Category Example Creatures
Tiny Badger, Bat, Cat, Crab, Fox, Frog, Hare, Hawk, Lizard, Owl, Snake, Honeybee, Quipper, Rat, Raven, Scorpion, Sea Horse, Spider, Weasel
Small Baboon, Eagle, Jackal, Octopus, Sheep
Medium Ape, Black Bear, Boar, Deer, Dolphin, Goat, Human, Hyena, Mastiff, Mule, Panther, Pig, Pony, Reef Shark, Seal, Vulture, Wolf
Large Brown Bear, Camel, Cow, Crocodile, Elk, Horse, Lion, Ox, Polar Bear, Rhinoceros, Tiger, Walrus
Huge Elephant, Killer Whale
Gargantuan Sperm Whale

I have bolded one in each category which I think gives a representative idea of how big/heavy each category is.

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    \$\begingroup\$ Sheep typically have a weight of 50–100 kg (100–200 lbs), pretty much the same as humans. \$\endgroup\$ Jan 20, 2022 at 13:12
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Height is never really defined

There's a reason you don't remember such a chart, because 5e doesn't have one. It doesn't really spend a lot of time on height outside of cylindrical spell effects and player characters. The same goes for verticallity in general, really.

The only part the game really defines (PHB 191) is the creature sizes dictating the space the occupy in combat, which doesn't cover verticaly, and is "not an expression of its physical dimensions."

There is a chart on page 248 of the Dungeon Master's Guide which shows creatures of different height, but it doesn't give you what you were looking for without a lot of extrapolation:

Illustration depicting height from the DMG

It rather obviously doesn't cover anything non-bipedal (the worm isn't much help because that shape doesn't generalize well, and Gargantuan is just anything bigger than Huge anyway), nor does it actually say anything about what the limits or borders are. You could maybe take the depicted heights as (approximate) upper bounds, it gives little for lower bounds if you want to cover all existing monsters. (The extreme end would be rug of smothering which is Large and well... one carpet tall).

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Thank you, I'd forgotten about that chart! \$\endgroup\$
    – illustro
    Jan 21, 2022 at 17:11
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About Space Controlled

What we get from official sources about size is about the area you have control over:

Size Space Examples
Tiny 2 1/2 by 2 1/2 ft. Imp, sprite
Small 5 by 5 ft. Giant rat, goblin
Medium 5 by 5 ft. Orc, werewolf
Large 10 by 10 ft. Hippogriff, ogre
Huge 15 by 15 ft. Fire giant, treant
Gargantuan 20 by 20 ft. or larger Kraken, purple worm

Which I believe is fuzzy by design. I think it is along the lines of designers thinking, "We all know what medium creature looks like, and what a huge creature looks like, but we don't want to some hard fast rule that 9' is medium and 9'1" is large."

Height

In general, I think a height less then next control space is about what you'll in the most monster stat blocks for a given size, as a general rule of thumb. That is, I wouldn't let a medium humanoid creature get taller than 10ft., because with a sword their reach would logically be larger than the 5 foot space. Small and medium, as currently written, is a weird distinction. So maybe something like:

  • Tiny, anything less that 1 feet tall.
  • Small 1 to 3 ft tall.
  • Medium 3' to 10' ft tall. (average adult humans have a height of 5.6)
  • Large 10' to 15' ft tall.
  • Huge 15' to 20' ft tall.
  • Gargantuan 20' or more.

Keeping in mind, again, that these are just numbers I picked out of the air, based on what kind of makes sense given the control area described above. Most of the time, just setting the max to control size of the next size. Although it does fit with the diagram in the DMG.

Weight

Weight is more difficult and more fuzzy, because a lot of monsters and such are made out of weird materials of different density than human flesh and bone. Perhaps the best bet it to look at the weights of the real life creatures in each category when possible. Here's some for reference:

I'd be tempted to generalize that out to be something like:

  • Tiny < 10 lbs.
  • Small: <100 lbs.
  • Medium: < 400 lbs.
  • Large: < 1,000 lbs.
  • Huge: < 25,000 lbs.
  • Gargantuan: > 25,000 lbs.
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    \$\begingroup\$ Good job finding some real-world reference weights. If you made medium < 500 lbs, the weight chart would be even simpler with factor 5 and 10 steps, and it would cap off with Floating Disc, too. \$\endgroup\$ May 28, 2022 at 7:18
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5e only offers height ranges for two categories, but from that, we can extrapolate the remaining ranges

After some (detailed) digging, I found that the Players Handbook lists two sets of measurements for the size categories that Player Characters fit into:

Characters of most races are Medium, a size category including creatures that are roughly 4 to 8 feet tall. Members of a few races are Small (between 2 and 4 feet tall), which means that certain rules of the game affect them differently. [...]

PHB > Chapter 2: Races > Racial Traits > Size

Helpfully, the wording of this tells us describes the general size category ranges, as opposed to just the size category as it applies to Player Characters. So this gives us a starting point for our Height calculation.

We can then use the text of the Enlarge/Reduce spell:

Enlarge. The target's size doubles in all dimensions, and its weight is multiplied by eight. This growth increases its size by one category - from Medium to Large, for example.

Reduce. The target's size is halved in all dimensions, and its weight is reduced to one-eighth of normal. This reduction decreases its size by one category - from Medium to Small, for example.

So if we double our upper and lower bounds we should get the Height ranges for size categories above Medium, and if we halve our upper and lower bounds we should get the height ranges for categories below Small.

First we should sanity check this method, using our two known size categories, and thankfully it works as expected with those upper and lower bounds!

Extrapolating this, and using the size categories we have defined in the rules for 5e (Tiny, Small, Medium, Large, Huge, and Gargantuan) we get the following table:

Size Category Minimum Height Maximum Height
Tiny 1 ft. 2ft.
Small 2 ft. 4ft.
Medium 4 ft. 8ft.
Large 8 ft. 16ft.
Huge 16 ft 32ft.
Gargantuan 32 ft. 64ft.

Technically, given the fact Tiny and Gargantuan are the minimum and maximum size categories respectively, their respective lower and upper bounds wouldn't have limits on them as shown in the above table. I found it useful, however, to include them, as this method would also enable us to generate additional size categories above and below the default given ones in the 5e rules.

Weight, is trickier, as the canonical Height and Weight tables, showing in the PHB, Volo's Guide to Monsters, and Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica (as well as other 1-2 new race specific source books), list out weights of playable races. We can use these as guideposts, but the ranges are a lot fuzzier and require a lot more work. I'll update this answer when I've collated that information.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ +1, might also be good to point out that these apply only to the humanoid body plan (which is OK, it's the only relevant one for changeling). For example, you can have huge snakes like the Giant Constrictor Snake, that would have a hard time to get to more than three of four feet of height slithering along. \$\endgroup\$ May 28, 2022 at 7:09
  • \$\begingroup\$ These sizes are also supported by examples in the monster manual, which has the smallest Huge giant, the Hill Giant, at 16 feet, and the archetypical large humanoid, the Ogre, at 9-10 feet. \$\endgroup\$ May 28, 2022 at 7:11
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I had to delve into this topic today because of an encounter I'm preparing for the weekend, and I went down a rabbit hole so I thought to share.

I used the 3.5 table, enlarge/reduce description, and material weights by cubic feet to arrive at this:

Tiny: 1-2ft, 1-8lb Small: 2-4ft, 8-64lb Medium: 4-8ft, 64-512lb Large: 8-16ft, 512-4096lb Huge: 16-32ft, 4096-32768lb Gargantuan: 32ft<, 32768lb<

You can start from less than 1lb, but the values hold up pretty well as is. If you want to calculate weight by material, you can use water/oil/fat/leather as base (60lb per cubic feet) and then multiply the value according to the difference, for example: Dry Wood is 30lb which means it weights half as much, while iron weights 8.33 times the value.

That's how I did it at least, you can change it to fit your taste.

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    \$\begingroup\$ Welcome to the site! Please take the tour when you get the chance. Could you walk us through how you derived those numbers? \$\endgroup\$
    – Oblivious Sage
    Sep 24, 2022 at 12:16

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