Gods being another story, I agree and disagree. Some things should be "you're too small or too big".
But even if you can't do wrap your hands around me and choke me when you're the size of my pinky, you can still kick me in the eyeball.
Ftfy?
It's more an abstraction of your choice. You know that you want to hurt the guy and you know that if you hurt the guy really well you can do a lot more to him. And if you just wanted to get the guy off then there should be a section of [Escape a Grapple] that includes, with a large enough victory of defeat, "You may throw him within 10' and he takes 1d6 damage and falls prone."
Yeah. Just saying that "great result = can do better stuff" (with this being what that means) broke down into nice "doing better by this much means your 'better stuff' improved by this much" increments.
Good point but it's really only speed where Dwarves tend to lag behind humans. They wear clothing that's approximately human-sized, just a little shorter; they eat and drink in human-sized (or larger) portions. They carry human-sized weapons and read from human-sized books and live in human-sized (or larger) grand underground cities. I think human-sized with a speed penalty approximates that well.
Reach, if D&D handled it better (more in depth), would also suffer. A dwarf with a longsword has a reach closer to a human with a shortsword than a human with a longsword.
Now, I know that D&D doesn't break down reach like that, but I think it should. Seperate project?
Otherwise, yeah. A 4'5" Dwarf vs. a 5' human is really not that substantial. Its the "not that different from a 6'3" human either" that starts pushing it too far.
A dwarf cannot use a (human sized) longbow. That's one area where "too short" ought to limit them. They're just not tall enough.
Only a few cases like that...I am not sure if stating "this is an exception to the 'can use human sized weapons'" would be worth the attention or not. (I'd be willing to look over the weapon list we have and see if anyone feels doing it is worth it at all)
But they shouldn't be ignored just because "they never come up". They can. Whether or not the return on the investment of noting they do is worth it is another thing.
On the whole, I would prefer (ideally) Dwarves as Medium (short), rather than Small.
But Medium (short) or any other Size (Short) would take some doing. It wouldn't be a reverse Powerful Build flaw.
I'll see if I can drum up anything and post it elsewhere. If it seems worth using, you're welcome to it. If not, ignore.