Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana: Centaurs and Minotaurs

Gardens & Goblins · May 24, 2018

What always bugs me is:

Centaurs: Do they have two sets up lungs? Hearts? How does.. the human and the horse... internal gubbinz... work?

And yes, 'its magic' is a sure-fire way to get tossed out the airlock.

CapnZapp · May 24, 2018

Yaarel said:
Difficulties that Large size poses for player characters in D&D 5e. From most problematic to least.
• Increases area of an aura.
• Makes grappling less balanced.
• Incurs ‘squeezing’ in more areas in official adventures.
• Increases carrying capacity.
• Player characters can act as ‘mounts’.

... ?

I would say this list is in random order.

(I take it you placed auras first as a joke)

CapnZapp · May 24, 2018

Yaarel said:
My sense of it too.

Can someone compile a list of the main difficulties that Large size causes in 5e?

I need to better understand what the problem seems to be.

Of the items previous posters have listed, the big three are:

Bigger weapon damage
Squeezing
Grappling

Things like carrying capacity and auras are distinctly unimportant. If it weren't for the big three you could easily allow large PCs.

CapnZapp · May 24, 2018

DEFCON 1 said:
Heh... at the end of the day, I think the entire Large PC concern comes down entirely to Large PCs expecting/wanting to use Large weapons. Everything else is a middling concern.

Being able to go nutso in combat is one of the biggest things there is for a good percentage of the message board population. That's why the Sharpshooter / Great Weapon Master feats are still argued about on and on about how "required" they are, and how "unbalanced" they are etc. etc. etc. We now throw in the possibility of Large PCs... ones that by the rules in the MM as they currently stand use large weapons that do much more damage... we now open up a whole can of worms where all of a sudden the entirety of the game's "balance" is thrown off because of the disparity in damage capability.

And it's not like they could even just remove the "large weapons" ability for Large PC creatures and replace it with the bonus d4 from like the Enlarge spell. I mean hell, look at all the complaints about making the centaur into a Medium creature! If *that* is getting some players all worked up... that's NOTHING compared to the tempest of complaints that would occur if WotC allowed for the existance of Large PCs but then removed their ability to wield oversized weapons as part of the PC write-up.

So WotC is (probably rightly) just not even opening that can of worms. No Large PCs. Easy, simple, and they never have to engage with the crapstorm from combat-first players who want Large PCs so they can be even stronger in combat, and who would go ballistic if they didn't get to because large weapons were restricted to them.

They could allow it in UA, specifically mentioning this would never go into an official book, just for the crowd who wants it in their home game...

Immoralkickass · May 24, 2018

Gardens & Goblins said:
What always bugs me is:

Centaurs: Do they have two sets up lungs? Hearts? How does.. the human and the horse... internal gubbinz... work?

And yes, 'its magic' is a sure-fire way to get tossed out the airlock.

But, its magi- *Airlock sound* -AAAAAAAAaaaaaaa

Sword of Spirit · May 24, 2018

Gardens & Goblins said:
What always bugs me is:

Centaurs: Do they have two sets up lungs? Hearts? How does.. the human and the horse... internal gubbinz... work?

And yes, 'its magic' is a sure-fire way to get tossed out the airlock.

It’s all in the horse. The human part is all muscle. That’s why they *could* actually use Large weapons, but the designers nerfed that away so hard that even the MM version can’t have it.

Yaarel · May 24, 2018

CapnZapp said:
I would say this list is in random order.

(I take it you placed auras first as a joke)

In that list, nothing strikes me as particularly concerning. But relative to the others, the ‘aura’ such as an aura of fire means dealing damage to more adjacent targets. Not a big deal. But I am just trying to wrap my head around why the designers seem to be so paranoid about Large size player characters.

Heh, ... megalophobic?

Yaarel · May 24, 2018

So, so far the mechanical implications of Large size might include:

Large
+ can access larger weapons with higher damage
+ an aura, such as from a spell, can affect more adjacent targets
− can be attacked by more adjacent hostiles
− can incur opportunity attacks from more adjacent hostiles
+ can block wider access points
− might need to squeeze thru more access points
+ increases carrying capacity
+ can as a ‘mount’ for an ally

‘At the end of the day’, dealing more weapon damage seems to be the only notable concern.

The problem of blocking access points seems trivial to fix. Repurpose the grappling mechanic to squeeze past someone.

Affecting more adjacent creatures seems offset by being affected by more adjacent creatures.

What D&D needs is a balanced mechanic that can normalize larger weapon damage.

In other contexts, I want size to correlate with Constitution, so each size has a minimum requirement. Something like:

Minimum Constitution Score for Size
27 Gargantuan
23 Huge
19 Large
15 Heavyweight (Medium)
11 Lightweight (Medium)
7 Small
3 Tiny

Thus the larger creature only deals more damage by adding the Constitution score to the damage. (Better yet, Strength is only the attack bonus, while Constitution in the sense of size becomes the damage bonus.)

So, players who want to deal more damage by being Large need to invest in a higher ability score. This is an opportunity cost that results in other ability scores being lower. Thus, a more balanced Large character is possible.

DEFCON 1 · May 24, 2018

CapnZapp said:
They could allow it in UA, specifically mentioning this would never go into an official book, just for the crowd who wants it in their home game...

I feel very sorry for the players who feel like they cannot make their own house rules and instead have to wait for WotC to create house rules for them in Unearthed Arcana. Their gaming lives must be so sad, desperately begging Mike & Co. to give them permission to play D&D in the way they only wished they could play.

CapnZapp · May 24, 2018

Yaarel said:
But I am just trying to wrap my head around why the designers seem to be so paranoid about Large size player characters.

Forget the auras, that's nothing.

Dealing two d12 damage with a greataxe is a huge deal, however. They can't introduce large characters because they would completely overshadow every Half-Orc Barbarian and Dwarf Fighter there is.

Grappling would be even worse. Nobody would EVER create a medium-sized grappler when large ones can grapple Huge monsters.

Squeezing would of course be a small price to pay, but still a nuisance.