Yaarel
He Mage
These centaurs look fine. At the same time, they dont ‘tower’ over humans. They seem about eye-to-eye with humans.
So this is a My Little Pony centaur, rather than a horse centaur.
Going back into the issue of Centaur size, I see the Centaur as being something that takes up more of a 7 foot space of control. But since spaces that creatures occupy only come in 5 foot increments it's either too small or too big.
So I think a 5 foot space is fine even if the technically protrude outside of that space. It makes it easier for balance.
Tell that to Ghengis Khan; ponies are honestly more appropriate to horse nomads, at any rate.These centaurs look fine. At the same time, they dont ‘tower’ over humans. They seem about eye-to-eye with humans.
So this is a My Little Pony centaur, rather than a horse centaur.
Also, it seems weird that they would specify that the humanoid upper body can display all the human variety of skin tones and features but then state that below the waist, the horse coat tends towards "brown shades chestnut or bay)". Why couldn't they state that below the waist the coat can display all the equine variety of coat shades and features?
Oh, yikes, my mistake, I forgot to include the head and neck of the human part: round about 8-10 inches, so a range for the Steppe Centaur of 6'1" to 7'3", eye to eye with the Goliath. NBA player territory, so definitely big, and as the Mongol horses can assure you, quite rideable in battle.So, per Wikipedia, Mongol horses are between 48 and 56 inches tall, give or take. Per Google, average human torsos are about 17-21 inches. So, a steppe nomad Centaur would be between about 5'5" and 6'5".
Shame they lose the Dragonlance nautical fluff (which I think was originally inspired by Voyage of the Dawn Treader).
Minotaur as sailors is probably based on the Ancient Minoans of Crete.
This is where we differ. I don't need them to tell me the lore.
I develop that when I design the world or introduce the race. Might not use all three version, maybe this campaign is just the brutes.
Or....the brutes are the "ogres" of minotaur land, and the smaller ones are the smarter ones, who use the brutes in armies.
I'm pretty sure in the Tweets referenced previously, Crawford does just that, by pointing to Medium Centaurs in pre-existing lore in certain settings: settings that we seem to be getting rule support in some future product, for which they are doing mechanical testing more than lore testing.