D&D 4E Large Races?

[Knightfall]

At no point did I even hint that Large creatures shouldn't be heroes. I have no idea where you got that.

I realize that you weren't saying that. I was trying to get my "hope for large races" across and it came out a little snarky.

I think my goal is to simply try to make it work because I like to tinker with game rules.

Large creatures aren't typically appropriate for PCs, though, and it's mainly because of the weapon issue. If you change the dice, then there are a number of abilities that work different. A Craghammer is a d10, Brutal 2 weapon. If it moves up a size, is the Brutal 2 still appropriate? What about a weapon that changes from 1 big die to 2 smaller dice. The Brutal property suddenly become incredibly powerful. That's part of the reason that they don't want Large PCs.

I just finished reading the Skills and Feats chapters, which mean the Equipment chapter is next.

I'm assuming that Brutal is a magical weapon property, correct?

Part of me thinks that a flat bonus for weapon damage for large races (as Fanaelialae suggested) is best, but I want it to scale up somehow (especially since weapon dice scale). Perhaps +1 for Heroic tier, +2 for Paragon tier, and +3 for Epic tier.

Opinions on that?

 

[Camelot]

I think Large creatures can be heroes, but not adventurers in the specific sense of D&D.

An adventurer in D&D is one who joins an adventuring party or guild in order to have companions while adventuring. Large creatures don't live in most towns or cities, as they are built for Medium creatures and thus are too small for the Large ones. Thus the Large ones don't have access to the adventuring guilds and parties.

If you want to let Large creatures in your party, your campaign has to revolve around heroes but not adventurers. The party will be a much closer group, probably having known each other for years, since they did not meet in a town or an adventurer's guild. They will explore wild places and encounter big creatures, no smaller than Medium size (if that). Dungeons will not be common in this adventure except big ornate ones that Large creatures can move around in. They'll probably never come across civilization, or if they do, it will be a small tribe rather than a city.

Having Large PCs can be done, but certain expectations of the game must be adjusted for them.

 

[EP]

Space is the biggest issue (no pun intended) to work out. Reach can be an issue to but that's nothing a Medium character with a reach weapon can't benefit from as well. But when you allow Large characters with Medium ones, the Large one becomes an incredibly dominant presence on the map. Even then, it's easy to say your Large race doesn't have reach (like centaurs, let's say).

Large creatures can flank more opponents. By the same token, a Large creature can be flanked more often. Personally speaking, I'd say that's fine - the two cross each other out but not everyone tends to agree. But the possibility of a Large PC dominating the board is very strong.

Weapon restrictions (like those above) are a quick fix to that problem. What you have above works (though not sure about the +2 to two damage dice weapons).

I've been thinking of "convincing" a player to try out a Large PC for his next character, simply to see how it would work out.

 

[circadianwolf]

Mechanically, the only necessary aspect of a Large race that PCs can't otherwise access (unlike reach, which as EP points out is easy, and Large weapons, which aren't a necessary part of a Large race) is the increased area affected by close bursts (e.g., a close burst 1 affects 8 spaces for a Medium character but 12 spaces for a Large character, with exponentially more spaces as the burst gets bigger). Whether this is a big enough concern to avoid Large races is mostly a matter of personal preference (and the presence or lack of mechanical optimizers in your group).

You also have to specifically design larger encounter spaces to accommodate such a PC (which may become a problem to justify in tight indoor spaces, like a classic bar brawl). Of course, you could avoid that particular issue by just allowing the race (either by intrinsic trait or by feat) to reduce or eliminate penalties for squeezing.

 

[EP]

You also have to specifically design larger encounter spaces to accommodate such a PC (which may become a problem to justify in tight indoor spaces, like a classic bar brawl). Of course, you could avoid that particular issue by just allowing the race (either by intrinsic trait or by feat) to reduce or eliminate penalties for squeezing.

That's something that will hinder any large race you create: you will likely need to make one or two racial traits to balance off their large size, such as squeezing, rather than adding something cool to them. It's something we came across a while back while creating tiny races and came up during a quick discussion of creating a large one. Really, being large will take up much of the coolness of your race and most of your traits will be used to offset any space/reach/weapon balance issues you'd like to adjust.

 

[eriktheguy]

I don't see why it can't be done. Wizards managed to make a lot of things balanced this edition that we wouldn't have believed in 3rd (half-dragons, minotaurs, psionics).

 

[Knightfall]

Mechanically, the only necessary aspect of a Large race that PCs can't otherwise access (unlike reach, which as EP points out is easy, and Large weapons, which aren't a necessary part of a Large race) is the increased area affected by close bursts (e.g., a close burst 1 affects 8 spaces for a Medium character but 12 spaces for a Large character, with exponentially more spaces as the burst gets bigger). Whether this is a big enough concern to avoid Large races is mostly a matter of personal preference (and the presence or lack of mechanical optimizers in your group).

Well, I could simply rule that for a burst effect, the large race can only effect 8 spaces instead of 12. Either the player would be able to choose the 8 spaces affected or the spaces effected would be fixed. Perhaps the player could choose the 8 spaces but after they choose the selected spaces would remain fixed (for all burst powers) for each encounter.

Just a thought.

 

[Nymrohd]

I have been considering a house rule item for "Advanced" races including large ones, where picking such a race would automatically require you to take the hybrid racial class for that race. You could then add several powers that play on the race's strengths as well as a class feature (but I'd rather not include hybrid talent options; that feat should go towards stengthening the core class).

 

[Cwheeler]

Well, I could simply rule that for a burst effect, the large race can only effect 8 spaces instead of 12. Either the player would be able to choose the 8 spaces affected or the spaces effected would be fixed. Perhaps the player could choose the 8 spaces but after they choose the selected spaces would remain fixed (for all burst powers) for each encounter.

Just a thought.

I'd probably rule that you need 8 adjacent spaces, so that players can't cherry-pick too much.

You also get into more trickyness when you get into Burst2, burst3, etc...



As a side note, I want to make it clear that I'm in favor of the idea that a game system should support what you want to do, not the other way around. If it doesn't, then it's time to get a big, heavy object and break it into shape .

Dealing with larger PC's in smaller spaces (such as a bar) is half the fun!

Large creatures don't live in most towns or cities, as they are built for Medium creatures and thus are too small for the Large ones. Thus the Large ones don't have access to the adventuring guilds and parties.

The solution? Design your world with large creatures in mind!

Arcana Unearthed/Evolved did this brilliantly. They had a PC race that could become large as they advanced, and as they where the dominant culture, most buildings where designed to accommodate them.


I personally think that playing with a large PC in the party would be fun, especially if you gave them environmental powers such as "Throw the halfling"...

 

[Badwe]

there are at least a few examples of players legally bumping their die size. There is at least one epic destiny and i believe a paragon path that offer this benefit. This should give you a rough guideline of the relative power of having larger weapons, and how to balance it.

I think everyone has sufficiently pointed out some of the inherent benefits of being large. part of the problem is also the nature of size and races in 4e. in 4e, your race is "all upside", there's no penalty to stats, no additional weaknesses, only strengths. In 3.x, growing in size would intrinsically hurt your AC (you're easier to hit), although being small also helped your AC (which it no longer does).

If you took flanking to be equal balance... that leaves bursts, weapon size, squeezing, and reach/threat. I think you can balance at least some of this out with feats. Someone else alluded to how in other sourcebooks you would level up a "racial class" that had, as one of its "class features" being large. Perhaps start off medium, and then make the large size a feat, maybe even a multiclass feat to help curb broken combos. You might even limit it to non-hybrids for good measure. It might also be fair for reach to be a feat, and it likely should not stack with reach weapons (you don't want a level 1 character to have reach 3 with a polearm), at least until paragon tier, or possibly via another feat (again, perhaps available in paragon tier). By now it should be clear that just about any of the discrepancies between medium and large could start "turned off" until a feat enabled it. With a little tweaking you could figure out which feats were strong and which were weak, perhaps combining the feats.

If you're willing to break the 4e mold of races being "all upside" you might be willing to impose a penalty for being large. For example, if the large creature is hit by a single burst/blast attack in more than 1 of it's squares, apply a -1 to the targeted defense, or a -2 if all 4 of the PC's squares are covered in a single blast. This doesn't address cover, but it's hard to say there could be a clean resolution to that.