Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana May 2018: Centaurs and Minotaurs

[Tales and Chronicles]

To be fair, the Feywild itself only became a prominent planar feature of D&D recently in 4e an 5e.

So deciding which creatures originate from there can still be in flux.

Ultimately, it depends on the setting that players decide to use.

In my FR, goblins originated from the Feywild. They were the dark reflection of gnomes: the affinity for woodland creatures forest gnomes had, the goblins used it to befriend rats and wargs, the affinity for prank and contraptions the rock gnomes had, the goblins used to create devious traps and concoction. They were expelled from the Feywild after the Goblin King threw rampaged Queen Tiatania's palace while she was out. So now they belong to the prime, with only a hint of feyblood in their veins (Fey Ancestry trait).

 

[Yaarel]

Regarding the size issue for centaurs and minotaurs, I would rather the designers come up with a way to make Large creature types a normal player character option.

Make the core mechanics ‘engine’ handle size in a balanced way.

A helpful way to balance size is by correlating it with the Constitution score. Already, size defacto correlates with hit points and Constitution, but systematizing this pattern goes a long way to balancing size. Size comes with mechanical benefits, but to access them, one needs to invest in a high score, meaning that other ability scores will be lower.

In my experience, Constitution is almost not even an ability − being way too passive. But connecting it to size makes it more active − increasing damage bonus, utilizing heavy weapons, gaining longer melee reach, carrying more weight, and so on.

Link size and Constitution.

Large is an important archetype. D&D can make it normal and make it work well.

 

[Yaarel]

My issue doesn’t stem from what they might be in other historical sources, but as they were defined in D&D. The same reason why elves will never have anything to do with eladrin in my campaign.

Heh, I blame Tolkien for transmogrifying nature spirits into nonmagical, mundane, species of human. Muggles, muggles, everywhere.

But think about it oppositely. What if? The humans in Lord of the Rings descend from human ancestors who got trapped in the Feywild. − Middle Earth is one of the many names for the spirit realm of Faierie.

I don’t recall 4e changing goblins to fey.

I doublechecked. In the MM, 4e gnomes are fey. 4e goblins are natural. But goblins were fun part of our 4e Feywild campaign.

But after 20+ years of goblins being what they are, I don’t agree with changing them in the core rules to whatever. As part of a new setting? Sure.

I like it when D&D rules make it easy to use as an engine for different kinds of settings, to explore different kinds of concepts.

The Greyhawk setting and the Forgotten Realms setting can be very different from each other. And Eberron. And Darksun. And so on.

In my experience of D&D, we are *supposed* to create our own settings, our own worlds.

 

[Chaosmancer]

DnD goblins have little to do with the goblins in fairy tales though. I don't recall that they have ever been used in DnD as fey creatures and real world fairy tales shouldnt be used as reasoning for making DnD goblins fey creatures.

I don't think phrasing it as "shouldn't" is fair.

Sure, I doubt WoTC is going to change Goblins after all these years, but I used these tales of Goblins being incredibly scary fey spirits as an inspiration to make the goblins in my homebrew world scary as $#%&

I haven't done much mechanically to them (except have a few class leveled elites once or twice) beyond increasing their mental stats and playing them smart, and it has led to goblins being one of the more terrifying threats you can face. Sure, a pack of six isn't going to TPK a party unless I'm very lucky, but they are top tier skirmishers and rarely do you encounter them in small numbers.


Though, honestly, it also partly came about because I was sick of sniveling cowards with stupid names. I'd prefer a little more threat to my creatures than a sniveling crybaby everyone calls Snot and bosses around. I'd rather vicious murderers who fade in and out of sight like shadows.

 

[cbwjm]

I don't think phrasing it as "shouldn't" is fair.

Sure, I doubt WoTC is going to change Goblins after all these years, but I used these tales of Goblins being incredibly scary fey spirits as an inspiration to make the goblins in my homebrew world scary as $#%&

I haven't done much mechanically to them (except have a few class leveled elites once or twice) beyond increasing their mental stats and playing them smart, and it has led to goblins being one of the more terrifying threats you can face. Sure, a pack of six isn't going to TPK a party unless I'm very lucky, but they are top tier skirmishers and rarely do you encounter them in small numbers.


Though, honestly, it also partly came about because I was sick of sniveling cowards with stupid names. I'd prefer a little more threat to my creatures than a sniveling crybaby everyone calls Snot and bosses around. I'd rather vicious murderers who fade in and out of sight like shadows.

Shouldn't for DnD goblins which are not folkloric goblins. In your own games anything goes.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

Heh, I blame Tolkien for transmogrifying nature spirits into nonmagical, mundane, species of human. Muggles, muggles, everywhere.

But think about it oppositely. What if? The humans in Lord of the Rings descend from human ancestors who got trapped in the Feywild. − Middle Earth is one of the many names for the spirit realm of Faierie.





I doublechecked. In the MM, 4e gnomes are fey. 4e goblins are natural. But goblins were fun part of our 4e Feywild campaign.





I like it when D&D rules make it easy to use as an engine for different kinds of settings, to explore different kinds of concepts.

The Greyhawk setting and the Forgotten Realms setting can be very different from each other. And Eberron. And Darksun. And so on.

In my experience of D&D, we are *supposed* to create our own settings, our own worlds.

I agree with that, each DM’s campaign should be their own. And Dark Sun is a great example of altering the nature of many things to suit the setting. As it should be. My objection revolves around changing the baseline from edition to edition, within the core and also within the given settings.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

I don't think phrasing it as "shouldn't" is fair.

Sure, I doubt WoTC is going to change Goblins after all these years, but I used these tales of Goblins being incredibly scary fey spirits as an inspiration to make the goblins in my homebrew world scary as $#%&

I haven't done much mechanically to them (except have a few class leveled elites once or twice) beyond increasing their mental stats and playing them smart, and it has led to goblins being one of the more terrifying threats you can face. Sure, a pack of six isn't going to TPK a party unless I'm very lucky, but they are top tier skirmishers and rarely do you encounter them in small numbers.


Though, honestly, it also partly came about because I was sick of sniveling cowards with stupid names. I'd prefer a little more threat to my creatures than a sniveling crybaby everyone calls Snot and bosses around. I'd rather vicious murderers who fade in and out of sight like shadows.

Absolutely. All of which applies to my campaign too...except the fey part. They are, after all, a warlike race that has routinely threatened human, dwarven and elven settlements, often in cooperation with other goblinkin, orcs, ogres, etc.

And as to whether they’d change them, I wouldn’t be so sure. They changed elves after all.

 

[Yaarel]

It occurs to me, there are several regional names for ‘goblin’ too, and D&D can use one of these for the fey archetype.

The name ‘goblin’ derives from French ‘gobelin’ from German ‘kobold’.

A native English name for a malicious sprite is a bogey, deriving from Middle English bugge, probably from Welsh bwg (meaning ghost generally), and appearing variously as: bug, bog, bugbear, boogieman, bogle, bogill, bogie, even booger, and so on.

Anyway, the bogey can be the name of the original fey goblinoid from which the other D&D goblinoids descend.



The archetype is that the place itself can have give off a spooky presence. When malevolent, this presence is a bogie.

 

[bedir than]

I'm playing with some ideas with the Centaur and I think a monk could be quite interesting

 

[Yaarel]

goblinkin

I like your nomenclature ‘goblinkin’ much more than ‘goblinoid’.

Do you do the same thing with ‘humankin’ for ‘humanoid’.