Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana May 2018: Centaurs and Minotaurs

[Ilbranteloth]

You need to define "significant".

The difference between:

Unarmed strike, which is not a weapon attack and does damage of 1 + Strength modifier

And

A horn attack which is a weapon attack and does 1d6 + Strength modifier

A potential of dealing 600% better damage is significant.

I don’t know if the weapon vs. non-weapon really matters since an unarmed strike can be used as a melee weapon attack even though it’s not a weapon. Whatever that means. Maybe it makes the horn attack better still.

As a monk it increases damage be a lesser amount, but it’s still a potentially 50% increase in damage. The same applies to the Tavern Brawler feat, except you don’t have to spend a feat on it, which is also significant.

Whether it’s significant enough for you may be a different story.

 

[CapnZapp]

The difference between:

Unarmed strike, which is not a weapon attack and does damage of 1 + Strength modifier

And

A horn attack which is a weapon attack and does 1d6 + Strength modifier

A potential of dealing 600% better damage is significant.

Ah. I kind of suspected you would try to pull off something ridiculous like this.

Since no character build ever uses any weapon damage expression less than d6+modifier, having a d6 natural weapon is entirely and utterly insignificant.

That does not mean it's unreasonable.

At low levels, that is. Check out my other thread.

 

[Remathilis]

Ah. I kind of suspected you would try to pull off something ridiculous like this.

Since no character build ever uses any weapon damage expression less than d6+modifier, having a d6 natural weapon is entirely and utterly insignificant.

That does not mean it's unreasonable.

At low levels, that is. Check out my other thread.

Do you propose that aarakroca talons, tabaxi and tortle claws, and lizardfolk bites also do d8/d10 damage?

 

[CapnZapp]

Do you propose that aarakroca talons, tabaxi and tortle claws, and lizardfolk bites also do d8/d10 damage?

I guess what I am saying is that if you hand out a d4 or d6 natural weapon, better be prepared to acknowledge it is a ribbon ability which does not make the racial choice stronger.

As for your actual question, have you checked out my other thread?

 

[Dire Bare]

If a minotaur is taken prisoner (by monsters or the city guard), first thing I'd do is have its horns cut off; otherwise its still armed.
Not so much of incentive any more.

Depends on the setting, the DM, and player agency . . .

I would never nerf a player's character like that, regardless of the setting I'm using. Maybe if all players agree on playing a "dark" game. If I was a player and a DM did that to my character, I'd probably leave the group.

If the setting treats minotaurs as a "civilized" race, heck, even if it doesn't . . . doing something like that is a horrific act. Something an oppressive, evil government would certainly do, but that for player agency and story reasons I would find a way for the character to escape having a part of their body removed.

For most real-world creatures (I believe), antlers and horns grow back . . . but very slowly, and for a sentient being, it would be more about the violation than about a permanent disfigurement.

 

[bedir than]

I guess what I am saying is that if you hand out a d4 or d6 natural weapon, better be prepared to acknowledge it is a ribbon ability which does not make the racial choice stronger.

As for your actual question, have you checked out my other thread?

Not everyone treats DnD as a game of superheroes that never have weaknesses. Loss of weapons and inability to cast spells isn't something that should be taken away from every DM just so a narrow band of fans can be happy.

 

[Dire Bare]

My message to Wizards is: If you refuse to support Large PC races, don't offer Centaur as a race. Offering My Little Ponytaur goes against every story conception of what a Centaur is. Maybe it works for Bariaur, but not Centaur.

Horses are Large. Centaurs have the body of a Horse. Don't break our brains with this. If you can't support them, just don't support them.

Too many of you guys are getting hung up on semantics. I could care less whether any creature in D&D is labeled "medium", "large", or "bigly". This UA article does NOT change the size of a horse (or the horse-part of the centaur), it merely tries to find a game balance work around for a creature stuck between two arbitrary categories.

It's cool, of course, if you dig the way the UA handles this kludge, or if you don't. But railing against "story conception" is just silly. The rules presented do not change the "story" one tiny (or minuscule) bit.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

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.

This sounds interesting. Can you expand on what you’re thinking with specifics? Particularly the damage bonus.

 

[plisnithus8]

Depends on the setting, the DM, and player agency . . .

I would never nerf a player's character like that, regardless of the setting I'm using. Maybe if all players agree on playing a "dark" game. If I was a player and a DM did that to my character, I'd probably leave the group.

If the setting treats minotaurs as a "civilized" race, heck, even if it doesn't . . . doing something like that is a horrific act. Something an oppressive, evil government would certainly do, but that for player agency and story reasons I would find a way for the character to escape having a part of their body removed.

For most real-world creatures (I believe), antlers and horns grow back . . . but very slowly, and for a sentient being, it would be more about the violation than about a permanent disfigurement.

Most of players I DM wouldn't think twice about cutting the horns off a minotaur they captured as a way of protecting themselves against it having a weapon.
If one of the players was captured instead of killed by a group of orcs for instance, I would have no qualms about doing the same.

There are so many spells and traps and monsters and situations in 5e that do horrible things; I'm not sure why cutting the horns off a minotaur is labelled "dark" or "horrific."
The Heat Metal spell burns someone alive inside their armor that they cannot immediately take off.
An illithid uses its face tentacles to extract and eat someone's brain.
As a player, I'd much rather have my horns removed than be cooked inside my chainmail or have my brain be someone's dinner.
The minotaur could try to have metal horns made that are better than the original.

I think you are over-reacting to something that should probably be happening if a minotaur was taken alive by evil creatures with any kind of intelligence.

 

[Dire Bare]

Most of players I DM wouldn't think twice about cutting the horns off a minotaur they captured as a way of protecting themselves against it having a weapon.
If one of the players was captured instead of killed by a group of orcs for instance, I would have no qualms about doing the same.

There are so many spells and traps and monsters and situations in 5e that do horrible things; I'm not sure why cutting the horns off a minotaur is labelled "dark" or "horrific."
The Heat Metal spell burns someone alive inside their armor that they cannot immediately take off.
An illithid uses its face tentacles to extract and eat someone's brain.
As a player, I'd much rather have my horns removed than be cooked inside my chainmail or have my brain be someone's dinner.
The minotaur could try to have metal horns made that are better than the original.

I think you are over-reacting to something that should probably be happening if a minotaur was taken alive by evil creatures with any kind of intelligence.

IMO, it all depends on if minotaurs are "monsters" or "people" in your game.

If they are monsters, I would expect players to treat them similarly to animals . . . if they are dangerous it is OK to kill them, if they need to be captured for some reason, it is okay to declaw, dehorn, or otherwise "make them less dangerous" . . . as long as it isn't done cruelly.

If they are people . . . big difference. Removing the horns from a person (minotaur, tiefling, or some other horny race) is a violation, a disfigurement, and is an evil act. Even if, over time, those horns can grow back.

Of course, in the real world, humans commit evil acts all the time, often justifying them in the name of safety. How your players deal with captured foes can make for some good roleplaying with interesting moral choices. If I'm the DM, and the PCs capture and dehorn a minotaur . . . that minotaur (or maybe his friends) is going to show up later with a pretty serious grudge against the party! More story!

Personally, I find playing D&D today a bit troublesome when caught between a mythic perspective and a more modern "sci-fi" perspective. When you consider "monsters" from a mythic perspective, they are usually violent and evil and must be destroyed to protect the village. But in modern sci-fi, we have all sorts of monstrous-appearing races that are just different kinds of sentient beings, people, and should be treated as such. And of course, we can have both perspectives at the same time. In your campaign, minotaurs, tieflings, and dragonborn can be people, sentient beings deserving of respect, no more-or-less inherently evil than any other race of people. But at the same time, mind flayers might be corruptions from the Far Realm that are intelligent and sentient, but not truly "people", rather a corruption of beings that used to be "people".

We are all going to handle that divide a bit differently in our games, but I think it's worthwhile to do so mindfully and not use the game as an excuse to act out in ways we wouldn't in the real world.