Darksun Character Generation/Half Giant?

[Zardnaar]

Wait, so just to make sure I read your idea right...

I roll 5d4 for my Strength, getting a 5-20 based on roll.

Then I get a +4 Strength bonus.

THEN I get a ASI at first level I can put into my Strength if I wanted...

So I could have a strength score of 9-26 at first level. Assuming I rolled that sweet 20, I could attack with a +10 to hit and be doing 2d6+8 damage on a hit with a stone maul, ignoring bonuses like Great weapon fighter, rage bonus, or Great Weapon Mastery.

Bounded accuracy? What's that?!?

No I will be using 4d6 drop the lowest and a bonus feat.

In the original Darksun you started at level 3 and rolled 5d4 for stats, or 6d4 drop the lowest. DS was gritty but you had higher scores and some crazyness with the races. You could have a half giant in the orignal DS with 24 strength back when it gave you something like +6 or 7 to hit and +10 damage or something like that.

Its Darksun bounded accuracy wont really be a thing, and DS critters tend to be tougher as well able to use things like psionics which were often things like dominate and death field (roughly equal to Spirit Guardians in 5E).

I want to play Darksun not some watered down semi sandbox balance matters lame based on copy of it.

 

[AmerginLiath]

Then just play 2nd edition. There are particular mechanical assumptions baked into different rulesets that are different than others. The specific limits on attributes (and levels) in 5e are part of the bounded accuracy math that keep the game running across the lifespan of the campaign. Other editions have different limits (some higher and some lower) that offer different mathematical assumptions. If you’re finding that 5e’s limits on large characters is a deal breaker for a Dark Sun game (and I’d think that the different rules on magic would be the kicker first), then go back and play the campaign in its original form — feel free to import 5e-isms if you’d like (there are a lot of AD&D games of late using advantage/disadvantage, for example). As a guy who’s tried to play Dragonlance outside of AD&D editions and could never get the feel right, I sympathize, but breaking the game in a way that — others are pointing out — is only going to hurt the campaign as it’s run and likely imbalance the characters, it’s not worth going after.

If you want to “play Darksun not some watered down semi sandbox balance matters la e based on copy of it,” that’s the answer right there, play the edition that you have of Dark Sun.

 

[MostlyHarmless42]

I know not enough about darksun offhand to be of much help, though I'd assume a race with a name like "half-gisnt" to be strong hearty and maybe a little dim. Personally? I'd just suggest reskinning a race like goliath, bugbear, or something similar. Many of the settings dont have all the players handbook races as is and rather than reinvent the wheel to make yet one more questionably unbalanced race that is really just another flavor of strength and con, just look into adapting something else.

 

[Jester David]

I think in another thread I suggested a Large race be able to wield Large-sized versions of any simple weapons they’re proficient with.
This makes you feel big, but is fairly balanced in terms of a racial power.

+2 Strength should be fine, and Large carrying capacity.
Maybe a “mighty blow” racial power that lets them add an extra die when they hit with a melee attack.

I’d want the keep the half-giant in line with other PHB races, so it can fit into other worlds than Dark Sun. In a tougher Dark Sun game with hardier PCs, the half-giant just gets better as well.

 

[AmerginLiath]

It’d be an interesting experiment to take the DMG’s rules/guidelines on creating a new race/subrace by altering an existing one and seeing for tweaking the Goliath could make for a proper (given the mechanics on “non-quite Large” race’s in 5e) Half-Giant. The +2 Str/+1 Con seems alright, as does Powerful Build, but some combination of the remaining features — the Stone’s Endurance damage reduction, the cold adaption, and the Athletics skill training — might be traded for a psionic cantrip and an ability to use oversized weapons without disadvantage (or otherwise get the DMG’s damage bonus of oversized weapons X/times per rest regardless of the weapon used?). Just a thought.

(One might even think to back-work a race of which Goliaths and Half-Giants are mechanical subraces of the same)

 

[Zardnaar]

Then just play 2nd edition. There are particular mechanical assumptions baked into different rulesets that are different than others. The specific limits on attributes (and levels) in 5e are part of the bounded accuracy math that keep the game running across the lifespan of the campaign. Other editions have different limits (some higher and some lower) that offer different mathematical assumptions. If you’re finding that 5e’s limits on large characters is a deal breaker for a Dark Sun game (and I’d think that the different rules on magic would be the kicker first), then go back and play the campaign in its original form — feel free to import 5e-isms if you’d like (there are a lot of AD&D games of late using advantage/disadvantage, for example). As a guy who’s tried to play Dragonlance outside of AD&D editions and could never get the feel right, I sympathize, but breaking the game in a way that — others are pointing out — is only going to hurt the campaign as it’s run and likely imbalance the characters, it’s not worth going after.

If you want to “play Darksun not some watered down semi sandbox balance matters la e based on copy of it,” that’s the answer right there, play the edition that you have of Dark Sun.

It's worth half a feat to a feat. I have seen pcs with 20 strength level 1 in 5E.

Doesn't break BA as such and I would nerf healing rates for example.

Darksun is also a campaign setting so you do not need phb/core assumptions. Hell I might not allow feats so even with +4 strength your pc is less powerful overall.

 

[Remathilis]

Darksun is also a campaign setting so you do not need phb/core assumptions.

Then this thread is pointless; do what you want. Give them a +10 to Strength and double HP per level if you want. Who cares if its OP to the core assumptions?

 

[Zardnaar]

Then this thread is pointless; do what you want. Give them a +10 to Strength and double HP per level if you want. Who cares if its OP to the core assumptions?

I want an easy buff to the other races and people's thoughts on it.

Even in 2E the various settings deviated from the core. It's kind of the point of the settings rewrite the rules to fit the setting not make the setting fit the core rules.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I want an easy buff to the other races and people's thoughts on it.

My thought is that there's no point in buffing the other races. If your half-giant stat block is so high that you need to buff everyone else to compensate, then you're better off just dropping the half-giant statblock down until you no longer have to.

If you are giving the half-giant five additional ranks of power and then feel the need to give everyone else two additional ranks to keep them all balanced... just give the half-giant three additional ranks and keep everything else the same instead. It saves you time and doesn't up the power levels of the entire game that you as the DM are going to end up having to compensate for when actually playing. Because let's be real... what's really going to happen is that if you decide to offer the other races extra feats or something... the players are going to use a lot of them on non-combat stuff or wider (rather than more powerful) uses of combat stuff. Which will end up NOT balancing them against your half-giant player who of course will use the massive STR boosts to inevitably play a barbarian and kick every combat to the curb.

This is why I said you shouldn't try and balance it right now. Because how much balancing you need is all going to come out how many players select the half-giant and then what class they use their half-giant for. If one of your players selects a half-giant barbarian using your stats, you could give all the other players like three bonus feats and still end up with a bunch of under-powered characters by comparison when you got into combat. And then you are going to have to deal with that situation as the DM, trying to create combats that can challenge your half-giant barbarian while not one-shotting the rest of the party.

 

[Ganymede81]

Play Second Edition AD&D. Done.