Forked Thread: Proposal: Minotaur Race from Dragon

[Ozymandias79]

after reading Atanatotatos statements, I have come to conclusion that it is better to do away with the racial oversized ability for all races that had it.

If you wanna play with oversized weapons then there will always be the eternal defender epic path.

as for the minotaur article I will vote YES on it

 

[Lord Sessadore]

I still don't know what I'm going to vote on this, but I will say that I'm very wary of taking abilities away from characters.

And I just don't really see Eternal Defender being a fix for taking away oversized. How many characters in L4W do we think will actually reach level 21? My guess is, maybe one party. In about 4 years from now. Maybe.

Of course, you can vote how you want to vote. Just sharing my thoughts

 

[CaBaNa]

ok, I read along...

My chime, Oversized needs to go. If it creeps in through the window as a feat so be it.

Goring Charge is amazing for a minotaur barbarian, or any other class that charges once per encounter strength based. If it connects, you get plus to all you melee attacks, until they stand, or provoke OA to crawl away.

over-sized minotaur barbarians out damage anything we have ever seen in game. I watched one (without oversized) do 56 damage in a single swing. They are damage machines (3w crit with executioners axe plus extra d12 vicious weapon and rolled high crit damage of 8) that was an encounter power...

he followed that up with his swift charge ability to mutilate the next closes guy.

I'm no math guy, not even a great optimizer really, but I see where it could go.

 

[garyh]

after reading Atanatotatos statements, I have come to conclusion that it is better to do away with the racial oversized ability for all races that had it.

If you wanna play with oversized weapons then there will always be the eternal defender epic path.

as for the minotaur article I will vote YES on it

I still don't know what I'm going to vote on this, but I will say that I'm very wary of taking abilities away from characters.

And I just don't really see Eternal Defender being a fix for taking away oversized. How many characters in L4W do we think will actually reach level 21? My guess is, maybe one party. In about 4 years from now. Maybe.

Of course, you can vote how you want to vote. Just sharing my thoughts

My concerns are the same as LS's. I just don't see epic destinies as something that ought to be counted on in PbP. And as a player of an Oversized race, I've explained repeatedly how much it stinks to have it taken away completely. I really, REALLY think it needs to remain an option, probably as a racial feat.

 

[Joeluma]

I'm not a judge, so this is just an opinion, but IMO : Oversized is only broken when combined with Brutal weapons. Otherwise, it generally is either a +1 or +2 damage boost, in exchange for flexibility.

Worrying about what happens at level 20... very doubtful that there will be high-level characters before 5e gets released.

For simplicity's sake (so you don't have to care about brutal weapons), why not simply changed oversized so that it adds +1 to the weapon damage roll? thus, it is still exactly the same for most weapons - as example 2[w] would effectively be 2[1d8+1] with the rapier. with brutal axe, it would be 2[1d12r2+1].

That way, mauls don't suddenly become the optimizer's friend, etc, and it is a predictable and easy-to-calculate damage plus for all weapons.

Sure, oversized weapons are going to do more at higher levels. But. Both races with oversized weapons have no boosted feats - right off the bat a great-weapon fighter is having way more fun as a dragonborn.

Barbarians (I play one elsewhere) truly are damage machines... but they ignore the minotaur charge feature. Why do that, when you can do an extra 1d6 damage on top of weapon (howling strike). Hammer fall does a better job of knocking down people.

But its just as easy for barbarians to miss a lot. Nearly all of their powers are vs. AC, and the rest are generally vs. Fort. If they optimize for damage they have lower to-hits, etc.

Finally, barbarians get the exact same benefit from oversized as any other martial class. +1-3 damage depending on which daily or encounter they are burning.

Aaanyways. My point was that Choosing Minotaur or Bugbear is giving up on race-specific feats (and the always-useful racial abilities) in exchange for a +1 to weapon damage.... and even with 3[w] powers, that is only +3 damage.

+ to damage or more flexible character seems like a legitimate choice IMO, and frankly, I have more concern with Drow at high levels than Minotaurs... A drow rogue can keep your chosen end-guy blind for 3-4 rounds by level 11...

 

[Dunamin]

Oversized is only broken when combined with Brutal weapons...

Then I'd say it's good that we specifically disallowed that combination when processing Adventurer's Vault.

 

[Lord Sessadore]

I think Joe makes some good points. I'm tempted to propose the +1 on weapon dice, instead of raising damage dice, as it gives essentially the same result, but without ballooning crits. But that would be a houserule; to do that, I'd prefer to pass through minotaur as in Dragon, then propose a racial feat that did what Joe said.

Anyway, I'm still undecided. Both sides have good arguments ...

 

[Atanatotatos]

There is absolutely nothing broken with oversized Brutal weapon, simply because the brutal property doesn't add to dmg. It reduces the average fluctuation of the damage you can deal, which obviously is good, but certainly not game-breaking.
I think we're in a bit of a stall here. I mean, I think it's clear how I see it, but I also sympathyze with garyh that has a character he likes a lot and doesn't want it changed a-posteriori.

 

[Lord Sessadore]

Yeah ... in my RL campaign, I wouldn't allow a PC with oversized. In 3.5, I allowed a half-giant fighter with monkey grip, and it was just too much (3d8 with a one-handed weapon? Yeah ... too bad I realized it too late). However, I also wouldn't take something away from an already existing character without a lot of forethought and an obvious overpoweredness that made the game less fun.

From what I can see, even if oversized is overpowered, it's not that overpowered. PCs with it might overshadow PCs who don't have it, at least in the damage department, but it's not to the degree that the other PCs feel useless.

 

[renau1g]

It's definitely not game-breaking, but it is more powerful in a large part of the game (combat).

P.S. Lord S. - Did you use some DM Fiat to take down that half-giant? I've only ever had that happen once where a new player came in and I didn't review his sheet prior to the game. I forget the exact build, but it was obviously super-min-maxed, while the others were pretty normal builds. (he had nearly every sourcebook available to him) and he proceeded to lord over them with his greatness and would rub in their faces how he didn't need them. He had an unfortunate end when he ran into a trio of disintegrate toting wizards, plus some 9 rogue/1 sorcerors, armed with wands of Magic Missile (lvl 9). He wasn't invited back.