D&D 5E (2014) Large Creatures - How much better is a bigger size for a playable race?

[jgsugden]

...
Any way to fend off char op abuse?

Careful player selection.

 

[PnPgamer]

Not a house rule, more of a design concept. Check out page 278 of the DMG, the rules for creating custom monsters. It states "Big monsters typically wield oversized weapons that deal extra dice of damage on a hit. Double the weapon dice if the creature is Large, triple the weapon dice if it's Huge, and quadruple the weapon dice if it's Gargantuan." When we look at the creatures in the MM, we see the designers followed this concept, e.g., with giants.

Of course a GM can ignore this for PC's, or require a PC to have such weapons custom made (at significant cost). IMO it would be very unbalancing to allow a Large PC race to consistently do double weapon damage on melee weapons, but each GM and gaming group can decide for themselves.

enlarge person buff doesn't follow this trend however. I recall it having just a +1d4 damage?

 

[Croesus]

enlarge person buff doesn't follow this trend however. I recall it having just a +1d4 damage?

Yep, for whatever reason, the designers decided that Enlarge/Reduce has different impacts for weapon damage. Double weapon dice was probably seen as too good for a 2nd level spell with a one minute duration.

 

[PnPgamer]

Yep, for whatever reason, the designers decided that Enlarge/Reduce has different impacts for weapon damage. Double weapon dice was probably seen as too good for a 2nd level spell with a one minute duration.

well I could understand something like a level scaling starting from 1d8 and adding one dice every 3 spell levels... but a measly 1d4 seems a bit ridiculous.

 

[LapBandit]

Speaking of larger than normal PCs, I'm very disappointed with how they handled the Goliath race as it should be right on the border of med/large IMHO. In my campaign I've done two things for them:

1st. They are +2 STR and +2 CON
2nd. All their weapons (that are appropriately sized to them) get a die step up. 1d4 -> 1d6.... 2d6-> 2d8, 1d12-> 1d20.

And this still isn't enough to convince even one player in my latest campaign to play one, hah.

 

[GreenTengu]

I really don't think you could do one that would be remotely balanced.

The fundamental problem is the mind-boggling way that WotC decided to do large characters. The game effect being "small" does is that you can't wield heavy weapons.... and penalties when it comes to grappling and maybe some other minor stuff. That's the entire extent of it! Small sized characters are literally half the size of your typical medium sized character.... in fact, given that Goliaths and Bugbears are still in the range of "medium", they could well be less than a quarter of the size of some medium-sized creatures.


So then why are their massive damage bonuses and assumptions of receiving tons of extra hit points simply for being large size? Why would you scale up the weapons special for them when you don't scale down the weapons for creatures that are small size nor are their hit points reduced?

Large could have done nothing more than make it so that you can't wield Light weapons and possibly, though it would mean they were getting a damage bonus, maybe two-handed weapons become versatile for them.

Sure, being Large also means that you are going to get advantage on grapple checks and.... probably some other bonuses in the system regarding pushing or knocking down or something (not sure about this)...


Basically if your 3' tall 40 pound character doesn't have many rules applied to them that your 6' 175 pound character does, then there really is no need for the 9' 350 pound character to have any more rules applied to them... except that the concept of a small sized PC being a common thing was something that was immediately apparent when they wrote the basic rules and so the designers did everything they could to minimize the impact way more than they likely would have if there were no core small sized races... meanwhile they only thought of large sized things as either adversaries or temporary power boosts for PCs and so they really wanted to emphasize the difference in scale.

But, in general, there really is no need for elaborate rules or scaling weapons or anything of the sort beyond the scope of what being "Small" does for you... except that WotC has already written precedent for what happens when something is large size into the rules and it is far too overblown to be something you can simply apply to a race and expect it to be balanced.

 

[Blue]

One of the issues I haven't seen mentioned for a large race is balancing the "oh bigger weapon, more damage" offsets in such a way that they aren't uber-nerfed if they want to play any class that isn't weapon-primary.

One way to make more powerful races (be it by being large or anything else) is a nod back to the 3.x Savage Species. Have a base race that's balanced, and then have a short class that you can multiclass into which brings in parts that wouldn't be balanced at 1st level. So you might get a Loxo class that over a few levels gives large size and specific ability increases (vs. the more flexible ASI of other classes), and player have the choice of IF and WHEN they want to take those levels.

An innately magical race could have the same, with caster level being granted (at full or one of the reduced amounts) and it's specialties as well.

All in all, probably less optimized that in 3.x because of the reasonable way that 5e handles multiclassing and multiple classes adding together (or not).

 

[Kalshane]

2.) half-giants in Dark Sun (2nd edition) were larger than normal creatures. It was considered a moderately severe disadvantage, which had some compensating advantages but was overall a negative.

Well, keep in mind that in 2E most weapons did more damage against large creatures. A longsword, for example, did 1d8 vs Medium or smaller and 1d12 vs. large. A two-handed sword did 1d10 vs. Medium or smaller and 3d6 vs. large creatures. Taking 1.5 (or more) times the damage of your normal-sized cohorts would definitely be considered a disadvantage.

 

[Gillywonka]

Sure why not. But i think you need to define that when something is large, what characteristics does it have. For example, does the Large trait carry an additional +2 HP per level and does an additional damage base damage die to accommodate its size, maybe a +d4 due to it's size or maybe just a +2 (do what you think works, and adjust). Then on a larger weapon, how do you want to handle its base damage, double, triple, etc? There have been some good comments on weapon size here.

As to a Large creature being given disadvantages, I wouldnt do that. What i mean is, i wouldn't do that just for the sake of doing it or to balance anything. This is life, if you have the Large trait and can't fit into a tunnel, so be it. The PC just needs to deal it. If people distrust you because you're Large, it should be because of experiences with the race you are or from a past experience. Not simply because you have the Large trait. I grant larger things are easier to hit with a missile weapon just as smaller things are harder to hit. So take that into account, but this should already be taken into account anytime you're firing missile weapons, just a function of combat. And i add, being Large shouldn't be a class, or special feat, or special to an NPC, monster, PC, etc. If you're Large, then you're Large period. Give that a try and see how it plays. Then adjust as you go... and have fun.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Well, keep in mind that in 2E most weapons did more damage against large creatures. A longsword, for example, did 1d8 vs Medium or smaller and 1d12 vs. large. A two-handed sword did 1d10 vs. Medium or smaller and 3d6 vs. large creatures. Taking 1.5 (or more) times the damage of your normal-sized cohorts would definitely be considered a disadvantage.

Half giants however got double hit dice per level to compensate.
Also some weapons actually did less damage.

Half giants were +4 str, +2 con
they could have 24 str which was huge in adnd. And still they were balanced by roleplaying penalties. They changed alignment every day and sneaking up was more than difficult.