Minotaur Question

[Cthulhudrew]

Doing some work on Minotaurs lately, and something occurred to me that I'd remembered noticing before, but never checked on.

Minotaurs are listed as Large creatures, but they are described as only being "over 7 feet tall". Gnolls hit 7 1/2 feet and are only medium creatures. Goliaths/Feral Garguns stand between 7 and 8 feet tall and are only medium (with powerful build). Minotaurs are admittedly much heavier than Goliaths (700 lb vs. 250-350 lb), but are about the same height. They don't seem to meet the 8' requirement of the Size Category list in any case.

Should Minotaurs be considered Large creatures or Medium creatures with the Powerful Build trait? If the former, should their height be adjusted to fit, or should their massive build be considered the qualifying factor?

[EDIT- Just noticed that Races of the Wild has seemingly adjusted the Gnolls to be a more Medium sized build- putting their average height at around 6 1/2 feet tall, with 7 1/2 being the uppermost limits. At this point, I'm thinking adjusting the Minotaur's height would be the least complicated ruling.]

 

[smootrk]

It really depends on the flavor of your minotaurs. If they are the greek classic style with human body (albeit large & muscled) and simply a bovine head, then I would say medium (but pushing it). If you fancy minotaur as I do, taken from an old 1ed Dragon ecology article, then they are roughly Ogre sized bovine headed humanoids... with hoofed feet as well (definitely large for this version).

I would say modify the offending entry to something that suits your taste.

 

[BOZ]

the minotaur is a lot wider and heavier than the gnoll, so that's probably the determining factor.