Playing a large creature... kinda

[Minigiant]

Want to play a really big guy without messing up the game? You can't. But here are some medium cratures that are just as good.

Amore range and grapple based race.

Every 10,000 births or so, an elf, drow, or elardin will be born larger than normal. This beings are the feyhulks. Tall and thin, some say they are glimpses of how the 3 races looked when they were one.

Feyhulk
Ability Scores: +2 Constiution, +2 Intelligence
Size: Medium
Speed: 6
Vision: Low light

Languages: Common Elven
Fey Origin
Trance
Feyborn: Choose drow, eladrin, or elf. You can take feats that have that race as a prerequisite as long as you meet the other requirements.
Powerlift: Add 10 to your Strength score when determining your normal, heavy, and maximum loads.
Stronghold: Add +2 to your defenses when an enemy attempts to escape your grab. Tihs increase to +4 at the 11th level and to +4 at the 21st level.
Longarm Stretch: When you use an attack power, you may choose any adjancent square as the origin square.

Adapting to Feyhulk
Take any elf, increase its Fortitude by 1, decrease its Will by 1, remove Elven accuracy, and increase the reach of all it's melee attacks and the range of range attack by 1.
Take any eladrin, increase its Fortitude by 1, remove Fey Step, and increase the reach of all it's melee attacks and the range of range attack by 1.

Or focus on damage.

Theses of the monstrous offspring of orcs and orges. They have many names but contain the power of both parents.

Half-Orge (Or Orog or Ogriillion)
Ability Scores: +2Strength +2 Constiution
Size: Medium
Speed: 6
Vision: Low light

Languages: Common Giant
Orcblood: You can take feats that have orc as a prerequisite as long as you meet the other requirements.
Orge's Strength: You gain a +2 racial bonus to Athletics checks and Strength ability checks (but not Strength attacks)
Clubber You may use maces of your size or larger as if they were your size.
Brutish Surge You regian the use of your second wind this encounter whenever you score a critical hit with a power with the weapon keyword.
Gigantic Hand: You gain gigantic hands as an encounter power

Gigantic Hands
Encounter
Minor Action Personal
You gaina +5 power bonus to damage rolls for the next melee attack with any weapon or ranged attack with a heavy thrown or light thrown weapon. This attack scores a critical hit on a roll of 19-20 if you have moved at least 2 squares this turn.

Adapting to Half-Orge
Take any orc, remove warrior surge, add Giagiantic hands, and arm them with large clubs or greatclubs.

 

[Warrior147]

Create a medium race, probably give it a bonus to Strength or Constitution, and Athletics or Endurance, and grant it the following racial trait.

Oversized: You can use weapons of your size or one size category larger as if they were your size.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think you'll find that races with oversized weapon use and effectively a built in reach are going to be overpowered. The designers said as much about the Oversized trait they gave bugbears in MM1.

Aside from the Longarm Stretch, the Feyhulk seems OK. I'd be tempted to try to find an alternative to that one trait though. It is significantly better than at least one paragon tier feat.

Likewise the Half-Ogre's Clubber is overpowered for PC race. Clubber is effectively oversized, which we already know from experience is OP. Limiting it to one class of weapons doesn't really help. Granted club/mace isn't the most awesome weapon group, but it would be pretty scary with a Ruthless Ruffian rogue build...

 

[EP]

I've been toying with the idea of next month's NSFW creating a large PC race, especially since we already some promising creations for tiny. But large is much more problematic than tiny, no doubt about that.

 

[Minigiant]

THe trouble with large creature are their spacing, reach, and increase weapon damage.

I tried to deal with reach via the feyhulk by giving longer reach and removing the racial power. Longarm Stretch even benefits non-weapon classes. But I still wish there was a balanced way to increase reach outside of a PP.

Half-Ogre's Clubber was to mimic the increased melee damage. Maces stink so hard that a die increase is not that powerful. Even for a Ruthless Ruffian rogue build.

 

[EP]

If we list all the "advantages" a large creatures has over medium creatures without devising any racial traits, how many do we come up with? Are those traits alone more powerful or equal to a regular creature with four or five racial traits?

- Reach is only useful when you make the first attack, but those targets need to be adjacent to you for their own melee attacks. If anything, I can see reach only useful within the first round of combat and against any other ranged target (who would likely have enough sense to stand more than 2 squares back).
- Space means a large creature is easier to flank and allows for more combatants to surround him or her in battle. Large creatures must also deal with narrow hallways and other space matters, but it doesn't really grant a massive advantage in battle - they're just bigger targets.
- Weapon damage definitely comes into play, but that can simply be omitted to a degree. I've seen large creatures in the MM dealing as much damage as medium counterparts of the same level, they just have a higher damage modifier tacked onto the end. Why not have large races follow the same tactic?

So if you make a large race, you have three racial traits right there (if you give them the Oversized weapon thing). Come up with one or two more to give the race a signature and I think it could work, though there's likely more tweaking to be sure. Reach could be converted to an encounter power and the race could be technically large but not a massive hulk like its big brothers.