Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana: Centaurs and Minotaurs

As a Dragonlance junkie, it’s interesting to see how they’ve pulled back the damage on the minotaur to make it more workable as a player race (I imagine that working with the Volo races gave them a better baseline). The Hybrid Nature mechanic is interesting here, especially given the number of Fey Ancestry races that we’ve seen so far (who aren’t both Humanoid and Fey), as well as the planar-descended races.

 

[Yaarel]

And they eat via their human mouth.. which then travels aaaaall the way down the muscle tube, which in turn is shaped like a human torso, complete with ribcage for protecting...

Wait. There voices must be pretty ...interesting? Horse lungs pushing air over a human-ish (?) larynx? Large sack... small outlet. So.. bagpipes!

Now that gets me thinking... WHY DO CENTAURS HAVE HUMAN RIBS? Surely a muscle-tube (nothing like a penis) with a simpler spine (say, 2 joints, tops) would be stronger. More effecient. Less... er..

These fantasy races don't really make sense.

I assume the neckbones of the horse become, instead, the backbones of the human torso.

I find the issue with the stomachs more baffling.

 

[Jester David]

I would call that a work-around rather than a fix. But for ‘primitive’ Large creatures simple weapons are fine.

I’d probably phrase it as “you can use Large versions of any simple weapons you are proficient with.”
It’s still funky, but allows you to have the giant club if you want.

Maybe paired with a feat that lets you use Large martial weapons. But, because they’re unwieldy, you take a -5 penalty to attack rolls.

 

[Gardens & Goblins]

Heck breathing - that's a human mouth. It's sucking in air to oxygenate a mostly-horse circulatory system!

Which makes you wonder - to strangle a a centaur do you go for the neck or.. lasso the abdomen? If the lungs are in the horse part then the air is passing down the human neck, past the not-actually-human-lungs, past the stomach...

Medium centaurs make a lot more sense.. Planescape's Bariaur, for example. O apparently the actual centaurs from myth.

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Hmm..

 

[Yaarel]

Here are Hellenistic Period ceramics depicting centaurs, the mythologically accurate concept. Medium seems plausible. But Large exists as well.

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[Jester David]

Heck breathing - that's a human mouth. It's sucking in air to oxygenate a mostly-horse circulatory system!

Which makes you wonder - to strangle a a centaur do you go for the neck or.. lasso the abdomen? If the lungs are in the horse part then the air is passing down the human neck, past the not-actually-human-lungs, past the stomach...

Medium centaurs make a lot more sense.. Planescape's Bariaur, for example. O apparently the actual centaurs from myth.

View attachment 97868

Hmm..

It has a cutie mark!