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.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

I looked up a horse length is according to Wikipedia it's 8ft or 2.4M from nose to tail. Centaurs would approximately be a foot shorter in length as they're nose and neck don't extend out the same way, so maybe about 7ft in length.

Being 7' (Athasian Elves) or 8' (Firbolgs) in height is still qualified as being medium for some humanoid races, so you could still sort of work in that Centaurs are medium sized even if they're probably about as tall as those 2 examples as well. Certain measurements such as length aren't all that determine what size medium is, as some snakes could be 10' or 15' and still be medium.

As you note, it's more than just length/height, though. It's bulk or weight as well. Not to mention being a quadruped vs. biped. An adult horse typically weighs 800 to over 2,000 lbs. Try using a shove attempt against that as a human in the midst of combat.

If the issue is that you don't want them to wield large weapons, that's simple. Despite the size of a centaur as a whole, their humanoid portion is human-sized and makes perfect sense that they'd only be able to wield medium-sized weapons.

I prefer the large creature wield medium-sized weapons better than medium creature that can carry more because it also addresses things like the bulk in terms of squeezing through narrow passages, grappling and shoving, and things like that.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

Absolutely true.

But I'm hoping you aren't implying "+1 damage, but only for board'n'sworders and gishes" is so OMGWTFBBQ broken it was the reason for the redesign...? For one thing, you will never find "+1 Horns" - non-monk natural weapons has an expiry date at a disadvantage in a world where you can find weapons that do magic damage.

In other words, if it isn't better somewhere somehow, isn't it a ribbon ability?

Who would think making minotaur horns a ribbon ability when it should be the defining characteristic of a mino warrior?

Isn't having a natural weapon that does significant damage better than not having a natural weapon that does significant damage? I wouldn't consider that a ribbon ability.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

Gnomes and goblins should be fey.

The planar origins can come with benefits (such as prerequisite for cool magic items) as well as disadvantages (such as target of cool magic items).

I would never consider a goblin as fey.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

Size is a bit weird anyway. Horses aren't generally 10 feet long.

And humans aren't usually 5 feet wide.

 

[Laurefindel]

Despite the apparent inconsistency of size between a man-horse and a horse-horse, I like the fact that the Centaur is a medium creature. Being medium means that weapon size/prices do not change, armor prices (and to a certain extent, armor compatibility) do not change, cannot be ridden by another (medium-sized) PC to somehow abuse the Mounted Combat feat, etc. In my mind, it was easier to classify it as a rather large medium-sized creature than a small-ish large-sized creature with weapon damage nerf.

As a matter of fact, I would prefer if gnomes and halflings were medium-sized creature with some kind of "small" racial feature.

 

[Yaarel]

I would never consider a goblin as fey.

I am guessing you have never read a reallife fairytale about a goblin?

Essentially, gnomes and goblins are ‘sprites’ (childsize nature spirits who personify the land that humans inhabit).

The gnomes are helpful fey spirits (as long as the land is treated respectfully). Oppositely, the goblins are harmful fey spirits.

The ‘gnome’ is a less accurate word that is used to describe similar sprites going by various regional names, such as: fairy (as Shakespeare describes them), hob, brownie, leprechaun, and so on.

Tolkien ‘hobbit’ is a variant of ‘hob’.

A ‘hobgoblin’, is a contradiction in terms being both ‘helpful’ and ‘harmful’ at the same time, and is the nickname for a childlike sprite that plays humorous painful pranks, but in a good-hearted way. Inspiring laughter is helpful. For this reason, I like to play D&D hobgoblins as Good or Neutral practical jokers. Sometimes the crazy stunts on internet can serve as inspiration. Heh, the more intelligent hobgoblins can be a real menace.

Originally, sprites were understood as appearing as if human children. But over time, the sprites came to be understood as shrunken spirits, appearing as grown adults who were the size of children.

Anyway, goblins are about as fey as a concept can get.

I like how the 4e makes halfling originate in the material plane, and the gnome originate in the fey plane. If I remember correctly, the 4e goblin is fey as well.

 

[cbwjm]

DnD goblins have little to do with the goblins in fairy tales though. I don't recall that they have ever been used in DnD as fey creatures and real world fairy tales shouldnt be used as reasoning for making DnD goblins fey creatures.

 

[osarusan]

Medium sized centaurs and minotaurs just feels wrong. I do think the hybrid monster type is a neat idea, but they ought to be large. Separating them so much from their monster counterparts makes them feel like another race altogether. Like a special breed of "mini" minotaurs and centaurs. If I were a player, I'd feel like I had "minotaur-light" instead of an actual minotaur. As a DM it just feels like adding in a half-assed race in order to please a certain demographic without really considering how it fits into the game. I don't like it.

 

[Yaarel]

DnD goblins have little to do with the goblins in fairy tales though. I don't recall that they have ever been used in DnD as fey creatures and real world fairy tales shouldnt be used as reasoning for making DnD goblins fey creatures.

To be fair, the Feywild itself only became a prominent planar feature of D&D recently in 4e an 5e.

So deciding which creatures originate from there can still be in flux.

Ultimately, it depends on the setting that players decide to use.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

I am guessing you have never read a reallife fairytale about a goblin?

Essentially, gnomes and goblins are ‘sprites’ (childsize nature spirits who personify the land that humans inhabit).

The gnomes are helpful fey spirits (as long as the land is treated respectfully). Oppositely, the goblins are harmful fey spirits.

The ‘gnome’ is a less accurate word that is used to describe similar sprites going by various regional names, such as: fairy (as Shakespeare describes them), hob, brownie, leprechaun, and so on.

Tolkien ‘hobbit’ is a variant of ‘hob’.

A ‘hobgoblin’, is a contradiction in terms being both ‘helpful’ and ‘harmful’ at the same time, and is the nickname for a childlike sprite that plays humorous painful pranks, but in a good-hearted way. For this reason, I like to play D&D hobgoblins as Good or Neutral practical jokers. Sometimes the crazy stunts on internet can serve as inspiration. Heh, the more intelligent hobgoblins can be a real menace.

Originally, sprites were understood as appearing as if human children. But over time, the sprites came to be understood as shrunken spirits, appearing as grown adults who were the size of children.

Anyway, goblins are about as fey as a concept can get.

I like how the 4e makes halfling originate in the material plane, and the gnome originate in the fey plane. If I remember correctly, the 4e goblin is fey as well.

My issue doesn’t stem from what they might be in other historical sources, but as they were defined in D&D. The same reason why elves will never have anything to do with eladrin in my campaign.

I don’t recall 4e changing goblins to fey, but after 20+ years of goblins being what they are, I don’t agree with changing them in the core rules to whatever. As part of a new setting? Sure.

It would be like changing Wookiees to a species of bear.