That's not my argument as I presented. My argument is that RAW allows that race to be played as a PC, not that you can just choose it. Obviously the DM has to approve it.
Who cares about DM approval. That is completely ancillary to my point.
My point is that if you want to say "By RAW I can homebrew, therefore the things I homebrew are RAW" then everything is RAW.
Or, we can acknowledge that homebrew is homebrew. No matter where you grabbed the base line from.
If the DM wants to allow it, sure. I'd say no, but... And again, my argument is not that it's a RAW option, but that RAW allows it. There are rules in place for that to happen.
And I acknowledged pages ago that you can homebrew anything.
But, what, you wanted to score points by saying that homebrewing is something approved by RAW? Okay, cool, should I point out that rolling dice is approved by RAW too? It has nothing to do with the discussion, but neither does pointing out that doing a thing I said you could do and that the book approves is approved by the book.
Ahh, so you're using controllable differently than I was. The druid controls what the statblock does. That's all that matters for it to meet my example. The DM can also alter any PHB race and class, so the players don't control(in the way you're using it) those, either. They are just using them, just like druids use the bear statblock when shapeshifting and would use the centaur statblock as a PC.
"Controlling what the statblock does" is a weird way to look at controlling a character.
But, again, yeah, a DM could homebrew any class or any race, changing them for any purposes.
But while a player would be perfectly fine to go on DnD Beyond and click "Races" and "Classes" and pick from the officially written races or classes, no one would say that they are perfectly fine to click on "Monsters" and do the same thing for the primary character.
Sure, they might need to become a beast, but this is still fundamentally different from "My PC is a full-blooded Rakshasa"
That I didn't know as I skipped that edition.
They were not fey in BECMI, 1e, 2e or 3e.
Not even Fey associated? But again, it doesn't matter. They were explicitly fey last edition. So, this is not the huge stretch you are making it out to be.
Silly rules are silly. Horses, even ones with an extra set of hands, cannot climb a vertical wall at 1/4 speed.
Sorry, you might want to correct that to "Rules I think are silly I think are silly" because "silly" is not an objective standard.
Sure, you hate the fact that Centaurs can climb, you think it is ridiculous. Well... that doesn't change the RAW. No amount of "but it is silly" is going to cause that text to change.
Can you homebrew it? Sure. You can homebrew anything. But it is homebrew. It is changing the rules. Because just calling a rule silly doesn't change it.
Nope. It's too silly to allow just based on horses climbing walls. No need for your fallacious additions.
Sigh
Clearly a sign that you weren't even reading my post. Because those additions were referencing the alternate solution of using a block and tackle, rope, and leather sling so that the centaur can deal with walls.
But, you can't look past your own preconceptions even far enough to see that.
Then you can point to the rule that says that. Neither the climbing ability nor the lore says that as far as I can see. You're free to make that up for your centaurs if you wish, though.
Huh, would that be... homebrew?
Sort of like... homebrewing them to be large creatures?
Hmmmmmmmm
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I believe that the actual body of a creature is pretty much never incorporated in carrying capacity calculations under RAW anyway, what's your point?
Yeah, not only is the person's body weight never calculated into their encumbrance, but there is a second consideration.
600 lbs is their total weight. Assuming that they are rather stocky individuals, you could assume that they are close to 200 lbs if human, taking their torso you might argue that their human half wieghs about 100 pounds.
So, 500 lbs of horse
But, additionally, at least some of the horse bodies weight would be supported by the hooves making contact with the wall, even if we assume that most of their bottom half is hanging, that is likely closer to 300 lbs rather than the full 500.
All of which is to say that the idea of them weighing too much to lift themselves solely with their arms seems to be missing a a few key points.
But I figured that that wouldn't exactly gain a lot of traction in this case.
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The DM adjudicates based on conditions. That is why climbing has a DC number attached. For some circumstances, where conditions are poor, like a rope that has been coated in oil, the DC goes up. For others, like climbing around on boulders with no time restraint, the DC might be lower.
This same logic applies to weight. A dwarf holding a baby in one hand is going to have a harder time climbing. A dwarf holding a baby in each hand probably can't climb. A dwarf in plate armor with two babies tied to its back has a higher DC than the dwarf with no gear in his pirate clothes.
The centaur bouldering might have a lower DC than the dwarf. They might have a DC of 40 if they are asked to climb up a 50' rope with nothing around.
Every table I have ever seen considers these rules as normal. No one that I have ever seen would call a table ridiculous for using these rules. So, why argue about the centaur climbing a rope? The DM sets the DC. That is the way rules work. That is the way the entire game is set up.
Now, if you want to try and persuade the DM to lower the DC, I think most DMs are down for that.
All true with one exception. And this is a pet peeve of mine.
Normal climbing has no DC.
A Dwarf in full armor with babies strapped to him and a dwarf with no gear and pirate clothes can both climb a tree with no check. Especially since the the babies likely don't reach the dwarf's encumbrance.
A dwarf with a single baby... that might require a check, but considering it was no check before, should it be a difficult check? I don't think so.
But, the problem is that people seem to think that every attempt to climb has a check. Which is frustrating, because then every low strength character trying to scale a tree or climb a rope is getting penalized when they should not be. Which then makes mildly difficult climbs nearly impossible.
But, per RAW, it takes a fairly intense situation to even require a check for a character to climb.
