D&D 5E What is the appeal of the weird fantasy races?

[Maxperson]

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.

Why would I want to say something that I'm not saying?

Or, we can acknowledge that homebrew is homebrew. No matter where you grabbed the base line from.

The point is that I can point to rules that allow it. RAW allows it, even if it's homebrew.

Sure, they might need to become a beast, but this is still fundamentally different from "My PC is a full-blooded Rakshasa"

Not really. The major difference is the duration of the use of the stat block, not whether the players are using the stat blocks for their PCs.

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.

Why would I throw out 35+ years of how centaurs are, because WotC made a bad decision in 4e?

 

[Maxperson]

It attaches like a horse neck.
Boom.
Centaurs can climb near flush with bended knees.

I already showed that to be ineffective with a horse's body. The hooves cannot climb like that and the human portion is nearly worthless in that position. Clearly you have not yet tried to touch your toes and then climb while you have hard round shoes on. If you had, you wouldn't be arguing this any further.

 

[Scott Christian]

I mean, this conversation hasn't been serious for a while. There are no apples to apples comparisons happening anywhere, because centaurs aren't real creatures.

The truly remarkable thing here is the unironic level of indignation in this response.

Maybe this is the point of a DM trying to stay within their tables realm of believability. That is, applying logic like: it has a horse body. So we understand how that works. It has a human torso. We understand how that works. I can apply the benefits and limitations of these combined bodies to my table's preference.
Whereas, the side that is not okay with Max doing this is insisting that we can't apply any "known world" logic to a centaur climbing, you know, because dragons exist and it is fantasy.
What works for one table might not work for another. The unironic responses against what works for one is the actual remarkable thing.

 

[Minigiant]

I already showed that to be ineffective with a horse's body. The hooves cannot climb like that and the human portion is nearly worthless in that position. Clearly you have not yet tried to touch your toes and then climb while you have hard round shoes on. If you had, you wouldn't be arguing this any further.

Clearly you do not climb with your legs fully extened to the surface.
Nor would a centaur.
Yes, a centaur would need special climbing gear.
Yes, a centaur would not climb as fast as a human.

But we don't penalize dwarves for their stubby arms and legs and huge fat feet.

 

[Gammadoodler]

I already showed that to be ineffective with a horse's body. The hooves cannot climb like that and the human portion is nearly worthless in that position. Clearly you have not yet tried to touch your toes and then climb while you have hard round shoes on. If you had, you wouldn't be arguing this any further.

You've shown nothing. You've asked for a supposition that's not applicable. A horse touching their toes is not equivalent to a human touching their toes.

But sure, make your own rules and declare victory on the internet.

 

[Scott Christian]

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.

Agreed. I never said every climb requires a check. The reason: sometimes the DM says you can do that. Even in one of my bard chandelier examples I stated this. My point is a DC can change based on circumstances. And weight is is a circumstantial factor.

As for penalizing characters, I have always let characters choose acrobatics or athletics for their climbs, whichever is best. But having climbed quite a bit, I know when you hit sheer walls, it takes strength as equated to body weight, not dexterity. Hence, the 135 pound muscular climber is better than the 200 pound muscle bound climber. Much of that is because of finger strength. But, some things you just need to not be picky about - at least at my table.

I think the real question is can a centaur compete in America Ninja Warrior?

 

[Maxperson]

You've shown nothing. You've asked for a supposition that's not applicable. A horse touching their toes is not equivalent to a human touching their toes.

Whatever dude. Enjoy your game. I'll enjoy one that makes sense. Have a good day.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

But you were wrong. For the human torso to climb a vertical wall or cliff, it has to be flush up against the cliff. The only way that happens is if the chest of the centaur is also flush up against the cliff, which means the body is sticking straight out and is dead weight. If the body is flexing, then the chest is not flush against the cliff and pries the human torso off the cliff and they fall.

No, I wasn’t.

The centaur can bend. We have established this.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Maybe this is the point of a DM trying to stay within their tables realm of believability. That is, applying logic like: it has a horse body. So we understand how that works. It has a human torso. We understand how that works. I can apply the benefits and limitations of these combined bodies to my table's preference.
Whereas, the side that is not okay with Max doing this is insisting that we can't apply any "known world" logic to a centaur climbing, you know, because dragons exist and it is fantasy.
What works for one table might not work for another. The unironic responses against what works for one is the actual remarkable thing.

This is not a reasonable critique of this post, or to responsive to the general tone of the recent strand of conversation.

There has been no attempt to discredit Max's version of the centaur beyond an acknowledgement that it is explicitly his version of it. And folks have been "applying logic" on both sides. And one of those sides is claiming that they have the true logic, and anything otherwise is an absurdity.

 

[Scott Christian]

No, I wasn’t.

The centaur can bend. We have established this.

Since no one is actually responding to the real question - I will ask it point blank:

Do you think the DM can change the DC of a skill check (climb) because they are a centaur?