What's the big deal with large PCs?

[Will Doyle]

Many apologies if we've been here before, but what's really so wrong about having large PC races?

Understandably they have a larger footprint on the grid, making them more likely to make opportunity attacks, and making defender auras/burst attacks all that much better.

But isn't this offset somewhat by having to squeeze so much (as a DM, my large monsters certainly suffer), and by having 12 potential attackers as opposed to 8?

And also, couldn't you implement certain rules for large creatures to offset the advantages: e.g. turn all bursts to equally sized blasts, or just pick a square in the creature as an origin point?

Just wondering.

 

[Max1mus]

I was a long time player of 3.5 Arcana Unearthed/Evolved. This system allowed large and tiny PCs. The details that were required to account for everything could get pretty annoying. Not only in combat including weapon and armor sizes, but also non-combat situations. How would a city or village accommodate creatures of such varying size? With 4eds importance on simplicity, the idea of large PC's was possible but not convenient.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Like having a tiny PC, it opens up some cans of worms. Weapon scaling, for instance. Different rules for placement and occupying spaces. Differently sized gear, etc...

Rather than deal with all that, 4e put balance first and made potentially-large races just really big for medium.


However, that balance-first philosophy has been abandoned, post-Essentials. For instance, the next book on the schedule will includes a playable Tiny race.

A future Large race can't be out of the question.

 

[Will Doyle]

I was a long time player of 3.5 Arcana Unearthed/Evolved. This system allowed large and tiny PCs. The details that were required to account for everything could get pretty annoying. Not only in combat including weapon and armor sizes, but also non-combat situations. How would a city or village accommodate creatures of such varying size? With 4eds importance on simplicity, the idea of large PC's was possible but not convenient.

3E had more rules built into the system for this - but, like you say, 4E stripped most of them out. Regarding weapon and armour sizes, large creatures have just the same problems as small creatures, don't they? They're just a step up from normal rather than a step down.

I see your point about complexities with keeping the world real, but if my DM allows large PC races in their world, it's sort of my choice to roll with those challenges when I play one. So I sit outside the tavern, leaning in through the window. When my friends sleep inside, I sleep under stars. Really, with such a player in their group, a DM who sets most of their adventures in tight dungeons is being a bit unfair, aren't they?

 

[Pickles JG]

Without large weapons I do not see a problem, I think they probably gain as much as they lose from large size.
To balance the large weapons I would give them some mechanical disadvantage, probably "Clumsy" -1 to hit with weapons & -1 Reflex for say an Ogre. And/or weak racial abilities.

 

[Will Doyle]

Without large weapons I do not see a problem, I think they probably gain as much as they lose from large size.
To balance the large weapons I would give them some mechanical disadvantage, probably "Clumsy" -1 to hit with weapons & -1 Reflex for say an Ogre. And/or weak racial abilities.

Yeah, that's interesting. To me, toning down the racial abilities would be more appropriate to the 4E ethos than imposing a flat penalty.

One of my players runs a warlord who's often mounted on a horse. It's a custom creature we've made called a Wind Steed, so it ignores the normal mounted penalty for operating in enclosed areas. Really, across many fights, I've not seen a huge disadvantage. Bursts stem from a single origin point on the steed, as per the mounted rules, and what he gains in blocking ability is more than made up for by lack of maneouvrability.

 

[herrozerro]

the only issues I foresee with large deal mostly with the grid and tactical combat.

Bigger bursts, more adjacent squares, harder to hide, more squares to target, area's built for medium PCs, grappling huge creatures...

none of which I see as game breaking or unbalanced, there are more negatives then positives to being large it would seem.

 

[Infiniti2000]

But isn't this offset somewhat by having to squeeze so much (as a DM, my large monsters certainly suffer), and by having 12 potential attackers as opposed to 8?

No and no. Forcing the PC to squeeze would be incumbent on the DM to introduce such terrain. Any time this happens, that would clearly be an attempt to hinder the PC. Now, you're creating a major hassle on the DM to be conscious of such things as too many 5ft corridors, bridges, or interior encounters really screws the Large PC. Squeezing is a major penalty. Increasing the number of attackers also is a terrible solution, but maybe I don't understand you. Presumably this Large PC is balanced with the rest so you could no more increase the number of attackers due to a Large PC than you could for, say, having a controller PC. The fact that he's Large should be irrelevant to the XP count of the encounter.

And also, couldn't you implement certain rules for large creatures to offset the advantages: e.g. turn all bursts to equally sized blasts, or just pick a square in the creature as an origin point?

No. That's a lot of crappy customized rules to account for balance and totally screws things up...and not in a good way. You cannot turn bursts into blasts; they are not equivalent at all. The only possible workaround to a burst 1 is to not allow the 4 corners. This might be extensible to burst N (where N>1), but not sure.

 

[Will Doyle]

Forcing the PC to squeeze would be incumbent on the DM to introduce such terrain. Any time this happens, that would clearly be an attempt to hinder the PC.

For terrain, I'm not actually proposing that the DM changes anything at all.

I know I may be in the minority here, but I typically use dungeon tiles, where 2x2 passages are standard. On a larger tile, you'll get trees, pillars, rocks or what have you, which means I often have to squeeze large monsters during combat just to get into position. I'm not for a moment proposing that the DM adds terrain like that to screw the PC, I'm just commenting that a "standard" map would throw up its own minor problems for large PCs that may offset some of their natural advantages (which are pretty minor really, in my opinion).

What I am saying, is that the DM should avoid dungeons where (for example) the only way in is a 2ft trapdoor in the floor. That's not much modification.

Increasing the number of attackers also is a terrible solution, but maybe I don't understand you.

No, I'm not proposing that: I'm just saying a 2x2 square has 12 adjacent spaces, whilst a single square has 8 adjacent spaces. So, more room for attackers to get stuck in.

No. That's a lot of crappy customized rules to account for balance and totally screws things up...and not in a good way. You cannot turn bursts into blasts; they are not equivalent at all. The only possible workaround to a burst 1 is to not allow the 4 corners. This might be extensible to burst N (where N>1), but not sure.

Yeah, bursts to blasts is probably a bit naff. But configuring bursts from a chosen origin square within the creature's footprint has an actual precedent in the mounted combat rules - so I don't see that as a huge problem at all.

 

[Mengu]

Balanced or not, as a PC I wouldn't want a large PC on my team. They are a pain to maneuver. They take up so much space, other PC's can't get where they need to go. It becomes harder to drop AoE's without hurting the big guy. Trying to spread the group out of fireball formation becomes harder because the big guy always ends up close to somebody. In narrow hallways, you can't even use reach to hit from behind the big guy, because you would need reach 3. It's all really cumbersome.

Mounts are enough of a pain to deal with on the field as it is. I would not want a large PC. I think tiny poses much fewer problems comparatively.