Part of the problem is that large creatures tend to become more unbalanced compared to the other PCs. There is also the fact that most places simply aren't made for them, and they are really not welcomed within civilized areas. They also tend to be of the more monstrously type. Primary reason against would be the unbalance and the how do you explain the city guard not wanting to kill the "ogre" PC? Certain animal companions already stretch the imagination.
If your games mostly take place in dungeons, then you can probably do it. Cause I'm more of a city type guy and adventures are going to be there a lot, I can't really see everyone in the town welcoming the PC. I'd probably lean toward no because of that.
If it was a one shot, I might be more inclined to allow it.
I was looking more for mechanical reasons as to whether or not play a size L creature. Social complications would be quite interesting, although it could be ruled out that these creatures are tolerated in cities. As for stat blocks and race, not much to say here; imagine large-sized humans (that is, no special traits). It's the effects, if any, size might have in the game that got me thinking.
And yea, being large in a settlement built and intended for medium-sized people would make for fun RP moments.
Just the large trait in and of itself? I can't think of any issue. 5e doesn't account for higher damage sizes in weapons, so damage balance stays the same. I mean, they might have more trouble fitting into small tunnels, while having an easier time climbing up things or reaching things?
JUST a large creature isn't a big deal. It's usually the added Strength and other features that comes with it that can be problematic.
Just the large trait in and of itself? I can't think of any issue. 5e doesn't account for higher damage sizes in weapons, so damage balance stays the same. I mean, they might have more trouble fitting into small tunnels, while having an easier time climbing up things or reaching things?
JUST a large creature isn't a big deal. It's usually the added Strength and other features that comes with it that can be problematic.
DMG p.278 actually gives the specific rules for oversized weapons. And gives the example that a huge greataxe would deal 3d12 damage.
That said, the main issue is a social one. If your campaign world is OK with ogres walking around civilization so be it. Although there would also be times in which a large party member would simply not be able to fit through an area. That would be more of a campaign decision point for the players. Is it worth going this route even if it leaves a party member behind?
I think the general limitation in 5e from official large PC is to avoid the large weapons, and to avoid complicating things.
I'd rather just stay away from it. I think that large PCs adds too much complexity and adapting for little reward. If I had a player that REALLY insisted on wanting to play one, I'd be down for discussion on their reasoning. I've found that most people are more than happy with Dragonborn, Half-Orc, or Goliath though.
Of course! An Ogre Paladin sounds like a blast. As long as the sort of game we're playing supports it and it isn't too disruptive, I see no reason to avoid a character who doesn't fit perfectly within the core rules.
DMG p.278 actually gives the specific rules for oversized weapons. And gives the example that a huge greataxe would deal 3d12 damage.
It's important to note that said specific rules are actually specific to monsters, and like the rest of the monster creation rules does not have to mirror or be mirrored by the rules specific to player characters.
Because, as an example, the effect of Enlarge/Reduce upon damage is 1d4, not a doubling of the damage dice. And even that doesn't have to be part of the mechanical details of a large PC race option.
In fact, the only mechanical trait actually inherent to being large size is to take up more space (and carry more stuff, but encumbrance is very often practically irrelevant), and with carefully chosen benefits to the race I'm sure that many players wouldn't mind the downsides of being easier to target, harder to disguise, and having more difficulty finding sufficient cover.
Well by default an ogre would always be attacked in a city by default.
No. There is no "default" that mandates a city have enough people of sufficiently evil or amoral alignment and ethics to stand for "kill on sight" levels of xenophobia. Especially considering that the "default" setting of D&D according to 5th edition is the D&D multi-verse, which has numerous worlds upon which ogres live in cities and aren't under constant attack as a result.
Well by default an ogre would always be attacked in a city by default.
No. There is no "default" that mandates a city have enough people of sufficiently evil or amoral alignment and ethics to stand for "kill on sight" levels of xenophobia. Especially considering that the "default" setting of D&D according to 5th edition is the D&D multi-verse, which has numerous worlds upon which ogres live in cities and aren't under constant attack as a result.
Given they are chaotic evil and stupid... That pretty much guarantees any society is going to attack the ogre or run it out of town.
You wouldn't need to be evil or amoral. Otherwise PCs would always be evil and clerics couldn't worship good deities because PCs are always killing monsters of evil alignment for no reason except those creatures are Evil.
Granted I have an issue that D&D even has alignment. It's rather archaic. But it does establish that certain creatures are naturally and without a doubt evil.
So while those creatures might not get killed, they probably are going to get ran out of town.
Given they are chaotic evil and stupid... That pretty much guarantees any society is going to attack the ogre or run it out of town.
You wouldn't need to be evil or amoral. Otherwise PCs would always be evil and clerics couldn't worship good deities because PCs are always killing monsters of evil alignment for no reason except those creatures are Evil.
Granted I have an issue that D&D even has alignment. It's rather archaic. But it does establish that certain creatures are naturally and without a doubt evil.
So while those creatures might not get killed, they probably are going to get ran out of town.
Your views of what alignments mean and what is acceptable behavior for each are not universal, nor actually supported by any text in the books (i.e. it doesn't say "something having an evil alignment listed in its monster stats means it is not evil to treat them as one would be considered evil for treating a human")
And while D&D does establish that certain creatures are "naturally and without a doubt evil" those creatures are fiends and fiends alone, not any of the intelligent humanoid races that you seem to believe have been put on "it's okay to treat them like crap and/or kill them" lists by the supposed "good guys" of the world.
Maybe you wouldn't have such an issue with alignment in D&D if you reconsidered that the reason why killing the monsters isn't generally considered evil is because of when and how it occurs, rather than because of who/what it occurs to - i.e. killing an orc that is marauding as part of a war band and is trying to kill you who were just traveling down the road is one thing, and killing an orc that is trying to purchase bread in the city market is a completely different thing.
Given they are chaotic evil and stupid... That pretty much guarantees any society is going to attack the ogre or run it out of town.
You wouldn't need to be evil or amoral. Otherwise PCs would always be evil and clerics couldn't worship good deities because PCs are always killing monsters of evil alignment for no reason except those creatures are Evil.
Granted I have an issue that D&D even has alignment. It's rather archaic. But it does establish that certain creatures are naturally and without a doubt evil.
So while those creatures might not get killed, they probably are going to get ran out of town.
Your views of what alignments mean and what is acceptable behavior for each are not universal, nor actually supported by any text in the books (i.e. it doesn't say "something having an evil alignment listed in its monster stats means it is not evil to treat them as one would be considered evil for treating a human")
And while D&D does establish that certain creatures are "naturally and without a doubt evil" those creatures are fiends and fiends alone, not any of the intelligent humanoid races that you seem to believe have been put on "it's okay to treat them like crap and/or kill them" lists by the supposed "good guys" of the world.
Maybe you wouldn't have such an issue with alignment in D&D if you reconsidered that the reason why killing the monsters isn't generally considered evil is because of when and how it occurs, rather than because of who/what it occurs to - i.e. killing an orc that is marauding as part of a war band and is trying to kill you who were just traveling down the road is one thing, and killing an orc that is trying to purchase bread in the city market is a completely different thing.
Ogres aren't exactly intelligent creatures. But...
Do you really let a mind flayer walk into town to buy bread? Or even a vampire? Do you really risk that maybe, just maybe, the mind flayer isn't evil? If you are wrong hundreds and thousands of people are going to die. Same with an ogre. Does the town guard really let the ogre live, on the off chance that this one single ogre happens to be the only ogre on the planet that isn't evil? I would say no. At the very least you toss the ogre some bread and tell him to be on his way. Once you have established that certain monsters are evil, then you really can't risk letting them in.
If you were charged with protecting the city and knowing ogres are evil, then are you doing your moral obligation to the city to let the ogre wonder about, especially knowing hundreds of people could die by that choice.
Being a large creature doesn't necessarily mean an evil one. Centaurs, for example, are neutral good, and in settings with emphasis on sylvan settlements, players could have centaur characters among them.
1) Do you really let a mind flayer walk into town to buy bread? 2) Or even a vampire? 3) Do you really risk that maybe, just maybe, the mind flayer isn't evil? 4) If you are wrong hundreds and thousands of people are going to die. Same with an ogre. 5) Does the town guard really let the ogre live, on the off chance that this one single ogre happens to be the only ogre on the planet that isn't evil? I would say no. At the very least you toss the ogre some bread and tell him to be on his way. 6) Once you have established that certain monsters are evil, then you really can't risk letting them in.
7) If you were charged with protecting the city and knowing ogres are evil, then are you doing your moral obligation to the city to let the ogre wonder about, especially knowing hundreds of people could die by that choice.
Numbered for ease of reference
1) I don't advocate that the guards be so invasion in their procedures for admittance that a mind flayer looking to stroll to the market shopping be guaranteed not to achieve that goal without being realized as something other than the perfectly normal, well-behaved, albeit hooded citizen they would, in their intelligence, likely choose to present themselves as because they know non-good people such as racists might react poorly to their presence.
2) I also don't believe that the guards will be able to tell the difference between a regular person on a shopping trip and a vampire on a shopping trip. They may even have a touch of trouble noticing the difference between a regular-but-crazy person and a vampire should the vampire engage in something not mandatory in a shopping trip. For example, drinking someone's blood.
3) It is my understanding that the "good guys" hold out hope of redemption for the "bad guys" even if it makes them regret doing so after the fact. So to not give somebody a chance to prove that they just want to live their life in peace is something I consider non-good.
4) You are massively exaggerating the case here. Neither a mind flayer, a vampire, nor an ogre, alone, are a threat to "hundreds and thousands" of people. Maybe handfuls or dozens, but barely more than a single human being is also capable of threatening - and if we aren't super-cautiously running every human out of town because they as a people are capable of evil... well... I think you get my point.
5) Again you are massively exaggerating the case. There is no hard number to reference as to how many of a particular race are of a particular alignment, outside of celestials and fiends which are inherently tied to their alignment (that is, according to the 5th edition rule books, at least). Even if we assume that the alignment presented in the monster manual is true of the majority of creatures of a particular type, we cannot assume how greatly the majority outnumber the minority - a "chaotic evil" mention in a stat block means that more of that creature are chaotic evil than any other alignment, but that could be as low as roughly 12% of their number being that alignment given that there are 9 alignments to be splitting them up amongst. So acting like the guard is giving the ogre the benefit of the doubt that its the only non-evil ogre is like acting as if you believe that a brunette Swede is the only non-blonde to call the nation home - ridiculously misinformed.
6) Good people do not categorically label others as non-persons. That includes the labeling of some other would-be-people as being so evil that they don't deserve the same treatment you extend to all the others of your own people that you similarly do not actually know the alignment of.
Actually I think it would create much larger areas for opportunity attacks I could be wrong it might give a slight disadvantage to AOE though which could balance this out. You could also make their weapon choice make more sense by prohibiting them from wielding light weapons, upgrading the damage die on versatile weapons by one and turning being able to dual wield versatile weapons with their original die as if they were light or they had the dual wielder feat, and with the dual wield feat wielding them with the upgrading die. And with a great weapons such as the great axe you could solve this by using the DM's guide and applying the 1d4 or you could just double strength bonus(not dexterity though maybe if it's finesse your choice) on damage, but not attack rolls
Example:
A longsword does 1d8 slashing damage while wielded in one hand, and 1d10 when held with both hands.
A Treant race wielding a longsword with both hands deal 1d12 slashing damage, with one hand does 1d10 slashing damage, with one in each hand deals 1d8 as an action and 1d8 with their bonus action, and with the dual wielder feat with one in each hand deals 1d10 as for their action, and 1d10 with their bonus action. A Treant with a strength of 20 wielding a greataxe would either deal 1d12+1d4+5 slashing damage or 1d12+10 slashing damage.
Now this presents 2 issues or specific builds I should say that could exploit this that I can think of, the Paladin/Warlock build using divine smite multiple times per shorts while dual wielding lances from the dual wielder feat on their find steed or find greater steed, and a greataxe Barbarian with 24 strength from Primal Champion, making a Brutal Critical while raging, and to balance this out large creature already need huge creatures for mounts, and maybe giving them disadvantage on attack rolls all or maybe just strength based this purely optional and may overnerf them especially at lower levels so I look into better ideas for reducing the chance or the damage of these and similar builds.
To balance it all out limit the number or power of racial traits you give large races, and scale prices for items appropriately, and double their food and water intake needed, this is looking a little underpowered so I'm going throw in or suggest that a new max for either all or specifically strength and constitution scores increase to 25 or 26 your choice, ignoring all preset maximums in feats, ability score increase/improvements, or primal champion. Disadvantage to stealth makes sense in most cases so you could build off of that too, and maybe disadvantage on dexterity saving throws.
Now if excuse me I'm going go enjoy the heck out of playing my variant large Minotaur, with Labyrinthine Recall, and Darkvision.
You could solve this problem by making rascism towards monstrous races a valid part or issue in you're d and d world having them often stereotyped like this which could actually add an interesting flavor to your gameplay in my opinion.
You could also solve the problem by saying that in your world, Always Chaotic Evil is not in play and ordinary people don't expect a given ogre to be evil any more than they'd expect a given dwarf or human to be evil.
Though personally I'd be inclined to not allow Large size PCs and just limit them to Medium size characters with the Powerful Build trait, like Firbolgs, Goliaths, and Minotaurs.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
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What do you think would be the reason to play or not play?
Even though 5e follows a Medium-or-Small-only policy towards playable races, would you allow it in your game?
Part of the problem is that large creatures tend to become more unbalanced compared to the other PCs. There is also the fact that most places simply aren't made for them, and they are really not welcomed within civilized areas. They also tend to be of the more monstrously type. Primary reason against would be the unbalance and the how do you explain the city guard not wanting to kill the "ogre" PC? Certain animal companions already stretch the imagination.
If your games mostly take place in dungeons, then you can probably do it. Cause I'm more of a city type guy and adventures are going to be there a lot, I can't really see everyone in the town welcoming the PC. I'd probably lean toward no because of that.
If it was a one shot, I might be more inclined to allow it.
Depends on the stat block and the race. What did you/your players have in mind?
I was looking more for mechanical reasons as to whether or not play a size L creature. Social complications would be quite interesting, although it could be ruled out that these creatures are tolerated in cities. As for stat blocks and race, not much to say here; imagine large-sized humans (that is, no special traits). It's the effects, if any, size might have in the game that got me thinking.
And yea, being large in a settlement built and intended for medium-sized people would make for fun RP moments.
Just the large trait in and of itself? I can't think of any issue. 5e doesn't account for higher damage sizes in weapons, so damage balance stays the same. I mean, they might have more trouble fitting into small tunnels, while having an easier time climbing up things or reaching things?
JUST a large creature isn't a big deal. It's usually the added Strength and other features that comes with it that can be problematic.
I'd rather just stay away from it. I think that large PCs adds too much complexity and adapting for little reward. If I had a player that REALLY insisted on wanting to play one, I'd be down for discussion on their reasoning. I've found that most people are more than happy with Dragonborn, Half-Orc, or Goliath though.
Of course! An Ogre Paladin sounds like a blast. As long as the sort of game we're playing supports it and it isn't too disruptive, I see no reason to avoid a character who doesn't fit perfectly within the core rules.
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Well by default an ogre would always be attacked in a city by default.
It's important to note that said specific rules are actually specific to monsters, and like the rest of the monster creation rules does not have to mirror or be mirrored by the rules specific to player characters.
Because, as an example, the effect of Enlarge/Reduce upon damage is 1d4, not a doubling of the damage dice. And even that doesn't have to be part of the mechanical details of a large PC race option.
In fact, the only mechanical trait actually inherent to being large size is to take up more space (and carry more stuff, but encumbrance is very often practically irrelevant), and with carefully chosen benefits to the race I'm sure that many players wouldn't mind the downsides of being easier to target, harder to disguise, and having more difficulty finding sufficient cover.
Being a large creature doesn't necessarily mean an evil one. Centaurs, for example, are neutral good, and in settings with emphasis on sylvan settlements, players could have centaur characters among them.
Right. I think a player could potentially play a centaur without a lot of consequences.
Id probably give them a harder time with hiding in crowds and such and people would recognize/remember them more. But that could work out.
Actually I think it would create much larger areas for opportunity attacks I could be wrong it might give a slight disadvantage to AOE though which could balance this out. You could also make their weapon choice make more sense by prohibiting them from wielding light weapons, upgrading the damage die on versatile weapons by one and turning being able to dual wield versatile weapons with their original die as if they were light or they had the dual wielder feat, and with the dual wield feat wielding them with the upgrading die. And with a great weapons such as the great axe you could solve this by using the DM's guide and applying the 1d4 or you could just double strength bonus(not dexterity though maybe if it's finesse your choice) on damage, but not attack rolls
Example:
A longsword does 1d8 slashing damage while wielded in one hand, and 1d10 when held with both hands.
A Treant race wielding a longsword with both hands deal 1d12 slashing damage, with one hand does 1d10 slashing damage, with one in each hand deals 1d8 as an action and 1d8 with their bonus action, and with the dual wielder feat with one in each hand deals 1d10 as for their action, and 1d10 with their bonus action. A Treant with a strength of 20 wielding a greataxe would either deal 1d12+1d4+5 slashing damage or 1d12+10 slashing damage.
Now this presents 2 issues or specific builds I should say that could exploit this that I can think of, the Paladin/Warlock build using divine smite multiple times per shorts while dual wielding lances from the dual wielder feat on their find steed or find greater steed, and a greataxe Barbarian with 24 strength from Primal Champion, making a Brutal Critical while raging, and to balance this out large creature already need huge creatures for mounts, and maybe giving them disadvantage on attack rolls all or maybe just strength based this purely optional and may overnerf them especially at lower levels so I look into better ideas for reducing the chance or the damage of these and similar builds.
To balance it all out limit the number or power of racial traits you give large races, and scale prices for items appropriately, and double their food and water intake needed, this is looking a little underpowered so I'm going throw in or suggest that a new max for either all or specifically strength and constitution scores increase to 25 or 26 your choice, ignoring all preset maximums in feats, ability score increase/improvements, or primal champion. Disadvantage to stealth makes sense in most cases so you could build off of that too, and maybe disadvantage on dexterity saving throws.
Now if excuse me I'm going go enjoy the heck out of playing my variant large Minotaur, with Labyrinthine Recall, and Darkvision.
You could solve this problem by making rascism towards monstrous races a valid part or issue in you're d and d world having them often stereotyped like this which could actually add an interesting flavor to your gameplay in my opinion.
You could also solve the problem by saying that in your world, Always Chaotic Evil is not in play and ordinary people don't expect a given ogre to be evil any more than they'd expect a given dwarf or human to be evil.
Though personally I'd be inclined to not allow Large size PCs and just limit them to Medium size characters with the Powerful Build trait, like Firbolgs, Goliaths, and Minotaurs.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.