I was looking into the Minotaur race (found in Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica) and honestly I founded it a bit underwhelming; it probably fits nicely with that setting, but for playable minotaurs in Faerûn it was a little disappointing, though I think even for Ravnica some of the abilities are a little weak.

As a result I've been creating my own homebrew alternative, but I won't be sharing it with the community just yet due to how laborious that process can be, especially as my intention is to create two sub-races and any corrections will mean copying, re-submitting etc. So I'm posting the (somehow not very) condensed version here to see what people think:

Brute (Large) Minotaur

• Ability Score Increases: +2 STR, +2 CON
• Age: Mature at around 16, but remain physical strong up to 150
• Size: Over 7 to 10 feet, size is Large.
• Speed: 40 feet
• Languages: Speak Minotaur. No written form, but pictograms are easily understood by fellow minotaurs, while other races may require context or history clues to fully understand them.
• Large Creature: Can wield Large weapons (must be looted from suitably nasty creatures or crafted at your DM's discretion). When wielding medium weapons may ignore the Two-Handed property of one weapon, has -5 to attack rolls for Light weapons.
• Long Horns: Once per turn unarmed strike (headbutt) at 1d8 + STR piercing, 2d8 + STR at level 8, and 3d8 + STR at level 20.
• Goring Rush: After a Dash of at least 20 feet, may use bonus action to make a melee attack with Horns.
• Pummelling Horns: After making a melee attack with Horns during your turn, as a reaction you can make the target take a Strength saving throw of 8 + your Proficiency + your Strength modifier, on failure they are pushed 10 feet. If used as with a Goring Rush or the Charger feat, the target is also knocked Prone.
• Fearsome Presence: Add STR to Intimidation checks.
• Feared Reputation: Disadvantage Persuasion with any stranger or hostile that does not know Minotaur (must be known, not granted by a spell). Unwelcome in most settlements.
• Languages: Speak Minotaur (no written form).

Basically the idea is to tweak the minotaur setup for something a bit more monstrous; this results in more racial features than most other races, which makes the base minotaur quite strong, but with some notable drawbacks. To just quickly discuss some of the features:

Large Creature: This is a pretty big (get it?) change for a player character; in addition to the two additions (ignore Two-Handed, -5 to attack with Light) you have all the usual differences for a large creature; 10 foot square, can't fit through gaps big enough only for Small or Tiny creatures, need four times as much food and water per day, carrying capacity is doubled, you won't fit behind cover. Being able to wield one medium-sized two-handed weapon in one hand means you can have a halberd + shield and other strong combinations, or just keep the other hand free for casting, reloading etc. But you're also going to be the biggest target in most rooms.

Pummelling Horns: This is changed from GGtR/UA to a reaction, and if done as part of a Goring Rush or while using the Charger feat, you will also knock the target Prone. This makes this ability mostly better, and makes charging with your horns better in general as well since you can knock an enemy out of place (or off a ledge) and/or prone while dealing decent damage (but with only a single attack).

Fearsome Presence: I never really understood the choice between Intimidation and Persuasion proficiency in the other rules, as proficiency to me felt like the wrong solution; in my mind a minotaur is intimidating without trying, whereas proficiency represents a skill at being scary on purpose. So I switched it for adding STR to intimidation; this means that a minotaur built to be intimidating on purpose can be very intimidating with either high STR + CHA or high STR + proficiency at later levels. While a character optimised for scaring people (high STR + high CHA + proficiency + expertise) can have a massive bonus to this skill (+8-10 at level 1, to as high as +22), your DM should however actively seek to counterbalance this with the consequences of going around causing everyone you meet to soil themselves.

Languages: I opted to make the base language Minotaur only, to emphasise that a Minotaur speaking Common is unusual especially for the Labyrinthian Minotaurs who need to take a background or class granting languages to justify how they would know it. I also thought it strange for this to have a written form (who's writing it down?), in favour of minotaurs using pictograms instead which other minotaurs will easily understand, but others may have to work to figure out the meaning. This is mostly for flavour though, a DM could just ignore it.

Feared Reputation: This is the main balance to this race; firstly disadvantage to Persuasion is a big deal, as it's going to apply to nearly everyone you meet that hasn't been befriended in some way. It's the "unwelcome in most settlements" bit that really lets your DM counterbalance your combat strengths with social difficulties; in the actual race description I go into more detail but basically the idea is that the DM should treat many NPCs as fearful or hostile toward a minotaur player by default, so the player must actively work to assure NPCs they are not hostile, or that it's safer to just give the player what they want. This is a DM's discretion feature, and they should absolutely adjust to the player; for example a player who optimises for a minotaur's strengths as a barbarian, fighter etc., or goes all in on Intimidation should be given a harder time than a player who goes a more unusual route with their character (minotaur bard or such). The idea is to push the player to either work harder to earn people's trust through deeds, or to be what the people expect and lean into your (boosted) Intimidation, but suffer the consequences of doing so.

Herdborn Minotaur

The idea of the Herdborn is to represent an above-ground nomadic version of Minotaur; they're still not a common sight, as they tend to stay well clear of civilisation, but may come into contact from time to time, making them a more obvious choice for a player character.

• Alignment: Tend towards neutral, lawful if from a self-sufficient tribe, chaotic if from one that may need to raid for supplies.
• Natural Forager: Advantage of Survival when foraging.
• Tireless Traveller: Advantage on CON saves for forced marching.
• Trade Language: Speaks, reads and writes Common to a rudimentary degree (player should justify an ability to communicate and understand complex concepts in Common, and your hand-writing is probably horrific unless you have a large pen made specially).

Adds some non-combat bonuses for a flavour of Minotaur that roams plains, tundra, hills etc. Natural Forager will stack well with Outlander or Ranger for finding the huge amounts of food you need.

Labyrinthine Minotaur

This is your classic maze-dwelling monster; tend to be loners except in larger areas of the underdark where a group may control shared territory. More vicious and monstrous.

• Alignment: Tend towards evil (not above eating someone)
• Darkvision (60ft.): Easier to catch prey in your labyrinth if you can actually see.
• Labyrinthine Recall: Can perfectly recall any route you have travelled.

Whereas the Herdborn get some boosts to survival, travel and trade, the Labyrinthines get some classic bonuses ideal for dungeon exploration, though nothing so overpowered as to make them a no-brainer as a choice hopefully.

Regarding balance I decided that a monstrous minotaur should be quite strong as a race, with few direct penalties; I could give characteristic penalties to Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma but that felt too much like limiting what kind of creature the player could be, plus background wise I don't see minotaurs as being stupid or incompetent, just less likely to be given a proper education etc. As a result the main counters to this class are twofold; while they can excel at combat, your DM should give you a hard-time at non-combat situations, especially social ones, and they should also push the downsides of being Large by making access to food and water an issue over longer journeys, in combat enemies should be more likely to target the obvious threat, and should limit your ability to find cover and so-on.

Anyway, I'm curious what people think; I'm going for a more monstrous flavour of Minotaur, though for myself the allure isn't the power but the RP of a well-meaning gentle giant hated by society despite doing no wrong, or who escaped the horrors of life in a labyrinth to try and find something better.

So I've already made some pretty big tweaks; the largest of all is to reclassify the Faerûn Minotaur as Large. This makes the race even more complex, though most of it is in the form of reminders of how the rules for Large creatures work.

It comes with two tweaks; you can ignore Two-Handed on one weapon but have disadvantage with Light weapons. In addition, the following core rules apply to large creatures that I can see:

• Occupy a 10 foot square (more reach, more enemies can engage you)
• Can't fit through spaces only large enough for a Small or Tiny creature, need to squeeze through spaces only large enough for a medium creature to move through comfortably. This can actually become a significant issue if fighting through a human-sized building where low ceilings could mean your high movement is halved a lot of the time.
• Carrying capacity is double (definitely under basic encumbrance, and I think variant as well, since I believe the variant only changes how you do the basic carry weight calculation).
• You can't ride a mount unless it is Huge or larger, or is somehow modified for you (mechanical, magic etc.)
• You need four times as much food and water per day, i.e- you need four Rations (1 day) per day, food enough for five medium creatures will feed you plus one medium creature etc.
• You require larger cover than a Medium creature (i.e- full cover for Medium may only be 3/4, 3/4 only 1/2, 1/2 is no cover at all for you).

This has come with a tweak to the Herdborn sub-class, which now instead of a carrying capacity boost has advantage on Survival when foraging (handy for getting your square meals per serving).

Also I've tweaked Labyrinthine Recall to match the Minotaur monster entry.

So I've made a bunch of small updates, but over so many days that I've forgotten what most of them were.

One of note though is that I've switched the disadvantage for wielding medium Light weapons to a -5 attack roll penalty; I've seen this in a few homebrews for Large/over-sized weapons on the basis that there are so many other ways to get disadvantage that it gets silly that being blind doesn't making wielding a huge weapon any harder, or in this case, a tiny one.

Another thing I've been trying to do is figure out how much of an impact being counted as a Monstrosity might have, specifically, how many abilities and spells actually apply to this? If there are none, or very, very few, then that might be why it was dropped from the Unearthed Arcana Minotaur, as there's not much point having a rule that does nothing. Edit: I trawled through some of the books and couldn't really find anything, monstrosities only seem to be defined in things like ranger favoured enemy, creature detection and such, so being two types is kind of pointless, so I'll just drop that.

I'm currently thinking of adding a racial feat or two to expand the race, and cover things I couldn't really in the race itself. The first one I've got so far is actually not Minotaur specific in the end, since it leans mostly into the size of the Brute Minotaur, so I decided to just make the prerequisite that the player be a Large creature, so it could apply to any other Large playable races, similar to how Squat Nimbleness applies to any Small race. Here's the current draft:

Heavy Duty

Though creatures such as minotaurs and trolls are not well known for crafting and building, you have mastered your ferocity and turned your energy instead towards creative pursuits, gaining the following benefits:

• Increase your Intelligence or Wisdom by 1, to a maximum of 20.
• You gain proficiency with one choice of artisan's tools.
• When crafting or modifying Large weapons, your material costs are the same as for an equivalent Medium weapon.
• While working on a large project, the common material and time costs are halved for your share of the work. A large project includes a single large task such as constructing or repairing a vehicle or building, a task involving larger than normal quantities such as cooking or brewing for a feast, or a large number of smaller tasks such as crafting many weapons or pieces of jewellery.

Basically the idea is to emphasise something other than combat, so it gives a boost to Intelligence or Wisdom, useful for a less combat oriented Minotaur player, or certain mixed sub-classes. It also gives proficiency with a type of artisan's tools; originally I wanted to just do manual construction types (carpenter's, mason's, and smith's) but there seems no way to do this, and I wasn't sure about limiting it so much anyway. The reduced cost for large weapon crafting is a minor bonus if you're using rules for those; helps to keep your costs down though.

The last bullet point I think is a fun one, as I've intentionally not tied it to your choice of tool, so basically a crafty minotaur can apply themselves to leading or helping any large project. If you're repairing a building for example, would a Dwarf artisan do better work? Probably, but the Minotaur will get it done well enough and in far less time as they just rip some trees out of the ground, hack them down to size and ram them into place. It could be especially useful in cases where you're rushing to the defence of a town and have a day or two to prepare barricades, as a Minotaur can complete the repairs quicker, or get more done in the same time. I also really love the mental image of a Minotaur Chef rage-baking a thousand cakes.

Haven't thought of a second racial feat yet; would probably go for another emphasising non-combat bonuses specifically for Minotaurs, as there are already loads of good combat feats that will work nicely with this version of the Minotaur race.

Added another feat that applies to Large creatures specifically, still not come up with anything that feels right as being Minotaur specific, at least nothing serious (for the non-serious I considered one whereby taking fire damage distracts enemies with how delicious you start to smell…).

For the second serious feat though I give you:

Gentle Giant

Though other races might naturally fear your kind for your great stature and raw power, most now recognise that you wouldn't hurt a fly… or at least you'd try not to, and only if it doesn't hurt you first. You gain the following benefits:

• Increase your Charisma by 1, to a maximum of 20.
• You have advantage on Persuasion checks when convincing a smaller creature that you mean them no harm.
• At the start of a combat you can choose to make no hostile acts. For each round in which you make no hostile acts of any kind, you gain a cumulative +2 to all attack rolls for the first round in which you do attack, up to a maximum of +10. Hostile acts include moving directly towards an enemy, attacking, grappling, shoving, casting damaging or debilitating spells, assisting with an ally's attacks, and anything else your DM warns you will be viewed as hostile. You can do this once per short rest.

Basically where Heavy Duty gives you some extra non-combat options, Gentle Giant is an interesting flip around of being considered a monster. First of all, it gives you the ability to counter the Disadvantage from Fearsome Reputation (which I imagine giving to other playable Large races), by gaining advantage to Persuasion when attempting to convince a creature you mean it no harm, since this is persuasion rather than deception the implication is that you need to mean it when you say it.

The third benefit though is the really interesting one; by doing nothing "hostile" at the start of combat you can potentially build up a stacking hit bonus and unleash it for a rampage of a turn later on. This is interesting in several cases, for example Large tanks might want to spend a lot of their time soaking up damage and taking defensive actions, while support characters may have things they can do that aren't hostile, for example healing allies, so doing nothing hostile doesn't mean being completely out of the fight. Since most combats don't last all that long in practice, the ability to keep stacking this shouldn't be too bad; most skirmishes are over in less than five rounds anyway, but for the really tough fights being able to unleash a round of sudden unstoppable violence could be useful. I think in practice though you're more likely to just skip an opening round or two to get a quick +2 or +4, then wade (or Goring Rush) in, and I think that being able to do that once per short-rest is reasonably balanced, unless maybe it should be once per long-rest?

So I came up with one Minotaur specific feat, though it feels a bit derivative as it's a lot like Dragon Fear, but with a few differences in how it works:

Bellowing Roar

Your hatred and rage, released as a tremendous bellowing roar, can turn even the most fearless of enemies into fleeing wretches, their courage utterly broken. You gain the following benefits:

• Increase your Constitution by 1, to a maximum of 20.
• Once per long rest, as an action you can let loose a bellowing roar audible up to 100 feet away, forcing all creatures within a 30 foot cone to take a Wisdom saving throw with a DC of 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Constitution modifier. A creature that can neither see nor hear you automatically passes this save. On a failed save a creature is frightened of you for 1 minute, and must use its reaction to drop anything held in its hands before using its movement to move away from you as far as possible, avoiding any obvious pitfalls in their path. Any frightened target may attempt this save again if they take any damage, ending the effect on success.

The effect is a bit of a mash-up between Dragon Fear and Dissonant Whispers; it has a wider audible range (alerting enemies) and a more focused area of effect, but it not only frightens an enemy but also forces them to drop held items and flee, potentially triggering attacks of opportunity, and also leaving them disarmed if they succeed on later checks. It's very much a combat feat, but one that suits just about any minotaur build as it should make for a handy panic button when facing larger groups of enemies. That's the idea anyway.

Other than that my Minotaur specific ideas have all been cowbell or steakhouse jokes or "something about labyrinths" but I have already have a sub-race for that.

Cool

I love this idea so great but I feel its a little unnecessary to make light weapons a disadvantage it should be unproficient (at best) but as a minotaur enjoyer I can say that this is a fantastic idea 😁