I’ve recently started DMing a new game, and could use some advice about the Centaur race.
I have one PC who’s using the rules as written in the Ravnica book, but is dissatisfied with how those rules compare to Riding Horses, particularly the slower speed and smaller size. The character is of course the fastest of the group under normal conditions, but one of the other players is a Wood Elf Druid, so only by 5 feet per round under normal conditions, and as soon as wild shape comes into play the Druid can temporarily be both Large and faster.
I understand that the designers don’t want Large PCs, but I haven’t been able to figure out why.
As far as I can tell this isn’t pushing for some unwarranted advantage, seems to be more about “this isn’t quite what I imagined” / “don’t want to be pony-sized”
If anyone’s got ideas or experience about how they’ve handled Centaurs in game, I’d be interested in hearing it
PC centaurs aren't real centaurs - PCs are fey, real centaurs are monstrosities. So you can handwave whatever you need to as fairy bullshit.
It's frankly not overpowered to "fix" the centaur's size (if it was, Rune Knights wouldn't exist), so if the pc wants it, you should do it. Make sure to remove powerful build from them since they're large for real now, but leave the rest of equine build - if anything, it's still too generous. They should be completely incapable of climbing ladders and probably ropes of any sort. And don't forget to quadruple their gear costs, octuple their relevant gear weights (namely the armor and clothing and such - the monster manual makes it pretty clear they use weapons sized for medium creatures, which makes sense). In case they have questions about what constitutes clothing, remind them that exposed genitals count as nudity everywhere.
+10 feet of speed to be horse/real centaur speed is completely fine provided you also increase the harshness of equine build, like I mentioned above - they should be comically bad at climbing, like a complete nonstarter. A spiral staircase should be impregnable to them.
Don't buff the hoof damage, no matter how tempting it is.
Some of the arguments I’ve seen against it is how easy it would be for a Large PC to get surrounded by a large number of enemies, get wiped out by 16 Kobolds all attacking in the same round, and that most published adventures have some 5’ wide hallways characters have to get get down. I’ve been considering mitigating that by making the character take up 1x2 on the grid instead of 2x2. Maybe say that the humanoid torso can attack with weapons in the surrounding area of the front square like a medium creature, but that for the three places on the grid at the rear of the horse body the only melee attack option without moving is to kick.
Definitely agree on the hoof damage, especially given that the character is a Barbarian. We’ve already seen the combination of Raging + Charge + Critical Hit end in damage a little over 20, which is huge for level 1.
It’s absolutely something the player wants. When originally envisioning the character they were very much thinking Clydesdale- or Shire Horse- looking lower body.
I think the kind of problems you’re describing for movement are what they were expecting anyway, they’ve played a similar character under 3.5 rules and from what I understand stairs were in general no-go.
The Developers probably don't want Large creatures as Characters because it makes a huge mess of the combat system. How long exactly is their reach? How about with a weapon that has the Reach property? How big a weapon can they use? A Large creature ought to be able to use large weapons. Can they use a Two Handed sword in one hand? What happens when you use both hands? Do you get extra damage like a Versatile weapon does? Does a Versatile Greataxe do 1D20? Should it get Reach as well?
Centaur Characters being a few odd challenges into things. They are horse-like critters. Clearly they can wear horseshoes. So how about some nice Horseshoes of Speed? Now the Centaur player character you have talked about gets to have a 70 base speed. That ought to keep the wood elf from catching up. They are a magic item. Do they count as magical if used in combat? Do you get a bonus to hit and damage when using your hooves? Can you use your movement to run over a creature, knock it prone and trample all over it? How many attacks do you get, what damage does it do, can it hit creatures only damaged by magical weapons? When you take your attack action do you get advantage? Can you stomp on them again and get four attacks?
Just how much does a Large Centaur in full armor and carrying all their gear weigh? Will they fall through the floors of wooden buildings? How about stone buildings?
A Large Centaur ought to make a fine mount. What are the combat statistics for a Centaur and rider? Just how many attacks can a total of 10 limbs produce?
If you get some iron, and make 4 sets of brass knuckles out of iron, and 4 horseshoes, and then do an all out brawl, how many attacks get to be made and how much damage can be done to a single target?
I'd just love to see the havoc with a Large Size Centaur Monk. They are going to be speedy and they will get a *lot* of attacks per Attack Action. A Barbarian/Monk would be *awesome*.
There are a lot of reasons to make the players not large.
First, large is in fact over-powered. It just is in real life, and should be in game. Never try to punch a Horse. (Unless you are Mongo. ;D) You do crap damage while a single horse's kick can literally KILL YOU. Even if they are not wearing horse shoes.
Second the rules in the game are very much designed around being Small or Medium. It is not a one off thing, it is a TON of stuff. The game does not have a standard set of rules for damage for large sized weapons, instead they just make it up as they go along. Enlarge/Reduce does not match up with weapons for Giants and the giant weapons are not consistent. The rules for grappling and spells also all assume you are Medium sized. For example the Bigbys' hand spells is officially Large sized and works better against Medium or small creatures. Would a Large sized Wizard use the same spell? Would they get a Huge version? Etc. etc.
Third, the real world cube-square laws makes things weird an intuitive for larger creatures. If you ignore and just use common sense, you again get strange results.
If you really truly want to ignore the rules and just declare the player large, be prepared to end up with some game breaking stuff. The Centaur could end up being an unstoppable martial character.
At the very least I would rule that they can not use large sized weapons, only using regular sized ones.
One of the reasons that was explicitly listed by the designers for lack of Large PCs is auras and other effects that radiate from the player. Antilife Shell, Spirit Guardians, PAM + Sentinel, and other things like that are going to becomes a lot more effective on a large PC.
A 5 foot radius covers 8 spaces around a medium creature, and a 10 foot radius covers 24 spaces. Plus the 1 space the player occupies.
A 5 foot radius covers 12 spaces around a larger creature, and a 10 foot radius covers 32 spaces. Plus the 4 spaces the player occupies.
Temporary effects exist in the game to boost size, but they are temporary and expend resources and action economy, which limits their potential. In addition, they could stack with a large PC to go even bigger.
The main reason for having every player race as small and medium is so they only have to keep small and medium PCs in mind when designing dungeons and encounters.
Any paladin player can tell you, large mounts can't go everywhere. Does your player really want to hear, "sorry, you are too big for this hallway, you will have to wait here or find a different way through the dungeon," or "the inn can't accommodate you, you'll have to sleep in the stables."?
Any difference between ravnica playable centaurs and monster manual NPC centaurs can either be attributed to lore or game balance. And playable centaur are still big and have most of the advantages of a large creature (carry weight, RP size) without any of the disadvantages (get surrounded by twice as many enemies, fitting inside).
Why would climbing be a non-starter? Horses are able to traverse a wide range of terrain, including stairs (see https://equinehelper.com/can-horses-climb-stairs/). Centaurs are much smarter than horses and have the use of technology so, it makes sense that they would’ve come up with solutions to allow them to go wherever they want to go.
Large PCs aren't really a problem or Enlarge/Reduce wouldn't be only a 2nd level spell, and wouldn't be so very straightforward.
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I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
Large PCs aren't really a problem or Enlarge/Reduce wouldn't be only a 2nd level spell, and wouldn't be so very straightforward.
Nope. Read Enlarge Reduce, they do NOT really change your size. It specifically sets it to Large, but not completely. Instead you count as large but get minimal damage increase and instead of a real strength boost you only get advantage. You can not cast it on something that is already large and
Why? Because Large PCs ARE a big problem. It screws with a whole bunch of spells (many of them look at size), damage, weapons, armor, etc. etc.
For this reason they have never every made a full on "large" playable character. Instead they do crap like "you count as one size larger for purposes of...."
Large PCs aren't really a problem or Enlarge/Reduce wouldn't be only a 2nd level spell, and wouldn't be so very straightforward.
Nope. Read Enlarge Reduce, they do NOT really change your size. It specifically sets it to Large, but not completely. Instead you count as large but get minimal damage increase and instead of a real strength boost you only get advantage. You can not cast it on something that is already large and
Why? Because Large PCs ARE a big problem. It screws with a whole bunch of spells (many of them look at size), damage, weapons, armor, etc. etc.
For this reason they have never every made a full on "large" playable character. Instead they do crap like "you count as one size larger for purposes of...."
Enlarge/Reduce will make a Medium target Large for real. Not "counts as" Large, actually Large. It says so right in the spell.
Why would climbing be a non-starter? Horses are able to traverse a wide range of terrain, including stairs (see https://equinehelper.com/can-horses-climb-stairs/). Centaurs are much smarter than horses and have the use of technology so, it makes sense that they would’ve come up with solutions to allow them to go wherever they want to go.
I was specifically referring to what I explicitly mentioned in my comment - ladders and spiral staircases. In general, towns and dungeons and such built by and for Medium bipeds will not be kind to a Large quadruped trying to get around.
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I’ve recently started DMing a new game, and could use some advice about the Centaur race.
I have one PC who’s using the rules as written in the Ravnica book, but is dissatisfied with how those rules compare to Riding Horses, particularly the slower speed and smaller size. The character is of course the fastest of the group under normal conditions, but one of the other players is a Wood Elf Druid, so only by 5 feet per round under normal conditions, and as soon as wild shape comes into play the Druid can temporarily be both Large and faster.
I understand that the designers don’t want Large PCs, but I haven’t been able to figure out why.
As far as I can tell this isn’t pushing for some unwarranted advantage, seems to be more about “this isn’t quite what I imagined” / “don’t want to be pony-sized”
If anyone’s got ideas or experience about how they’ve handled Centaurs in game, I’d be interested in hearing it
PC centaurs aren't real centaurs - PCs are fey, real centaurs are monstrosities. So you can handwave whatever you need to as fairy bullshit.
It's frankly not overpowered to "fix" the centaur's size (if it was, Rune Knights wouldn't exist), so if the pc wants it, you should do it. Make sure to remove powerful build from them since they're large for real now, but leave the rest of equine build - if anything, it's still too generous. They should be completely incapable of climbing ladders and probably ropes of any sort. And don't forget to quadruple their gear costs, octuple their relevant gear weights (namely the armor and clothing and such - the monster manual makes it pretty clear they use weapons sized for medium creatures, which makes sense). In case they have questions about what constitutes clothing, remind them that exposed genitals count as nudity everywhere.
+10 feet of speed to be horse/real centaur speed is completely fine provided you also increase the harshness of equine build, like I mentioned above - they should be comically bad at climbing, like a complete nonstarter. A spiral staircase should be impregnable to them.
Don't buff the hoof damage, no matter how tempting it is.
Some of the arguments I’ve seen against it is how easy it would be for a Large PC to get surrounded by a large number of enemies, get wiped out by 16 Kobolds all attacking in the same round, and that most published adventures have some 5’ wide hallways characters have to get get down. I’ve been considering mitigating that by making the character take up 1x2 on the grid instead of 2x2. Maybe say that the humanoid torso can attack with weapons in the surrounding area of the front square like a medium creature, but that for the three places on the grid at the rear of the horse body the only melee attack option without moving is to kick.
Definitely agree on the hoof damage, especially given that the character is a Barbarian. We’ve already seen the combination of Raging + Charge + Critical Hit end in damage a little over 20, which is huge for level 1.
It’s absolutely something the player wants. When originally envisioning the character they were very much thinking Clydesdale- or Shire Horse- looking lower body.
I think the kind of problems you’re describing for movement are what they were expecting anyway, they’ve played a similar character under 3.5 rules and from what I understand stairs were in general no-go.
The Developers probably don't want Large creatures as Characters because it makes a huge mess of the combat system. How long exactly is their reach? How about with a weapon that has the Reach property? How big a weapon can they use? A Large creature ought to be able to use large weapons. Can they use a Two Handed sword in one hand? What happens when you use both hands? Do you get extra damage like a Versatile weapon does? Does a Versatile Greataxe do 1D20? Should it get Reach as well?
Centaur Characters being a few odd challenges into things. They are horse-like critters. Clearly they can wear horseshoes. So how about some nice Horseshoes of Speed? Now the Centaur player character you have talked about gets to have a 70 base speed. That ought to keep the wood elf from catching up. They are a magic item. Do they count as magical if used in combat? Do you get a bonus to hit and damage when using your hooves? Can you use your movement to run over a creature, knock it prone and trample all over it? How many attacks do you get, what damage does it do, can it hit creatures only damaged by magical weapons? When you take your attack action do you get advantage? Can you stomp on them again and get four attacks?
Just how much does a Large Centaur in full armor and carrying all their gear weigh? Will they fall through the floors of wooden buildings? How about stone buildings?
A Large Centaur ought to make a fine mount. What are the combat statistics for a Centaur and rider? Just how many attacks can a total of 10 limbs produce?
If you get some iron, and make 4 sets of brass knuckles out of iron, and 4 horseshoes, and then do an all out brawl, how many attacks get to be made and how much damage can be done to a single target?
I'd just love to see the havoc with a Large Size Centaur Monk. They are going to be speedy and they will get a *lot* of attacks per Attack Action. A Barbarian/Monk would be *awesome*.
<Insert clever signature here>
There are a lot of reasons to make the players not large.
First, large is in fact over-powered. It just is in real life, and should be in game. Never try to punch a Horse. (Unless you are Mongo. ;D) You do crap damage while a single horse's kick can literally KILL YOU. Even if they are not wearing horse shoes.
Second the rules in the game are very much designed around being Small or Medium. It is not a one off thing, it is a TON of stuff. The game does not have a standard set of rules for damage for large sized weapons, instead they just make it up as they go along. Enlarge/Reduce does not match up with weapons for Giants and the giant weapons are not consistent. The rules for grappling and spells also all assume you are Medium sized. For example the Bigbys' hand spells is officially Large sized and works better against Medium or small creatures. Would a Large sized Wizard use the same spell? Would they get a Huge version? Etc. etc.
Third, the real world cube-square laws makes things weird an intuitive for larger creatures. If you ignore and just use common sense, you again get strange results.
If you really truly want to ignore the rules and just declare the player large, be prepared to end up with some game breaking stuff. The Centaur could end up being an unstoppable martial character.
At the very least I would rule that they can not use large sized weapons, only using regular sized ones.
One of the reasons that was explicitly listed by the designers for lack of Large PCs is auras and other effects that radiate from the player. Antilife Shell, Spirit Guardians, PAM + Sentinel, and other things like that are going to becomes a lot more effective on a large PC.
Temporary effects exist in the game to boost size, but they are temporary and expend resources and action economy, which limits their potential. In addition, they could stack with a large PC to go even bigger.
The main reason for having every player race as small and medium is so they only have to keep small and medium PCs in mind when designing dungeons and encounters.
Any paladin player can tell you, large mounts can't go everywhere. Does your player really want to hear, "sorry, you are too big for this hallway, you will have to wait here or find a different way through the dungeon," or "the inn can't accommodate you, you'll have to sleep in the stables."?
Any difference between ravnica playable centaurs and monster manual NPC centaurs can either be attributed to lore or game balance. And playable centaur are still big and have most of the advantages of a large creature (carry weight, RP size) without any of the disadvantages (get surrounded by twice as many enemies, fitting inside).
Why would climbing be a non-starter? Horses are able to traverse a wide range of terrain, including stairs (see https://equinehelper.com/can-horses-climb-stairs/). Centaurs are much smarter than horses and have the use of technology so, it makes sense that they would’ve come up with solutions to allow them to go wherever they want to go.
Large PCs aren't really a problem or Enlarge/Reduce wouldn't be only a 2nd level spell, and wouldn't be so very straightforward.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
Nope. Read Enlarge Reduce, they do NOT really change your size. It specifically sets it to Large, but not completely. Instead you count as large but get minimal damage increase and instead of a real strength boost you only get advantage. You can not cast it on something that is already large and
Why? Because Large PCs ARE a big problem. It screws with a whole bunch of spells (many of them look at size), damage, weapons, armor, etc. etc.
For this reason they have never every made a full on "large" playable character. Instead they do crap like "you count as one size larger for purposes of...."
Enlarge/Reduce will make a Medium target Large for real. Not "counts as" Large, actually Large. It says so right in the spell.
I was specifically referring to what I explicitly mentioned in my comment - ladders and spiral staircases. In general, towns and dungeons and such built by and for Medium bipeds will not be kind to a Large quadruped trying to get around.