So a player of mine has read the new Unearthed Arcana and wants to know if the Powerful Build ability of a Goliath stacks with the new Brawny feat? I feel like it shouldn't but if someone thinks it does or should then please let me know, thank you in advance!
So a player of mine wants to know if the Goliath "Powerful Build" ability stacks with the new "Brawny" feat? Also I apoligize for posting this in another board, this is only my second post and still getting used to it. Thank you in advance for any help on the question.
Powerful Build. You count as one size larger when determining your carrying capacity and the weight you can push, drag, or lift.
Brawny:
You count as if you were one size larger for the purpose of determining your carrying capacity.
I think they're both fairly clear that the character counts as if they are one size larger (... than the size they actually are) for determining carrying capacity - that would mean that they don't "stack". They both have the same effect. If you had both, you wouldn't count as two sizes larger.
If you want an official ruling, best to contact @SageAdviceDnD on twitter.
While I think you're right, consider a goliath society (not a human-based society); in a large number of giants, there should be some brawny goliath capable of carrying far more than your average goliath in comparison.
In my game I'd be inclined to let the player get the feat and apply on top of his already absurd lifting capacity, even making the point that this uniquely enormous goliath is so tall he should be a Large creature instead of Medium (though that's unlikely because you can't grab the feat on character creation).
I've recently heard of someone wanting to use that kind of Goliath and Tavern Brawler to dual-wield humanoids. But, as was mentioned, that's not really mechanically relevant to Brawny.
I assume it's well literally "power" game, but I don't get why?!
I just can't understand what mechanical advantage he's trying to get.
Well.. If you had 20 STR, and double largeness...(or triple largeness with the second bear totem, which does stack as it states it doubles your carrying capacity, with no mention of size.)
You could carry 2400 lbs of thing with you. You could literally carry a 5ft square 2in thick iron box and just drop it on whomever you want to trap. (who is medium sized) Pickup a Storm Giant belt, and now you can tote around 3480 lbs. You could literally pickup a Ford Focus and drop it on someone. You could flip over a wagon to immobilize it without a STR check.
Depending on the DM your guy could use anvils as thrown weapons. Improvised weapons state d4 as a base point of reference, if I were to rule on that, I would probably say since the anvil literally weights over 100 lbs, its probably like 6d4 or 8d4. As for should he be able to throw it? 100 lbs is 2% of his carry weight, a spear is 3 lbs, so it would be comparatively harder to throw for a STR 8 character. (which has 120 lbs max carry weight).
Even if you rule against using such items as weapons, he could shove someone to the ground, then as an item interaction set two anvils that had a chain ran across them across the downed opponent.
He could carry around barrels of oil/acid/alchemist fire instead of flasks. (obviously there is still physical space limitation, but a Goliath could probably string up 3 without being absurdly unwieldy.
Finally he could just bring lots of rope and chains, and every valuable chest you find just tie up to his back. Even if its locked.
2400 lbs would allow you to literally pick up 2 Warhorses and walk around CASUALLY with them. That's about 156 bowling balls. With proper equipment (and incredible penalties to-hit) you could argue about throwing 156 improvised weapons. Against a very easy to hit target, you may hit with upwards of 390 bludgeoning damage by hurling this like a catapult. Unless you're still using 3rd ed Hardness to ignore a bunch of that damage, you could be taking down stone walls with that kind of impact.
While I think you're right, consider a goliath society (not a human-based society); in a large number of giants, there should be some brawny goliath capable of carrying far more than your average goliath in comparison.
While I think you're right, consider a goliath society (not a human-based society); in a large number of giants, there should be some brawny goliath capable of carrying far more than your average goliath in comparison.
In my game I'd be inclined to let the player get the feat and apply on top of his already absurd lifting capacity, even making the point that this uniquely enormous goliath is so tall he should be a Large creature instead of Medium (though that's unlikely because you can't grab the feat on character creation).
See, I think the difference in similar cultures has to do with the varying strength scores. Like, an average human has a 10-11 strength score. An athletic human has a 12-14. Regular body builders would have a 15-17. The world's strongest man would have ~18. So, you figure the average Goliath has a 12-13 strength, athletic has a 14-16, body builder is a 17-18, and the strongest would be at 20.
But then again, if the world record for deadlift is ~1200 lbs (1155 to be exact) and the maximum weight for a Brawny Human with 20 strength is 1200, I guess it would make sense that a Goliath should be able to surpass that.
2400 lbs would allow you to literally pick up 2 Warhorses and walk around CASUALLY with them. That's about 156 bowling balls. With proper equipment (and incredible penalties to-hit) you could argue about throwing 156 improvised weapons. Against a very easy to hit target, you may hit with upwards of 390 bludgeoning damage by hurling this like a catapult. Unless you're still using 3rd ed Hardness to ignore a bunch of that damage, you could be taking down stone walls with that kind of impact.
Well, Warhorses and Draft horses weigh about 1800-2000 lbs, so you couldn't actually lift two. We can look at the encumbrance variant to get a good idea of the effects of weight on movement (obviously this isn't an exact science, but it works for this made up scenario). Anything in excess (or with members of INXS) of 10x your strength score, up to your maximum carrying capacity causes you to be heavily encumbered. Meaning, even if we include the x8 for brawny goliath bear barbarians, the maximum weight that they can carry without being heavily encumbered is < 1600 lbs (20 Str * 10 * 8) though they'd still be encumbered. So even with one of the smallest draft horses, you'd still be heavily encumbered, and thus not walking around "casually". Let alone be able to throw that much weight...
The typical men's Olympic shot put is 16.1 lbs (similar to one 16 lb bowling ball) and the record for that is 74 feet, so the strongest man in the world can throw something (albeit inaccurately) 14 feet longer than the long range for any thrown weapon (outside of a javelin). So, since that's about 25% (23.33% to be exact) farther than the maximum range for a thrown weapon outside of a javelin, we can fake math it to assume that he could throw a 20 lbs the normal maximum of 60 feet. If he were a barbarian goliath, we could double the weight thrown twice (or 4x the amount) and we get 80 lbs, "realistically". Though if we go by actual math, it would only do x8 of the increased weight, which would give us 16 + (4*8) or 48 lbs (which is 12x the weight of a trident, the heaviest thrown weapon, so still impressive).
So "realistically" you're looking at 3-5 bowling balls as weapons (though I'd argue that a bowling ball does much more damage than the normal 1d4 of a typical improvised weapon)
“It is a better world. A place where we are responsible for our actions, where we can be kind to one another because we want to and because it is the right thing to do instead of being frightened into behaving by the threat of divine punishment.” ― Oramis, Eldest by Christopher Paolini.
I assume it's well literally "power" game, but I don't get why?!
I just can't understand what mechanical advantage he's trying to get.
Well.. If you had 20 STR, and double largeness...(or triple largeness with the second bear totem, which does stack as it states it doubles your carrying capacity, with no mention of size.)
You could carry 2400 lbs of thing with you. You could literally carry a 5ft square 2in thick iron box and just drop it on whomever you want to trap. (who is medium sized) Pickup a Storm Giant belt, and now you can tote around 3480 lbs. You could literally pickup a Ford Focus and drop it on someone. You could flip over a wagon to immobilize it without a STR check.
Depending on the DM your guy could use anvils as thrown weapons. Improvised weapons state d4 as a base point of reference, if I were to rule on that, I would probably say since the anvil literally weights over 100 lbs, its probably like 6d4 or 8d4. As for should he be able to throw it? 100 lbs is 2% of his carry weight, a spear is 3 lbs, so it would be comparatively harder to throw for a STR 8 character. (which has 120 lbs max carry weight).
Even if you rule against using such items as weapons, he could shove someone to the ground, then as an item interaction set two anvils that had a chain ran across them across the downed opponent.
He could carry around barrels of oil/acid/alchemist fire instead of flasks. (obviously there is still physical space limitation, but a Goliath could probably string up 3 without being absurdly unwieldy.
Finally he could just bring lots of rope and chains, and every valuable chest you find just tie up to his back. Even if its locked.
While I think you're right, consider a goliath society (not a human-based society); in a large number of giants, there should be some brawny goliath capable of carrying far more than your average goliath in comparison.
Yup, the ones with a higher STR stat. :)
You should be right, but the brawny feat says otherwise, it says a human with 5-10% more strength (+1) can count as one size larger, no matter how. Don't look at me, I didn't write the rules, I don't even like them.
I believe the standard rule is that such things stack unless come from the same trait (such as two castings of a spell).
However, the terminology used here makes things very... technical.
See, both the feat and the racial ability mention that you count as one size larger for the purpose of determining carrying capacity.
What I read in that is that it doesn't count as any kind of increase for the purpose of determining feat or racial ability results. The racial ability goes "Your size is M. It counts as L for carrying capacity (and pushing etc)". The feat goes "Your size is (still) M. It counts as L for carrying capacity."
I suspect there will be a clarification, one way or another, when/if Brawny makes it official, about how it stacks with similar traits, but without such to clarify intent I'm more willing to assume the intent is for those traits not to stack cleanly.
As a DM, I'd give a Brawny Goliath an additional bonus to carrying capacity, but not an entire size category larger (to Huge).
I believe the standard rule is that such things stack unless come from the same trait (such as two castings of a spell).
However, the terminology used here makes things very... technical.
See, both the feat and the racial ability mention that you count as one size larger for the purpose of determining carrying capacity.
What I read in that is that it doesn't count as any kind of increase for the purpose of determining feat or racial ability results. The racial ability goes "Your size is M. It counts as L for carrying capacity (and pushing etc)". The feat goes "Your size is (still) M. It counts as L for carrying capacity."
I suspect there will be a clarification, one way or another, when/if Brawny makes it official, about how it stacks with similar traits, but without such to clarify intent I'm more willing to assume the intent is for those traits not to stack cleanly.
As a DM, I'd give a Brawny Goliath an additional bonus to carrying capacity, but not an entire size category larger (to Huge).
Totally agreed. As written, both say You count as one size larger. Your size stays the same. Therefore you always count a Large creature for determining the carrying capacity.
You know. With everyone commenting and giving ideas for what someone's would be trying to achieve.
Also special thanks to Sloporion for his math-fu skill on the accurate weights of things and looking up what the strongest of human CAN do. I think we often forgot how incredible the pinnacle of humans can be.
That said, I still think the most important question is why?
If the player wants to "win" D&D by dropping nets made of chain and anvils to incapacitate enemies I'd go with a firm "yeah, *%&#% no."
IF you're running a very cinematic game he wants to throw bowling balls, tables, etc... then I'd be inclined to say "sure". It's very much based on your game and your group.
Here is my reasoning: Back in college I had a DM complain that all people do is "hit with their sword" and "why don't people get more creative?" I explained to him the problem is his GM style. If a player wants to swing from a chandelier to attack an enemy the GM made the player make 2-3 skill checks (1 jump check, 1 balance check, and an attack roll). So the player had to make 3 different checks, failing any of the first 2 could mean he's now prone and falling damage and he didn't even get bonus to hit to or damage to the attack roll for all the other work. So no. The player is just going to hit them with a sword because it's the least risk for the same reward.
On the OTHER hand, I was in a game were our mage was stuck in a 15x15 foot pit with a daemon, she was dodging for her life. My fighter (he thought he was a Paladin, but he wasn't) made a strength check to lift the stone fount of holy water from the dias of the church we were fighting in. I declared I was rushing to the pit to dump the fount onto the daemon, the DM asked me for a balance check. I asked "why?" He replied "so you don't fall in." I asked "Why would I be worried about falling in?" and explained that I'm racing at the pit full speed, fount first onto the demon followed 100lbs of stone, 250lbs of fighter in heavy armor are coming crashing onto the daemon immedicable afterwards while I'm shouting "I'll save you!"
This is why I'm a huge fan of the Inspiration system. I use it for doing "cool" and "cinematic" things, and often the dice get USED in the same action to make sure they succeed. Depending on what it is, I might say "give me a die and narrate how you do it."
So if the game is a little silly and the player wants to be "cool" and "cinematic" then I'd still keep the hit and damage within reasonableness of the weapons table. (throwing an table is a 2 handed weapon so... 1d10 weapon with the thrown property?) (sure it might weigh a lot, but not not made for throwing) Make a 10x5 area where it lands difficult terrain. Bowling balls could do a d8 (yes, they weight 15lbs, but they aren't exactly built to be throw or be weapons and a d8 is the same as hitting them with a long sword. From ranged is even a bonus!). So they can gain all of flavor being the Goliath named "Samson" or "Hercules", but they don't mechanically outshine the other players.
This is assuming the game is a little bit silly and geared toward cinema, in Ravenloft this probably wouldn't be appropriate.
Oh, hey. I'm all for over-the-top gaming with people shooting beams from their swords and kicking down castle doors (I also play Exalted, and I was familiar with the stunt system there before I saw 5th's Inspiration system, and even before that, in 3rd and before, our group tended to go... above and beyond :p ).
I strongly believe the group should decide what rules to chuck out the window and what rules to add or modify, and a DM in tune with the group can figure such on the fly as the campaign progresses, too, for a seamless transition from "local heroes struggling against goblins" to "practically demigods slingshot-ing the Kraken on the Queen of Dragons as she emerges from the portal". (Disclaimer: Our recent campaigns are a little grittier...)
That aside, however, when the design and intent of a game trait comes to question, I try to look at it with a very critical eye, attempting to deconstruct the whys and the hows in order to reveal how it's supposed to be working in the system as a whole.
Why? Because then I can make a conscious decision to adopt it, embrace it, defenestrate it, or intentionally misread it to the best benefit of the group. And I suspect it's likely that people asking about them want that intention behind the design and implementation process (and while I'm not privy to that, I can at least offer my interpretation of such) to draw their own conclusions and make their own decisions.
The only worry I have about such things when I DM is to prevent situations where a player completely overshadows everyone else (or even just one person, but consistently). If I allow a Goliath chucking wagons full of rocks to enemies, I need to make sure no one has made a throwing-axe-focused dwarf in the same group. If I consider granting the Warlock an effective healing spell, I'll do so only if there's no Life Cleric around. And so on.
So, we seem to be in agreement on most points. :) The details and technicalities of the ruleset should not hinder the group's fun, only facilitate it.
So a player of mine has read the new Unearthed Arcana and wants to know if the Powerful Build ability of a Goliath stacks with the new Brawny feat? I feel like it shouldn't but if someone thinks it does or should then please let me know, thank you in advance!
So a player of mine wants to know if the Goliath "Powerful Build" ability stacks with the new "Brawny" feat? Also I apoligize for posting this in another board, this is only my second post and still getting used to it. Thank you in advance for any help on the question.
Goliath:
Brawny:
I think they're both fairly clear that the character counts as if they are one size larger (... than the size they actually are) for determining carrying capacity - that would mean that they don't "stack". They both have the same effect. If you had both, you wouldn't count as two sizes larger.
If you want an official ruling, best to contact @SageAdviceDnD on twitter.
edit: no worries - I merged the two posts. :)
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Kurt Dangle I agree with Stormknight, but I do have a question.
"Why?"
Why does your player what to combine them, what the goal?
The calculation for carrying capacity and lift are:
Carry Capacity = (Strength * 15)
Drag, Push and Lift = (Strength * 15) * 2
Does the Goliath want to be the strongest man in the world?
My guess is he's trying to Power Gme and yes "be the strongest pack mule in history"
I assume it's well literally "power" game, but I don't get why?!
I just can't understand what mechanical advantage he's trying to get.
While I think you're right, consider a goliath society (not a human-based society); in a large number of giants, there should be some brawny goliath capable of carrying far more than your average goliath in comparison.
In my game I'd be inclined to let the player get the feat and apply on top of his already absurd lifting capacity, even making the point that this uniquely enormous goliath is so tall he should be a Large creature instead of Medium (though that's unlikely because you can't grab the feat on character creation).
I've recently heard of someone wanting to use that kind of Goliath and Tavern Brawler to dual-wield humanoids. But, as was mentioned, that's not really mechanically relevant to Brawny.
2400 lbs would allow you to literally pick up 2 Warhorses and walk around CASUALLY with them. That's about 156 bowling balls. With proper equipment (and incredible penalties to-hit) you could argue about throwing 156 improvised weapons. Against a very easy to hit target, you may hit with upwards of 390 bludgeoning damage by hurling this like a catapult. Unless you're still using 3rd ed Hardness to ignore a bunch of that damage, you could be taking down stone walls with that kind of impact.
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If you need help with homebrew, please post on the homebrew forums, where multiple staff and moderators can read your post and help you!
"We got this, no problem! I'll take the twenty on the left - you guys handle the one on the right!"🔊
See, I think the difference in similar cultures has to do with the varying strength scores. Like, an average human has a 10-11 strength score. An athletic human has a 12-14. Regular body builders would have a 15-17. The world's strongest man would have ~18. So, you figure the average Goliath has a 12-13 strength, athletic has a 14-16, body builder is a 17-18, and the strongest would be at 20.
Well, Warhorses and Draft horses weigh about 1800-2000 lbs, so you couldn't actually lift two. We can look at the encumbrance variant to get a good idea of the effects of weight on movement (obviously this isn't an exact science, but it works for this made up scenario). Anything in excess (or with members of INXS) of 10x your strength score, up to your maximum carrying capacity causes you to be heavily encumbered. Meaning, even if we include the x8 for brawny goliath bear barbarians, the maximum weight that they can carry without being heavily encumbered is < 1600 lbs (20 Str * 10 * 8) though they'd still be encumbered. So even with one of the smallest draft horses, you'd still be heavily encumbered, and thus not walking around "casually". Let alone be able to throw that much weight...
The typical men's Olympic shot put is 16.1 lbs (similar to one 16 lb bowling ball) and the record for that is 74 feet, so the strongest man in the world can throw something (albeit inaccurately) 14 feet longer than the long range for any thrown weapon (outside of a javelin). So, since that's about 25% (23.33% to be exact) farther than the maximum range for a thrown weapon outside of a javelin, we can fake math it to assume that he could throw a 20 lbs the normal maximum of 60 feet. If he were a barbarian goliath, we could double the weight thrown twice (or 4x the amount) and we get 80 lbs, "realistically". Though if we go by actual math, it would only do x8 of the increased weight, which would give us 16 + (4*8) or 48 lbs (which is 12x the weight of a trident, the heaviest thrown weapon, so still impressive).
So "realistically" you're looking at 3-5 bowling balls as weapons (though I'd argue that a bowling ball does much more damage than the normal 1d4 of a typical improvised weapon)
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Raughs in hulking hurler.
Complicated matter.
I believe the standard rule is that such things stack unless come from the same trait (such as two castings of a spell).
However, the terminology used here makes things very... technical.
See, both the feat and the racial ability mention that you count as one size larger for the purpose of determining carrying capacity.
What I read in that is that it doesn't count as any kind of increase for the purpose of determining feat or racial ability results. The racial ability goes "Your size is M. It counts as L for carrying capacity (and pushing etc)". The feat goes "Your size is (still) M. It counts as L for carrying capacity."
I suspect there will be a clarification, one way or another, when/if Brawny makes it official, about how it stacks with similar traits, but without such to clarify intent I'm more willing to assume the intent is for those traits not to stack cleanly.
As a DM, I'd give a Brawny Goliath an additional bonus to carrying capacity, but not an entire size category larger (to Huge).
You know. With everyone commenting and giving ideas for what someone's would be trying to achieve.
Also special thanks to Sloporion for his math-fu skill on the accurate weights of things and looking up what the strongest of human CAN do. I think we often forgot how incredible the pinnacle of humans can be.
That said, I still think the most important question is why?
If the player wants to "win" D&D by dropping nets made of chain and anvils to incapacitate enemies I'd go with a firm "yeah, *%&#% no."
IF you're running a very cinematic game he wants to throw bowling balls, tables, etc... then I'd be inclined to say "sure". It's very much based on your game and your group.
Here is my reasoning: Back in college I had a DM complain that all people do is "hit with their sword" and "why don't people get more creative?" I explained to him the problem is his GM style. If a player wants to swing from a chandelier to attack an enemy the GM made the player make 2-3 skill checks (1 jump check, 1 balance check, and an attack roll). So the player had to make 3 different checks, failing any of the first 2 could mean he's now prone and falling damage and he didn't even get bonus to hit to or damage to the attack roll for all the other work. So no. The player is just going to hit them with a sword because it's the least risk for the same reward.
On the OTHER hand, I was in a game were our mage was stuck in a 15x15 foot pit with a daemon, she was dodging for her life. My fighter (he thought he was a Paladin, but he wasn't) made a strength check to lift the stone fount of holy water from the dias of the church we were fighting in. I declared I was rushing to the pit to dump the fount onto the daemon, the DM asked me for a balance check. I asked "why?" He replied "so you don't fall in." I asked "Why would I be worried about falling in?" and explained that I'm racing at the pit full speed, fount first onto the demon followed 100lbs of stone, 250lbs of fighter in heavy armor are coming crashing onto the daemon immedicable afterwards while I'm shouting "I'll save you!"
This is why I'm a huge fan of the Inspiration system. I use it for doing "cool" and "cinematic" things, and often the dice get USED in the same action to make sure they succeed. Depending on what it is, I might say "give me a die and narrate how you do it."
So if the game is a little silly and the player wants to be "cool" and "cinematic" then I'd still keep the hit and damage within reasonableness of the weapons table. (throwing an table is a 2 handed weapon so... 1d10 weapon with the thrown property?) (sure it might weigh a lot, but not not made for throwing) Make a 10x5 area where it lands difficult terrain. Bowling balls could do a d8 (yes, they weight 15lbs, but they aren't exactly built to be throw or be weapons and a d8 is the same as hitting them with a long sword. From ranged is even a bonus!). So they can gain all of flavor being the Goliath named "Samson" or "Hercules", but they don't mechanically outshine the other players.
This is assuming the game is a little bit silly and geared toward cinema, in Ravenloft this probably wouldn't be appropriate.
Oh, hey. I'm all for over-the-top gaming with people shooting beams from their swords and kicking down castle doors (I also play Exalted, and I was familiar with the stunt system there before I saw 5th's Inspiration system, and even before that, in 3rd and before, our group tended to go... above and beyond :p ).
I strongly believe the group should decide what rules to chuck out the window and what rules to add or modify, and a DM in tune with the group can figure such on the fly as the campaign progresses, too, for a seamless transition from "local heroes struggling against goblins" to "practically demigods slingshot-ing the Kraken on the Queen of Dragons as she emerges from the portal".
(Disclaimer: Our recent campaigns are a little grittier...)
That aside, however, when the design and intent of a game trait comes to question, I try to look at it with a very critical eye, attempting to deconstruct the whys and the hows in order to reveal how it's supposed to be working in the system as a whole.
Why? Because then I can make a conscious decision to adopt it, embrace it, defenestrate it, or intentionally misread it to the best benefit of the group. And I suspect it's likely that people asking about them want that intention behind the design and implementation process (and while I'm not privy to that, I can at least offer my interpretation of such) to draw their own conclusions and make their own decisions.
The only worry I have about such things when I DM is to prevent situations where a player completely overshadows everyone else (or even just one person, but consistently). If I allow a Goliath chucking wagons full of rocks to enemies, I need to make sure no one has made a throwing-axe-focused dwarf in the same group. If I consider granting the Warlock an effective healing spell, I'll do so only if there's no Life Cleric around. And so on.
So, we seem to be in agreement on most points. :) The details and technicalities of the ruleset should not hinder the group's fun, only facilitate it.