Post/Author/DateTime	Post
diegosephroth 08-12-07, 12:11 PM	One of my pcs was willing to play a centaur character, but I do believe it is a very powerful template. look +8 Str +4 Dex +4 Constitution -2 Intelligence +2 Wisdom Large Size 50ft speed Darkvision 4d8 HP +4 Bab Saves Fort/Ref/Will 1/4/4 2 Feats +3 natural armor All that for a rumble +2 level adjustment man... dont you think that goes far way to much overpowered comparing to other templates? I feel it is +3 at least, pending to +4 what you think?
Silvercrys 08-12-07, 12:23 PM	The 4d8 HP you mention are supposed to be added to the level adjustment. They're called Racial Hit Dice. When determining ECL, you add Racial Hit Dice to Level Adjustment and then add those to Class levels. Making a Level 1 Centaur Ranger an ECL 7.
Illithid_Tentacles 08-12-07, 12:26 PM	I agree that's way too powerful for a +2 LA. +3 or 4 sound much closer to being right to me (and don't forget to add his 4 racial HD on top of that, for a total of +7 or 8).
Silvercrys 08-12-07, 12:53 PM	It's already ECL 6, and Centaurs are Large (Long), thus keeping their reach at 5 ft. The BAB and Saves are from the Racial Hit Dice. It gets little more than ability adjustments, along with darkvision and a bonus to speed. I think it's fine as an ECL 6, and probably even balanced at an ECL 5 (although my games more high-powered than standard core). What class is the player intending to play? It will help in determining whether it really needs further adjustment. For example, if they wanted to play a Centaur Wizard, I'd probably drop the LA altogether, since they're already losing 4 caster levels for some bonuses... that don't really help a Wizard all that much (And a penalty to casting stat!). If they wanted to play a Barbarian, they'd have to take the full LA. Something like a Bard, or a Sorcerer... Maybe ECL 5.
Crimson_Concerto 08-12-07, 01:02 PM	Centaurs have 4 racial HD and a +2 Level Adjustment, for a total ECL of 6, meaning you can only play a centaur in a Level 6 game, and if you do, it will have no class levels yet. Centaurs are not overpowered. In fact, popular opinion last I heard held that centaurs are one of the few high ECL creatures what actually have an appropriate ECL (usually ECLs are artificially high). EDIT: Oh, and Centaur isn't a template. It's a race.
snakeman830 08-12-07, 04:38 PM	Centaurs have 4 racial HD and a +2 Level Adjustment, for a total ECL of 6, meaning you can only play a centaur in a Level 6 game, and if you do, it will have no class levels yet. Centaurs are not overpowered. In fact, popular opinion last I heard held that centaurs are one of the few high ECL creatures what actually have an appropriate ECL (usually ECLs are artificially high). EDIT: Oh, and Centaur isn't a template. It's a race. Agreed. Centaurs are an extremely balanced race for their ECL.
diegosephroth 08-12-07, 04:46 PM	yeah I did no consider the full ECL He's playing a druid/barbarian Thought about getting rid of those racial levels, making it a template(giving the other non racial bonuses) and giving him class leves so he could be like Barb2/Drd2 with +2 lv adjustment even taking of the racial levels, its still a strong one. Not broken, but strong enought its like a plus to almost all abilities, half dragon str, natural armor, extra speed/reach thinking if keeping it at +2 would unballance the table
Duelpersonality 08-12-07, 05:41 PM	I play in a campaign that has a centaur PC. I can tell you that at around ECL 6 they are fairly powerful, but they start to lose a lot of power by ECL 8 or 9, and at the ECL 12 we're at now the power level is somewhat lacking (she's playing a fighter/hulking hurler, and even the ability to chuck a volkswagen doesn't help). As long as you leave it at the 4 racial HD and the +2 LA you shouldn't have any trouble.
Leonidus 08-12-07, 05:46 PM	The problem with that is, those levels are part of the LA calculation. Doesn't work well to just strip off hit dice. It's also a race, not a template, so this doesn't stack with orc or elf or anything else. If you really want to, add a point of LA for every 2 removed HD. So if it's 4hd+2la, it would equal a +4 race, maybe a +5 as a template.
Seldriss 08-12-07, 06:25 PM	Personally, i find the abilities modifiers too high. Strength +8 ? That's too much. If you give a look to the Tauric template (Savage Species), you'll see that the concept is Int/Wis/Cha from the humanoid part and Str/Dex/Con from the creature. It means the Centaur was build upon a heavy horse as a base. Which is odd. If you use a light horse, the abilities modifiers are much more reasonable : Str +4, Dex +2, Con +4 The Centaur I use in my campaign : Str +4, Dex +2, Con +4, Wis +2 (I don't give them a penalty to Int) Large Size Speed 60 (light horse speed) Natural AC +3 Hooves 1d4 (less damage) Low-light vision (no darkvision) 4 Humanoid Hit Dice : 4d8HD, BAB+4, For +1, Ref +4, Will +4, 2 feats Languages : Elven, Sylvan Simple weapons, longswords, logbows, no armor or shields LA+2 And of course i use racial levels so players can start them from 1st level.
runestar 08-12-07, 08:45 PM	The bonuses are more than fair for the equivalent of a 6th lv character. Any less and it would be too weak for what you are paying.
Thomar_of_Uointer 08-12-07, 09:05 PM	yeah I did no consider the full ECL He's playing a druid/barbarian Thought about getting rid of those racial levels, making it a template(giving the other non racial bonuses) and giving him class leves so he could be like Barb2/Drd2 with +2 lv adjustment even taking of the racial levels, its still a strong one. Not broken, but strong enought its like a plus to almost all abilities, half dragon str, natural armor, extra speed/reach thinking if keeping it at +2 would unballance the table That's your problem. First off, centaur should not be a template. Keep it a race, or figure out a workable way to determine LA for the tauric template (Monster Manual II). Adding the racial abilities of any race to the centaur without increasing the LA will make it more powerful, and thus break it. Secondly, you shouldn't get rid of racial Hit Dice. The LA is determined based on those Hit Dice. If you do get rid of them (which it looks like you've been doing), you need to increase the level adjustment accordingly or else you will break it. I'd put it at LA +4, mostly for the high Strength bonus and ability to wield Large weapons. Unfortunately, doing this sort of thing leads to such incredulous situations as a level 5 character with 5 hit points (such as a centaur wizard). When your party is at higher levels, this isn't so much of a problem, but at lower levels it's very weird to have a character who is as strong as a horse but can't take two stab wounds. The centaur is not a broken race if you play it according to the rules. I find it very silly to be complaining about how disregarding the rules leads to broken situations, especially when you don't fully explain that you've been disregarding the rules.
diegosephroth 08-12-07, 09:23 PM	well, it seems I got a bit misurdestood, so I'll clear it out- First, you meant that he has a +4 racial levels, and a +2 from his high ability scores, but if we trip it apart(take hit die, saves, bab and such) it is not a "correct" way t classify, because his LA is based on his overall strength. correct? My player is going to enter on level 6 so I was thinking on making him a 4th level druid with 2 level adjustment to a final ECL of 6. But as you said, it seems I cant just take the racial stuff apart from the other abilities. So I mean, is there anyway this player can have a 6 level centaur druid? because if I cant separate things, he would only be able to take a druid level at ECL 7.
Thomar_of_Uointer 08-12-07, 09:29 PM	well, it seems I got a bit misurdestood, so I'll clear it out- First, you meant that he has a +4 racial levels, and a +2 from his high ability scores, but if we trip it apart(take hit die, saves, bab and such) it is not a "correct" way t classify, because his LA is based on his overall strength. correct? Correct. Not all Hit Dice are created equal (compare Dragon Hit Dice to Aberration Hit Dice in the Monster Manual), so simply getting rid of them for all races with Hit Dice is a bad way to go about doing it. My player is going to enter on level 6 so I was thinking on making him a 4th level druid with 2 level adjustment to a final ECL of 6. But as you said, it seems I cant just take the racial stuff apart from the other abilities. So I mean, is there anyway this player can have a 6 level centaur druid? because if I cant separate things, he would only be able to take a druid level at ECL 7. Exactly. Just start him without class levels. Alternately, you could use a centaur Savage Progression (from Savage Species, there's also the Savage Progressions articles archive on the D&D website (http://wizards.com/3e)), starting him with a few levels in the progression and a few levels in druid. However, this can lead to the previously mentioned incongruities of having weak characters of races that shouldn't be weak. If you think this is the best way to do it, I'd recommend that you have him finish the centaur progression as quickly as possible.
diegosephroth 08-12-07, 10:49 PM	ok I got it. Now for a second similar question. Increasing on creatures size to large gives the following: +8 Str -2 Dex +4 Con +2 Natural Armor Other size adjustments +1 cr(PH advices for that) which is actually very similar to the bonuses granted to centaur. So what would be a balanced Lv adjustment for a creature with following stats: +6 dex +2 wis -2 Int +2 natural armor I believe +2 would do fine. Just a few more things I was questioning myself: 1- Could a centaur fly with like... a giant eagle? (how?) 2- Does a centaur gain a penalty on climb checks? (lol...seriously)
Crimson_Concerto 08-12-07, 10:57 PM	I believe +2 would do fine.I don't get the point. That's what centaurs already have. :confused: 1- Could a centaur fly with like... a giant eagle? (how?)With a really interesting custom saddle? Probably... 2- Does a centaur gain a penalty on climb checks? (lol...seriously)No, but climb DCs will change for him depending on what is or is not appropriate for something of that anatomy to climb. For example, a ladder would have a low DC for a human but probably a higher DC for a centaur, but the DC probably shouldn't change too much for a simple steep incline. Really, they don't have a climb penalty because it's just too situational. If they did have one, we would all complain about how it doesn't always fit. :)
Thomar_of_Uointer 08-12-07, 11:53 PM	ok I got it. Now for a second similar question. Increasing on creatures size to large gives the following: +8 Str -2 Dex +4 Con +2 Natural Armor Other size adjustments +1 cr(PH advices for that) which is actually very similar to the bonuses granted to centaur. So what would be a balanced Lv adjustment for a creature with following stats: +6 dex +2 wis -2 Int +2 natural armor I believe +2 would do fine. Just a few more things I was questioning myself: 1- Could a centaur fly with like... a giant eagle? (how?) 2- Does a centaur gain a penalty on climb checks? (lol...seriously) Those bonuses only apply to advancing creatures by Hit Dice. I tend to disregard them, as that's not how I advance most creatures. If the creature has just those abilities, it's a weak LA +2 that you could round out with some other abilities. A centaur could fly with a fly spell, or one of the sets of magic horseshoes in the DMG. The rules on flying mounts only say that the mount needs to be able to carry the rider within its light load limit, and I think there are rules on exotic saddles. By the RAW, centaurs actually are better at climbing than most humans, I know. You could impose a penalty to climb checks for Long creatures (creatures of Large size or larger with less reach than their size normally allows), but that might not make sense for some kinds of creatures. Goats can climb just fine on cliffs with ledges, and so should centaurs then, but climbing a rope is a different matter entirely. I'd say you can cover this issue with the +2/-2 rule, increase the DC by 2 for climbing because the centaur can't use its feet to climb properly (as the lower body is where most of its strength lies), and impose a -2 penalty for climbing because the centaur is only using its hands to climb, this comes out to a net -4 penalty which is realistic (or as realistic as you can get in D&D, it being a fantasy game).