So, I had a version I was happy with, but some of the rules in the DMG have forced me to redesign my half-giant. The prime requirement for this race is that it is large in size. It is my opinion that only a large sized half-giant accurately conveys the Dark Sun half-giant. Unfortunately, that means that its weapons deal double damage in 5th edition (id est, 2d4 daggers to 4d6 greatswords). That is a huge bonus. I have tried to modify my half-giant in order to keep it balanced despite that bonus. I could use some feedback.
Why is the potential 22 str such a big deal? That's higher than some full blooded giants. Also it's kind of a trap feature since you have to dump feats/attributes boosts into it to use it.
Does being large increase carrying capacity? Because if so having a specialized carrying ability may be overdoing it.
The large and desynched abilities are troublesome because they eat most of the design space and only apply to weapon using classes, also givne how some of the feats work I doubt the efficasy of the -5 penalty. Being large has enough other benefits that being counted as large for most other purposes besides weapons is still a pretty important advantage, i fyou have to have the large weapons then make it a feat half-giants can take. That kind of damage increase is hard to balance in the amount of room that a race gives us. I mean it'd be different if you re-wrote all the races to be on a higher power tier for the athas games, but large is very difficult to deal with in the terms of the standard level 5e races.
The alignement shifting is annoying more than annything else given that it's not going to do much in 5e besides be another annoying nit pick thing to keep track of,
I thought 4e goliaths were a fine fit for half-giants and never had much of an issue with them being Medium rather than Large. Perhaps some ideas can be found there. The large weapon things and poor depth perception are kind of fiddly for my taste. It feels like you started with "must be Large" and cobbled everything around that when Large just isn't all that necessary in my view. You might just fictionally say they're big as hell but still Medium, throw some advantage on lots of Strength stuff, and call it good.
On Mercurial Nature, I would suggest having it where the player earns Inspiration for playing to the traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws of the other characters in addition to his or her own.
Oversized weapons/Desynched Attacks are definitely the dealbreakers here. Both these things put far too much burden on the DM to find the right balance of properly sized creatures to keep this ability in check. They become bigger problems as the PCs progress in levels, since larger sized monsters tend to occupy higher CRs.
I'm also not sold on Mercurial Nature. Even races that are said to have inherent tendencies towards certain alignments, such as half-orcs, aren't mechanically bound to such. Just as iserith has stated, this is role-play material.
On a lesser note, all Large creatures already intrinsically have double the capacity for lifting, carrying, dragging, etc. (see "Lifting and Carrying" in the PHB/Basic Rules). There's probably no reason for an additional racial feature to do the same.
I was just reading over your Dark Sun house rules again. While I still think you can say a half-giant is Medium-sized, I thought what you had there with regard to Versatile and Two-Handed weapons was perfect: Half-giants can use them with one hand. That's very elegant (though I am not so good with the rules I can see all the angles with how that interacts with other mechanics). Perhaps Two-Handed weapons used two-handed by half-giants step up by one die as a Versatile weapon would normally do when used two-handed.
iserith wrote:
Why not...
+4 Str. Upto 22.
You can wield large size weapons
You deal 1/2 the damage with weapon attacks.
So you get...
4d6+6 / 2 = 10 and +1 to hit.
vs the normal
2d6+5 = 12
And you get innate Str checks and carrying capacity.
of course, no giant dex rogues or rangers, but that's that.
Buy yourself some d14s!
I did, but for reasons unrelated to the topic at hand.
shpelley wrote:
Yea, I knew designing this would be a bit of a pain. 
Being large will take up most of the design space, but I am ok with that. As far as I am concerned, being large is what makes the half-giant a half-giant. I HATED 4e's use of Goliath as half-giants. To me, the thing that partly defines Dark Sun is the 10-12 foot tall half-giants strolling through city streets that are really not designed to accommodate them. Isereth, I also liked what I had, but there is no way to reasonably use the oversized weapon rules I wrote. The DMG has very clearly indicated how much damage large weapons do. Ogres, which are only 9 or 10 feet tall, use those weapons. I can't have 10 to 12 foot tall half giants using smaller weapons than the ogres. It doesn't make sense. The internal logic of the rules means a great deal to me, so I have to find a way to make the existing large rules work. Thanks for pointing out the carrying cacity rules ShinQuickMan. Also, thank you for the mercurial ideas iserith. I will post a new version soon.
Half-Giant
Ability Score Increase: Your Strength score increases by 2.
Size: Half-giants vary in size from 10 to 12 feet tall and weigh up to 1,600 pounds. Half-giants are considered to be large in size. As a large creature, you can carry, push, drag, or lift double what a medium sized creature of your strength can physically manipulate. In combat, you control a 10 by 10 foot space and can squeeze into a 5 by 5 foot space (spending 1 extra foot for every foot of movement taken, suffering disadvantage on attack rolls and Dexterity saving throws, and granting advantage to any creature that is attacking you while you are squeezing into the smaller space). You can be surrounded by up to 12 medium sized foes, and you take up 1 ½ “units” when surrounding an adversary. You can wield large sized weapons without taking disadvantage to your attack rolls, and your unarmed attacks deal 1d4 damage. You, however, take disadvantage when attacking with a weapon that is not sized for a large creature. You also may not wear any armor or clothing not designed for your size. Armor and clothing designed for a half-giant costs twice the normal price and weighs twice as much as normal. Finally, you must eat and drink 4 times the quantity of rations required by a medium sized creature.
Speed: Your base land speed is 30 feet.
Giant Heritage: You are considered to be a giant.
Half-Giant Toughness: Your hit point maximum increases by 1, and it increases by 1 every time you gain a level.
Mercurial Nature: The magic that allows human and giant blood to coexist leaves the half-giant naturally unhinged. The personality of a half-giant drifts from day to day, leaving them unreflective, unfocused, or dispossessed. At the start of every day, roll 1d6. Depending on the result of your roll, you suffer disadvantage on all Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma checks and saves for that day. A roll of 1-2 effects Intelligence. A roll of 3-4 effects Wisdom. A roll of 5-6 effects Charisma.
In order to counterbalance this mercurial disability, half-giants will often attach themselves to the personality of a friend or mentor, mimicking their personality traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws in order to somewhat reorient their own personality. When rolling to see what stat is negatively affected by your mercurial nature, you may also choose one member of your party. For that day, you take on their personality trait, ideal, bond, and flaw as well as your own.
Ungraceful Gait: The same magic which leaves the half-giant’s personality unhinged also desynchronizes their movement through three-dimensional space. You cannot take the dodge action and you add only ½ your proficiency bonus to weapon attacks.
Languages: You can speak, read, and write one language of your choice. It is strongly advised that you choose common.
The following new weapon property should be added to the game:
Large: Large weapons are designed specifically for half-giants. The large property may be applied to any weapon. A large weapon weighs four times its normal weight and costs triple its normal price. In return, it deals double the normal damage dice. For example, a large dagger deals 2d4 damage, and a large greatsword deals 4d6 damage.
Details to note: Despite only being able to carry double what a medium sized creature can carry, half-giants need to eat 4 times as much food/drink (which means that they will have to carry 4 times the weight in rations) and their weapons weigh 4 times as much. In Dark Sun, due to the survivalist theme and the weapon breakage rules, that can be a pretty big penalty. Half-giants are no longer capable of achieving a 22 Str. They will, however, take Disadvantage to all checks and save relating to one mental stat, and 33% of the time it will be a mental stat that is of primary importance to saves. Meanwhile, while their DPR will be the highest of any weapon using class, that is slightly offset by the fact that they take a growing -1 to -3 penalty to attack rolls (they only get 1/2 proficiency bonus to attacks).
I think this balances out. The DPR boost doesn't, when taking the attack penalty into account, seem to be too bad. Opinions?
You might just want to have them wield medium weapons. Since that (IMO), is the main sticking point.
Giving them reach as their main racial feature is fine.
I don't want to do that mellored. I want the internal logic of the rules to be coherent. Large creatures in 5th don't get reach. Large creatures in 5th don't wield medium weapons.
Anyways, I ran some math on a human vs. half-giant fighter:
So, first of all, lets test level one with a long sword and a greatsword. AC 16 will be what these humans/half giants are attacking.
Level 1 with a longsword:
Starting Str: 17
Starting total human bonus to hit: +5
Starting total half giant bonus to hit: +4
Human: (0.45*7.5)+(0.05*12)= 3.975 DPR
Half-giant: (0.4*12)+(0.05*21)= 5.85 DPR
Difference at level 1 with a longsword: 1.875 DPR
Level 1 with a greatsword:
Starting Str: 17
Starting total human bonus to hit: +5
Starting total half giant bonus to hit: +4
Human: (0.45*9)+(0.05*15)= 4.8 DPR
Half-giant: (0.4*15)+(0.05*27)= 7.35 DPR
Difference at level 1 with a greatsword: 2.55 DPR
Level 20 with a longsword:
Endgame Str: 20
Endgame total human bonus to hit +11.
Endgame total half-giant bonus to hit +8.
Human: 4*((0.75*9.5)+(0.05*14))= 31.3 DPR
Half-Giant: 4*((0.6*14)+(0.05*23))= 38.2 DPR
Difference at level 20 with longsword: 6.9 DPR
Level 20 with a greatsword:
Endgame Str: 20
Endgame total human bonus to hit +11.
Endgame total half-giant bonus to hit +8.
Human: 4*((0.75*11)+(0.05*17))= 36.4DPR
Half-Giant: 4*((0.6*17)+(0.05*29))= 46.6DPR
Difference at level 20 with a greatsword: 10.2 DPR
I still need to tack on a penalty or two. The question is, what should I tack on? Right now, they can't dodge, they take disadvantage on all checks and saves relating to one mental ability score per day (and which mental ability score changes each day), they can be surrounded by 2 more creatures (fairly situational), and they need to eat 4x as much food as a human / won't be able to carry as much relative gear as a human. What I need now are a few more penalties that only effect weapon users in order to either a) bring down their DPR or b) balance them out despite having a higher DPR.
No it's really not because again the race only appeals to weapon users when you do that.
Large is ver good for weapon classes and not much else it's incredibly unbalancing and way too powerful, we know the old +/- trick simply doesn't work. I think you're going to need to offer a lmited form of largeness to the base race and then require the investiture of feats in order to access the more disruptive aspects.
rampant wrote:
I'm not saying they shouldn't be allowed, I'm saying you can't do it within the confines of the 5e race system as it stands. It's too damned powerful, and penalties do not work. You need to draw upon other resources to make fully large half-giants work. Make them burn feats or even class level in order to get that kind of ability.
rampant wrote:
Cyber-Dave wrote:
mellored wrote:
So, I have been playing with numbers, and I think I have found my solution:
Half-Giant
Ability Score Increase: Your Strength score increases by 2.
Size: Half-giants vary in size from 10 to 12 feet tall and weigh up to 1,600 pounds. Half-giants are considered to be large in size. As a large creature, you can carry, push, drag, or lift double what a medium sized creature of your strength can physically manipulate. In combat, you control a 10 by 10 foot space and can squeeze into a 5 by 5 foot space (spending 1 extra foot for every foot of movement taken, suffering disadvantage on attack rolls and Dexterity saving throws, and granting advantage to any creature that is attacking you while you are squeezing into the smaller space). You can be surrounded by up to 12 medium sized foes, and you take up 1 ½ “units” when surrounding an adversary. You can wield large sized weapons without taking disadvantage to your attack rolls, and your unarmed attacks deal 1d4 damage. You, however, take disadvantage when attacking with a weapon that is not sized for a large creature. You also may not wear any armor or clothing not designed for your size. Armor and clothing designed for a half-giant costs twice the normal price and weighs twice as much as normal. Finally, you must eat and drink 4 times the quantity of rations required by a medium sized creature.
Speed: Your base land speed is 30 feet.
Desynchronized Attack: The same magic which leaves the half-giant’s personality unhinged also desynchronizes the finer aspects of depth perception used when attacking with a weapon. You do not add your Strength or Dexterity bonus to damage with weapon attacks.
Giant Heritage: You are considered to be a giant.
Half-Giant Toughness: Your hit point maximum increases by 1, and it increases by 1 every time you gain a level.
Mercurial Nature: The magic that allows human and giant blood to coexist leaves the half-giant naturally unhinged. The personality of a half-giant drifts from day to day, leaving them unreflective, unfocused, or dispossessed. At the start of every day, roll 1d6. Depending on the result of your roll, you suffer disadvantage on all Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma checks and saves for that day. A roll of 1-2 effects Intelligence. A roll of 3-4 effects Wisdom. A roll of 5-6 effects Charisma.
In order to counterbalance this mercurial disability, half-giants will often attach themselves to the personality of a friend or mentor, mimicking their personality traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws in order to somewhat reorient their own personality. When rolling to see what stat is negatively affected by your mercurial nature, you may also choose one member of your party. For that day, you take on their personality trait, ideal, bond, and flaw as well as your own.
Languages: You can speak, read, and write one language of your choice. It is strongly advised that you choose common.
Desynchronized attack has a very real effect on the half-giant's DPR. For comparison, this is what the old DPR numbers look like now:
Level 1 with a longsword:
Starting Str: 17
Starting total bonus to hit: +5
Human: (0.45*7.5)+(0.05*12)= 3.975 DPR
Half-giant: (0.45*8)+(0.05*16)= 4.4 DPR
Difference at level 1 with a longsword: 0.425 DPR
Level 1 with a greatsword:
Starting Str: 17
Starting total human bonus to hit: +5
Human: (0.45*9)+(0.05*15)= 4.8 DPR
Half-giant: (0.45*12)+(0.05*24)= 6.6 DPR
Difference at level 1 with a greatsword: 1.8 DPR
Level 20 with a longsword:
Endgame Str: 20
Endgame total human bonus to hit +11.
Human: 4*((0.75*9.5)+(0.05*14))= 31.3 DPR
Half-Giant: 4*((0.75*8)+(0.05*16))= 27.2 DPR
Difference at level 20 with longsword: -4.1 DPR
Level 20 with a greatsword:
Endgame Str: 20
Endgame total human bonus to hit +11.
Endgame total half-giant bonus to hit +8.
Human: 4*((0.75*11)+(0.05*17))= 36.4DPR
Half-Giant: 4*((0.75*12)+(0.05*24))= 40.8DPR
Difference at level 20 with a greatsword: 4.4 DPR
The differences are very minor, with half-giant longsword users actually falling behind in DPR. (Half giant dagger/short sword users would also fall a bit behind.) I will create a half-giant feat (to be posted later today) that, as one of its benefits, allows half-giants to add their Str/Dex bonus to damage if they only add 1/2 their proficiency bonus to attack. I just need to figure out what the 2 other benefits of that feat should be... I have some ideas.
So, with that change, how is this looking?
Some simple penalty ideas, mix and match as needed:
- 20ft Movement Speed
- Cannot gain benefits DEX benefits to AC
- Disadvantage on Dexterity saving throws
- Disadvantage on Persuasion checks (instead of Mercurial mood, just for simplicity)
- The "I don't actually fit in a normal house/probable dungeon" is a real detriment
shpelley wrote:
How does this version look to everyone? The last version felt a little underpowered. I am hoping this version hits the sweet spot.
Half-Giant
Ability Score Increase: Your Strength score increases by 2. Your Constition score increases by 1.
Size: Half-giants vary in size from 10 to 12 feet tall and weigh up to 1,600 pounds. Half-giants are considered to be large in size. As a large creature, you can carry, push, drag, or lift double what a medium sized creature of your strength can physically manipulate. In combat, you control a 10 by 10 foot space and can squeeze into a 5 by 5 foot space (spending 1 extra foot for every foot of movement taken, suffering disadvantage on attack rolls and Dexterity saving throws, and granting advantage to any creature that is attacking you while you are squeezing into the smaller space). You can be surrounded by up to 12 medium sized foes, and you take up 1 ½ “units” when surrounding an adversary. You can wield large sized weapons without taking disadvantage to your attack rolls, and your unarmed attacks deal 1d4 damage. You, however, take disadvantage when attacking with a weapon that is not sized for a large creature. You also may not wear any armor or clothing not designed for your size. Armor and clothing designed for a half-giant costs twice the normal price and weighs twice as much as normal. Finally, you must eat and drink 4 times the quantity of rations required by a medium sized creature.
Speed: Your base land speed is 30 feet.
Desynchronized Attack: The same magic which leaves the half-giant’s personality unhinged also desynchronizes the finer aspects of depth perception used when attacking with a weapon. You do not add your Strength or Dexterity bonus to damage with weapon attacks.
Giant Heritage: You are considered to be a giant.
Half-Giant Toughness: Your hit point maximum increases by 1, and it increases by 1 every time you gain a level.
Mercurial Nature: The magic that allows human and giant blood to coexist leaves the half-giant naturally unhinged. In order to counterbalance this mercurial disability, half-giants will often attach themselves to the personality of a friend or mentor, mimicking their personality traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws in order to somewhat reorient their own personality. At the start of every day, you may also choose one member of your party to mimic. For that day, you take on their personality trait, ideal, bond, and flaw as well as your own.
Languages: You can speak, read, and write one language of your choice. It is strongly advised that you choose common.
Cyber-Dave wrote:
That's actually somewhat clever, however I think you need to expand it to say they don't add their ability mods to damage rolls for weapons. I'm not saying it's an issue right now but I could see them introducing something like those 4e feats that let you use different ability scores for weapons.
mellored wrote:
rampant wrote:
I am concerned that no ability I've seen so far interacts with Inspiration though. I may be missing something, but it seems like Inspiration wasn't supposed to be linked to class or race features.
Ok, so this is what I have right now:
Half-Giant
Ability Score Increase: Your Strength score increases by 2. Your Constition score increases by 1.
Size: Half-giants vary in size from 10 to 12 feet tall and weigh up to 1,600 pounds. Half-giants are considered to be large in size. As a large creature, you can carry, push, drag, or lift double what a medium sized creature of your strength can physically manipulate. In combat, you control a 10 by 10 foot space and can squeeze into a 5 by 5 foot space (spending 1 extra foot for every foot of movement taken, suffering disadvantage on attack rolls and Dexterity saving throws, and granting advantage to any creature that is attacking you while you are squeezing into the smaller space). You can be surrounded by up to 12 medium sized foes, and you take up 1 ½ “units” when surrounding an adversary. You can wield large sized weapons without taking disadvantage to your attack rolls, and your unarmed attacks deal 1d4 damage. You, however, take disadvantage when attacking with a weapon that is not sized for a large creature. You also may not wear any armor or clothing not designed for your size. Armor and clothing designed for a half-giant costs twice the normal price and weighs twice as much as normal. Finally, you must eat and drink 4 times the quantity of rations required by a medium sized creature.
Speed: Your base land speed is 30 feet.
Desynchronized Attack: The same magic which leaves the half-giant’s personality unhinged also desynchronizes the finer aspects of depth perception and motor control used when attacking with a weapon. You do not add your ability modifier to damage with weapon attacks.
Giant Heritage: You are considered to be a giant.
Half-Giant Toughness: Your hit point maximum increases by 1, and it increases by 1 every time you gain a level.
Mercurial Nature: The magic that allows human and giant blood to coexist leaves the half-giant naturally unhinged. In order to counterbalance this mercurial disability, half-giants will often attach themselves to the personality of a friend or mentor, mimicking their personality traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws in order to somewhat reorient their own personality. At the start of every day, you may choose one member of your party to mimic. For that day, you take on their personality trait, ideal, bond, and flaw as well as your own.
Languages: You can speak, read, and write one language of your choice. It is strongly advised that you choose common.
1. The following new weapon property should be added to the game:
Large: Large weapons are designed specifically for half-giants. The large property may be applied to any weapon. A large weapon weighs four times its normal weight and costs triple its normal price. In return, it deals double the normal damage dice. For example, a large dagger deals 2d4 damage, and a large greatsword deals 4d6 damage.
1. Add the “Giant Among Men” feat.
Giant Among Men
Prerequisite: Half-Giant, Strength 15 or higher, Constitution 13 or higher
You have learned to become a paragon of your race, learning to somewhat overcome the desynchronized quality of your fine motor skills, and to make use of your prodigious size to shrug off damage from minor attacks.
· Before you make an attack with a weapon you are proficient with, you can choose to add only ½ your proficiency bonus to the attack roll in order to be able to add your ability modifier to the damage roll.
· As a reaction when you take damage, you can roll a hit die. Roll that hit die and add your Constitution modifier. Subtract that roll from the damage you take. This action expends your use of that hit die.
rampant wrote:
Cyber-Dave wrote:
Cyber-Dave wrote:
mellored wrote:
iserith wrote:
mellored wrote:
iserith wrote:
If you have only one other party member, you're no worse off than any other race. You just play to your own traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws if the other guy's don't appeal to you. I don't think that the house rules need to cover every corner case (or potential iteration of rules not yet published) and I would imagine that a 2-man party is less common than the standard 4-to-5-PC group.
So, I STRONGLY disagree with you Mellored. The rules I wrote do not force you to play a certain way. The rules reward you for doing what half giants are supposed to do, institutionally, in Dark Sun: emulate a party member and role-play a mercurial personality. If you don't want to emulate any given trait, you don't have to. And, you always keep your own traits regardless. On the other hand, I think that the marriage between fluff and mechanics combined with mechanical extrinsic reward for good roleplaying are a good thing in a TRPG. While it is theoretically possible to end up with binary opposites for traits (very unlikely considering the currently published traits, I might add), as the mechanic is adjudicated by DM holistic judgement it still isn't easily abusable. I agree with Iserith on this count. I am keeping that mechanic as I think it makes for a better Dark Sun half-giant.
Cyber-Dave wrote:
So, this is the final version of the half-giant I currently have written. As far as flavor goes, I think it is perfect. I am now looking for a final verdict from the community: in combination with the feat and "large weapon" quality I posted above, is this half-giant balanced against other PC races?
Half-Giant
Ability Score Increase: Your Strength score increases by 2. Your Constition score increases by 1.
Size: Half-giants vary in size from 10 to 12 feet tall and weigh up to 1,600 pounds. Half-giants are considered to be large in size. As a large creature, you can carry, push, drag, or lift double what a medium sized creature of your strength can physically manipulate. In combat, you control a 10 by 10 foot space and can squeeze into a 5 by 5 foot space (spending 1 extra foot for every foot of movement taken, suffering disadvantage on attack rolls and Dexterity saving throws, and granting advantage to any creature that is attacking you while you are squeezing into the smaller space). You can be surrounded by up to 12 medium sized foes, and you take up 1 ½ “units” when surrounding an adversary. You can wield large sized weapons without taking disadvantage to your attack rolls, and your unarmed attacks deal 1d4 damage. You, however, take disadvantage when attacking with a weapon that is not sized for a large creature. You also may not wear any armor or clothing not designed for your size. Armor and clothing designed for a half-giant costs twice the normal price and weighs twice as much as normal. Finally, you must eat and drink 4 times the quantity of rations required by a medium sized creature.
Speed: Your base land speed is 30 feet.
Desynchronized Attack: The same magic which leaves the half-giant’s personality unhinged also desynchronizes the finer aspects of depth perception and motor control used when attacking with a weapon. You do not add your ability modifier to damage with weapon attacks.
Giant Heritage: You are considered to be a giant.
Giant’s Strength: Unlike most characters, half-giants may raise their natural Strength score to 22 instead of 20. Additionally, you have advantage when making Strength checks to break an object.
Half-Giant Toughness: Your hit point maximum increases by 1, and it increases by 1 every time you gain a level.
Mercurial Nature: The magic that allows human and giant blood to coexist leaves the half-giant’s personality naturally unhinged. As a result, you suffer disadvantage on Charisma (Persuasion) checks made to influence anyone other than a half-giant. In order to counterbalance this mercurial disability, half-giants will often attach themselves to the personality of a friend or mentor, mimicking their personality traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws in order to somewhat reorient their own persona. At the start of every day, you may choose one member of your party to mimic. For that day, you take on their personality trait, ideal, bond, and flaw as well as your own.
Languages: You can speak, read, and write one language of your choice. It is strongly advised that you choose common.
mellored wrote:
Cyber-Dave wrote:
Not a bad conversion, I especially like that you have kept the "personality sponge" aspect in there in some form.
I'm not sure I'd use this version if I were to start a Dark Sun campaign, but I would certainly consider it (and I am one of those DMs that pretty much never considers using someone else's home brewing or house ruling).
I don't like that the bonus is essentially higher weapon damage and the racial penalty to balance that is essentially lower weapon damage. It feels fake and artifical. It also severely punishes players who don't maximize their system mastery, as certain weapon setups actually result in the halfgiant doing less damage than a human.
I have zero experience with 4e Dark Sun, but in the 2e version of the setting all the races seemed overpowered compared to the base versions, but it was okay because all the races were equally stronger. Maybe instead of trying to balance halfgiants around existing races, you should create them as your visions sees them and then give additional bonuses to the dark sun versions of the other races.
Alternatively, here are some ideas for serious penalties that don't directly nerf the whole point of playing the race.
Half giants are dumb- disadvantage on all saves vs spells.
Half giants don't gain as much experience as other races- you can't multiclass, and you don't gain feats or ability score increases (if you go with this, I'd increase the racial bonuses to something like +7 Strength and +3 Con) This would make the class very strong at low levels, but with less lategame potential.
Half giants are limited- Dex Int Wis Cha scores max out at 11.
Half giants are one demensional- half giant can only play as a fighter. Furthermore, at level 3 a half giant doesn't get to choose a martial archtype- half giants are only ever "fighters" and don't gain the bonuses of an archtype.
Half giants don't lern gud. XP gained by the halfgiant character is divided by 2.
I love this take on the Half-Giant. If I ever run a 5E Darksun campaign, I will definitely use this. Thank you, Dave.
Karnos wrote:
Dougan_Axehammer wrote:
Ok, so, after the last batch of critiques, this is what I have got:
1. Half-Giant—New Race (designed as a 3 level class and race combination).
Half-Giant
Half-giants are powerful human-giant hybrids bred as soldiers, manual laborers, and living siege engines by the sorcerer kings. If you choose to play a half-giant, this choice fills both your race and class options. The “half-giant” class only has 3 levels. You must level this class to level 3 before multicasting. After you have leveled the half-giant to level 3, you must multiclass into another class, and you must meet the multiclassing requirements of that class.
Ability Score Increase: Your Strength score increases by 2. Your Constition score increases by 1.
Size: Half-giants vary in size from 10 to 12 feet tall and weigh up to 1,600 pounds. Half-giants are considered to be large in size. As a large creature, you can carry, push, drag, or lift double what a medium sized creature of your strength can physically manipulate. In combat, you control a 10 by 10 foot space and can squeeze into a 5 by 5 foot space (spending 1 extra foot for every foot of movement taken, suffering disadvantage on attack rolls and Dexterity saving throws, and granting advantage to any creature that is attacking you while you are squeezing into the smaller space). You can be surrounded by up to 12 medium sized foes, and you take up 1 ½ “units” when surrounding an adversary. You can wield large sized weapons without taking disadvantage to your attack rolls, and your unarmed attacks deal 1d4 damage. You, however, take disadvantage when attacking with a weapon that is not sized for a large creature. You also may not wear any armor or clothing not designed for your size. Armor and clothing designed for a half-giant costs twice the normal price and weighs twice as much as normal. Finally, you must eat and drink 4 times the quantity of rations required by a medium sized creature.
Speed: Your base land speed is 30 feet.
Giant Heritage: You are considered to be a giant.
Giant’s Strength: Unlike most characters, half-giants may raise their natural Strength score to 22 instead of 20. Additionally, you have advantage when making Strength checks to break an object.
Half-Giant Toughness: Your hit point maximum increases by 1, and it increases by 1 every time you gain a level.
Mercurial Nature: The magic that allows human and giant blood to coexist leaves the half-giant’s personality naturally unhinged. As a result, you suffer disadvantage on any saves versus charm based effects. In order to counterbalance this mercurial disability, half-giants will often attach themselves to the personality of a friend or mentor, mimicking their personality traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws in order to somewhat reorient their own persona. At the start of every day, you may choose one member of your party to mimic. For that day, you take on their personality trait, ideal, bond, and flaw as well as your own.
Languages: You can speak, read, and write one language of your choice. It is strongly advised that you choose common.
Half-Giant Racial Class Features
Hit Points
Hit Dice: 1d10 per half-giant level
Hit Points at 1st Level: 10 + your Constitution modifier.
Hit Points at Higher Levels: 1d10 (or 6) + your Constitution modifier per half-giant level after 1st.
Proficiencies
Armor: Light armor, medium armor, heavy armor, and shields.
Weapons: All simple weapons.
Tools: None.
Saving Throws: Strength, Constitution
Skills: Choose one skill from Acrobatics, Animal Handling, Athletics, History, Insight, Intimidation, Perception, and Survival.
Equipment
You start with the following equipment, in addition to the equipment granted by your background:
· (a) Kank vest or (b) leather, large sized light crossbow, and 20 large wood bolts.
· (a) a large bone simple weapon.
· (a) a large shield or (b) a large wooden simple weapon.
· (a) a large dungeoneer’s pack or (b) large explorer’s pack
Giant’s Endurance
At 3rd level, you learn to focus yourself to shrug off injuries. As a reaction when you take damage, you can roll a hit die. Roll that hit die and add your Constitution modifier. Subtract the result from the damage you take. After you use Giant’s Endurance, you cannot use it again until after a short or long rest.
1. The following new weapon property should be added to the game:
Large: Large weapons are designed specifically for half-giants. The large property may be applied to any weapon. A large weapon weighs four times its normal weight and costs triple its normal price. In return, it deals double the normal damage dice. For example, a large dagger deals 2d4 damage, and a large greatsword deals 4d6 damage.
Karnos wrote:
These guys are meant to be big an tough, I would increase the hit dice to a d12, personally.
So, I think that my last version is still a bit too powerful. As it stands, they will lose out on the last 3 levels of any given class they decide to level in, will gain their 2nd attacks at a reduced rate, and will lose out on one feat/stat bump and any of the non-multiclass proficiencies granted by their class. I think that balance is close, but I think half-giants still pull a bit ahead of their compatriots. I am going to cut the max Str 22 bit of the half giant. I will possibly stick that into a half-giant only feat. Should I cut anything else? I could remove the giant's endurance bit if the race/class combo is still a bit much.
cbwjm wrote:
So, after removing the 22 max Str bonus, I did some math. We are talking about an 8 or 9 point DPR difference in favor of the half-giant endgame (level 20) when factoring in hit rate vs. AC of 16. That is true for two-weapon fighters, rangers, and barbarians. One handed weapon fighters and rogues have virtually the same DPR (with one handed fighter half-giants doing about 3 to 4 more DPR and rogue half-giants doing no more DPR, but being a little more survivable than your average rogue). In order to achieve that, the half-giant will have to give up the last 3 levels of their class abilities (including one stat increase/feat), and anything other than the multiclass proficiencies of their chosen classes. Does that seem like a fair trade? I think that seems fair...
Cyber-Dave wrote:
Karnos wrote:
Cyber-Dave wrote:
Cyber-Dave wrote:
Cyber-Dave wrote:
Cyber-Dave wrote:
Cyber-Dave wrote:
...am I the only one that leans towards using a simple, but "double edged sword" sort of set of stats for Half-Giant?
By which I mean something along the lines of:
+2 Strength, +2 Constitution
Large size: your hit dice are d10s regardless of your class, you deal double dice of damage with weapons built for your size, most items cost twice as much as normal in order to fit them to your stature, some extra costs or difficulties also arise in regards to many services (too big for a regular bed at the inn, heavy enough to be counted as 8 passengers in most vehicles), and it is incidentally much harder for you to hide or sneak because adequate cover/concealment is rarer to find.
And then something to represent their rapidly changing attitudes (though I don't feel the original half your alignment is set and the other half is randomly determined each morning holds the right kind of sway in 5th edition).
And call it good right there - you've got a great bonus for at least one sort of character of any given class (casters of all types appreciating the constitution and hit dice boosts, weapon-using classes appreciating the doubled damage dice if not also the strength increase), and yet you have a significant enough set of drawbacks to make sure you won't see party after party of nothing but half-giants. Plus, you've got all your "this feature is mostly for the flavor of the race" type features rolled into one - which is hopefully something awesome like the personality sponge feature that Cyber-Dave came up with.
Note that I spent roughly 5 minutes thinking this up, and most of that was just finding and reading my Dark Sun booklet.
mellored wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
Cyber-Dave wrote:
mellored wrote:
Cyber-Dave wrote:
Yea... i forgot armor proficency, and undershot the power level in general.
But sticking with simple weapons was my intent. Which you got.
Cyber-Dave wrote:
As I said in the Thri-Kreen thread: this seems entirely too clunky/wordy and does not jive with the current race options.
I would just give them a Powerful Build type deal (a Large race is a no-go): Considered one size larger for purposes of grappling, shoving, encumbrance, etc.
mellored wrote:
Devils-Advocate wrote:
Cyber-Dave wrote:
mellored wrote:
Cyber-Dave wrote:
I like the new version, but without seeing it stacked up against Athasian elves and dwarves, I don't know about the balance. The combination of race and 3 level class seems consistent with the original design though, and "off world" half-giants can opt out of the class requirement. However, if you plan on giving elves a running ability and dwarves abilities based on a focus then the half-giant might be a little underpowered. You must also consider the level effect for the common races; will the common races start with 3 levels in class or will everyone start a level 1.
And maybe have ham-fisted increase the damage die for an unarmed attack instead of just 1d4; that way the damage for unarmed attacks would scale with his skill. Just a thought.
P.S. Have you a write up of the setting in general? Edit: Nevermind, found it!
Ok, so, this is what I have right now. Does this look kosher?
Half-Giant
Ability Score Increase: Your Strength score increases by 2. Your Constition score increases by 1.
Size: Half-giants vary in size from 10 to 12 feet tall and weigh up to 1,600 pounds. Half-giants are considered to be large in size. As a large creature, you can carry, push, drag, or lift double what a medium sized creature of your strength can physically manipulate. In combat, you control a 10 by 10 foot space and can squeeze into a 5 by 5 foot space (spending 1 extra foot for every foot of movement taken, suffering disadvantage on attack rolls and Dexterity saving throws, and granting advantage to any creature that is attacking you while you are squeezing into the smaller space). You can be surrounded by up to 12 medium sized foes, and you take up 1 ½ “units” when surrounding an adversary. You can wield large sized weapons without taking disadvantage to your attack rolls. You, however, take disadvantage when attacking with a weapon that is not sized for a large creature. You also may not wear any armor or clothing not designed for your size. Armor and clothing designed for a half-giant costs twice the normal price and weighs twice as much as normal. Finally, you must eat and drink 4 times the quantity of rations required by a medium sized creature.
Speed: Your base land speed is 30 feet.
Giant Heritage: You are considered to be a giant.
Giant’s Strength: You have advantage when making Strength checks to break an object.
Half-Giant Toughness: Your hit point maximum increases by 1, and it increases by 1 every time you gain a level.
Mercurial Nature: The magic that allows human and giant blood to coexist leaves the half-giant’s personality naturally unhinged. As a result, you suffer disadvantage on any saves versus charm based effects. In order to counterbalance this mercurial disability, half-giants will often attach themselves to the personality of a friend or mentor, mimicking their personality traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws in order to somewhat reorient their own persona. At the start of every day, you may choose one member of your party to mimic. For that day, you take on their personality trait, ideal, bond, and flaw as well as your own.
Sluggish Mind: Half-giants are not as quick witted as their human counterparts. A half-giant must begin play as a member of the “half-giant racial class” (see below). The half-giant racial class only has 3 levels. You must level this class to level 3 before multicasting. After you have leveled the half-giant to level 3, you must multiclass into another class, and you must meet the multiclassing requirements of that class.
Languages: You can speak, read, and write one language of your choice. It is strongly advised that you choose common.
Half-Giant Class Features
Hit Points
Hit Dice: 1d10 per half-giant level.
Hit Points at 1st Level: 10 + your Constitution modifier.
Hit Points at Higher Levels: 1d10 (or 6) + your Constitution modifier per half-giant level after 1st.
Proficiencies
Armor: Light armor, medium armor, heavy armor, and shields.
Weapons: All simple weapons.
Tools: None.
Saving Throws: Strength, Constitution
Skills: Choose one skill from Acrobatics, Animal Handling, Athletics, Insight, Intimidation, Perception, and Survival.
Equipment
You start with the following equipment, in addition to the equipment granted by your background:
· (a) large kank vest or (b) large leather armor, large sized light crossbow, and 20 large wood bolts.
· (a) a large bone simple weapon.
· (a) a large shield or (b) a large wooden simple weapon.
· (a) a dungeoneer’s pack or (b) explorer’s pack.
Ham Fisted
At 1st level, your unarmed attacks deal 1d4 damage. If you get an improved unarmed damage die from any other source (such as the monk’s “Martial Arts” ability or the “Tavern Brawler” feat), you instead deal double the normal damage dice. For example, a half-giant with the “Tavern Brawler” feat deals 2d4 damage.
Boulder Toss
At 2nd level, you become proficient in tossing large boulders at foes. If you can find a rock-like object of at least 300 pounds, but that weighs no more than your carrying capacity, and both your hands are free, you may use an action to pick up the rock and make a thrown ranged weapon attack against a foe. This attack has a range of 60/240 feet. If your attack hits, it deals 1d12 + your Strength modifier damage. At 5th level, the damage increases to 2d12 + your Strength modifier. At 11th level, the damage increases to 3d12 + your Strength modifier. At 17th level, the damage increases to 4d12 + your Strength modifier.
Giant’s Endurance
At 3rd level, you learn to focus yourself to shrug off injuries. As a reaction when you take damage, you can spend a hit die. Roll that hit die and add your Constitution modifier. Subtract the result from the damage you take. After you use Giant’s Endurance, you cannot use it again until after a short or long rest.
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
Other then making the class mandatory, hurting non-weapon half-giants (not that my suggestion was any bettter).
and the smaller issue with mercual nature forcing your RP, which we'll just disagee on.
It looks pretty solid to me.
Cyber-Dave wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
Cyber-Dave wrote:
Cyber-Dave wrote:
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We’ve removed content from this thread because of a violation of the Code of Conduct.
You can review the Code here: http://company.wizards.com/conduct
Please keep your posts polite, on-topic, and refrain from making personal attacks. You are welcome to disagree with one another but please do so respectfully and constructively.
Remember, a community is a joint effort of all those involved, and while we want intelligent meaningful and productive banter to ensue we also need it to be polite and considerate of others.
Thank you for your time and support as we continue to try and make a great community for everyone.
So, on a more positive note, I just wanted to say thank you to Rampant, Iserith, ShinQuickMan, shpelly, mellored, AaronofBarbaria, Devils-Advocate, Dougan, and dafrca. Mello, you get a special thanks for sticking it through with me to the end and helping me get this thing hammered out. Devils, you get a special thanks for respecting the design parameters in which I want to work!
Building this thing hasn’t been easy. It still isn’t what I was hoping for. It does, however, seem to work in terms of its mathematic capabilities and its internal logic with the DMG/MM, so I guess that is what I will go with. Perhaps over time I will find ways to fine-tune it. Thanks to everyone who helped me get this thing up and running!
For future reference, these kinds of threads were you're making somehtign and revising it alot work better if you post the current revised version in the OP.