I have a 15 page conversion document for Darksun I am working on tweaked from another post who9 had been doing the same thing. I am trying to work out how to make a large PC race work in 5E. IN 2E Half Giants got to use two handed weapons in one hand, had double the hit points and something like +4 strength a con bonus and -2 on int, wis and cha scores and got to double thier hit points. They could also change alignment daily or after a long rest in 5E terms. A refluffed Goliath doesn't really do it for me. FOr those of youwho do like refluffed goliaths feel free to use the one the ine Elmental Evil Players Guide.
Not 2E DS had rules different form the core books. The extra dice for larger weapons from the DMG/MM doesn't have to apply.
Half Giants
Giant
Size: Large
+4 Strength, +2 Constitution
Bonus Feat: Tough (+2 hp per level in games not using feats).
Natural Athlete: You have proficiency in the Athletics skill
Disadvantage on all wisdom, intelligence, and charisma saving throws (on a world where goats can mind blast you).
All personal items such as clothes, armor, weapons, food, etc., cost double for half-giant characters. Other considerations, such as transportation or lodging, are also considerably more expensive when they are available at all. In areas not dominated
by half-giants, things such as buildings, furniture, wagons, boats, etc. arent made to support their weight. Even in cities, they tend to camp outside to avoid destroying things
The bigger they are the harder they fall.
That is my basic idea. The drawback as such is kind of harsh but it is supposed to be and I got the idea form the Drow and the racial stat modifiers from 2E. Based on the original Half Giant in the 1991 boxed set which is this.
The city state of Tyr in the back ground.
I always had issues with the lack of difference between Half-giants in 2ed as the rules didn;t properly allow their stats to convey there immense size and strengh. I would be hesitant to give base stat increase of +4 and +2 without giving some opposed stat penalty such as -2 int -2 wis to offset the pure bonus to the fighter type class. I hated the Alignment shift thing, never really made much sense to me. The Large weapon rule is I think warranted thematically but I would be careful how you did it, even at level one they could have a STR of 22 add to that a LARGE Great weapon and ur possibly looking at 2d8 or 2d10 +6, Most enemies will just die at level one in one hit from a half giant. Making the Math of the system work for a H.Giant is difficult and your only alternative might be to add in thematic changes so the H.giant "Feels" more like what it should. Sorry if i'm rambling.
Jimjams wrote:
Personally I would go with the +4 strength, cap it at 22 (maybe higher), and no other ability modifier. I don't see the need for the constitution modifier other than HP and I would rather give it a racial modifer to its HD. Maybe whatever class you choose you advance your hit dice one step? I might bring back ability penalties (-2 dex) to balance it out. I would like to see more variety in racial design and I champion this effort Zardnaar - good luck!
Still don't see how this is smarter design than the Goliath. The Goliath mimicks the large size elements while preventing it from having the broken elements of actually being large. And Goliath's have been explicitely called Half-Giants, and have a proper 5e write-up. @_@
Marandahir wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
Oh, I've read the original source material. But all the PCs were more powerful in Dark Sun. That's why they started at higher levels in 2e, and in 4e, got themes (well before the power creep brought themes out of Dark Sun to other settings – it gave an encounter power, emulating the starting 2 levels higher in 2e). For 5e, I'd just start at level 3, and skip the training levels.
ChrisCarlson wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
ChrisCarlson wrote:
BITD, our half-elf fighter/defiler/psionicist was captured by Drays while exploring the City by the Silt Sea. When we met him next, he was a Dray himself! Seems the sorcerer-king there has some sort of ritual to transform any other humaoind into a dray.
Good times!
Delazar78 wrote:
This is an interesting conversation about Half-Giants. I still don't feel like I am seeing any decent arguments about how the Half-Giant is different than the Goliath. I feel like there is or should be a difference though. Does it only have to do with the fact that Half-Giants originated in Dark Sun? I used to use the Half-Giants in my 3e games, but I used the 2e version. One of my players had a blast playing this race. One thing that I rememberd about the traditional Half-Giant of 2e, that I think is one of the most defining traits, is the fact that it's alignment changed on a day to day basis. One aspect of alignment remained stagnet, while the other was random. The player in my old campaign, for instance, was Chaotic and then would have to roll for the other half: Good, Neutral or Evil. It surely was chaotic adventuring. It was crazy. But it was fun because the group was okay with this randomness. After this campaign ended, that characeter was still alive, and I advanced this character to godhood in my new campaign, but he separated his being into the three versions of his alignment. Therefore, a three-aspect god. The reason the Half-Giants had this shifty alignment was due to the fact that they were not naturally created, but were two races fuzed into one by vile magic. The Goliath sounds boring after thinking about all this, IMO.
Sands666 wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
One thing I've been thinking about to balance the half-giant was making it easier to hit. Now I am not really familiar with the Dark Sun setting, but I like the idea of half-giant, here is how I see it:
Positives:
Bigger: Large, increased reach w/ appropriately sized weapons
Stronger: +4 STR, increase damage (dbl weapon die for large size)
Faster: +10? to speed
Tougher: +1HD step for HP
Negatives:
Armor: Hard to find armor of its size, low DEX means lower AC
Easy to hit: disadvantage on save DC (hard to avoid that breathweapon when your 12' tall); attacks from medium or smaller creatures taht target you have advantage; -2 DEX
Hard to hide: disadvantage on stealth
No where to go: to big for the average inn, dungeon, house, bar, etc.
Frieghtening: disadantage on social interaction roles
Sands666 wrote:
dave2008 wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
Sands666 wrote:
The problem with these 'true to the 2e roots' half giants is 2 fold.
1.) 2e Athas was explicitely built to be higher power, the simple fact is that if you want 2e feel you can't just convert the missing races in at the level they were in 2e, you have to buff the extant races to keep up. There was a 3.5 dragon article that I think did it best. Now as a rule I hate Level adjustment, but it works as an example here: All of the standard races got boosted with inproved stats, abilities, and innate psionic powers to the poitn where the athas verison fo a race was generally about LA +2 compared to the +0 version form the PHB. Any race that had laready been printed got similar tweaks to get them up the same level, like the Athasian version of the 3.5 half-giant. In 3.5 the half-giant was originally printed as a +1 la race in xph, the dragon article bosted them to a +2 by upping their strength bonus and psionic powers.
2.) A lot of them ignore the changes in design conventions for races between editions. 5e may have back slid on gear based class features, but penalties do not compenstae for being overpowered in another area. Furthemrore these days it's generally considered a good idea for your race to be at least compatible with any class, 5e has backslid some but for the most part you'll notice that most races contribute something to any class they choose to play.
Am I the only one that feels that balancing mechanics and encounters TOO MUCH makes the game less fun? I have had players have a complex about someone else "having more", which would probably be the case if someone played a 2e half-giant in a 5e game.... besides the fact that it wouldn't function properly. But its still kind of cool to think of a half-giant with a +4 to strength who can weild a great sword with one hand and throw boulders, but have the penalty of shifting alignment....
Zardnaar wrote:
I actually like the direction these half giants go in. If you want a PC race that has to deal with size differences something like this might well be the way to go. Having a large sized PC race can be really interesting in role playing and game world exploring-- it highlights the fact that this is a world where there are alien beings interacting with one another.
I think that the Con bonus plus the 2 extra hitpoints per level is too many extra hit points. It probably should be just the Con bonus, or at most that and 1 extra hit point per level (the equivelent of a +2 Con). I would just get rid of the extra hit points (they are boring, and they really are more a way to give a race a 'half con bonus'), and instead give them resistance to fire, and the ability to heal one level of exaustion during a short rest. Or something else that gives them a more distinctive Athas flavor.
You will also need rules for large sized weapons, and for large sized creatures using normal weapons. One would imagine that a large sized being could use heavy and two handed melee weapons sized for medium sized humanoids as weapons that lose those two properties and gain the versatile property.
Since Athas had a bunch of weird weapons, instead of making generic large sized weapon rules, it might be interesting just to write up a few large sized weapons that are commonly weilded by half giants. A big spiked club, perhaps a hammer like the pathfinder earthbreaker, a 4 bladed axe (blades made of bone of course), maybe some sort of staff sling for throwing bolders.
As large sized beings, do they also have a 10' reach? They probably should if ogres do.
Aren't they going to be able to change alignments after a long rest?
I
Sands666 wrote:
demon_idol wrote:
The only issue I'd have with converting the Goliath to the Athasian Half-giant would be changing the high altitude features over to desert-labour type features. It's not that hard a fix. In fact, I homebrewed the Goliath-as-written into the "Alpine Goliath" while creating a few more Goliath subraces – the Desert Goliath being one of them.
Marandahir wrote:
Yeah, I was just saying, I thought the main issue with the Goliath not translating to Half-Giant was the alpine stuff (lack of altitude and cold sickness). Change those to desert and heat-stroke resistance, and for me, you've got the Half-giant. I realise you want something bigger, but the other Goliath features – the "Oversized" fixes that emulate the large race into the Medium size – is what makes the Goliath work as the Half-Giant, and I really really don't think PCs should be large. It just seems really cumbersome to say "you can be large, but can't have all these nice things large characters normally have." And shifting alignment is never a good way to balance power. It's the roll vs role playing bit. You've got to balance the roll playing with roll playing stuff, rather than restrict it. It just seems like a needlessly restricted character that can only do well as a Fighter or Barbarian. That's not good race design.
Of course, that's all my opinion. If it makes you and your group happy, go for it. Honestly, anything that keeps your group playing D&D5 is probably a good thing. 
Marandahir wrote: