[PF/3.5] ECL 0 Centaur?

[Mongoose87]

So, I'm going to be running a game for some of my n00b friends, and one of them has her heart set on playing a centaur. I'm pretty sure she wants to be a bard as well. The problem is, the party's ECL will be 3, leaving her with no class levels to actually take in bard. I am looking for a solution to this.

My current, quick and dirty solution is simply to apply the Young template to her centaur, remove her racial hit dice and allow her to take three bard levels. As she's not using a melee-focused class, the advantages of the centaur's stats are mitigated, as well as with the Young template.

Nonetheless, she would still begin with much higher stats than the other characters. which is obviously less than ideal. Does anyone have an ECL 0 centaur or idea for one lying around, that I could use?

[HunterOfJello]

There's a ECL 0 Centaur in Savage Species

+2 Dex, -2 Int
40ft speed
Darkvision
Automatic: Elven, Sylvan
Favored Class: Centaur and ranger
~

Savage Species is designed for the character to take all their monster levels first before taking character levels though.

~

there's also the Races of War (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19527458/Races_of_War) method of determining the ECL of a monster

I'm not too familiar with the Races of War method, but it would put a Centaur's ECL at 4. (Instead of the normal 6)

[The Cat Goddess]

I remember a half-donkey type centaur that was notably lower ECL/hit dice than the regular one... but I can't recall where... :smallfrown: Oniocentaur or something like that...

[Mongoose87]

We're using Pathfinder, so the ECL of a starting centaur is actually 3, right now, unless I'm mistaken.

[Mando Knight]

Lemme think...

+2 Dex, -2 Int
Monstrous Humanoid, but only Low-Light vision (i.e. no Darkvision).
Speed: 40 feet
Large (-1 AC, -1 Attack, -4 Hide, +4 Grapple) (Size/Reach=10/5)
Quadrupedal (+4 to resist Trip attacks, triple load/carry instead of double, etc.)
Cannot ride mounts (even Huge or larger mounts).
Automatic Languages: Sylvan, Elven. Bonus Languages: Common, Gnome, Halfling.

If she wants the natural attack, you can include 2 hooves (1d6 damage, secondary attack).

Increased strength from the horse body is represented in the increased carried load. Beyond the size modifiers, a normal Centaur has +6 Dex, -2 Int, and +2 Wis. This set greatly diminishes the stat bonus, but brings it more in line with the expected ECL 0 stat spread.

You might consider adding in a Con or Str bonus as well, since the Large size is almost exclusively a detriment (though the character can wield larger weapons), as armor and other items are heavier and the character presents a much larger target.

[Glimbur]

I remember a half-donkey type centaur that was notably lower ECL/hit dice than the regular one... but I can't recall where... :smallfrown: Oniocentaur or something like that...

Bauriar? Should be in some Manual of the Planes or Planar Handbook or some book about planes.

[The Cat Goddess]

Bauriar? Should be in some Manual of the Planes or Planar Handbook or some book about planes.

Not what I was thinking of, but...

Bariuars (Planar Handbook) are only ECL +1 and have Spell Resistance 11+level! Allow the +2 Str & -2 Cha to be swapped, get rid of the goat aspects (like the powerful charge head-butt) and you have a medium-sized (instead of Large) Centaur! Arguably, get rid of the Spell Resistance and change to Monsterous Humanoid instead of Outsider and you're ECL 0.

[Gnaeus]

Arguably, get rid of the Spell Resistance and change to Monsterous Humanoid instead of Outsider and you're ECL 0.

Remember that all ECL +0 races in PF are stronger than their 3.5 equivalents. Most ECL +1 races could port over as +0 without adjustment. You might still need to drop or lower the SR, but you could keep the type.

[RagnaroksChosen]

if you don't mind importing other setting races... look at dragonlance thay have a +0ecl centuar that has some odd bonuses(though far from broken)

[The Cat Goddess]

Remember that all ECL +0 races in PF are stronger than their 3.5 equivalents. Most ECL +1 races could port over as +0 without adjustment. You might still need to drop or lower the SR, but you could keep the type.

Ah... I don't use the PF rules myself (though one of our group wants to run it), so I wasn't aware of that.

[PlzBreakMyCmpAn]

There is a thread on this very boards for quadrapedal, centaur-like races.

Stripping 3 RHD can be done RAW. the LA is buyoffable. If you want a more powerful variant, I suggest not messing with LA and just allowing the first LA*2 RHD to be free.

[The Cat Goddess]

There is a thread on this very boards for quadrapedal, centaur-like races.

Stripping 3 RHD can be done RAW. the LA is buyoffable. If you want a more powerful variant, I suggest not messing with LA and just allowing the first LA*2 RHD to be free.

You just love throwing power to your PCs, don't you?

There's a reason that certain monster-characters have Racial Hit Dice as well as +LA... Because they are clearly more powerful than races that just have +LA.

By your calculations, a Natural Wearbear & Natural Weretiger (both have 6 Racial Hit Dice of Animal) would have the same cost to play as a Natural Wererat (who has 1 Racial Hit Die).

A Centaur (LA 2) has much better stats than a Half-Ogre (also LA 2). The three levels of Monsterous Humanoid balance the two, instead of increasing the Centaur's LA or reducing the Half-Ogre's.

[Calmar]

You could simply treat her like an ordinary human on a (heavy) warhorse. Unless she's going to focus on mounted combat that won't make her much stronger.

[The Cat Goddess]

You could simply treat her like an ordinary human on a (heavy) warhorse. Unless she's going to focus on mounted combat that won't make her much stronger.

Actually, the one time I had a player wanting to play a Centaur, I allowed them to qualify for feats as if they had the Mounted Combat feat... but not the mechanics of it (use riding check to avoid damage to mount). Re-Fluff "Ride" as something like "Combat Training" for the Centaur... for qualifying for other mounted feats & possibly PrCs as appropriate.

[Calmar]

Actually, the one time I had a player wanting to play a Centaur, I allowed them to qualify for feats as if they had the Mounted Combat feat... but not the mechanics of it (use riding check to avoid damage to mount). Re-Fluff "Ride" as something like "Combat Training" for the Centaur... for qualifying for other mounted feats & possibly PrCs as appropriate.

That's a reasonable ruling for a centaur character.

But what I meant was: take a LA 0 race like human or elf (elf let's her use a longbow); create a 1st-level bard (that's what the player wants); put her on a horse and treat the character as being continuously mounted. Then call it a centaur. :smallbiggrin:
IMHO that's the easiest way let her play a centaur without actually having to create a LA 0 centaur. As a n00b she'll neither notice nor care. :smallwink:

[IonDragon]

You could always just take the normal Centaur and give her a pass on one LA. Just call it an LA +2 race, since most people know Levels > LA anyway, she's going to be carrying that +2 LA and struggling against it.

[Gnaeus]

You could always just take the normal Centaur and give her a pass on one LA. Just call it an LA +2 race, since most people know Levels > LA anyway, she's going to be carrying that +2 LA and struggling against it.

If it were just the LA, that would be fine. More important are the 4 RHD. If you reduced Centaur to 4RHD and +1 LA, it would be playable, but not in OP's ECL 3 party.

[LibraryOgre]

Personally, I'd quickie out a 0 RHD centaur. Using PFSRD, I'd probably go...

+2 Str, +2 Wis, -2 Dex (Why a penalty to Dex? Because a number of Dex-based skills are going to be difficult for them... Stealth, Acrobatics, Ride; I might suggest switching the Wis to Cha, or the Str to Con)

Base speed 40' (normal is 50'; this is a bit more reasonable, IMO)

Medium size (again, the SRD is Large, but this removes the need for a natural armor bonus to offset their size penalty, and gets rid of the attack penalty for being large).

*Low Light Vision (the SRD says Darkvision, but LL makes more sense)
*Stable (similar to a dwarf, but stemming from their four-legged nature)
*Carry Capacity boost (four-legged)
*Bonus Feat: Run
*Bonus Proficiency: Longbows, Short Bows, including composite
*+2 to Perception, Knowledge: Nature, and Survival checks.

There you go. It's about on par with the core races, and keeps most of the ideas of being a centaur, without over-powering. It results in a somewhat slender "human" section, looking more like a standard D&D elf, but not so slender that they have to be Large to accommodate their back end.

[Ravens_cry]

Centaur has all the disadvantages of being large with almost none of the advantages. No reach, not even larger weapons. The only advantage the have is they get bonuses to certain manoeuvres by virtue of being large and quadrupeds
4 hd? Why? What am I not seen?
Mark Hall: I would explicitly allow them to use mounted feats for themselves, but not ride checks.

[hamishspence]

In 3.0, maybe they were that way, but in 3.5 Large centaurs had everything that came with Large, including weapons.

I'm not sure if Pathfinder Centaurs work that way though.

[LibraryOgre]

Centaur has all the disadvantages of being large with almost none of the advantages. No reach, not even larger weapons. The only advantage the have is they get bonuses to certain manoeuvres by virtue of being large and quadrupeds
4 hd? Why? What am I not seen?
Mark Hall: I would explicitly allow them to use mounted feats for themselves, but not ride checks.

Good point. I'd toss in a line of "May ignore the Mounted Combat feat prerequisite for feats and prestige classes. Always considered Mounted for those feats and prestige classes, but suffers no penalty to ranged attacks."

As for the 4hd, I imagine it's because they're big.

[Ravens_cry]

In 3.0, maybe they were that way, but in 3.5 Large centaurs had everything that came with Large, including weapons.

I'm not sure if Pathfinder Centaurs work that way though.
Looks up. Pathfinder centaurs lack big weapons explicitly, which does make sense having human sized hands, but even 3.5 centaurs had 5 reach, been long large, like, well, horses (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/centaur.htm).


As for the 4hd, I imagine it's because they're big.
yeah, that's such an advantage.*:smallamused:
*sarcasm

[hamishspence]

Well, nearly everything- no reach is a bit of a pain, but I recall their weapons being Large weapons in the MM.

Large without Reach is annoying- but at least they get Large weapons.

Unless you choose to go with Pathfinder version instead of 3.5 version.

[Ravens_cry]

Well, nearly everything- no reach is a bit of a pain, but I recall their weapons being Large weapons in the MM.

Large without Reach is annoying- but at least they get Large weapons.
Large weapons are nice, but don't even thematically make sense considering their hands are about the same size as a robust human or half orc. It's not even much of an advantage, though I admit it looks cool. It was removed in Pathfinder. (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/monstrous-humanoids/centaur)
edit: And you ninja edit in my last point. For shame. *shakes cane*

[LibraryOgre]

yeah, that's such an advantage.*:smallamused:
*sarcasm

Oh, definitely.

You know why centaurs don't wear shirts? It's because they can't find any in their size.

[Gnaeus]

Well, nearly everything- no reach is a bit of a pain, but I recall their weapons being Large weapons in the MM.

Large without Reach is annoying- but at least they get Large weapons.

Unless you choose to go with Pathfinder version instead of 3.5 version.

Well, to be fair, In PF they don't use HD+LA, just CR. A Pathfinder Centaur/Fighter 1 is ECL 4, with 4 monstrous humanoid RHD and good stats. That seems more playable to me than the 3.5 version with large weapons but 6 LA+HD.

[Ravens_cry]

Oh, definitely.

You know why centaurs don't wear shirts? It's because they can't find any in their size.
I thought it was because they liked looking all Fabio.
http://img704.imageshack.us/img704/4702/cqcentaurandhismate.jpg

[LibraryOgre]

I thought it was because they liked looking all Fabio.
http://img704.imageshack.us/img704/4702/cqcentaurandhismate.jpg

Poor horse-man. He has no bits.

[Ravens_cry]

Poor horse-man. He has no bits.
It makes you wonder how she can be his mate, amiright?
Maybe he has the centaur equivalent of a micropenis
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micropenis)[technical, but NSFW] and so can only work with other species.