[3.X] 3rd Party Feat

[Thurbane]

So, back in the day I had heard warning to avoid the "Quintessential" series by Mongoose, due to some extremely poor design and balance issues.

I happened to download the Web Enhancement for Quintessential Book of Fighters the other day from the Mongoose website.

The feat the first grabbed my attention was this gem:

Massive (General)
You are much larger than normal members of your race.
Prerequisite: Str 14+, Con 14+, original size category of Small or Medium.
Benefit: You are one size category larger than others of your race. This brings with it all of the normal penalties and benefits associated with the larger size, including increased unarmed damage, Armour Class and attack roll penalty (if any), and the ability to use larger weaponry. Equipment may be more expensive and more difficult to find in your size.
Special: Must be selected at 1st level

...say I was to allow this in my game, would the RAW indicate you got the adjustments that go with changing size for your race (i.e. if you go from Medium to Large, would you get +8 Str, -2 Dex, +4 Con and +2 natural armor bonu)?

If so, I'd love to combine it with the Lost Tradition feat to make a Str based gishy caster.

[Telonius]

I'd say it does; "all" and "including" are the key words there. With an 18 in Strength, you could have a Str 30 Orc at first level.

[avr]

By RAW it probably does, but I'd think that too much for one 1st level feat.

[Tuvarkz]

From the SRD

Increasing Size
Generally, increasing a monster’s size increases its combat effectiveness. Large creatures gain increased Strength, reach, and other benefits. Apply this modifier if you increase a creature beyond Medium and in conjunction with any other increases.

Something tells me that this is meant to separate Size Increase from HD vs other potential sources of HD increase.
So, no ability score modifier increase.

[Sword-Geass]

Yes, you would gain those stats. Also that's pretty broken, but would be something for melee, so it's kind off ok

[Fizban]

The "normal penalties and benefits" of size have nothing to do with the stat changes given in the monster advancement rules. Try looking up "size" in the Rules Compendium: it's the same table from the PHB for "big and little creatures in combat." And no, increasing unarmed/natural weapon damage is not sufficient to invoke the monster advancement tables, die scaling is already an inherent property of weapons both manufactured and natural.

Compared to existing feats, Large size is worth a good two or three by itself and people will pay that to avoid level adjustments so it's not just for show.

[Thurbane]

I agree that allowing the ability mods as well as size increase would make the feat even more OTT than it already is, but I'm curious about the RAW wording.

Opinions seem to be split...

[DarkSoul]

Well, if you quoted the feat verbatim, then the RAW says you'd get all the bonuses and penalties. Stat changes fall into both of those categories, do they not?

I agree, too good for a regional feat. What about having it grant powerful build instead?

[Fizban]

To clarify, that is my RAW reading. Size is defined first in the PHB and has nothing to do with stat bonuses. Those come from improving monsters via racial hit dice in the Monster Manual, but thanks to a couple of poor wordings regarding when a monster should increase in size, they managed to imply that stat bonuses happen whenever there's a size increase, when they do not. In order to find mention of stat bonuses you have to ignore that the text is talking about the size rules, and instead go to a different section that references those size rules and expands upon them for a specific purpose only.

[Bullet06320]

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/improvingMonsters.htm#

Size Increases

A creature may become larger when its Hit Dice are increased (the new size is noted parenthetically in the monster’s Advancement entry).

A size increase affects any special ability the creature has that is affected by size. Increased size also affects a creature’s ability scores, AC, attack bonuses, and damage values as indicated on the tables below.


that's 2 separate sentences, 2 separate ideas, the 2nd one being applicable here, so yes you would get all the normal penalties and benefits of the new size

the "Quintessential" series by Mongoose is pretty hit or miss, all the books have useful stuff in it, I'm a big fan of the Academic ACF from the Quintessential Wizard

this feat is a bit powerful but for a melee brute its great, how else am I gonna make Andre the Giant still be a human

[weckar]

My main problem with the Mongoose material is that it poorly interacts with many things (sometimes even with itself).
I'm away from book at the moment, but I recall Bastards & Bloodlines (same source as Lost Tradition, mind you) having a Large feat that increased your size one category, but with much more lenient prereqs and no need to take it at 1st level.
Now, there is nothing in these feats as far as I can see that would prevent you from taking both. So an early two feat investment, and we have Large goblins & gnomes running around. While not inherently broken, keep in mind that this is a change to your base size. So, top it off with Enlarge Person shenanigans aaaand...