Centaur Player Race

[Conundrumist]

I'm getting ready to start a campaign centered on being an outcast and probably a "monster" race. I have a friend who's very much into the idea of playing a non-humanoid race. He's worked up a centaur race on his own, stats to follow. I have some ideas of changes I think should be made to it, but I'm wondering what a larger community thinks.

Ability Score Increase. 2 Str, 1 Wis.

Age. Centaurs are considered adults at age 5, and usually live to be about 50.

Alignment. Centaurs tend to favor Neutral alignments, and lean towards Good.

Size. Large.

Speed. 50

Languages. Common, one of your choice

Heavy Hooves. You can use your hooves as an Unarmed Attack you are proficient with. This attack causes 1d6 damage, has a range of 5 feet, and deals bludgeoning damage. This damages increases to 1d8 at level level 6, 1d10 at level 11, and 2d6 at level 16.

Sturdy. You have advantage on saving throws against being moved against your will or knocked prone.

Born To Run. You have proficiency in the Athletics skill.

A Lot To Cover. When buying armor, you must use the barding cost for whatever type of armor you wish to purchase.

Base Height: 6’2” +4d6 Base Weight: 1,160 X 2d6 Ibs.

[JNAProductions]

Damage should scale at levels 5, 11, and 17.

In addition, I'd start it at 1d4, scale to 1d6, 1d8, and 1d10, so it doesn't overshadow Monks. (Even then, still a little much.) Really, it might be better to make it a flat 1d6.

In addition, 50' is really damn fast. I'd make it 40' at most.

[Lalliman]

This is a pretty good guide for balancing races.

Based on that guide, with a big of guesswork for the features that aren't listed there, this race scores around 9 points. (I didn't factor in the inconvenience of more expensive armour, since that probably ceases to be an issue after early game. I also didn't factor in large size, since that can be both a boon and a detriment.) By comparison, most core races score 5 to 6, with the highest one (Mountain Dwarf) scoring an 8. (And Mountain Dwarf has some built-in redundancies, so is less powerful in practice than on paper.) So it's a bit too powerful.

I agree that the power of the hooves should be brought down, otherwise it would be a big damage boost for centaur monks. (That's a pretty interesting character concept though.) I would probably just make it a flat d6, like JNAP says. I don't think any other race has scaling damage for their natural attacks. It's true that a warhorse deals 2d6 damage with their hooves, but then again they can't learn to make multiple attacks per round.

50 foot speed is a lot, but also appropriate. Hell, an actual horse has 60 feet. Nerfing this race might be difficult, since all the features seem quite right to me.

Most of all, I think you could remove Sturdy, since being Large size already limits people's ability to push or trip them. Besides, despite having four legs, horses aren't that hard to trip when they're in motion.

Born to Run also seems expendable, since it covers the same thematic ground as the +2 Str bonus. Maybe you can replace it with something that's thematically appropriate but mechanically weaker, like advantage on Con checks to keep going during a long chase or forced march.

If you remove Sturdy, change Born to Run as described, and nerf Heavy Hooves, you'll end up with a score of about 7.5, which is on the high end of the acceptable range. I think that relatively high score might be fine, since some of the features counteract each other a bit. The high movement speed makes them highly suitable as either archers or skirmishers, but being an archer would be wasting their +2 to Str, and moving around the battlefield as a skirmisher can be hard when you're 10 by 10 foot in size.

Some stuff for you to consider.

[Conundrumist]

Thanks for the feedback. I really want to allow him to play what he wants and I agree with him that there should be some non-humanoid player options in D&D. But it needs to be as balanced as possible.

Bringing down the hoof attack was my number one change also. I don't think any race has a scaling natural attack either and the highest I know of is Minotaur from the Waterborne UA. That's a d10.

I had considered taking them down to Medium and giving them powerful build, but I see how Large can also be a hindrance so maybe that should stay. It would also be an interesting aspect to any character and better fit with the MM stats.

[Lalliman]

Also keep in mind that a centaur's body shape imposes some natural restrictions, even if there are no rules for such. They can't climb ladders, trees, ropes, or really anything that isn't slope-like. They also can't pick up anything off the ground without lying down, which would logically consume some of their movement speed. You should probably discuss with your player how strongly you mean to enforce these restrictions.

[Conundrumist]

Actually, looking back through the PHB, Dragonborn's breath weapon scales. It gets up to 5d6 at level 16, requires a save, and deals half damage on a successful save. Granted it's once per short or long rest.

[Lalliman]

Actually, looking back through the PHB, Dragonborn's breath weapon scales. It gets up to 5d6 at level 16, requires a save, and deals half damage on a successful save. Granted it's once per short or long rest.

That's because it requires your action, and needs to remain competitive with other options. Natural attacks already scale with your class levels due to Extra Attack and the many other features that improve attacks (Improved Critical, Brutal Critical, Divine Strike, Improved Divine Smite, etc).

[Conundrumist]

Oh, yeah, no dispute here. It's an entirely different animal. I'm just saying it's a scaling attack.