Giving Goliaths a LA of 0

[Shaoc]

Greetings all,
I'm still ironing out some of the details in the new home brew world I'm running for my RL party and I've hit a bit of a problem.
In the world dwarves and half-orc's aren't playable for various reasons and I feel that I need to offer a replacement race for fighter oriented classes (humans alone is a bit of a cop-out I think) and I'd like this race to be Goliaths. Every since I read about them in Races of Stone, I've always liked the concept and they are quite a significant feature in the world. The problem is, my group has a huge problem with LA thinking it to be a much worse a handicap then it actually is and to an extent I agree with them, I'd far rather have everyone start with a LA of 0.
So I was wondering if perhaps the good folks in the playground could help me to balance a LA:0 Goliath, without losing any of its charm. I was thinking perhaps that I could make them large (for the -1 to AR and AC penalties) but keeping the reach restriction among other things. I realize that even then they aren't much worse and a lot of work needs to be done to the ability scores as well.
Unfortunately for me balancing is always a huge problem and I know whatever I decide to do, they will end up being overpowered.
So I was hoping to rely on the boards help.
Any ideas?

[Tempest Fennac]

I'd give them +2 to Str and Con (or just +4 to Str) with -2 to Dex and Cha, have them as large, and keep their other skills as they are.

[#Raptor]

Well, if you plan for them to be the mostly-fighters race, why even change theyr abilitys at all? All the melee guys are going to be better at than theyr non-goliath companions is going to be, well, smashing things in melee. Something they're already better at anyway.
The only thing is, if you want humans to compete against goliaths as main melee race. Then you'd have to do some hard balancing work, wich will probably be closer to a total rework of the goliath race.

Though you could simply take the half-giant, change prefered class to ftr/brb, take away Powerful Build, call 'em Goliaths and be done with it.

[Puggins]

So I was wondering if perhaps the good folks in the playground could help me to balance a LA:0 Goliath, without losing any of its charm. I was thinking perhaps that I could make them large (for the -1 to AR and AC penalties) but keeping the reach restriction among other things. I realize that even then they aren't much worse and a lot of work needs to be done to the ability scores as well.

Ugh, making 'em large won't solve much of anything unless you do something really funk with the size rules. They'll get -1 attack and AC, but they'll gain reach, which is all sorts of awesome, especially when you combine it with a spiked chain or some other reach weapon.

I'd go somewhat conservative:

* Get rid of Large build.

* Make the ability adjustments +2 Str, -2 Dex.

Leave everything else the same. They may be the slightest bit underpowered, but you'll still the the fully armored goliath kicking all sorts of butt at low levels and the goliath barbarian having all sorts of high-str fun. It'll be better than half-orcs, at the very least.

[Person_Man]

For the interested, here's the RAW goliath.

The +1 LA is worth it for goliaths. Powerful Build qualifies you for Knockback, one of the best melee feats in the game. Fighter 6 with the Dungeoncrasher variant. You now have phenomenal battlefield control and damage output, at ECL 7ish, for a pretty reasonable class and feat investment. And they're monstrous humanoids - this makes them immune to many common spells, and qualifies them for some nasty PrC. And they have respectable stat bonuses.

If you really wanted to make it a LA 0 race, I'd say that you have to remove Powerful Build, change their type from monstrous humanoid to humanoid, and lower their stat bonuses to +2 Str, -2 Dex.

This leaves them with base land speed 30, mountain movement, acclimated, and +2 sense motive checks, and better stat bonuses then the Half Orc (generally considered one of the weakest races).

[Swooper]

Why not just allow LA buyoff? Besides Goliaths being worth the LA as Person_Man said, the difference will become insignificant very fast as they gain levels.

[Hal]

Yeah, Unearthed Arcana has some rules for reducing level adjustment. Basically, you spend XP after you've gained some levels in order to reduce your level adjustment. It might set that character back for a little while, but over the long haul it should even out.

[Human Paragon 3]

I'd do what Person Man said, but leave their abillity to use Large weapons (part of powerful build). This will give them an extra edge in mele.

[nargbop]

The Goliath Warhammer is a broken, broken weapon. Don't allow the 4d8 damage for a Huge weapon enter your game.

[Zincorium]

The Goliath Warhammer is a broken, broken weapon. Don't allow the 4d8 damage for a Huge weapon enter your game.

The goliath greathammer does 4d6 damage when it's huge. This is the same as a huge greataxe, because a medium goliath greathammer is 1d12. So, unless you're using the 3.0 fullblade, you can't get a 4d8 huge weapon.

[Chronos]

Ugh, making 'em large won't solve much of anything unless you do something really funk with the size rules. They'll get -1 attack and AC, but they'll gain reach, which is all sorts of awesome, especially when you combine it with a spiked chain or some other reach weapon.

Increased reach for being large is a general rule of thumb, not an absolute rule. There are already some large creatures in the Monster Manual with a 5' reach, same as Mediums.

And the problem with allowing LA buyoff is that there might be other templates/races that would become overpowered with buyoff, so the OP might not want to allow it. And even if it's balanced, it's a bit jarring to allow buyoff for some level adjustments but not others.

[Zincorium]

Increased reach for being large is a general rule of thumb, not an absolute rule. There are already some large creatures in the Monster Manual with a 5' reach, same as Mediums.

And the problem with allowing LA buyoff is that there might be other templates/races that would become overpowered with buyoff, so the OP might not want to allow it. And even if it's balanced, it's a bit jarring to allow buyoff for some level adjustments but not others.

Aye, there are some. They are large-long, not large-tall. Forgetting how stupid it is to add in another level of complexity to an arbitrary size-system, large-long do not have reach while large-tall do, and it's hard to ascertain how a goliath could be long and not tall, it simply doesn't fit.

Removing reach while leaving goliaths large is certainly possible, but it's call on how the size rules work in this instance as well as homebrewing the race.

A better alternative is to simply give them the size modifier portion of powerful build but not the oversized weapon, because that is better than any other racial feature, including the human bonus feat. It would take a major drawback to include the ability to wield large weapons in a balanced race.

Lastly, there aren't many races with LAs that are even all that good when LA-buyoff is available, certainly none that are broken. It's the templates that are a problem and the bad ones shouldn't be allowed anyway. If LA buyoff is acceptable for a goliath, then it shouldn't be a problem.

[Yakk]

Boost other races to the power of Goliath? Seems more fun!

Races:
Humans, Gnomes, Elves (wood and high), Halfling, Half-elves.

Let's suppose you want to push the properties of each class.

Humans:
Humans get +1 to two different attributes every 4 levels, instead of +1 to one attribute.
Humans get a bonus feat every odd level, instead of every 3 levels.
Humans get an extra +2 modifier to one physical attribute of their choice at level 1.
Human bonus skillpoints is increased to +8 at level 1 and +2 each additional level.

Celestial Elves: As core Elves, plus:
Elven Wizardry: Use sorcerer spells known/caster level, but attribute is intelligence. In addition, no stat requirement to cast spells.

Every odd level, gain a level of Elven Wizardry casting. The caster level for these effects is the Elves full level.

In addition, an Elf can consume a swift action to prepare a full round or faster spell for "fast casting" on their next round. A "fast cast" spell takes both a swift and move-equivalent action to cast.

Spells that are prepared for "fast casting" are consumed if not cast on the next round.

This allows the Elf to get an extra spell off every 2nd round.

Wood Elves: As core Elves, plus:
Wood Elves merge the Ranger and Druid spell progressions into one set of spells.

Wood Elf Druids get full BaB.

All Wood Elves use their level instead of their BaB when using a Shortbow or Longbow.

Non-ranger and druid wood elves gain Elven Woodcraft every 2 character levels:

    Special               Spells
                          
1   Track, Wild Emp       
2                         +1 on Druid track
3   Endurance
4                         +1 on Druid track
5
6                         +1 on Druid track
7   Woodland Stride
8   Swift tracker         +1 on Druid track
9   
10                        +1 on Druid track
11
12                        +1 on Druid track
13  Camoflage
14                        +1 on Druid track
15
16                        +1 on Druid track
17  Hide in plain Sight
18                        +1 on Druid track
19
20                        +1 on Druid track

The special abilities stack with Ranger levels.

Half-elves:
Pick Human, High or Wood elf heritage. Gain the benefits above and beyond the core d20 benefits from that heritage.

Gnomes:
Lose the spell like abilities. Instead, cast as a Bard equal to your level from the Bard spell list. This adds with your Bard casting levels.

Gnome bards gain other abilities instead.

Gnome bards gain a metamagic feat at level 1, 5, 10, 15 and 20.

In addition, they get 1 metamagic point per class level. These metamagic points refresh after a 10 minute rest, and can be used to pay for metamagic on bard spells. The Gnome cannot increase the total level of a spell beyond 1/2 of their Bard caster level.

Halfling:
Halflings have a free skill of (level+3) in Hide and Move Silently. They also gain 2 skill points per level which they can spend on any Rogue class skill as a class skill (other than UMD).

Halflings have good Reflex and Will saves regardless of class. Every 5 levels of a class that already has a good Reflex/Will save, they get an additional +1 luck bonus to that save.

At level 4 and 8 Halflings get Uncanny Dodge and Improved Uncanny dodge respectively. If they get these features via a class feature, they instead get a bonus feat.

Halflings get a +1 luck bonus to AC every 4 levels.

At level 10, 13, 16 and 19, a Halfling can pick an ability from the Rogue special abilities list, or Evasion.

...

That boosts most races up by a significant amount. ;)

The exact details don't matter much: but making races more interesting/powerful is always an alternative to nerfing another race.

[Squash Monster]

My best bet at an LA 0 Goliath would be:

+2 Strength, -2 Dex
Humanoid
Powerful Build

And no other racial abilities. It's pretty strong, but I think it's on par with some of the other really good races, like Whisper Gnome.

[Shaoc]

Some good ideas here I like the idea of taking away reach and extra space but keeping the largeness.
I'm fairly sure powerful build is almost stronger than being large cause you get a lot of the great benefits without any of the penalties.
So I think I will do something like this:
Large creature: No reach and only takes one square.
+2 Str - 2 Dex
Humanoid
+2 to sense motive

It might not make sense or be realistic but realism can fall away in favour of balance as far as I'm concerned.
What do you think? Balanced or not.
Also homebrewing an new systems isn't much of a problem. It's a pretty experienced group of players and they don't mind a little homebrewing so long as they are told beforehand.

[Person_Man]

In order to qualify for Knockback you need to be Large or have Powerful Build. Of the battlefield control-ish feats (Knock-Down, Stand Still, Scorpion's Grasp, etc) I consider Knockback the most powerful, because it physically pushes enemies away from you, gives you free Trip attempts (Shock Trooper), and gives you massive damage (Dungeoncrasher). Also, you get a +4 bonus to Grapple, Bull Rush, etc, and weapons that deal more damage. And if you're Large, you get more reach and qualify for things like Hulking Hurler and Warhulk, which is retardly broken. There are no 0 LA Large or Powerful Build races for a reason, and jiggering around on what Large means isn't going to change the huge benefits that it gives you.

But I get that you want to keep the "bigness" of Goliaths somehow, but without the LA. LA buyoff is certainly a good option, as many have suggested. Also, and I can't believe I'm writing this, have you considered (shudder) Monkey Grip?

Or you could take Powerful Build as a 0 LA race, but swear not to use Knockback, Trips, Grapple, Bull Rush, etc. It'd be like allowing a PC to use Polymorph, but only if they promise to turn into small furry animals to scout and/or other humanoids for disguise/plot reasons.