A Large Design Exercise

My home game is set in a city built by (and actively ruled by) giants. Looking ahead to an eventual transition into Paragon tier, I’m thinking it’d be a natural time to let folks take on new characters if they want. Combined with my setting, it makes me wonder — should it be possible to play (relatively small) giants, say on the Hill Giant scale? Which expands, in general, to the question of: is it possible to have a Large player race, or is that simply a nonstarter in 4e?

Let’s break it down. What does Large get you, just by itself?

“Neutral” elements:

• You take up a 2×2 area instead of a 1×1

Benefits:

• You’d probably get Reach:2 with your melee attacks (your threatening reach would only be 1 square out, though — so no Reach 2 opportunity attacks — but since the “ring” of squares around a 2×2 creature is 4×4, not 3×3, you would be threatening more squares due to having more adjacent squares).
• You should be using one-size-boosted weapons — which would increase the die size of any weapon you use, as per PHB page 220. This essentially amounts to “+1 damage with all melee weapons”.
• Also as per PHB 220, you’d be able to use two-handed weapons of Medium size class in one hand, but you simply can’t use one-handed weapons of Medium size because they’re too damn small.
• Your “Close Burst” powers essentially cover a greater area (at least the way I imagine them working — though you could patch this by saying you have to choose one of your four occupied squares as the square of origin, which would mean that a close burst 1 would be partially swallowed by your occupied squares).
• You can’t be Bull Rushed by Small or smaller creatures — so halflings and other Small races wouldn’t have that tactical option against you. Flip that around, and it would mean that you *can* bull rush something that’s Huge!
• For your allies, you’ll be providing greater cover (allies provide cover to one another), but little obstruction (see below).  For your enemies, you’ll be a formidable obstacle, able to singlehandedly block a 10-foot-wide hallway (they just won’t be able to move through you) — and with your opportunity attacks going one square out to either side, you could “cover” a 20-foot-wide opening (a Medium sized creature would cover 15 feet, so this is just a 1 square gain).

Downsides:

• Fitting into places is tough, but at Large, it’s not impossible. See PHB 292; the Squeeze action is the key. You can still fit into that room that’s less than 2 squares high or through that doorway that’s only 1 square wide — but you’ll move only half your speed, take a -5 penalty to attack rolls, grant combat advantage, and provoke opportunity attacks when you do so. Those are some significant downsides, but so long as you’re not getting regularly hosed by it, it’s managable — most often, you’ll
• It would be harder to gain superior cover. It just plain takes something larger to give you superior cover — if it doesn’t span at least two squares (horizontally and vertically, I would imagine), it can’t provide it.
• The enemy can mob you more effectively.  There are 16 squares instead of 9 they could use to surround you, and from opposing “flat sides” to the 2×2 square you occupy, being in either of the two squares on each side yields flanking.
• Minor hassle: because you take up 4 squares instead of 1, 2 across at any point, while your allies can move through your squares at no penalty, they can’t stop in those squares, so getting past or behind you will take just a little extra work on occasion.
• If you’re in a game that tracks gold usage, larger weapons and items should just plain cost more.

Looking at all of this, factoring in the downsides, I’d say being Large is at least as awesome as having Dragon Breath.  Using my rule of feat-equivalence in Hard Boiled Cultures, Dragon Breath brings several benefits to the table: it allows an attack as a minor action, and it affects an area, making it the equivalent of three feats.

Here, we’re seeing: Reach 2 on melee. That’s at least one tick-mark.  The +1 average damage due to an upsized weapon is really one side of the same coin as being able to wield a medium two-handed weapon in one hand.  Call those another tick-mark.  The other benefits of being greater in size get another 1-2 tick-marks.  So all in all, I’d rate being Large as being the equal of at least 4 feats — one more than dragon breath.

The Dragonborn are an interesting baseline to compare this “PC Giant” to, then.  They have the standard 6 speed, 2 languages, +2 to 2 traits (Strength and Charisma would make a good pairing for a Giant PC, too), 6 speed, +2 to 2 skills (for a giant, I’d probably go +2 Intimidate, +2 Endurance), and two racial benefits beyond their dragon breath.

Swap out for a Giant PC, and you’d have only 1 racial benefit beyond that core if I’m correct in valuing Being Large as being 1 feat-equivalent more than dragon breath.  My short-list for that one remaining racial benefit is either a Speed of 7 (greater stride — and certainly appropriate, given that the Monster Manual’s hill giants have a speed of 8), a boost to Fortitude defense (+2, perhaps), or the equivalent of the Toughness feat (more size equals more HP).

Have I missed anything in my assessment here? Is “4 benefits” the correct valuation for Being Large, given the downsides?  Is playing a Large PC viable at all, for your games & experience?

Talk to me.

1. Cam Banks, April 20, 2009:

   I went with Large size for the ogres in my 4e Dragonlance races conversion document, and people screamed at me. I had done the same basic review of this as you have, but I gave the ogres a power on top of it. Probably could do without the extra power given what Large actually does as a benefit.

2. fred, April 20, 2009:

   Cam, “screamed at you” how? Anything substantive?

3. Aeonite, April 20, 2009:

   “There are 16 squares instead of 9…”

   I think you mean “12 squares instead of 8″ here.

4. nemomeme, April 20, 2009:

   Reach 2 and one-size-larger weapons are huge advantages. WotC backed away from these a bit. Look at the difference between the MM Minotaur PC and the later Mearls’ Minotaur for guidance in your decisions related to this topic.

   Also, share all of your 4E prep work after you’ve run it because I’m sure it’s awesome and I want to steal it.

5. fred, April 20, 2009:

   Aeonite — You got me. I forgot to subtract the occupant.

6. fred, April 20, 2009:

   nemomeme — Yeah, I’m aware of that, but the issue in part is that this stuff is PHB-intrinsic to being Large. I can’t go for some sort of alternate implementation there.

7. Perico, April 21, 2009:

   I don’t think having a Large race balanced against normal ones is really feasible without introducing some sort of drawback, as oversized weapons have proven to be a really useful feature. That alone would make the race far better for weapon-based classes than other alternatives, and you’d have to add the inevitable bonus to Strength.

   What would you think about introducing the concept of a Paragon race, which you couldn’t play until Paragon tier and counted both as a race and a Paragon Path? If you count oversized weapons (the most problematic issue, in my opinion) as one of the Paragon Path features, the balancing looks much more reasonable. You’d still have the standard number of PP powers and features. I’d look at the Goliath Paragon Path from PHB2 for inspiration, as it has a lot of Giant-flavored stuff.

8. fred, April 21, 2009:

   Yeah, that’s not a bad gig there, Perico. Thanks for the suggestion!

9. rob, April 21, 2009:

   Paragon Race is a fun idea, and in some ways a neat way to shorthand some of the monsters-as-PC stuff from earlier editions. Could do the same with Epic Races too. That merits some thought down the line.

   All in all, I think you’re underestimating some of the advantages and overestimating some of the drawbacks. I’m totally willing to take on to the table to test it out, but I think you’d be generous saying large eats all 4 benefit slots (Your minotaur, I think, gave me a healthy fear of oversized weapons, and I pretty much consider it to be nearly Dragonbreath-comparable all by itself)

   But the real problem comes in that you’re creating corner cases that beg for trouble, since the size creates the opportunity for specific combinations which can, I think, get abusive. Specifically, I’m thinking of what happens when you have a fighter of that size being able mark targets at reach with none of the normal drawbacks of going with polearms. Terrifying, and it’s just one case. I suspect that if I were to go through the other classes (The Warden jumps to mind) I could find some other equally problematic mixes.

   All that said, there may be a way to do it, and I’m up for trying out options, but it’s a tough row to hoe.

   -Rob D.

10. justin, April 21, 2009:

    The aversion to large PC races is born more out of general than specific fear. See Rob’s post. The two specific examples don’t actually frighten me that much. The fighter’s mark is still limited by the number of attacks he can make. “Terrifying” certainly doesn’t leap to mind.

    I think there is something to be said for the fact that existing PC races have discrete abilities (and notably once-per-encounter powers) that don’t lend themselves to combination. Large size is “always on”, which encourages the phenomenon: “I cant’ think of something specific, but I’m sure there’s a really bad combo out there somewhere.”

    Upshot: While WotC would really have to work to make a Large size PC race and I would be concerned about publishing one for general consumption, I wouldn’t have any qualms about adding one to my home game, where I could adequately plan for and deal with any unforeseen consequences.

11. rob, April 21, 2009:

    This is honestly a limit of me being away from my books more than anything else. I’ll cite the very specific example that a lot of the Warden polymorph abilities create areas in a burst – that’s an arena where the radius increase will have a specific, concrete advantage. I seem to recall that Greenflame Blade (A swordmage At-will) is a close burst 1, enemies only, another one that gets immediately amped up. But these are trivial – I’m fairly sure that time with the books could generate something uglier.

    -Rob D.

12. justin, April 21, 2009:

    @Rob: The key will be showing not that the abilities are improved by being large but that they are improved by an undesirable degree. Also, would the problem be ameliorated if the large race in question has attribute bonuses that don’t dovetail with the warden? Is a large-sized laser cleric a concern?

13. Paul, April 21, 2009:

    What would you think about introducing the concept of a Paragon race, which you couldn’t play until Paragon tier and counted both as a race and a Paragon Path?

    That reminds me a bit of some of the stuff Monte Cook did with Giants in his Unearthed Arcana/Arcana Evolved stuff. PC Giants started as Medium creatures but taking a few racial levels allowed one to “grow” to large size…

14. Michael, April 21, 2009:

    The big hurdle I see is making the giant no more effective at it’s favored class than any other race. The two objections I can see is the reach, which changes much of the base workings of the grid; and bonus strength. I can see giving Giants bonus con instead of str to steady the leaning to [W] classes. The second is reducing the reach to 1 (possibly due to smaller size by comparison the rest of giant kind, like the dwarf to human size ratio, but no mechancal differences. I can see giving giants reach 2 as a feat/paragon feat/paragon path.

    I don’t have it in front of me; But the I remember warforged juggernaught paragon path had some interesting med size to large size effects.

15. Francis B, April 21, 2009:

    First, to clear some rules up, Greenglame blade the at-will swordmage ability is an attack against one target, that then deals Str damage to all enemies adjacent to the target. That doesn’t cause a big problem with large size.

    Some mention of the Warden was made. Herein lies the challenge. While the warden’s free mark wouldn’t be substantially increased by being large (it still takes an immediate action to utilize the attack or slide) it does stack with the creature’s large size to make it very hard to get to allies. A large defender of any class can cause some extra stickiness, but a large sized warden will effectively be able to add a -2 to more enemies than their medium counterparts. This means less those enemies have a harder chance to hit allies.

    The same sort of issue arises with powers like the fighter’s Rain of Blows, which is a stance that deals 1 [W] damage to an adjacent enemy at the start of their turn.

    To be frank, I am willing to believe that those occurrences could be balanced by the fact that it is just easier to flank a large opponent. Given the proclivity of lurkers and skirmishers who deal extra damage while the enemy grants combat advantage a DM could really put the hurt on a large sized creature.

    On to point 2, close bursts. This is a problem, a large sized cleric’s turn undead is just naturally stronger than a medium sized cleric purely by the fact that the large sized cleric has a larger attack area. You could indeed try to patch this up by stating that you must choose an origin square, but then you are doing the opposite by decreasing the size of the large cleric’s attack area. It seems that neither solution is what we are truly after here.

    I’ve been sitting here running it over for awhile now and although I’d like to say that I have an answer I’m afraid I am currently baffled at what sort of remedy we could apply to keep the game balance without instituting house rules or resorting to such 3.5isms as racial penalties. I will continue to mull the issue over however and if I find further insight I will be sure to pass it on.

    Now, as for reach. I’m going to have to agree with Michael here. After pouring through the Monster Manual *went from A to E, not an exhaustive search I know, but enough to find some similarities*:

    1)There are several large monster that do not have reach, however the majority of these monsters utilize natural weaponry such as Bites and Gores that would almost seem to have to be in melee to have been accomplished.
    2) However some large creatures with Bites and Gores do have reach, which would seem to go against the majority. It seems in these cases however that the creature has a form which they could coil up such as the young black dragon, who could conceivably stretch the five foot distance with his outstretched body and neck.
    3) Finally, and here is the good news, there exist the occasional monsters with no reach and no real reason why they wouldn’t have it. Two examples with artwork (and therefore a canon representation of their spatial forms) are the Rage Drake and the Drider. While either one could use its size to gain reach, neither do. This bodes well to disprove the concept that all large creatures have at least Reach 2.

    Therefore I recommend having a large creature who can take a feat to gain Reach 2. It doesn’t unbalance the game very much, and it still gives allusions to flavor.

    Larger weapons: On the two-handed style of things this actually doesn’t present too much of a challenge, a large greataxe for instance only increases the average damage by .5 (1d12 to 2d6). But if you were to look at the one handed weapons you’ll see about an increase of about 1 over every medium counterpart. This creates a proclivity for fighters to go sword and shield (or two-handed) over the two-weapon style. This is just one example of how the damage increases, and the fact that 4th Edition uses separate tables for one-handed and two-handed progression might affect your player’s choices if they play a “giant” race. Frankly, this could just be considered a racial trait that gives a +1 to damage with powers that have the weapon keyword. It is a powerful ability to be sure, but not necessarily unbalancing, just something to be considered if you are playing the race or dming for a player who has chosen the race.

    Squeezing: This is another issue that can easily be solved by the purchase of a feat, consider the 3.5 Tunnel Fighting feat from Dungeonscape which negated the penalties associated with squeezing. A similar style of feat could reduce the penalties, or considering 4e lack of 5′ passages completely negate them without causing too much of an unbalance in the system.

    Or alternatively, you could leave that downside intact and factor it in with some of your other negatives as the counter-weight to the close burst issue.

    Those are just some thoughts I had while reading your post and the comments. I’ll drop by at a later date if I have any more idea, and I’d love to see a blog post regarding your ultimate decision on the matter.

16. rob, April 22, 2009:

    @paul – That is very much how I’m thinking Paragon races could/should be implemented. Fold racial and paragon class abilities together and you’re good to go.

    -Rob D.

    PS – Clearly my hatred of Greenflame Blade darkened my view to find an excuse to make it problematic. Definitely should have checked the book first. That said, I think Francis B is on the right track with the idea of making some of the implicit-but-not mandatory elements of size into feat-unlockable elements.

17. fred, April 22, 2009:

    Yeah, there’s some real genius in the idea that a number of those benefits I’ve listed could be unlocked by feats. In many ways I like that more than I like the idea of a paragon-class race.

18. Francis B, April 25, 2009:

    It may be the 3.5 in me, but I absolutely love racial feats. They are one of my favorite parts of creating a race, or choosing a race for my character. They allow you to really play into the culture of the race you’ve decided to play. But, I don’t need to tell you guys about how to bring culture into your 4E D&D games. I loved that product by the way.

    And for the record, it was Michael’s idea about the reach feat thing, I just expounded on it.

    I really want to see where you take this Fred, please post about it when you are done.

19. Michael, April 29, 2009:

    @Francis B
    Some really good food for though.
    @fred I am also interested to see what comes.

20. Max, April 30, 2009:

    Don’t forget that weapon damage bonus is better than other forms of bonus because it is multiplied by powers. Every bonus in 4E is added flat onto all attacks, but increasing the damage die is multiplied by attacks that do 4[W] and such.

    As to close bursts, I’d just say a large creature doesn’t get a full burst. After all, why should a Giant Cleric’s spells be more effective than a Human’s? I’d start with the fact that a normal close burst 1 covers 8 squares and say a large creature must choose one of their facings that is not covered by the burst (12 total – 4 off one facing = 8 total). It’s pretty easy to explain this as representing the same side burst issuing from off to one side of the larger creatures space. For more martial maneuvers, it is reasonable to imagine a large creatures bulk makes spinning around more difficult and they do more “sweeping” attacks. Etc.

21. Max, April 30, 2009:

    Oops! I meant “same siZe burst.”

22. Francis B, May 1, 2009:

    @ Max. it’s funny you brought the facing up, I mentioned the close burst thing to my girlfriend and she said the same thing.

    And thank you for reminding me of the 4[W] and such. While a +1 doesn’t destabilize things on basic attacks, a daily attack with an initial +3 to damage (from a larger weapon) is a bit more impressive.

23. Gaston, May 1, 2009:

    You could make them size ‘Medium and a Half’ – They take up 4 squares, and count as large for squeezing, but get the disadvantages of being small (have to dual hand versatile weapons), only applied to large size weapons. I think the [W] effect of large size is pretty equivalent to giving every member of the race a free ‘Superior Weapon Proficiency’ feat. Except, of course, that it stacks with SWP.

    Maybe make it clear that there are no Large sized Superior weapons?

24. Eric Finley, May 4, 2009:

    In terms of bursts, I would personally make it even simpler. Disallow the diagonal corners. Presto, eight squares covered, exactly like a medium creature’s.

    You can even do this without breaking the general rule. The origin point for any close effects from a large-sized PC is unusual: it’s the intersections at the center of each of their four sides. In fact you could get even more general: for LOS/LOE, cover, flanking, etc., anything where you use a specific point within their space as part of the calculation, the outer four corners of the Large creature’s space aren’t accessible to the PC (but are legitimate for enemies to target).

    In some ways this is essentially treating them as diamond-shaped rather than square. Might even be able to extrapolate the diamond-shaped thing to a general rule… I’d have to think about that one some more. It does have the tidy geometric property that their effective area is only twice, not four times, that of a normal one-square critter.

25. MustrumRidcully, May 5, 2009:

    I think you might undervalue you the damage bonus. It has a good chance to be more than 1 point of damage, and unlike most damage bonuses, it is multiplied with the[W]s a power grants you.
    (For example: A Falchion deals 2d6 instead of 2d4 damage with a large creature. That’s +2 damage for your average non-epic weapon attack. If you pick a 2[W] encounter power, that’s +4 extra damage.)

    Another issue is that this bonus really only helps weapon-wielding Giants, which makes them a good choice for those classes, but a terrible for other classes – and more so than playing a race that just has a suboptimal stat bonuses for your class.

26. Max, May 5, 2009:

    “In terms of bursts, I would personally make it even simpler. Disallow the diagonal corners. Presto, eight squares covered, exactly like a medium creature’s.”

    I think this would be a mistake. It would make it too easy to exploit. The DM could have 4 medium-sized opponents flank you without you being able to use any close bursts on them. It’s also a weird mechanical effect where they have bizarre “blind spots.”

    The suggestion I made seems to imply a more natural tactic (to me, anyway): flanking is a little more effective against a much larger foe because they’re too slow to attack at both sides quickly. That just feels like the mechanics reflecting the game world a little better from my perspective.

27. Francis B, July 14, 2009:

    Fred, I’m curious how this race of yours is coming along, any change for an update?

28. Fred Hicks, July 14, 2009:

    Based on the feedback I got, I’ve become convinced this isn’t a race so much as a “paragon race” or similar; but I haven’t had time to work on it. I plead newborn daughter!

29. Austin Watkins, August 16, 2009:

    “Endurance” is the wrong +2 bonus skill for a Giant.
    Look at the Marathon race: most of the winners are comparatively short and wiry, because great size hurts at great distance. Maybe substitute Nature (because Giants spend all of their time outside buildings)?