Help Creating Huge Race

[Raven2008]

Im sure its happened to others before. You watch a really cool anime, find an anime character you love, and think "I wanna be them".

Im gonna leave my anime nameless. Suffice it to say, one of the characters is a 30ft giant traveling around with regular sized folks. Theres something about a giant living in a world not suited for them that would make for interesting roleplay.

My problem is that I have no idea how to create such a race in 3.5 and it will probably end up being level adjusted because 30ft falls under the "huge" category.

Would some nice nerdy/geeky forum citizens plz help a newcomer?

[Baron Faey]

Two answers here, one using official material, for what I would do for homebrew. I haven't put a lot of thought into the homebrew, so I'm mostly going by my gut for bonuses and LA. Hopefully these will give you some ideas though.

With a quick check, the only official playable huge race I could find was the Mountain troll in MMIII. In addition to being huge, it has a knockdown ability, a bonus on hide checks, a 15-ft. reach, stability (like dwarves), fast healing, scent, a large bonus to Str, Con, and Nat. Arm, and a penalty to Int and Cha. It has 15 rHD, and a +5 LA, so unless you come up with a monster class for it, it won't be playable until level 20+.

Were I to allow one in a game I was DMing, I would probably do something like this:

The McLargeHuge Race
Type: Giant
Size: Huge
Speed: 50 ft.
Reach: 15 ft.
Space: 15x15 ft.
Abilities: +6 Str, -4 Dex, +6 Con
Natural Armor: +4
Special: Rock Hurling as bonus feat usable once the character's strength exceeds 19.
Special: +2 on one or two abilities based on the race's culture.
LA: +4 to +3 (+4 for ECL 12-, +3 for ECL 12+)


(Calculations are made assuming LA of +4)
Ability Bonuses: The ability bonuses are good for a melee fighter type. After factoring in the benefits from size: +1 on melee attacks, +5 to +8 on damage, +0 AC, +3 HP/level. After factoring in LA, assuming a full BAB class, there is a loss of -3 on attacks for +5 to +8 damage, which is comparable to power attack, but will always be in effect. Ranged attacks have a net -8. The HP/LV bonus is nice, but the character will have given up 4 levels of HP in order to get it. Over time this loss will become smaller or go away on some builds, but for lower level McLargeHuges, they will be easier to kill than other races.
Maneuver Bonus: The bonus to grapple et al is nice (net +7 after potential loss from LA). At lower levels this could make MLHs very dangerous, but at higher levels many monsters will be much larger and thus very difficult to grapple even with these bonuses, or simply immune to grappling.
Speed: The improved speed will be useful in some cases, but medium/small characters can still outrun them with horses.
Reach: The improved reach will grant the character AoOs against smaller creatures. A chain tripper could make great use of this. The rules I've used for big creatures with reach weapons, is that a reach weapon doubles a creature's natural reach. If that rule is used, the a McLargeHuge with a reach weapon will threaten a 30-ft. radius. This could allow up to 5 AoOs against approaching enemies. The penalty to Dex reduces the number of AoOs it can make, reducing this advantage somewhat.

I probably wouldn't allow this race in a game until the party was level 8 or so, since before then it will be weirdly easy to kill but also a grapple monster. This could be done by adding in racial HD, but I would prefer just waiting until the party was the right level.
The +3 to +4 LA is mainly for the reach and grapple bonuses. Since these will likely be less of an issue at higher levels, I would probably put the LA at +4 for ECL 11 and lower, but only +3 for ECL 12+.

[Debihuman]

Im sure its happened to others before. You watch a really cool anime, find an anime character you love, and think "I wanna be them".

Im gonna leave my anime nameless. Suffice it to say, one of the characters is a 30ft giant traveling around with regular sized folks. Theres something about a giant living in a world not suited for them that would make for interesting roleplay.

My problem is that I have no idea how to create such a race in 3.5 and it will probably end up being level adjusted because 30ft falls under the "huge" category.

Would some nice nerdy/geeky forum citizens plz help a newcomer?

The reason that Huge giants aren't suitable as PCs is that they don't fit in most buildings or in corridors. If this were an NPC, you would be fine saying it can't go with the rest of the party as they explore a castle or crypt, but for a PC it's not fun at all. It's okay as long as all adventuring takes place outdoors or in areas that designed for Huge characters (putting the rest of the PCs at a disadvantage which might not sit well with all of them). If this is DM NPC, I could see lots of room for stealing the PCs thunder (not a good idea).

Debby

[Lappy9001]

Does the race have to be huge size? I mean, is the race's only defining characteristic being really big, or does it have other traits that can be modeled? It might help if you name the character and anime. Maybe a Large version or possibly Medium with Powerful Build could be suitable if other aspects of the character can be represented. That way, you could still have a McLargeHuge character without all the trouble that comes with the tremendous size.

[Raven2008]

Ok ok I give. The anime is Seven Deadly Sins. I was just thinking about how different it would be to roleplay a giant like Diane who is so much larger and stronger than most things. Yes of course I realize that it would create problems and that is kinda the point. Just looking for something different y'know?

[Lappy9001]

Hmm...I'd suggest starting a thread on the D&D 3.5 sub-forum (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?59-D-amp-D-3e-3-5e-d20) to see what you can get. Now, talk to your DM about this first but you could probably use a goliath or half-giant (or other race that gets powerful build) and drop the half-ogre template or half-minotaur template onto her to get a Large character that functions as one size category larger whenever it's advantageous.

Of those choices, half-ogre goliath is easier to swallow so doing that would get you:

+8 Str, -2 Dex, +2 Con, -2 Int, -2 Cha
40 ft. Speed
+2 Natural Armor
+Some other piddly bits
+2 LA

I know that's not quite what you're looking for but it gives you the feeling of being really big (Large is still up to 16 ft) without a ton of Level Adjustment and still leave you small enough to navigate a dungeon.

Now, you would probably have to butter up a DM to letting you do the template stacking, but in the right game it could be really fun! And of course, if said DM is cool you can refluff the minor racial stuff/appearance to whatever you want.

[Raven2008]

Thanks for the suggestions. Now...I just need to find a game.