[3.5] Centaurs

[CockroachTeaParty]

The owlbear thread made mention of centaur anatomy, and provided some interesting illustrations. This in turn rekindled my interest in centaurs.

I've always wanted to make centaurs a more important part of a campaign setting, sort of like the old RPGs I had for my Sega Genesis back in the day: Shining Force and Shining Force 2.

In these games, centaurs were a common race, and various centaur characters joined your team to fight as armored knights with lance and spear. It was a more civilized, urban take on centaurs than the more wild, nature-oriented ones depicted in generic 3.5 D&D.

So I'd like to open up a discussion on centaurs, for anyone who might be interested. Some questions I'd like to see some thoughts on:

1.) According to the SRD, centaurs deal double damage on a charge with a lance. If one were to design a centaur knight or melee-focused character, I imagine other feats like Spirited Charge would be useful and thematically appropriate, but the rules of mounted combat don't really work when applied to centaurs; they can't use the Ride skill on themselves.

What would be a fair way to incorporate some of these feats for centaur characters? In Races of the Wild, there's a feat called Centaur Trample, which is similar to the normal Trample feat. Perhaps Spirited Charge could be altered into a new racial feat for centaurs? What might the prerequisites look like?

Mounted characters can use a lance with one hand and a shield in the other, even though a lance is normally a 2 handed weapon. Would/should a centaur be able to do the same?

Would a centaur paladin get a mount? Or would you just have to replace it with an alternate class feature?

2.) If I were to try and incorporate centaurs into civilized society, ala the Shining Force games, what changes would the world have to see? I imagine an increase in ramps, and also heightening the ceilings and widening the entryways to the ground floors of various buildings. I don't see centaur cities or villages ever seeing much vertical growth, but sprawling over wide areas.
What sort of accommodations would inns or other services need to make for traveling centaurs? Simply stabling them for a night would be insulting, yet centaurs probably wouldn't mind if the floor was dirt; I picture inns with deluxe centaur stables or wings designed for the comfort of such guests.

Also, I'm having trouble remembering whether there were ever even any horses in the Shining Force games... How would centaurs view domesticated horses? Would they look on the humanoid races with a certain degree of pity, since they require beasts of burden to match them for speed? Or would they find the tradition of animal husbandry vaguely insulting? Perhaps a combination of the two?

3.) Perhaps a more important question, what difficulties would centaur adventurers face? Clearly, until access to certain spells or items comes into play, things like ladders, cliffs, and tight spaces are nigh insurmountable obstacles. What might be some creative solutions to these physical limits? Ropes and pullies? What low level spells might help?

4.) Lastly (and this might be better placed in the homebrew forums), the current 3.5 centaur rules are pretty harsh, as far as racial HD and LA are concerned. With 4 racial HD, and a +2 LA, a centaur begins the game as ECL 6 before even gaining a class level. Races of the Wild has a centaur monster class progression, but with a lack of proficiency in armor or knightly weapons, I'd have difficulty incorporating the iconic Shining Force centaur knights in low level games.
Also, the centaurs in Shining Force did not seem particularly larger than humans; what would reducing centaurs to medium size do to their LA? If we delve too far down that road, it's likely we'd come up with a new 'Shining Force/Civilized Centaur' monster or base race. I'd be interested to hear anyone's ideas on the subject, though; I don't imagine a race with say, 40 ft. land speed and the ability to do double damage with a lance on a charge would be terribly unbalanced with reasonable ability score adjustments, to exist comfortably alongside other LA +0 races.

For those of you who have never heard of Shining Force before, here's pictures of some of the centaur characters:

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[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Feats
Due to its centaur-like construction, a zelekhut qualifies for feats as if it had the Mounted Combat feat.
It would be reasonable to allow a Centaur to qualify for feats as though he already possessed Mounted Combat.

Use the Tauric creature template from MM2/SS, combine a Human with a Lammasu, end up with the following:

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Size/Type: Large Monstrous Humanoid
Hit Dice: 8 Monsrous Humanoid HD for 8d8+Con
Speed: 30 ft., fly 60 ft. (average)
Armor Class: -1 size, +10 natural
Base Attack/Grapple: +8/...
Full Attack: Weapon primary and 2 claws secondary (1d6 base)
Space/Reach: 10 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: Pounce, Rake (1d6 base), Spells as 7th level Cleric
Special Qualities: Darkvision 60 ft., magic circle against evil and spell-like abilities as Lammasu
Saves: (base from HD) Fort +6, Ref +6, Will +2
Abilities: (adjustments to base stats) Str +12, Dex +2, Con +6, Int +0, Wis +0, Cha +0
Skills: Class skills for racial HD are Concentration, Diplomacy, Kn: Arcana, Listen, Sense Motive, and Spot.
Feats: at 1st, 3rd, 6th, 9th, etc.
Level Adjustment: +3

The biggest selling points of the Tauric Lammasu are its Cleric spellcasting ability and flight. The Magic Circle and spell-like abilities are superb, if you take a Cleric level you'll get two more domains, and it's a prime candidate for Prestige Paladin though probably for only three levels and then a full casting prestige class. The ability to fly gives it the option of making a Dive Attack, which deals double damage with a piercing weapon, and if you use a Valorous Lance and get Spirited Charge and cast Rhino's Rush.... It has a considerably higher starting ECL than a Centaur, but it also has significantly higher potential.

[PlzBreakMyCmpAn]

Centaurs make the best chargers. For proof see my world re

[TroubleBrewing]

Re-fluff a Bariaur? They're LA +1 Centaur-like things, but instead of horse parts they've got ram parts.

I think you could reasonably re-fluff that as a young, inexperienced Centaur.

[Coidzor]

The whole climbing thing does definitely seem like it would be a significant disadvantage prior to flight/airwalk. Other than having the rest of the party pull the centaur up/lower them with a harness, there'd be large sections where even a medium-sized centauroid would just not be able to get around very readily.

Though I guess part of me can see certain surfaces that they can basically walk up when steadied by a rather heavily secured rope... Might just have to invest very heavily in pitons to make such a task easier?

[CockroachTeaParty]

There are a few clutch options available, but not all of them make sense for every type of character... Animal Devotion, for instance, can provide flight, as can some soul melds with the Shape Soulmeld feat. Up The Walls can help psionically-gifted centaurs.

Still, a ranger, archer, or classic knight in armor wouldn't necessarily have these things...

[Greenish]

Ape totem barbarian gets Climb speed (1/2 of land speed at 1st level, full at 5th).

[Groverfield]

An Ubercharger centaur carrying a Human ride-focused Ubercharger who keeps a gnome illusionist (or other wizard) with permanency(reduce person) in his backpack for protection and mobility.

Now I just need to find a way to make the centaur ride a full progression druid, and the army of one will be complete.

[Coidzor]

An Ubercharger centaur carrying a Human ride-focused Ubercharger who keeps a gnome illusionist (or other wizard) with permanency(reduce person) in his backpack for protection and mobility.

Now I just need to find a way to make the centaur ride a full progression druid, and the army of one will be complete.

Exotic Saddle & a huge-sized animal for the druid to turn into. Or just get a howdah & have the druid be an elephant.

[Zaq]

Who says centaurs can't climb? Common sense? Pshaw. From the PHB, pg. 69: "You need both hands free to climb, but you may cling to a wall with one hand while you cast a spell or take some other action that requires only one hand." Centaurs have hands. Therefore, they can climb.

Now, in 4e, horses make excellent climbers, but that's beside the point. The point is that by RAW, nothing prevents centaurs from climbing.

[Ravens_cry]

Well, there is those climbing goats, but centaurs have solid horse hooves in most stories. I really don't see how a centaur of anything but supernatural strength could lift their entire horse body just with their arms.
I see a Wemic being able to climb, with potential penalties, but not a full sized centaur.

[Serpentine]

1.) According to the SRD, centaurs deal double damage on a charge with a lance. If one were to design a centaur knight or melee-focused character, I imagine other feats like Spirited Charge would be useful and thematically appropriate, but the rules of mounted combat don't really work when applied to centaurs; they can't use the Ride skill on themselves.

What would be a fair way to incorporate some of these feats for centaur characters? In Races of the Wild, there's a feat called Centaur Trample, which is similar to the normal Trample feat. Perhaps Spirited Charge could be altered into a new racial feat for centaurs? What might the prerequisites look like?

I'd pretty much say they automatically qualify for most Ride-related feats.

Mounted characters can use a lance with one hand and a shield in the other, even though a lance is normally a 2 handed weapon. Would/should a centaur be able to do the same?

Of course.

Would a centaur paladin get a mount? Or would you just have to replace it with an alternate class feature?

Now that's an interesting question... I'd give them the option to replace it, or it could be more of a companion thing.

2.) If I were to try and incorporate centaurs into civilized society, ala the Shining Force games, what changes would the world have to see? I imagine an increase in ramps, and also heightening the ceilings and widening the entryways to the ground floors of various buildings. I don't see centaur cities or villages ever seeing much vertical growth, but sprawling over wide areas.
What sort of accommodations would inns or other services need to make for traveling centaurs? Simply stabling them for a night would be insulting, yet centaurs probably wouldn't mind if the floor was dirt; I picture inns with deluxe centaur stables or wings designed for the comfort of such guests.

The only think I can think of to compare this to is the andalites in Animorphs. And... I can't really remember much about their homeworld...
I could see their rooms having something like a big nest, a large flat mattress straight on the floor that they can lie on. I'd say they'd have larger tables with plenty of standing room rather than seats, and stuff like that. I also think centaur cities would be sprawling, with lots of running space.

How would centaurs view domesticated horses? Would they look on the humanoid races with a certain degree of pity, since they require beasts of burden to match them for speed? Or would they find the tradition of animal husbandry vaguely insulting? Perhaps a combination of the two?

In Tamora Pierce's Tortall books, the centaurs there view horses as "slaves", meaning basically the same thing as the human slaves which, iirc, they also kept if they could get away with it.
In my game (more info on that later), horses are very new to their lands and the centaurs don't really know anything about them. But they really want them, as very useful beasts that they can sorta really relate to (that'll be a side-quest for my party). I think, when they finally acquire them, they will treat them as extremely valuable and useful creatures, more beloved pets than just livestock. Imagine, though, what a horse would look like to a centaur that had never seen one before. It'd seem absolutely freakish...

3.) Perhaps a more important question, what difficulties would centaur adventurers face? Clearly, until access to certain spells or items comes into play, things like ladders, cliffs, and tight spaces are nigh insurmountable obstacles. What might be some creative solutions to these physical limits? Ropes and pullies? What low level spells might help?

I think maybe things that assist Jump would be the most common and generally useful items, at least 'til Flight and the like becomes an option. And really, how often do people climb cliffs rather than, say, finding a pass? It'd be tricky, but I can see them jumping along goat-style.

4.) Lastly (and this might be better placed in the homebrew forums), the current 3.5 centaur rules are pretty harsh, as far as racial HD and LA are concerned. With 4 racial HD, and a +2 LA, a centaur begins the game as ECL 6 before even gaining a class level. Races of the Wild has a centaur monster class progression, but with a lack of proficiency in armor or knightly weapons, I'd have difficulty incorporating the iconic Shining Force centaur knights in low level games.
Also, the centaurs in Shining Force did not seem particularly larger than humans; what would reducing centaurs to medium size do to their LA? If we delve too far down that road, it's likely we'd come up with a new 'Shining Force/Civilized Centaur' monster or base race. I'd be interested to hear anyone's ideas on the subject, though; I don't imagine a race with say, 40 ft. land speed and the ability to do double damage with a lance on a charge would be terribly unbalanced with reasonable ability score adjustments, to exist comfortably alongside other LA +0 races.

The sizing of the centaur is an odd one to me... Are their human-parts the same size as humans, or are they larger? I'd say they're the same size as humans, or maybe even a bit smaller, the horse-parts being what puts them into the Large category. I'm not sure how this compares with the Shining Force centaurs.
For general LA stuff, I'm introducing a houserule where characters with +LA can take a level of an NPC class for every point of level adjustment. That could possibly help. Start your centaur knights with 2 levels in Warrior (+4 HD = ECL 6), and I think you should have the proficiencies you're after.


So, in my game, some of the centaurs are pretty typical almost-fey forest-dwellers. But the real centaurs, the ones living where they're originally from, are tribal plains-dwellers. They're basically American Indians, in... pretty much every way. It makes sense to me - what's something with a body like a horse doing in forests?

[Adamantrue]

1.) According to the SRD, centaurs deal double damage on a charge with a lance. If one were to design a centaur knight or melee-focused character, I imagine other feats like Spirited Charge would be useful and thematically appropriate, but the rules of mounted combat don't really work when applied to centaurs; they can't use the Ride skill on themselves.

What would be a fair way to incorporate some of these feats for centaur characters? In Races of the Wild, there's a feat called Centaur Trample, which is similar to the normal Trample feat. Perhaps Spirited Charge could be altered into a new racial feat for centaurs? What might the prerequisites look like?

Mounted characters can use a lance with one hand and a shield in the other, even though a lance is normally a 2 handed weapon. Would/should a centaur be able to do the same?

-

4.) Lastly (and this might be better placed in the homebrew forums), the current 3.5 centaur rules are pretty harsh, as far as racial HD and LA are concerned. With 4 racial HD, and a +2 LA, a centaur begins the game as ECL 6 before even gaining a class level. Races of the Wild has a centaur monster class progression, but with a lack of proficiency in armor or knightly weapons, I'd have difficulty incorporating the iconic Shining Force centaur knights in low level games.

I did some very minor Homebrew variants of the Knight that had some options for Centaurs. I don't know if its the kind of thing you are looking for, but I suppose I should bring it up.

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Centaur Knight
The most successful mounted knights are defined by their horsemanship, but even the most adept riders are only trying to emulate the power and grace of centaur cavalry.
Prerequisite: Centaur
Lose: 2nd Level Bonus Feat
Gain: Starting at 2nd level, a centaur knight adds her hit dice to her knight level for the purposes of all knight's challenge related bonuses and Save DCs.
In addition, a centaur knight may always use a lance one-handed.
Replace former knight bonus feat list with the following: Bounding Assault, Centaur Charge, Centaur Trample, Combat Reflexes, Expeditious Dodge, Hold the Line, Mobility, Rapid Blitz, Sidestep Charge, and Spring Attack.

Centaur Charge [General]
You're combination of power and mobility makes your charge attacks devastating.
Prerequisites: Centaur, Dodge, Mobility.
Benefit: When using the charge action, you deal double damage with a melee weapon (or triple damage with a lance).
When using Spring Attack, Bounding Assault, or Rapid Blitz, you may also make any or all of the attacks count as a charge. If you do, you can only make a single attack roll against any one opponent, and you must move a minimum of 10 ft in a straight line before you strike.
Special: A centaur fighter may select Centaur Charge as a bonus feat.

[Uhtred]

"Centaurs climbing," and "Centaurs tumbling," have become synonymous in my group for "Don't think too hard about it; you'll hurt yourself." My Centur character is a multiclass fighter/warblade and therefore has relatively high scores in both, but neither I nor any member of my group can adequately explain how he uses them (or the Walk the Walls skill trick, which he also has.) RAW, he certainly can, but we just don't want to think about HOW. it's easier that way.

I find that Centaurs are easiest to play as PC's in a higher-level campaign, where their high HD/LA combo wouldn't put them at as great a disadvantage as in a campaign that starts from 1, or 6 for that matter. Plus, doesn't Savage Species or one of the other similar books allow a PC with LA to sell those LA levels for (significant) xp? As a DM, if my player wanted to START with those LA's sold for class levels, I'd let him, albeit still starting two levels behind everyone else, he'd still have the chance to get to lvl 16 eventually, which is more attractive than an endgame of 14.

My DM let me start with Centaur Trample, and as though I already had the Mounted Combat feat, too, though we were playing with a Minotaur PC and my DM wanted to give me something to make up for the fact that he couldn't get lost, had Scent and reach and powerful charge and I had a +2 bonus to Wisdom.

He also compensated for me by raising all his ceilings. Centaurs, he said, could negotiate stairs, but if I wanted to go quickly on medium-sized stairs then I had to make a balance check. Thankfully, I rolled well on my balance check for the greased vorpal stairs. My room at the inn was described as an Andalite scoop, actually, roomy, with a sort of depression in a corner for me to hunker down in, big window, big wardrobe, high ceiling, and with a basin of water and flagon of ale within arm's reach.

Equipment is the biggest barrier to the centaur character. He's large AND unusually shaped, so there's no getting around the fact that a suit of adamantine full plate is going to be ABSURDLY expensive. My DM also houseruled that I would have to use saddlebags, and saddlebags of holding are also pretty expensive. All his weapons, including that trusty Valorous Lance (Or the slightly cheesier and more expensive Lance of the Unending Charge, from the A&EG) will cost twice as much, as they're large. All of that makes WBL disappear pretty quickly, and really, there's no way to get around it. :/

[Serpentine]

My room at the inn was described as an Andalite scoop, actually, roomy, with a sort of depression in a corner for me to hunker down in, big window, big wardrobe, high ceiling, and with a basin of water and flagon of ale within arm's reach.

I'm not the only one to think of it

All his weapons, including that trusty Valorous Lance (Or the slightly cheesier and more expensive Lance of the Unending Charge, from the A&EG) will cost twice as much, as they're large. All of that makes WBL disappear pretty quickly, and really, there's no way to get around it. :/

Ah, now that feeds into what I was saying about size. Personally, I'd probably houserule that for the purpose of things only involving the human part, such as weapons, centaurs count as Medium, whereas for things involving the full body it counts as Large.

[Cog]

Equipment is the biggest barrier to the centaur character.

This mostly saves you on the magic weapons, but the size-cost modifiers only apply to the base price, not the enhancements. The difference should tend to disappear proportionately by the higher levels.

Technically, Adamantine only adds a flat amount to the price based on armor category and not on actual size, but I wouldn't be too surprised to see a houserule on that.

[BlueInc]

I would suggest homebrewing a medium centaur race, as far as stats are concerned...maybe something similar to a goliath? That will take care of your "big doorways" problem, too.

(Marginally) Funny Story

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I did a silly ECL 20 one-shot in which one player played a centaur charger and another player a minotaur with animated tower shields and feats that gave him a bonus on saves for his shield modifier and transferred some of the benefits to his "mount."

[Cog]

I would suggest homebrewing a medium centaur race, as far as stats are concerned...maybe something similar to a goliath? That will take care of your "big doorways" problem, too.

The bariaur presented in Planar Handbook is a medium LA +1 / no RHD outsidery centaur.

[CockroachTeaParty]

Yeah, by the RAW, centaurs are large, and use large sized weapons, which is a small boost in their damage output. However, I typically imagine them (and most other fiction depicts them) as having pretty normal human parts; it's the horse half that makes them large. They don't even have 10 ft. reach, which makes it more confusing if you think about it:

A large centaur with 5 ft. reach using a Large lance has a reach of 10 ft.

An ogre with 10 ft. reach using the same Large lance has a reach of 15-20 ft.

Buh?

Also, while armor gets much more expensive, the base cost of large weapons isn't really that big a deal, since the cost of magical enhancements are not doubled. A large +1 greatsword is 2400 gp, as opposed to a medium +1 greatsword being 2350 gp.

As for the size of the Shining Force centaurs, it's hard to say if they were large or medium... the Sega Genesis graphics were cartoony, and didn't command the best mastery of perspective.

[Greenish]

Plus, doesn't Savage Species or one of the other similar books allow a PC with LA to sell those LA levels for (significant) xp?

Unearthed Arcana has the LA buyout.

[Uhtred]

This mostly saves you on the magic weapons, but the size-cost modifiers only apply to the base price, not the enhancements. The difference should tend to disappear proportionately by the higher levels.

Technically, Adamantine only adds a flat amount to the price based on armor category and not on actual size, but I wouldn't be too surprised to see a houserule on that.

My DM said that specific magic weapons, like the Lance of the Unending Charge, would cost twice as much since they had to be large, and therefore the magic and damage scaled with the price. That's one expensive lance! He also did rule that the amounts to make armor from adamantine or mithril would also hit the "Large Unusually-shaped" roadblock, since the smith would have to use two, three, four times as much metal and would have to essentially graft a human suit and a suit of barding. The end result is an absurdly expensive suit of armor that you can't really argue against.

And yes, the magic item enhancements and enchantments not scaling with size certainly does show itself at higher levels; I've been using the same fullblade since lvl 5 and after the initial "pay twice what a fullblade costs and then twice what it would cost to make it from adamantine" cost, enchanting and enhancing it has been relatively cheap and simple. So avoid specific magic items, because your DM can rule (without you really being able to argue effectively) that those things should cost twice as much.

[Cog]

So avoid specific magic items, because your DM can rule (without you really being able to argue effectively) that those things should cost twice as much.

Just buy Fine sized items with the Sizing property. Smaller items should take less magic, so they should be cheaper, right? Then, when your DM rightly points out that this is a silly way to get a discount, ask why the reverse isn't silly.

As for rulings, there's a very big difference between "can" and "should", but that discussion's not going to be of any help here.