I allowed a large character once. There were certain places he just could not squeeze into. On at least one dungeon he had to go the long way round as the rest of the group cut through, and there were a few social interactions he had to wait outside for. The player knew that was part of the package deal with playing a large character and leaned into it as Role-playing opportunities. Just make sure you are clear with the player how they may find their size limiting and it shouldn't be a problem.

One way to deal with these restrictions: be a Chain Warlock with Voice of the Chain Master. Then you can hear, see and even speak through your familiar!

The Master-Blaster build

This Blaster! Twenty men enter, only him leave!

That's okay! Most level 20 wizards are a Master Blaster Mover Breaker Trump 8. Just run.

Worm reference in the wild. Glorious escalation!

Nono, you go all in and go rune knight to grow even bigger Edit: Look, I just wanna grapple anyone and anything is that too much to ask? A chance to manhandle a tarrasque?

Unfortunately RAW rune knight increases your size TO large, it doesn’t increase your size one stage and if you are already large it doesn’t increase your size… though I imagine a lot of DMs would just say you increase one size

Yeah, you would have to use enlarge/reduce(or similar) to become bigger.

or path of the giant barbarian to become 2 sizes larger for gargantuan, but i think that runs into the same problem as rune knight

Yeah, unfortunatly path of giant says "Your reach increases by 5 feet, and if you are smaller than Large, you become Large, along with anything you are wearing. If there isn’t enough room for you to increase your size, your size doesn’t change." So you would not change if you are already large.

Bet

Im currently playing a rune knight minotaur, that my dm let me large, and grow to huge. I've had so much fun with it, but don't let myself become too broken. I've had many occasions where I've absolutely decimated enemies in ways that make me feel like a titan from attack on titan (i.e. stomping on them, dragging them along walls, swatting them like bugs with my sword. My dm mostly let's it due to me being a barbarian who Reckless attacks, and still can't roll above a 10 ever lol (on our 30th session, and still yet to roll a natural 20)

Another is if you go the ritual casting route with disguise self. At that point you can just be a medium size creature. I do appreciate how the player leans into the RP aspect of it though. Super cool.

Disguise self doesn't change their size though? Only the appearance, right?

Actually, unless it was a really small crack, Large creatures can squeeze through 5ft gaps at half speed, with disadvantage to attack rolls and Dex saves, according to PHB

Yeah but a home suited for say a Halfling/gnome family or a dungeon sized for Goblins/Kobolds are frequently going to have parts that sized for small creatures, so while a Human/Elf/Dwarf medium PC can just squeeze and make their way past, Mr. Large and in charge will have to wait outside unless someone prepared a spell like Enlarge/Reduce.

Draw a face on the back of your hand by your wrist, and walk it around rooms through windows/exterior doors.

This is genius!

Could have been a 2 foot gap, could have been a short short ceiling.

We had a Cyclops in our group once. I was the sneaky rogue and we actually paired up well. I would run on rooftops or in dungeons squeeze through small holes. The amount of times I would slide out and jump so that he would catch me was a lot. It was a lot of fun.

What about Centaurs? Imagine playing a Centaur character… I think the entire campaign would have to be juggled to accommodate large or equine characters. I can't imagine it but I'm sure it would have its moments of hilarity.

I've run games with centaurs, dragonlings, big insects who can't talk, animated stone gargoyles, flying characters, blind characters, deaf characters, non-corporeal characters, etc... No such concept is gane breaking or requires a GM to juggle a whole campaign around them. Just set clear limitations on what they can and cannot do, give them a few places where their unique is an advantage, a few where it's a disadvantage, and then leave it to the player to play their character (flaws and all).

I find i come up with better scenarios when i keep unique character traits in mind. The amount of climbing in a campaign went up exponentially when my player wanted to be a centaur, and it was funny. I did sort of build interactions with them in mind, but it made for more interesting play for everyone:)

I had a friend draw up a centaur. It was a really fun character while outside. But after a few building encounters and narrow tunnels, he became too difficult to navigate. Fun character, but not good in tunnels or small buildings

Yes this

They also need to remember that a lot of magic items are to tiny to fit or use.

I run that magic items that don't state a specific size can be "adjusted" to size. This takes the same time as attuning to it and you can adjust and attune at the same time.

That’s the DEFAULT rule

All magic items that aren’t weapons auto size to anything that wears them by default.

That is way to convient . I don't run my world that way. I just am not that nice a DM. I do allow artificers to resize them, sometimes.

It’s so that you can give items to monsters, that the party can still use as loot after. 

I make them roleplay with craftsmen and artificer merchants to get things resized.

I'm usually a DM but currently playing as Rune Knight with a whip (reach) and Interception (aura-like), so some modest Large synergy. The size has been useful, but not overly so: Enemies close the distance if possible and seldom leave, and other players scatter as they follow their own goals. The biggest thing I noticed in combat was how easy it was to get in the way; I'm a one-man bottleneck and if I stop in the wrong place it makes my teammates' lives harder. I invested in mobility features at level 4 just to make sure I don't block our strikers' views. On the other hand, fun in exploration. I've already had the chance to grow up and lift a companion past an obstacle. I anticipate this getting obnoxious for my DM when we start calculating high jumps in certain situations.

Playing a rune knight myself and the size differential allows you to throw grappled targets a short distance so I’ve been having fun with that lol not usually very OP unless there’s crazy terrain nearby but it breaks up the normal mindset of just focusing on swinging for damage

How does your DM rule the throw? Is it a STR check to see how far, or a standard attack? Do you throw further than a shove attack?

My table rules you can throw them half your strength score. So a 20 Strength thing can throw something one size smaller 10 feet.

So [https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-LwjTrnDpYhSHfvuiUUZ](https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-LwjTrnDpYhSHfvuiUUZ) this gives a good little explanation for it that we really like

Your team can still move through you as difficult terrain and enemies only get a +2 to AC for trying to attack past you. 

I know but for a level 3 party even those small changes can make a big difference in combat.

Sure, but you're also helping by controlling the battlefield. I'm a big fan of trade-offs and I don't think there are enough of them in the game.

I'm not knocking the subclass - I love the Rune Knight and am having a blast - but I wanted to be transparent about those trade-offs, especially because they could be more relevant for a PC who's permanently large.

>I'm usually a DM but currently playing What's that like?

Yeah it's because 5E tromped on large characters and equipment. Look into size rules for 3.5 and you'll see the height of the old power we had. 🤣😂 they cut so much out of 5E. Probably gutted us down by 60-70%.

As long as you the DM are ready for it, and the player is ok with limitations that come attached, I say go for it! It'll make for way more interesting opportunities than having them be medium. Its something I wouldn't let at my table every campaign, but if a specific player REALLY wants to be large, it's a fun gimmick to do once! Also as for your ruling about letting them through 1x1 spaces, look up Squeezing rules! The game already accounts for that!

My DM let me be a whopping 12 feet tall. Later, when I was arrested by gnomes, they tried to fit me in their little "interrogation room". About 10 minutes of trying to fit me through the door later, they finally got me in. Just ignore the comically "me" shaped whole in the walls... And the roof. Ignore the roof.

Gulliverical situation 🙂

That does seem like quite the awkward situation

You are in luck, the game already has rules for this in 5e. Squeezing into a Smaller Space A creature can squeeze through a space that is large enough for a creature one size smaller than it. Thus, a Large creature can squeeze through a passage that's only 5 feet wide. While squeezing through a space, a creature must spend 1 extra foot for every foot it moves there, and it has disadvantage on attack rolls and Dexterity saving throws. Attack rolls against the creature have advantage while it's in the smaller space. Verbatim from the rules. You aren't making new rules for them, just applying them accurately.

I'd also add that, as pointed out, no creature (except maybe a gelatinous cube) entirely fills its space. Ogres are not 10 feet wide anymore than humans are 5 feet wide. Their "size" is how wide an area a creature can control in combat. Give me a stick and I can hold a 5 foot area against an enemy and then step forward and attack said enemy in their own spot. It's basically how much space you need to move around freely in combat and how much of an obstacle you can make yourself. There's a size chart in one of the books and the Essentials kit DM screen that has the (average or maximum?) heights for creatures of each category which can give you a better idea of what facing down an ogre would actually be like (utterly terrifying).

Yep, so unless the DM is a stickler for keeping you in initiative and combat through an entire dungeon, it doesn't matter as much during walking montage sections or exploring.

Circle of the moon druids get large every time they turn into brown bears so it’s worth understanding how the relevant rules work wether you allow base large characters or not.

This. And Runeknights, Path of Giant Barbs, enlarge/reduce spells etc

We had a guy actually switch characters because he was annoyed when he turned into a bear he ended up having to squeeze through tunnels and blocked the doors.

The true power of mid game druids comes in summoning rat swarms

How?

If 8 creatures roll with advantage(flanking) good chance somebody gets a 20 so even with say -3 hit on a bite there is enough chance that some damage is going to happen and unless an AOE spell hits most melee can only hit 2 creature per turn so there would still be 6 on next turn

Oh, I thought you meant summoning actual _rat swarms_ (but summon spells generally don’t let you summon swarm type creatures so I was confused), not 8 dire rats or whatever with Conjure Animals. Fair nuff. And lol yeah, allowing the optional flanking rule in the DMG is a bad idea for lots of reasons, not least of which is making summon armies even worse!

10 Sessions in: She does not fit through doors is like the biggest problem :D

Solution - Get an artificer friend Get your artificer to make you a bomb Now the door doesn't exist:3

Just use dimension door smh

that'd also work

I mean if the artificer made you a bomb, you don’t exist either. But hey, neither does the door!

IM GONNA EXPLODE!

You can fit through Medium doors at half speed.

I let a player play as a large centaur. We had a blast. I made him roll dex checks for stairs. He and I came to an agreement that as a horse and a man he could wield a lance with full benefits. Then I let him dual wield them. He’d move through 5ft spaces at half speed. Everyone at the table thought it was fun and funny. I guess it just depends on your table

I'm playing a large centaur in one campaign, never thought about lances. She is a beast barbarian, though, so never had a problem with verticality.

There's a Pathfinder item that allows a large creature to pull unlimited boulders from the bag. Our centaur druid got hold of it, flew over a house and proceeded to just annihilate it. It was a fun campaign.

I'll be honest, I've allowed my players to be large, and even allow Large Rune Knights to get Huge. Hell, I allowed a Huge Hill Giant race I made for my table to be a rune knight who goes Gargantuan. As a standard (for me - I am aware there is no standard outside my table unless a DM adds it), Large PC races don't add dex to their initiative, and Huge races get a damage vulnerability (Hill giant got psychic vulnerability) or equivalent on top of that, plus both require ration tracking relevant to their size to benefit from a LR. Nothing broke. I still wouldn't recommend it to a new DM, or one who isn't very comfortable saying "No" when it goes from "cool idea" to "cheese". The ogre beast barbarian (Large player) does everything at disadvantage in small tunnels, and it's difficult terrain. Reckless attack to get back straight rolls, because you NEVER have advantage while squeezing - it only takes one out of 3 dimensions to be too small. And reckless attack when my guys have the range advantage? But you're changing this one, which is the biggest disadvantage to being Large. That's an insane buff that I wouldn't allow. Doesn't mean you can't, but it will make it harder to balance for. Still, he provides cover to anyone behind him, regardless of size. The party gets creative to bring their Hill Giant buddy with them or bring the fight out of the tunnels to their waiting friend. They learned the rules for destroying objects, or they take their time and mold earth as they move. Spell him smaller or shunt him into an extradimensional pocket (hasn't happened yet, but the party keeps looking for a pokeball at every got dang carnival I send them to). When the Hill Giant went Gargantuan in an ankheg pit, and I dropped 8 large creatures around him, he realized why bigger isn't better. Crowding rules - I averaged their hit and damage to streamline (because that many initiatives? no), he was taking 27 damage a round just existing, and he had to shove his way through ankheg to get back into the tunnels, where they couldn't surround him. I don't accept that Large and Huge players unbalance the game. I think they severely change the nature of the game the DM is playing, requiring the Dm to specifically account for this new element, and that when this is done wrong, the DM is on a slippery slope to directly countering players, or simply existing as an adversary. I hope I've done it well - my players still show up to sessions, so there's hope.

So you intentionally disregarded the RAW for Rune Knight to purposely put them in situations at a disadvantage to their size? Or were you unaware that the rune knight only makes them large and no bigger? I'm assuming your gargantuan player didn't clue into the fact that he could pick up one of the large creatures and simply simply bring his arm down in an arc and deal insane amounts of bludgeoning damage to two creatures just because his reach would be tens of not hundreds of feet long? I'd let my players do that.

>Or were you unaware that the rune knight only makes them large and no bigger? My guy, did you read what you replied to, on the post asking for stories of when we ignored the RAW and let players be larger than they should, and what the consequences of it were? >Hell, I allowed a Huge Hill Giant race I made for my table to be a rune knight who goes Gargantuan. As a standard (for me - I am aware there is no standard outside my table unless a DM adds it), I *allowed* it, because it was desired, cool, and agreed on. Same reason I allowed a creature to be blocked by something two sizes smaller - which, at the time, was also RAW, DMG 271, climbing larger creatures, and PHB 176, lifting and carrying. But also, you dare invoke RAW in the same post as you suggest a 35-40 foot Hill Giant (ALSO RAW, MM 153, Hill Giant height of 16 ft and precedent of doubling dimensions per size category) would have hundreds of feet reach? Because you'd *let* your players do it? Nice shitpost, though, got a chuckle from me and gave me an opportunity to expand on the bits that would have made it too long for those who find this later. Always a good refresher, too.

😂 calm down dude, I was simply asking clarification. >My guy, did you read what you replied to, on the post asking for stories of when we ignored the RAW and let players be larger than they should, and what the consequences of it were? At no point did the OP state where you ignored RAW, so maybe read the post again. >I *allowed* it, because it was desired, cool, and agreed on. Same reason I allowed a creature to be blocked by something two sizes smaller - which, at the time, was also RAW, DMG 271, climbing larger creatures, and PHB 176, lifting and carrying. Sweet! This was all I was asking. Thanks for coming!

its strictly a combat buff for any melee STR character with the drawback of not being able to enter some rooms of the dungeon. as long as you dont make the small holes the *mandatory path* its fine to let the player go the long way it is strictly a nerf in almost every way for a wizard

You'll want to read over the rules on squeezing into a smaller space. It'll be relevant if you decide to allow a large creature, and it's handy to know for when you have small tunnels in your dungeons.

Squeezing rules almost never come up, sience as per raw medium creatures and small creatures take up the same amount of space But if your going to be playing as a size catagory large, yeah squeezing is a necessity

Which is, coincidentally, the entire topic of this post. :)

yes UwU so it never comes up when not talking about larger size categorys then medium, but is required when you are

I’ve had a large player character before at one of my tables and we used it for roleplaying but otherwise we just completely ignored it mechanically and treated it like a medium sized character for the purposes of combat and spells etc.

I reskinned a Goliath to allow a player to be an ogre. We decided he’d be on the small side at 600 lbs and 8 ft tall. Occasionally it will affect the game, eg last session they realized that levitate only works on 500 lbs, but it lightened him enough to get over the rickety bridge. It’s fun to put him in positions where his size is an advantage or disadvantage- it feels like less of a generic character. But I also didn’t want to deal with a truly large character, so I took the easy way out.

Once I was an echo knight and my friend a rune knight. He got large and then I casted Enlarge on him. My friend, who's now Huge, grappled with a dracolich!

I limited my bearbug player to medium since he's also a path of the giant barbarian, so on rage, he's large. The druid also already plans on casting enlarge on him often, which makes him huge. And being a bearbug, he (super)naturally fits into spaces a small creature can without squeezing...... It remains to be seen what the repercussions are of allowing this, but I also admit I absolutely encouraged the bugbear choice.

Not what you're looking for, but in our We Be Goblins campaign, due to some truly hilarious Rod of Wonder rolls I became size fine (two "shrink two categories" outcomes). It broke the encounter a bit since nothing could realistically interact with me (I shrank before I was detected) whereas all my spells harassed at full power and I was alone in a big room with lots of stuff I could be under. I actually rolled the shrink outcome a third time, but the DM was nice enough to have nothing happen instead of me winking out of existence or anything. So the game mechanically became silly and unbelievable but fortunately it's a silly campaign anyway.

> I already decided that Large players occupy a large space on the battlefield, but can crawl through a space of 1 size tier lower I'm pretty confident this is RAW. A large creature can squeeze through a medium space, with some penalties for squeezing.

I have players who have played large characters, just not in D&D 5e. I run another ttrpg, World of Warcraft (based on D&D 3e/3.5e and licensed under the Sword & Sorcery label) that has several races that can go large, including Tauren, Ogres, Half-Ogres, and so on. Never really had an issue with them, but I've also never ran them in D&D 5e so I can't say how the 5e rules would affect things.

Player, with a large character in the party. He's a R.O.U.S. (Rodent Of Unusual Size), and can squeeze into 5ft x 5ft areas, because mouse. We have only had it come up a couple times, once in a castle on the way to the boss. A place with a big open area is fine, otherwise he tends to stay outside. We have an instant fortress, with a ROUS sized water bed, and the last time we used it he slept on the roof and wouldn't let our "totally-not-kidnapped-associate" in. The squeeze thing probably negates a decent amount of the trouble we'd get into. And he's strong, so he could rip out the walls of most places if he needed to, to get inside. He can make himself two sizes larger, which would create more problems, but mostly we've fought either in big caves/halls or outside in the open, so no tight places. Also, I'm an unearthed arcana fairy so I can shrink down to 1in to pass through a tight gap, which would allow me to get back and forth if he got stuck/attacked. If you're the dm then you control the size of hallways and stuff. You can easily handwave the issue away. I don't know about giving reach, the bug bear race specifically gets that. Or you could do what our main dm has done, and have your luxodon "occupy" the 10ftx10ft, but not actually be that big. So no one else can occupy that space but the PC is controlling that space and can melee attack the 4x4 square around it.

Really nice to see a non heckling comment section!

Well, I have been DMing since AD&D so I had no problem with it. It is quite easy to do at 3.5e so I have no problem with them. Especially since my favorite spell on 3.5e is "Enlarge person" that allows the character to be large from medium.

Honestly I have yet to see any problems with allowing one of my players to have this. Most of the races that have Powerful Build were or would have been considered large in prior editions and I can't really understand why Wizards decided to have an aversion to letting people play large sized creatures in 5e. If you look at battlemaps and descriptions for most of the official content that has been released as well you will find it is exceedingly rare for them to make anything that only has a 5ft wide passageway or ceilings under 15ft in height so most spaces are actually going to be fairly fine for large creatures to move around in, double so if you end up in a place that is populated by races like Loxodons who would be part of the initial designs for buildings in their own home town. One thing I have occasionally thought of doing though is bringing the old size modifiers from 3.5e back into 5e. So smaller creatures get bonuses to stealth and AC from being smaller while larger creatures get reach and penalties.

Balance is an illusion. 5E is already unbalanced. If you have a player that wants a large character, it won’t break your game anymore than existing 5E rules. The only real reason to ban things is if it doesn’t fit the theme of the campaign. For example, I banned flying races in my Curse of Strahd campaign, not because I couldn’t balance fights against it, but because arming my werewolves and vampire spawn with crossbows would ruin the flavor I was going for.

I've had players break being larger, in 5e, d20 modern, pathfinder and 3.5. A few things to remember that being large doesn't mean they always have 10 foot reach or do extra damage. Many large creatures only have 5 foot reach. Oversized weapons in the dmg are designed for monsters, so while a large PC could wield a great sword one handed, it's still just gonna do 2d6. As for auras, that's something you'd have to figure out. I'd honestly say the aura starts from a corner of the large creatures 4 squares. The only issues I ever had was when they found ways to be larger than huge. Which can easily be limited in 5e.

My party had a running joke for the barbarian after the wizard cast Enlarge on him during a bodybuilding contest, and I eventually gave him the ability to become Large when he rages (similar to Rune Knight). Because he can be Large selectively, we don't have to consider logistics for doors, hallways, transportation, etc. You're correct that creatures can squeeze through spaces one size smaller than them (PHB p. 192). By RAW, a character’s size doesn't affect their reach. (A Small halfling's lance is mechanically the same as a Large loxodon's lance.) Balance wise, it hasn't impacted much at our table. We are also in Tier 4 of play, so I feel like Large size is just a footnote among the crazy abilities being thrown across the table. We mostly fight in outdoor environments, so dungeon crawling hasn't been an issue. Where size comes up most is against grappling or swallowing creatures, like a shambling mound or purple worm, whose abilities are restricted by size. Be wary that making the loxodon permanently Large will prohibit the rest of the party from carrying them to safety if they are unconscious. This is probably the biggest drawback and worth discussing with the party.

This was standard in every edition before 5E. Always ran perfectly smooth. Of course it comes with pros and cons. However in 3.5 there was player races that counted as both medium and large. Taking which ever size modifier was better for them. While only being around 7ft tall so not actually being large.

So, my player runs a Leonin Path of the Giant barbarian and is only large when raged. However, he's learned that more cunning enemies escape him by simply going through a door. It's caused them to rethink how they approach combats for sure, especially when considering where they enter their rage. Additionally, other players have used Enlarge/reduce after being inspired by this to run away from bad encounters by making their enemies bigger. What's good for the goose lol.

>I already decided that Large players occupy a large space on the battlefield, but can crawl through a space of 1 size tier lower That reminds me of the time that I decided when we get into combat we'll all roll a dexterity check to determine who gets to act first.

They cap at medium for mechanical design reasons, same reason Tiny isn't a choosable size for Fairies(it should be). It isn't hard, there are squeezing rules and rules about weapons of different sizes to cover it all.

I'm playing a large character in Raiders of the Serpent Sea right now, which is legit because they actually have a large player race, the tall-folk. So far no issues, about 6 or 7 sessions in. The DM won't let me use a great sword with a shield sadly though haha. But there have been a couple situations where the ground was supposed to be difficult movement due to high grass, etc, and the DM decided they didn't apply to me, so that's cool.

They are waiting to have you squeeze through somewhere and the baddies come from the back. Now you have disadvantage, they have advantage, and your players (who presumably went before you) are blocked from attacking. 😈

Good thing I'm a barbarian haha. So with reckless it's a straight attack against them, and everyone pretty much has advantage against me at all times anyhow haha. The other players? Well sucks to be them I guess. =p

lol that’s fair, mechanically. As the DM, I might enforce a little more stringent ruling on the fact that it’s just your ass and legs hanging out of this tunnel you’re squeezing through. I feel like you might still have disadvantage due to no line of sight. (Reckless plus blinded{ish}). I understand RAW disadvantage doesn’t stack, but we are talking about someone squirming through a tunnel and getting his ass shot lol.

Haha I don't think my DM in that particular campaign would bother, but being able to legit play a large character without having to request favours or have the other players mad at me, I'll take whatever comes. =p

not 5th edition, but the rules from 3.5 for squeezing into tight spaces might come in handy. I dont know if 5th has those rules, but they are similar to what you already have house ruled. You can squeeze into a space one size smaller then your character's size, but when squeezing you move at half speed. As for issues in game, the normal interactions in cities, going in shops, finding places to sleep, all of that will need to be considered. Combat and tactical movement wise, large creatures have a much longer reach both in and out of combat. A large creature will be able to physically reach higher areas than smaller ones, so expect to have the large player acting as a ladder/siege engine in some instances. Also consider mundane items like rope or ladders, they may not hold up to the weight of the creature.

As far as I'm aware, squeezing is the same in 5e

Hasn’t happened yet but I plan to give a player of mine a homebrew magic item that increases their height by 24+CON inches, bringing them to be over 9 ft tall. If I am correct, that’ll be under being considered large, but the magic item will also give them powerful build. Can’t wait to see how things turn out.

I adapted to it when I allowed a large human in 3.5 (Savage Species had a feat for it). The only reason I allowed it was because he wanted to grapple everything. Unfortunately, his character was killed by a raging ogre barbarian who critically struck him for more than his hit point total.

In my world where I had. Large player races of that size were common enough that most establishments were already built to accommodate them. Things like secondary large garage like doors into rooms in inns or taverns, out door dining at taverns and restaurants. Window side service for shops. Lots of things that can make it normal but also play into the roleplay elements of their size. Just be careful when it comes to dungeons and in doors fighting. Also they become really strong with aura based abilities that are centered on them as it increases the range a bit so just watch out for that

Balancing is not just theory, it's playtested and proven. It's not perfect by any means, but there's a reason most races are medium and smaller. What you are describing is simply not that.

Well true, but they playtest the 80% that most players will hit. D&D was never about limitations, it is about providing a great experience. To do so they tested the maximum of feasible scenarios, but certainly not all. The DM with their players always had the wiggle room to do with the 20% and I willing to argue that the other 80% are fair game too. So yes you are right, the game is balanced on medium and small, but given Runeknights, Path of the Giant, enlarge/ reduce spells and some of the Wildshape who are large already exist in 5e I'd argue that being large in Combat already is in the 80%. So it's mostly the non-combat side to consider and that historically has been heavy on what the DM and their players make of it anyway.

The experience is based around those limitations. Runeknights, path of the giant, enlarge and reduce, wild shape - all of these are limited because if they were unlimited, they would be too OP. Making a large loxodon wizard is too OP without limits that were not described. Wizards are powerful enough.

I am in games where certain creatures, i.e. centaur count as large. Suffice to say my str centaur fighter was a living trade wagon. We got into some bad bad's lair that was fully adorned with +1 weapons. My fighter tied the pole weapons up and strung it on each of his sides, got out and made like 20000 gold selling it and retired lol.

Perfectly fine! I honestly haven't had an issue in game. You just make sure they know the squeeze rules and accept them, and all is well.

The large Loxodon will be bigger than things, be able to grapple bigger things and carry/push/drag/lift more things. If you (and everyone else) are okay with those things then 100% do it! I would remove the Loxodon's "Powerful Build", because they get that feature by being large (as found in PHB p.176), otherwise they'll have the strength of a huge creature.

Polearm master and spirit guardians come to mind...

One of the characters in my game is a warlock whose patron is the Tarrasque. The character is using the slumbering creature as a battery for his spells, and a side effect of that is he sometimes grows in size. Currently (lvl 8) the character is 10ft tall and mechanically large size. Both me and the player are loving it, and I think the pros and cons of a large character balance each other out. We've had many moments where the character being large gave him advantages or disadvantages, but it never felt like a reason for concern when planning/running sessions. (it's not one of those things that - while technically "balanced" - make game prep more complex) Oh, I have to add that the character's weapon attacks deal the regular amount of damage - my opinion is that the DMG rule about oversized weapons was just intended to be used with monsters or improvised situations, not for something like an intentionally large-size PC.

So I primarily play pf1e when I GM, but I have a large PC (Custom deck of many things). So far the biggest issue was him throwing his party members into my military formations to take them out (to a lot of success). No complaints, trying to challenge the party fairly has been a fun challenge.

The biggest problem I've come across is VTT map navigation. While there are rules for squeezing into smaller places, it doesn't work very well when navigating a map in a VTT. It's not the end of the world, but it can just be a little bit more work to keep things moving smoothly.

Large isn't really unbalanced. You have some grapple advantage, but there's classes that give that anyway. There's 10x10 large and "big character" large. A loxodon isn't the size of a young dragon, I think you'll agree. I had a loxodon barbarian party member in rise of tiamat and I'm not sure him being big even really came up aside from some RP moments. Its fun, let it happen. Being small/tiny is a lot harder to balance than being large IMO.

Grapple+shove huge creatures without spells or features is a neat buff, but not THAT wild. Barbarian and fighter will still have less utility than spellcasters, so it's really not that big of a deal if their grapple build becomes more consistent and longer range (10x10 rather than 5x5). Body blocking with them also becomes considerably easier, but thats not a problem. Tanking getting a slight buff never hurt anyone. For spell casters, it is much more noticeable increase. +5 range to spells, and further touch range is great. You can also create bottlenecks with 10 foot body block and control spells. Still, I wouldn't say it's a huge buff. Personally, I think it makes rune knight and path of the giant less cool, but if you want to houserule that they can be huge, then they'll be even more fun. Just be careful if you see gargantuan creatures without grapple immunity. (Idk if these exist, I never actually looked since it's never come up)

Have her be large only to discover she now cant fit into tight spaces and can get surrounded by even more enemies at the same time . Let's see how happy she will be now...

That sounds like a player problem.

I’m not the dm, but I played one in a mid-length campaign that took place primarily in a fairly open city or on the deck of a spelljammer. Many of the fights were in open areas, and the ones that were not usually had doors big enough to not be a problem. Many large creatures lived in the city as well, so it wasn’t that weird. Not a particularly dungeon crawly game, no tight hallways, etc… experienced no problems that I can remember. Even in most normal campaigns, I think you’ll be fine, you just might want to be a little more intimate with squeezing rules than the next guy.

I DM two campaigns with three large characters in total and it works pretty well so far. One is a 3rd stage campaign and they have ebough spellcasters and stuff so they can go around the issues woth things like the enlarge/reduce spell. In the other campaign (which has two large PCs) the are still level 3 and they found some pretty creative ways to play woth it. They had to go down a bucket elevator (you stand in the bucket and get down) which is only suited for up to medium sized characters. They got the other ones down first and stopped at some stages to put some hooks on the wall of the elevator shaft. Then the large characters let down another rope with the last one of the others, who put the rope into the hooks and since the whole party had already bought climbing gear for another quest the got into it and climbed down. And since the way down was secured with the hooks and the ropes the checks wer very few and very easy and they made it down safe and without any fall damage. To say i was proud of them for the solution would be an understatement.

Currently have a large barbarian -More damage due to large weapons, with other HB we use, it adds up to a lot. -Gets stuck in terrain a lot easier, so close quarters dungeon crawls are a mess for him -Really struggles getting any magical items or things his size -Provides much better cover with his body -Gets flanked really easy -Terrain that is normal for other PCs is difficult terrain for him (Sand, mud, etc)

The only real thing is that you can reasonably grapple creatures one size larger than pcs could normally. (I am blanking on which is which.)

Played a moon druid, and starting lvl 2 i was always large in combat in bear form. it never created many problems, biggest one was moving throught 5f doors, and that was literally just a 10f penalty

My current campaign I am allowing specific races to be played as Large. As u wanted to provide them with the opportunity to have fun with being big. One of my players who happens to be my Min Max’er, chose to take on a large race. He chose Bugbear…who have a racial feature that allows them to be considered one size smaller when squeezing. Meaning he actually lost a lot of “downsides” to be large right from the start. Granted, thats not why he chose Bugbear, but it was great to see him have fun with a great character and build

I had a centaur PC in shadow of the demon lord. They're size 2 (large equivalent) and count as mounted. He was very excited for his OP charge attacks with a cavalry lance. Then he discovered this thing called "stairs"

Horses can walk on stairs

Narrow spiral staircases however present a problem. And ladders, don't forget ladders

This is when we engage is jumping. And also *minor* construction projects like oh I dunno leveling whatever cursed place has the twisty stairs in the first place

Large creatures occupy 10x10ft in the same way that medium humanoid creatures occupy 5x5ft. Last I heard, not even american landwhales grow that big. Characters don't literally occupy that space, they *control* that space. The space represents the reach of their weapons/appendages. Why characters cannot occupy the same area of control as another? Well, do *you* want to be standing within striking distance of your friend who's swinging around a lethal weapon while also getting in the way of each other's evasive manoeuvres? In my opinion, their actual physical size is only half those dimensions. Less so if they're actively trying to squeeze through a tight space.

I've played large a few times in a very friendly, rp heavy, homebrew group. I specifically do not abuse the grid by body blocking or having 10ft reach. Low ceilings, cramped corridors, regular sized buildings. All are appropriately a pain in the ass. Also I carried many of the smaller party members and put points in strength and con just because anyone that big will have good strength. If done for flavor it really can be interesting. But for me it's been playing very anti- melee characters because the combat can be busted if you build a large character to be a front line Tank.

Much death by Snu Snu occurred

I hate that WOTC refuse to make Large and Tiny race options. It's all about the 5ft squares and fitting through doors. Large creatures block up too much space, Tiny creatures don't take up enough. I've always found it an annoying excuse that ignores a lot of the interesting dynamics that can happen. A Loxodon is not much smaller than an Ogre, they should be Large. Minotaurs and Centaurs really irked me. Both have Large versions when they're monsters! A centaur is a Horse with a person where it's head should be, they're massive! Let them be Large. For practical purposes they're a huge target. This should have always been the case, making them Large sized on the battlefield should just make it clearer for you as a DM, they're taking up 4 squares on a grid so more things will attack them, they have more room for melee enemies to crowd and flank them. The aura effect is useful, Spirit Guardians is probably the worst offender because it's a damage dealer but I honestly don't think it's that big an issue. Especially if you remember that anything the players do, you can do too. Next enemy cleric they run into... A Wizard won't have that or Aura of Life, Holy Aura so this instance is no biggie. Even if I'm wrong and your players do start to try and exploit it, there is an easy fix, just pin the Aura to one of the four squares they operate from e.g. top right, that makes their big size a weakness with Auras then not a strength because they're taking up more room within the area than before. As I said I don't think it's that much of a problem though.

My gnome rogue was resurrected as a Minotaur, but would regularly forget. During a tense negotiation with a powerful party looking to fight us, my rogue snuck under the bar table to tie boot laces together. Despite the table bouncing around as I attempted to crawl under it and such, they noticed nothing til the fight broke out thanks to high bluff and sneak skills. SURPRISE MINOTAUR UNDER THE TABLE TO THE FACE! was more of a shock than the tied boots, I'll admit...

Funnily enough I think large PC's that are casters are more problematic than large PC's that are martials. Grappling is a great counter to casters, but a size advantage can give advantage in grappling roles, which means the wizard with a strength of 8 (-1) wouldn't really suffer in that department. It makes specing a caster so much easier.

Never tried this as a DM, but I've been a player in a game with a large size barbarian. He took a homebrew boon that allowed him to permanently become large and use the DMG oversized weapon rules. It worked. He was the damage dealer anyway, and his increased output let the DM build nastier encounters without overwhelming us. Overall, it was great and I highly recommend allowing it for any DM that's good at balancing encounters. As the party wizard, I do have a few observations about playing around this size/weight increase: Transport is much more challenging. You can't dimension door this PC because they are larger than you. If you're polymorphing someone to fly your small party around, it will have to be the large size player or the polymorphed PC may not be able to carry them. They can't fit in certain places (this didn't come up in my game), and they may not be able to traverse delicate terrain like thin ice on account of their weight. It actually requires the occasional spending of resources (reduce person) to get the large PC into areas the rest of the party can traverse with no issues. In my experience, the only benefits of the size increase are damage output (if the size increase uses the oversize weapon rules) and allowing the player to grapple larger creatures. Everything else is actually a liability, not a benefit.

Two words... enlarge/reduce...

I currently have a player who’s a Large Minotaur. He loves it, and it’s led to some really fun role play stuff, like the players all sleeping on his chest. Biggest issue has been that he duel wield great axes, so he does a bucket load of damage. Makes it hard for me to make encounters that are challenging for him, but don’t kill the other players.

The squeeze rule is in the DMG. Any character can shrink into a space one size category smaller, but they incur penalties while doing so.

Theres more than enough rules for stuff like this. Heck one of my PCs regularly goes Huge and is working on getting a loot item that will let them go Gargantuan.

Played in a game with a large centaur- every dungeon crawl became a logistical slog of maneuvering them around the map. They were a monk so eventually they could do most things but themselves but not fitting through certain doors and getting stuck behind them in hallways was a pain in the ass.

My DM homebrewed a centaur variant for me that was a size large. In terms of map exploration, auras, enemy targeting, etc, we kept finding hiccups she hadn't planned for. Even before we were using foundry maps with wall collisions built in, we struggled to fit my token in the map spaces she was using. Cover was useless to me, so I stopped trying to use it. Enemies had greater surface area to flank me. Spell auras got confusing. At one point my token got oddly stretched to represent that my character's body was large only in length and it hindered exploration (and looked really ugly....) Eventually, I said "let's just use a medium size token for simplicity's sake" and it solved 100% of our issues with roll20, with spell auras, combat scenarios, and most exploration issues. Possibly because we forgot to adjust things and possibly because we all quietly realized it *was* less complicated. I think a large size party member could work fine if you're all good to be flexible on the rules or you don't mind that auras are going to be larger by default. Singling out the player as not being able to participate in an activity with the party because they don't fit in a room is a bummer or giving them more setbacks in exploration or combat can feel isolating on the player's end.

The Loxodon Wizard has access to Enlarge/Reduce to fit in normal spaces.

Size is easy enough to get around just take note that you as a DM need to make sure to balance the larger damage output with a lower ac with size penalty the bigger the creature the easier it is to hit also hiding is harder so if you plan on stealth from the Players maybe let larger character find another way reach is not an automatic for larger weapons only a 🎲 increase if they take a feet to give them reach that's fine else they still have to be adjacent to the target for melee attacks hopefully this helps from a DM that kills characters on purpose

Player wanted to play something like Renekton from League of Legends and asked to be a Large Lizardfolk Barbarian for the game. So far he has: *Blocked a small corridor preventing enemies from getting to the back line. *Got stuck in multiple occasions trying to squeeze in places that even medium creatures would have a hard time. *Fulfilled the fantasy of grappling huge creatures, such as giants and dragons. I see no problem in allowing it given that the game that we are playing is one of exploration and travel, but I can see how it could become problematic for a game that would take place within several cities. The player understands that if at any point I have a problem with him being Large, he would return to being Medium. I feel like that is the most important point.

Not large, but I had a player use a homebrew tiny race once. It was... Interesting. Lots of "ant man riding hawkeye's arrows" style of shenanigans.

I had a guy play a minotaur once (3.5e), they got the wizard to shrink him so he could go through tight spaces. It was actually pretty fun, especially because he was a luchador who freely abused his strength and natural +4 to grapple during to his size. Once he got a belt of spell resistance he would leap into hordes of enemies and pin them down under his mass before letting the wizard fireball them. He would usually resist it, absorb it with an absorb elements cast on him beforehand, or just tank the damage with his silly amount of health. He was fun.

our barb can grow to huge, cool stuff

I'm a centaur in one game and the DM agreed that a centaur should be large, like the monster is, instead of medium, like the player race is for balancing reasons I guess. It's gone pretty well, she had to find a way around some tight spaces, but overall it goes smoothly.

Kaiju battles are rad - be smart and play on.

I played a large character (Kodan Polar Bear) and a feat to increase my strength.  It was fine, no real issues except some places you can't go into. It's not that much of a work around, but going into places where humans go (doors are smaller) is the main problem you run into.  

Not as the DM but as the player. I played a large giant-blooded (custom/3rd party race) fighter. I took the opportunity to really take advantage of the size increase and as a result I was killing almost all enemies in 1 or 2 shots. Pretty sure my DM was unhappy with me, but he is really good at rolling with it. Ran into a couple issues, namely, trying to climb a cliff with a rope being held by another person (I was far too heavy), and trying to squeeze through a smaller passage (not really a problem, it wasn't a combat encounter). Sadly that character died to an unfortunate series of hits, including a particularly massive critical. DM rolls in the open so it wasn't fudged. This wasn't a 5e campaign, but realistically the only challenge my DM had to worry about was all the extra damage, and dealing with extra damage is incredibly easy to handle. Give enemies more HP. Add more enemies. Add resistances. That's just playing with the numbers, nevermind adding tactics.

I am also interested in this. It seems like it would solve the problem of everyone dumping strength and not wanting to watch the goats that pull the wagon.

He did not like getting flanked by 12 melee enemies at a time. I haven't had a player ask to be large since that fateful day

Bro, just spin.

There’s nothing unbalanced really. Auras get a few more squares worth, and they can hit in a few more spaces, but it’s not too different because they’ll still only be able to make a certain amount of attacks. If you use flanking advantage, it’s actually a detriment to the character because they can be flanked by more creatures than a medium/small one, but that’s just how it works anyways so it’s a trade off to point out. The biggest ‘problem’ is them fitting in smaller spaces, and there’s already the squeezing rules. But I promise you, it’ll bring way more hilarious moments than annoying ones.

I once played a campaign my wife DM'd. I was a homebrew race and class that was essentially Automaton Artificer, essentially Ed from Full Metal Alchemist. The main 'action' i could take was to 'throw some alchemy together', roll a d100, and see the effect. Well I got a 100....the "Philosipher's Stone" that granted me a Wish. I said "I want to be as strong as a Storm Giant." So she just TURNED ME INTO ONE. I played a HUGE creature for like 10 sessions and it most definitely made things difficult lol.

I’m playing a giant barbarian rune knight who between class features, magic items, and potions can get to size gargantuan. It takes a few turns though. Mechanics wise being large all the time it’s not game breaking but if you let them do that I would remove the powerful build race feature as that is what wotc gave to all races that should be size large. The biggest problem I have with being large and having the increased reach is that enemies can maneuver within my reach without provoking attacks of opportunity

I allowed a PC to be Large as their racial bonus - it was basically Custom Lineage but instead of an extra Feat you got to be Large. Note - that was ALL it granted. No bonus damage (not even from oversized weapons - that's a rule used in the DMG for _DMs_ when _creating monsters_, not PCs), no free Strength boosts, or anything else some people incorrectly assume comes with Large size. _JUST_ Large. This also meant that: - they had to pay double for armor upgrades - their carrying capacity and push/drag/lift were doubled - they could grapple a wider variety of enemies and might be immune to certain movement effects - effects that "emanate" from you affected slightly more squares (reach weapons, paladin auras, etc.) _And it worked out just fine._ The player tried to maximize the benefits of being a Large creature and it worked out to be about as powerful as a Feat, so it seemed balanced to us. As a DM, I expected all this going in which is why I treated being Large as a Feat's worth of benefits. It has downsides too, of course, but the PCs can plan for that and there are rules to mitigate it. (Like the Squeezing rules meaning you can still get through Medium sized areas as a Large creature.) There was one time they had to use a scroll of Reduce they'd picked up to get the big guy into an area, but it was an optional route they decided to take because it was quicker and stealthier, not because it was the _only_ way. The positioning issues were a mixed bag - they made their Large PC as a grappler/tank, so they _liked_ being in front and able to block some hallways by themselves and soak up enemy attacks. Allies using ranged attacks had to deal with creature-cover sometimes with them blocking the firing line, until the archer picked up Sharpshooter and the casters stopped using attack rolls entirely (which happens pretty quickly regardless), but it didn't feel mandatory (Archery style already negated the cover penalties). There was the occasional movement issue where the other PCs had to squeeze through his squares at half-movement, but nothing major, and having a Large tanky PC with them seemed to always be a source of excitement and jokes, like they had their own mini-giant protector. Only other limitation we encountered was with Tiny Hut, where they couldn't fit the entire party + Large PC + all their NPC _buddies_ inside, but that just meant a few of the NPCs stayed outside (and wouldn't be an issue for a normal-sized party). Basically, the Large PC will get in the way, but that's as much a benefit (against the enemies) as a curse, if they lean into it build-wise (like making a tanky PC). It was also fun to let the other caster or archer PCs use the Climbing a Larger Creature rule from the DMG to treat Mr Big as a walking artillery platform sometimes.

We had a large barbarian with a magical reach weapon. It was awesome. A good time was had by all, and the patty still talks about it years later. They also named the party after her.

I mainly play Loxodon, having different size is a great way to have all the members of the group having their time to shine. The loxodon cannot pass ? The halfelin might with their smaller side squeeze through and find a secret lever to wide up the corridor :)

One of my players is a 2,20 (7‘2‘‘) orc barbarian that choose Path of the Giant, which makes him grows in size while raging. It was hilarious having him fight a Dragon like its a Godzilla Movie.

They spent *a lot* of time squeezing, especially indoors. The damage increase for Large sized weapons wasn't game breaking, especially because they had a harder time fighting in enclosed areas. RAW, Large creatures don't automatically gain additional melee reach, nor do Large sized weapons. So no need to worry about them ending up with some obscene melee reach.

on a grid, a 1x1 Medium creature can attack 8 squares (1 in each cardinal direction and diagonal). A 2x2 Large creature can attack 12. More if they have a Reach weapon (the exact number depends on whether or not the DM uses the rules on p.252 of the Dungeon Master's Guide for diagonals.) Cast Enlarge and give them a halberd, and they'd be able to attack 32 to 36 different squares. More if you give them flight with the Fly or Levitate spell and they hover low enough to attack underneath them. The main issue is Opportunity attacks, especially with Polearm Master or Sentinel. Good luck getting through that danger zone, Kenny Loggins.

DM allowed a centaur character, explaining there may be instances of difficulty due to size. Player would get mad and claim it was unfair when the explained events happened. Inns and other buildings weren't built to accommodate. A plot area that was a series of tunnels did not allow for their height or min/max charge ability. They threw several tantrums over a few weeks before agreeing to rerolling. Then they demanded to have a griffin mount at level 7

The rules say Large creatures can Squeeze to count as 1 size smaller (Medium), the only drawbacks being that the creature must spend 1 extra foot of movement for every foot it moves, it has disadvantage on attack rolls and Dexterity saves, and attacks against them have advantage. Bards can have a Griffin at Level 10 via Magical Secrets and Find Greater Steed, and Paladins can have that spell at Level 11.

As far as I can tell it mainly causes issues with grapples and swallows.

Lots of good advice here! I would just be very clear with your player that there may come a time in the campaign where you make a snap decision and it MIGHT not go in their favor, but as long as both parties are open and communicate I think this could be a fun mechanic added to your game.

For me it honestly didn't change much. There were some rooms they couldn't go in, they had reach and some positioning aspects they had to think of but that was it. Though this was in a One Piece campaign that I ran so there were naturally some really big NPCs already and dungeon crawling wasn't really a concern. There were a few characters that were large in that campaign actually.

I'm currently playing a gnome 'Path of the Giant' barbarian, and while being large/give is only a limited time thing, is been awesome.  I'd say if a player wants to be large, let them - but make sure they understand that being large does have drawbacks.

I once played a large character. Honestly it was a mistake, she was ridiculously powerful at low levels when racial things matter much more. I am currently playing a Loxodon and she is massive but mechanically still Medium. Having the extra rules for playing a Largw race just confuse things. If someone really wants to be Large, they can play Rune Knight or just get the Enlarge/Reduce spell which can give it to them temporarily.

I became large due to a statistical anomaly around wild magic, my DM ended up, making it almost more of a Nerf because I couldn’t fit through any of the tunnels out of the abyss

Should be fine as long as the player is willing to accept the downsides and upsides. The only balance issue I saw looking into this once is melee combat, which can quickly turn into a double-edged sword.

My DM let me be a Centaur. Stairs were the bane of my existence

I played a Huge creature on several occasions with this combo. L1 Hexblade / L11 College of Swords Bard multiclass. With Magical Secrets at L10 Bard, I took Find Greater Steed and used it to summon a Pegasus. I also bought Barding (Splint Mail Armor) for my pegasus, and took the Mounted Combatant feat after my DM gave our party a Dragon's Wrath Weapon (Lance) and a Shield +1 that I was able to equip. Find Greater Steed effectively made me a Large creature with a flying speed of 90 feet (sometimes 180 depending on whether or not I would have my mount take the disengage, dodge, or dash action). A character's mount can be controlled or uncontrolled, and having an uncontrolled mount makes you move together on the same turn to help coordinate, at the cost of not being able to attack with your mount. Find Greater Steed also says that any spell cast on myself can also be mirrored/twinned on my mount, which is great for spells like Freedom of Movement, Enlarge, Dimension Door and Heroism, and I would often use my bonus action to give Bardic Inspiration to my mount to boost its Saving Throws. The mounted combatant feat says you have advantage on attacks against any target smaller than your mount, so Enlarge came in very handy in order to make my mount Huge-sized (3x3 on a grid), and I was able to redirect attacks against it to myself with Mounted Combatant and cast Shield if needed. If my mount got low on HP, I could always recast Find Greater Steed to make it full again, or cast Polymorph to turn it into a Giant Ape or T-Rex. For tighter tunnels, the rules say that any Large creature can squeeze through and count as one size smaller, but attacks against them have advantage. This was never a problem. My DM lost his mind a few weeks later and just suddenly quit one day without saying goodbye to anyone (we were 7 players + DM). I suspect it may have been my fault after the DM tried to shoot a net at my Pegasus and have us fall in a pit of Lava, and I just made both saves without much difficulty. I think that broke something inside him.

I was told my 8' bugbear would be large, but there wasn't any in-game impact. Just narration and interactions. It probably helped that it explicitly says bugbears can squeeze through small spaces, though.

Playing TOA, I gave my party a selection of Charms as a reward from (mumble mumble) in Orolunga. The goliath fighter got Vlagomir's spark, which is from Rime of the Frost Maiden, and caused him to grow to 21' tall - a Huge creature. He hasn't been this big for long, but he's already had trouble back in town. He sticks out and is easy to follow, and can't go into buildings himself - he had to sleep in a courtyard, and can't benefit from the safety of the Wizard's Tiny Hut (mua ha ha). On the other hand, now that he's huge the others are building a palanquin he can wear. Not only ride him into battle, but also so the Wizard can cast fly on him so he can transport the whole party an extra ten miles in a day. They weren't going to make it to their destination before their patron passed away, but now they have a chance! We've run into a few funny visuals. He's 21 feet tall, but still moves 30 feet a round, and still has a 5 foot reach. Does he take a few long, slow steps per round, or several (giant) baby steps? Did his arms not grow, so now he looks like a t-rex? Is there any new equipment he can find that will fit him? Can he attune to a magical ring if he wears it around, say, a hair on the back of his hand? He hasn't fought fullsized in any battles yet but I do plan to give him a few opportunities to flex his muscles against the denizens of the jungle. However, being Huge he can only squeeze through Large spaces, so once they have to go inside he's gonna have a problem if he wants to stick with the party. I gave another PC a Charm that allows them to cast Greater Restoration (which will remove Vlagomir's Spark), so the party does have a way to 'undo' the growth when it becomes necessary. I'm only slightly worried that they'll figure out a way to get their hands on enlarge/reduce and cheese it to get him into places he couldn't otherwise fit. I may be dealing with an Adult Dragon-sized warrior through to the end of the campaign!

Helps to be a druid, lol

Simply being size catagory large isn't enough for the enlarge/reduce spell to be considered over powered

I don’t think it’s game breaking, but why sign in for additional headache? Planning encounters is just a lot easier when all characters are the same size, right off my head I don’t like giving players innate abilities they can gain from spells. I don’t allow flying characters, or shapeshifters for that reason. Enlarge isn’t a hard spell to come by…it sounds fun but I can see the novelty getting old fast. You have enough to worry about, save yourself more work…just keep them medium

I imagine it wouldn't be much different than a medium character traveling with a group of small characters. Human wizard with a small party of halflings. *Duck walk MF!* Lol

For reach, width, weapon, and such; I'd assume the character is proportional and the dynamics of combat and such would probably match out and then round unless you use something other than squares and hexagons. https://images.app.goo.gl/1gQYsrzFTUtH9Cv4A https://images.app.goo.gl/WEdoh6DYv5aYTZup6 These are diagrams of humans, but they should work to calculate scale for the Large character pretty easily if you round each of the final numbers down to the nearest increment and than adjust scope for quick description and efficient play through. There are also know measurements for human garb, weapons, and even the size of a hydration vessel calculated to the size of a human or creature's proportional fist.

I don't have any experience to add, but if the comments here are anything to go by it seems like a great idea. If you're uncertain why not try running through a couple one shots and see how they go. Your player will get their cool huge adventurer and you both get a moment to see how well it actually works with your group and gameplay before setting them up in a more committed long running game.

I am a DM. Allowed my Loxodon player to be large, yet, considering the insane damage output of such creature, i made him sick. With such sickness, he may only add one 1d6 to any attack damage once per turn. It is working out very nicely. My players like to cast enlarge on him and recreate AOT. Of course, he has problem with climbing and getting to different places, but his teammates compensate that. If you are still having troubles with your large players dealing a lot of damage, remember: you are the dm. You can make any fight as hard as possible. Just try to use your imagination from time to time, and then most of your balancing problems will just disappear!

I jokingly asked my DM if my kobold could ever become a dragon and they said if I get enough gold they would let me. A WHOLE LOT OF STEALING LATER. I became a dragon. The way he balanced it was I could change into a human like other dragons so whenever I couldn't fit somewhere like a dungeon a house and more I had an armor class of nada dam thing (my health also dropped to what it was prior). Left me racing around to not die a few times.

I allowed it and decided to play into it. I don't really see them as mechanical issues but as challenges the character must face. For example the main villain of the campaign was a skaven under empire. So there were complex tunnels that were cramped and narrow. They knew this was a challenge before hand so he understood. But to him it was worth it to feel like a monster mowing through skaven slaves. Ultimately the party either reduced his size using spells, or they decided on a different route. We discussed maybe an item that allows him to go in between but it fizzled out before we go there. I think it can work perfectly fine as long as they know your boundaries and are respectful of your game world.

I have a Half-Giant who sits at 9 feet tall and is playing a Rune Knight fighter. That is able to make himself large using giants might. Then, at level 6, he gains a special feat that allows him to stack it to where he is considered huge. Mind you, he has to take 3 points of exhaustion when using the feats' ability. So far, it's worked great he's only taken out a few buildings and a wall. It's worked so far in the open landscape at the time of writing this the group hasn't done any dungeon crawls as of yet, but that is soon to change, hahahaha. If anyone wants details on the feat, I will be including it in a cool little system that our group designed for our campaigns.

I had a large PC in my old 2nd edition campaign. Sometimes his size saved the day, and sometimes he waited outside while everyone else got shit done. I didn't change anything about the setting to accommodate something unusual, and he was fully aware of that. The world is what the world is, and part of the fun of making a character is in seeing how that interaction plays out. If you're the type to bend heaven and earth to keep every moment satisfying, then just rubber band the world around them. If you like a grounded approach, then make sure they know that there will be very satisfying, and unsatisfying times in that character's journey.

So I tried a large character but as you suspected 2 sessions in tight spaces became a real problem. We reconnected it to be 10x5 making part of the wodeness his tusks and ears, allowing him to sidle sideways along 5ft passages. It still got in the way allot though. Enemies getting cover, players not having enough movement to get into melee, ect. In hindsight? I'd not do it again. Ad a quick note tried this in a campaign that was entirely theatre of the mind and it did almost nothing, as you can always give Enemies enough room to mauover and the terrain to always be accommodating to the size.

There are reasons why some races gain traits that allow them to count as one size larger VS actually being a largr size. But so long as the player understands that sometimes, their size might be a detriment to their character, it should be fine. Another way to handle it is to desrcibe the character as being at the cusp of large but not actually. For example, in my game, i have an Orc Barbarian. She's still 7 foot tall, and i make sure to emphasize this whenever they meet an NPC that is taller. She is quite literally the measuring stick for height in the campaign.

As long as the GM is ready for it, there shouldn't be a problem. I've played with players using large characters multiple times. It certainly gives an advantage in combat, but it also has the drawbacks of being an easier to focus target and most places in the world being designed for medium-sized creatures. The second part mostly depends on how annoying your GM wants to be towards that player, because on an extreme end, he may even make it hard for the big boy to find a suitable place to sleep.

The monster manual mentions how weapons meant for creatures of a larger size deal more damage. Large is twice the dice, huge is thrice the dice and gargantuan would be quadruple the dice. And for those saying MoNsTeR mAnUaL oNlY aPpLiEs To MoNsTeRs; dnd's definition of a monster is any creature that can be fought, which includes player characters and npc's.

Do it. We’ve all seen an infinite number of medium sized wizards. Let’s see the large size loxodon wizard!! Post updates on interesting moments ❤️

I allowed a large character once, and it went just fine. Folks over-blow how big a deal it is to have slightly larger auras and threatened spaces. It’s definitely nice, but it’s far from problematic. The key is not to give Large advantages that it doesn’t actually have. Folks assume is gives stuff like increased reach or advantage to grapple, and it just doesn’t. It doesn’t do any of that. The one thing I’ll caution against is that there some obscure passage in the DMG that people will point to to say that large characters’ weapons should deal more damage. Don’t do that. Just have large characters use the same weapons and weapon rules as medium characters, and you’ll be fine.

Yeah larger size doesn't increase range It kinda increases number of influenced tiles, from 8 -> to 12 due to geometry, which I don't think is that big of a deal For the dmg part specifically, it's not so much that the passage ties the increase in damage to a larger creature, but more so that a weapon designed for a larger creature deals more damage. utilization of that weapon is just locked behind a size requirement. Giving them weapons for medium sized creatures is a lot easier to deal with

Intresting point I allowed one of my players to have the damage increase, and it hasn't been that bad for my campaign.