Starting equipment for centaurs


Advice


A friend of mine, who is the GM in his group, allowed a player to play as a centaur ranger. The problem is that he doesn't know what kind of starting equipment he should give him or the player should buy himself.


Unless i'm missing something, shouldnt the player just buy stuff for himself?


SillyString wrote:
Unless i'm missing something, shouldnt the player just buy stuff for himself?

Yeah, yeah, yeah,... thinking error of myself. I meant that he can give some tips to the player if the player need/want some tips.


Just normal adventuring gear I suppose. Saddle bags?


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A pack saddle (5gp), which holds as much as his Str can carry (no need for further bags AFAICT). Unless he wants other PCs to ride him.

Twice as much food as he'd usually buy, since Large creatures eat double.

Otherwise, same as he'd get for a humanoid, I believe.


Fuzzy-Wuzzy wrote:

A pack saddle (5gp), which holds as much as his Str can carry (no need for further bags AFAICT). Unless he wants other PCs to ride him.

Twice as much food as he'd usually buy, since Large creatures eat double.

Otherwise, same as he'd get for a humanoid, I believe.

What about saddlebags too.

But "same as he'd get for a humanoid"? Well, there is for sure a tent that's big enough, but what about a sleeping beg.


Saddle wrote:
Pack Saddle: A pack saddle holds gear and supplies, but not a rider. It holds as much gear as the mount can carry.

So I think any necessary bags are built into it? Not 100% sure.

I've always assumed centaurs would sleep on their feet like horses, so no bedroll.


would your sleeping bag for centaurs look like this?


I just remembered that he is also using some of the "Advanced Rules"-Books. So he also wants to know how the part armor rules work on a centaur.


My suggestion, buy a lance and take the Natural Jouster feat. Now he can wield a lance one-handed and charge for double damage. Add a buckler and a bow and you're off to a good start. Armor will be a bit costly though.


graystone wrote:
My suggestion, buy a lance and take the Natural Jouster feat. Now he can wield a lance one-handed and charge for double damage. Add a buckler and a bow and you're off to a good start. Armor will be a bit costly though.

I know, I told him this already. But he want to know how the part armor rules ( arm part, leg part and torso part) works on the centaur pc. Does he have to buy two torso parts, two arm parts and one leg part? I don't know either.


graystone wrote:
My suggestion, buy a lance and take the Natural Jouster feat. Now he can wield a lance one-handed and charge for double damage. Add a buckler and a bow and you're off to a good start. Armor will be a bit costly though.

This is AWESOME. Makes me 100% want to play a centaur in a home game if i'm allowed.

Best idea: Battle-Host Occultist for level one plate armor. Add lance, add shield, wreck face as a thematic iron centaur right from the start of the game.


Miro28 wrote:
graystone wrote:
My suggestion, buy a lance and take the Natural Jouster feat. Now he can wield a lance one-handed and charge for double damage. Add a buckler and a bow and you're off to a good start. Armor will be a bit costly though.
I know, I told him this already. But he want to know how the part armor rules ( arm part, leg part and torso part) works on the centaur pc. Does he have to buy two torso parts, two arm parts and one leg part? I don't know either.

That part is super simple. The Armor for Unusual Creatures table is all you have to look at.

armor for unusual creatures
Looking at the chart, you see that a centaur uses armor as normal except that it costs 4 times the cost and weighs 2 times as much. No "part armor rules" as that system isn't made for non-humanoid creatures. For instance you couldn't try to add the AC bonus from barding to your armor pieces to get a greatly elevated AC. He buys ONE set of armor for 4 times the cost and that covers everything he needs.


graystone wrote:
Miro28 wrote:
graystone wrote:
My suggestion, buy a lance and take the Natural Jouster feat. Now he can wield a lance one-handed and charge for double damage. Add a buckler and a bow and you're off to a good start. Armor will be a bit costly though.
I know, I told him this already. But he want to know how the part armor rules ( arm part, leg part and torso part) works on the centaur pc. Does he have to buy two torso parts, two arm parts and one leg part? I don't know either.

That part is super simple. The Armor for Unusual Creatures table is all you have to look at.

armor for unusual creatures
Looking at the chart, you see that a centaur uses armor as normal except that it costs 4 times the cost and weighs 2 times as much. No "part armor rules" as that system isn't made for non-humanoid creatures. For instance you couldn't try to add the AC bonus from barding to your armor pieces to get a greatly elevated AC. He buys ONE set of armor for 4 times the cost and that covers everything he needs.

I just looked in the book "Advanced Rules II: Combat" and their is of course something for non-humanoid creatures.


If you're pretending the centaur was made with the Race Builder rules, then being a quadruped means that in addition to wielding Medium weapons (as per the Bestiary) they also wear Medium armor (not in the Bestiary) despite being Large.
So it's only twice the cost and normal weight for non-piecemeal armor.


Fuzzy-Wuzzy wrote:

If you're pretending the centaur was made with the Race Builder rules, then being a quadruped means that in addition to wielding Medium weapons (as per the Bestiary) they also wear Medium armor (not in the Bestiary) despite being Large.

So it's only twice the cost and normal weight for non-piecemeal armor.

I know, I know. But he said that he let this only count for the upper body of the centaur. And he adds the piecemeal rules to his game. So does the player has to buy a torso piece and an arm piece for the upper body and a torso piece (barding), an arm piece (barding) and a leg piece (barding) for the lower body? Or do the torso pieces count as one piece? That's all I wanna know.


Miro28 wrote:
Fuzzy-Wuzzy wrote:

If you're pretending the centaur was made with the Race Builder rules, then being a quadruped means that in addition to wielding Medium weapons (as per the Bestiary) they also wear Medium armor (not in the Bestiary) despite being Large.

So it's only twice the cost and normal weight for non-piecemeal armor.
I know, I know. But he said that he let this only count for the upper body of the centaur. And he adds the piecemeal rules to his game. So does the player has to buy a torso piece and an arm piece for the upper body and a torso piece (barding), an arm piece (barding) and a leg piece (barding) for the lower body? Or do the torso pieces count as one piece? That's all I wanna know.

Piecemeal rules can only add up to a whole suit of armor, so you don't have to go through all that. You have a whole suit of centaur armor or parts of centaur armor. Since the piecemeal rules aren't meant for creatures with multiple extra body parts, I don't see how they'd be compatible. For instance, an alchemist can't gain more armor by equipping two more arm armors after all.

So really, don't even look at the Piecemeal rules, as they are only going to confuse you. Just figure out if he counts centaurs as medium or large for armor and that will tell you if it costs x2 or x4 cost.


Miro28 wrote:
A friend of mine, who is the GM in his group, allowed a player to play as a centaur ranger. The problem is that he doesn't know what kind of starting equipment he should give him or the player should buy himself.

Give the player the standard 150 gold and let HIM do the hard work.


graystone wrote:
Miro28 wrote:
Fuzzy-Wuzzy wrote:

If you're pretending the centaur was made with the Race Builder rules, then being a quadruped means that in addition to wielding Medium weapons (as per the Bestiary) they also wear Medium armor (not in the Bestiary) despite being Large.

So it's only twice the cost and normal weight for non-piecemeal armor.
I know, I know. But he said that he let this only count for the upper body of the centaur. And he adds the piecemeal rules to his game. So does the player has to buy a torso piece and an arm piece for the upper body and a torso piece (barding), an arm piece (barding) and a leg piece (barding) for the lower body? Or do the torso pieces count as one piece? That's all I wanna know.

Piecemeal rules can only add up to a whole suit of armor, so you don't have to go through all that. You have a whole suit of centaur armor or parts of centaur armor. Since the piecemeal rules aren't meant for creatures with multiple extra body parts, I don't see how they'd be compatible. For instance, an alchemist can't gain more armor by equipping two more arm armors after all.

So really, don't even look at the Piecemeal rules, as they are only going to confuse you. Just figure out if he counts centaurs as medium or large for armor and that will tell you if it costs x2 or x4 cost.

Armor Pieces for Unusual Creatures

Armor pieces for unusually big creatures, unusually little creatures, and non-humanoid creatures (such as horses) have different costs and weights from those given in the Arm Armor, Leg Armor and Torso Armor tables. Refer to the appropriate line in the Armor for Unusal Creatures table and apply the multipliers to cost and weight. For animals with four or more legs, the armor for half of the legs counts as the leg armor piece, and the armor for the other half counts as the arm armor piece.


Miro28 wrote:
Fuzzy-Wuzzy wrote:

If you're pretending the centaur was made with the Race Builder rules, then being a quadruped means that in addition to wielding Medium weapons (as per the Bestiary) they also wear Medium armor (not in the Bestiary) despite being Large.

So it's only twice the cost and normal weight for non-piecemeal armor.
I know, I know. But he said that he let this only count for the upper body of the centaur. And he adds the piecemeal rules to his game. So does the player has to buy a torso piece and an arm piece for the upper body and a torso piece (barding), an arm piece (barding) and a leg piece (barding) for the lower body? Or do the torso pieces count as one piece? That's all I wanna know.

I suggest doing it the first way you spelled out there, with the tweak that he gets to apply only the average benefit of the two torsos. That way having more body to protect doesn't result in him running up a ridiculous AC, but if he finds humanoid torso armor he can get some benefit out of it, he doesn't have to find special centaur-torso armor.


Miro28: Yes, and note that what you posted doesn't work for Centaurs. 1/2 the legs count as legs and 1/2 count as arms and... What do your actual arms count as?

As I said "don't even look at the Piecemeal rules, as they are only going to confuse you." It DOESN'T work for a centaur. BUY a FULL suit. 1 single suit. Is the DM forcing people to HAVE to buy piecemeal and can never but a full suit?

As to finding armor, personally I just charge the difference in cost as a refitting charge. After all, you'll almost never find an full set of centaur armor. Granted you could just get your set enchanted. To avoid the issue.


Fuzzy-Wuzzy wrote:
I've always assumed centaurs would sleep on their feet like horses, so no bedroll.

Apparently I'm wrong about horses; they sleep standing up most of the time but do need to lie down for an hour or two every few days to get their REM sleep. So, go back to getting some kind of bedroll or at least a couple blankets to sleep on/under.


Centaur armor should use both the large and odd body shape cost multipliers (add the multipliers, don't multiply them together) centaurs suck up somewhere around a x4-x6 multiplier for armor, clothing, etc. It's the price you pay for being an ungodly, speedball physical powerhouse out of the gate if you use the build in the back of advanced races.


Depending on what level you are, you should be thinking about magical horseshoes, either now or in the future.

You can also see if your DM would allow you to use silvered or cold iron or admantine nonmagical horseshoes to beat DR / hardness. You can enchant them later.

Like someone said, armor costs 4x for a large quadruped, but since you have the "undersized weapons" racial feature, your weapons are the same size and cost as to any human or dwarf. The extra weight is not a biggie with your 6x carryiong capacity.

All that said, check out the rules for playing centaurs in the Wold, a Play-by-Post (message board) Pathfinder game.

It is also worth mentioning that in our 10-game, 60-odd-player community, we have openings if anyone wants to play a taur. I myself have three openings in a 2nd level game set in a magic city in the Wold.

Cayzle@cayzle.com

woldiangames.com


If you are playing a setting where centaur are more or less unknown, then your centaur would benefit greatly from having craft: armor. In a human city, finding a shop that stocks any variety of armor that would fit a centaur runs on odds approaching nil. And combining barding with humanoid armor is iffy at best because the armor values for both are different, and barding around a horse's neck wouldn't have cmpatibility with a centaur's hips. Different shapes and all.

Best option is to have the crafts to make your own clothing and armor. Otherwise you have to pay the x4 cost. Making it yourself means you only have to pay most of what a human suit is worth. Weapons are easy. And you can carry enough weight to make any human fighter look like a 90-pound weakling. With asthma.

Never mind centaur run fast and tend to hit like trucks.


I'm going to take a different route, and ask how well skilled the local blacksmith is, in the starting city.

People have made all kinds of armor, leather, chain and plate for animals on nearly every continent. A solid example of unusual armor for an animal would be the stuff samurai had for their dogs.

Which goes back to the blacksmith question. A journeyman blacksmith or an average blacksmith should be able to modify regular horse armor and human armor to work together without too much trouble. If using leather armor it would be even easier to get the two to work together.

Time consuming but not hard. It might even make a fun roll-playing session in itself. The group should discuss it, as I feel that just slapping the X4 cost is a little extreme. Both horse and human armor exists and have a cost.

The centaur doesn't need the entire lower half of a human set of armor, nor does he need the neck and head armor of the horse. I would think the savings of not buying equipment from the waist down would cover the cost of properly fitting both suits to the centaur. The suits should match stat wise ie. the AC is +4. Combined they stay +4, for simplicity in keeping track.

I'll change that, if it were my game, I would allow the cost of the unused parts from both suits of armor to cover the modification. It makes sense in: book keeping, roll playing and not screwing the character out of a ton of gold for little work. Its not like the blacksmith can't set aside the unused equipment to sell later, or just save it for when he has crafted the other half.

I think this is one place where a little hand waving by the GM will make the game run smoother and allow everyone to focus on playing.

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