Minotaur (4e Racial Trait Variant)

Minotaur

Cover image of D&D 4e's PHB 3 by Michael Komarck

"Caught between savagery and civilization, these warriors struggle against the beast within"

Racial Traits

Average Height: 7'2" - 8'6"

Average Weight: 350-550 lb

Ability Scores: +2 to Strength, +2 to Constitution or Wisdom

Size: Medium

Speed: 6 squares

Vision: Low-light Vision

Languages: Common, Choice of one other

Skill Bonuses: +2 Nature, +2 Perception

Vitality: You have one additional healing surge.

Berserker's Rage: When you are bloodied, you gain a +1 bonus to all defenses.

Heedless Charge: You have a +2 racial bonus to AC against opportunity attacks you provoke during a charge.

Goring Charge: You gain the "Goring Charge" racial encounter power.

Goring Charge	Minotaur Racial Power
You charge the enemy and gore it with your horns.
Encounter  Charge
Free Action	Personal
Trigger: You hit a creature with a charge attack
Target: Self
Effect: You can add an extra 1d6 of damage to the damage roll, and the target is knocked prone. This increases to 2d6 at level 11, and 3d6 at level 21.

• Note: Feats and other powers that effect the "Goring Charge" racial encounter power from the original book still apply to this power where applicable.

Race Description

Born to fight, minotaur are a race of wandering mercenaries, soldiers, and adventurers. Minotaurs embody the tension between civilization and savagery, discipline and madness, for they stand in two worlds. Tugged toward violence but bound by conscience, numerous minotaurs are driven to rise above their dark impulses. Such a minotaur seeks the balance between the monstrous and the refined. Innumerable minotaurs give in to the temptations staining their souls and find themselves thralls to Baphomet, the Horned King. Minotaurs must struggle to become more than the beasts they resemble or else succumb to the demonic brutality they despise.

Play a minotaur if you want...

• to look and play like a large beast.
• to be a mighty warrior who has amazing strength and endurance.
• to be a monstrous adventurer struggling against your darker, bestial impulses.
• to be a member of a race that favors the barbarian, fighter, and warden classes.

Physical Qualities

A minotaur combines the features of human and bull, with the build and musculature of a hulking humanoid, but with cloven hooves, a bovine tail, and, most distinctive of all, a bull 's head. Fur covers a minotaur's upper body, coarse and thick on the head and neck, gradually thinning around the shoulders until it becomes humanlike hair over the arms and upper torso. The thick hair turns shaggy once more at the minotaur's waist and thickens around the loins and legs, with tufts at the end of the tail and around the powerful hooves. Minotaurs take pride in their horns, the sharpness, size, and color of which are related to an individual's place in minotaur society. Fur and skin coloring runs from albino white to coal black, though most minotaurs have red or brown fur and hair.

Labyrinthine patterns are important to minotaurs, and these decorations appear on their clothing, armor, and weapons, and sometimes even on their hides. Each pattern is particular to a clan, and the pattern's size and complexity help minotaurs identify family allegiance and caste. The patterns evolve through the generations, growing more expansive based on clan members' deeds and a clan's history. Minotaurs live as long as humans do.

Minotaur Feats

Heroic Tier Racial Feats

Name	Description
Ferocity	When you are bloodied or dying, you can make a basic attack against a nearby creature as a free action.
Frenzied Beserker	When you are bloodied, you can enter the "frenzied berserker" stance.

Heroic Tier Racial Feats

Name	Description
The Beast Within	You may wield weapons as if you were one size larger, or as if you were a large creature, and can wield two-handed weapons in one hand as if they are one-handed weapons.

Minotaur Utility Powers

When your Minotaur character gains a class utility power after 1st level, you can forgo taking a power granted to you by your class. Instead you gain a Minotaur utility power of the same level or lower.

Ferocity	Minotaur Attack 6
With your last, final swing, you make a reckless attack against your enemy, hoping to regain a second wind to continue in battle.
Daily
Free Action	Personal
Trigger: You are reduced to 0 hitpoints or are dying.
Target: Self
Effect: You can make a melee basic attack or charge a creature as a free action. If the attack hits, you can spend a healing surge.

Notes

The changes are meant to make goring charge a more useful encounter power, and to replace the "Ferocity" power where you make a melee basic attack when you die, which is highly situational and likely a completely useless racial feat. Replacing the encounter power in it's current form is designed to boost an attack rather than simply replace one, making it more similar to the Thri-keen attack which is a minor action, or the Half-orc's power which adds 1[W] damage as a free action. The attack only works on a charge and does less damage than either of these abilities, but knocks the target prone which compensates for this minor drawback, making it more or less balanced imo. As for Ferocity, because it can only be used when the player dies, it's essentially a pointless throw-away power that will almost never come to pass. It's essentially useless as when your character is dead the game is over, and many GM's don't even allow characters to die at all. As a result this is a wasted racial power, and essentially will never likely be used. That's not even including the fact that many feats and other powers are designed to enhance this power which likely will never be used. A more reasonable ability is to benefit the Minotaur when bloodied in some way, and enhance that at death rather than having it only effect the minotaur when they're dead. This makes the minotaur viable for regular playthroughs, and still stays in line with the concept of a minotaur being a beserker that gets more powerful as they are bloodied or close to dying, and this only makes them harder to kill as they get to lower hitpoints. It also is a unique racial feature no other race in the rulebooks has to my knowledge, so it's not just a copy-paste of another racial power.

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