'Dungeons & Dragons' Players Ponder Whether a Centaur Can Ride a Centaur

Dungeons & Dragons players have discovered what they think is a loophole in the most recent set of [...]

Dungeons & Dragons players have discovered what they think is a loophole in the most recent set of Unearthed Arcana rules, which allows for the creation of a terrifying and hilarious "Tower of Centaurs."

Earlier this week, Dungeons & Dragons released their monthly "Unearthed Arcana" supplement, which gives players a set of new rules to playtest before a potential official release. This month's Unearthed Arcana focused on a new playable race of centaurs. Centaurs are faster than other races (they are half horse) and can uses their hooves as weapons, but that's not what has the Dungeons & Dragons universe talking.

As part of their "equine build" feature, a Medium or smaller creature can ride on a centaur's equine back in the player allows it. The centaur acts as its own character, as opposed to a controlled mount. While centaurs are typically a "Large" creature in Dungeons & Dragons, the centaur player's race is a Medium creature. This raises the important question: can a centaur ride another centaur?

Some are taking the rules as written to mean that players can form a "Tower of Centaurs," a ridiculous moving stack of centaurs all of whom can attack with arrows or spears at their foes. If the players all take the "Mounted Combatant" feat, they can also evenly distribute any damage taken by the Tower of Centaurs, meaning that a DM can't focus their attacks on the bottom rung and hope for the best.

The Tower of Centaurs even has a precedent of sorts in recent Dungeons & Dragons games. The Batiri Goblem Totem appeared in the Tomb of Annihilation and are literally a group of goblins riding on top of each other's shoulders.

Of course - the Tower of Centaurs has a few technical flaws. The equine build feature means that a centaur player is counted as a "Large" creature in terms of carry capacity, which means that they can only carry 900 pounds of weight if they have a strength score of 18. From what we could find on the Internet, a centaur would weight about 2,000 pounds (about the size of a large horse). Even if you halve that weight since playable centaurs are medium creatures, a centaur still couldn't carry another centaur...much less multiple centaurs.

Jeremy Crawford, the lead rules designer for Dungeons & Dragons also weighed in on the Tower of Centaurs concept.

He also noted that the Player's Handbook specified that a mount needs to have an appropriate size and anatomy for it to be ridden. Even though the centaur player race allows for any medium sized creature to ride it, it would be hard to say that a centaur has the appropriate mount to be ridden by another centaur.

Sadly, while a Tower of Centaurs seems like a great time, it's sadly an impossibility in Dungeons & Dragons rules. That doesn't mean that a DM can't allow it to happen at your game, but don't expect to get this idea past rules sticklers. Someone even homebrewed the Tower of Centaurs as a monster, so that DMs can throw this impossible construct at its foes.

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