The authors have investigated the dependency of radiation quality and absorbed dose on radiation field size in therapeutic carbon beams. The field size of the broad beam, formed using the passive technique, was controlled from 20 to 100 mm per side with a multileaf collimator. The absorbed dose and radiation quality on the beam center were evaluated at several depths in a water phantom using microdosimetric technique in experiments and Monte Carlo simulations. With an increase in the field size, the radiation quality was reduced, although the absorbed dose grew at the center of the field. This indicates that the dose and radiation quality at the center of the broad beam are influenced by particles from the off-center region via large-angle scattering and that such particles have relatively low radiation quality and mainly consist of fragment particles. Because such a tendency appeared to be more remarkable in the deeper region of the water phantom, it is likely that fragment particles that are born in a water phantom have a marked role in determining the field size effect.