Talk:YoRHa Android (5e Race)

Came across this page, and figured it would be interesting. Looking at the Flavor and Gameplay balance templates, I want to see if it would be possible to work this to be able to fit near any campaign.

-Flavor: For one, I was thinking of playing with the "Precursor" idea that they were created by an advanced society, possibly blessed with god-like intelligence, to create these androids before vanishing under unknown circumstances that even the YoRHa Androids don't know. By the way, I slightly vote in favor or re-wording the name to read "YoRHa Android," because the way it is now, seems a tad clunky.

-Self-Destruct; Black Box Detonation & Bunker Support Combo: This does become interesting issue. In my ideas to balance it, they...don't really work. If I keep it at a Level-based damage, it can still be abused by back-up, find group of enemies, explode, rest of party gets boons, go back for the copy, rinse and repeat. Of course, because the 'droid is going boom constantly, they're not gaining boons. But once the Party gets high enough, they could theoretically go out of their way and farm low-ranking baddies to up the new unit to get them up to speed. Of course, the DM could also start limiting backups if they start abusing this, even nerfed. As it stands now, while Bunker Support (may be in need of a name change, but that's me) is an interesting concept, it does allow for the DM to control the limit, probably what the original author wanted.

-Being an Android: I understand the whole concept of "Lack of Food/Water/Air" can break some campaigns. But then again, androids are, conceptually, not organic and don't need normal organic means of personal care. Plus, if you were built for extensive combat or other long-term front-line duty (which the race itself seems to be), that an android needs to stop and eat and drink regularly even if it's explained as fuel becomes jarring because they're just non-standard humans. Mass-produced soldiers as a concept wins in numbers, but like any other army, destroy their food source and it becomes much more difficult to win the war. Plus, going from the general idea of the source material, food's already a scarcity. All you're really doing is creating more mouths to feed than at double the rate of normal humans. And what about the backup bodies while you run around? If another Andoid got hungry and saw the deactivated body, wouldn't they steal the fuel to keep going? Plus, famines? Hey, I just found out why the creators went missing.

Nightmares are dreams too... (talk) 00:19, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

A Unit Berserk seems to be designed against 5e style, and also includes some self-defeating mechanics.

Self defeating

• Using your Constitution modifier to set the DC of a Constitution saving throw is effectively a coin toss. It might be better to use Strength Modifier to set the DC and have it be a Constitution save, since it is your body being actively damaged by its own components.

Against style

• Requiring a full turn to activate a feature seems to ignore some general notions of action economy in 5e. With the exception of casting some long spells, most actions take up only one [Action] or less. Using up a full turn suggests a character cannot use Reaction, Bonus Action, Move, etc. This does not particularly seem to reflect how the ability is portrayed in its native NieR Automata either.

• In general, self damage is discouraged, but it is a distinct mechanic in its original work and I recognize that this may be inseparable from the trait in order to preserve its dangerous nature.

• 2d8 is a lot of damage, and could be immediately fatal to most level 1 characters. Coupled with the unconventional activation time, this trait/feature seems to deny its own usefulness to a low level character wishing to use it. It's my opinion that 5e's racial traits are largely intended to be useful moreso at low levels than high, to add playstyle flavor and options to characters who otherwise do not have many at low levels. Suggest altering this to something more like 1d4 at level 1, increasing in dice count at various levels, as with cantrip damage.

Kylier (talk) 16:35, 28 July 2019 (MDT)

You raise some good points Kylier, but portraying the ability too closely to how awesome and cool the androids are in the games would possibly over power them. The berserk trait taking is a turn is actually inspired by how it works in a turn-action game called FFBE rather than the actual Nier:Automata itself, but they had a collaboration and A2's berserk ability required a turn to set up. I am fine with changing the saving throw though, as well as possibly lowering it a bit to a base 8 instead of 10. Changing the damage to scale is a good idea.--Yanied (talk) 20:53, 28 July 2019 (MDT)