Talk:Bleu Naga (3.5e Race)

What's the Type?

Is a tauric Naga really an aberration? The fact that it has arms, and that something as bizarre as a Scorpionfolk (looked it up because of the Scorpino listed here) is still just a Monstrous Humanoid makes me think that's the type this should be. Regular nagas aren't humanoid of any kind because they're 90% snake. Thoughts? --Oneiros 15:23, 29 June 2006 (MDT)

Traditional nagas are just snakes with humanlike heads. As they act too humanlike to be magical beasts and not human enough to be monstrous humanoids, they are aberrations. This race is much more humanoid, and should be a monstrous humanoid.

What's the point of stretch? It's easier to represent this ability with Large (Long), or just don't bother with it at all (humans can so something similar if they lie down, serpentine motion will keep the naga's body in the same 5' space).

Most of the abilities given here are more complex than they need to be. Just give them the ability to treat themselves as one size category smaller for determining what they can fit through, let Stability represent everything else they can do, and a +4 racial bonus to Climb checks should cover everything else. They shouldn't be any more complex than Yaun-Ti. --Thomar 19:36, 26 November 2006 (MST)

Changed to Monstrous Humanoid... Also, I think stretch is intended more for for combat than anything else (AaO's). Finally, if you think you could re-word any of these abilities with the exact same idea in mind, making them easier to understand and read, go for it. It would be nice to see this race improved upon. --Green Dragon 22:59, 26 November 2006 (MST)

Hi folks, I'm the original creator of this race from the old Wizards boards. I'll go through a few points...

• Aberration type - I chose that type because Naga are of that type however I agree with the people commenting above. In hindsight, Monstrous Humanoid would be a much better choice.
• Stretch - Large as a racial feature endows the race with many benefits and in the interests of keeping this a fair and balanced race, I felt it a much better choice for playability to keep the size to medium and emulate desirable features with abilities.
• Complex abilities - I understand your skepticism here. I generally favor the principle "less is more" when creating homebrew. The Bleu Naga was just a race will too many oddities to easily write off. Most of them are very simple in concept but writing them into D&D while keeping them balanced is a challenge.

--DarkRhystar 17:37, 5 June 2009 (MDT)

SLIGHT overpowering

The bonus languages (any) is a SLIGHT overpowering, look at the core-races. None of them have this much stuff and bonus languages (any).--Gruegirl 19:46, 5 April 2008 (MDT)

Keep in mind that most races come with 2 starting languages and a pool of pre-selected bonus languages. Bleu Naga come with 1 starting language and a can select from all languages as bonus languages. In this way I feel that they work together in a balanced way. I also chose not to give Bleu Naga a language of their own to assist DMs in integrating them into their campaigns.

--DarkRhystar 17:37, 5 June 2009 (MDT)

Abilities

Comments on existing abilities

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• Stability: The race doesn't seem so hardy and heavy as to be difficult to push around - on the contrary, it seems nimble and flexible; since (in my oppinion) it can't be tripped, the only issue is Bull Rush - and I don't feel the race should have any bonus to resist being bull rushed; circunstance bonuses, such as when its tail is wrapped on something so as to give opponts a hard time pushing it should be considered by the DM, and not be an automatic ability (since bonuses may change depending what you are holding, it may break, etc).

• Soft Scales: (why soft?)I'd say leave it at+1 natural bonus; it keeps the game simple.

• Stretch: Ths "ability" seems to exist for the sole purpose to explain why a 10-15-ft long monster is medium; assuming the race has humanlike torso, which should stand 5-6 ft above ground, it has a 5-10 ft tail on ground level. Since I don't think it moves in a straight line (since the cool part of being a serpent is moving as them, with the body making zigzags and loops) the body should never cover significantly more than 5ft. This said, I think this ability is innecesary.

• Compact: Again, moving flexibility is u to the DM. The race - having a humanlike torso and head, can enter the same places a normal human can, although it may be able to move easier. Yet, a hole where a normal human cannot enter is a hole where this race should not be able to enter - unless you want your race to have a halfling-like torso. This said, this ability is unnecesary.

• Tail Wrap: The race should be immune to trip, as there are no legs to trip; this makes this ability innecesary, as the action itself is just roleplay and action description.

• Tail Stand: Usually reptiles such as snakes move on ground level (this is why they are called "reptiles", it comes from Latin reptilis which meeans 'creeping'), only leveling their heads slightly above ground to get better position for smelling with their tongues. A few of them "stand" to frighten their enemies, which means they stand upwards with a small part of their body in a menacing posture. Since your race has humanlike torso (same with youan-ti and such), it's accepted they always stand in this way so as to interact with other sentients and use tools and weapons in a humanlike way; yet, they need a large portion of their snake body to support their humanlike torso, so this ability has no sense.

• Bleu Lunge: The "may only be done while performing a tail stand" obiously makes this ability ridiculous. Yet, the idea is not totally off-track, as snakes can wrap upon themselves to make a "spring" attack (not as the feat), which is exactly what you describe in the ability. Since "Charge" is an action already defined, just give the appropiate bonuses and penalties to your attack. In my oppinion, this attack should be possible only after making a move action to "wrap itself", and would give +2 to attack (same as charge), but no AC penalty; attacking either an adjacent square or a square 5ft away. Performing the attack positions the subject in an adjacent square (if he was 5-ft away). These are just suggestions, of course.

• Darkvision: This ability should have some consistence with the race's natural enviroment and/or origins. As pointed somewhere else, if the race is not an aberration, it's origins should not be traced back to the original nagas (since all of them are aberrations), and its given name is just a matter of resemblance. For a normal surface dweller, Low-Light vision should be enough for the race, since it's a social and kind race so it doesn't need to live only at night or in the underdark. This is just a suggestion, obviously, which mirrors the suggested social ability of the race and its eagerness to travel and move in the normal (surface) world.

Suggested Abilities

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• Swim speed = walk speed (but NOT water breathing).
• Can change between a standing position (as a normal human, but with no legs) and a creeping position (as a prone normal human) as a free action without attacks of oportunity. Can move in the "creeping position" at full speed, but has the same penalties to attack and AC as a prone human.
• Note that we could give somthing like "+4 to climb when there are things you can wrap around", but these are circunstance bonuses that the DM should give... not an ability per se.

Final note

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It's nice to have all kind of options with new races, and D&D gives us tons of rules to apply and justify these options... nevertheless, note that the player using the race should be able to describe actions in detail without the need of rules, and the DM should judge if these actions are possible and if they give any circunstance bonuses to whatever he is trying.

A note on languages

"Bonus Languages" are inappropiate as they are. They reflect the languages around the area where the race usually dwells, not the languages they can learn on their adventurous life; humans have "any" on these because they are almost everywhere, and as such may begin the game with almost any language - but the DM should restrict these - even humans - to languages their culture has been in contact with. As an example, look in books such as "Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting" to see how bonus languages are given for each human territory.

Not giving your race a language is your choice, but no race (once its origin and home region is chosen) has the option to learn ANY language at level 1. Of course maybe your race exists in almost every region, as humans do, and as such could have the ability to chose any language (choosing the right starting region), but I feel this is not what you intended. Learning other languages (not on the "bonus" list) is what any adventurer does using skill points gained through adventuring and trying to make people in remote areas teach them their language. Or they just speak Common.

If the DM really wants to make languages come into play, he should eliminate the Common Language (which exists just to make possible everybody talks with everybody), give each character a free regional language (plus a racial language probably), and bonus languages (that can be chosen at level 1) from around the characters starting region. This gives a lot of roleplaying opportunities... and funny situations.

If you really want to make it easy for them to learn languages, give them "Speak Language" as a class skill instead.

Tail Stand feedback

I found this race a while ago, and I really liked it. I recently decided to allow some players to use custom races of my choosing, and this was among them. The player chose this race along with a Lion Totem barbarian (I insisted that if he wanted pounce he had to dedicate himself to the class), and I must say that the Tail Stand ability is NUTS powerful. He chose to use a Spiked Chain, and every battle he would Tail Stand immediately, granting himself an effective reach/threatened area of 20 feet, which--as you can imagine--is incredibly good. He combined this (later on) with Stand Still and Combat Reflexes, which made him a nearly impassable tank for much of the game.

I still think that the reason this combo was so good was because of Pounce, not necessarily because of Tail Stand/Bleu Lunge. Still, I don't think Tail Stand makes sense from a developmental point of view from the snake-side of the humanoid. Someone has said something similar, to the effect that an "upright" naga is most likely already standing, so to speak. This Picture of a standing cobra demonstrates what I think the OP meant with "Tail Stand" but it seems to be unique to Cobras (as per other examples such as this picture here this picture or this).

Thus, it may perhaps be accurate to call a "Tail Stand," but I think it would be more snake-like to replace it with an ability called Coil. The user of Coil gains a greater bonus to Balance checks, a +2 bonus to attacks made from this position, and just as important, the extended Threat Range. However, due to the complex nature of the coil, I propose making this increased threat range a cone-like threat range out 20 feet, and the threatened range in line with where his humanoid chest is facing. Finally, making an attack against anything 5 feet or greater from this Coiled position results in a Bleu Lunge.

From here, you could argue that a Bleu Naga can "Stand" up to 15 feet high as a move action, but unless they have a stable object to wrap their lower bodies around, they lose their Stability bonus to Balance *and* must actively take a DC 15 Balance check to remain upright in this position, and if they fail this check, they fall prone.