Talk:Bone Splinter (5e Race)

I'll admit, the traits are weird, but they are usable and understandable.

Please read 5e Race Design Guide. Also, it may help to read Help:Improving, Reviewing, and Removing Templates. --Kydo (talk) 12:23, 14 October 2016 (MDT)

This race is outrageously overpowered in combat. It is designed to kill things and nothing else. It provides next to nothing for roleplay. It is effectively useless in exploration and socialization. It is incredibly difficult to incorporate meaningfully into a setting, or to justify a person playing as one. It has traits which are not justified- they are arbitrary gaming abstractions which do not meaningfully represent anything. It has racial traits which read like class features. It is mechanically incompatible with the core rules content. --Kydo (talk) 15:50, 14 October 2016 (MDT)

But since when was eating something considered a new thing in d&d?

So, what, he chews up a crossbow and suddenly grows one from his arm? Why only crossbows? And then eating people hyper-heals him like some sort of insane zombie? I thought he was a mollusk. Whatever, that isn't even what matters. The real issue is balance. We can squabble over terminology all we want, the thing is still the mechanical equivalent of a stat-block blender on legs. --Kydo (talk) 22:56, 14 October 2016 (MDT)

Don't question the power of mollusks. Also, certain mollusks feed on dead organisms.

But he seems pretty balanced to me.

Based on WHAT?! What race gives the mechanical equivalent of 2d10 damage or more in the form of a weapon that cannot be taken?? --Kydo (talk) 08:35, 15 October 2016 (MDT)

Well he can't use other weapons. Also, it's damage does scale with level, so it's honestly a fair trade.

Not really. There are no higher tier weapons than what is provided in the PHB. As a consequence, weapon damage typically remains the same from level 1 through 20. Higher damage weapons typically have penalties, such as being heavy or two-handed. Even then, the highest damage weapon in the PHB deals 1d12. --Kydo (talk) 14:35, 15 October 2016 (MDT)

But its high damage scale is normal for the levels.

Not for individual weapon attacks. A fighter with this race, for example, would be like a hurricane on the battlefield. Such a character can put out 12 consecutive melee weapon attacks in a single round. --Kydo (talk) 18:56, 15 October 2016 (MDT)

Fighter max can do 4 consecutive attacks. Spells do way way more damage than this dude's attacks.

Also, you are aware that everything at level 20 does high amounts of damage, right?

I also enjoy the fact that you locked the page, so no one else besides admins can edit it. You don't even do anything to help the page.

Solving the conflict is impossible with you, it's like talking to a brick wall.

1. With action surge and extra attack combined, a 20th level fighter can make 12 melee attacks. 3 actions, 4 attacks apiece. This is how they compete and survive at higher levels. Arbitrarily giving them even higher damage output goes against the developers intent.

2. Things do not arbitrarily deal higher damage relative to level in 5e. A fighter with a short sword deals 1d6+STR at level 1 and level 20. He just attacks more frequently. While a fighter may increase their STR modifier over time, the maximum limit is attainable from first level, so this is not true progression.

3. Weapons and spells are not balanced against each other by the core rules. They are completely separate and unrelated. They have their own unique design principles.

4. I told you that if you didn't stop edit-warring, I'd lock the page, in my edit comment. I'm just following through. It now occurs to me that, not having an account, you probably didn't see my warning. That is my mistake, and I can see why you'd be confused and offended by it. I'm sorry. I should have made more effort to communicate directly. However... You can't just remove a reviewing template if there's clear disagreement about whether the issue has been resolved. It just results in two people reverting each other's edits over and over again, which achieves nothing. --Kydo (talk) 23:00, 15 October 2016 (MDT)

The only reason why damage increases is because it can only use a small handful of weapons.

That isn't much of a penalty. Most characters never have much need to switch weapons. If they do, they do so for the tactical value of different weapon traits. --Kydo (talk) 23:24, 15 October 2016 (MDT)

There's very little description here. What naming customs do they use? Why are they restricted to chaotic neutral or chaotic evil alignments? SirSprinkles (talk) 23:36, 15 October 2016 (MDT)

Can you unlock the page so that the issues can be resolved?

And also, they still deal very little damage at the lower levels.

If they "are not harmed" by eating rotten food, why do they resist necrotic damage? Wouldn't poison be a better fit? Why does eating food allow you to regain hit points? A human can't regain hit points by eating an apple, so what's different about bone splinters that allows them to be healed by food? SirSprinkles (talk) 00:22, 16 October 2016 (MDT)

Okay, here comes my opinion.

• A character's primary attacks are a function of class. Overriding this with a racial trait has unpredictable results. For example: a bone splinter monk is now unable to use their martial arts feature, because they cannot use any other melee weapon other than the organic knife fused to their left arm (which is not a monk weapon). You could make it a monk weapon, but then they would deal far too much damage with martial arts.
• A character's AC is also a function of class, and overriding it has unpredictable balance issues. A small bonus, like +1 AC, is possible but has quite a high "value" when balancing racial traits.
• Hit point recovery should never be "at-will", it is always limited by a character resource (e.g. spell slots) or by range (e.g. up to half maximum like the high-level fighter feature).
• My recommendation is to move these features to a racial class, and/or rewrite them to synergize with class choice (rather than dominate over). Marasmusine (talk) 01:11, 16 October 2016 (MDT)

None of this can be done if this page is locked.

And I'm not turning this race into a stupid class. The traits work.

Description is severely lacking, however. And the traits are just combat focused and OP. SirSprinkles (talk) 01:59, 16 October 2016 (MDT)

It's a combat focused race. Kanye West (talk) 02:15, 16 October 2016 (MDT)

The traits are of more benefit to wizards, sorcerers and other classes with little or no weapons or armor. The traits are of very little benefit to barbarians and fighters who already have good weapons and AC. Marasmusine (talk) 03:46, 16 October 2016 (MDT)

I might have some suggestions for the "organic knife" if I knew what it is supposed to represent. Is it something that grew out of its body, or it some external thing that was fused to the arm? Does it render the hand unable to hold items? It says "Organic Knife" and "Organic Sword", which is it? It says "when you have the Organic Sword equipped.", does that mean it can be sheathed or unequipped? What is it made out of? Marasmusine (talk) 03:51, 16 October 2016 (MDT)

Why would you use a bruiser based race with wizards or sorcerers? Kanye West (talk) 11:50, 16 October 2016 (MDT)

Anyways the race is complete in terms of weapon naming and balancing. Kanye West (talk) 11:57, 16 October 2016 (MDT)

Because you gave it AC 16 and a high-damage weapon, and both Con and Dex are helpful. Marasmusine (talk) 11:55, 16 October 2016 (MDT)

I gave it +1 to ac. Kanye West (talk) 11:57, 16 October 2016 (MDT)

Yeah, that's what it says now, which is better, it benefits everyone. The weapons still need some work, so I'd like to know more, per my questions above. Marasmusine (talk) 12:05, 16 October 2016 (MDT)

I replaced organic knife with organic sword. I had it say equipped, but I'll replace it with attached. You can't remove it either way, as I stated in the weapon description. I also added that the weapon is made from a combination of spikes on its arm, which hinder melee weapon use. Kanye West (talk) 12:17, 16 October 2016 (MDT)

Ah, I see now. I was confused by your wording. Thank you for clarifying all of that. --Kydo (talk) 12:57, 16 October 2016 (MDT)

May I remove the balance template now? Kanye West (talk) 13:01, 16 October 2016 (MDT)

From the issues I bullet-pointed above, only AC has been addressed. Marasmusine (talk) 13:57, 16 October 2016 (MDT)

I'm satisfied with simply justifying the damage as being based on a different standard of balance. Since it genuinely interferes with a lot of class features, especially those of the combat classes it was designed for, I feel it mostly balances out. (It does introduce a couple of outrageously powerful builds though) I find the healing to be too much, considering the race is designed to kill stuff in the first place. This destroys the rest/healing economy of 5e, because they will effectively have free restoration as a product of their own existence. A DM could work around this by having them fight nothing but constructs, elementals, and other such inedible enemies, but this actually limits the types of adventures this character would function correctly in, making it problematic for most DMs. --Kydo (talk) 14:07, 16 October 2016 (MDT)

I nerfed the healing to Constitution modifier plus level. Kanye West (talk) 14:25, 16 October 2016 (MDT)

It's not the amount, it's the accessibility. The features doesn't say how much I need to consume, how long it takes to consume, or how often I can do this. As written, if carry a bag of rotting matter with me, I can repeatedly eat small amounts until I get all my hit points back. I don't need to spend Hit Dice to recover hit points during a short rest. At 1st level, a fighter with 13 hit points can go from 1 hit points to max hit points after 3 "consumes" (It's 5 "consumes" at 5th level). Marasmusine (talk) 15:30, 16 October 2016 (MDT)

I'm no admin nor pretend I am anyone special, but here's some help: Make a Bone Splinter that is a Level 1 Fighter with generic equipment and have it fight a Level 1 Human Fighter with generic equipment (use Fighter class equipment). Add 4 dead bodies and see how it goes. Does the Bone Splinter crush the Human? Now do it again with Level 20 Fighter (yes, there is some stuff to work out, but try). Does the Bone Splinter crush the Human. By "crush" I mean the Human was forever losing and could never gain the upper-hand. I tested it like this and found the Bone Splinter completely dominated the Human. The Human had no way to compete. (Note: Use the best builds, but no magic items, just base equipment, racial traits, and fighter class abilities. Use Champion Archtype and relevant fightering style for equipment.) Agrith (talk) 09:11, 14 November 2016 (MST)

I've changed the corpse-eating to temporary hit points equal to Constitution modifer. Con mod * proficiency hit points (Which could be as much as 10 hp at 1st level) five times per rest was still too much. Because THP doesn't stack, you can eat as much as you like as often as you need and we don't have to worry about it being overpowered. I've split off the resistances and Intimidation proficiency, the race is still overpowered as a whole.

On my metric, a race should score 4.5; this currently scores 2 (+1 AC) + 2 (resistances to two common damage types) + 1 (skill proficiency) + 1 (darkvision). Marasmusine (talk) 11:31, 14 November 2016 (MST)

Filth fever is a disease spread by the contagion spell. Perhaps a more appropriate disease would be sewer plague? SirSprinkles (talk) 12:42, 14 November 2016 (MST)

Musicus Rating

Musicus Meter Score: 6

This race has a score of 6 according to the Musicus Meter race guidelines. With this metric, first-party races' scores range from 4.5 to 8. This is a guideline, not a rule, and it's important to use your own judgment alongside this scoring.

This scoring may be the groundwork for a focused {{needsbalance}} usage. A contributor to this page may request a detailed breakdown of this page's balance. Without this information, {{needsbalance}} may then be removed. This meter cannot be the sole basis for a needsbalance template, but may be included as an accessory to a wider discussion of a race's balance.

This template should only be placed on a race's talk page. If this template is not placed on the talk page, please move it.

I've cleaned this race up, however, I believe it still needs work and will need a nerf. ConcealedLight (talk) 19:13, 8 January 2018 (MST)

Does the race work as an aberration or have I gone too far in redesigning the "fluffy" bits of the race? --Papa slow-ying (talk) 01:09, 19 May 2018 (MDT)