Talk:Half-Devil (5e Race)

Katana but not Longswords? Why not just say proficient in Longswords. The weapon booster makes classes like fighter hilariously powerful, because using a longsword, even one handed means that suddenly I'm using a weapon that ignores nonmagical resistance AND deals 1D8 bonus damage, turning a powerful 1D8 sword into a 2D8 weapon, more than any other weapon in the book! SirSprinkles (talk) 04:56, 13 March 2016 (MDT)

Aim for two major traits and a minor trait; or a major and three minor, or there-abouts (it's not exact), but we have:

• Better than normal ability scores (major)
• Very fast fly speed (major)
• Fire resistance (major)
• Poison resistance (major)
• Necrotic immunity (major +)
• Fear immunity (major +)
• "the weapon" (whatever that is... any weapon?) +magic, +1d8 damage (major +)
• True Darkvision (major)
• Innate spellcasting (major)
• Skill proficiency (minor)
• Weapon training (minor). (And this looks like a random grab-bag)
• 1d6 unarmed damage (minor)
• Advantage on strength checks (major)
• "two handed weapons as variable weapons" (meaningless)
• "oversized weapons as two handed weapons" (meaningless)
• rejuvenation (overpowered, removes HP/HD/rest economy)

I count 3 minor traits, 7 major traits, 3 "major +" traits and 1 overpowred trait. In summary: This is massively overpowered. Marasmusine (talk) 02:20, 15 April 2016 (MDT)

• OK, so, it has a total of +5 to ability scores. That is substantially out of line.
• The fly speed allows the character to move in 3 dimensions at a steady speed without interruptions. That is a pretty potent trait, the rest of the traits should scale somewhat with that, considering it doesn't counterbalance itself at all.
• Gains resistance to fire and necrotic damage. That is more potent than the resistances of any core race.
• Darkvision is pretty much a given for a 5e race, so its inclusion just means that the character's eyesight has not been penalized. In fact, it's very subtly improved with the ability to see color in the dark. I don't think that's much of a big deal, so much as just a roleplaying thing.
• All physical attacks deal +1d4 necrotic. Wow. That would technically extend to even melee weapons it is using. That's an additional 1d4 on top of a monk's level 1 1d4 martial arts die! That is outrageously broken!
• Demonic strength is, first off, a misnomer. This is a half-devil, not a half-demon. It should be diabolical strength. Second, it stacks 1d6 damage with the previous trait for unarmed attacks without even being a monk, and deals greater damage than a monk's starting martial arts die! That's comically busted!
• Being able to use two-handed weapons in one hand without any limitations is broken. You can simultaneously carry:

• Two different two-handed weapons, such as a great sword and a halberd, allowing you to make reach attacks as you wish, while still having a meaner weapon up close, and extending the range of your threatened area for AOOs, making it very difficult for enemies to approach or escape you.
• A two-handed weapon and a shield, allowing you to deal more mundane damage per attack than any other shield-using character.
• A two-handed weapon and a spellcasting focus, letting you cast spells without components while still being able to dish out the pain if you need to.

So, yeah, that needs to be fixed. --Kydo (talk) 23:44, 28 May 2016 (MDT)

I think the fix to make this is pretty easy.

Reduce the stat bonus by 1 so the Str is +2 and Cha is +1.

Remove the Hellish Combat since it's, as everyone says, seriously powerful.

Make the fly speed be 15 or 20, that or make it so you can fly for 1 minute at 30ft and you recharge in a short rest. The reasoning for that is that you're only half-devil so you don't have as great an endurance for it.

Hell has nothing to do with necrotic damage, so remove the resistance to necrotic but keep fire. Since a Half Devil is effectively a tiefling with more devil than human the fire resistance still makes sense.

The claws are fine and the two handed thing from Half-Oni can still work here, just as well as it did there.

Really the only things beyond that that I find odd are the fact that the half-devils are strong, since demons are the ones more inclined towards power, and the fact that they're immortal when even devils themselves aren't immortal. Grimeagle4 (talk) 16:55, 30 May 2016 (MDT)

OK, so I went and did all that. Changed flight into a racial trait, which is how flight was described for the aarakocra. I limited flight to "take-offs" per rest. One seems to be a very harsh limit though. Perhaps the number of flights should increase with level? (A one minute limit to flight is not a real penalty; almost all fights end before the 10th round, which is 1 minute) Swapped the bonuses to favor charisma, as per your note that the strength focus was weird. Split the one-handed 2H wielding because it has nothing to do with having claws, and is clearly a separate trait. I did not change it though. The claw damage was reduced to 1d4 so the character's unarmed strikes are not stronger than a level 1 monk's martial arts die, making monk more of a valid choice. (You're basically just not gaining the same unarmed strike benefit from your first level that other races would gain.) Altered age, but I know nothing of devil lifespans so I left it open-ended. --Kydo (talk) 18:08, 30 May 2016 (MDT)

Why not change the two-handed? If the race that actually has high strength and abilities related to higher weight holding have a negative, why not the half-devil? Grimeagle4 (talk) 18:42, 30 May 2016 (MDT)

Because nobody's come to consensus on what to change it to. --Kydo (talk) 20:21, 30 May 2016 (MDT)

My vote is to get rid of strong-arm entirely. I don't think it fits the theme or the lore. Marasmusine (talk) 00:31, 31 May 2016 (MDT)

I agree. --Kydo (talk) 18:14, 31 May 2016 (MDT)

I think the race is good now, anyone else got complaints? Grimeagle4 (talk) 19:21, 31 May 2016 (MDT)

I'd rather not see this deleted. Mind if I try to clean it up? --Yanied (talk) 11:43, 14 December 2017 (MST)

Go for it. — Geodude671 (talk | contribs | email)‎ . . 14:45, 14 December 2017 (MST)

ok so I took off the ability to choose a path in addition to a birthplace and made it only one or the other. I also reduced the traits available. I think it's balanced now. Thoughts?--146.95.77.152 17:10, 14 December 2017 (MST)

I think the imbalanced stub can be removed at least. --Yanied (talk) 12:23, 15 December 2017 (MST)

So, I think the race is stable and balanced enough now not to be deleted? Anyone have any objections? --Yanied (talk) 22:42, 21 January 2018 (MST)

Yeah, I think this has been brought to a point where it shouldn't be deleted. I do still have a couple issues with it, though: I feel like the Path of Beauty could just give you charm person 1/day as a SLA, with modification to the duration. I also feel the gnome-born is too powerful - nothing the other subraces get are as powerful as advantage on int/wis/cha saves against magic. It might be alright if that was literally the only thing that subrace got, but as it is currently the gnome-born is probably too strong relative to the other subraces.

That having been said though, this page probably shouldn't be deleted at this point. I'll remove the deletion template. — Geodude671 (talk | contribs | email)‎ . . 23:32, 21 January 2018 (MST)

I think there needs to be clearer wording on the fact that you can only pick a path OR a birthplace and not two of each. But how would that be worded? Is the word "alternatively" ok to use in that case? And the two aren't necessarily subrace categories then. --Yanied (talk) 20:13, 22 January 2018 (MST)

I think you could just put them all under a single subrace header instead of two different ones. That'd make it clearer that they work like standard subraces.--GamerAim (talk) 06:44, 23 January 2018 (MST)

I was wondering if we could have a single subrace header, but two categories under it. --Yanied (talk) 18:34, 23 January 2018 (MST)

Template Issues

"Blatently overpowered, wording for trait not only deviates from standard but contributes further to its overpowered nature. This is stronger than the first party's tiefling but also comparatively stronger than every first party race including the pureblood yuan-ti, which is already considered to be overpowering. Sub-races are not defined. For example, can you go down the path of magic, receive the benefits of such a path as well as receive the benefits gained from being born into a gnomish society? Why would be born into such a society grant such a clearly race specific benefit? Why would creatures of such obviously evil origins not be shunned and cast out of these societies equally if not more then tiefling's are?"
How is this stronger than yuan-ti? You cannot gain path and society bonuses either. It uses the words "alternatively" and "or" when discussing those benefits. Sometimes families keep an evil creature around because of hope they can change them. Plenty of fiction relating to this, and even real life when a child becomes a killer and the mother wants to keep her child around because their sweet innocent baby is misunderstood. ~ BigShotFancyMan ^{talk contributions} 08:03, 22 March 2019 (MDT)

That template has been on the page for over a year so thanks for pointing out the issue I missed back then. However, you only bought up half of what was said while removing the other half. The other part of which is pretty valid: Why does a being born into a society grant a clearly racial benefit? Living among elves isn't going to change your ancestry to fey. Next time instead of removing the entire template remove or fix the areas that have issues instead. Cheers. —ConcealedLight (talk) 09:06, 22 March 2019 (MDT)

...it is a pretty simple disagreement. Why in the world would I leave something I have no issue with? How does that make any sense? I removed the entire template because the failure to be open-minded to Rule of Cool. Someone wants to impart society/cultural traits onto another isn't really that crazy. If the template had been written better *stomp stomp* as it is now, then there could have been discussion about that but no. It was vague and over all poorly executed. If the lore that was added could be noticed, it does try to help bridge this incomprehensible idea too. ~ BigShotFancyMan ^{talk contributions} 09:17, 22 March 2019 (MDT)

So I made the edits a best I could to the wording and whatnot. The bewitching trait was basically charm so I just changed it to that to help with the duration also.--Yanied (talk) 10:35, 22 March 2019 (MDT)

Thanks Yanied! I'd also like to note that one continually subjected to a cultures practices could develop a tolerance, or resistance, to something. ~ BigShotFancyMan ^{talk contributions} 10:44, 22 March 2019 (MDT)

Yeah that's true too. In that event I guess that's what makes the paths characteristically viable--Yanied (talk) 11:39, 22 March 2019 (MDT)

Rollback

A copy of the other version has been made. Please direct future edits of the distinct half-devil race to Half-Devil, Variant (5e Race). Coaldstone (talk) 20:21, 3 November 2022 (MDT)

Thanks---Yanied (talk) 21:31, 3 November 2022 (MDT)