Talk:Lesser Dragons (5e Race)

Yeah that's fair. While this wasn't as much of a rough draft as the other elephant in the room, I'll begin reworking this shortly. I only just now found out about this though, so it might take a solid moment to think of how I might go about fixing the race without sacrificing its core. --Supersmily5 (talk) 18:46, 10 June 2019 (MDT)

Nerfed And Polished

Sparkle sparkle. So I finished revisions on the race, ultimately changing quite a bit of its base as well, most notably it's small size now, making it much less able to benefit from its own Quadruped trait. I also made a more unique breath weapon for it, since the one it had was really actually kinda lazy and bloated as a result. Made a table to determine damage types based on coloration as well, and nerfed most other features that I didn't outright remove. The small size made its Natural Armor no longer even remotely justifiable (That may not actually be a word), and many other parts of it were removed from play as well, as it seemed to have far too many benefits to playing, though I only noticed when I looked back at it after being told so. Long story long, hopefully it's fixed enough to be good now. --Supersmily5 (talk) 08:18, 23 June 2019 (MDT)

Nerf 2: The Nerfening

In the middle of nerfing the race again. Haven't consulted the guide yet but I probably will, I can see a few ways to lessen the power of the race without removing the core of what it's meant to be. It absolutely IS a race built around being actual dragons in play, so at least part of the Quadrupedal trait has to remain for that to be the case. There's already Dragonborn and Half-Dragons and probably several homebrew races that have humanoid dragonkin in different ways, this is not meant to be another one of those. Still, I'll look at the guide to see what recommendations it has, if anything other than "Don't make a quadruped" exists in it. In the meantime, so far I've nerfed the Dragon Fu trait (And gave it a better name than that placeholder which I really should have thought of before), removed the whole no somatic components thing, nerfed its speed to that of a small size creature, nerfed its fly speed (Because really a fly speed of 5 feet can make almost any race OP, see Aarakocra for more details, the race that is almost always banned from games), and nerfed the range on its breath weapon to make it not particularly useful unless you're playing a close but ranged character or know a damage type weakness. Sooo almost all the core traits of the race. Why specifically core traits? I'm looking to keep the variety of subraces within the race, as the more I nerf it the more it becomes a key feature of the race. By the end of it, I may even add more variety to them, if I can think of any more interesting types and the OP problem is thoroughly dealt with first. Balance, is the key. --Supersmily5 (talk) 06:00, 17 July 2019 (MDT)

Okay so that's interesting... Essentially, the whole time I was being told the race was OP, especially because of the Quadrupedal trait, but then I come to find according to the race design guide I actually had the opposite problem, with it being bad because it was a almost exclusively negative trait, which the guide disapproves of. I removed most of the detriments, a DM that knows what they're doing will probably figure it out anyway, but of course that also gives the race unquestionably more power. Is it balanced now? WHO KNOWS? I'm trying really hard here. --Supersmily5 (talk) 06:12, 17 July 2019 (MDT)

Finally, in spite of my best efforts, I decided upon reading the guide to nerf and simplify some of the subraces as well, particularly those that gave a lava and underground movement speed. While the point of these traits were absolutely to allow a player to bypass certain traps without any extra effort, as the whole race was originally designed around having a lot of movement options, they didn't really fit with this weaker version of the race anyway, and the guide convinced me to can them. What it DIDN'T convince me to do however is remove the Truesight entirely. It was already put there as part of nerfing the subrace, and I lowered it's range to 10 feet before reading the guide, but it's a variant subrace anyway, and doesn't have to be used by DMs looking to keep things lore-friendly anyway. --Supersmily5 (talk) 06:27, 17 July 2019 (MDT)

Version 3!

Removed the flying trait and replaced it with a coyote time trait! The variant subraces also removed the flying, replacing it with more jump distance, kinda like a weak glide that can't last very long. Added rules to the subraces, making them variant and suggesting DMs unlock the subrace traits over several levels. I also replaced the Quadrupedal trait with a stand up from prone trait by the same name, and removed Springy Build entirely (The new Weak Wings trait makes it kinda redundant). The wordiness of some traits may still warrant future change, but this is what I have for now. --Supersmily5 (talk) 19:10, 22 August 2019 (MDT)

Oh, and while I didn't remove the creature type change (Again, it's supposed to be a true dragon), I did nerf it so you can still be affected by spells and effects that affect humanoids, such as Hold Person. Otherwise, the type change adds ALOT of spell immunities at 1st level that is definitely OP. I should have figured that out earlier. --Supersmily5 (talk) 19:13, 22 August 2019 (MDT)

Version 4! Final Try!

No flying speed, no breath weapon, and a much simpler build overall, including a change of the ability score increases (+2 Cha and +1 Int, over the original +2 Int and +1 Wis). I looked over what I wanted this race to be, and decided that it being balanced and different from other dragon-like races was more important than it having ALL the dragon traits. At any rate, the breath weapon and dragon-typing its missing can be easily replaced with class features, draconic bloodline Sorcerers are a thing after all. If it's still going to be called OP after this attempt I've got nothing to make it work better. If so, can whoever marks it as OP please communicate with me here and tell me why? It can't even fly anymore (Which I'm okay with because its ultimately more interesting anyway), what makes it so OP that isn't a variant rule (Subraces are a variant rule in the race by the way)? --Supersmily5 (talk) 12:30, 27 December 2019 (MST)

Slight Tweaks.

I simplified the Nimble Quadrupedal trait. This allows it to be easier to understand, at the cost of being slightly stronger and more ambiguous. I'll probably reuse this refined version of the trait later for another race I'm working on. The last major race I have to add before continuing other projects. --Supersmily5 (talk) 20:38, 5 February 2020 (MST)

Version 5? Question Mark?

Considering an alteration to this page that removes some traits and replaces them with a spellcasting trait that gives Dragon's Breath at level 3 and Fly at level 5, once per long rest, with Constitution as the casting modifier. Could that work? Usually the spellcasting trait doesn't give spells that are this good. --Supersmily5 (talk) 05:39, 9 January 2021 (MST)

Yeah, being given 2nd and 3rd level spells, at the same rate a full caster would, is quite a bit. Why do this anyways? Isn't trying to emulate the proper dragons the exact opposite of what your trying to do with this page? If you do go through with it, you can probably put it as a variant under the subclass section, saying what it removes or replaces.--SwankyPants (talk) 10:18, 9 January 2021 (MST)

I got the idea this morning, but looking into it further I'd want to scale it back to Feather Fall at 3rd level and Dragon's Breath at 5th. This would be more inline with the other races that have a spellcasting trait, and it would be simpler than the weird fall stop trait you get instead. Also, doing this would have me heavily alter the subraces, making them much tamer and simpler since all of it at once would be kinda nuts. What do you think? If I do make such a heavy change now after having finalized it, I'd make it as a new page entirely. I've done that before for other homebrew bits. --Supersmily5 (talk) 12:13, 9 January 2021 (MST)