Talk:Marasmusine Meter (5e Guideline)

I think you might have maybe forgotten about Gnomes in the core race section. But then again, with their Gnomish Cunning that might be a bit more tricky to apply an estimated value. Dunno if you're workin' on that, just something I noticed just in case. PunnyDM12 (talk) 09:45, 13 February 2019 (MST)

Dark elves have weapon training as well. 75.161.74.99 19:30, 31 March 2019 (MDT)

I am experimentally reworking this to reflect some of my scoring at Feat Construction Kit (5e Sourcebook). Marasmusine (talk) 04:32, 8 June 2019 (MDT)

Damage Type Rarity (courtesy of [1])

• Common: Bludgeoning, Piercing Slashing
• Uncommon: Fire, Poison
• Rare: Acid, Cold, Lightning, Necrotic
• Very Rare: Force, Psychic, Radiant, Thunder

The reason I rate Fire as "common" in the evaluation is that fire is also a frequent natural type of damage, not just from spells and monster attacks. Marasmusine (talk) 08:56, 8 June 2019 (MDT)

Have you considered applying an estimated value on flying speed? I've been working on a race with a flying speed for quite some time now and I like neither the Aarakocra or Aasimar approaches. Aarokocra seems to be borderline game breaking and the Aasimar ability offers a bunch of bonuses in addition to flight. I've been thinking about a version of flight which grants flying speed until the end of your next turn (provided that you're wearing no heavy or medium armor) and can be used once per short rest (not quite sure about this last part though, maybe a preset ammount of times per long rest would work better).

--Nekristus (talk) 00:02, 23 April 2020 (MDT)

could we have this updated to account for all of the most recent races, including yuan-ti being a upper limit example? flying speed, and negative traits also honestly should be indcluded, as they are becoming increasingly common ie small races 25 speed, sunlight sensitivity, vulnerabilities, size, negative modifiers, water dependency. a lot of these traits were clearly used to balance the race, and as such should be taken into account.--Lord Survival (talk) 04:11, 21 March 2021 (MDT)

The thing is, a decent number of dms do not allow yuan-ti and/or flying race due to them being so strong. Every balance meter I have come across has scored yuan-ti as being too strong and either choose to not score flying races or make it an extremely powerful trait. Also, negative effects overall are not taken into account when balancing things in 5e. For example, cursed items have non-curse properties that make them the same power as non-cursed items(you ignore the curse when balancing the item), classes should not ever have negative features as it goes against the idea of you getting better, and traits that make a race worse are not taken into consideration when balancing a race. This is because WotC does not want to repeat the balance nightmare of having negative traits offset having more traits or more powerful traits like in 3.5e.

Besides all those points, several of the traits you mentioned that are downsides are not really downsides or have other issues. Small races for one are not weaker than Medium races, they just have different advantages. Small races can find cover easier, their smaller size can come in when adventuring(take up less room, squeeze through smaller spaces, ect.), they can mount a medium sized creature, and could be able to move through or into occupied spaces during combat. Sunlight sensitivity meanwhile is bad trait, but has a much lesser impact to spellcasters and adventures that mainly take place indoors, underground, or mostly at night. As for vulnerabilities, really no race should have a damage vulnerability as if a pc gets unlucky their hit points are halved, meanwhile most of the time the vulnerability does nothing. Because of this, giving a race vulnerability to something is just a hallmark of bad race design. As for negative abi modifiers lets take a look at some 1st party races. For the 1st party races like the orc which had a decrease in Intelligence, and the kobold which had -2 Strength, the decrease in your ability scores were not taken into account when balancing the races. In addition, WotC later realized that having negative ability scores wasn't fun for players who choose those races so the negative abi's were later removed them from the races when they were reprinted. As for water dependency, I am unsure what you mean, but if a race has a swimming speed and can breathe in water and air that is just an upside. If you mean the race has a slower than regular walking speed or can only breathe in water, those are both traits that a race should not have and a pc shouldn't be penalized for having say a swim speed.--Blobby383b (talk) 19:01, 21 March 2021 (MDT)

Negative Traits

Marasmusine, I hope you realize that there will be people out there that will use your meter's negative traits to make a massively powerful race, just with good traits negated by a negative one over and over and over. I'd do that. I don't, but I would. --Flamestarter (talk) 14:23, 17 May 2020 (MDT)

Really any meter can be broken if you try hard enough as balancing races isn't an exact science. Regardless of whether a race lies within the range of being balanced on a meter though, users can still add the {{needsbalance}} template to a race if it is clear that the race isn't balanced. --Blobby383b (talk) 10:59, 18 May 2020 (MDT)

That really should be besides the point though, as this meter does not does not allow you to score traits negatively.--Blobby383b (talk) 11:03, 18 May 2020 (MDT)

Yes, that is one of the first points made on the meter. Personally I use the musicus meter, but that's only because it comes to me easier numberwise. I find that this meter is actually quite good if you have the values memorized. Also, there should generally be some application of sense that "this has WAY too much", good or bad, when it comes to good race construction in my opinion.--Yanied (talk) 13:15, 18 May 2020 (MDT)

That's because the Musicus Meter was excessively worked on and campaigned hard. I doubt anyone has its values memorized as well (meaning both requiring referencing.) #MetersRuinTheCreativeProcess #DeleteAllMeters Red Leg Leo (talk) 11:22, 19 May 2020 (MDT)

Oh that's a better way to put it, yea, referencing.--Yanied (talk) 11:49, 19 May 2020 (MDT)

Why the hashtags? That makes no sense at all. Anyway, I'm not so sure about deleting. I mean, yeah, they are tedious and annoying, but sometimes they actually work... somehow. And if we let our minds run wild, well, I feel bad for DMs across the world, trying to make sense of this site. I think we should use these meters a little, not too much, not too little, after the race is made to make it more... controllable. Flamestarter (talk) 02:18, 20 May 2020 (MDT)

#AllTheKidsDoIt. Red Leg Leo (talk) 11:00, 20 May 2020 (MDT)

that's kinda the point, these point-based meter rules are ridiculous ~ Flamestarter I agree. Hence my desire for their deletion. Red Leg Leo (talk) 11:31, 20 May 2020 (MDT)

It's not the most objective thing, and the meters are not too helpful with homebrew traits. But for comparison against official races, I think it lends a bit of some comparison at least so arguments like "well in this case they would be super useless/useful" can be quantified. I don't use these metrics all the time myself but they are useful when the talk of balance comes down.--Yanied (talk) 14:37, 21 February 2021 (MST)

Missing Traits

I think the Maramusine Meter is pretty decent, but there's a number of traits that I feel are missing from it. I don't want to be so forward as to add them myself, so I wanted to instead ask about where they would be placed.

• Creature Type Change. Your creature type is [type]. Not being humanoid gives you a minor mechanical advantage, by rendering you immune against spells and monster abilities that exclusively target humanoids.
• Damage Resistance, Uncommon/Rare/e.t.c. Damage resistances against acid, cold, force, lightning, necrotic, poison, psychic, radiant, and thunder are not accounted for. I presume these are meant to be placed at lower trait tiers?
• Undead/Construct Nature. The usual suite of traits that negates a creature's need to eat, drink, breathe, or sleep.
• Damage Immunity. I personally reckon damage immunity is too high to be placed fairly on this meter, but I'm only one mind.
• Condition Immunity. Immunity to charmed, frightened, e.t.c.
• Advanced Movement. A flying speed, swimming speed, climbing speed, or other non-standard method of moving that increases a player's mobility.
• Amphibiousness. Being able to breathe both air and water.
• Natural Weapons. Some natural weapon that deals better unarmed strike damage than default fists.
• Movement Speed Increase. A walking speed faster than the default 30 feet (e.g. the wood elf has 35-foot walking speed).
• Specialist's Advantage. Granting advantage on all checks related to [Very Narrow Situation] (e.g. the kenku's Expert Forgery).
• Powerful Build. Counting as one size larger when it comes to carry capacity and pushing, dragging, or lifting.

Endermage77 (talk) 01:54, 7 August 2022 (MDT)

Recalculations on Resistances?

In regards in particular to the resistances on this page, we never really are supposed to give resistance for races to ANY of the basic slashing, piercing, and bludgeoning damage. So I'm wondering if putting that here gives people the wrong idea? Also, specifically on ranking dwarven's poison resistance and its adv. on saving throws as a 0.5 is confusing to me. Further up this chain, poison would be ranked about the same as fire resistance, which is a 1 per the meter. So dwarven resiliency should be a compact 1 or even a 1.5, I think. I see the note on the meter that it seems to be for logical inclusion of both, but I would argue that shouldn't necessarily diminish the score.--Yanied (talk) 07:25, 6 May 2024 (MDT)