Talk:Medrosakal (5e Race)

The medrosakal page before had weird traits dependent on strange things like reproduction and sex, which is without precedent and also makes it a bit uncomfortable to play, I would imagine. Additionally, it could essentially cast the flesh to stone spell at a level far below that which the spell is usually given.
I streamlined the flavor and added sections for history and personality, as well as culling the traits as per suggestions from a previous similar race I fixed so it is much more applicable to a wider variety of tables and arguably more balanced than the state it was before. I thus argue the revisions to undo these changes are unhelpful.--Yanied (talk) 15:16, 20 December 2021 (MST)

I created this race back in 2nd Edition and nerfed it WAY down so Admin would accept it, and when they did, it was perfect, and you made it COMPLETELY UNRECOGNIZABLE! I’m fighting to get it back to the way it was because of you! DON’T TOUCH MY STUFF AGAIN!!! --DarkSyde1369 (talk) 18:21, 20 December 2021 (MST)

Speaking as one of the admins, here, I will note several things.

• One, this page was not made by your account. It was made by an unidentified IP with no links whatsoever to your account, and it is not provably yours.
• Two, I do not see administration approval on this race in any state - unless one were to count Yanied's recent edit, as they are in fact also an administrator.
• Three, no one individual on this wiki owns ANY page. These pages, once created, are owned by the wiki as a whole. That includes everyone who edits these pages. The one and only exception is the contents of user pages, and this is certainly not a user page. If there is controversy over any edits, then the consensus of all who are interested in discussing that page is considered and determines the future state of the page. For the record, I personally believe that Yanied's edit was the better one, and will support it.

I will once again encourage you to read the wiki's guidelines on civility. This page is not 'your stuff', and I would thank you to refrain from having such a violent tone in your future messages. --Nuke The Earth (talk) 18:31, 20 December 2021 (MST)

The unidentified IP address was with my phone before I created the account. And I CAN prove it’s mine because I have the original copies on paper from 2nd AND 3rd Editions! It WAS approved by Admin because it had appeared on the Main Page of the Homebrew races. Yanied’s edit is NOT the better one because it COMPLETELY DESTROYED MY RACE and made it UNRECOGNIZABLE! It needs to be changed back to the way it was or you need to delete it because I will NOT have MY RACE befouled by ludicrous edits! --DarkSyde1369 (talk) 18:59, 20 December 2021 (MST)

I can believe you were the IP behind the page first. What I can't believe is you thought it was ever balanced by 5e standards or that an admin approved it. Appearing on the main pages doesn't mean anything (anyone can remove a tag and say it's "finished" but that can always be changed, no admin approval needed :P). Let's take a look at how "balanced" and complete you think yours was, trait by trait, before my rework and fluff buff:

• Superior Darkvision without any downside (usually supposed to be balanced by sunlight sensitivity, see drow)
• Keen sense is largely fine on its own, as is the fey ancestry. The immunity is a little weird because I don't think that is a necessary mention in 5e
• Drow magic allows you to take the trait of another subrace from the elf race entirely.
• Reduced armor is fine if it is just a passive -1 AC.
• Snake hair gives you a free bonus action attack from 1st level that is usable without recharge (and deals 1d4 + your level in damage). That is much stronger than lizardfolk's hungry jaws, which at least need recharging.
• Petrifying gaze at lower levels is fine, but it scales in a very extreme way compared to dice increases, jumping into monster/flesh into stone territory where you can just force a series of saves. Maybe as a racial feat it would be good.
• The reproduction trait is a bit unnecessary for 5e race writing. That was better suited for 2e.
• And the bowmaker trait just tosses on weapon proficiencies as icing.

Basically, everything put together made for a pretty imbalanced race despite the nerfs made. It basically had too much, which is why it needed trimming. I'm not sure if its initial imbalanced state was due to the improper porting of an older edition race.--Yanied (talk) 19:14, 20 December 2021 (MST)

Pages do not need to be approved by admins to appear on the homebrew page. That page automatically displays all homebrew race pages, to ensure that they are accessible from, at minimum, one page. Therefore, no, this page did not have any sort of administrative approval. Yanied's version is NOT any lesser than yours just because it's different. In the opinions of myself and several others, Yanied's version is better written and balanced. I will also note that we still have nothing more than your word stating that you created this page, and we have no record of a Medrosakal race page for either 2e or 3e. There is also no record of the name in any form on the wider internet. Given the circumstances, your argument quite frankly does not have a leg to stand on.
If you would like to cooperate with Yanied and Anastacio to help bring portions of your vision into it, there would be nothing wrong with that, but this stubborn territorial attitude will get you nowhere. --Nuke The Earth (talk) 19:23, 20 December 2021 (MST)

Nuke, I told you that I have them in the original paper form: you won’t find them on the internet. I was getting ready to respond to Yanied when I saw this edit. --DarkSyde1369 (talk) 20:11, 20 December 2021 (MST)

Yanied, as for the traits:

• Superior Darkvision can be scaled down to regular. No problem.
• The immunities are necessary for the race: the poison immunity is to protect herself from an accidental bite (nat 1s are no joke); the gender-change immunity is necessary because they are only female and CANNOT be male!
• Drow Magic can be acquired by FEATS ONLY because medrosakal are HALF-DROW, otherwise they would be able to use them from the start like full drow do.
• Reduced Armor can’t be just a passive -1 AC because the armors are modified heavily to be revealing, hence the lighter weight and increase in cost. They also can’t wear anything heavier than chainmail.
• The snake hair I originally had as an Action. I changed it to match the medusa that is in the Monstrosities section but I can easily change it back. The 1d4 is from the bite of the snakes, the other damage is from the poison, though I can reword it so it doesn’t scale up, say, 1d6, and I can add a recharge, since they’re only half medusa.
• Petrifying Gaze I originally had at one save but, again, I changed it to match the medusa in the Monstrosities section, who gets FULL petrification at 3rd level! I have it set to be full at the same level a sorcerer or wizard acquires the ability to cast flesh into stone so it’s not more powerful than other characters.
• Self Reproduction is necessary for the race in order to procreate. It’s a side effect resulting from the coupling between drow and medusae. I can add that into the description.
• The Master Bowmaker trait was a result of being half-medusa, who use bows to attack enemies. It’s in their blood: making them just became second nature.

Before I nerfed it, this race had a LOT of imbalance. 2e simply required more XP to level up and limited classes they could be. 3e/3.5e merely added a level adjustment or had them level up as a monster via Savage Species. I believe making the changes I proposed will balance the medrosakal adequately, I just need the page unlocked so I can make said changes. --DarkSyde1369 (talk) 20:49, 20 December 2021 (MST)

• The immunity against the poison just strikes me as odd since the medusa doesn't even have this information on their block about their snake hair. The gender immunity thing I guess makes sense since there is a strict difference between medusa and maedars. That should probably be disclaimered due to 5e races usually being less restrictive on that front.
• For feat acquirement, you might be better off stating it the way 4e does in terms of counting as another race ("You count as X race for the purposes of feats..." etc). The prior wording made it sound a bit like you get those feats
• The snake hair thing isn't so much the damage as much that it can be used at-will. Keep in mind that as a player race, there are many things they cannot do in comparison to the monster. So if it can deal, like, 2d6 poison with its bonus action, sure. Just nerf its usage to recharge per rest or something (with the appropriate 5e wording)
• For petrifying gaze, please do not equate the CR to player level, nor that players should be able to do something just because a monster can. The scale is very weird but I can see it might work again with a disclaimer. Normally, race effects don't scale beyond 5th level unless they are just dice increases like dragonborn's breath.
• Yeah putting reproduction in the description might be more appropriate than the trait section. The race weirdly did not have a history section? It just had a society after description, and it was kind of scattered. So a tighter narrative would flow better
• Bowmaker is fine if everything else gets scaled down.

5e has a bit of an issue with monstrous races (as Volos will tell you) so it's pretty key to keep monsters and players separate. The changes proposed seem reasonable so I'll unlock the page.--Yanied (talk) 22:29, 20 December 2021 (MST)

Thank you. I appreciate it. Until I can get the wording right (much like wishes lol), I’m going to revert it to what it was before, just to make it easier for me to work with. --DarkSyde1369 (talk) 02:25, 21 December 2021 (MST)

Yanied, I believe I’ve fixed it adequately. Let me know if I need to touch anything up. If not, please remove the words and tag at the top of the page. --DarkSyde1369 (talk) 15:19, 21 December 2021 (MST)

Cool, looking over the changes, some of the following still stick out to me:

• So reduced armor reduces the base AC bonus from armor, but *specifically* for chainmail, it actually raises the dex bonus by 1 and removes the strength requirement? It just feels like an older edition trait since that is much more complex than what would be normal for 5e race AC calculations (which usually do not take specific forms of armor into account).
• The snake hair trait has a recharge on a roll of 5-6? That should be removed since those are only for monsters. The wording for the "When you are within 5 feet of you" is also wrong. I think you meant another creature? And you could probably write the snakes to be like an unarmed strike, because you are automatically proficient in those. It feels like it might be a dex-based attack though, so that would have to be clarified a bit. Overall, the trait attack wording just needs some clean up I think, so something like

"As an action, you can make a special unarmed strike with your snake hair against a creature within 5 feet of you. You can use your Dexterity for this attack instead of your Strength. On a hit, the creature takes 1d4 piercing damage and must succeed on a Constitution saving throw (DC= 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Charisma modifier) or take 2d6 poison damage. After using this trait, you must finish a short or long rest before using it again."

• Petrifying gaze doesn't require movement to use, right? So why would it provoke opportunity attacks? Also, are blinded creatures automatically able to succeed the save? As for pushing the effects to 11th level, I guess this is as balanced as it will get?

Overall, there's just more links and grammar/wording fixes. I think this race definitely needs a design disclaimer to mention that it doesn't follow a lot of 5e race conventions, namely being gender locked and having the ability to petrify something permanently innately, without use of a spell, even at higher levels, keeping it in line with a monster.--Yanied (talk) 13:40, 31 December 2021 (MST)

Yanied, just a few notes before I change anything.

• Reduced Armor doesn’t specifically affect chainmail but all armors up to it. Thinking about it, I can restore the Strength requirement by taking that part out. I will also add wording to address the other armors so I’m not singling out chainmail.
• For the Snake Hair, I thought the dragonborn had a recharge on their breath weapon but upon reading it again, I see that it doesn’t. I can easily remove it. The wording issue was a simple typo, easy to fix. I like how you worded the attack attribute, so I’ll probably use it.
• With the Petrifying Gaze, no it doesn’t require movement. Again, the attack of opportunity was from 3/3.5e, so that will be removed. I can add in something for blinded creatures. As far as the leveling part, that lines up with other races, such as the dragonborn’s breath weapon damage scaling. I know it’s a different ability but the general idea is pretty much the same.

--DarkSyde1369 (talk) 05:27, 1 January 2022 (MST)

I've done what I can. I'm unsure of how to add a disclaimer for the race, so perhaps you can help me with that and I can give you feedback. --DarkSyde1369 (talk) 13:16, 1 January 2022 (MST)

Alright, cool. The wording for the armor is cleared up a bit now. --Yanied (talk) 13:21, 1 January 2022 (MST)

Thank you, Yanied. That disclaimer is perfect. If the race is balanced enough, please lock it so nobody else can edit it. --DarkSyde1369 (talk) 13:41, 1 January 2022 (MST)

Well, generally, pages don't get locked from all edits unless they become Featured Articles. Other pages are temporarily locked due to traffic or high vandalism rates.--Yanied (talk) 14:00, 1 January 2022 (MST)

Yanied, what is the formula or code or whatever it is for the design disclaimer? I need the template for it just in case I have another race that needs it. --DarkSyde1369 (talk) 10:08, 14 January 2022 (MST)

{{Design Disclaimer|<!--edition-->|<!--reason-->}}--Yanied (talk) 20:52, 14 January 2022 (MST)