Talk:Phoelarch (5e Race)

The book I got these from (3.5 MM3, p121) also mentions ice variants of phoelarches and phoeras, called vazalkyons and vazalkas, but I dunno whether to add them as a subrace; seems like work. It even says "Other elemental variants may also exist," but screw that. Although, a Zapdos gijinka could be fun to play... :P Yeah, right; we already have genasi. Knowlessman (talk) 13:23, 13 December 2015 (MST)

I'm trying not to think too hard about what a phoera ex-barbarian looks like. Damn, I also forgot to say that your phoera form can't gain class levels. :/ Is that really necessary, though? Knowlessman (talk) 14:34, 13 December 2015 (MST)

If you were to add vazalkyons then dont do it as a subrace but as a whole new race.history on the race would also be appreciated.

Looks like a good race to trigger a TPK at low levels. Marasmusine (talk) 16:52, 14 December 2015 (MST)

...Did not think of that. :/ Does making it enemy-only fix that, or overpower it? Knowlessman (talk) 10:55, 15 December 2015 (MST)

24.208, do they really need weapon training? :/ Knowlessman (talk) 11:24, 15 December 2015 (MST)

What size is the Phoera(medium or small presumably

First off, you're kind of supposed to sign Talk posts using four ~'s, so people have any idea who they're talking to (such as whether they're the same person who keeps editing the page with no rhyme or reason or somebody who just showed up). Also, I capitalized Small in the description of the bird for a reason. Third, I had the increases both at +1 for a reason; I think it might be needed to balance out all the other abilities, but I'm not sure. I'd love actual feedback and suggestions on this; just editing stuff into it with no reason or argument isn't very polite. Knowlessman (talk) 19:45, 16 December 2015 (MST)

Should I just provide a statblock for the phoera, instead of listing its statistics and whatnot in a bigass paragraph? :/ Knowlessman (talk) 19:55, 16 December 2015 (MST)

The current formatting is the correct formatting for a 5e race. Marasmusine (talk) 07:17, 17 December 2015 (MST)

No, I mean the bird a phoelarch turns into after it dies. The player race is phoelarch, but a phoera, the miniphoenix a phoelarch is reborn as, has more fixed stats and set abilities. I don't know if there's precedent for statting a whole other creature within a race trait. :/ Knowlessman (talk) 14:45, 17 December 2015 (MST)

Thank you for making this my freind and i are each playing one of these. Their names are scarlet and ignis his is a fighter7 Pheora i am a fighter1 sorceror6 we are siblings cast out of our noble family and after leaving she was killed but only half and now we search for a magician powerfull enough to teach me wish or to use it themselves...

Uh, good on ya. Thanks; honestly kinda surprised somebody managed to talk a DM into letting them play one. :] By the way, though, you're s'posed to sign discussion posts with 4 ~'s. Knowlessman (talk) 16:17, 22 December 2015 (MST)

The Sorcerer UA makes this redundant. :[ Unless you play a paladin or bard or something, I guess. Knowlessman (talk) 20:49, 13 February 2017 (MST)

Aaand now it doesn't have a ridiculous amount of moving parts any more, and I feel safer allowing it a +3 total ASI. Just one trait you'll use once in awhile, and the two big ones that define the race but can only ever come into play once. And that may somewhat ruin the rest of the campaign for that player, when the DM (quite likely) disallows rolling up a new character that can, y'know, use magic items, on account of this one still technically being playable. :/ Knowlessman (talk) 21:59, 13 February 2017 (MST)

...Phoenix. Fee-nix. Phoelarch. ...Fee-lark? Fee-lartch? :\ Knowlessman (talk) 00:29, 24 June 2017 (MDT)

Is this even unplayable? The actually complicated parts don't show up until/unless the character dies, and the current version of Healing Fire is easy enough. Knowlessman (talk) 12:15, 14 January 2019 (MST)

Healing fire is too strong simply because a party member casts fire bolt to heal this thing and give fire immunity, arguably the most common damage type. The come back to life stuff is cumbersome and unnecessary because why wouldn't players use normal means of life saving. ~ BigShotFancyMan (talk) 12:24, 14 January 2019 (MST)

1. Said immunity doesn't last long enough to do anything more interesting than run through a wall of fire or no-sell one (1) attack (unless you're fighting a group of elementals or something, in which case it's one round of attacks), and there was a hard limit on how much it could heal (ie strictly inferior to just taking a short rest) before I nerfed it even further and replaced the healing with temps. Also it being more powerful than simple fire resistance is why the race has no other immediately-and-always-useful traits, as opposed to races that do have fire resistance. Shoot me for wanting a homebrew race to do something new.

2. The death stuff is The Main Thing of the race, given that it's, y'know, a phoenix-person race. You could change it to the "drop to 0 hp comeback" to make it more useful, but A. we can afford to take coolness factor over usefulness when the race has a cool and useful trait anyway, and B. they already did that in an Unearthed Arcana phoenix sorcerer subclass; this way you can stack them for full flavor. The point of homebrew is coolness factor; balance is merely a check to make sure it doesn't reduce the rest of the game to nothing, and I'm satisfied that this doesn't do that. Knowlessman (talk) 12:48, 14 January 2019 (MST)

I think homebrew can serve many things but I didn't notice you can only use per rest. How it is now, sure seems fair. Otherwise yeah, the race is kind empty. I understand the phoenix-y stuff you got for resurrection. I just ain't sure there is a balanced way for races to get that trait. ~ BigShotFancyMan (talk) 15:47, 14 January 2019 (MST)

But the beauty part is that it doesn't have to be that balanced because it isn't even going to come up in all campaigns. It's like that Barbarian subclass in Xanathar's that rezzes for free; it works because it might not even happen. (Just like what their thought process must've been with the Wild Magic sorcerer that has a 1/50 chance of ending the campaign by accident at early levels.) Knowlessman (talk) 01:02, 16 January 2019 (MST)

uh what barbarian subclass has a rez? or sorcerer? both have features that prevent death, but not resurrection. In addition, those prevent death features are level 14 meaning WotC balanced them to be valued at late tier play, not racial traits. ~ BigShotFancyMan (talk) 06:36, 16 January 2019 (MST)

Both features are subclass features; the Barbarian Zealot (Xanathar's Guide) "casters don't need to spend material components to rez you" thing kicks in at 3 when the subclass is picked, and Wild Magic Sorcerer (PHB)'s Wild Magic Surge can hit either 5-th level Fireball centered on self or Reincarnate-if-die-within-ten-minutes starting at level 1. Point is, as weird as it is for an early-level ability to only come into play if you die, there is precedent. Knowlessman (talk) 15:32, 16 January 2019 (MST)

I’m sorry but this proves nothing. Wild Surge is a 2% chance and that’s if you proc Wild Surge. It doesn’t compare to a feature granting resurrection. Same schpeel with zealot barbarian; nothing about the feature grants resurrection. If you’re adamant, place a {{Design Disclaimer}} on the race is has a free Rez trait that 5e has no precedent for. Players and DMs alike will be able to be more aware of the race’s capabilities compared to 1st party material. ~ BigShotFancyMan (talk) 17:52, 16 January 2019 (MST)

Or another idea, and forgive me for not thinking sooner, have them able to come back to life starting at 5th level like the revivify spell. It’s a 3rd level spell. A few races get innate spellcasting so this isn’t a stretch. Simplifies things a lot too. ~ BigShotFancyMan (talk) 18:07, 16 January 2019 (MST)

...That design disclaimer is a good idea. I'd better add that in now that I know about it. Thanks for trying other ideas to simplify it, but to be honest the bit I was sold on was the phoera concept from the original book. Knowlessman (talk) 18:43, 16 January 2019 (MST)

...Throes and Ashes should be an optional rule, shouldn't it. That's how I would've had it from the beginning if I'd known more about the wiki. I'll fix that up in a bit; meanwhile, d'you think there's room to cram in regular fire resistance alongside Consume Fire? Knowlessman (talk) 19:10, 16 January 2019 (MST)

I'll try to find my MMIII this weekend for ideas. ~ BigShotFancyMan (talk) 06:31, 17 January 2019 (MST)

@Concealed Light: Thank you for fixing Consume Fire and reordering the traits, but giving it Produce Flame just makes it a barely-changed Fire Genasi (Elemental Evil), and that isn't what I want for this. I figure Consume Fire is strong enough that it's fine for the last trait to be something less powerful and more flavorful. Granted, "your unarmed attacks are a different damage type" is basically nothing, but giving them a d8 ranged attack seems like overcompensating, and MM3 entry aside, I'd rather paint them as a martial-oriented race. Maybe if their weapon attacks added Chamod/a die fire damage on a critical hit? How powerful is the half-orc Savage Attacks trait considered to be? Knowlessman (talk) 20:19, 22 January 2019 (MST)

I've given a race a similar option before and it would be considered a minor benefit on pare with a decent cantrip like produce flame. It would be worded as such, "When you score a critical hit with a melee attack, you can deal fire damage instead of the attacks normal damage type." The more powerful version would be to add an extra die of damage like with the half-orc but it's cool enough as is imo. —ConcealedLight (talk) 08:05, 23 January 2019 (MST)

I too applaud the touch-ups (everywhere too) and apologize for not getting to a MM3 this weekend. I like the flavored option of critical hits being elemental. Could you imagine every once in a while, you unleash a devastating blow accompanied by fire?? Sweet. ~ BigShotFancyMan (talk) 09:18, 23 January 2019 (MST)

Only thing about replacing an attack's damage type with fire is it'd halve that attack's damage against a lot of creatures, and it's not always obvious what creatures are going to resist fire. Also once you get a magic weapon you'd probably never want to use that trait unless you knew something was weak to fire (which I don't think many things are that wouldn't go down to a magical crit anyway). ...I'm now torn between replacing Produce Flame with "Your weapon attack crits add extra fire damage equal to your Chamod" (or should that specify melee only? Half-orc trait specifies melee so I guess maybe this should too) or giving it Produce Flame and adding "You can throw the flame at an adjacent creature by making a melee spell attack instead of a ranged spell attack". Thoughts? Knowlessman (talk) 10:05, 23 January 2019 (MST)

I mean if you want to game it then sure, but as BSFM said devastating flaming blow every once and a while is cool and works not only within the context of the race and your want it to be a martial thing but also a balance thing. I'd either leave produce flame on it or add the trait I wrote out above.—ConcealedLight (talk) 10:44, 23 January 2019 (MST)