Talk:Pictsie (5e Race)

I've checked this race against Musicus' Meter and Marasmusine's Meter and it's come out balanced both times.

Musicus' Meter:

[2] Primary Ability Score, STR +2

[2] Secondary Ability Score, CON +2

[.5] Extra movement, +5ft

[1] Advantage on strong saves, Camouflage - similar to Deep Gnome ability

[.5] Natural weapon, Headbutt

[1] Condition Resistance, Stunned

7, similar to a Dwarf or Elf. Technically, an additional 2 could be taken off for "Tiny", but the Carry and Grapple traits make it so that it is actually a Small creature and Tiny is more for flavor. The disadvantage of reach makes up for the ability to hide behind smaller things.

Tavern Brawler feat must be substituted for a class ability, so I see no point gain or loss there. The Crawstep as an Ability Score Improvement substitute seems fair, especially since it cannot be gained until 8th level. Plane Shift is a 13th level spell, but the limitations on the crawstep i.e. you can't take 8 creatures, it has to be an adjacent plane, you can't carry people generally, you can't use it to banish another creature, makes up for the level difference.

Marasmusine's Meter:

[0.5] Adjustments of +2 of one and +2 of another: STR +2, CON +2

[0.5] Advantage in a narrow sub-use of a skill or saving throw (e.g. half-elves' fey ancestry) Camouflage - similar to Deep Gnome ability

[.5] Weapon proficiency, Headbutt

[1] Condition Resistance, Stunned

[2] Crawstep

[0] Negative adjustments as above: doesn't change points but can be used to offset a related trait

4.5. Negative ability score adjustments are now optional, but work for the general character.

Geodude, if you have a problem with the grammar, point out your issues and list them here. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Scrmnviking (talk • contribs) . Please sign your posts.

Here are the issues I have with the race:

• The ability score penalties are more reminiscent of a 3.x race rather than a 5e one. Only two first-party 5e races have ability score penalties, those being the orc and the kobold, and both were derided for breaking from precedent. Having a minimum ability score also is strange and breaks from precedent. What happens if I roll stats and roll less than a 13 for my strength? Do I get bumped up to 13 (before racial modifiers) or can I just nor play a pictsie? What if I don't want to play a str-based class and decide not to put points into strength?
• Reducing class' hit dice doesn't make any sense. Nothing does this in 5e, and I'm pretty sure nothing does this in any other edition either.
• Crawstep shouldn't be in the racial traits if it's a feat; it should be detailed in a separate section.
• Camouflage should give Stealth proficiency, not advantage.
• If Carry and Grapple are going to negate the primary disadvantage of being Tiny, why not just make them Small?
• I have no idea what Headbutt is supposed to do.
• Damage immunity is either overpowered or nonsense depending on what your intent is. By default, 5e doesn't have a system for determining which part of the body is hit, so only the head having immunity to bludgeoning damage doesn't make sense in the context of 5e. If it's meant to give flat immunity to bludgeoning damage, that's way too strong because bludgeoning is an extremely common damage type.
• Condition Vulnerability also doesn't make sense.
• Condition Resistance needs to be more verbose than just "Advantage on being stunned"
• Is this intended to grant the Tavern Brawler feat as a racial trait? That's, uh, "okay", I guess. 5e generally assumes feats to be an optional rule, but it's not a huge deal.
• Illiteracy needs to go. Even the orc, which has a penalty to Intelligence, can still read and write.

The page also needs going over for general wording cleanup. — Geodude671 (talk | contribs | email)‎ . . 22:41, 14 October 2017 (MDT)

Geodude671, I'll suggest that you re-read the Help:Behavioral_Policy. "The discussions that have the highest chance of devolving into uncivil arguments are typically those discussions discussing balance or "power" of a particular article's content. The best way to avoid this devolution of a discussion is to stay away from generalizations and vague comments, and to make sure that all statements spotlight specific text and give specific reasoning for thoughts."[emphasis my own, Ed.]

The condescension in your tone is not appreciated.

Now that you've presented some detail, we can proceed.

• ability score - Fair enough. This is a Race after all and not the monster stat bloc from which it was derived. Their preternatural strength is part of how they were written by Terry Pratchett, but PC's should be able to play what they like.

• Hit Dice - I didn't create that. It was taken from either this wiki, or one of the source books (possibly the Monster Manual or Volo's guide). I've forgotten where I found it however, so it will take me time to cite my source. Bear with me. As I recall, the justification was that they were Tiny.

• Crawstep - Fair enough

• Camouflage - This is the Deep Gnomes (Svirfneblin)Stone Camouflage trait (Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, pg.115), with "stone" erased and replaced with "motionless". I'm not sure how that doesn't make sense if it's canon for another Race.

• Carry and Grapple - This is built off of an existing character in literature. They are 6" tall, and therefore Tiny. Their other predominate feature is being abnormally strong. In the books, 4 can steal a cow by each one getting under one hoof and lifting, then running off. A cow is, on average, 1600 lbs, which means 400 lbs per Pictsie to lift. If carrying capacity is STRx15, then that makes their STR 26, which in the Monster Manual is equivalent to a Cyclops. Dividing it in half for being Tiny makes their strength 52, which exceeds the maximum STR 30 for monsters and STR 20 for PCs. It is a compromise to make the Pictsie work within the D&D realm.

• Headbutt is a special attack. Once they succeed in grappling a creature, they can headbutt it, causing damage and a chance to render the target Stunned. Another successful Headbutt and they can render the target Unconscious.

• Damage Immunity is simply flavor.
• Condition Vulnerability - I had difficulties deciding on the proper format for this one. They are afraid of writing, and of lawyers, but not much else. I couldn't find any examples of Condition Immunity so Condition Immunity Fear, from a non-Lawful (alignment) source didn't seem appropriate. It would have been helpful when I went up against a Sea Hag the other night, but comme ci comme ça. I thought being afraid of scrolls, documents, and other writing could be a substantial enough hinderance to counter some of their more obvious advantages. Do you have a suggestion on how to achieve the goal?

• Condition Resistance - With the Damage Immunity, I thought it was clear, but fair enough.

• Is this intended to grant the Tavern Brawler feat as a racial trait? That's, uh, "okay", I guess. 5e generally assumes feats to be an optional rule, but it's not a huge deal.

If there is a more appropriate place, then suggest it. However, I will not tolerate this passive-aggressive sniping. You act as if you are an authority and need to be obeyed, yet are not a moderator. You are in a public community. Act like it.

• Illiteracy - It is a trait of the race and part of their general culture. It adds to their character and balances out some stronger aspects. It should stay. Scrmnviking (talk) 17:11, 18 October 2017 (MDT)

 

I have made the following changes to the race:

• I made the race use Tiny Player Characters (5e Variant Rule), and also moved the link to Undersized (5e Variant Rule).
• Removed the hit die reduction. Wherever you got the hit die reduction from probably drew inspiration from the 5e rules for monsters. In 5e, a monster's hit dice are determined by their size, and Tiny monsters have a d4 hit die. I don't like applying this to player races because PCs and monsters follow different rules regarding their statistics - a monster needs to be Huge size to have a d12 hit die, but a Medium barbarian PC still has a d12 hit die, even though that same character created using the rules for monsters would have a d8 hit die.
• Left Camouflage alone since it somewhat has precedent - for some reason I thought Stone Camouflage gave expertise. I still don't like that both this race and the deep gnome give advantage, though. You still may want to consider nerfing this trait though, as Stone Camouflage only gives advantage in a specific type of terrain, whereas this one is in every type of terrain.
• Removed Condition Vulnerability altogether - "Lawful Source" does not make any sense in the context of 5th edition rules. Alignment is considered in this edition to be just fluff, and not have any impact on anything mechanically. You could probably just add their fear of rules to the description about their society, or make it a personality trait. If you absolutely must have this as a racial trait, I'd recommend making this a 3.5e race, as that edition's rules do allow for something similar (give some sort of penalty on saving throws against spells with the Lawful tag), but in the context of 5th edition rules it is complete gibberish. If you can rewrite this to make sense in the context of 5th edition's rules, please be my guest.
• Reworded Condition Resistance (now Stun Resistance) and Headbutt to make a little more sense.
• Added the Powerful Build trait from the Goliath to offset the Tiny size's carrying capacity.
• They really should be literate. Again, in 5e, every race can read and write, even the orc from VGtM, who has a penalty to Intelligence.
• Created a variant of this race that gains Tavern Brawler as a racial trait in exchange for getting only a +1 to strength instead of +2.
• Nerfed Crawstep to be usable once per long rest. I still feel that Crawstep is extremely powerful, being a free plane shift 1/day.

Also, in the personality traits section, you don't need to transcribe their accent. (though I haven't touched that section)

Finally, I don't believe myself to have been "condescending" or "passive-aggressive" previously. At the very least, it was not my intent, and I apologize if I have offended you. — Geodude671 (talk | contribs | email)‎ . . 18:46, 18 October 2017 (MDT)