Talk:Rubber Forehead Alien (5e Variant Rule)

Ha ha, make the traits mandatorily random and you've got yourself a basis for 5e Gamma World :) Marasmusine (talk) 07:43, 5 January 2016 (MST)

Er, yes. Yes I would. If you were to randomize it for each individual, rather than each racial group. Come to think of it, I never got around to actually playing that game... --Kydo (talk) 23:00, 5 January 2016 (MST)

Does this mean that I can have the head of an AK-47? Kanye West (talk) 00:16, 22 October 2016 (MDT)

If you can represent it with the rules provided, and a DM is OK with that, then yes. I'm glad you posted here, because I forgot I made this. It shouldn't be in races. It's clearly a housreule race design system. I will now relocate it. --Kydo (talk) 07:19, 22 October 2016 (MDT)

Balance

Seeing how Ref3rence is using this thing, I’m a little concerned because of how not great it is overall. I’ll give numbers for the features, since I know you can’t remember the names either.

• 1-6 are probably some of the worst offenders, at least an exemplar of how out of wack the balance is. I could just pick up a +6 to a score from this race, essentially. It might not be practical, but maybe the bonus could be limited, or provide an attached downside to picking up extra ASIs, like a reverse decrease or something.
• 25 shouldn’t exist. Period.
• 26-37 is the other half of the out of wack-ness. There’s no way anything that isn’t psychic, radiant, or necrotic is worth a full point, as much as an ASI or two skills. Should be bundled in with natural weapons.
• 42-45 are just kinda strong, could use a limit or cooldown.
• 48-64 is bad. It’s like urging the grapple bard to be worse.
• 68 should just be natural armor, or at least be unstackable. Bonuses to AC shouldn’t be so available.
• 98 maybe shouldn’t be further stackable.

A couple things I saw. --SwankyPants (talk) 11:39, 20 May 2021 (MDT)

Thanks for the heads up, I was planning on doing a lookover later but you beat me to it. The ASI traits have been removed since they were both unbalanced and uninteresting. For future reference if you find any other sore thumbs, the numbering is generated through #'s, which makes finding them in the editing window difficult, so while it's not the worst thing in the world to list numbers, listing trait names would simplify the process.--Ref3rence (talk) 12:08, 20 May 2021 (MDT)

Well that makes a lot of sense! Now I guess my entire critique is off a couple numbers. I’ll actually provide names next time. --SwankyPants (talk) 12:13, 20 May 2021 (MDT)

And since I’ve got you here, are you sure on damage types for unarmed attacks are really worth 1-2 traits? I could see concern for this based on what you’re working on, but for most other kinds games if you pick up a damage type, you either need to take monk levels or pick up another trait to make the punches even worth the effort. Seems like a weird oversight, to be honest. --SwankyPants (talk) 12:31, 20 May 2021 (MDT)

While it's true that for non-unarmed characters they're almost worthless, they allow for unarmed-focused characters to become much more powerful then they'd normally be. If a player doesn't want to focus on unarmed strikes, they have plenty of other options to pick from, so I don't think it causes all too many problems.--Ref3rence (talk) 12:43, 20 May 2021 (MDT)

Fair enough, and one last thing about the movement bonuses, that being they should probably be higher, at least the non-walking stuff. At max you can have either a 15 feet climbing speed, or 30 foot swimming/burrowing/flying. This uses all three traits. I’d probably bump up climbing to the level of the others, and maybe change it to +15-20 feet per, so you can have a good alternate speed and another trait, maybe. Also limits on burrowing, because that stuff’s crazy. --SwankyPants (talk) 12:50, 20 May 2021 (MDT)

91/100

Since I'm back here writing more stuff to fill out tables, I might as well flesh out the one for traits. As of now, we're missing 9 to make this thing rollable. Any recommendations are appreciated. --SwankyPants (talk) 20:16, 9 August 2021 (MDT)

Unbalanced Traits

Hi there! I really enjoy this variant rule/race, though I have noticed some traits may be... a bit too much. I'll list them and the reasons of why I think they're overpowered:

Weaponized. I know you're supposed to roll for your race, however most when using this probably won't. With that in mind, this becomes problematic once you take it thrice. You essentially deal more damage with unarmed strikes than a level 20 Monk, and that could end up bad really fast if you pick things like fighter or even the martial artist class for homebrew. Just putting a limit of picking it once would be enough to stop it. Maybe twice if you're feeling spicy.

Reactive. Ok... this is problematic. You could for example, pick Rogue and use Uncanny dodge twice per round (rogues have lots of design problems, survivability isn't one of them). And if you count the Martial Artist class... I believe there's a lot of reaction based techs that could get out of hand with this. I... genuinely don't have a suggestion for this. It's just too strong.

Quick Thinker. Well, this one is... the possibilities are almost endless. You could make 4 unarmed strikes in a turn with Monk or Martial Artist, cast two bonus action spells or even take the dash and disengage action at the same time with Rogue. I'm not the best at powergaming, however this certainly causes some problems. Perhaps you could use this bonus action a number of times per long rest equal to your proficiency bonus?

I'm deeply sorry if I sound overly critical, I just think this is a extremely good template and certain things could change. Thanks for reading this wall of text if you had time. Xandelicious (talk) 00:11, 16 November 2024 (MST)