Talk:The Echoes (5e Race)

As per requested review. Please refer to the critique I left on the dirae race, since many of the issues recur:

• 70 feet flying speed. Wow.
• Truesight for a race. And with as much as it gets, no. Just, no. Decreasing AC by 3 and having disadvantage on con saves is FALSE BALANCING. It also makes this race plain unappealing. Just don't give it truesight.
• Similar wording issues on Void Assisted as I stated on Dirae
• Murder Call, Jay's Melody, and Vertical Ascension have the same issues as listed on the Dirae regarding range and mechanics
• Racial connection is an ok effect, but the range is downright ridiculous.
• Traits that scale over 5th level (soul claim, etc.) are no-nos. Exceptions are only the dragonborn's breath weapon dice scales.
• Special Pouch needs more specificity. Can you still fulfill verbal components when doing this?
• Agile counter gives you a free 1st-level spell as a reaction.

Overall, needs a lot more work on the mechanical end. There's lots of wording issues that need to follow 5e standard (Just say "You know the X cantrip" instead of "You have access," etc.). --Yanied (talk) 14:01, 23 August 2021 (MDT)

Overall balancing

Alright, so I've given this race two read-throughs. First being a general overview of the race, the second being to check the balancing after Yaneid's recommended changes. I really like how this race is flavoured, and the concept feels nice. But compared to varying other races of first-party and homebrew design, there's just numerous balancing flaws present which makes this race comparably more powerful across the board compared to others.

• An unrestricted flight speed of 50ft. This race is already pretty fast, moving at 40ft on land, but the flying speed isn't even penalized in a manner compared to the Aarakocra. Any form of armour is wearable with this race, off-setting the major AC decrease. I personally think this could be tweaked in a variety of ways, maybe try looking into a variant of the ``Labored Flight`` feature found on the Stylvix race.
• Soul Claim. This both allows you to create a CR-15 creature which perfectly obeys your every command, for an unlimited duration; while remaining summoned, for an unlimited duration. Now while any DM with a head of balance would probably whisk those Void Wraiths away with fluff, they're still exceptionally powerful. What's stopping you from simply finding, say, a low-CR creature such as a squirrel or a rat in the woods, and converting it into a Void Wraith for your own use? Stacked on-top of that, Superior Soul Claim, found on the Raven subrace, can summon TWO of the things! You can effectively create a near-infinite number of the NPCs based upon the Void Wraith's Legendary Action, which is a bumped-up variation of Soul Claim; which cannot be mitigated... This trait basically overshadows a lot of the others, and almost begs for you to play as a Raven due to the superior nature of Superior Soul Claim.

(Actually that reminds me, why not just turn it into a Racial Feat for races associated with the Void?)

• Ability Score increases. All across the board, Echoes are a more spellcasting-focused race, with some delving into Dexterity for martial classes. With some stat specialization, you can get a +4 to Dexterity or Intelligence at character creation. Dexterity plus the free Stealth proficiency you're bound to pick up thanks to the Of The Void background you're bound to pick up as it's practically bundled with this race, grants you a desirable base for any Rogue out there. Combined with Rogue's double prof- Oh and the character is already capable of just standing completely still in plain sight, and end up being unnoticed by opponents. Actually that reminds me, you can fly, sure this is Dungeons and Dragons, but there's a lot of big rooms out there.

I'm going to be looking into more glaring issues when I come back to this in a bit. --Kalenchoe (talk) 11:17 PM GMT, 23th of September, 2021

Adding onto that, the replacement for the Void Wraiths (Void Ents) retain these issues similarly. CR3 for a level 1 PC is ridiculous. See how spells like conjure animals are 3rd level and don't even give you a CR3. The DC is arbitrary as heck still (see dragonborn for exemplary). Concentration for 3 turns (???) is also weird and not according to standard 5e timing conventions. Using it twice a week is also really weird usage limitation and the fact it stays for 5 minutes is also just bleagh. Most battles will not last over a minute. In general, races with custom summoning are really icky. I'd recommend just giving a conjuring spell at 5th level or using find familiar instead.

Wording (feet, not ft.!), italicizing (spells), and other stuff still there (just say you know eldritch blast instead of casting it in that weird way, do not capitalize monster names, capitalize sizes, e.g.).--Yanied (talk) 08:04, 8 February 2022 (MST)