User talk:Drakonsblade/Drakoniant

i would just like to ask that if you don't have any suggestions or helpful things to say about this please go away, this is the first time I've tried making a race helpful criticism is appreciated but if you dont like this race i deffer to the earlier section of this comment

I haven't read it enough to like or dislike it. I just restored the page identifier so search engines can find it, and noticed you had left some note commands. If you'd like some information regarding contributing material here, I can recommend the following pages for reference information.

• Help:Editing (useful tips and tricks for everyone!)
• Help:Improving, Reviewing, and Removing Templates (Understanding and getting involved in our review system)
• Help:Precedent (what that review system is based on)
• 5e Race Design Guide (a guide to the expectations precedent has set for 5th edition races)
• 5e SRD:System Reference Document (useful reference material that you can even link directly to from your content!)

I'm not sure which, if any, of those pages are relevant to Marasmusine's concerns. (They're all useful in general though) I was only resolving clerical issues. If you would like someone to lend a hand, review, or test-play, feel free to ask. I watch all of the 5e race pages and patrol talk, so I'll notice. Have fun, and best of luck! --Kydo (talk) 23:26, 29 September 2016 (MDT)

Hello, I gave you pretty good suggestions in the "needs balance" and "page needs grammatical help" messages. Marasmusine (talk) 01:28, 30 September 2016 (MDT)

Hello Drakonsblade, I saw your message. It seems your primary issue is a lack of understanding of wiki markup. We have a basic guide to wiki markup at Help:Editing. The guide is primarily a visual tour through the various markup commands, so it's a pretty light read. --Kydo (talk) 05:12, 30 September 2016 (MDT)

I have a question. what exactly is making this "overpowered". The only thing i can think of that's still on the page is the "strength of the elders" trait and i really don't see the point of making a whole varient page just for one trait. --Drakonsblade (talk) 11:13, 6 January 2017 (MST)Drakonsblade

Make two fighters. One with this race and one with any other PHB race. Build them the same otherwise. Run them each separately through a gauntlet of encounters of slowly increasing difficulty. (Have an impartial DM run it. Tell him to try his best to kill you with the encounters.) See how far each one gets. Before you do that though, you might want to read through the PHB and DMG to find all of the various rules which apply to large creatures. They can be shockingly powerful as PCs, and this race has no counterbalance to offset that power- in fact, it has a pile of combat oriented traits on top of it! --Kydo (talk) 06:56, 7 January 2017 (MST)

I can see what you're talking about with the combat traits being piled on, I probably came up with them because i generally play barbarians and fighters and rangers and come close to dying in almost every encounter when I play. Spell casters hurt!--Drakonsblade (talk) 09:08, 7 January 2017 (MST)

So I've tested it out it seems that my race has a little bit of a higher chance to survive but overall there isn't much of an imbalance. If you find this unsatisfactory please by all means test it yourself and get back to me i am open to your input--Drakonsblade (talk) 18:36, 10 January 2017 (MST)

User:Kydo/Drakniant Test --Kydo (talk) 21:17, 12 January 2017 (MST)

Thank you for your insight and I can see where I went wrong with the breath trait and the ac bonus and I also noticed how spell casters could abuse it after my test when i thought about what the sorcerer I'm running currently would be like with a better ac score on top of him being a Shadow Adept(a 5e homebrew archetype) which allows him to hide in the shadows easily and can give him a 3/4ths cover bonus while in the shadows. I can see how the ac bonus in general can be a bad idea, i think the health increase would be an interesting replacement that makes some sense. I'll make some revisions here shortly thanks for the help with this I really appreciate it.--Drakonsblade (talk) 21:52, 12 January 2017 (MST)

I will say that, aside from the mechanics being a little on the overpowered side, the fluff behind the race was fun. I decided the personality traits by random from the charts, and justifying the criminal background against the mandatory good alignment was in interesting story writing challenge. Having over a thousand years of life was also an interesting piece of roleplay material. Conceptually, this is a very fun race to roleplay as! --Kydo (talk) 22:12, 12 January 2017 (MST)

I was wondering can i take the over powered and grammar/spelling templates down? Also if there are any grammar issues you could point out it would be helpful as I'm by no means a master of the English language(grammar has never been my strong point).--Drakonsblade (talk) 22:26, 12 January 2017 (MST)

Kydo I have a question where would one put an overpowered variant race/subrace?--Drakonsblade (talk) 17:45, 25 January 2017 (MST)

It would be treated exactly the same, except that you would apply a {{Design Disclaimer}} at the top of it so other users will know that is intentionally "imbalanced" relative to the core material. --Kydo (talk) 18:35, 25 January 2017 (MST)

I have added links to the Large Races and Flying Races guidelines.

I recommend making a balanced base race, then a Variant section with the additional overpowered traits. Marasmusine (talk) 10:42, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

The needsbalance and wording messages were removed, but the issues were not addressed. If you don't know why "+2 to health" isn't correct, or why "Draconic lungs" needs rewriting, or why the whole thing is overpowered, let me know. Removing the messages again without making any improvements will be treated as vandalism. Marasmusine (talk) 04:43, 16 July 2017 (MDT)

I would in fact like some clarification on how my whole race is overpowered but more centered on the fact that their age is being called into question when I have seen other races with similar ages, as well as how +2 to health is "incorrect" so to speak.Drakonsblade (talk) 05:18, 16 July 2017 (MDT)~

I'll see if I can help.

• As well as telling us the average life expectancy, Age should tell us when the race matures to adulthood.
• D&D does not have a statistic called "health". It's possible you mean "hit points". Gaining an extra 2 hit points per level is a Big Deal, it's what you would get if you had another +4 Constitution, which is why I wasn't sure that's what you meant.
• Dragonic Lungs has no game definition. What exactly happens if the ancestory element is lightning, acid, cold, etc?
• Strength of the Elders is a factor in overpowering the race, giving an extra +5 in ability scores, albeit over time. You also deny a class feature, and one that is a crowning feature of that class, so it heavily discourages selecting that class.
• Large size. There are many design considerations here, see Large Races (DnD Guideline), which have not been accounted for.
• Do they or don't they gain wings at 5th level? Because that effects the rating of the race, particularly if it's as fast as 80 feet.

If I were to use my rating system, in which the goal is 4.5, this would score:

• Very fast movement (1)
• Darkvision (1)
• Extra hit points (2)
• Staged strength (2)
• Draconic Lungs (1 - provision, as we don't exactly what it does)
• Weaponized Tail (0.5 - provisional, doesn't have a full definition)
• Wings, fast speed, staged (2)
• Weapon proficiency (0.5)

Total = 10 (or 8 without flight). Marasmusine (talk) 05:52, 16 July 2017 (MDT)

I'd like to address the fact that you said "+5 ability scores over time" it's only 4 and it denies one specific part of "Primal Champion" though I may not have made that clear in some way. Draconic Lungs would just make it less inhibiting to go through things like smoke, or poison gas and other various gasses from acidic to poison and so on, no clue about the lightning ancestry though that's the only one I can't think of. I do question why extra hit points is that impactful though seeing it rated as a 2, though I can somewhat understand from the example you gave of it being like an additional +4 Constitution, at the same time it baffles me seeing as how a couple extra health/hit points hasn't helped me very much though that may be from constantly fighting groups of mages and cambions that just pepper me with fireballs and fire bolts from range/ in the air where I can't get to them. On a different note please explain how Weaponized Tail does not have a full definition I thought I was rather thorough with it. Drakonsblade (talk) 06:10, 16 July 2017 (MDT)

On a different note entirely from those I just mentioned it seems to me as though the age needs to be clarified not balanced from what you have said, and I thought I had addressed that but it's been a while since my friend and I did the background story so I may not have mentioned their aging. Drakonsblade (talk) 06:26, 16 July 2017 (MDT)

My mistake but I would also rate +4 to an ability score over time as a minimum of (2), particularly as it also raises the maximum potentially at an early level.

Dwarves have +1 to their maximum hit points each level, which is rated as (1). I can't explain your experience with this, except to say that it's going to depend on your class and that one racial trait shouldn't be a game-changer.

Weaponized tail. Compare: "Your tail is a melee weapon with which you have proficiency. It deals 1d4 slashing damage." - "melee", "weapon" and "proficiency" are important keywords you are missing that tell you how it's used, how it targets, and how the attack and damage rolls are calculated. That's all you need to print, the descriptive text should be moved to the physical description section. I am assuming this is how you want the tail to work, there are alternatives, for example by having its attack it's own action (rather than used as a weapon with the Attack action), for which you can define your own attack and damage roll calculations.

Concerning age, there are narrative considerations for a PC who may have lived for a thousand years or more, that shouldn't be glossed over. For example, they may have memories of world events otherwise lost to history, but this is isn't a balance consideration. Marasmusine (talk) 06:57, 16 July 2017 (MDT)

Oh I'm still not sure what "retain their immunity to effects of the [acid] that would affect their lungs" might mean mechanically. Can you give a specific example?; and as you say you need something for lightning, or this disincentivizes taking that draconic origin.

Poison's an easy one, as there are many poisonous gasses.

You can just about get away with fire, as although there aren't any rules for smoke inhalation, it's something that the DM could reasonably adjudicate. Marasmusine (talk) 07:04, 16 July 2017 (MDT)

I am a little lost on acid myself since most acid gasses are also poison and for the life of me can't think of anything lightning related aside from paralysis effects but those are not solely lightning related as there are also poisons that paralyze, as for cold it's along the same lines as the fire/smoke it's something environmental that isn't taken into consideration by the rules that the dm may use for example, when you're going through cold/freezing terrain and you're slowed because of the temperature of the air making it difficult to breathe, cold ancestry would make so this doesn't effect you. Though that may honestly be going a but far into details that many don't consider. As for the Strength increase I purposely made it so one would have to either start out at a high level to attain immediate worth while bonuses since you don't get any bonuses added directly to the modifier, so you wouldn't be able to have a +6 strength modifier until level 11 at which point in my experience you come across opponents that have equal or greater modifiers due to stats/ability scores and magic items like "belt of giant strength". Drakonsblade (talk)Drakonsblade (talk) 10:00, 16 July 2017 (MDT)

Mm, yes, a base +6 modifier at 11th is a problem. There's no guarantee the magic belt will be in the game (that's why it's in the DMG not the PHB), and even then it uses up an attunement. I mean, maybe you could get away with it as a class feature, but not racial. Marasmusine (talk) 10:40, 16 July 2017 (MDT)

I forgot to factor large size into my rating above, so there's probably another (2) or (3) there depending on if you're allowing them to use large weapons, so the rating is somewhere between 10 and 15. I remind you the target is 4.5. If you don't want to remove anything, I would advise spreading the features over 10 racial class levels. Marasmusine (talk) 10:51, 16 July 2017 (MDT)

Honestly I never knew about the large weapon rule even when I was playing a race that was, in fact, large until you brought it up after I made this race, so I assumed the damage was constant. as to "Strength of the elders", I do not wish to get rid of it or move it to a "variant" page as it is honestly a logical and to me key piece to my race made from two high Strength races. I could make it so it's basically the same effect as primal champion where it adds the total bonus at level 20 while still blocking out the Strength bonus from said class trait/feature so that it wouldn't raise the Strength cap/max to 28 making it a bonus of +9 as 20th level which even I think is way beyond overkill for a PC(this coming from a person who played 3.5e demigods) as far as the large feature goes I would not use the large weapons rule as I myself was not aware of it when I made and tested this race initially, It would at most probably be able to wield a normal sized great weapon one handed because of its size but I don't really care if it can't even do that as far as balancing goes.--Drakonsblade (talk) 11:20, 16 July 2017 (MDT)

Hello again Homebrew section of the D&D wiki! I have returned with a considerably altered version of my race since I decided to put the base version into a variant since I could not come up with anyway to keep everything in one place--Drakonsblade (talk) 23:31, 4 February 2018 (MST)