User talk:Eco/Vampire, Variant (5e Race)

Needsbalance Template

"Race should not give you equipment of any sort. Blood drinker and bite can give you insane amounts of healing, and should be restricted in number of uses. Every damage should have a type associated with it. Race should not grant you unarmored defence. Unnatural Charm is close to effect of Dominate Person, a 5th level spell, that can last up to 3 hours, and be used multiple times between long rests."
When I see the word "should", I read "my opinion is...". This is homebrew. Is there a way for the user's idea to be balanced and keep the spirit and intent of what they created? I won't deny many times things are 100% not balanced, but simply stated something should or shouldn't be a certain way isn't addressing a balance issue. OR if you must use that something shouldn't be a certain way, then explain why. Why don't we give a bunch of traits and then add flying? Why can't a race get starting equipment? Official 5e doesn't do it but what rule says you can't? Cheers Revival (talk) 11:07, 11 February 2022 (MST)

Literally NO rule says you cannot make this one way of another, there exist no such detailed, official rules in 5e regarding race creation. There are just some visible do's and dont's. You know, I haven't written about any part of this homebrew that were not touched or explaind in [design guide] and [musicus meter] (not really a guideline, but it explains fairly well why some things work and some do not). A literal list of Race Do's and Dont's exist, just some people never, and I mean never care to read this, bc of how good mathematicians, game balancers and insert any other valid term they are. Or they are so hyped about their idea of integrating something into their loved RPG system that they forget common sens is a thing. No one is perfect, that's why guidelines exist, and a link to them is automatically posted to any new page for a person to read. Which half(grossly underestimating here) do not do. But to address all of this in one place:

• Race should not give you equipment of any sort - race is not a background, thus it should not grant that. No official race does that, and it is logically unsound for a every single specimen of a race to have the same few things, because uprising is different in different cultures. You can have a talisman, I have a ring etc. Also, if an option gives you way more on different topic(like strixhaven backgrounds giving spellcasting options), then you MUST take those options, or else you take the ones simply less effecitve. Why not take this race, when it just gives more than the others, or gives things, like equipment, that others do not grant altogether?
• Infinite, unconditional healing is not a thing in dnd. Hit points are a resource, an important one. Every single existing official healing options is limited in some way, either in a number of uses, or at usability(half of hit points maximum etc.). Here, after a fight agains 3 goblins at level 1 you regain 18d4 + 9*CON modifier. This is insane, nothing even comes close to this, unless you die, you can regain all of you hit points, after every fight. Not to mention giving a creature a level of exhaustion at every bite attack, no save whatsoever. Dhampir from Van Richten's is made okay, this is way too much, even as the only single feature given for the entire race.
• Every damage should have a type associated with it. This is not League of legends or another videogame, no such thing as a 'true' danage exists. Different damage types are a core mechanic of 5e, of dnd in general, omitting them is a mistake.
• Race should not grant you unarmored defence. This is a class feature. Natural armor is a race feature.
• Unnatural Charm is close to effect of Dominate Person, a 5th level spell, that can last up to 3 hours, and be used multiple times between long rests. This is self explanatory. Race can give you spells or their effects, but never a buffed version of 5th level spell and never from 1st level. Why is this written outside of race template is beyond me.--Cezaryx (talk) 07:47, 12 February 2022 (MST)

Creator here:

• The equipment is so that you can survive in the sun so you dont slow the party down, ik its a bit unbalanced but just have an npc take the item from the player if you dont like it, or veto that they dont start with it.
• The healing part is a bit strong, but for the homebrew campaign its made for its fine, also not every creature has blood you can drink, against a devil for example or a celestial, if it doesnt have blood that you can realistically survive drinking then thats a no go. Plus vampires drink blood to survive sooo saying they have a limit is kinda like saying people cant eat multiple times in a day. The player needs blood to survive, meaning they most likely wouldnt waste all the blood after a fight to heal, I Could lower the healing to 1d4+con to balance it. And for the level of exhaustion it makes sense because the average human has 10 pints of blood inside them, right? So your average medium creature has 10 pints of blood in them, if you lost an entire pint of your blood, you would be PRETTY Exhausted, so this makes sense.
• The true damage, wdym by true damage I dont even have true damage in my race sheet. The sunlight is labelled as "Damage" because I want it to be unblockable solely so that someone cant "Dodge the sunlights damage" or "I have resistance to sunlight as a vampire" because thats cringe not based and is very stupid.
• the unarmored defense is in the trait, "SUPERIOR BODY", you can infer that its natural defense, but ill give you this one as I did put unarmored defense, but I will change it to natural as thats what its meant to be.
• Unnatural Charm is meant to be a racial feat so whooooops thats my bad.

First things first, when you reply to someone, use that little button at the top called "Signature or timestamp", that looks like this . This will basically sign your words where you put them. And please, do not write your own reply below someone's and prior to their signature, like you did here, it just invites confusion. Additionally, if you put ":" at the start of a paragraph, it will, as a whole, be adjusted bit to the right, which makes longer discussions more clear to read. The more ":::::" you add, the bigger the shift to right will be.

As for the page itself, I'll explain the parts I wrote about a bit more, but you should seriously read guide on creating races to 5e, it's all explained there as well, and better than I could ever do here. Anyway:

• Equipment is a "thing" of classes or backgrounds to provide, it is made that way bc of the design ideology for 5e. No official race gives equipment, even if it would be highly beneficial for the race. Grungs don't get a bathtub full of water at the start of the adventure, even if they need something like this to survive. It's up to player to deal with it. What you can do, however, is to create a background. No one ever said you cannot create custom background that is more-or-less made for the race, with adequate items, fluff and roleplay benefits of a background. Then you just slap a link on the page to the race, on race page link to the background, get a disclaimer that you suggest taking this background for its compatibility with main race, and viola. And one more thing: by the design of the game itself, everything should be made with, well, adventuring in mind. Races that do not "spawn" adventurers shouldn't be playable, and detrimental effects are just hard to make; A good flaw should build upon character, race or other wise, not hinder the play and options of the entire team. Bc you are playing with other people at the table, and that should be always on mind.
• No. There is no if or buts on this one. This wiki, by its rules, that are avalible to read at the help portal, is balanced around base game, in this regard a Dungeons and Dragons 5e. All of the homebrew here is balanced around that, not even around new books and expansions to avoid power creep. If you want to have some overpowered features on a race, you can always take the page and duplicate it on your user page, where no one but you can edit, and no one from the normal face of the wiki can go. The alternative is anyone, and I mean anyone can and hopefully will make changes to balance this page, as long as the changes can be reasoned as improving the page. And your comparison to humans is not sound. Why? Because every race is balanced around others, for example: Elves in lore can see magic, that is precisely why they can see in darkness, bc they see how weave fills the world. But elves do not have permanent effect of Detect Magic on them. And duregars in lore are literally immune to all charms, fears and illusions, yet they are not having this in their features as a playable races. There are multiple others examples of this. This game have a resource management at its core, having unconditional healing is way, way too much to have. Lover dice will not fix this, limit on uses would. Not to mention exhaustion, you can kill anyone in 6 attacks, this is ridicolous. Vampires in their stat blocks drink blood too, yet they do not massacre the players with unavoidable, impossible to save against exhaustion, so that really should be dropped as a whole, no matter how much "sense" this have. Funny thing: celestials, as well as fiends, have blood. Fiend ichor is known for inducing madness upon contact with sane peolple.
• The thing was that you haven't written the damage type, which should have been there, allegory about true damage was not to be taken literally. Damage types are important, and they are required to be there. You can always write, and I quote: "This damage cannot be reduced or prevented in any way"
• yeah, natural armor for races, unarmored defence for classes. But you must be wary to not make a race that is tailor made for some classes. For example: being a good reason to be a barbarian with a race is nothing bad; Playing sorcerer bc the benefits of a race are impossible to be cast aside with this option(bc of tying AC to your spellcasting) is bad.
• Feats tehnically should go to feats page, and be only linked, but that is not a problem really. Balancing is. To not indulge on it for long, answer me this: What feat from official sources can give you benefit comparable to casting 4-5 times a 5th level spell. Ignore its really stronger charm person, and charm person itself is a strong spell, just say why this feat is balanced. Keep in mind 3rd point of my message here.--Cezaryx (talk) 01:42, 3 March 2022 (MST)

• L + Ratio + No Maidens --Eco (talk) 02:34, 23 March 2022 (MDT)

Yeah, so one thing - a comment written at the page like "This is homebrew so it can be whatever I want, it is not balanced and will not be bc my world my rules my balance" is pointless and untrue. This site's rules, presented at the help portal, which anyone can and should read, clearly state that each of the homebrew options made are to be made in similar power level to the baseline of D&D 5e, namely PHB(player's handbook), and be balanced around the "typical" D&D games, mostly described in DMG(Dungeon's masters guide). There are homebrew that work on slightly different or entirely different mechanics than normal game, in that case an according design disclaimer is added to the page. But it never will justify just overpowered options and imbalance. If something is not okay, if it have problems with balance and/or applications/wording/other, it will be changed. This is community wiki, and everyone can, and propably will change it as long as it is to make it better for the overall experience of the game. If you do not want people making changes to 'your' homebrew, make a page's copy and add it to your user page, where no one can edit it but you. The comments slapped onto the page like this one are just wrong. If a specific homebrew cannot follow the rules of the site, it should have never been posted here in the first place. And what does "L + Ratio + No Maidens" even mean?--Cezaryx (talk) 02:54, 23 March 2022 (MDT)

Yeah, so you say I havent changed anything in the edit notes, however; i've changed a lot since the first iteration, your arguments show that you obviously havent read the full blood drinker trait because there is a limit, and 2d4 + Con really isnt that much healing in the long run (13 points of healing max is slightly better then a normal healing potion, which isnt that much when you really think about it, especially at high levels). You also obviously did not see the part where it says you cannot heal from any other source besides the blood, But because you didnt see it I made sure to put it in ALL CAPS so its easier to see. since you cant get healed by a cleric in your party, it makes sense that you have good healing from yknow, the one thing vampires are pretty well known for. and your argument for why the charm thing is good, original vampire charm is WAY better, this version is toned down a LOT. --Eco (talk) 19:27, 23 March 2022 (MDT)

That is untrue - balancing things is in accordance to other possible options avalible, not the source of inspiration. Saying the charm is okay because it is weaker than vampire's one is just silly - it's like saying a death knight race with feature dealing 8d10 in AoE is okay because it is weaker than what "normal" death knight have. No official race have anything even remotely close to that(5th level spell). And the healing part is bad design through and through - not one rule exists that forces a party in dnd to have a cleric hell bent on healing. So in a very possible situation the party have none, the vampire only get freebies for nothing, and that argument is invalid. The races overall should not have some glaring weaknesses per design idea - if they have, they are thematic and not included in powerscaling of the race - it is a tradeoff for playing them. Balancing of a feature should be made around the feature, not everything EXCEPT the feature - limiting the healing from it, not barring the healing from other sources altogether. I should not be frisky, but your tone of "...you obviously havent read..." calls for a bit of tempering - you would know those things are just mistakes if you have read the Race Design Guide, which you obviously havent read. To quote from there:"Don't include negative traits to "balance" out a ridiculous benefit.". Also, I did read that, I just found this "solution" to the problem not a solution at all, and it is still a problem so in the template it goes. And, for the record, writing a part of a feature in ALL CAPS looks bad, writing it normally like any other description is the way to go. Going ALL CAPS on one parts of description reminds me of children in the playground going:"well, I, uh, my sword of moon can kill anyone with a touch, BUT ONLY WHEN YOU CAN SEE THE MOON, IT IS OKAY BECAUSE OF THAT, yes Jerry, YES IT IS". --Cezaryx (talk) 01:42, 24 March 2022 (MDT)

You really like to suck the fun out of stuff, just because its on this website doesnt mean people HAVE to use it, you make it seem like its the end of the world, Like, Oh boy this doesnt work in every campaign that means its 100% awful. Plus, if you wanna play a race but find a feature too strong for your campaign, then just talk to the dm or the player and make edits like saying you cant use this feature or put a limit on it based for what you want, and based off what you want for your specific campaign. Thats like saying Eloquence bard is completely fine in a normal campaign, yes because minimum roll of 23 persuasion for every roll is very balanced. I know thats not a race example but I feel it fits this situation. What do you want, you want me to remove the one thing vampires are known for which is sucking blood and healing from it. Aswell as being unnaturally beautiful? you want to just remove everything that makes vampires, Vampires. Sorry but no, if you dont like the race then just dont look at the page, its pretty simple. And i never said you have to have a cleric hellbent on healing, i just used it as an example. Since you cant heal from anything besides blood and resting, it makes sense. If your in combat and you go unconscious from dropping below 0 hitpoints, then someone cant cast cure wounds to get you back up since thats not blood. Its actually incredibly balanced if you think about the various situations where it is a downside, and besides, its not even that strong of a power in the first place? you have to grapple someone, and then on your next turn make your bite attack, just to get a slightly better healing bonus then a BASIC health potion. For your part where "writing a feature in ALL CAPS looks bad, writing it normally like any other description is the way to go." do you mean like your descriptions of traits that have lots of spelling errors? Just let me have fun. Thats what DnD is all about. its not even that strong, if your enemies cant out damage a basic healing potion then there's something wrong there.--Eco (talk) 18:32, 27 March 2022 (MDT)

This site have rules, if you cannot follow them, do not use this website. In our discussion you make every possible mistake, now literally claiming the same thing as Oberoni Fallacy do. Considering you do not seem to have read anything on balancing or generally anything I provided the links for in this discussion, in short:"If the rule is not broken, it shouldn't need to be fixed." If the race is made well and balanced, it shouldn't need to be fine-tuned by GM. It is possible to make homebrew thematically true to the original ideas, as well as making them not overpowered. There is a multitude of examples, like the original vampire, nocturne or the brilliant embodied mouther. Comparing the innate ability, that is hardly limited to the healing potion, which is a resource both expensive or taking long time to create is a mistake. But it is not the thing of healing that is truly a problem here, arguably it would be okay IF it would be the only one. There are many problems, with charm, with automatic exhaustion on bite, with two creature types, with so many inaccurate descriptions, just blood drinker is the most prominent one. First - nothing says you cannot drink more blood at the same time thus making healing more possible, second - it is not written this takes action, bonus action, reaction, so you are free to do that whenever you want, dwarfing the usefulness of healing potion, to which you so hardly want this to compare, third - limit of uses on this trait is on drinking, extracting blood, both? It only says this trait, that can mean a lot of things in such a complicated description, fourth - someone can pour blood into you - done, now you simply do not have the weaknesses associated with healing potions. Strap on that everything else wrong with this race and you have a little monster of imbalance. Can you, seeing this, reading this, say that everything is okay with balancing? I mean, you repeatedly state that it is okay, so I do not know waht am I expecting. And it's not like I don't like the race, or if I did I shouldn't look at the page - If you cannot make a race well, just do not do it. Community wiki and all, but you haven't read that too. Considering the only things you do is removing needsbalance template, doing some minor changes to make it seem it is better and not even trying to correct spelling, wording, formatting, punctation, expand on lore or fluff etc., I just wonder why you are so adamant at claiming this is balanced and okay, when everything you do show you do not really care for this race altogether.--Cezaryx (talk) 02:03, 28 March 2022 (MDT)

I did not notice I forgot to make it cost an action. So I added that, if you had stated that earlier i would have changed it, but instead you just said infinite healing and didnt really tell me what i should do to fix it. Another thing, I will fix the limit usage and wording on blood drinker because you make a good point when you asked about drinking, or extracting blood. Also, The unnatural charm is similar to the 1st level spell charm person, NOT 5th level spell Dominate person, there is a VERY large difference between those two spells, so that's why I was and still am removing your template since I think its fine to have a slightly better 1st level spell. Also, I kind of take the rules on race creation on this website with a grain of salt, not saying I don't want to follow them, but the fact that anybody can edit them and they aren't set in stone worries me. --Eco (talk) 19:35, 29 March 2022 (MDT)

• This 2nd part is also from me, eco, After editing the race and adding a new trait to differentiate between the bottling blood and the drinking blood to heal traits, i feel like the wording is much better, i still have to fix spelling errors and some wording errors however. I apologize for my behavior these past days I was in a pretty rough moment and I kinda took it out on you here. yes, I am doing better now and trying not to dwell on it. If you have more suggestions im willing to hear them so please tell me what you would do to make it better. I also plan on fixing the exhaustion, it is only meant to give a level of exhaustion to creatures of medium size class or lower, since drinking a pint of blood from someone does exhaust you and it makes sense. But creatures over medium size class would not, then again im going to be playtesting it very soon and will change it if necessary then. --Eco (talk) 19:35, 29 March 2022 (MDT)

Invitation inside and running water.

Um... Why did this get added? I understand making a "Lore accurate vampire weakness" but we already had enough to balance the class even With the NEEDED EQUIPMENT TO NOT DIE AT LV 1 that was removed for no reason. Like accurate weaknesses like "You need to be invited inside" and "You can't stand in running water" are completely unnecessary. Not to mention every Other Vampire race has it. This is still unique, but if you wanted "Lore Accurate" you should either make the changes for your games specifically, or just play a different race entirely, this wiki had 5 different versions of these, this was the only one that was more of a modern take, not a textbook copypasta. People shouldn't ruin a race that was balanced as it was already by adding "Lore accurate" features to something that's obviously a more modern/Anime take of Vampire. Let people make races that are unique. Sure, it wasn't perfect, healing was alot, some things should have been explained more, most was common sense or just people not to do the math (Looking at the sun damage example) but let the race be unique.

https://www.dandwiki.com/w/index.php?title=Vampire,_Variant_(5e_Race)&oldid=1567695 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kangaboom11 (talk • contribs) . Please sign your posts.

"Unique" does not mean making races that get equipment and ridiculous amounts of healing or AC. There are ways to make races with some quirks and unique lore without dismembering balance. The invitation and running water can be stricken off, sure. But the other issues are glaring.--Yanied (talk) 12:59, 20 March 2022 (MDT)

Goal

What is the goal of this variant, and why is it being created instead of using an existing page?
I ask these questions to better help with completing the page, assuming that it can be done.
I have read the discussions and I empathize with the creative design desire being steamrolled by others. I am confident (like 100%) that we can figure something out that coincides with wiki standards, if people can compromise. So, help me to help you. :-) Revival (talk) 08:53, 28 March 2022 (MDT)

With all that in mind, it needs to be changed considerably. Comparing this to the Vampire (5e Race) page, they are nearly identical minus the lore.

Dual creature type, "Unholy Body" from original is included in Variant's creature type but altered, "Blood Drinker" is same title and theme but different crunch, darkvision+bite+claw fairly similiar (which should be probably), Superior Body is a feat for original but haphazardly thrown onto the variant page, and Unnatural Charm is the same (basically).

I can't even say there are balance issues so much as originality issues. I hope to see something new within a couple weeks or it will have to be proposed for {{delete}}. Revival (talk) 10:24, 29 March 2022 (MDT)

I made this race because I wanted to make a less lore heavy and toned down version of the original vampire race, since that page has a lot of reading, I also wanted to add my own touch and I liked a lot of the things they had on that race page so I took them, granted I should probably credit their page since a lot of this is from their page but slightly edited. I also wanted to make a vampire race that wasnt a vampire thrall, but also wasnt as strong as a True vampire, so I removed the racial feats from that page and made superior body something that is active nearly all the time as long as you are not standing in sunlight, I also removed the misty escape. overall i want to create a vampire race that feels fun to play and not limited, If I provide proper references to the original vampire race will this page still be proposed for deletion, or what can I do to prevent that without changing too much?--Eco (talk) 19:49, 29 March 2022 (MDT)

well, to save from deletion I’d recommend variations to this. If you wish to have a less lore based race, with less restrictions and no thrall aspect, but not weak...then I suggest using the original and talking with your DM about it. I don’t think I’ve ever used a single article as it is presented on this site. Nothing against users, but it is an agreement between player and DM, and one party usually doesn’t like an aspect of a home brew.

So think about that. No shame in letting the page go. Revival (talk) 20:37, 29 March 2022 (MDT)

Is there any way to hide a page from others view while I work on it and then bring it back out to other peoples view once im done, I could use a google doc for that, but is there a way on this website?--Eco (talk) 21:06, 29 March 2022 (MDT)

You can make it on a user page as a workspace before bringing it out I suppose.--Yanied (talk) 21:17, 29 March 2022 (MDT)

How does one make it a workspace on my page, is there a link that can teach me how?--Eco (talk) 22:36, 29 March 2022 (MDT)

Nevermind im pretty sure i figured it out, Ideally i dont want this page to get deleted cause i feel like it is different enough, considering there are some different class pages that are variations that slightly change stuff that havent been deleted, for example the lich class variants and esper class variants, but if this is going to get deleted thats fine. I cant say I understand but I wont argue about it.

←Reverted indentation to one colon

Here you are Eco :-)
Feel free to edit and make this race however you wish, as you wish.
I will try to look at lich and esper pages you mentioned as well, thanks. Revival (talk) 08:02, 30 March 2022 (MDT)

From what I see of the pages mentioned... The three esper classes, 1, 2, and 3, they seem pretty unique from one another in terms of class table and central gimmick. The class pages under Lich are similarly mostly differentiated by some features or fluff. The true lich and 4th lich are the most similar, with the former having been a WIP that is now stubbed though.--Yanied (talk) 08:14, 30 March 2022 (MDT)

Awesome sauce. Thanks Yanied, and good idea about to move this to a user page too. Revival (talk) 11:00, 30 March 2022 (MDT)