User talk:Nolanf/Sandbox/Summersite tmp (3.5e Race)

Cyclops Expy
This race is... not good. The light detail in the various sections aside, the mechanics are poor. Its a fairly boring race with only a Con bonus and a laser to their name, and the mechanics of the laser is nearly unworkable. A Summersite with good Con would be able to pump out 4d6 fire damage 2/day, and always be caught by spell resistance since their CL is only, at max, 6th starting. The average Summersite (that is, starting with a 10) can't even use it. That's a Con bonus of +2, too low to even use the spell at all.

I see you're trying to make Cyclops, alright, fine fine. Perhaps you should make them a race with an in-build eldritch blast. Were I trying to make Cyclops I'd probably make him a warlock after all. By doing that you give them a solid, if weak, source of damage they could pull off and synergy with the actual warlock class if the blast stacks, or has some other sort of interference with it. The CL and damage would scale appropriate with level. And you can give him a series of other abilities that are more interesting that +4 Con. Cyclops isn't even all that unusually tough last I knew, he really is just a human warlock... -- Eiji-kun (talk) 12:19, 4 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Okay, I just looked up eldritch blast and it looks a lot like scorching ray except that it's listed as a 0-level spell and it grows to be much stronger than scorching ray. I'm fine with that.
 * Yes, Cyclops is basically a human. Would you call the human race bad just because they don't have an eldritch blast that scales with level? I wonder if you're forgetting that races are only the starting points of characters - that they are meant to grow substantially from there. I've been reading a lot about different in-game races recently, and the vast majority of them don't have scaling spell-like abilities.
 * Yes, this energy blast ability would be rendered useless against high enough spell resistance... and the same could be said about a lot of spells. Is that an argument against using spells altogether? Or just spells that allow resistance? You might as well say that characters should never use swords because a lot of creatures have damage reduction or are immune to slashing damage.
 * Yes, you're right that a cyclops with a +0 con bonus wouldn't be able to use the energy blast ability. Hopefully, with a built-in +4 modifier, that would never happen. In fact, if a person bothered to max out their constitution, this race's energy blast should scale with the wizard's scorching ray up to level 8. By the way, just because a spell is listed as being used by a level-2 wizard does not mean that its effects cannot be co-opted by a race of people who can automatically use that ability at level 1.


 * I'm keeping this race in the sandbox for the time being. I'll consider the changes Eiji-kun suggested. -Nolanf (talk) 01:20, 5 January 2014 (UTC)


 * I... am not sure we're on the same subject. I'm not calling the human race bad, they're awesome.  The bonus feat is super useful.  I was saying that given your apparent goal of Cyclops, it would probably be best to take human (that is, no adjustments) and replace their major boon with a different major boon, a scaling blast in exchange for a bonus feat.  Scaling powers, while atypical for a race, can be balanced if scaled correctly.  For example: Dragonborn have a scaling breath weapon as one of their options.  If you kept LA 1, vanilla unmodified eldritch blast seems fair, though if you're shooting for LA 0 something less potent (but still scaling) may be in order.  You could even have it "scale" indirectly, such as the ability to gain +1 damage per die of offensive ray spells (and subsequently promoting taking classes who can take advantage of this trait).


 * On spell resistance, the whole thing is that spell resistance often matches your level. If you're level 10, fighting SR 21 is reasonable.  At level 35, fighting SR 46 is reasonable.  And thats all fine because your caster level is typically the same or only shortly behind your actual character level.  However with the blast as is, it will stop being useful about the same time SR starts popping up at all (usually levels 8+).  SR is like AC to physical blows... if you don't hit SR, you don't have any effect, you "miss".  DR and resistances aren't really what you should compare this too, this is a binary yes/no event, not something that ablates or soaks damage.  We don't even get to the damage.  In short, it is the same as giving them the power to attack their enemies at a +1 attack bonus, forever.  When they're level 15, and fighting a monster with AC 30, they will never, ever, ever hit with an attack with only +1.  It needs to scale, or it becomes useless entirely.


 * The other problem, of course, is that Con covers so much more than just the scaling of an ability that really shouldn't scale with it in the first place. Fort saves, Concentration, hp, pre-reqs... that, on top of being the one stat which is universally important to pretty much everyone.  If you seek to give a very specific bonus to anything, such as attacks or hp or balance, its far easier to give them their specific bonuses rather thn give Str, Con, or Dex in aforementioned examples.


 * I'll be happy to help further, though I mostly need to make sure you understand the whole SR issue, as I think that is a crux of misunderstanding on how the rules work. I'll try and help. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 04:52, 5 January 2014 (UTC)