Talk:Awakened Chocobo (3.5e Race)

Awakened Ferret?
Was this inspired by my Awakened Ferret race? Just curious. The Dire Reverend 08:35, 22 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Talk:Chocobos (3.5e Race) actually. See the scathing reviews for more. -- Eiji-kun 08:58, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

A Beef With This Poultry
It looks like this was written rather hastily. There's stuff that should be here, but isn't, elaboration mostly. I'm rather surprised at how much calling them "chickens" annoyed me. I realize that it's the easiest comparison, but it's a bit misleading in the simplicity of it. They've always reminded me a bit of cassowaries or oversized roadrunners, but with nobility and the capacity of intelligence of a parrot or dog (able to recognize individuals and communicate in some rough fashion). Chickens are scatterbrained and excitable, hardly traits you'd want in a reliable mount or work animal.

I kinda wish you mentioned more biological information (their toe formation always felt like a defining trait worth mentioning) such as egg value and incubation time. Some detail on what the Wark language sounds like would be nice as well.

As for the mechanics, I'm primarily troubled by the inclusion of natural attacks, three of them at that. At first level, that's three attacks on a full attack action. With the weird way natural attacks scale with level, that's just not cool. Easy work-arounds include simply having different parts of their body count as weapons they are always armed with and deal whatever damage and damage types with whatever critical modifier you want. If you want a fancier work-around, see Mythic Beast (3.5e Race), which treats built-in weapons as closely as possible to manufactured weapons.

Also, I've got a chocobo image I drew up for Valentine, but he didn't want to use it for whatever reason. If you're interested in that, let me know. There was probably some other stuff, but I got distracted reading my own article. --Ganteka Future 03:37, 23 July 2012 (UTC)


 * It was hasty, though I'm not yet sure what needs elaboration. But it's funny... haven't they always been compared to giant chickens?  I admit my chocobo lore is not great, but I wasn't aware of chocobos having much for personality (save the rare Boco in spinoff games and, arguably, FFT's Boco).  They really do seem like scatterbrained giant chickens to me, though the comments on good traits for mounts and work animals is apt.  I'll consider.


 * I mentioned no biological info because I have none. I based it partly on chicken and partly on horse biology to determine things like age and whatnot, but I'm unaware of any canon sources of chocobo lore.  I know they're either herbavores or omnivores, and that in some games they stink.  What's special about their feet anyway?  Looks like a typical chicken foot to this non-farmhand.


 * On natural attacks, the inclusion of three is actually purposeful. Chocobos lack hands and short of some feats or items to bypass, they can't use weapons.  So I gave them a useful set of natural weapons.  At low levels, the higher than normal number of attacks is an intentional boon, one lost with time as extra attacks are introduced.  They've no ability to upgrade the number of attacks beyond obtaining more natural weapons.  For a natural weapon build, that's priority anyway.  For a weapon build they've already taken the steps to gain a weapon.  For those who don't use weapons (spellcasters) three attacks is pointless without the BAB to back up the power to hit.  As such I don't see it as an issue.  Kobolds (with expansion) actually have claw claw bite themselves, though in this case I actually expect them to be used, what with the lack of strength penalty.


 * I am interested in images. Do tell. -- Eiji-kun 08:27, 23 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Most of my chocobo exposure does indeed come from Final Fantasy Tactics, where they obediently served as mounts when allied, or posed a surprisingly scary threat when they attacked in large concerted groups, raining down meteors and healing their fellows. None of that feels like chicken behavior to me. As for the feet thing, they have two forward pointing toes and one backwards pointing toe on each foot. As far as I'm aware, it's always been like this, though backwards (with backward legs) in the weird concept art. Perhaps the article there at the FFWikia will provide some useful material and insight for elaboration.


 * As for the natural attacks thing, it baffles me why you'd want something intentionally beyond the scope of LA 0 races that's designed to become useless at higher levels (well, at least less-useful since they can't be enchanted or be made out of awesome stuff like adamantine). That just seems mean. Let's make a comparison for fun then. Chip is an average (10s all around except that 15 Dex for his feat) 1st level human fighter with two-weapon fighting using a longsword and a shortsword. Chocolate is his 1st level chocobo fighter buddy with multiattack. They otherwise have the same stuff other than what their races demand are different. When Chip makes a full attack, he adds -1 and -1 (+1 BAB, -2 TWF) for his two attacks (1d8, 1d6). When Chocolate makes a full attack, he adds 0, -2 and -2 (+1 BAB, -1 Size then -2 MWF) for his bit and two claws (1d8, 1d6, 1d6). Without getting more complicated, there's already a disparity. If Chocolate gains any ability to wield a weapon (or lethal-damage unarmed attack), that's another attack he can make on top of the three he starts with. It seems like you're thinking that you can't use natural attacks and weapon attacks in the same Full Attack action (natural attacks just get booted down to "secondary" status, so it would be something like 0, -2, -2, -2).


 * I'm gonna pull out that image later and prep it up, got some other wiki image stuff to work on anyhow. --Ganteka Future 23:57, 23 July 2012 (UTC)


 * I've changed things to have them have doglike intellect and loyalty for the standard stock, better fitting the loyalty aspects you brought up. I also made short mention of the toes.  On natural attacks, I have no changed it yet since I'm not quite convinced.  I'll reiterate some of my counter-arguments here for sake of others.


 * My argument was that natural weapons were a pretty good thing in general. At low levels, the advantages are gaining additional attacks before BAB would grant them.  At high levels, you hit more often since you only take -5 for all secondaries instead of -5/-10/-15.  Their big downside is that enchanting them costs more than normal.    You mentioned about mixing manufactured and natural, and that's all well and good.  With that said, its not impossible to use without magic.  Though lack of hands is (purposefully) very limiting, two mundane options they have right away are mouthpick weapons and armor spikes.  In the end, I don't think it's a huge issue, especially since the race does push towards natural weapon or no weapon builds rather than manufactured weapon builds.  That's just an aspect of the race, like why halfling barbarians aren't what one would expect either. -- Eiji-kun 11:39, 27 July 2012 (UTC)