Talk:Shikelf (3.5e Race)

Holding back on the black
I saw you come over, you're from the old wiki, aren't you? First of all, welcome. I hope you enjoy your stay. However I must be the bearer of bad news when it comes to your article. You put a lot of work into it, but it has problems. While I'm inclined to rate as the others have above, since I know you're new let's see if I can help first. This will be long, take a seat.

Let's see, these are tree dwelling forest people, like animalistic elves with scaley bits. Alright, just to make sure I know where you come from.


 * > Sounds about right. At the core they are technically a mixed species from a breed of wood elves and a heavy scaled species which evolved into their own species. Krahazik 18:29, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

The first problem comes from the ability scores. Their odd. You'll notice no race ever has odd scores (the reasons mostly deal with avoiding minmaxing with pointbuy and whatnot). You need to make them even.... +2 Dex, +2 Str, -2 Cha, and -2 Wis from the looks of it. Also, its cleaner to keep it in order of Str, Dex, Con, Int, Wis, Cha, so it should read +2 Str, +2 Dex, -2 Wis, -2 Cha.


 * > Corrected the ability scores to make them even. Krahazik 18:29, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

A speed of 45 ft. Again with the oddities... feet come in units of 10 because it's easier to measure. Since 50ft is a bit excessive, I'm gonna say make this 40 ft. Likewise, climb of 20 ft. But... why do they climb different on wood and stone? Is a smooth wooden wall really easier to climb that a rough cobblestone slope with plenty of handholds? This is just off, and IMO you should drop that entirely. Nevermind what happens if you climb a wall made of both materials.


 * > Adjusted base speed and explained the difference between wood type surfaces and stone type surfaces Krahazik 18:29, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Alright, so we got some situational save buffs, +2 Reflex, +1 natural armor (which should be written +1 natural armor, +1 "racial" AC doesn't exist). Low light vision (with a typo, it mentions elves). Some perception skill bonuses and elf secret door sense. Claws and.... Teeth? I suppose you mean a Bite attack. Not what I expect from an "elven humanoid" no matter how feral, but ok.

Prehensile Feet could be tricky. This makes any Shikelf a three handed creature, or four if they gain flight. Multiple hands is tricky to work with. IMO, you can nip a lot of this in the bug by denying "wielding" in those feet-hands so they can hold, but not fight with them.


 * > Expanded on the use of their feet for gripping and added heavy penalties for trying to use them to wield weapons Krahazik 18:29, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Feline Leap is just confusing and has no mechanics to it. How does this work with the Jump skill? Also, it seems they don't have a bonus language category, odd.


 * > Cut it out for now as I do more research into jump skill. The idea was that this species has a greater natural jumping ability than humans do so they are able to easily jump distances which would be very difficult or impossible for a human Krahazik 18:29, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

From the looks of it, this is not going to be ECL 1. There's just too much which can be abused to make this a low level creature. I'd offer more advice, but first I'd need to know your intent if you want a powerful creature not suitable for low level, or a creature which can be played at low levels alongside humans and dwarves and stuff.

As stated above, Basic Instincts needs to be a part of the racial abilities as well. Why this is its own section, I don't know. I can say that the mechanics around it though are both overly and needlessly complex, and a bit overpowered from the looks of it (again, depending what level this is meant to be played at). It also reminds me of this one (joke) class called Warrior of Elothair or something... which pidgeonholed them into one very specific style and plotline. They say many, not all, shikelf are good aligned. So what if I play an evil one? Suddenly these powerful and ancient instincts make no sense to me. Or what if I play a LN shikelf who is general good but a dick to children? Etc etc etc.


 * > Moved the basic instincts into the racial traits. Don't understand the joke at all.
 * As to an evil character, they just can't use dragons or be in a 100% dark room without flipping out.
 * As to the rage chart, few evil characters (depending on how evil) would encounter the types of situations which would result in a high chance of raging. Krahazik 18:29, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Again, dragonphobia and fear of darkness, these are racial traits.


 * > Moved to racial traits. Krahazik 18:29, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Then we get into a long section which, for some reason, isn't in PHYSICAL DISCRIPTION. I enjoy a good delve into biology myself, but this is both wordy and doesn't need it's own section, especially not down here. Summerize, compact, and stick it in physical description.


 * > If your referring to the "Additional Information" it was information which was written up later as more of a deeper look into the species. I did not think it was too critical to game mechanics and did not want to turn the general "Physical Description" section into a lengthy 3 page essay that players would have to skip past if they are not interested in the extra detailed stuff. Krahazik 18:35, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, it's a mess, and to fix it we first need to identity your goal and stated power level. This isn't comparable to humans and dwarves as is right now, so decide what level these are appropriate. We can go from there.

The other issue is that, as a direct port from the old wiki, all the formatting is botched. It's easiest to open two windows, one with the old, and one with the preload for the new (click on create a race elsewhere in homebrew), then start copying and pasting things or re-writing things into the appropriate categories. It's the easiest way.


 * > Corrected the formatting to what is used here. Krahazik 18:29, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

I tell you this here because I don't want you to get the wrong idea. We like new people, but we do want good usable work too. Hopefully this helps. -- Eiji-kun 00:15, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Updated - 08/16/2012
Updated the page's formatting and made some changes to racial traits. Still trying to figure out and understand ECL. They didn't have ECL in 3.0 when I first wrote up the species.


 * ECL is equal to racial hit dice (or 0 if they only get 1 racial hit die that would be replaced by a class hit die, like humans and most other starting races) + level adjustment. - Tarkisflux Talk 17:31, 16 August 2012 (UTC)


 * So what I need to figure out then is what level adjustment is?


 * I never included ECL or level adjustment in the original write ups because these were written up as a player race (not a monster) in which those 2 stats are not included in the stats for a player race. Since I never looked at using a monster as a player race before I never encountered those 2 stats which is listed in the DMG under the section for using a monster as a player race.


 * LA is a common thing in races outside of the PHB, and it is basically a level and xp penalty that you pay to have a stronger race. It's been around since the 3.0 Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting (at least). You can read more about it at SRD:Race Descriptions and SRD:Creatures as Races, and see SRD races that use LA and ECL here.


 * Side thing, it's traditional to sign your comments on talk pages with the signature button at the top of the window, or ~ . It helps make it easier to see who's saying what and follow the conversation. - Tarkisflux Talk 18:01, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your help. Never looked at Forgotten Realms. Krahazik 18:36, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

A Note on Ratings
While I just mentioned this on the cattine talk page, I'm mentioning it here again. Don't delete ratings. If the article is significantly altered, we can modify the individual ratings templates to not calculate into the article's rating. All previous ratings remain visible until their respective authors modify them. --Ganteka Future 20:22, 16 August 2012 (UTC)