Talk:Natureborn (3.5e Race)

Ratings

	Leziad favors this article and rated it 4 of 4!
	I really like this, but I feel feral mind is a lot better than the other options. If you correct that I will upgrade to a favor. EDIT: Much better now.

Not a template?

Why for? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tarkisflux (talk • contribs) at

No reason other than mimicking directly from dragonborn. Dragonborn probably should be a template, but its ok as a race. I figure they did it that way due to the unusual transformative nature of the "template" (that is, no one actually takes it mid-game because it resets you to level 1, when you would normally be starting out). -- Eiji-kun (talk) 01:03, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

I missed the level 1 reset thing... because it's not actually spelled out in the egg of nature section. I don't see anything on here at all about losing all of your class levels and starting again at level 1, but I might be missing it in some other section. You may want to clarify that in the egg of nature section at least. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 02:47, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

I'll take a look, I just copy pastad dragonborn, I assumed I got it in there. Maybe not. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 02:52, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Armor bonus

"At x HD, the natureborn's natural armor improves, growing to a +bullshit natural armor bonus." Might want to include a clause that makes it stack poorly with actual armor.

Contemplating. I'll get back to you. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 01:03, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Frankly I don't think the natural armor is that big a deal since it's fairly easy to get a substantial amount of it through other sources. What may be a problem is that the Feral Mind aspect is way stronger than the other two. Free natural armor and attack bonus, ignoring of DR, water breathing, TREMORSENSE and some pretty useful immunities just feels to be head and shoulders above the rest.

That said I'd love to be able to go something like 'They called her... Clovah'kiin! Flowerborn!' --Sulacu (talk) 04:45, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

It's not hard to get up to a +5 enhancement bonus to natural armor, but there are very few ways to get an actual natural armor bonus, especially as high as +8, for normal PCs. --Ghostwheel (talk) 08:00, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Contemplation over, NA cut in half. Also feral nerf elsewhere. How does feral compare to the others now? -- Eiji-kun (talk) 15:38, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

I still don't like it. No other race gives ANYTHING close to that. I'd make it be +1, if that, at most. It's nice that you want to make it powerful so people will use it, but it's not cool when it makes other options that people usually take entirely redundant if it's available. That's a clear sign that it's overpowered compared to other +0 LA races. --Ghostwheel (talk) 16:34, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Humans, strongheart halfling, warforged , whisper gnomes and some kobolds varaints are all stronger than this race. Arguably it on the level of dragonborn and hill dwarves,. maybe slightly above. --Leziad (talk) 19:51, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

If you turn this into a template you can change the natural armor bonus into an enhancement bonus adding to any racial enhancement bonus the base creature may have, if any. I second the idea of making this a template. --Sulacu (talk) 20:40, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

There's nothing stopping you from making it an enhancement bonus even on a regular race. It might clash with flavor/verisimilitude, but flavor is mutable. (The power of nature cloaks you... or something.) I would back up turning the natural armor bonus into a natural armor enhancement bonus, as that would clear virtually all my complaints.

@Leziad: Going +4 on the RNG just from your race is better than even the feat that humans or strongheart halflings get. The only actual competitor though is the dragonwrought venerable kobold, though even that's debatable as you lose out implicitly on one of your feats going that route. So no, I don't think that any of the ones you mentioned, is stronger than this race. I would always take it over those, unless I desperately needed the extra feat to make the whole build work, which is not often the case. --Ghostwheel (talk) 21:34, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Since this is homebrew, I feel that you should include the possibility of homebrew feats into the comparison. A human picking a tome, archetype or other High or Very High balance feat for his racial bonus feat could easily draw even with this race. --Sulacu (talk) 09:00, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

A feat is far far better than getting +4 to AC over 15 levels. --Leziad (talk) 09:24, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Let me give an example of why that's not a good argument; I could easily make a feat that quadruples your natural armor bonus (not enhancement) and that lets you add that to saves as well as AC. It's very powerful, and would make this race BY FAR one of the strongest, even with tome feats available. So saying that homebrew is available makes any argument entirely untenable, which means we need to compare it to wotc content and what's possible using it and this race. --Ghostwheel (talk) 11:10, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

→Reverted indentation to one colon

Even with Wotc content, scaling AC over 15 levels is good. However a bonus feat is versatile and versatility is the essence of very high. Also even if you had a feat that quadrupled natural armor, it would still be worse than some tome feats. Know why? Because natural armor isn't versatile at all, it just a static defense both easily bypassed and offer no versatility or options. Like... Oh man, I can get +16 natural armor at level 15! or I could get energy specialization and get all my [fire] spell the ability to blind the shit out of people (and more). Additionally, while I agree we need to judge the merit of homebrew in a vacuum we also can't really ignore homebrew altogether, I mean if the DM allow natureborn then he/she is probably allowing other stuff as well. Finally if you look at wotc feats like greenbound summoning, divine metamagic, and prerequisite feats for powerful prestige class a scaling natural armor seem really unappealing in the long run. Short version: Bonus feat=God. --Leziad (talk) 18:21, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

I disagree. I would still be much more comfortable with it being an enhancement bonus to natural armor (and would even be fine for it to be bumped to +5 total), "saving" you money without actually changing where you stand on the RNG compared to your peers. --Ghostwheel (talk) 19:52, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

It being enhancement would be fine with me. --Leziad (talk) 20:19, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Balancing Feral

Putting this in a new section since I don't want to interrupt the above with something not-technically-related. Noticed LD still thinks feral is top dog of the three. I'm willing to buy it (though it means I failed to nerf it enough). Suggestions? Opinions? Etc. This isn't if the nat armor is overpowered so much as if the abilities are balanced with the other two. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 19:54, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Well it get attacks, defense and utility all in one delicious package. The others either get one or two. Reducing the effectiveness while keeping it versatile seem it would be the way to go. --Leziad (talk) 20:19, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

How's this? Decided to go with enhancement nat armor as a nerf, removed crit-alteration. Minor movement nerf. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 20:35, 16 July 2014 (UTC)