Talk:Vocwel (3.5e Race)

Commentary

I haven't gone through the whole thing but quick thing right off the bat; odd ability scores are a baaaad idea, for mechanical reasons. Stick to the even ones. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 14:42, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

...I have read the rest.

No. No, god no. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 14:55, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

I have read it yes it needs some fixing but overall seems like a great balanced race if your ok with being ugly as shit woot —Preceding unsigned comment added by ‎98.100.10.118 (talk • contribs) at

Phew. I am willing to help, but there is a lot of work to do. Please remember everything that follows, no matter how harsh, is here to help you. There's fluff problems as well as mechanical ones, but I'm just going to work on the mechanical ones right now so not to overwhelm you, or if you are married to the current fluff.

So, here we go.

The Vocwel, alright, right off the bat I can tell you the formatting is all off. The first thing should be the ability score modifiers, and its not, and you are missing some stuff.

Ability Scores: As before, odd scores are a bad idea, which is why you always see other races with even scores. Keeping the same modifier bonuses as you have, it should be +4 Str, +6 Wis, +2 Int, -12 Cha. On the manner of scores... they're pretty bad. Giving a big penalty does not justify big bonuses. As a general rule, you shouldn't go over +2 with an ECL 1 race (which is what you're claiming below). Let me put it this way... at level 1, would be it fair to fight Killzor the Killbarian with a Strength of 9000, but it's ok because it has 1 in every other score? You realize it only needs to hit once (which it will with it's +4495 attack bonus before BAB) and then deal thousands of damage. Yeah, doesn't work, no matter how much you dump charisma to justify it.

Type?: Isn't even on here. What is this, a humanoid? An outsider? Maybe it's vermin, it might be, who knows.

Large: As a general rule, you should be Small or Medium, with other sizes usually justifying an LA +1 or higher. There are many benefits to abnormal sizes (for Large, reach being the biggest one) which are not always balanced out by their downsides. If they must be large, consider Powerful Build (and also consider that even Powerful Build is really good, there aren't any canon races which give it without an LA 1 on it).

Speeds: While not impossible, having odd speed bonuses does play hell with any ability which halves or otherwise decreases speed. Stick to 30 ft, or make it 40, 35 is just half-assing it. Then we have a burrow speed, which I do not advise. Besides being really useful and as fast as their land movement, nothing about their fluff indicates them as diggers. If this was a race of moles, or living drills, or something sure. But as far as I can tell, this is a race of four armed humanoid giants with a case of the spider eyes. And nothing about that is burrow-worthy.

Vision Modes: Not the strongest, but it's just overkill having Superior Low-Light vision instead of normal Low-Light vision as well as Darkvision. None of this is overwhelming on it's own, but all together it just gives me the impression you were like "let's throw all the best visions together as see what happens"?

Four Arms: Four arms is another one of those things that, like Large, is usually worth +1 LA on it's own. Additional arms means multiweapon fighting (and thus additional attacks), or more importantly the ability to carry oversized weaponry via more hands. These guys can currently swing around Gargantuan Greatswords in four hands. And you are claiming this is ECL 1? This is balanced against a vanilla human, dwarf, or even warforged? I do not think so.

Dragonic Ichor: I think you meant Draconic, or Dragon. And since this is something about having Dragon Blood, you have your usual Dragon themed immunities of sleep and paralysis... oh wait, polymorph, petrification, and form altering. What in the world does that have to do with dragons? Why do they have immunities at all when they have all those other abilities above and below?

Hold Breath: There's nothing unbalanced about this, but it's another thing that is just random. Why are four armed spider eye giants good at holding their breath?

Endure Atmosphere: Ok, a partial explanation. Kinda. Seems there is a running theme that these guys are good at breathing the unbreathable, and holding breath when there is nothing to breath. But... why?

Weapon and Armor Proficiencies: Typically classes give this, and races give specialization in a few weapons or armor based on flavor. Elves do bows because the fluff says they live in forests and hunt and stuff. Dwarves do axes and hammers because dwarves like big heavy stout weapons like that. Why do these guys specialize in most weapons and armor and shields?

Languages: Draconic, again. Amusingly, these guys don't start with Common. Good luck talking to your allies!

LA and ECL: Yeah, these guys are NOT ECL 1. In the slightest. ECL 1 means you should be a comparable choice to Humans, Elves, Dwarves, and the like. The strongest ECL 1 race I know of is arguably the Warforged. And this does not even compare to what is listed. How do you justify it?

Solve these problems, and we're halfway there. I also want to take you to task about the flavor of the whole thing, but one thing at a time. Remember you can sign your posts by typing ~~~~ after your post, so we know who is talking. Like this. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 02:24, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Hello there Eiji-kun(talk) imma need help editing the crap out of this if you would like to help I am taking over I think I understand where the person wanted to make his concept, imma just fix it up and balance it out. 12.94.111.130 12:26, 10 August 2015 (UTC) ROSEMOON

OK FIXED ALOT ...And I Mean I pretty much had to rewrite everything in a term that its not copy write to another persons stuff but it is his still in the lane of the writing, Fixed the date this thing was created and took over everything still need some help with the Stats I was never good at that?? any ideas?? 12.94.111.130 13:22, 10 August 2015 (UTC) ROSEMOON

I'll give it a proper look over tomorrow when I wake up, but it already looks more solid. A full report later. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 14:11, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

I Will try to Rewrite Velkor as well to more accommodate this race ...Rosemoon out 14:40, 10 August 2015 (UTC) Rosemoon

Can someone put this on 5th? I have a large group of players wanting to play these guys?

Slow Commentary

(Hey, this is Eiji again, wearing my admin pants this time. Please do not remove other people's messages, you keep doing that. Stop. Thanks.) -- Eiji-kun (talk) 14:09, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

I should be angry upon finishing this, since a majority of the text is an awful rewrite/copy of text from the ortshell appilon. I should be angry at the pervasive amount of grammar and spelling errors. I should be angry at the haphazardly cobbled together racial stats. I'm not angry though. This... this is too sad to be angry at. So, the balance of those racial traits are... tremendously borked, wherein "borked" is a technical term for "totally non-functional". This really comes from the stuff that was added by the author rather than the plagiarized stuff, since there's a total lack of understanding (or disregard thereof) for design of races in 3.5e D&D. "Vocwel get +2 Feats every 8 levels" is weird... and weirdly placed at the top of the traits. This should honestly just be dropped altogether since it's so poorly explained and probably broken if it even made sense. The racial ability score adjustments would be a joke if it was intentional or funny. Throwing around massive bonuses with massive drawbacks doesn't make balance, it makes extreme imbalance. Odd adjustments are also stupid and bad and dumb and a butt (I actually just don't feel like going into why not to use them other than to say: min-maxing problems with point buy character creation and even numbers making mechanical differences where odds don't always). Large for LA 0 ECL 1 is just a poor choice, especially given the lack of balance around that. Also, the speeds are terrible. Speeds often get halved and whatnot, and 35 breaks that sensibility in such a dumb way. Hey, four arms on top of that.

So, hmmm... when was this added? 7/8/2013? That's weird, considering it was actually added August 7th, 2015. Oh well. That's all for now. --Ganteka Future (talk) 22:37, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Ganteka Future I took over and I am rewriting the whole bloodly thing I read it and I was sad and yet imma fix it to the best of my ability, and if I make some grammar and spelling errors I am sorry just go in and correct them. Rosemoon (talk) Rosemoon

Hey Rosemoon. Looks like it's shaping up nicely already! Still some work to do, but I'll hold off on a big read-through for now. Though, I will ask, since this is the phase, is that would you like it to be a base LA 0 ECL 1 race or are you going for a more exotic extra abilities/powers sorta thing. Either way, I'm sure Eiji and I have some input on design and options and such that could help you out, depending on how complicated you want to make things (like using Racial Hit Dice or Racial Paragon class levels instead of using Level Adjustment and easing into a higher-ability character more naturally). It can be rather daunting though, especially when first learning this stuff. But hey, it might be good to learn it now and open up some more options if you're planning on doing more of this stuff in the future. Good luck! --Ganteka Future (talk) 23:22, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Rosemoon's Notes

So I am writing it now and I am gladly taking grammar and spelling checks out the ass. Please just go in and fix what needs fixed I am currently trying to write a campaign and trying to fix this wonderful...Piece.. of...Yeaaaah well you get what I am going at it can be made into a really great piece.. Rosemoon (talk)

Rebuild Review

Time to check out the rebuild! And it looks like the large maybe-spider dragon devil people are now medium! Yay!

First Personality...

"Similar exotic egos to that of a human, but moreso". Humans have exotic egos? I think you were trying to say something to the sort of "are as varied, if not more so, than humanity". Anyway, the appearance fluff can go below, more about their personalities. They are artistic, cultures, and have a strong lawful base. Good good. See my critique on their deity Velkor, and I can agree you should play up the lawful angle there as well. There is a bit of contradiction in that they're super lawful yet "as varied as humanity", but the part about adventuring does help with this, since they lose their lawful backgrounds (sometimes). Anyway, some of the stuff here, like coloring, can be stuck in physical description. And speaking of which...

Physical Description...

Alright, humanoid frame, and generally slipping either into the dragon or devil tropes. That's fine. They have four arms, with normal and lesser arms, and clawed feet. You don't really need to say "demon legs" per se since, unless you're referring to a specific unusual fiend, most demons hold to the humanoid bodyplan anyway. Black blood, good good. And looks like there's some differences in gender. There's no problems here, other than that I could probably parse it down shorter and cleaner. Otherwise, it's doing well enough.

One thing I would like to know is how fecund they are. ....it's a polite way of saying how often to they have kids. I ask mostly because often with the long lives races like these (elves, in particular) they tend to have children rarely. Probably for the reason that if they didn't they would have overpopulated and dominated the universe ages ago. I assume they have kids rarely, but so far this is an assumption.

Relations...

These guys certainly live a long time, they make dragons look like kobolds. The long lifespan IS a good explanation of their lawful outlook, very good. I can point out that this reserved conservative viewpoint does class a lot with the "chaotic evil dick" version of Velkor, so here's another reason to push "lawful god of judgment" Velkor instead. The quests thing seems to be random, what are you refering to there and why is it in parenthesis? Whatever, it does clearly get over the idea that these guys are long term planners, and that is good.

Alignment... Lawful, good good, fitting in with the fluff so far.

Lands... They live a bunch of places, good good.

Religion... I think that Velkor needs to be fixed more, but if we go with the Lawful Velkor idea, it works out. Think of it... ancient race adopts lawful evil god of judgment. They only have a few generations while others run through thousands of generations, so their society barely changes. They are the ultimate sticks in the mud, the hyper conservative, and view the ever-changing world with disdain. The only reason they haven't cleaved and smite the world for supreme punishment is that they play the long game. Sure, other beings, races, and gods have freedom now, but wait til my 7 Xantanos Gambits pay off in 3000 years, then they will know true suffering.

And that's cool, a race of ticking time bombs, villains just waiting to happen and bring forth the apocalypse of others.

With that said, it would seem odd that they would be open to new religions at all because Velkor presumably hates other gods, and because it's new, and what do these kids know, get off my lawn! Perhaps adopting new religion is only an aspect of the less lawful exiles you mentioned before.

Language...

The phrasing here is a bit odd ("dragon like humanoid vocal chords"... is it dragon or human?) but I think I get you meaning. Perhaps "they have deep booming dragon like voices". It's safe to assume their vocal chords are suitable for speech in whatever biology they possess. The sign language thing is odd (and stranger still with the uncomfortable bit... do they speak in a series of hip thrusts and twerking inches from your face?) but you can probably explain it better as they have a non-verbal language composed of interpretive dance, and leave the details, or people's reaction to them, vague or unspoken. The last part isn't really needed since it doesn't have anything to do with language.

Names...

Always a difficult part for me, the fluff here is strange. Males are named after skin color and eye shape, which is weird, and makes me think their names aren't like any human but something like... "Hey there Redscale Almondeyes." Which is... weird. Same thing with females, "What's up, Bigfoot Wigglesalot." It just seems... unfitting.

You know what would be fitting? Since you said they do some interpretive dance stuff before, what if their actual names aren't just "Bob" or "Susan" but the name with some kind of flourish. People never say it correctly, it's "Bob" with your arms like this. Completely different than "Bob" with your arms down at your side.

And lastly the mechanics! Racial traits!

Ah, while the formatting is off, that is easy enough to fix. In fact I'll probably do that for you later. I can already see if being better. +2/+2/-2 can work. Medium. Good speed, low light vision, four arms (but not really, the strongest part is nerfed and this is good!), and a fluffy thing about not needing to eat. With good stats, high speed, and a neat four arm system which has its uses, I would say this could actually be pulled off at ECL 1.

My god. You've done it. Some polish and clarification here and there and we're clear. Good job Rosemoon. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 01:35, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Fixed up a bit of what you commented on and added a few things into it still having problems with the bottom of what stats and stuff I should give the race I am still writing my campaign and I don't want to give them full dragon AC and all that because its a simple race. If you want Give me some ideas of what this race should have, Also I might Write how the vocwel interact with each race in general.....I want to finish with the vocwel before I Take over Velkor if that is ok and if you are interested I would like to invite you to the campaign I am writing!?!?. Rosemoon (talk) 16:52, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

I've fixed your mechanical formatting. Odd things I noticed... though Humanoid is very balanced, their appearance, that of fiendish four armed dragon people, don't really look the part. You might want Monstrous Humanoid, it's not THAT big of a buff. Also, the Vocwel subtype is fine but mostly unnecessary. Especially if you make it a monstrous humanoid.

The other things is that the +1 Craft check is barely not there, +2 is perfectly fine at least. And lastly, it's a liiiiittle empty. The power is fine, but probably could afford some fluffy benefits that befit their race. The only one that comes to mind though is I'm surprised that a law-focused species like this didn't end up with an alignment subtype. Consider the lawful subtype. This has the interesting effect of having them always count as lawful, even if they aren't, as well as bypassing DR/law.

Beyond that, if you add anything I'm imagining small fluffy things. Weapon proficiencies, +2 skill this or that, maybe something judge related... maybe they can detect lies? Or they're intimidating? -- Eiji-kun (talk) 03:11, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

Got it I am thinking of adding +4 or +5 to intimidating and can detect lies.. Also a added in bonus of +3 to handle animal (was thinking these things live long enough they can tame and herd dragons eh)

Cool cool. Dragon's don't use handle animal though they're generally sentient so it's diplomacy. On the other hand we established they're bad at social skills. A good way about this is something specific to dragons. Give them Dragon Empathy. Basically, Wild Empathy, but specific to dragons. That'll solve it. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 21:04, 15 August 2015 (UTC)