[Tears Of Blood] Balancing Giantkin

[silas the monk]

There remain a dedicated and passionate few who are still trying to finish the Tears Of Blood project. One of the concerns is over the game balance of the crunch, so I beg your patience to look at one issue in isolation from the fluff massive.

The Giantkin were intended to be a LA +0 Large PC race who are wise and live at a slower pace in the Icy North. Taking the stats from Wunderhund's document (http://tob.505films.com/tob.pdf) we have:


+2 Str, +2 Wis, -2 Dex, -2 Cha Large size, 10' reach etc Base land speed 30 feet Low-light vision (actually weather vision but there is no agreement over the definition so Wunderhund put low-light vision) +2 on all saving throws to avoid Cold damage; the frigid climate of the northern tundra has toughened them to such dangers. +2 Racial Bonus to Survival Checks: Giantkin are raised in the wild and have little difficulty living off the land. Initiative Penalty: -1. Favoured Class: Monk


Now in the debates there was consensus that the attributes and size all balance out. Superficially this seems fair, but I (and some others) are not at all so sure. I looked into this in some depth (http://www.silasthemonk.org.uk/cgi-bin/Report.cgi?rm=report&sr=4#results) (see also I (http://www.silasthemonk.org.uk/cgi-bin/Report.cgi?rm=report&sr=1), II (http://www.silasthemonk.org.uk/cgi-bin/Report.cgi?rm=report&sr=2#some_results), III (http://www.silasthemonk.org.uk/cgi-bin/Report.cgi?rm=report&sr=3#grapple)). Essentially my conclusions are that if someone plays a Giantkin and builds almost any character (fighter, wizard etc) they will pretty much get what they would expect and it will not be unbalanced. (It might be sub-optimal but that is of course a different question.) The problem is that building a Giantkin Monk with Improved grapple +8 outclasses a fighter on grapple checks. He will have a highly favourable chance of pinning the fighter even if the fighter is doing more damage. I did actually model these fights and you can see the results in those links.

I also tried playing with negating bits of the size benefits but none of it really made any difference.

A separate but related question is over the initiative penalty. My analysis suggested that the penalty had to be large because if the Giantkin got to go first then the grapple strategy would be even worse.

I suppose this is a fairly typical race balancing problem. A character build that plays to the racial strengths will be good at what it does. A Monk getting a virtually automatic win against a fighter just seemed wrong to me. You can see the original thread (http://www.silasthemonk.org.uk/cgi-bin/Archive.cgi?rm=archive&t=12214)

[Zeta Kai]

You could cut their speed down to 20'/round. Then their grapple bonuses due to size are situational: they can grab only what they can catch.

Everything else looks fine to me; I wouldn't have a problem with an LA+0 Giantkin. Monks need some love anyway.

[silas the monk]

The speed was debated at some length so I would not like to change that one.

My ideas were to make unarmed attacks not reach, and to reduce the size bonus on grapple (+disarm, trip etc) 3 instead of 4. The former is of course situational and the latter made very little difference to the numbers.

I was hoping for more reason than gut feelings. Why do you think LA+0 is okay?

[tsatthoggua]

I don't think it's balanced, needs a better disadvantage. The main concern is the reach.

One possibility I've just thought: a -2 penalty on Diplomacy and Gather Information checks while in urban environments. Still not enough.

I think a racial initiative penalty is not a good design idea, and in this specific case, it is overkill; Giantkin already receive a penalty to DEX. I'm with Sean K Reynolds guidelines on this one, no inherent overkill penalties or bonuses.

[Zeta Kai]

The speed was debated at some length so I would not like to change that one.

My ideas were to make unarmed attacks not reach, and to reduce the size bonus on grapple (+disarm, trip etc) 3 instead of 4. The former is of course situational and the latter made very little difference to the numbers.

I was hoping for more reason than gut feelings. Why do you think LA+0 is okay?

Well, I'm sure you & your ToB team have debated every aspect of this creature to death, but that's not relevant. You came to the general homebrew forum for advice, & free advice at that. Now, I'm not going to read the endless debates about the creature's strengths & weakness. I can assess those on my own, based on the racial abilities that you've given; all else is unnecessary. Assuming that you actually want an LA+0 race, here's my 2cp on where the Giantkin went right & where they might have gone wrong:


1. +2 Str, +2 Wis, -2 Dex, -2 Cha
This one's very easy, as the DMG has done the work for you. On page 173, there's a chart of which ability score trade-offs are balanced. According to said chart (which I think is good, but a bit incomplete in regards to the mental scores), you guys did fine. A bonus to Strength is balanced against an equal penalty to Dexterity; a bonus to Wisdom is balanced against an equal penalty to Charisma. The net effect of all this numerical adjustment is zero, so you're fine there.


2. Large size, 10' reach etc
This one's a lot trickier, but it seems to be the meat-&-potatoes of the race, so its importance to the race's identity but be factored into the balance. Large creatures typically can expect the following benefits & drawbacks:

-1 size penalty to Armor Class
-1 size penalty on attack rolls
-4 size penalty on Hide checks
custom-sized weapons & equipment is often required
gains a +4 size bonus on Grapple checks
lifting & carrying limits are 2× of those of a Medium character
10' reach (in this case, anyway)

Now, these adjustments don't sound all that great, & indeed it can be argued that a smaller character has a slight advantage over a larger character in 3E combat. The lifting & carrying bonuses are rarely beneficial in games I've played, as most DMs don't spend time factoring such limits in, the situations in which they matter rarely come up in play, & Medium-sized folk can lift/carry a lot (some say too much) already. The grappling bonus is, again, situational; it depends on how much grappling the character is going to be doing. Now, it could be said that a PC with a Grapple bonus is going to try & Grapple more often, but most DM's find 3E grappling rules to be needlessly complex & game-slowing, & I know of a few that eschew grappling altogether, avoiding it at all costs. So, the only benefit to Large size left is that 10' reach. Say what you will about a 10' reach (I personally find it to be handy, but not game-breaking), it is mitigated by the penalties to AC, attack rolls, & Hide checks. Simply put, Large size is a cool bonus, but hardly worthy of a LA+1, in & of itself. Powerful Build is more inherently useful, for comparison, & even that is not the sole benefit that a Goliath has, for instance.


3. Base land speed 30 feet
This one's fairly standard, & one would expect that a Large creature can move at least as fast as a Medium creature. I've always been of the opinion that a creature should have a +5'/round speed bonus for every size category larger than Medium it is, but that's just me. A speed of 30'/round is the standard, & there's no real need to adjust it. I previously proposed that the speed should be reduced to 20'/round, but upon further review, I believe that was a mistake. Making them slow & lumbering would perhaps be thematically fitting, but it's unrealistically slow, as well as unnecessarily punitive.


4. Low-light vision (actually weather vision but there is no agreement over the definition so Wunderhund put low-light vision)
This might seem like a good bonus, but it's not really anything special. Elves, Half-Elves, & Gnomes all have this, while Dwarves & Half-Orcs have the superior-in-every-way darkvision. Humans & Halflings are the only standard PC races with no vision benefits, really. LLV is situational anyway, & I cannot remember a time when it was ever actually beneficial in a game. I don't know what weather vision would be, but it would almost have to be more circumstantially-useful then LLV.


5. +2 on all saving throws to avoid Cold damage; the frigid climate of the northern tundra has toughened them to such dangers.
Not bad, but again, it's somewhat situational. Cold damage doesn't come up as often as, say, Fire damage (PC's often set buildings on fire, but they rarely set them on cold). It fits their theme, but isn't very powerful, especially compared to outright energy resistance. At best, this will buy a character some extra time exposed to the elements. At worst, random chance will negate this benefit, leaving the character subject to Cold damage anyway. Also, this bonus could be interpreted to offer no protection against magical cold: spells with the [Cold] descriptor do not actually offer a saving throw to resist the damage; the few cold spells that offer a saving throw only allow a Reflex save to avoid the spell itself, not the damage that it contains.


6. +2 Racial Bonus to Survival Checks: Giantkin are raised in the wild and have little difficulty living off the land.
Again, this is nice, but hardly impressive. Like almost all of this creature's bonuses, this benefit fits its themes, but depends on the circumstances, & does not surpass bonuses possessed by standard PC races. For example, the Elves have a +2 racial bonus on Listen, Search, & Spot checks, which are all probably more useful in most campaigns than Survival. The Halfling have even more skill bonuses, which may be even more useful, as they can directly effect combat.


7. Initiative Penalty: -1.
This is the Giantkin's only racial penalty, but it compounds a problem that they already have. They already suffer a -2 Dexterity penalty, so another -1 gives them an effective Initiative Penalty of -3, which borders on excessive. One could remove this penalty & still make the argument that the race does not need a Level Adjustment. A -1 penalty on Will saves might be more fitting, as it only negates the +1 bonus on Will saves that Giantkin gain from their +2 Wisdom bonus.


8. Favored Class: Monk
It has been demonstrated over & over again that monks are relatively weak compared to other classes. However, it has also been proven (to my satisfaction, anyway) that a race's Favored Class is arbitrary, & does not affect balance one way or the other. Therefore, I will not waste time discussing it, & assume that it fits the Giantkin's fluff.

The bottom line: this class is almost certainly LA+0. Even LA+0 races have some unequivocal bonuses, & this race has few such benefits, as they stand. Most of their bonuses are rather situational, & none are overwhelmingly powerful compared to those of other PC races. Compare to the Drow (an absurdly-overrated LA+2), the Duergar (a reasonably-balanced LA+1), & the Dwarf (an obviously-underrated LA+0). It should be clear that the Giantkin is weaker than all of them.

QED.

[silas the monk]

Well, I'm sure you & your ToB team have debated every aspect of this creature to death, but that's not relevant. You came to the general homebrew forum for advice, & free advice at that. Now, I'm not going to read the endless debates about the creature's strengths & weakness. I can assess those on my own, based on the racial abilities that you've given; all else is unnecessary. Assuming that you actually want an LA+0 race, here's my 2cp on where the Giantkin went right & where they might have gone wrong:

Yes this is exactly what we were looking for. I could have clarified what was negotiable but that might have skewed the debate.




Large Size
This one's a lot trickier, but it seems to be the meat-&-potatoes of the race, so its importance to the race's identity but be factored into the balance. Large creatures typically can expect the following benefits & drawbacks:

-1 size penalty to Armor Class
-1 size penalty on attack rolls
-4 size penalty on Hide checks
custom-sized weapons & equipment is often required
gains a +4 size bonus on Grapple checks
lifting & carrying limits are 2× of those of a Medium character
10' reach (in this case, anyway)

Now, these adjustments don't sound all that great, & indeed it can be argued that a smaller character has a slight advantage over a larger character in 3E combat. The lifting & carrying bonuses are rarely beneficial in games I've played, as most DMs don't spend time factoring such limits in, the situations in which they matter rarely come up in play, & Medium-sized folk can lift/carry a lot (some say too much) already. The grappling bonus is, again, situational; it depends on how much grappling the character is going to be doing. Now, it could be said that a PC with a Grapple bonus is going to try & Grapple more often, but most DM's find 3E grappling rules to be needlessly complex & game-slowing, & I know of a few that eschew grappling altogether, avoiding it at all costs. So, the only benefit to Large size left is that 10' reach. Say what you will about a 10' reach (I personally find it to be handy, but not game-breaking), it is mitigated by the penalties to AC, attack rolls, & Hide checks. Simply put, Large size is a cool bonus, but hardly worthy of a LA+1, in & of itself. Powerful Build is more inherently useful, for comparison, & even that is not the sole benefit that a Goliath has, for instance.

Yes I agree with this but it misses a crucial point. First off the grapple rules are as they are in 3.5 and a DM should either master them or come up with an alternative. [I do not want this to descend into a discussion on alternative grapple rules. I am just acknowledging that GMs can do that.] A Tears of Blood GM could go a long way to avoid the grappling rules by avoiding Giantkin, and that is easy enough. But the crucial point is that a I did some number crunching and Giantkin monks with improved grapple absolutely wipe (http://www.silasthemonk.org.uk/cgi-bin/Report.cgi?rm=report&sr=4#results) the floor with fighters. Does this make the race unbalanced? Of course the benefits are negated if the Giantkin is fighting against multiple opponents.



It has been demonstrated over & over again that monks are relatively weak compared to other classes.

I have heard this said many times however I never come across one of the debates, but quote frankly I don't agree. Fighter is a very generic and flexible class. Monk is specialized, inflexible and harder to play. In a straight fight, Monk ought to be weaker. You are talking about a guy with a sharp metal stick (or whatever) who knows how to use it up against a guy with his bare hands (albeit one who has almost superhuman powers). I think in a straight fight the fighter SHOULD win, but the Monk should not be playing it straight.



This might seem like a good bonus, but it's not really anything special. Elves, Half-Elves, & Gnomes all have this, while Dwarves & Half-Orcs have the superior-in-every-way darkvision. Humans & Halflings are the only standard PC races with no vision benefits, really. LLV is situational anyway, & I cannot remember a time when it was ever actually beneficial in a game. I don't know what weather vision would be, but it would almost have to be more circumstantially-useful then LLV.

Yeah everyone agrees this is a side issue. I have propoosed in the past that weather vision should mean that in natural or magical fog, Giantkin should get to roll their 20% mischance twice - a bit like blindfighting. I think this is interesting and tactically useful but not overwhelming. But there has not been enough debate within TOB and others had other ideas.



This is the Giantkin's only racial penalty, but it compounds a problem that they already have. They already suffer a -2 Dexterity penalty, so another -1 gives them an effective Initiative Penalty of -3, which borders on excessive. One could remove this penalty & still make the argument that the race does not need a Level Adjustment. A -1 penalty on Will saves might be more fitting, as it only negates the +1 bonus on Will saves that Giantkin gain from their +2 Wisdom bonus.

Actually I rank this is as somewhat more important. It makes a big difference to my number crunching and reduces the number of Attacks of Opportunity that Giantkin can make. Personally I would put this at -6 at least.

I agree with all of your other comments without reservation.

Key question
I think the question is as follows. We have a race that on paper looks balanced and if the player builds an entirely character driven build will offer the GM no concerns. However there is a build based upon this race (and a very natural one based upon the fluff), that makes the race nigh on invincible in a one to one melee fight. That sounds to me like a fairly classical balance issue.

[Adumbration]

Here's my opinion on balancing this.

- Remove the initiative penalty.
- Up the Dex penalty to -4
- Remove Cha penalty.
- Remove Low-light vision.
- Add Snowsight as per the spell as an Ex ability.
- Remove the bonus to saves against cold
- Add Resistance to Cold 1.

This would change the Giantkin to this:

1. +2 Str, +2 Wis, -4 Dex
2. Large size, 10' reach etc
3. Base land speed 30 feet
4. Snowsight (Ex.)
5. Resistance to Cold 1; the frigid climate of the northern tundra has toughened them against the dangers of the cold.
6. +2 Racial Bonus to Survival Checks: Giantkin are raised in the wild and have little difficulty living off the land.
7. Favoured Class: Monk

I believe that this would fit the fluff better - at least in my opinion. I can't comment much on the balance, since I'm not an experienced homebrewer, but to me it seems like something I could play. The -4 to Dex hits them hard, but I think the benefits outweigh the negatives.

[silas the monk]

Here's my opinion on balancing this.

Again I was really hoping that this forum would provide reasoned argument (based upon game balance considerations) (like Zeta Kai) rather than gut reactions but thanks anyway. What I was trying to do was not get people to just restart the Tears of Blood project from scratch but to focus on a potential problem.



- Add Snowsight as per the spell as an Ex ability.

I do not know this spell and taking stuff from non-core books is problematic.



- Remove the bonus to saves against cold
- Add Resistance to Cold 1.

It's odd that you think this fits the fluff better. Resistance to cold has real in combat effects whereas saving throws has more out of combat game effects.
It is the out of combat game effects that correlate more to the lifestyle (and hence fluff) of the race in question.

[Greeniron]

on the topic of weathervision and snowvision you could just reduce the penalty to spot in harse weather conditions but, I do like the re-roll on 20% miss chance

[MostlyHarmless]

Here's my opinion on balancing this.

This would change the Giantkin to this:

1. +2 Str, +2 Wis, -4 Dex
2. Large size, 10' reach etc
3. Base land speed 30 feet
4. Snowsight (Ex.)
5. Resistance to Cold 1; the frigid climate of the northern tundra has toughened them against the dangers of the cold.
6. +2 Racial Bonus to Survival Checks: Giantkin are raised in the wild and have little difficulty living off the land.
7. Favoured Class: Monk

I believe that this would fit the fluff better - at least in my opinion. I can't comment much on the balance, since I'm not an experienced homebrewer, but to me it seems like something I could play. The -4 to Dex hits them hard, but I think the benefits outweigh the negatives.

-4 Dex seems pretty severe. Would anyone play this race with these stats? What we want to do here is end up with a race that would be interesting to play, but which doesn't break the balance.

I agree, you can't ignore grapple and say it's balanced when grappling is not considered. But I haven't played enough grappling to be an expert here. And I wonder if the real rationale about that is that it only affects one attacker. Chances are there would be multiple attackers. And with this dude's larger size, he has more potential attackers, so there's another drawback of being Large. And if there aren't, the DM should be wary of this guy with his reach.

Any other creative ideas?

EDIT: Additional note. In the other thread about a Large PC race it was mentioned to make them of the Giant type rather than humanoid to avoid abuse by the Enlarge person spell. Is this advised here as well?

Also, after reviewing the Grapple rules, I question whether this really constitutes enough of a worry. Assuming he is a monk with Improved grapple, he still has to hit that fighter and he has a -1 to hit already. Then, once he's grappling, he's taken out of the action of fighting other enemies. If there's one bad guy, ok, but this just seems like a limited feature and not worth a level adjustment.

Still waiting for how others feel about a -4 to Dex.

[silas the monk]

I am very much coming round to this view, or at least I can run with it.

And I wonder if the real rationale about that is that it only affects one attacker. Chances are there would be multiple attackers. And with this dude's larger size, he has more potential attackers, so there's another drawback of being Large.
I have played with grapple a lot and grappling amongst multiple opponents is pretty suicidal because you no longer pose a theat to anyone not in the grapple and you lose your dex bonus to those not in the grapple (so can be sneak attacked).

So my version would be:


1. +2 Str, +2 Wis, -2 Dex, -2 Cha
2. Large size, 10' reach etc
3. Base land speed 30 feet
4. Weather vision (reroll 20% mischance in natural or magical fog)
5. +2 on all saving throws to avoid Cold damage; the frigid climate of the northern tundra has toughened them to such dangers.
6. +2 Racial Bonus to Survival Checks: Giantkin are raised in the wild and have little difficulty living off the land.
7. Initiative Penalty: -6.
8. Favoured Class: Monk
9. LA +0


Actually one nice thing about my definition of weather vision is that it makes some versions of spell caster very attractive even combined with Monk somehow.

[Lappy9000]

1. +2 Str, +2 Wis, -2 Dex, -2 Cha
2. Large size, 10' reach etc
3. Base land speed 30 feet
4. Weather vision (reroll 20% mischance in natural or magical fog)
5. +2 on all saving throws to avoid Cold damage; the frigid climate of the northern tundra has toughened them to such dangers.
6. +2 Racial Bonus to Survival Checks: Giantkin are raised in the wild and have little difficulty living off the land.
7. Initiative Penalty: -6.
8. Favoured Class: Monk
9. LA +0 Wha??? A -6 Initiative Penalty and a minus -2 Dexterity penalty!? No one is gonna want to play this race. I've dabbled with initiative penalties (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=4739500#post4739500)before, and even a -4 penalty really slows things down.

Also, you should stop being picky about the help you get. Giantkin have been in a development hell almost since their creation, and very soon you will have to pick an idea and go for it. Worrying about pontential grappling cheese seems trivial when the alternative is making the race slower than growing grass.

Just say "Screw it," take the advice of the fine Homebrew folks, and roll with a decision. If you guys don't make a deadline soon, I fear Tears of Blood will be stuck in an eternal limbo on some random forum or wiki.

[Zeta Kai]

Also, you should stop being picky about the help you get. Giantkin have been in a development hell almost since their creation, and very soon you will have to pick an idea and go for it. Worrying about pontential grappling cheese seems trivial when the alternative is making the race slower than growing grass.

Just say "Screw it," take the advice of the fine Homebrew folks, and roll with a decision. If you guys don't make a deadline soon, I fear Tears of Blood will be stuck in an eternal limbo on some random forum or wiki.

Agreed. The ToB project as a whole is very (but not uniquely) guilty of this, & it has been an impediment to interest & participation in the project. The debates on every single minor point are endless & unproductive. Posters become entrenched in their opinions, & the inability to come to a consensus prevents progress.

I've seen this with other projects before (Gears of Neve comes to mind, for instance), & I understand the problems involved. So far, the VUACS project has avoided this, but it's not a fair comparison, because it has a deliberately-small build team. Perhaps the best thing for the ToB would be if elections were held for a 3-6 member build team, who would be the only ones who can make the final call on some of the debates that plague the project as a whole.

[S. J. Floyd]

Um, just my two pence here, why not leave the Giantkin as they are currently (whatever that means anymore) and let people play the race so that they can generate the feedback you need to figure out what its weak points really are and work on balancing from there. I don't know much about homebrewing anything, but I know for a fact that on-paper is radically different from practice, and practice is what matters.

The simulation idea was a good one, but how often is a Giantkin monk going to be fighting a lone fighter? It looks like it was designed for the sole purpose of pointing out a very small detail and making it seem like an unfair advantage. Here's an alternative: The party has cornered the highwaymen and their leader in the hideout. They've been chasing after the leader for some three weeks, yet he always manages to escape during the carnage. Intent on not letting him escape this time, the party's Giantkin monk rushes the mark and grabs hold of him. True, the monk can't fight while grappling the highwayman, but if he lets go to defend himself from the other brigands he'll escape again. Besides, there's about four or five other adventurers in the room who (hopefully) have the monk's best interests at heart, and who would really hate him if let their bounty go when he could have prevented it. - Such a situation would be ideal for "mad grapp1ing skillz," and is probably more likely to occur in some form or other in a campaign than a straight up fight. It all depends on the context of the situation. (I don't know the rules, as I don't play DnD *gasp* but I don't think pinning your opponent counts as beating them except in wrestling in the first place, so the original simulation is further flawed.)

I don't know the rules well enough to comment on anything else. Conclusion: Just let the people who know how to exploit character traits do so so that they can tell you how to make the race more exploitation-proof. That would require getting the race, and the rest of the campaign world, to the public.

[silas the monk]

Agreed. The ToB project as a whole is very (but not uniquely) guilty of this, & it has been an impediment to interest & participation in the project. The debates on every single minor point are endless & unproductive. Posters become entrenched in their opinions, & the inability to come to a consensus prevents progress.

I've seen this with other projects before (Gears of Neve comes to mind, for instance), & I understand the problems involved. So far, the VUACS project has avoided this, but it's not a fair comparison, because it has a deliberately-small build team. Perhaps the best thing for the ToB would be if elections were held for a 3-6 member build team, who would be the only ones who can make the final call on some of the debates that plague the project as a whole.

This is extremely close to my own opinion on the Tears Of Blood project as a whole. I started reading through the original posts to try and understand how it happened (http://www.silasthemonk.org.uk/cgi-bin/Page.cgi?content=TearsOfBlood/short_history.tmpl). I think it is quite interesting really. The original idea seemed to have been to do away explicitly with any authoritarianism. Many people said this would not work, the guy who came up with the idea seemed to not want to take a leading role and when the Giant tried to offer his wisdom on how to get things done, some cried "Foul!". As such I think it was a beautiful but naive idea; an example why "anarchy" is not a viable form of government and doomed from almost the beginning. Well we live and learn.

The problem with your suggestion is that now anybody can turn up after six months of abscence and cry foul at what has been decided in their abscence - or simply say it makes no sense and reopen all the old debates. And it is such a mess, that they almost certainly have a least a prima facie case.
As such I set up my Tears Of Blood (http://www.silasthemonk.org.uk/cgi-bin/Report.cgi) site with the following goals:
1.) Exhibit a warning to those hoping to start community world building projects. Small, committed, development team is almost certainly the way to go.
2.) Provide a space for those who want to complete the project either via the official wiki (http://tearsofblood.editthis.info/wiki/Main_Page) or their own take on it. I'll certainly have my own.
3.) Provide a forum (http://www.silasthemonk.org.uk/cgi-bin/forum/Blah.cgi) those still interested to meet.

Edit:
Actually I takeissue with this bit. Many, many contradictions and issues were completely missed and pointed out once and ignored by everyone else.

every single minor point
The most pointless debates were over fundamental debates in AD&D which could not be resolved anyway.

[Lord of Shadows]

Is anyone still interested in the Tears of Blood project? I have put together a bit of a PDF from the old message boards and Silas' forum archive, along with some new material.

[averagejoe]

The Mod They Call Me: *De-thread necromancificate.*