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View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next New Dragonborn Subrace, the Dragon Turtleborn!



mkirshnikov
2017-12-23, 05:20 PM
More or less, this is just a re-skinned Tortle, but flavored to be more like the Dragonborn, and its been adjusted to be more of a water-type creature. I am wondering if I should do the steam breath and the fire resistance to make it more like the Dragon Turtle, but right now I'm happy with it.

Link: http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/HkdnUrjzG

Morphic tide
2017-12-23, 11:12 PM
Should actually be a Tortle subrace, as a major "thing" for Dragonborn is that they pick from a list for draconic ancestry instead of having normal subraces. And why does everybody spam Homebrewry links these days? Why can't you just do a text post actually on the site? Or at least give design notes or something so that it's not just a link off-site...

Mechanically, it's almost certainly overpowered.

The ability score, being a total +3 with a partially chosen +1, is a little unusual but not wildly overkill. Regular Dragonborn get +3 fixed, after all. Also not stricktly problematic is the size, although I will point out that they should probably have a call out as being either Large or a bare touch shy of Large. And the wight is absurd for a Medium creature, though a third of that being solid bone is a decent justification because shells tend to be heavy structures. It's why sea turtles don't actually have them!

The base AC of 17 is just flat out broken, as the only ways to get that with armor are Splint, which requires 15 Str and gives Disadvantage on Stealth, and Half Plate with 14 Dex, which also gives Disadvantage on Stealth. The Natural Armor basically guts everyone who isn't an archer possible needing Dexterity, because not including Dex means you also remove the AC penalty for a low Dexterity. I leave out shields because you can stack a shield on top of it for a total AC of 19, which is way too close to breaking bounded accuracy, particularly due to being at level one. Adding Proficiency bonus to AC(a useful shorthand for scaling by level) would let it stay to a reasonable amount regardless of level.

The movement stuff is also nasty, as they have no speed penalty (in spite of being a touch shy of Large) and always match Swim speed with walking speed. Which is a bit problematic due to making all movement improvements affect their swimming. And they don't need to stop for air, making them kinda crazy for underwater exploration and combat, where they face no difficulties. Normally, you'd see 25/40 movement, being slightly slower on land but significantly faster in water.

Heavily Built is... Largely not important, with how minor it is, but it's another bonus. Shell Defence causes low level lethality to become a joke, because you can have 23 AC with a shield and thus are virtually impossible to hit for the first five levels of the game. And you get Advantage on two of three physical saving throws while at it, causing the durability to become even more ridiculous.

Taking it as a Sorcerer, Bard or Warlock costs you one point of Charisma over more dedicated caster types and instantly makes you more tanky than most of the melee beatsticks. You just end up being absurdly tanky for no good reason or expense far too early on. And yes, I realize the problems with Shell Defence and Natural Armor are present on the actual Tortle in at least one iteration, but that's no reason to have wildly above curve capabilities that gut the need for investment of character resources. And yes, it's mostly just a re-skin, but it actually misses a few downsides of the Tortle, like being Prone while Shell Defense is active, and adds upsides like indefinite underwater breathing, instead of hour-long breath holding.

Much more importantly, it can be taken as a Paladin with nearly ideal score application, which has its own survivability capacity that this guts investment in by completely removing Dexterity from AC. So you can have a Dexterity of under 10 with no cost but the hit to saving throws and skills, which is likely to go away as a problem at level 6 when you get to add Charisma to your saving throws.

mkirshnikov
2017-12-24, 01:25 AM
Should actually be a Tortle subrace, as a major "thing" for Dragonborn is that they pick from a list for draconic ancestry instead of having normal subraces.
I could see where you're coming from as a Tortle Subrace, but I wanted it to have the +2 to Constitution because when I think of a Turtle warrior, I think of a hard to kill warrior, and the stat spread for Tortle doesn't help with that. The idea to have a +1 to Charisma or Strength came from this (http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/Bkbe48xNGz), as I think it improves on the current version of Dragonborn. If you take a look down on the Homebrewery page though, you'll see there is indeed a Dragonborn Subrace version, though. That has the +2 Strength and +1 Charisma.


And why does everybody spam Homebrewry links these days? Why can't you just do a text post actually on the site? Or at least give design notes or something so that it's not just a link off-site... Personally, I use Homebrewery because I've done the "Write it all in the first post" and I've gotten feedback saying it was hard to read and didn't look good. I was told about Homebrewery and am slowly learning how to use it better and better, and I think it makes my brews look very good and official.


Mechanically, it's almost certainly overpowered. I've gotten feedback from people on the Unearthed Arcana Subreddit saying this is a very good Variant Race/Subrace, and they'd be accepted into most gaming tables, and seeing what your grievances are further on in your post, I have to agree with them, I don't see anything wrong with it.


Also not stricktly problematic is the size, although I will point out that they should probably have a call out as being either Large or a bare touch shy of Large. And the wight is absurd for a Medium creature, though a third of that being solid bone is a decent justification because shells tend to be heavy structures. It's why sea turtles don't actually have them! I'll agree that weight-wise, Tortles and Dragon Turtleborns are almost Large, they aren't Large. Medium size is anywhere weight-wise from 60-500 lbs according to this chart (http://dungeons.wikia.com/wiki/SRD:Table_of_Creature_Size_and_Scale). While this is the chart that I use personally, I've seen multiple other examples regarding the size chart, and this is the only example that mentions weight at all that I've found. So, weight might not even be a factor in it. (I don't have any of the books, so I can't be sure)


The base AC of 17 is just flat out broken, as the only ways to get that with armor are Splint, which requires 15 Str and gives Disadvantage on Stealth, and Half Plate with 14 Dex, which also gives Disadvantage on Stealth. The Natural Armor basically guts everyone who isn't an archer possible needing Dexterity, because not including Dex means you also remove the AC penalty for a low Dexterity. I leave out shields because you can stack a shield on top of it for a total AC of 19, which is way too close to breaking bounded accuracy, particularly due to being at level one. Adding Proficiency bonus to AC(a useful shorthand for scaling by level) would let it stay to a reasonable amount regardless of level. Yes, the Natural Armor is very useful for casters and characters with low AC, but I fail to see how it is overpowered. Are things like the Lizardfolk's Natural Armor overpowered? A Lizardfolk Rogue would naturally get 18 AC relatively quickly because their main stat will probably be Dex. The Tortle's Natural armor helps out characters with low AC, like Sorceror, Warlock and Wizard, and hurts characters that usually have a High AC, like Fighters, Paladins and Clerics. They lose out on 1 AC because they can't wear Plate armor for the 18 AC. Plus, I've seen people like Nerdarchy and DawnforgedCast talk about it, they also said that the Natural Armor is a very useful defensive ability, but they didn't say it was overpowered. Also, like I said above, I've also gotten feedback on Reddit approving of the class and they didn't even mention the Natural Armor.



The movement stuff is also nasty, as they have no speed penalty (in spite of being a touch shy of Large) and always match Swim speed with walking speed. Which is a bit problematic due to making all movement improvements affect their swimming. And they don't need to stop for air, making them kinda crazy for underwater exploration and combat, where they face no difficulties. Normally, you'd see 25/40 movement, being slightly slower on land but significantly faster in water.Yes, they are very good for underwater exploration and combat, being underwater for extended periods of time, and underwater combat as well, I hear isn't really that common in the first place, so I still see no real problems with it. These are variably useful depending on the campaign you are in. And yes, all movement improvements affect their swimming. I don't see why it shouldn't.


Shell Defence causes low level lethality to become a joke, because you can have 23 AC with a shield and thus are virtually impossible to hit for the first five levels of the game. And you get Advantage on two of three physical saving throws while at it, causing the durability to become even more ridiculous. Yeah, Shell Defense helps a ton with not dying, but you also can do literally nothing but get out of Shell Defense once you get in.


Taking it as a Sorcerer, Bard or Warlock costs you one point of Charisma over more dedicated caster types and instantly makes you more tanky than most of the melee beatsticks. This is not true. Any class that can start off with chainmail and a shield has a higher AC than a Tortle/Dragon Turtleborn with a shield. Yes, the Tortle will have more health (Depending on the Ability Scores of the Tortle, of course, the Tortle can completely abandon Constitution and leave it at the minimum of 10, meaning the classes with Chainmail and a shield are just plain tankier at the beginning.) but I believe it evens it out.


And yes, it's mostly just a re-skin, but it actually misses a few downsides of the Tortle, like being Prone while Shell Defense is active, and adds upsides like indefinite underwater breathing, instead of hour-long breath holding. I didn't miss anything from the original Tortle other than changing the 1 hour hold breath to amphibious and taking off the Survival proficiency. I don't even understand where you got the idea that I took out the prone during Shell Defense, I copy-pasted the ability onto the Dragon Turtleborn.


Much more importantly, it can be taken as a Paladin with nearly ideal score application, which has its own survivability capacity that this guts investment in by completely removing Dexterity from AC. So you can have a Dexterity of under 10 with no cost but the hit to saving throws and skills, which is likely to go away as a problem at level 6 when you get to add Charisma to your saving throws. Uhm, so what? There are a bunch of races that fit each class perfectly. Half Orc, Dwarf, etc fit a Strength-based Fighter or Barbarian perfectly, Tritons and Half Elves can do Paladins well, Tortles and Firbolgs can do Druids well also. Not to mentions Humans are made to be able to do every class decently.
Really, the only thing I can sort of agree with is the 25 foot land speed/40 foot water speed. I'm not going to change it, but I can see why you would.

Your grievances just seem to point to you not liking the Tortle, since all of the grievances you had were with the Tortle's abilities, and me adding Amphibious and Natural Swimmer. If you don't like Tortles, why try to criticize a race that is essentially a reflavored Tortle? Not trying to be rude or anything, but I just don't think it makes sense.

Morphic tide
2017-12-24, 03:14 AM
Your grievances just seem to point to you not liking the Tortle, since all of the grievances you had were with the Tortle's abilities, and me adding Amphibious and Natural Swimmer. If you don't like Tortles, why try to criticize a race that is essentially a reflavored Tortle? Not trying to be rude or anything, but I just don't think it makes sense.

The reason why I'm picking at this is because I actually only looked up the Tortle's statline after I'd finished three paragraphs, so I decided to finish it up...

And one point less than the literal maximum of heavy armor for only the investment of a shield, from level one when plate is far from available, is bad design. Scaling with level in some fashion is needed to make it actually balanced, because you're getting things multiple levels early and with much less investment. And the Lizardfolk Rogue argument falls flat because that's a rather large amount of stat investment involved, because you have both Dex and Str requirements to make it happen. The Tortle has no ability score requirements for one point below maximum AC, nor any penalties associated with it aside from not getting to wear magic armor.

I mean... If it's just a reflavored Tortle, why are you posting it labelled as if it's it's own thing? Also, you actually completely screwed up on an important note: Actual subraces, like the second entry/page, add specified abilities to the initial race. Hill Dwarves add another point of Wisdom and one HP per level, while High Elves get a Wizard cantrip, four weapon proficiencies, a point of Intelligence and an extra language over the standard Elf statline. What's intended is extremely obvious, but you messed up on having it fit the actual rules...

mkirshnikov
2017-12-24, 04:23 PM
Also, you actually completely screwed up on an important note: Actual subraces, like the second entry/page, add specified abilities to the initial race.

but you messed up on having it fit the actual rules...

Except I didn't, though. The Tortle reflavor is a Variant Race, meaning it's to be used instead of Dragonborn, but it still counts as a Dragonborn, like the Human Variant race. Plus, I do have a Dragonborn Subrace version that does actually add things to Dragonborn. It adds the Natural armor, swim speed and water breathing. I fail to see where I went wrong.

Morphic tide
2017-12-24, 06:05 PM
Except I didn't, though. The Tortle reflavor is a Variant Race, meaning it's to be used instead of Dragonborn, but it still counts as a Dragonborn, like the Human Variant race. Plus, I do have a Dragonborn Subrace version that does actually add things to Dragonborn. It adds the Natural armor, swim speed and water breathing. I fail to see where I went wrong.

No, see, the problem for the subrace version is that subraces add everything they list. Hill Dwarf only lists the +1 Wis and +1 HP per level. Subraces only list what they add, is what I'm saying, while yours lists the end result. It's improper formatting.

mkirshnikov
2017-12-24, 08:09 PM
No, see, the problem for the subrace version is that subraces add everything they list. Hill Dwarf only lists the +1 Wis and +1 HP per level. Subraces only list what they add, is what I'm saying, while yours lists the end result. It's improper formatting.Well, I'm sorry you feel that way, but I'm not going to adjust it. I made it that way because I felt like that looked the best and explained everything about the subrace. I think it's fine as it is and have gotten no other complaints from it.

GalacticAxekick
2017-12-24, 11:35 PM
And why does everybody spam Homebrewry links these days? Why can't you just do a text post actually on the site? Or at least give design notes or something so that it's not just a link off-site...Becayse its easier to format, visually cleaner, and not at all difficult to switch between two windows or tabs.

Fire Tarrasque
2018-01-11, 04:05 PM
I LOVE the idea, and would personally allow it if not for one issue: Unarmored defense. Run a Barbarian Dragonturtleborn and put a focus on constitution above everything, and you could potentially get to AC 20 or highest before the game even starts very easily, all you would need is a 12 or higher con.If the player focuses on only ability score improvements and reaches level twenty, you could have a player with AC 29! I get what your doing but that aspect just NEEDS to be balanced.

Morphic tide
2018-01-11, 06:30 PM
I LOVE the idea, and would personally allow it if not for one issue: Unarmored defense. Run a Barbarian Dragonturtleborn and put a focus on constitution above everything, and you could potentially get to AC 20 or highest before the game even starts very easily, all you would need is a 12 or higher con.If the player focuses on only ability score improvements and reaches level twenty, you could have a player with AC 29! I get what your doing but that aspect just NEEDS to be balanced.

Wrong, Unarmored Defence is AC replacement, like most things in 5e. It changes your AC to be 10+Dex+Con, it doesn’t add Con to Dex.

My issue with the balance of the feature is extremely good starting AC for no attribute investment, letting you have extremely good AC for the whole game with outright dumped Dexterity.

mkirshnikov
2018-01-12, 01:28 AM
I've only been seeing people talk about the Tortle reskin version, and I don't know if thats because people are more interested in that one, or because people haven't seen the Dragonborn Subrace version, but I'm making it clear now here and I made it clear in the Homebrewery page that there are two versions just in case the latter is true.

Fire Tarrasque
2018-01-16, 05:19 PM
Fine, irgnoring all those things since I clearly don't understand this enough, you could still easily have a PC with a 23 AC at relatively low level. The only real way to fix it is using the point method, but then you can still go Halfling and then get a 22 AC at level four.
Still broken.
The Dragonborn SUBRACE seems pretty cool though. The only issue is that it's pretty much just better then Dragonborn at this point. It's got a better breath weapon and 13 base AC. Honestly, i'd have the breath weapon be a d6 or even d4.

mkirshnikov
2018-01-16, 09:33 PM
Fine, irgnoring all those things since I clearly don't understand this enough, you could still easily have a PC with a 23 AC at relatively low level. The only real way to fix it is using the point method, but then you can still go Halfling and then get a 22 AC at level four.
Still broken.
The Dragonborn SUBRACE seems pretty cool though. The only issue is that it's pretty much just better then Dragonborn at this point. It's got a better breath weapon and 13 base AC. Honestly, i'd have the breath weapon be a d6 or even d4.How would you get 23 AC at a relatively low level? The Tortle's natural armor means you have a base AC of 17, can't wear armor, but can use shields.

The Dragonborn Subrace doesn't have a better breath weapon. I copy-pasted it from the normal Dragonborn stats.