Tortle Protector feat change

[Bannan_mantis]

I am asking this for a opinion on a change for a feat as to fit the lore of a story better, I am playing as a tortle barbarian and was able to create a tribe based around a culture that I created. My main question is this, I was planning that in the lore when a tortle from the tribe proves themselves to be very honourable and heroic their shell changes into a jade one which is stronger than the normal tortle's shell and the tortle becomes well respected and seen as a true hero. The thing I was thinking about is should I change the tortle protector feat to better fit this? the 18 AC fits cause the jade shells are stronger but I was hoping for a type of change for the half cover like ability which better fits the nature of gaining the jade shell. We are still changing the lore a bit so almost any suggestion would be welcome

[MightyDuck]

I'm a bit confused as to why you'd want to change the feat since the half cover feature already seems like a perfect feature for what you are describing. You are essentially shielding your allies from harm with your shell which seems pretty heroic and supports the shell being harder, it's a pretty situation feature but very flavorful and thematic.

If you absolutely have to change the feat then I'd suggest either; a reaction feature that allows you to gain resistance to a spell effect or attack, or a feature similar to the shield master feat, so after making an attack action you can bash someone with your shell making a shove attack as a bonus action.

That's honestly the best I got, goodluck!

[Bannan_mantis]

You have a point there but I was wondering about making it different a bit, while protecting allies is pretty cool I am just seeing if there is anything else that would fit more since it's a central part of lore. This is just too see if there would be any better things that fit this is all and also the ability is a bit specific as you pointed out so it would be nice to have something that could show more use.

[MightyDuck]

Lorewise the 18 ac has you covered and the cover feature us a nice ribbon so I suppose the question is, what do you want the feat to do? What special features does the jade shell possess other than being really hard?

Any of the variant features I suggested (see above post) could make for viable replacements, if the shell is a symbol of prestige for tortles then maybe it gives you advantage on charisma checks made against other tortles. Its tough to come up with an idea without either more understanding of the lore or a vague idea of what you want the feat to do.

[Bannan_mantis]

Okay I understand and I also apologise for expecting something from you when given limited resources, your suggestions and greatly appreciated

[MightyDuck]

Okay I understand and I also apologise for expecting something from you when given limited resources, your suggestions and greatly appreciated

Its chill bro, I want to help I just need more to go on ;P

[BlueHairedKat]

Step 1 of any homebrew is 'why does this need to exist'? If you can't come up with what's so cool about the jade shell and why Tortle Protector is inadequate for this, you probably don't need to come up with anything. If you can, then you/we can work from there.

[Bannan_mantis]

Hmmmm, you do have a good point there. I was considering the idea of having a ability which is a bit more magical, the jade shell is something that I would like to be magical in nature so something to increase tank capabilities in a magic type of way.

[MightyDuck]

Okay, that I can work with! One of my earlier recommendations of allowing you to use your reaction to gain resistance to an attack could still apply here but I think we can do better.

One idea might be to allow the tortle to incorporate the enchantments of magical armor into his shell, say the tortle finds some armor of resistance while on his travels, he could focus for an hour and gain the enchantment of the armor, limit him to one enchantment at a time and you have a feat that fills in for one of the tortle's main weaknesses, not being able to wear armor, plus this would be plenty magical.

Another, slightly more boring but simpler idea would be to pick a damage type and have resistance to it, he can change the damage type at the end of a long rest.

A more fun idea that I quite like, let him cast the Shield spell once per long rest, you can flavour it as him using his shell to deflect damage or quickly hiding inside of his shell to protect against attacks (Just like real life turtles, this could be really cute)


Finally you could use a dialled down version of the effects of the Armor of invulnerability allowing the tortle to become resistant to non magical damage for 1 minutes as an action. Alternatively you could use a dialled down version of the Spellguard Shield giving the tortle advantage on Saving Throws against Spells and other magical effects, and spell attacks have disadvantage against you, but maybe for a limited time between long rests.


There are a lot of ways you could go with it, these are just some ideas off the top of my head.

[nickl_2000]

DR 2 or 3 would be an interesting one against non-magic BPS would be a possibility as well. However, I'm with the others, leave it alone and make it more of a RP situation