rmnimoc
2021-03-03, 12:05 PM
A player recently came up to me and asked if they could play a Thylean Medusa from Odyssey of the Dragonlords in a campaign I'm getting ready to start. At a glance I'm not seeing any particular reason to refuse them, it seems a bit stronger than most races but I allow V.Human and this doesn't seem as powerful as that. I tend to be suspicious of third-party content in general though, so before I make my decision I figured I'd check to see if anyone here had personal experience with them, what the general opinions on it are, and if there's anything I'm missing that makes this stronger than I think it is.
From what I've seen there are two potentially problematic abilities.
First is Petrifying Gaze, which, while it could be useful in combat in theory, is on a low enough DC that I can't see it mattering much. They get it at level 5, it's a DC8 Con save on an action (as a bonus action with disadvantage if they failed it last round) against 1 turn paralysis that scales by 2 every 5 levels and takes 3 successes to petrify. All in all it seems more like an out of combat thing for flavor instead of something worth spending your action on in combat.
The second is Snake Hair, which lets them use their hair as a melee weapon attack. It's basically a shortsword with a DC12 save vs 1 round of poison. This seems like it'd be worth using, but while it's fairly powerful it doesn't seem outright broken.
So, if you've ever played with the Thylean Medusa from Odyssey of the Dragonlords, how balanced is it and is there anything I need to keep in mind as the DM?
From what I've seen there are two potentially problematic abilities.
First is Petrifying Gaze, which, while it could be useful in combat in theory, is on a low enough DC that I can't see it mattering much. They get it at level 5, it's a DC8 Con save on an action (as a bonus action with disadvantage if they failed it last round) against 1 turn paralysis that scales by 2 every 5 levels and takes 3 successes to petrify. All in all it seems more like an out of combat thing for flavor instead of something worth spending your action on in combat.
The second is Snake Hair, which lets them use their hair as a melee weapon attack. It's basically a shortsword with a DC12 save vs 1 round of poison. This seems like it'd be worth using, but while it's fairly powerful it doesn't seem outright broken.
So, if you've ever played with the Thylean Medusa from Odyssey of the Dragonlords, how balanced is it and is there anything I need to keep in mind as the DM?