Totema's page

Totema wrote:

Ok, hold up a minute. I want to talk about that "Long Term" section for a moment. What are you guys actually saying here? Is it "We're looking for ways to mildly change the current resonance point system, so we're throwing out this massive overhaul to see what works well"? Because from what I'm reading it sounds more like "We don't have time to change the resonance point system that much at all, but here's a smattering of ideas that we had for it anyway".

It means that the magic item system and rules for how characters interact with spell abilities is rather large and complicated. We put together a sample of what we think the system might become in the final version of the game and we would like you to test it out.

If folks like it, we will probably adopt it or something like it for the final.

What we do not have time for is changing the entire system just for a test, getting it edited, laid out, and posted up, giving you all time to adopt it and give us feedback. Doing that would take longer that is necessary for the sort of feedback we need to have an idea of where to take these rules.

Ok, that's a lot clearer to me, and I like this sentiment a lot better. Admittedly, I had a flawed idea of how the playtest will be progressing, but my initial takeaway from that statement made me feel like there wasn't going to be much done based on our feedback here.

Ok, hold up a minute. I want to talk about that "Long Term" section for a moment. What are you guys actually saying here? Is it "We're looking for ways to mildly change the current resonance point system, so we're throwing out this massive overhaul to see what works well"? Because from what I'm reading it sounds more like "We don't have time to change the resonance point system that much at all, but here's a smattering of ideas that we had for it anyway".

What does Dragon's Resistance do? It's normally better that you replace an offensive ability with an offensive ability.

Dragon's Resistance is the aforementioned "one type of energy resistance equal to half character levels" ability. Unfortunately my race doesn't have an offensive ability to trade in for the claws - it has the energy resistance, as well as +1 natural armor, darkvision, and two +2 bonuses to skills. They also count as both dragons and humanoids for the purposes of spells and similar effects, but that's not up for trade.

Cool, thanks for all the feedback. I'm a little hesitant to give the claws a different damage die than the race's size (medium, in this case) would indicate, but I might play around with it. For now, I've redesigned it as an alternate racial trait, which roughly reads as following:

Dragon's Talons
Your hands are shaped more like the claws of your dragon ancestors, and are just as deadly.
Benefit: You gain two claw attacks, which are primary attacks that deal 1d4 points of damage. This racial trait replaces dragon's resistance.

Ah, it hadn't occurred to me to make it an alternate race trait. Yeah, that seems better. I'm thinking of having this trait replace their racial elemental resistance (equal to 1/2 their character level). Should I also keep the penalty to using manufactured weapons?

For my games, I've designed a draconic humanoid race - not Kobold Press' dragonkin, nor a conversion of 5e's dragonborn, but something of my own. When creating an NPC with this race, I considered giving him this trait, with the intention of also making available for any character of that race.

Dragon's Talons (Draconian)
Your hands are shaped more like the claws of your dragon ancestors, and are just as deadly.
Benefit: You gain two claw attacks, which are primary attacks that deal 1d4 points of damage. However, you take a -4 penalty to attack and damage rolls with manufactured weapons that you wield with either or both of your hands.

I realize that getting natural attacks at such a low cost might enable some cheesiness, especially for monks, but I'm uncertain how I could balance it, or if it's even such a significant issue. What do you think?