Talk:Boss Monster (3.5e Race)

Ratings

Ganteka Future opposes this article and rated it 0 of 4.

Alright, let's start with flavor text and description first. It reads as a mess. There's no "why" to any of these details and reads like "oh, I met this goat man, and he was like this, so therefore, all members of the race are like this", which is to say doesn't make sense from a culture-wide view of these people. There are no reasons why other "monsters" like... I don't know, sphinxes, treants, trolls, elder air elementals, otyughs, rakshasas, ettins and mummies get along with these guys so well as to be incredibly well-liked. Oh, they can speak with all monsters? I bet they get like, a bunch of extra automatic languages or like, a kind of tongues or maybe (scrolling down).... just Common. So, there's even flavor/mechanics dissonance too. This is not going well. As for those mechanics, let us take a look next. We've got the big no-no in the first couple characters of the racial traits, being odd ability scores. Another tirade aside today about always having meaningful mechanical numerics, min-maxing with point buy and design standards, don't ever do odd numbers. Looks like they're intended to be squishy casters with that poor Constitution... which is mostly intended as a crippling punishment to make your character have an obvious weakness to compensate as balance elsewhere. That compensation is of course, coming right up very soon. First, those subtypes. There is no need for Goat and Magic subtypes. These are not things and they are not tracked anywhere and serve only as clutter, and even their description is mind-bogglingly confusing. Large, and LA 0. This is another big no, and a very difficult thing to try and pull off even by a skilled designer. I wouldn't recommend it, and here, it only causes more suffering to the mechanics. As others have pointed out, for source material reasons, Medium would be more fitting, but source aside, judging this based on what it is. Magic Body has some flavor/mechanics dissonance as well for why just a bonus on Will saves? They already get a big Wisdom boost, why more? Ugh, Color Attack. This one is a mess too and I don't even really want to talk about it, but I will, because I love you all. It sets you up as a spell-like, then tells you it is a physical attack. Okay, in melee? Ranged? Tells you to roll two separate d8s, then divide them instead of rolling d4s instead for some reason. Just roll d4s if you're cutting them in half. Use d4s! There is no need for extra math! Use the darn d4s! That's why they come in dice sets! Stop making this more complicated! "If the die roll was even"... what die roll, the damage die? Like, wait, on the original d8 roll, if the die came up even before we divided it, that die roll? Wait, do you just pick which one you use, like, Orange or Blue, and roll only that one? It read like you make both and only the one hits... now I'm not certain. Why does this require a weapon? What kind of weapon? Is it part of an attack from the weapon and this just adds extra damage? What's the caster level of this ability? What is this garbage nonsense?... On to the next ability. I find it amusing that it is mentioned that they're good gardeners, because in game, these things would get ranched on farms and slaughtered for their SOUL. Whole villages kept... dear lords, an orc war leader would become an unstoppable god if he slaughtered his way through a small town/village/hamlet of these people. Enjoy your 20-80 levels from that thorp. Also, Unwilling to Fight is hilarious in that you you roll when you're at 75% health to lose morale... but there's no DC anyway, so it doesn't matter. Also, hey Bonus Languages are languages you can choose at first level with your high Intelligence. If someone pumps an 18 into their Intelligence and there's no racial bonus, they could have learned as many as four additional languages. This race gets a bonus to Intelligence, but only offers up two choices. So, if you've got a 20 Intelligence, you know Common, Elven and Dwarven. That's it. You don't get to pick any others. Yes, that is actually how bonus languages work. It is dumb, and so is the next fun thing I'm going to point out. You thought I was done at the end of Racial Traits, but we still have Vital Statistics. How could you mess that up you ask? Well, starting adulthood of 30 years, that's fine I guess, some formatting problems aside, you've got a 1d4–1 for Simple... wait, they're all minus 1. Just set the starting age at 29 then? I mean, unless you really want your training for a Complex job to have taken 0 years. Also, there are exactly 24 height and weight combinations. To conclude this wall of text, and thank you for your time, this should be sandboxed. It isn't ready for playing and shouldn't be in the main space. It is missing basic, playable mechanics and is additionally mechanically broken. It is probably fixable, but that's what sandboxing and working on things is for. Oppose.

HB Forged likes this article and rated it 3 of 4.

I actually like the concept of a Toriel/Asgore-like Boss Monster. However, it needs a few changes: What's the will save DC? Is it opposed by the target's intimidate check or what? What about the lore about how "Boss Monsters only age when their offspring does"? Like Eiji said, it seems like they should be closer to medium size, as Frisk is smol. Racial CON penalty is a straight downside if a dickish DM puts Boss Monster on his/her reincarnation table. Perhaps Power of SOUL could only be used by the party that killed the Boss Monster to level up, but not if the Boss Monster's CR is 8 below party level? What about after the level up that a deck of many things card gives? Overall, Prinny, interesting concept.

Eiji-kun opposes this article and rated it 0 of 4.

So I hate to be hard on a new user, but this doesn't work really well (and it's been long enough to reply without changes being made, so I presume this "done"). There are several problems (besides what I would say to be a poor translation of the fluff.) The ability scores should be made even to prevent point buy shinanigans. I also disagree with the Con penalty in general. Large is difficult to pull off at LA 0. I would not recommend it. After all, Frisk is a child, Small. Something twice his size is just Medium. Color Attack doesn't actually work, and is very complicated for what is ultimately "you have an at will cantrip... which also only works half the time". Power of Soul says it can raise levels (a bad idea), and then gives no mechanic for doing so. The real problem here is that you're not trying to adapt undertale monsters to D&D. You're trying to adapt Asgore himself (or Toriel) to D&D, as if all traits they have embody their entire race. It doesn't actually work. A dislike rather than an oppose because I think it can be salvaged, but you need to do edits to it. There's no shame in taking the advice of others if you're not certain on how to balance a race or adapt it properly. EDIT: Time has passed and no edits have come. It is time for that oppose.

	Franken Kesey opposes this article and rated it 0 of 4.
	Odd ability score bonuses (i.e., +3), Large sized, and the fact that Color Attack cannot be dodged. The color attack's mechanics. You should change the abilities to even numbers, give them two LA (or one with powerful build instead of large), and rewrite color attack and power of soul.

Tags missing and more

You've deleted your tag (the 3.5e Race thing) so no one will be able to find your article. Besides that, there's quite a few technical issues, but I'll get to those soon. Nice undertale references, but methinks the mechanics would sink you badly. Please give a reply here, and sign your post with four tilde signs, like ~~~~ to sign your post. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 04:08, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

---

Looks like Luigifan added your tag back. That's good. So let's talk brass tacks.

You're commiting an error I keep seeing lately, and you've based the creature not off the race, but rather off the three individuals you meet in game. We only meet three, all who are related, and it tells very little about their race. It would be like making "Humans", and basing them all off a single family of humans like.... the Kennedys. "All humans fair skinned humanoids who are involved in politics, and tend to die easily due to a curse, with a −4 penalty against assassination and accidents." That's clearly wrong, but that's what you've done.

The Dreemur family is kind, but are all goat demons kind? Probably not. In fact, given how other monsters see humanity, it seems like kindness isn't something inherent in their race.

The Dreemur family is royalty, but are all goat demons royalty? Again, it's like assuming all humans inherently become politicians and presidents.

The Dreemur family is "good" though I'd argue that point. One was willing to "keep you safe" at any cost. One was a child murderer, even if it was "for a good cause". And the less I say about Asriel the better.

The ability scores you've given them are strange too. Odd ability scores are shunned for point by balance reasons so you want +2, +2, −4. Though, those scores don't really make sense anyway. They don't seem unusually smart or wiser than the average human, and amusingly they aren't frail either. You might be thinking of the genocide route where you one-shot almost everyone. But in the genocide route you're a high level PC killing what amounts to level 1 fighters and wizards; of course you'll one shot them. It has nothing to do with their Con score at all. The only two exceptions are when you run into an actual high level fighter, and a guy who cheats. And ironically enough... when you're not going genocide, the three goats you meet all have healthy hp bars. I don't think they're low on hp at all.

In Magic Body, what is a "Constitution saving throw", did you mean a Fort save? Are they actually weak to physical attacks? They are "made of magic" but you know... humans die to knives just as easily as monsters do.

Color attack doesn't really work in D&D (I actually did try, but I disregarded it). It's great for real time shumups, but in D&D things aren't in constant movement or lack thereof. As it stands, it's just "50% chance of working". That, and what is 1/2d8? A 1d4?

Amusingly, you got the fluff wrong with Power of SOUL. Monster souls vanish after death, it's humans who hang around post mortem due to DETERMINATION.

Aging Child is really fluff, and shouldn't be in the mechanics.

As it stands, this doesn't really work. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 05:32, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

The author is a pal of mine over on DeviantART, so I wanted to help, but I really don't know enough about Undertale to do so. --Luigifan18 (talk) 12:58, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

The style looked familiar to yours, I figured it was related somehow.

Fortunately I do know Undertale (good game btw). I suggest following the advice above, since it's a bit of a mess right now. Less Dreemurs, and more monster-kind in general traits. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 13:15, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

So, I've been looking up Undertale, and I'm kinda obsessed now. With that in mind, let's look over the stuff again.

The Con penalty might not be the way to handle the "made of magic, less physical matter" thing; a lot of the monsters are pretty beefy, even when accounting for the fact that Frisk is a little kid whacking them with a stick, or a notebook, or ballet shoes... Really, only the final three weapons (frying pan, empty gun, actual knife) could viably do considerable damage to someone. And even when you're using the Worn Dagger against him, Asgore can take a while to bring down. Yes, you one-shot him along with nearly everyone else on the Genocide route, but this is given the in-universe justification of monsters being vulnerable to Killing Intent; Chara's sheer desire to kill anyone and everyone in his/her way does far more harm to the monsters than his/her actual attacks do. Outside of that, while Asgore may be the beefiest of the monsters, they're all pretty beefy. So, honestly, does the Con penalty really fit? I'm not sure it does. However, the D&D universe has ways to shut down magic, most prominently dispelling and antimagic. Perhaps those can injure and/or weaken Boss Monsters. In fact, I think that's the best way to go about it. Replace the Con penalty with Boss Monsters being injured by dispel magic (I'm thinking either 1d6 per +1 bonus to dispel check (basically 1d6 per caster level) or 2 × result of dispel check (to take the actual d20 roll into account without diving into potential 25d6 shenanigans at character level 5; 50 damage maximum is far more sane)), debuffed somehow by antimagic field, and have mage's disjunction force them to make a Fortitude save against being flat-out killed (mage's disjunction literally tears magic apart; I'm sure it would be really deadly to something that's made of magic!). Of course, these are just suggestions, but the point is, since Boss Monsters are made of magic, it makes sense for stuff that hinders or removes magic to adversely affect them.

I think the Color Attack might be able to work, but not the way you've presented it. I don't even know how it's supposed to be used in the first place. And besides, there doesn't seem to be a point to it, considering that you can just use a regular attack to hit your target regardless of whether they're moving or not.

There is justification for Power of SOUL. Boss Monster SOULs do linger on for a while after the Boss Monster dies, just nowhere near as long as a human SOUL would. Unfortunately, we don't really know how long that is, exactly, considering that Asgore's SOUL gets smashed by Flowey. So you're going to have to come up with something. Furthermore, monster SOULs, even Boss Monster SOULs, are stated to be much weaker than human SOULs; it took the SOULs of every monster in the Undergound (minus Napstablook) to equal the power of one human SOUL. So it doesn't feel right to have a single Boss Monster SOUL grant a free level-up. Perhaps it could just grant some bonus XP; say, an encounter with a CL equal to the Boss Monster's HP HD.

I've gotta get back to work now. I'll say more later. --Luigifan18 (talk) 17:29, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

You are correct that the Con penalty is ill fitting. See my previous comments of turning one event into something indicative of the entire race. While I don't really think it fits, if you do go the dispel route, steal the mechanics from the Eijilund Plushie page. They're vulnerable to antimagic effects.

But then...

"So it doesn't feel right to have a single Boss Monster SOUL grant a free level-up. Perhaps it could just grant some bonus XP; say, an encounter with a CL equal to the Boss Monster's HP."

"Perhaps it could just grant some bonus XP; say, an encounter with a CL equal to the Boss Monster's HP."

"an encounter with a CL equal to the Boss Monster's HP."

"CL equal to the Boss Monster's HP."

"CL equal to HP."

...uh, Luigi? You want them to have the XP of an encouter worth HUNDREDS OF CR?

...

You know what, go ahead, because by RAW you get 0 xp for such overwhelming impossible CRs. But, in all seriousness, that is way worse. I recommend not messing with XP period. Nevermind balancing it, it hurts the game if people start getting different scaling on XP because someone got lucky enough to kill a boss monster. It's like saiyans getting stronger after being beat up. It works in the context of their universe, but is utterly and hilariously busted if placed in D&D. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 18:30, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm back. So now to continue where I left off. But first... Did I really say HP? *checks* Oops, I meant to say HD. As in, Hit Die. That was a bad typo. I'd wonder how I didn't catch it, but I was trying to wrap up in a hurry. Now, where was I?

Oh, right, Magic Body. Being made of magic shouldn't translate to a flat bonus to Will saves. While it's true that there's a correlation between Wisdom and magical defense stats (like, say, the Special Defense stat in Pokemon, Will is specifically meant to represent willpower, as in, your ability to fight off attacks on your mind. Which is why there's a correlation to magical defense, but the thing is, in D&D, there's a lot of ways magic can hurt you. A lot of spells attack your body (e.g. Fortitude) or are designed so that you don't "resist" them and have to "dodge" them instead (e.g. Reflex). And not everything that attacks the mind is magical. So if Boss Monsters are supposed to be resistant to magic, then make them resistant to magic. Give them spell resistance or a bonus to all saving throws that only applies against magic (this could apply to spells and spell-like abilities only, to anything that's magically powered (e.g. supernatural abilities) and/or similar to magic (e.g. psionics), or something in between.

As for Aging Child, it's okay. It won't affect the Boss Monster from a gameplay standpoint too much, though the prospect of not aging until they have a child could be interesting (seriously, lichdom is hardly necessary when you're immortal to begin with).

Okay, gotta go again. --Luigifan18 (talk) 19:08, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

HD is better, but I still don't recommend it. One, because HD does not always equate to CR, with HD generally outpacing HD when they aren't even. And the other because I don't recommend mechanics granting extra XP in general.

For magic resistance, I recommend bonuses on saves vs spells and spell-like abilities, ala dwarves. You're correct there.

I don't like Aging Child since it's not really a mechanical thing. Probably best off in the fluff, and/or noted in its aging table.

We're getting closer though... -- Eiji-kun (talk) 20:10, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

And I'm back. ...You do realize I'm just making suggestions for Prinnytale, right? This isn't my project.

I wholeheartedly support mechanics that grant extra XP, because the game already has mechanics that take XP away. Characters who go crazy on multiclassing suffer a penalty to the XP they earn. Wizards and sorcerors lose XP when their familiars get killed. Magic users and psionic characters in general pay XP to cast certain spells/manifest certain powers and create magic items. I'm sure I'm forgetting some others, but I am not forgetting the big one — negative levels that last for at least 24 hours have the potential to cause permanent level loss once they go away on their own — and that potential is greater for characters with poor Fortitude saves. So, honestly, there are all sorts of things that can cause a character to be held back in terms of experience. And if they fall too far behind, they'll become a liability at best (depending on the temperaments of the rest of the party, the weakling could end up as a punching bag). Denying them the ability to catch up to the rest of the party is basically an extra slap in the face in addition to what they've already suffered to fall behind in the first place (or a case of "paycheck" abuse in the case of those magic users who voluntarily expended their XP as currency in order to do or make something awesome). Because there are mechanics that take XP away, mechanics that give extra XP are a necessary counterbalance.

And, yes, I know a deck of many things can bestow free XP and even free levels. But those are rare, and they can do just as many bad things as good things (and one of those bad things is taking XP away). Indeed, the whole point of the deck of many things is being a huge gamble. So... yeah, there should be other ways to catch up. Ways other than going on solo adventures; it's not exactly fair to leave the other players out of the action. --Luigifan18 (talk) 20:23, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

(RESET INDENT) I know this is Prinny's, I'm also suggesting to him. I agree with you on many points, but not so much on the XP part. I'm aware some effects remove XP (notably absent from Pathfinder, an improvement IMO). Since I am not a proponent of XP loss in the beginning, I'm not a proponent for unusual XP gain either. Though, even assuming XP loss as part of the game I find it a bad idea to insert XP gain. Since XP is a river, that stuff is self correcting. You're paying a cost for something you're benefited from, say casting a spell with XP components. Your purchase cost is being behind for a certain period of time (or in the case of a rez, a disincentive not to die). If you can just quickly refill it with tricks like this, the XP cost becomes a non-cost. And you start to have the same problems as having tricks like Though-Bottles, where you gain the benefit of whatever you caster/crafted, without the payment of being weaker for a certain period of time.

It's a dangerous road to take, and even if you had it, it's still better suited for monster entries, not PC races. Consider: if a PC plays this the beneficiary is going to be an NPC, who likely doesn't even have their XP tracked anyway. It's a non-benefit, and at best only serves players hunting down any boss monsters, even allies, for sweet XP boons. It seems inappropriate for what he's trying to do. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 21:10, 19 January 2016 (UTC)