"The relevant equation is: Knowledge = power = energy = matter = mass; a good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read." - Terry Pratchett
"The relevant equation is: Knowledge = power = energy = matter = mass; a good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read." - Terry Pratchett
Okay, the power set on this is interesting... not a lot of abilities, but the ones there are pretty unique.
The Ultimate Madness, I think, needs to explain, mechanically, what "'Going Mad" actually means, and how long the effect lasts. It's hard to balance, since it requires a full minute of sustained eye contact, so it would be pretty much impossible to do in-combat, and even out of combat it would be easy to get out of it. Honestly, it uh... seems like kind of a waste. It seems like the only time it could ever logically come up is if you have someone who trusts you implicitly to begin with, and even then maintaining minute-long eye contact would be hard to justify.
As for the abyssal chicken... does it follow the rules of the Find Familiar spell? What are the stats of the abyssal chicken?
The madness thing is just for flavor and probably isn’t gonna be used. The abyssal chicken uses the normal stats. It can also be used with find familiar. Abyssal chickens I believe are gonna he added in decent into Avernus. What about the other abilities?
I kinda disagree about the madness thing, I think like you would just drive mad half the people you talk to. This seems like a flaw more than anything else ? This being said, the base race don't have a lot of things going, and seems probably balanced. So let's look at the subraces, since they're the ones doing most of the work:
Baphomet: that rage power needs to be clarified, and probably toned down. As written, I could use my action to attack, and then maybe use a bonus action to give 3 more attacks ? That would all add my ability modifier to damage ? It seems I should even be able to do that as a reaction outside my turn, or even for free. The roar's DC should probably be tied to a stat (8+prof+Con, maybe ?), and again, you gain 3 attacks against the creature that charmed you (what happens if you're not in range, can you throw stuff like daggers ?).
Unless I'm missing something, the damage of the horns need to be defined. What kind of action does Bullrush takes ? As written, is seems it would be none, since you would have taken you action and bonus action to dash. Maybe it could be something like "if you used your movement to reach a creature this turn, you add +1d6 damage if your next attack hit with your horns".
I think this race is too powerful, and too loosely defined.
Demogorgon: I like that Doom Gaze ! It's properly defined, and powerful, but I'm guessing that's the idea here, and it's not overly so. The charmed and frigthened condition should probably have defined length. Armed and Dangerous probably need to be better defined to actually do something - as RAW, you may have 14 arms, you still only get to attack with your "main" arm, and do *one* extra attack with another arm. I'm guessing the intent is that all arms gets to attack once on that extra action here ?
Prehensile Tail completely shuts down Rogue, it this intended ? A high-level character that invested in Dex and is proficient in Dex save could probably suceed this save more than half the time.
I like this one, although it should be clearer on what the intent is on some of these abilities.
Fraz-Urb'Luu: disguise should probably just be shapeshifting, this lets you remove the bit about detect magic not detecting it.
This race is almost at a regular power-level, which makes it way below the first two. I like its features, they're all pretty cool and thematic.
Graz'zt: Lightning Striker should probably just be renamed "Extra Attack", and say you get an extra attack, stacking with feature of the same name. As written, this only stacks for Fighter, is this intended ? No love for monks, rangers, and barbarian ? If it is intended to work with those classes too, simply referencing the feature makes it more future-proof as well. The range of the Teleport feature should be specified, should probably use your reaction, and should probably specify what kind of attack (can I dodge an incoming Fireball ?)
Fun race, we're back to some powerful stuff, but it's still below the first two.
Juiblex: Ha ! I love that Slime Lord feature ! The Ooze form is fun too, but it basically translates to invulnerability given you have 46+ HP remaining. Can you heal with Hit Dice in this form ? Immunity to acid/poison is ok, especially since those aren't the most frequent damage types.
This is reasonably powerful, and fun.
Orcus: Animate Dead at will means that I can have an infinite undead army, is this intended ? Beyond that, it doesn't have a lot of things going on, especially compared to the first subraces. The aura is cool but doesn't do that much.
This race is slightly below the curve (unless you're actually supposed to have an infinite undead army, in which case it basically has infinite power)
Yeenoghu: Rampage should probably specify an action type required (probably bonus action). I'm not sure what the "Precise Attacker" part of "Ultimate Attacker" does, do I always hit on subsequent attack on the same target ? Also, I feel like you would only ever wait for a crit and use either Empowered (for a nifty x4 multiplied) or Elemental (if the ennemy has a weakness, dealing 6d6 of that element seems nice).
It's average power, but the big feature of Ultimate Attacker doesn't seem all that interesting, since you will probably forget most of the options soon enough. And if that Shock attack passes, this is basically an insta-kill button (since this translates to 1 minute of advantage with auto-crit).
Zuggtmoy: control spores having a DC9 constitution, means that it will pretty much always fail to have an effect. And... That's it. He doesn't get anything else.
Probably the worst of all, whose powers only triggers when he's getting hit, and will probably not have any effect.
My biggest issue with these (sub)races is that I don't understand the design intent. None of these are even remotely balanced compared to the regular races, which seems to be by design, and probably intended for high-level or epic play, but then they have several abilities with DCs of 11 or even 9, which would often only work on a nat 1 at this level of play.
There are also several power issues even among the subraces, some are getting the ability to do a LOT of extra attacks (either reliably, like Demogorgon and Grazz't, some more punctually, like Baphomet or Yeenoghu), which directly translates to a lot of extra power, while others only get some very situation-specifics ability, like Zuggtmoy and Juiblex.
My feelings, reading this race, is that you tackled it alphabetically, and started very strong as you had a lot of design ideas, then got more balanced, and were pretty much out of ideas at the end, because EIGHT subraces is a LOT to design. I also feel like this didn't get a balance pass once you were done, because the power discrepancy is really huge among some of these.
I hope this helps, and would enjoy giving you feedback on a second version, if you're still interested. There are some really cool ideas, but I feel like they should be more tightly defined (action type, range, length), and you should probably focus on completing a few subraces to have an idea of the power level you're shooting for before moving on to the next.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/races/196348-demi-lord. Here is a race I made. I want some opinions on it. Nothing to do with the lore just mechanics. Thanks!
The link returns Page Not Found. Did you share it with the community? If you don’t want to, you can always copy and paste the traits.
Tooltips | Snippet Code | How to Homebrew on D&D Beyond | Subclass Guide | Feature Roadmap
Astromancer's Homebrew Assembly
"The relevant equation is: Knowledge = power = energy = matter = mass; a good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read." - Terry Pratchett
I made 8 subraces and I can’t share it because it has no subraces apparently.
Try saving the race again without changing anything. It has worked for me in the past. You can also just copy and paste the traits and post them here.
Tooltips | Snippet Code | How to Homebrew on D&D Beyond | Subclass Guide | Feature Roadmap
Astromancer's Homebrew Assembly
"The relevant equation is: Knowledge = power = energy = matter = mass; a good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read." - Terry Pratchett
It worked. You can read it now.
Okay, the power set on this is interesting... not a lot of abilities, but the ones there are pretty unique.
The Ultimate Madness, I think, needs to explain, mechanically, what "'Going Mad" actually means, and how long the effect lasts. It's hard to balance, since it requires a full minute of sustained eye contact, so it would be pretty much impossible to do in-combat, and even out of combat it would be easy to get out of it. Honestly, it uh... seems like kind of a waste. It seems like the only time it could ever logically come up is if you have someone who trusts you implicitly to begin with, and even then maintaining minute-long eye contact would be hard to justify.
As for the abyssal chicken... does it follow the rules of the Find Familiar spell? What are the stats of the abyssal chicken?
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The madness thing is just for flavor and probably isn’t gonna be used. The abyssal chicken uses the normal stats. It can also be used with find familiar. Abyssal chickens I believe are gonna he added in decent into Avernus. What about the other abilities?
I forgot to add the subraces. I fixed that.
I kinda disagree about the madness thing, I think like you would just drive mad half the people you talk to. This seems like a flaw more than anything else ? This being said, the base race don't have a lot of things going, and seems probably balanced. So let's look at the subraces, since they're the ones doing most of the work:
Baphomet: that rage power needs to be clarified, and probably toned down. As written, I could use my action to attack, and then maybe use a bonus action to give 3 more attacks ? That would all add my ability modifier to damage ? It seems I should even be able to do that as a reaction outside my turn, or even for free. The roar's DC should probably be tied to a stat (8+prof+Con, maybe ?), and again, you gain 3 attacks against the creature that charmed you (what happens if you're not in range, can you throw stuff like daggers ?).
Unless I'm missing something, the damage of the horns need to be defined. What kind of action does Bullrush takes ? As written, is seems it would be none, since you would have taken you action and bonus action to dash. Maybe it could be something like "if you used your movement to reach a creature this turn, you add +1d6 damage if your next attack hit with your horns".
I think this race is too powerful, and too loosely defined.
Demogorgon: I like that Doom Gaze ! It's properly defined, and powerful, but I'm guessing that's the idea here, and it's not overly so. The charmed and frigthened condition should probably have defined length. Armed and Dangerous probably need to be better defined to actually do something - as RAW, you may have 14 arms, you still only get to attack with your "main" arm, and do *one* extra attack with another arm. I'm guessing the intent is that all arms gets to attack once on that extra action here ?
Prehensile Tail completely shuts down Rogue, it this intended ? A high-level character that invested in Dex and is proficient in Dex save could probably suceed this save more than half the time.
I like this one, although it should be clearer on what the intent is on some of these abilities.
Fraz-Urb'Luu: disguise should probably just be shapeshifting, this lets you remove the bit about detect magic not detecting it.
This race is almost at a regular power-level, which makes it way below the first two. I like its features, they're all pretty cool and thematic.
Graz'zt: Lightning Striker should probably just be renamed "Extra Attack", and say you get an extra attack, stacking with feature of the same name. As written, this only stacks for Fighter, is this intended ? No love for monks, rangers, and barbarian ? If it is intended to work with those classes too, simply referencing the feature makes it more future-proof as well. The range of the Teleport feature should be specified, should probably use your reaction, and should probably specify what kind of attack (can I dodge an incoming Fireball ?)
Fun race, we're back to some powerful stuff, but it's still below the first two.
Juiblex: Ha ! I love that Slime Lord feature ! The Ooze form is fun too, but it basically translates to invulnerability given you have 46+ HP remaining. Can you heal with Hit Dice in this form ? Immunity to acid/poison is ok, especially since those aren't the most frequent damage types.
This is reasonably powerful, and fun.
Orcus: Animate Dead at will means that I can have an infinite undead army, is this intended ? Beyond that, it doesn't have a lot of things going on, especially compared to the first subraces. The aura is cool but doesn't do that much.
This race is slightly below the curve (unless you're actually supposed to have an infinite undead army, in which case it basically has infinite power)
Yeenoghu: Rampage should probably specify an action type required (probably bonus action). I'm not sure what the "Precise Attacker" part of "Ultimate Attacker" does, do I always hit on subsequent attack on the same target ? Also, I feel like you would only ever wait for a crit and use either Empowered (for a nifty x4 multiplied) or Elemental (if the ennemy has a weakness, dealing 6d6 of that element seems nice).
It's average power, but the big feature of Ultimate Attacker doesn't seem all that interesting, since you will probably forget most of the options soon enough. And if that Shock attack passes, this is basically an insta-kill button (since this translates to 1 minute of advantage with auto-crit).
Zuggtmoy: control spores having a DC9 constitution, means that it will pretty much always fail to have an effect. And... That's it. He doesn't get anything else.
Probably the worst of all, whose powers only triggers when he's getting hit, and will probably not have any effect.
My biggest issue with these (sub)races is that I don't understand the design intent. None of these are even remotely balanced compared to the regular races, which seems to be by design, and probably intended for high-level or epic play, but then they have several abilities with DCs of 11 or even 9, which would often only work on a nat 1 at this level of play.
There are also several power issues even among the subraces, some are getting the ability to do a LOT of extra attacks (either reliably, like Demogorgon and Grazz't, some more punctually, like Baphomet or Yeenoghu), which directly translates to a lot of extra power, while others only get some very situation-specifics ability, like Zuggtmoy and Juiblex.
My feelings, reading this race, is that you tackled it alphabetically, and started very strong as you had a lot of design ideas, then got more balanced, and were pretty much out of ideas at the end, because EIGHT subraces is a LOT to design. I also feel like this didn't get a balance pass once you were done, because the power discrepancy is really huge among some of these.
I hope this helps, and would enjoy giving you feedback on a second version, if you're still interested. There are some really cool ideas, but I feel like they should be more tightly defined (action type, range, length), and you should probably focus on completing a few subraces to have an idea of the power level you're shooting for before moving on to the next.
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Thanks for the advice. Which was your favorite? I’m gonna work on a second version by the way.