I love the Nagpa. The dark crystal vibes are incredible. So I read their 5e stats to discover they're cr 17! That's awesome but I wanted to be a pc race. Can anyone come up with a fair and balanced Nagpa race? Leave suggestions below!
They might be CR17, but they are also 15th level spellcaster.
If we look at monsters like Mage or Archmage, it seems that we could basically say X lv of spellcaster equals 2/3*X CR. So the Nagpa race would be CR7 (since their spellcasting ability would represent a CR10).
This math is off, because things don't simply add like this, but this gives us a ballpark as to the power of the actual race. Now let's look at what would justify this race being naturally CR7:
Paralysis: seems that the DC is 8+prof+int modifier. That's an AoE effect that paralyzes. Paralyzed is a very strong effect - this gives advantage as well as automatic crit on the target. The "recharge on a 6" should probably translate to "recover on a short rest".
Corruption: a resonable power, target is Charmed for a single turn, and with a saving throw. It doesn't have limitation beyond the fact that you can't affect someone that suceeded, but I would probably translate it to 1/short rest, or 1/long rest, for balance reasons.
Natural armor: the Nagpa seems to get +7 from its natural armor. This should probably translate as a simple +1 for a PC race.
Truesight: no PC race should have that. Downgrade to Darkvision, at least. Probably 60ft.
Making it a PC race also requires ability boost, a +2 intelligence seems obvious, probably accompanied by a +1 in wisdom or charisma, going from their description. The race could also give either extra language, or an extra proficiency between Arcana, Deception, History, and Insight.
The big problem here is the paralysis power, which is nowhere near balanced. Having it downgraded to a once per short rest effect that only last one turn and giving Stunned instead of paralyzed might get this to more reasonable level of power.
I hope this helps, and that these tweaks don't remove too much of the flavour of the race for you!
I still love the Nagpa and these are all really reasonable to me. I was gonna have a Nagpa character that was just senile and lived in the swamp and talked to frogs. I really like that character.
Yeah! Fun fact: the dark crystal came out in 1982 and the book that had the Nagpa's debut came out in 1983! I feel like it was more than a coincidence. I believe they were an actual player race in 1e, but all I have to verify that is a page on 1d4 chan so you know.
My character is the following: Name: Yaga. class and race: Nagpa Druid circle of the land (swamp), level 3. Characteristics: always refers to themselves in the third person and says things in weird and profoundly stupid ways. Example: "Yaga does no understand y people no-take serious!" (that's an extreme example but you know.)
I apologize for thread necromancy but I created a homebrew PC Nagpa. It is based on the one in MToF (in terms of abilities and stats) but I tried to make it neutral in terms of lore so it can be inserted into nearly any game world. I'm hardly the best homebrewer but it will serve for now. I tried to nerf their major abilities as paralysis for one minute is bonkers for a player character to get at level one. so the end result is a race with stats similar to a Tiefling, but with the primary and secondary stat flipped, that has a free use of Charm Person and a Paralysis skill similar to a long range stunning strike. I axed Truesight but added Superior Darkvision and gave them the Kuo-Toa's Otherworldly Perception as a weaker substitute.
I love the Nagpa. The dark crystal vibes are incredible. So I read their 5e stats to discover they're cr 17! That's awesome but I wanted to be a pc race. Can anyone come up with a fair and balanced Nagpa race? Leave suggestions below!
They might be CR17, but they are also 15th level spellcaster.
If we look at monsters like Mage or Archmage, it seems that we could basically say X lv of spellcaster equals 2/3*X CR. So the Nagpa race would be CR7 (since their spellcasting ability would represent a CR10).
This math is off, because things don't simply add like this, but this gives us a ballpark as to the power of the actual race. Now let's look at what would justify this race being naturally CR7:
Paralysis: seems that the DC is 8+prof+int modifier. That's an AoE effect that paralyzes. Paralyzed is a very strong effect - this gives advantage as well as automatic crit on the target. The "recharge on a 6" should probably translate to "recover on a short rest".
Corruption: a resonable power, target is Charmed for a single turn, and with a saving throw. It doesn't have limitation beyond the fact that you can't affect someone that suceeded, but I would probably translate it to 1/short rest, or 1/long rest, for balance reasons.
Natural armor: the Nagpa seems to get +7 from its natural armor. This should probably translate as a simple +1 for a PC race.
Truesight: no PC race should have that. Downgrade to Darkvision, at least. Probably 60ft.
Making it a PC race also requires ability boost, a +2 intelligence seems obvious, probably accompanied by a +1 in wisdom or charisma, going from their description. The race could also give either extra language, or an extra proficiency between Arcana, Deception, History, and Insight.
The big problem here is the paralysis power, which is nowhere near balanced. Having it downgraded to a once per short rest effect that only last one turn and giving Stunned instead of paralyzed might get this to more reasonable level of power.
I hope this helps, and that these tweaks don't remove too much of the flavour of the race for you!
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I still love the Nagpa and these are all really reasonable to me. I was gonna have a Nagpa character that was just senile and lived in the swamp and talked to frogs. I really like that character.
I didn't know this monster, and they do look extremely cool ! So thank you for bringing this to my attention :)
(also, I love me a monster that knows Feeblemind.)
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Yeah! Fun fact: the dark crystal came out in 1982 and the book that had the Nagpa's debut came out in 1983! I feel like it was more than a coincidence. I believe they were an actual player race in 1e, but all I have to verify that is a page on 1d4 chan so you know.
My character is the following: Name: Yaga. class and race: Nagpa Druid circle of the land (swamp), level 3. Characteristics: always refers to themselves in the third person and says things in weird and profoundly stupid ways. Example: "Yaga does no understand y people no-take serious!" (that's an extreme example but you know.)
I apologize for thread necromancy but I created a homebrew PC Nagpa. It is based on the one in MToF (in terms of abilities and stats) but I tried to make it neutral in terms of lore so it can be inserted into nearly any game world. I'm hardly the best homebrewer but it will serve for now. I tried to nerf their major abilities as paralysis for one minute is bonkers for a player character to get at level one. so the end result is a race with stats similar to a Tiefling, but with the primary and secondary stat flipped, that has a free use of Charm Person and a Paralysis skill similar to a long range stunning strike. I axed Truesight but added Superior Darkvision and gave them the Kuo-Toa's Otherworldly Perception as a weaker substitute.
Also I love the idea of Yaga, Yeetlord!
https://www.dndbeyond.com/races/347686-nagpa