I am interested in making another anime/trope inspired absurd character. My current take is a very fast and Mobile tortle monk with JJBA astral hands pummeling people. What I realized is that with a pair of Astral Arms, they can be manifested outside of the shell at any point in time. So TECHNICALLY speaking what is to stop a tortle from ORAORAORA-ing someone with their ghost hands from the safety of their shell? RAW explicitly forbid this, but I want to talk with the DM about making an exception about it. Can you think of a way it would REAAALLY break the game balance? Not a game changer for the character, just a cool concept I want to use (previous one was a gladiator grappling rune knight dhampir walking on the ceiling and dropping on people).
Hard to say; if you're assuming use of the astral arms then it means you're fighting someone within melee range, in which case being in the shell gives you +4 AC which is great, but being prone means enemies have advantage against you at that range, so these kind of cancel out (depends how high you can get your AC).
It really depends whether you are asking for full access to Ki powers at the same time, as Patient Defence cancelling out the advantage could make it OP. I'd probably disallow bonus actions so there's some trade off to damage output, so you'd have no second (or third) attack from regular Martial Arts, no Flurry of Blows etc.
In that case it might not be too excessive, probably still a few edge cases though.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
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So TECHNICALLY speaking what is to stop a tortle from ORAORAORA-ing someone with their ghost hands from the safety of their shell? RAW explicitly forbid this
You just answered your own question. That said, I think they main problem, that just gives too much headache, is that there will always be situations that has to be ruled upon. Like Haravikk mentioned, do you want just the arms or the whole deal? If you don't want everything, what do you want and how do you suggest it would work rules-wise? If you allow a tortle monk to do this, would you also allow a tortle with the Telekinetic feat to "force push" people from inside the shell, et cetera, et cetera.
Now, what I would do if it's just the flavour of a shelled up tortle astral punching people is to reflavour Patient Defence as Tortle just going back into their shell. Probably have it stand upright so that no-one can claim that it's prone. That way you can still "shell up" (or should it be "shell down"?) without having to bother going through a bunch of rules changing. B)
Tortle base AC is 17 if you add the wisdom part of the monks unarmored defense (dex doesn't affect tortle AC) then you have AC 22 character in the rules it doesn't say that tortles go prone when they do patient defense meaning yes you can have a 26 AC astral murder monk add on the astral monks final +2 AC ability option and you have a mobile death turret
Tortle base AC is 17 if you add the wisdom part of the monks unarmored defense (dex doesn't affect tortle AC) then you have AC 22 character in the rules it doesn't say that tortles go prone when they do patient defense meaning yes you can have a 26 AC astral murder monk add on the astral monks final +2 AC ability option and you have a mobile death turret
Wisdom doesn't affect Tortle AC either; you can't combine AC calculations, you have to pick one to use. A Tortle Monk essentially has three choices:
Basic Unarmored AC: 10 + DEX (shields allowed)
Monk Unarmored Defence: 10 + DEX + WIS (no shields allowed)
Tortle Natural Armor: 17 (shields allowed)
At earlier levels your Monk AC will probably be lower than the Tortle's Natural Armor, so you'll use the Natural Armor, but once you have a +4 in DEX and WIS (or a +3 and a +5) you'll switch to your Monk's Unarmored Defence, since you won't want to use a shield as a Monk (as it disables many of your abilities). Interestingly though the Tortle's Shell Defence does not require the use of their Natural Armor, so you can stack it with your Monk's Unarmored Defence once it's higher than 17.
The note under a Tortle's Natural Armor about not using your Dexterity score is just to remind players that this is a fixed AC value, as most other AC calculations add some or all of your Dexterity modifier (the main exception is heavy armour).
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Yup, I never intended to be nigh untouchable, just relatively untouchable on occasion :D My monk tortle is more focused on fantasy and roleplaying, rather than optimized DPS. And carrying a ~400 lbs + gear is not really mobile. Makes for a great cover though.
Still kinda hiding my Stan... Astral self from the party, so I will have more info on how the exception turned in the coming months.
Quite a few sessions down the road this turned out to be a great flavour feature with a very limited mechanical use. I have used it a total of ~5 times with limited impact, but great roleplay even during battle. It turned out to be incredibly useful with the visage and astral arms outside of the shell giving vision while blocking access (like in a tunnel or any other CQC situation) to a squishy target with a prepared action. I assume it CAN be broken at this point, it's just that we never intend to play broken combinations, especially with homebrewed changes.
TL;DR: A bit broken, but great when used only for flavour.
I am interested in making another anime/trope inspired absurd character. My current take is a very fast and Mobile tortle monk with JJBA astral hands pummeling people. What I realized is that with a pair of Astral Arms, they can be manifested outside of the shell at any point in time. So TECHNICALLY speaking what is to stop a tortle from ORAORAORA-ing someone with their ghost hands from the safety of their shell? RAW explicitly forbid this, but I want to talk with the DM about making an exception about it. Can you think of a way it would REAAALLY break the game balance? Not a game changer for the character, just a cool concept I want to use (previous one was a gladiator grappling rune knight dhampir walking on the ceiling and dropping on people).
Hard to say; if you're assuming use of the astral arms then it means you're fighting someone within melee range, in which case being in the shell gives you +4 AC which is great, but being prone means enemies have advantage against you at that range, so these kind of cancel out (depends how high you can get your AC).
It really depends whether you are asking for full access to Ki powers at the same time, as Patient Defence cancelling out the advantage could make it OP. I'd probably disallow bonus actions so there's some trade off to damage output, so you'd have no second (or third) attack from regular Martial Arts, no Flurry of Blows etc.
In that case it might not be too excessive, probably still a few edge cases though.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
You just answered your own question. That said, I think they main problem, that just gives too much headache, is that there will always be situations that has to be ruled upon. Like Haravikk mentioned, do you want just the arms or the whole deal? If you don't want everything, what do you want and how do you suggest it would work rules-wise? If you allow a tortle monk to do this, would you also allow a tortle with the Telekinetic feat to "force push" people from inside the shell, et cetera, et cetera.
Now, what I would do if it's just the flavour of a shelled up tortle astral punching people is to reflavour Patient Defence as Tortle just going back into their shell. Probably have it stand upright so that no-one can claim that it's prone. That way you can still "shell up" (or should it be "shell down"?) without having to bother going through a bunch of rules changing. B)
Tortle base AC is 17 if you add the wisdom part of the monks unarmored defense (dex doesn't affect tortle AC) then you have AC 22 character in the rules it doesn't say that tortles go prone when they do patient defense meaning yes you can have a 26 AC astral murder monk add on the astral monks final +2 AC ability option and you have a mobile death turret
[roll]7d6[/roll]
Every post these dice roll increasing my chances of winning the yahtzee thread (I wish (wait not the twist the wish threa-!))
Drummer Generated Title
After having been invited to include both here, I now combine the "PM me CHEESE 🧀 and tomato into PM me "PIZZA🍕"
Wisdom doesn't affect Tortle AC either; you can't combine AC calculations, you have to pick one to use. A Tortle Monk essentially has three choices:
At earlier levels your Monk AC will probably be lower than the Tortle's Natural Armor, so you'll use the Natural Armor, but once you have a +4 in DEX and WIS (or a +3 and a +5) you'll switch to your Monk's Unarmored Defence, since you won't want to use a shield as a Monk (as it disables many of your abilities). Interestingly though the Tortle's Shell Defence does not require the use of their Natural Armor, so you can stack it with your Monk's Unarmored Defence once it's higher than 17.
The note under a Tortle's Natural Armor about not using your Dexterity score is just to remind players that this is a fixed AC value, as most other AC calculations add some or all of your Dexterity modifier (the main exception is heavy armour).
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Yup, I never intended to be nigh untouchable, just relatively untouchable on occasion :D My monk tortle is more focused on fantasy and roleplaying, rather than optimized DPS. And carrying a ~400 lbs + gear is not really mobile. Makes for a great cover though.
Still kinda hiding my Stan... Astral self from the party, so I will have more info on how the exception turned in the coming months.
Quite a few sessions down the road this turned out to be a great flavour feature with a very limited mechanical use. I have used it a total of ~5 times with limited impact, but great roleplay even during battle. It turned out to be incredibly useful with the visage and astral arms outside of the shell giving vision while blocking access (like in a tunnel or any other CQC situation) to a squishy target with a prepared action. I assume it CAN be broken at this point, it's just that we never intend to play broken combinations, especially with homebrewed changes.
TL;DR: A bit broken, but great when used only for flavour.
Even with a tattoo that adds another 5 feet to my punch reach it was never my first choice for an action.
The character retires and in a session or two we will know if it is happily ever after or get swindled (potentially murdered along with his wife).
This reminds me of the 300 kg ninja turtle shadow monk I once thought of doing.
His fighting technique was to teleport over the enemy with the "shadow step" and crush them mercilessly.
Some studs on the shell are a must.
I'm sure you know what character I was inspired by.