| Post/Author/DateTime | Post |
|---|---|
| #1RCanineMar 17, 2015 8:32:45 | Hey all,
I love lycanthropes, and I found the Shifter entry in the Eberron book a bit uninspiring. So I took a whack at it myself.
The design goals were:
What do you think? Shifter Traits Your shifter character has a number of inborn traits, due to the virus that has bonded to its DNA. Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity score increases by 1. Age. Most shifters, left undisturbed, live a natural human lifespan. Few, however, are allowed that luxury. Alignment. Most shifters are chaotic, having been abandoned by society. Evil shifters are vindictive and vengeful, while the good shifters never forget a kind act done to them. Size. Shiftres vary widely in height and build, from barely 5 feet to well over 6 feet tall. Regardless of your position in that range, your size is Medium. Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet. Shifting. On your turn, you can make a DC 12 constitution check as a bonus action. If you succeed, you shift. Shifting lasts for 1 minute, when you are knocked unconscious, or when you end the effect as a bonus action. Once you have shifted, you may not shift again until you have taken a short or long rest. Unchained beast. If you are not shifted and take damage that reduces you below half your maximum hit points, you automatically shift. You may make a DC 14 charisma saving throw; if you succeed, you resist the transformation. Your DM may also decide a stressful situation causes you to shift automatically. When you shift this way, you may use your action to repeat the saving throw; on a success the effect ends. Otherwise, it lasts until you fall unconscious or the stressful situation ends. You can shift this way even if you have already shifted. Natural Weapons. While shifting, you are proficient with any natural weapons your form grants you. You may use strength or dexterity for attack rolls with these weapons, and you add your proficiency bonus to damage rolls. If a natural weapon grants a saving throw, the DC is 8 + the your strength modifier + your proficiency bonus. Languages. You can speak, and write Common and one extra language of your choice. Shifter traits. When shifting, you gain abilities based on the traits of your shifted form. Choose two shifter forms traits. You man not increase any one ability score by greater than 2. Shifter form traits The shifter traits are presented in alphabetical order. Beasthide. Your shifter form includes thick hide, scales or bony plates. While shifting, you gain resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage. Cliffwalk. Your shifter form includes adaptations for climbing—sharp claws or suckered feet. Your Strength or Dexterity score increases by 1. While shifting, you have a climb speed of 30 feet. Darkvision. Your lycanthropic heritage grants you the ability to see in dark conditions. While shifting, you can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray. One ability score of your choice increases by 1. Dreamsight. Your shifter form gives you a preternatural ability to commune with animals. Your wisdom score increases by 2. Once each time you shift, you can cast the spell animal friendship. At 3rd level you can cast the spell speak with animals. At 5th level, you can cast animal messenger. Wisdom is your spellcasting ability for these spells. Gorebrute. Your shifter form includes heavy tusks, horns or antlers. When you take this option, choose bludgeoning or piercing damage. While shifting, you can expend one of your attacks to head butt. Your head butt attack has a 5’ reach and does 1d6 damage of the type you chose. If the you move at least 20 feet straight toward a target and then hit it with a head butt attack on the same turn, the target takes an extra 1d6 damage. If the target is a creature, it must succeed on a strength saving throw or be knocked prone. Longstride. Your shifter form allows you to move with great speed. Your Dexterity score increases by 1. While shifting, your base walking speed increases by 10 feet and you can dash as a bonus action. Longtooth. Your form includes a massive teeth. While shifting, you can expend one of your attacks to bite. Your bite attack has a 5’ reach and does 1d6 piercing damage, and counts as a finesse weapon. If you hit a creature with your bite, it must make a Strength saving throw or be knocked prone. Primal roar. Your shifter form is especially terrifying. Your Strength score increases by 2. While shifting, you have advantage on Intimidate checks. Razorclaw. Your form’s hands are tipped in sharp claws. While shifting, you can expend one of your attacks to claw. Your claw attack has a 5’ reach, does 1d4 slashing damage, and counts as a light finesse weapon. If you move at least 20 feet straight toward a target, and then hit with a claw attack on the same turn, the target must succeed on a Strength saving throw or be knocked prone. If the target is prone, you can make a second claw attack as a bonus action. Shadowhunter. Your shifter form includes natural camouflage. Your Dexterity score increases by 1. While shifting, you can use your bonus action to hide, and you gain advantage on Stealth checks while not in combat. Swiftwing. Your shifter form’s arms form feathery or bat-like wings. Your Dexterity score increases by 1. While shifting, you take no damage from a fall while you are able to take reactions and have advantage on Strength checks made to jump. Truedive. Your shifter form includes gills and fins. Your Constitution score increases by 2. While shifting, you have a swim speed of 30 feet and can breath air or water. Viperfang. Your shifter form includes a stinger or poisoned barbs. While shifting, you can expend one of your attacks to sting. Your sting attack has a 5’ reach, does 1d4 piercing damage and counts as a light finesse weapon. If you hit a creature with your sting, it must make a Constitution saving throw, taking 1d4 poison damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. If the poison damage reduces the target to 0 hit points, the target is stable but poisoned for 1 hour, even after regaining hit points, and is paralyzed while poisoned in this way. Wildhunt. Your shifter forms’ senses are especially strong. Your Wisdom score increases by 2, and you have advantage on Perception checks that rely on hearing or smell.
|
| #2MechatarrasqueMar 17, 2015 10:29:46 | I put this in the comments part of the survey, but I think they should try to align the shifter with the 5 lycanthropes. Except for the wererat, the others all set a minimum strength if a PC gets infected, so it seems like the stat boost should be +2 strength, and +1 something else based on the type of shifter. I mean, your dad was really strong, so you are fast on your feet? |
| #3AlHazredMar 17, 2015 11:53:50 | I agree with points 1 and 3 of your design goals, although I took a different approach, and I did it prior to the Unearthed Arcana article (indeed, looking at the date on it, I did my version last year). You can find my shifter design here. I didn't even think about your point 2. I took the point of view that this was another limited player resource -- much like ki and superiority dice -- and the other resources aren't really roleplayed that way. I like the idea, though, and would probably incorporate it if I did a rewrite. I went with +2 Wisdom as the core Shifter stat, based on my reasoning that Shifters are supposed to represent a 'bestial' race with a strong connection to nature, and Wisdom has functioned as the stat to represent that for at least three editions (if not five). I also like that Wisdom is a stat muchly ignored as a primary race stat, but works well for both casters and non-casters (i.e., few, if any, people consider bumping Wisdom 'a waste'). This also let me divide physically-oriented Shifter Traits into subtypes -- movement, resistance, and offense -- and split those among the physical stats (movement = Dex, resistance = Con, offense = Str). |
| #4Tempest_StormwindMar 17, 2015 13:39:26 | Rather serious point of contention: Shifters aren't lycanthropes. They've got some loose lycanthropic heritage deep in their history (possibly - unlike changelings (who are definitely descended from doppelgangers), it's quite possible that lycanthropes are descended from shifters, rather than the other way around!), but they're a separate, pure-breeding race that has no trace of a curse of lycanthropy themselves, and shifting is no more torture or involuntary than, say, us changing our facial expression is. Shifters have no problem with pain or with the moon, and do not view themselves as lycanthropes (rather, quite the opposite, in most cases, but that's probably due to some intense stigma within the last century). Psychologically, they're rather like worldly, short-lived wood elves, actually.
This is actually pretty central to their Eberron heritage, particularly with their relationship to the Church of the Silver Flame (who led to crusade-style Purges to eliminate lycanthropy, as the Church's primary goal is to defend the innocent from supernatural evil; many shifters were wrongfully targeted, and some actually joined the Purge to show that they're different). They do share some of the standard "distrusted heritage" tropes that you normally find in, say, tieflings (who exist in Eberron but are much rarer), but it's radically downplayed by comparison. An individual shifter is more likely to have to fight to overcome stereotypes based on their region of origin (most of the Khorvese shifters are from the Eldeen Reaches, which are seen as rustic and backwards in many places, or outright terrorists to the people of Aundair; the second-largest population are of the Tashana Tundra in Sarlona, which has its own interesting continental psychology that's very different from the Europe-esque Khorvaire (i.e. the primary conflict on that continent is rooted in psionics and propaganda, with national analogues to China (Riedra) and Tibet (Adar); the Tashana region is full of a third conflict, distinct from that particular political struggle, between the natural world and the chaos of the planes, similar in superficial ways to the Gatekeeper druidic sect)).
You're working in a lot of assumptions here, such as lycanthropy being a virus, shifters being "half-werebeast" offspring, shifting being painful instead of a natural aspect of the race (as natural as human ambition and adaptability, or half-orc anger, or dragonborn breath).
So, I guess you can put me down as very vocally opposed to Design Goal 2, since it seems to be looking at something totally different from shifters (namely, playable lycanthropes). That's not an undesirable goal, but it's a goal for something other than the shifter. (If you want to apply this directly to shifters, you can make one of the subraces "weretouched", which picks a different subrace and gets your painful, involuntary shifting and bigger benefits in exchange for a loss of control. If you adopt the two-trait model - I address that below - this becomes a natural choice, where weretouched shifters exaggerate one specific aspect instead of a broader, more controlled, natural shifter aspect.)
Setting that aside, let's look at the mechanics.
|
| #5MechatarrasqueMar 17, 2015 14:38:11 | The Unearthed Arcana document says "Shifters are descended from humans and lycanthropes." Maybe the final version will be different, but until we have evidence that it will be different, the racial design should reflect the racial fluff. |
| (Reply to #2)Lord_Kadarian |
|
| #7Tempest_StormwindMar 17, 2015 15:23:35 | 1) Descended from lycanthropes in the same way as tieflings are descended from fiends or elves are descended from fey - not a half-breed, but a "corrupted" (in the chemical sense) bloodline. 1A: (Also, origins in Eberron are often slightly different from D&D Generic - for instance, gnomes may or may not be of fey or primordial heritage in Eberron, and humans are not native to the main continent of the campaign setting (in fact, of the common races, only halflings, orcs, and goblinoids are native to Khorvaire). Similarly, half-elves are of human/elf hybrid parentage, but in Eberron they're not outcasts - most half-elves are from half-elven parents, one of the immensely powerful mercantile houses is exclusively half-elven, and they have a distinct culture (with more than their fair share of ethnocentrism, which emerges from combining human audacity with elf arrogance and a unique place in the world) instead of their "ambassador between cultures" default fluff. That document is oddly setting-neutral for an Eberron doc.). 2) The same fluff leaves out about 90% of the known details on warforged, even the stuff that was 100% consistent between two editions (that they were recently invented by human artificers, that they weren't considered "people" until post-war and that dramatically affects their psychology, that they are genderless but usually adopt gendered personalities, etc). It's even ambiguous if they're type Construct or type Humanoid (which matters for things like Cure Wounds, Charm Person, and Animate Dead). It also doesn't mention anything related to doppelgangers in the changeling's description, which seems like an odd omission, nor is there anything about the defining structure of changling "society" (i.e. the Passer/Becomer/Reality Seeker conflict, which is as central to the way changelings think as the concept of "clan" is to dwarves - although those specific terms didn't exist in the EbCS, the distinction did). We can expect similar details missing from the shifter section, since it's all abbreviated beta.
If I were making a one-sentence summary of shifters to people utterly unfamiliar with them, I'd use "of lycanthropic heritage" or "related to lycanthropes" as well. They're still not lycanthropes - they're not cursed, they're not infectious, they're not sensitive to the moon... Every single defining characteristic of a lycanthrope except for a loosely related "shifting" (as opposed to lycanthropic shapechanging) is completely absent.
Edit: Eberron has 12 moons (plus a missing 13th, and the Ring of Syberis), and yes, at least one moon is full nineteen days out of every 30-day month. (There's even a snazzy calendar applet here.) This causes problems for lycanthropes - but not for shifters. |
| #8RCanineMar 17, 2015 21:03:20 |
|
| (Reply to #6)Mechatarrasque |
|
| #10Tempest_StormwindMar 18, 2015 12:37:33 |
|