Talk:Myrmidon (3.5e Race)

Quick thoughts

Remove "Racial Foe (Ex): Myrmidon gain a +2 attack bonus against Constructs." "Vermin Form (Ex): Myrmidon count as Vermin whenever not beneficial, such as being targeted by Favored Enemy (Vermin)." They are largely circumstantial benefits/penalties, while not unbalanced, they do add unnecessary bookkeeping.

"Stringweave (Ex): Myrmidons can create a substance not unlike spider silk with their mouths, which can either be made into webbing or into solid structures. Creating objects takes 10 minutes, and effectively duplicate the effects of minor creation (solid objects only) 1/day." Might want to mention specifically that the webbing is chemically inert.

"Natural Armor (Ex): Myrmidons gain a +2 bonus to natural armor due to their hard skin." I would make it overlap and not stack with manufactured armor (or else provide some reason not to combine this+heavy armor). This is more an issue in lower balance levels.

"They may use any trained skill untrained," "I use Iajutsu Focus!" Might want to specify that they can only use some skills untrained (such as all those in the SRD, except for UMD/UPD) in order to stop this from becoming a major power-up. --Fluffykittens (talk) 10:38, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

The Racial Foe and Worker type are additional bookkeeping, yes, but I feel it's important from a flavor aspect. It's not really any worse than a race with racial weapons. Something to show that they're the construct hating hard worker types.

Is... is webbing not normally chemically inert? I know it can be flammable, but I didn't really consider that worth mention.

The natural armor + armor situation resolves itself. They won't be able to afford heavy armor, not just because heavy armor is expensive but it's double plus so for them. I expect they will be pidgeonholded into non or light armor roles.

As for the last one, fair point. Though, isn't Iajutsu Focus 3.0? By that I'm implying its not in most games. A much bigger thing would be UMD. That one is intentional though. Also, thank you for the feedback! -- Eiji-kun (talk) 10:45, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

"Is... is webbing not normally chemically inert? I know it can be flammable, but I didn't really consider that worth mention." It would matter- Is it flammable? Vulnerable to acids? I would specify how tough it is (hardness, hp, and resistances). --Fluffykittens (talk) 10:49, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Slow Thoughts

Alright, prepare for one of my standard rambling, long posts… and also enjoy. Okay, so we've got myrmidons, a name which implies both ants and warriors because etymology and history do things like that. Though, under physical description you go on to say they're more mantis-like, putting them in the group with roaches and termites (super-modified social roaches). I find this funny since you already made the blattodea & gokiburi years back. Aside from that, you also mention only two arms with scythes here but later mention in the Racial Traits section that they have hands. What's up with that? How does that work? Also, let's just assume they only remind us ape-creatures of mantises and that they aren't actually related at all. Convergent evolution is the name of the game. Coincidence.
Also, what do these guys eat? Why am I reminded of Meet the Applegates? Do they keep bug pets? Do they wear clothing? Are you going to stat up the other "species"? Are the species really more just castes? Anyways, on to the mechanics.
+2/–2 is fine. Monstrous Humanoid (Xenoblooded) is fine, though the entry "Alien Body" would best be served to be removed as it's already a property of the creature type. The text from that ability being placed after the type, because it's still important to note. Movement and darkvision are fine. Hive Memory is… probably fine. Basically it comes down to someone in the party being able to do the skill and either end up getting lucky with it or needing to invest points anyways, when the difference might end up being only a single rank anyways. Natural Armor is fine as it helps offset the likely lower armor from equipment at lower levels and at higher levels is balanced out by natural armor becoming available as magical equipment/spells for other race characters. Natural weapons… you know I dislike mostly because of how they scale poorly. Are we looking at 4 possible attacks at first level with feat investment? Just curious. Sad that at higher levels the scythes get displaced by manufactured weapons with enchantments and such. At this point you probably just assume that I recommend using my Feral Strike variant instead of natural attacks, and you'd be right, I do recommend that, which is why I should have just made it a creature ability article years ago but haven't. Everything else is fine whatever.
Under Vital Statistics, you could put some dashes for the male values or just use a custom table if you don't want that row at all. Right now it looks glitchy. The succedaneum has the table you need if you wanted to copy/paste/replace values.
I guess I take interest here since I've wanted to make a social insectile colony-based race for D&D since maybe 2002 but never have. Seeing this is about as close as I had in mind (even the new queen thing!), if that explains the rambling at all. Anyways, answer those questions when you can. --Ganteka Future (talk) 20:35, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Yay ramblings! Time for fun! Actually I kind of predicted someone would mention the name yet with them technically being mantids. It's not merely me being lazy and lumping them all with "bugs" (though that's half of it) but its mostly a reference to their highly specialized society of workers, drones, and such. An alternative running name I had for these guys referenced bees for the same structure.

It's two arms, and two scythe arms. So thri-kreen, where two of their arms are mantis scythes. If it's not clear, do you know a good way to word that?

I actually don't know what they eat. I imagine they are omnivores, but it's not actually specified.

I will be stating up the other types of myrmidons one day, most likely as monster classes. While drones can probably be played, the warriors and queen aren't really PC material. Drones gimmick is that their wanderers and such will have endurance and wandering-related abilities. Probably rangers I bet.

Is monstrous form implied by monstrous humanoid? Well, I suppose it is, it's in the name isn't it? I just knew type didn't always denote it since Giants could probably get away with normal armor, but you're probably right. I'll consider removing Alien Body for redundancy.

I figured you might not like the natural weapons, but c'est la vie. Technically you'd need multiweapon fighting instead of TWF, but yes, I suppose you could eek out 4 attacks with feat investment. I figured it was acceptable, since you have to spec yourself to precisely that goal. Knowing about it too, I had made it where TWF penalties applied which is not normally how it goes.

I'll look into your link for the race table, thank you.  :) I hope you enjoy, this is one of several races I've been porting over from my ever-in-progress game Steamspace, so when that game releases you can play one there too. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 00:24, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, giants, fey (sometimes) and humanoids should primarily get humanoid armor cost (with a few weird exceptions I'd argue like merfolk paying the non-humanoid cost because tails). As long as you put it on there to be clear (I think I usually do under the Type listing just so readers are aware... though I think I forgot one recently, better check myself), you're good to go. As for the limbs thing, just a line or two mentioning a set of forelimbs that end in hands and a set of forelimbs ending in scything blades would be good. Also, be sure to mention what type of damage they deal. I figure it's slashing, but you could add some kind of combination of piercing or non-lethal (with or without penalty) if you wanted. Though, you could even treat them as more of a bite-style attack (dealing bludgeoning and piercing and slashing) if you really want to make them more mantis-like. Also fun trivia, mantis forelimbs actually end in little claw-hands at the tips. It would be like you using the palm of your hand, covered in spikes, to clamp down against your forearm, also covered in spikes, to trap prey and still have the tips of your fingers free to doodle about. Doodle doodle doodle. --Ganteka Future (talk) 04:32, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Various flavors of "Myrmidons"

I see this discussion is on the worker flavor of myrmydons. It also mentions other flavors. To quote the page, "There is also the warrior, the drone, and the queen (also known as the Hive Mother), each with distinct morphological differences." So... would you mind linking to/creating pages for each of these three extra flavors? Thanks. - HB Forged (talk) 22:12, 1 February 2018 (MST)

Heh, sure. They will probably be monster entries, but I imagine you could play the warrior and drone at least. They probably have LA. I'll put this on my queue. - Eiji-kun (talk) 00:06, 2 February 2018 (MST)

Probably make it so the Hive Mother is a monster with its own HD in... whatever it'd be. My preferred way of you linking that stuff to this page is make "warrior" a link to the Warrior variant, "drone" a link to the Drone variant, & "Hive Mother" a link to the Hive Mother monster. That's all I have to say on this subject at this moment, though I'll still check back occasionally. --HB Forged (talk) 14:18, 3 February 2018 (MST)

Addendum: You could, in addition, add the links at the bottom, as well as a "See also" under which to put the links.