Talk:Poltho (3.5e Race)

Took me a while seeing your suggestion, but I do indeed like the race you have here. It reminds me of something from Warhammer 40k -- creatures from the warp who invade the material world by overwhelming the minds of psychic individuals, turning their bodies into living portals until they are utterly destroyed by the strain. The difference, of course, being that for the Poltho it is (or was, for one generation,) voluntary.

I've made some minor wording edits that I hope are in line with your intent. I didn't want to take too many liberties. Under the Personality section, it says they have "altruistic" reasons for hiding their secret. Granted, that may be the case for many... but if something is going to destroy the world, any selfish person will do his best to stop it, if simply so he won't die himself. Also, you noted that they come in any alignment, for the most part. Wow, I feel like I'm making a big deal over one word, but it tends to flavour the race as overall benevolent, whereas I feel they also make excellent dark & brooding anti-heroes.

Mechanically, they are quite interesting. Is the Touch of Pain ability intended as a multi-purpose ability? It seems as though it could be used to dispell negative effects as well as debuff opponents. I'm not sure the saving throw should be dropped at level 10, just because it could always be quite powerful against opponents that rely a lot on morale bonuses and effects, for example. If it's used on allies though, say to cast off the effects of a dragon's Frightful Presence, it might be useful to drop the dazing effect for those who voluntarily fail the save? It would be as though they embraced the mind-scouring pain, rather than fighting against it.

Thanks for the good reading. :) -- Techpriest88 23:45, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

The reason that they altruistically hide their war is because the more people know about it, the stronger their enemy becomes. Plus, someone might unknowingly tell others, which would become a disastrous problem.

Do you think they should be usually Good? Since I agree with you on the whole brooding thing, but because they also want to save the world, I figured any would be the best option--some might be entirely good and protect people as best they can, while others would see no problem in sacrificing dozens in their attempts to win even a single battle against their foe.

Finally, yes, Touch of Pain is meant to be multi-purpose. Removing all mind-affecting effects is huge, so it has a risk vs. reward component which I rather like. With a high risk comes a high reward. Mind Blank comes into effect at some point, which is why I dropped the save at higher levels. --Ghostwheel (talk) 20:42, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Ratings

Aarnott is neutral on this article and rated it 2 of 4.

I find it strange that the abilities are powered by Cha, but the race gets a -2 penalty to Cha. The flavor is cool, although more details about exactly what a war of nightmares is would be nice. If they are really originally born humans, shouldn't they have augmented humanoid as a subtype? Techpriest's questions were also something I was asking myself as I read this. Agonized Scream: Shaken for one round seems rather weak. Why not shaken, save ends?

Fixed a few things. Went with your suggestion both for the augmented humanoid subtype, as well as save ends for the shaken effect.

Also, the penalty to Charisma seems to fit, what with their background and lore, and since making enemies Dazed as a swift action is so strong, I don't mind it being tied to that.

The reason I didn't add more about the war of nightmares is because I want it to be vague enough that a DM can fit their own details into it, similar to how Eberron works, with many subplots that are just vague enough that a DM can bring their own twist to it. You'll note that one of their bonus languages is Quor, and I see their default enemies as being the Quori from Eberron, but I wanted it to be flexible enough to fit any campaign. --Ghostwheel (talk) 20:42, 18 September 2014 (UTC)