Tweak Gargoyles: better specify niche

[TeshiAlair]

Currently, Gargoyles are fairly jack of all trades, which is generally speaking perfectly fine. However, I think they can be tweaked to better fill their niche of "ultimate defensive race," since that is the most unique thing about them.

1. Make them unable to berserk. They don't seem to have blood, given the iPois, and bloodless races typically cannot berserk. (Sorry qw)
2. Tweak aptitudes: I'd suggest
Fighting: 0 (to emphasize their lower HP weakness)
Armour: +2
Dodging: -3 (they are made of freaking rock)
Charms: -2, Tloc: -2, Tmut: -3 Again, more in line with the idea of them being unchanging
Hexes: 0, Summonings: 0 The -1 maluses feel arbitrary to me.

I'm not trying to say Gargoyles need to be nerfed, and I do enjoy playing them. But DD feel more like the "indestructible wall of awesome" race than the guys made out of solid rock. Since Formicids were changed to better differentiate them from Ogres and Trolls, I think a similar change to Gargoyles would be beneficial.

[dck]

So can I ask why the race with no health is supposed to fill the niche of "ultimate defensive race" at all?

[TeshiAlair]

Because it has a metric crapton of resistances, and the low HP is made mostly irrelevant due to the absurd amounts of AC.

[dck]

say wouldn't you agree defense lines are mostly there just to prevent death?
and if you did then wouldn't that mean hp is a pretty important defense line?

[crate]

idk whenever i play gargoyle i feel like i'm constantly in danger but maybe this is just me lol

[WalkerBoh]

Yeah I think the premise is flawed here, and so naturally the suggested solutions are similarly misguided.

[TeshiAlair]

Maybe I'm just playing incredibly easy classes I guess. But, ignoring my misguided approach to their defense, I still think my suggestions better differentiate them as a race.

[Lasty]

I don't particularly buy that Gargoyles are meant to be the ultimate defensive race, but aside from that, why would the ultimate defensive race be bad at both hp (as dck mentioned) and also at Dodging? The "ultimate defensive race" would presumably have decent EV.

[Sar]

I guess it's because AC is defense and EV is that thing casters and stabbers get because they can't into defense.

[tasonir]

Gargoyles are the race of "What if a low hp race used AC instead of EV (kobolds, spriggans, etc)?" Note they can still get decent EV, just that they primarily use AC to offset the low HP.

I'm not sure where the idea of them being "unchanging" comes from. Gargoyle blade handers are the best gargoyles, after all, so let them keep transmuting

[magicpoints]

I don't particularly buy that Gargoyles are meant to be the ultimate defensive race, but aside from that, why would the ultimate defensive race be bad at both hp (as dck mentioned) and also at Dodging? The "ultimate defensive race" would presumably have decent EV.

Like say, new halflings?

[and into]

Gargoyles are a fistful of thematically related resistances and full slots plus free AC, at the cost of bad HP. I fail to see how the proposals in the OP make those characteristics more pronounced or interesting; it seems like all of them are geared toward taking away options and making gargoyles more one-dimensional.