Swamp Slogger
Posts: 146
Joined: Saturday, 24th March 2012, 02:07
Give Yellow Draconians an aptitude bonus or a better ability
The adult draconian colours have a generally parallel structure in that upon adulthood they gain a resistance, a breath weapon, an aptitude bonus and/or malus, and possibly an ability. When one or more of these is lacking or exceptional then there are corresponding voids in one or more of the others. The exception to this is the yellow draconian.
I propose that yellow draconians be given either a stronger ability (i.e. better than acidic saliva) or else be given an aptitude bonus.
For flavor we could look to the Slime Pits and try not to overlap with Jiyva. Perhaps a mini-swiftness, or mini-finesse ("your joints flow easily from your acidic makeup"), or even an evasion bonus to parallel the grey daconian's AC bonus.
I have constructed the table below to illustrate the deficiency in the adult yellow form. Note that most forms have 4 or even 5 plusses, the exception is the yellow draconian with only 2 plusses.
_________Apt bonus___Apt Malus____Breath__Resist___Ability
Red________++_________-____________+______+________+
White______++_________-____________+______+
Green______+_______________________+______+________+
Yellow_____________________________+_______+
Grey_______++__________-___________________+________+
Black______++__________-___________+_______+________+
Purple_____+++_____________________+________________+
Mottled____+_______________________+_______+________+
Pale_______++______________________+_______+________+
* Apt bonus (malus): indicates that the adult gets a bonus (malus) to some aptitude.
* Breath: the adult form has a breath weapon that deals damage (all but grey).
* Resist: the adult form gains a useful (i.e. rSteam is not useful) resistance.
* Ability: the adult form gains a useful ability either innately or through its breath weapon (e.g. conjure flame, fog, sticky flame, dispel magic, big wings, mephitic and unbreathing = yes; knockback and acidic saliva = no).
* "++" indicates a great or multiple bonus
* Giving appropriate credit for an aptitude malus is questionable because avoiding a skill is quite easy, but it does have character build consequences. For this reason I didn't do an algebraic sum of each row.