Some Concerns With Racial Prcs

[*Mr_Otyugh]

The problem of opening options, winged humans and tailed halflings and whatever not, is the same as putting into server rules word "Optional". The moment you make any racial standards optional, you might as well throw away any notion that they even apply. That's what happened with outsiders when alignments were open, huge amount of the fiends were good aligned. Even now I'm fairly sure most are neutral, which is a marginal improvement... but that's part of the reason why "optional rules" will never work.

[*coyotesage]

It's not an all in or all out situation. There's room for some compromise...or so I've been told in the past. :P

[*Mr_Otyugh]

Well only real compromise that I can come up with is adding a baatezu option that does have a tail that opens up the option, say Falxugon ^{(Fiendish Codex II, page 117)} they do have goat legs ^{(which probably would be overlooked in the absence of model)} and come in male variety, so it'd also add gender equality to Baatezu... but they on the other hand don't have wings.

But then again, that'd also need to then add the class distinctions for adding either or.

[*coyotesage]

That is not really a compromise. A compromise is when both parties come to an agreement, usually requiring both to give up on something they want. I want absolute freedom, you want absolute lore, so something in between those two things is a compromise. You're just suggesting adding a different monster classes (in lore only) that have some of the features that a person might want.

[*Mr_Otyugh]

Well we already have a race that gives both wings and a tail :P it's a tanar'ri is always an option. You can look through sourcebooks for a devil that has both and I won't mind about that.

[*coyotesage]

Again, you're not compromising. You're only getting what you want, which is another lore consistent monster. Dark mark it up and then mark it down and call it a sale.

[*Mr_Otyugh]

As opposed to not compromising by making all baatezu have tails? Like I said earlier, optional rules won't work because that's the same as having none. :P You're not really looking for a compromise either, I'm at least providing alternatives.

[*coyotesage]

Who said all Baatezu would have tails? Only the players who want tails would have them. If I really got what I wanted, any character could have any body part they wanted for any reason. I'm saying that magical creatures, with already inhuman features, with tails, aren't especially lore breaking in a way that harms anything, except perhaps to the MOST lore determined people. That is a compromise, but obviously one you don't like.

[*Mr_Otyugh]

Yet there exists races that already have that option, just because people want to have those options on races that don't have them, shouldn't be a basis for letting them. If you are deliberately choosing a different race than the one that does provide it, that to me is your own problem, but not one that needs to be sorted out by others.

[*Xndar]

My thought on this is as follows:

Should the true form of a Brachina be able to have a perma tail via Styx? No.

Should a Brachina be able to give themselves a tail via their 'Change self' ability? Yes.

Why? A brachina's true form simply doesn't have a tail. However, a Brachina posing as a tiefling that happens to have a tail? Totally plausible and completely within the realm of possibility for their abilities.

Say you have the worst case scenario: someone running about with a brachina with full feathered wings and a tail pretending that's totes how they look naturally: easily explained as a fiendish graft (which are absolutely a thing).

I think the above logic applies to Succubi/Incubi and having feathered wings. In this case however, there is lore supporting succubi whose true form has feathered wings as opposed to bat wings (FCI).