Birth Guide
- Thread starter JonVMD
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Celebrim
Legend
For the most part, your Feats fall into a common problem seen in people homebrewing feat creation - they are too narrow to be interesting. Often in my game there are things I call 'NPC Feats', where it might make sense for an NPC to take them, but it doesn't make much a lot sense for a PC to do so. They are intended to create flavor and not gameplay.
Your move to make feats extra traits that a person has someone alleviates this problem, but doesn't really deal with the main issue in the feats design - pregnancy is something that occurs only every few years at most and is only one sort of specific challenge. Not only must the campaign now feature dynastic play to make it interesting, it must go on for much longer than most campaigns actually cover. Rarely do you actually have campaigns that cover even 9 months of in game time.
And if NPC's could choose their own traits, they still wouldn't likely invest their 'build points' in those sorts of feats. They'd probably take Great Fortitude.
I think the solution is tie your mechanics more directly to mechanics that already exist - fortitude saves, endurance checks, heal skill, and so forth. This is important because you want pregnancy and so forth to be core to play, not something tangential that ignores all the normal advantages a PC gains through play. Yes, it makes your feats slightly superfluous, but to be frank they are mostly going to be anyway.
Once you've tightly tied your mechanics to the available generic mechanics, you could probably consolidate all your feats into 3-5 uber-Feats that gave whoever took them broad and powerful advantages in particular areas - chance of survival, fertility and fecundity, health of the child, midwifery ect. These feats should be specific, but in their specific area much more powerful than feats like Skill Focus or Great Fortitude or Endurance. As a suggestion, take feats that cover three related areas and combine them into single feats offering three advantages similar in design to the 'Tactical' feats seen in some late 3.5 design. You could then make these feats 'Traits', which would then compete for attention with all the other traits in your game. They might likely be still mostly 'NPC traits', but they'd at least then be clearly desirable traits you could imagine NPC's 'taking' or prizing. Indeed, they might become a trait the PC might prize in an NPC spouse, or in an NPC retainer (in the case of 'midwifery' and dynastic campaigns). If your campaign goes truly dynastic, where children are as important or more important than having cool magic items and each player is effectively playing a household rather than a character, then those NPC traits might start moving into PC traits.
Your move to make feats extra traits that a person has someone alleviates this problem, but doesn't really deal with the main issue in the feats design - pregnancy is something that occurs only every few years at most and is only one sort of specific challenge. Not only must the campaign now feature dynastic play to make it interesting, it must go on for much longer than most campaigns actually cover. Rarely do you actually have campaigns that cover even 9 months of in game time.
And if NPC's could choose their own traits, they still wouldn't likely invest their 'build points' in those sorts of feats. They'd probably take Great Fortitude.
I think the solution is tie your mechanics more directly to mechanics that already exist - fortitude saves, endurance checks, heal skill, and so forth. This is important because you want pregnancy and so forth to be core to play, not something tangential that ignores all the normal advantages a PC gains through play. Yes, it makes your feats slightly superfluous, but to be frank they are mostly going to be anyway.
Once you've tightly tied your mechanics to the available generic mechanics, you could probably consolidate all your feats into 3-5 uber-Feats that gave whoever took them broad and powerful advantages in particular areas - chance of survival, fertility and fecundity, health of the child, midwifery ect. These feats should be specific, but in their specific area much more powerful than feats like Skill Focus or Great Fortitude or Endurance. As a suggestion, take feats that cover three related areas and combine them into single feats offering three advantages similar in design to the 'Tactical' feats seen in some late 3.5 design. You could then make these feats 'Traits', which would then compete for attention with all the other traits in your game. They might likely be still mostly 'NPC traits', but they'd at least then be clearly desirable traits you could imagine NPC's 'taking' or prizing. Indeed, they might become a trait the PC might prize in an NPC spouse, or in an NPC retainer (in the case of 'midwifery' and dynastic campaigns). If your campaign goes truly dynastic, where children are as important or more important than having cool magic items and each player is effectively playing a household rather than a character, then those NPC traits might start moving into PC traits.
Your suggestion seemed excellent. I built those extra feats without commitment, just to be a bonus, but this architecture can be much more interesting. I will probably reshape the feats, do in a way that may remind the perks system of Skyrim, but more horizontal than vertical.I will add even more talent, trying to cover the maximum of possible areas. Including those that are based in Fortitude and others status.
The fact that pregnancy and birth are uncommon in the D&D does not change the propose of this book. If those things eventually happens in a adventure, it will have instructions now.
The only thing that I am still in doubt is to keep the point system same as the bonus feats or not.
Thanks for your review.
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Lwaxy
Cute but dangerous
No idea what games you play in but asides from declared short stuff, mostly pre-made adventures which may cover only a few days or weeks, all our campaigns cover years, if not decades. In our Faerun campaign, there is a 4-months preg PC just now.
Celebrim
Legend
No problem, but that's not even remotely a review. I just have a passion for good feat design, partly owing to the tendency to treat feats - because they tend to be short - as easy to design. In fact, designing good feats is very challenging.
From a reviewers standpoint, avoid mentioning scientific concepts like DNA. It's not clear that DNA exists in a typical fantasy setting, where science - if it exists at all - is typically cased on the idea that the ancient Greek philosophers correctly described the universe (four elements, for example). Inserting anachronisms like that, even if in your own campaign you are perfectly happy to have modern science, tends to be jarring. Use more generic terms like 'parentage' or 'heredity'.
Sooner or later, you are going to get a cease and desist from multiple authors. Consider revising your artwork, and removing trademarked designs.
Consider changing your percentage chances to chances in D20. Consider changing your fertility rules to be based off Fortitude saves. In general, I find your chance of conception rules to be vastly overcomplicated. You want one simple mechanic and maybe one easy to read table. Why in the world does the chance of bringing a baby healthy to term have nothing to do with the Constitution of the mother?
Why go into such detail about that sort of thing, and not consider whether spells, diseases, poisons, damage and hardship that target the mother effect the child and to what degree? Very basic questions that might come up in the game like whether the baby has to make a saving throw whenever the mother does (or whenever the mother fails a saving throw?) aren't addressed. Does the mother completely protect the child from spells targeting one creature? If not, are their exceptions (Poison?)? What happens to the child when the mother shape changes? If we are going to game carrying a baby to term, we are going to care a lot more about that sort of thing than exact percentage chances to conceive. You briefly mention this sort of thing when you talk about accidental abortion, but not in any way that is clear or functional (what is the chance a blow effects the child?). How does any event of this sort effect the child's chance of being born healthy? For example, we know in the real world diseases can often damage the unborn.
In short, you've spent a lot of time thinking about something that isn't particularly hard to rule on (does someone become pregnant?) because that event is pretty binary pass/fail sort of stuff. But the stuff that would require a lot of thought and attention to detail... doesn't show up in the rules.
Back on the subject of 'traits', it might be interesting to see feats related to having some unusual heritage, but not enough to count as 'half' mechanically.
For example, from my own rules:
ELFIN BLOOD [TRAIT]
You have an elfin ancestor, and the blood of that ancestor flows with unusual strength in you.
Prerequisite: You may not take this advantage if you are elfin or half-elfin.
Benefit: For all special abilities and effects, you are considered an elf. For example, you can use elfin weapons and magic items with racially specific elfin powers as if you were an elf. You may also choose one of the following special abilities: treat Empathy (animal) as a class skill, or a +1 racial bonus to listen, spot, and search checks, or low light vision.
HUMAN BLOOD [TRAIT]
One of your ancestor’s was a human and the blood of your ancestor flows with particular strength in you.
Prerequisite: Not human or half human, appropriate background
Benefit: You are considered human for the purposes of qualifying for racial feats or using racially specific magic items. You gain 4 additional skill points at first level and an additional skill point each time you gain a level.
In short, there is a lot of interesting territory you aren't covering that might make your text more interesting to more readers and be more useful to you in future play. You don't even really cover enough details to be a true 'Birth Guide' for a fantasy role playing game, but where you need to be heading is less of a 'Birds and Bees' guide for D&D that explains what happens when creatures have sex, and more to being a true dynasty guide that deals with how the fantastic elements of the game intersect pregnancy and heirs.
Celebrim
Legend
Reviewing the Feats:
'A Chance' - This is a general utility that should not be silo'd off into a feat, or if it is silo'd off into a feat should be much broader and more general in utility. Basically, this lets a spellcaster directly target the unborn child (with healing spells only). Why not allow a spellcaster to target any spell on the unborn? Or if you want this to require some special skill, why not just allow a skill check to perform this stunt? If you feel you must silo this ability off into a feat, make this one benefit of a more general 'Midwife' feat, such as merging it with 'Midwife'.
'Abortionist' - Effectively, this is +10 to +20 on heal checks to perform an abortion. Ok... I can see that would be a thing.
'Midwife' - This appears to be referencing rules that aren't in the document.
'Best of Us' - This is a great candidate for having a 'Normal' entry in the feat description explaining what happens normally without the feat. Otherwise, this is a highly narrow feat in that it only matters in a game that goes on long enough for a child to become a playable character, and only when we are talking about inter-species marriage. Can't you find something to merge this with?
'Breeding Instinct' - This moves into squick.
'Birth Control' - Having conscious control over your own fertility would seem to be something either a species has or it doesn't. At the very least, should be merged with 'Great Fertility' to broaden this feats utility. This one, if you feel the need to have it at all, suggests it needs Prerequisites, like 5 ranks in Concentration and an appropriate background with some sort of fertility cult. See 'Love has No Barriers' where you suggest an appropriate background requirement. This also potentially moves into squick in ways I don't feel comfortable talking about, but let's just say that the notion that a woman only gets pregnant when she wants to could introduce unintended controversy.
'Change the Chances' - Ugggh. You seem rather naïve about the ugly implications of the sort of things you are creating here. Much like 'A Chance', if you allow this at all, you might as well not silo this off into a narrow feat, but just make it a stunt a spellcaster could perform with a skill check.
'Elven Mother' - It would seem that this doesn't need to be a feat, but just a little known racial trait within your campaign world. Just make it something all elven females can do. It doesn't really do that much, and infants aren't noted conversationalists with much in the way of life experiences to share. Being able to talk to your infant, is going to turn out to be not that different from not being able to talk to your infant (in that pregnant women who aren't elves often talk soothingly to their unborn child).
'Feature Added' - Maybe it's the language barrier, but I'm not even clear on what this does. Again, this would be a great candidate for having a 'Normal' entry in the feat to explain what normally happens in the absence of the feat. And this is definitely the sort of thing that is so narrow, that I'm not really seeing why you don't combine it with 'Feature Inherited' and 'Best of Us' and similar feats into one, "Best of Us" feat that makes you a great candidate for bearing a hybrid child. Weird and still narrow, but at least interesting.
'Feature Inherited' - Again, I can't understand exactly what this does or how it is different than 'Feature Added'. You mention English isn't your first language. I think you need a better translator.
'Gift from the Gods' - This is one of those things that sounds like a benefit, that is actually a bit of a curse. So all of your children are born from the moment of birth as 1st level Favored Souls. Fine, that would be cool.... if we were using 1e Dual Classing rules. As it is, in 3e rules, this just means that all your kids are saddled with a class that isn't their favored class and which they may not be suited for, and which doesn't multi-class well, that will hamper their education in whatever class that they would be suited for. Plus, you end up with a family which won't have a diversity of skills. And the only benefit is that your kids are a bit creepy and get a 9-12 year head start on gaining levels in a class that they might not even want. Some gift. Plus, the requirements aren't that stringent. Shouldn't you at least be a pious follower, and perhaps have asked for this sort of thing? The idea of having divinely favored offspring is cool, and I understand why you latched onto 'favored soul' in context, but this needs a complete rewrite - probably after you've thought out the maturation process and when children can start earning XP and take their 1st class level. You might also want to look at the 3.0e DMG's 0th level 'apprentice' rules.
Great Fertility - See Birth Control
Great Pregnancy - This is one of your better designed feats, but I wonder if you realize just how powerful 'reroll everything and take the better' actually is. Plus, this feat references rules that aren't actually in the document, that is to say, how the attributes of the new born child are to be determined. For example, is the default 3d6 straight up, or 4d6 take the best three? Or do you have some sort of inheritance mechanism in mind where two strong people are more likely to have strong offspring. We need to know what 'reroll' means in this context.
Let Me Guess - This should just be a rare spell such as midwives might know, rather than a feat.
Love has No Barriers - Rather than making this sort of thing a feat, this might be a blessing that a person who performs a quest or demonstrates true love might receive from a sympathetic deity. It's more interesting that way than it is as an aspect of character build. For that matter, all your 'I'm Particularly Adept at Creating Hybrid' children feats might be more interesting that way.
Mother Nature - This might be more interesting as a rare spell than it would be as a Feat. It's also not clear what it actually does, as you've not really specified how unborn infants take damage, and its also for that matter not much useful protection seeing as poisons and diseases are probably the more serious threats. While I'm thinking about it, it would be a good idea to specify whether mothers in general have the ability to share spells with their unborn child the way wizards can share spells with familiars or paladins share spells with mounts. And a really good Feat in this context might extend that to allow mothers to share spells with their (born) children, if they are holding them. Now that I can imagine a maternal spellcaster taking as a feat.
Natural Knowledge: You don't need a feat to do this. This is just an ordinary skill use - roll Sense Motive vs DC whatever. My wife can do this IRL. Good feat design doesn't trample on skill usage. Practically anything that says, "You can now use your skill to do this X", probably should just be an addendum to the skill itself. Good feats make your skill usage more effective in particular areas, but they don't act as gates that limit access to things.
No Time to Waste: Uggghh.. Seriously, you want babies to be born in mere days? There are actually serious body horror implications to this feat I don't think you are taking seriously enough. Just for a second, imagine using this to create veal. Ok, now you want to apply this to sentient beings as well... Really, I would just not go there.
Orc Seed: Ditto.
Party Member: What?? Again with the conscious control of fertility. And this is just going to encourage the worst sort of juvenile stereotyped approach to the subject matter. If we are going to do this, let's be grown ups about it.
Premature: As the parent of premies IRL, this just isn't amusing and makes me think maybe you aren't a parent. Being premature isn't a benefit generally speaking, nor is it a subject you cover.
Protective Mother: One of your best and most interesting feats, but I think this feat is still too narrow and should be combined with your other 'Protective Pregnancy' feats into a single feat granting all the benefits.
Reincarnation: In addition to not making it clear what this does, it's a mechanical mess. It also mucks around in the future, which you as a DM can't really guarantee. And oddly, it ultimately seems more of a flavor thing than anything else. And it does weird things like, if you kill the unborn kid, can you think have them suddenly as a mature child the next round by using one spell? Spells that by pass growing up have weird implications on a campaign world. And why is this a Feat? Couldn't I do this to any aborted or miscarried child without the feat? Is 'instant maturity' the only real effect of this spell?
Strong Genes: Sort of like Orc seed. Isn't clear how it interacts with the crossbreeding tables and is open to interpretation.
Strong Woman: One of your better feats. Could be named better, as even 'Strong Mother' is better. Prerequisites for feats are generally never even numbers. Should be either 13 or 15 Con. I'm not sure why strength should be a part of the Prerequisites, as Con and Str may be realistically intertwined to some extent, but never are in D&D.
Two is Better than One: This is insanely narrow, and has more weird implications for breeding. Why would you want this to be a thing? I mean, if you want this in your campaign, couldn't you just have fertility potions increase the chances of having multiple births?
What I Want: Again, you don't seem to understand the implications of your stuff. I mean, it's bad enough people abort infants because they are girls, or throw them into rivers, or like the ancient romans put them in pots and leave them to die of exposure. Now you want to magically turn them into boys? Why would you even make this a part of your campaign?
Ultimately, this is just not an interesting collection of feats. There is nothing here I want to steal. A feat in and of itself, should represent a solid concept that describes your character and enables you to play out that description. I'm a midwife. I'm a great mother. I'm a protective parent. Whatever. Figure out what your core concepts are and enable them. Don't just write feats that twiddle your mechanics in minor ways.
'A Chance' - This is a general utility that should not be silo'd off into a feat, or if it is silo'd off into a feat should be much broader and more general in utility. Basically, this lets a spellcaster directly target the unborn child (with healing spells only). Why not allow a spellcaster to target any spell on the unborn? Or if you want this to require some special skill, why not just allow a skill check to perform this stunt? If you feel you must silo this ability off into a feat, make this one benefit of a more general 'Midwife' feat, such as merging it with 'Midwife'.
'Abortionist' - Effectively, this is +10 to +20 on heal checks to perform an abortion. Ok... I can see that would be a thing.
'Midwife' - This appears to be referencing rules that aren't in the document.
'Best of Us' - This is a great candidate for having a 'Normal' entry in the feat description explaining what happens normally without the feat. Otherwise, this is a highly narrow feat in that it only matters in a game that goes on long enough for a child to become a playable character, and only when we are talking about inter-species marriage. Can't you find something to merge this with?
'Breeding Instinct' - This moves into squick.
'Birth Control' - Having conscious control over your own fertility would seem to be something either a species has or it doesn't. At the very least, should be merged with 'Great Fertility' to broaden this feats utility. This one, if you feel the need to have it at all, suggests it needs Prerequisites, like 5 ranks in Concentration and an appropriate background with some sort of fertility cult. See 'Love has No Barriers' where you suggest an appropriate background requirement. This also potentially moves into squick in ways I don't feel comfortable talking about, but let's just say that the notion that a woman only gets pregnant when she wants to could introduce unintended controversy.
'Change the Chances' - Ugggh. You seem rather naïve about the ugly implications of the sort of things you are creating here. Much like 'A Chance', if you allow this at all, you might as well not silo this off into a narrow feat, but just make it a stunt a spellcaster could perform with a skill check.
'Elven Mother' - It would seem that this doesn't need to be a feat, but just a little known racial trait within your campaign world. Just make it something all elven females can do. It doesn't really do that much, and infants aren't noted conversationalists with much in the way of life experiences to share. Being able to talk to your infant, is going to turn out to be not that different from not being able to talk to your infant (in that pregnant women who aren't elves often talk soothingly to their unborn child).
'Feature Added' - Maybe it's the language barrier, but I'm not even clear on what this does. Again, this would be a great candidate for having a 'Normal' entry in the feat to explain what normally happens in the absence of the feat. And this is definitely the sort of thing that is so narrow, that I'm not really seeing why you don't combine it with 'Feature Inherited' and 'Best of Us' and similar feats into one, "Best of Us" feat that makes you a great candidate for bearing a hybrid child. Weird and still narrow, but at least interesting.
'Feature Inherited' - Again, I can't understand exactly what this does or how it is different than 'Feature Added'. You mention English isn't your first language. I think you need a better translator.
'Gift from the Gods' - This is one of those things that sounds like a benefit, that is actually a bit of a curse. So all of your children are born from the moment of birth as 1st level Favored Souls. Fine, that would be cool.... if we were using 1e Dual Classing rules. As it is, in 3e rules, this just means that all your kids are saddled with a class that isn't their favored class and which they may not be suited for, and which doesn't multi-class well, that will hamper their education in whatever class that they would be suited for. Plus, you end up with a family which won't have a diversity of skills. And the only benefit is that your kids are a bit creepy and get a 9-12 year head start on gaining levels in a class that they might not even want. Some gift. Plus, the requirements aren't that stringent. Shouldn't you at least be a pious follower, and perhaps have asked for this sort of thing? The idea of having divinely favored offspring is cool, and I understand why you latched onto 'favored soul' in context, but this needs a complete rewrite - probably after you've thought out the maturation process and when children can start earning XP and take their 1st class level. You might also want to look at the 3.0e DMG's 0th level 'apprentice' rules.
Great Fertility - See Birth Control
Great Pregnancy - This is one of your better designed feats, but I wonder if you realize just how powerful 'reroll everything and take the better' actually is. Plus, this feat references rules that aren't actually in the document, that is to say, how the attributes of the new born child are to be determined. For example, is the default 3d6 straight up, or 4d6 take the best three? Or do you have some sort of inheritance mechanism in mind where two strong people are more likely to have strong offspring. We need to know what 'reroll' means in this context.
Let Me Guess - This should just be a rare spell such as midwives might know, rather than a feat.
Love has No Barriers - Rather than making this sort of thing a feat, this might be a blessing that a person who performs a quest or demonstrates true love might receive from a sympathetic deity. It's more interesting that way than it is as an aspect of character build. For that matter, all your 'I'm Particularly Adept at Creating Hybrid' children feats might be more interesting that way.
Mother Nature - This might be more interesting as a rare spell than it would be as a Feat. It's also not clear what it actually does, as you've not really specified how unborn infants take damage, and its also for that matter not much useful protection seeing as poisons and diseases are probably the more serious threats. While I'm thinking about it, it would be a good idea to specify whether mothers in general have the ability to share spells with their unborn child the way wizards can share spells with familiars or paladins share spells with mounts. And a really good Feat in this context might extend that to allow mothers to share spells with their (born) children, if they are holding them. Now that I can imagine a maternal spellcaster taking as a feat.
Natural Knowledge: You don't need a feat to do this. This is just an ordinary skill use - roll Sense Motive vs DC whatever. My wife can do this IRL. Good feat design doesn't trample on skill usage. Practically anything that says, "You can now use your skill to do this X", probably should just be an addendum to the skill itself. Good feats make your skill usage more effective in particular areas, but they don't act as gates that limit access to things.
No Time to Waste: Uggghh.. Seriously, you want babies to be born in mere days? There are actually serious body horror implications to this feat I don't think you are taking seriously enough. Just for a second, imagine using this to create veal. Ok, now you want to apply this to sentient beings as well... Really, I would just not go there.
Orc Seed: Ditto.
Party Member: What?? Again with the conscious control of fertility. And this is just going to encourage the worst sort of juvenile stereotyped approach to the subject matter. If we are going to do this, let's be grown ups about it.
Premature: As the parent of premies IRL, this just isn't amusing and makes me think maybe you aren't a parent. Being premature isn't a benefit generally speaking, nor is it a subject you cover.
Protective Mother: One of your best and most interesting feats, but I think this feat is still too narrow and should be combined with your other 'Protective Pregnancy' feats into a single feat granting all the benefits.
Reincarnation: In addition to not making it clear what this does, it's a mechanical mess. It also mucks around in the future, which you as a DM can't really guarantee. And oddly, it ultimately seems more of a flavor thing than anything else. And it does weird things like, if you kill the unborn kid, can you think have them suddenly as a mature child the next round by using one spell? Spells that by pass growing up have weird implications on a campaign world. And why is this a Feat? Couldn't I do this to any aborted or miscarried child without the feat? Is 'instant maturity' the only real effect of this spell?
Strong Genes: Sort of like Orc seed. Isn't clear how it interacts with the crossbreeding tables and is open to interpretation.
Strong Woman: One of your better feats. Could be named better, as even 'Strong Mother' is better. Prerequisites for feats are generally never even numbers. Should be either 13 or 15 Con. I'm not sure why strength should be a part of the Prerequisites, as Con and Str may be realistically intertwined to some extent, but never are in D&D.
Two is Better than One: This is insanely narrow, and has more weird implications for breeding. Why would you want this to be a thing? I mean, if you want this in your campaign, couldn't you just have fertility potions increase the chances of having multiple births?
What I Want: Again, you don't seem to understand the implications of your stuff. I mean, it's bad enough people abort infants because they are girls, or throw them into rivers, or like the ancient romans put them in pots and leave them to die of exposure. Now you want to magically turn them into boys? Why would you even make this a part of your campaign?
Ultimately, this is just not an interesting collection of feats. There is nothing here I want to steal. A feat in and of itself, should represent a solid concept that describes your character and enables you to play out that description. I'm a midwife. I'm a great mother. I'm a protective parent. Whatever. Figure out what your core concepts are and enable them. Don't just write feats that twiddle your mechanics in minor ways.
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Mister Celebrim, thanks for your constructive criticsim. Sorry for the delay, here is my answer
It is not explicit, but it is very likely that exist. The fact that a human and an elf generate a half-elf makes me belive that genetics is real in D&D.
I'm aware of it. I am arranging a friend to do the arts. By now i will take the risks.
I did not expect that someone would find my mechanics complicated. Of 10 people i showed the book ( in person ) 8 found the mechanics good, and 2 thought it could be better. I will review the mechanics to improve it. But consider that the intention was to be realistic.
In fact i already had a more complete content about it, however i was not sure about my knowledge. I decided to make a simplefied verson, and latter make a full version. I am studying about it. I hope in a few days i already bid more details about the baby health.
Could you elaborate more about it?
I need to improve ALOT my traits. I am not so good at creating them, but like i said before, i will rebuild them.
The idea of this book was about pure biology, however i think to add more role play elements, such how the races react towards the act of birth.
What do you suggest to make this book more interesting?
It is not explicit, but it is very likely that exist. The fact that a human and an elf generate a half-elf makes me belive that genetics is real in D&D.
I'm aware of it. I am arranging a friend to do the arts. By now i will take the risks.
I did not expect that someone would find my mechanics complicated. Of 10 people i showed the book ( in person ) 8 found the mechanics good, and 2 thought it could be better. I will review the mechanics to improve it. But consider that the intention was to be realistic.
In fact i already had a more complete content about it, however i was not sure about my knowledge. I decided to make a simplefied verson, and latter make a full version. I am studying about it. I hope in a few days i already bid more details about the baby health.
Could you elaborate more about it?
I need to improve ALOT my traits. I am not so good at creating them, but like i said before, i will rebuild them.
The idea of this book was about pure biology, however i think to add more role play elements, such how the races react towards the act of birth.
What do you suggest to make this book more interesting?
Celebrim
Legend
It's interesting how two people can have the same data, and come to completely different conclusions. While it's true that in D&D some mechanism of heritable traits seems to exist, it's almost certain that it is not DNA and the half-elf is a fairly good example of that. As different as elves and humans are in D&D, that they can breed at all suggests that its not something as specific as chromosomes that underlies heredity. More over, not only can they interbreed, but they don't form sterile hybrids like mules. Half-Dragons, Half-Fey, and other more unlikely hybrids are even stronger examples. This implies a more pliant, magical, and perhaps spiritual means of heredity.
It's a good practice to assume that the science in the average D&D world works very like the science in its source material. For example, the myth of the Minotaur gives a good understanding of how heredity is assumed to work in fantasy, and which we must assume is in force within a fantasy RPG. DNA would never allow bovine traits to be inherited by offspring. In fantasy, the mythical minotaur's parentage and the resulting monstrous nature of the offspring makes perfect sense.
It's not that they are complicated that bothers me. What bothers be is that they are a distinctive subsystem that much of the time seems to have no relation to any other rules of the game.
Realism is no guide in a world where a dragon can mate successfully with a half-elf. The answers can't be found from reality; they are whatever you want it to be within the setting.
Cool.
I mean I'm imaging myself as a DM in a campaign where one of the PC's is pregnant, and all the consequences that might result from that. For the most part, I'm not worried about the baby being wounded, as I figure most anything that kills a kid while on board will also kill the mother. Indeed, typically it's easier to kill the mother than the kid from things like falls and blows and the like. So for the moment, let's not worry about where a sword thrust hits a mother and how deeply. Called shots like that go against the spirit of D&D anyway.
What I am worried about is things like...
...whether magic plate mail fits on a woman that is 6 months pregnant.
...does the weight of a pregnancy count against encumbrance. How much does a pregnancy weigh?
...if the mother is the target of a Poison spell, is the child effected as a well?
...if the mother casts Death Ward on herself, is the child protected as well?
...Does the infant count as a separate creature if within the radius of a Circle of Death?
...If the mother is polymorphed, does the infant change into a fetus of the same type as the mother, and is this dangerous in any way?
...Does an unborn infant have an intelligence score of at least 1? (Presumably, yes.) If so, can I detect one with the spell Detect Thoughts?
...Does taking nonlethal damage from a source like starvation, thirst, or heat exhaustion effect the health of the infant? If so, how and how much?
...When an infant is born, what percentage of its adult stats does it have? (I have already ruled on this in my game, but I'm noting I had to rule on this and you haven't.)
...How are the adult stats of an infant determined?
...How old does a child need to be before it can gain XP?
...Can a Night Hag send a Nightmare to an unborn infant? Can a mother detect this? Can an unborn infant be possessed by Mind Jar? In general, how does the mother's Will/Will save protect the infant, if at all?
I think you should focus on crunch. Fluff is likely to be specific to a particular DM's campaign world, but good crunch is something most DMs can use.
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