D&D 5E Fluffs or Feats? Your re-skinning thread

[CanadienneBacon]

Also, I see the words coming from your mouth but I do not understand them because there is no poll attached to this thread.

 

[MechaPilot]

So a recent comment in a different threat had me thinking-

What's the line between a fluff and a feat? And, for that matter, is re-skinning perfectly acceptable, or is it some abomination out of the Hellraiser movie franchise?

For me, a feat really only needs to come into play when you want to do something that is more powerful than what you could otherwise do.

Anyway, here's the scenario that prompted my question-
A cleric wants to elect to not wear armor and deal damage by touch with a charisma modifier (which, by the way, sounds awesome from a RP perspective). From a mechanical perspective, the touch does the same damage as a mace, and the "no armor" is the same armor as the cleric could normally wear as chainmail. The only "real" mechanical change is the charisma change.

So, I could see the argument that this is a re-skin, since the AC and damage don't change.
On the other hand, unarmored defense is a class ability of monks and barbarians, and unarmed attacks is a class ability of monks. So I would argue that this is more than just fluff.

I have to correct you about one thing: the attack is not an "unarmed attack." It does not automatically apply every time you punch, kick, or slap someone. It specifically involves prayer during the touch which makes it more like a melee cantrip. It also doesn't scale with level and is purchased by discarding proficiency with all weapons. This makes it blatantly inferior to existing melee cantrips like shocking grasp.

I would agree with your assessment that it is more than fluff, but I don't consider it feat-worthy because 1) it is inferior to an existing option: melee cantrips, and 2) you pay for it by accepting disadvantage with all weapons when you give up all your weapon proficiencies.


Regarding the divine grace as armor concept, it is important to be aware that we have two different models based on different editions. I first came up with this concept in 3e, and I have since adapted it for 5e. Naturally, the concept requires different mechanical tweaks to fit in with each of those editions. In 3e, I simply called armor divine grace. In 5e, I have opted to go with a form of unarmored defense that uses the following formula: 8 + proficiency bonus + Cha modifier; although 8 + Wis modifier + Cha modifier could work equally well.

You did mention that the barbarian and the monk have the unarmored defense abilities. I am forced to ask myself if unarmored defense should be considered to be class exclusive. I do not believe that it should be. Unarmored defense is intended to replace the use of AC. This mechanic fits with the monk and the barbarian based on assumptions about those classes. However, are those assumptions really so much more different than the assumption behind the character concept that I proposed? I don't personally think so; naturally, opinions may vary.

 

[I'm A Banana]

So a recent comment in a different threat had me thinking-

What's the line between a fluff and a feat? And, for that matter, is re-skinning perfectly acceptable, or is it some abomination out of the Hellraiser movie franchise?

Re-skins are there when the choice involving the thing doesn't matter too much. Like, what a magic missile looks like doesn't really matter. The differences between a dagger and a knife or a bastard sword and a longsword or a khopesh and a...short sword maybe(?) also generally don't matter. They don't affect anything in the game world.

Mechanical choices are my preference when the choice DOES matter. Like if you had a group who used khopeshes and a group that used shortswords and the former were famous for their deep slashes and the latter were famous for precision strikes, I'd expect those to have different mechanics. The difference between an elf and a variant human typically matters, but there might be circumstances when it doesn't (like, a human-based setting where ALL PC's must be human and racial mechanics are just slightly different human cultures and there are no elves).

The difference between a touch using Charisma dealing mace damage and an actual physical mace would seem to matter, as would the choice to wear armor or not.

That's not to say these things offer any advantage, but that I would expect them to be mechanically distinct. In the former case, I imagine a cantrip - a spell attack that deals 1d8 bludgeoning damage would be a fine cantrip. In the latter case, I'd imagine swapping armor proficiency for a Monk's Unarmored Defense. There's no inherent advantage to these things, but the differences "matter," so they're more than a re-skin. For instance, you don't need to use Charisma to make your attack, if it fits within the rubrick of a cantrip, you're fine, and you're not suffering MAD or using a lower attack roll than everyone else. You could even increase it by increasing the power of your cantrips in one way or another. Or in the armor case, you can't just go out and buy a better AC, but you CAN up your Wisdom score and your Dex score, which would jack your AC up.

This would be contrawise in a game that was designed so that the fluff didn't really matter much to the mechanics. There, there's little actual difference between, say, wearing heavy armor and wearing light armor with a good DEX. It doesn't matter.

In 5e D&D, typically, it is something that might matter.

But not all the time in every game and there's differences between groups for what hits this threshold.

 

[n00b f00]

Depends on the change. For the proposed change I might simply homebrew a slight class variation rather than simply reskining as the changes are far reaching.

Then there's stuff like how to deal with someone who wants to fight with a shield like Captain America. 1d8 finesse blunt 30/60. It would be something that has no rules, but is not mechanically advantageous. Do you just let him do it, get a feat, or give'em a magic item? I'm partial to just letting them do it.

 

[Azurewraith]

The melee custom cantrip seems fine to me but the divine grace im a bit wary of letting it be an ability a simple re-fulff of armour is fine. To me it seems like your just trying to take a MaD character and make them SaD for power gamer reasons.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

In some cases, the line between "fluff" and "feat" (not the word I'd have chosen, since "feats" are already a thing,* but whatever) is table-dependent. Not because what you're doing changes, but because the value of certain things is not entirely context-free.

For example, one of the early replies talked about how the Cleric "wearing no armor (AC from chain)" or whatever, had to actually have the extra weight, the possibility that it could be sundered or eaten by a rust monster, etc. But in a campaign where weight is handwaved or completely ignored, whether or not the extra weight is present is meaningless. It becomes a fluff distinction and nothing more. Similarly, I have known of several people who would never use a rust monster in their games, because they consider it a textbook example of a particular kind of bad monster design driven by adversarial DMing (specifically, the "puzzle monster" that totally screws up a party that hasn't learned the secret solution, but is a total speedbump for one that has). So for a group that had both of those things--no "sundering" rules or monsters, and no attention paid to carry capacity/weight--then the difference WOULD be purely cosmetic, even on those axes. And thus the description change would be "fluff" and no more.

That said, though, I do think that the rough idea behind that poster's response is a decent one. "Refluffing is when you only change the names, not the numbers." It's not perfect, but it's not bad either.

*We reskin/refluff things that we already like how they work, but don't like how they look/sound. For changing how things work, the usual word is "houserule," but if we want it to refer narrowly to JUST minor alterations of, say, a class's basic features, I would call that tweaking. You (re)fluff things to change their appearance, without necessarily changing their effects. You tweak things to change their effects, without necessarily changing their appearance.

The melee custom cantrip seems fine to me but the divine grace im a bit wary of letting it be an ability a simple re-fulff of armour is fine. To me it seems like your just trying to take a MaD character and make them SaD for power gamer reasons.

Yeah see I don't get this reply. What, exactly, do Clerics do that benefits from high Charisma? It's not like a Paladin, where literally every class feature that keys off an ability does so with Cha. The result is still a class that's MAD, wanting Wis and Cha instead of Wis and Str (or Wis and Dex). Also, if their "divine blessing" works like actual heavy armor, they get no bonus to AC from Dex--which is unlike any form of Unarmored Defense. (Presumably a suitably large "donation" to their church would be required to upgrade to better armor--and the best protection requires a substantial donation, say...1500 gp? )

 

[DEFCON 1]

For example, one of the early replies talked about how the Cleric "wearing no armor (AC from chain)" or whatever, had to actually have the extra weight, the possibility that it could be sundered or eaten by a rust monster, etc. But in a campaign where weight is handwaved or completely ignored, whether or not the extra weight is present is meaningless. It becomes a fluff distinction and nothing more. Similarly, I have known of several people who would never use a rust monster in their games, because they consider it a textbook example of a particular kind of bad monster design driven by adversarial DMing (specifically, the "puzzle monster" that totally screws up a party that hasn't learned the secret solution, but is a total speedbump for one that has). So for a group that had both of those things--no "sundering" rules or monsters, and no attention paid to carry capacity/weight--then the difference WOULD be purely cosmetic, even on those axes. And thus the description change would be "fluff" and no more.

Well, sure... and that was really my point. That's why I would most likely go along with an "armor-less" chainmail re-skin, because like you say, for the most part things like sundered armor, rust monsters, encumbrance and the like, wouldn't appear nearly enough in the game for there to be any appreciable difference (or not appear at all for certain tables). So just saying "No way, spend a feat slot for that!" out of hand isn't really necessary in my opinion. There's a good chance you can make these re-skins without causing much mechanical issue, nor render other options obsolete.

But that being said... I think there still needs to be a balancing factor between the character wearing actual chainmail and the one wearing the re-skinned "armor-less" version. And to me, the easiest way to balance the two is just make the armor-less character susceptible to the exact same things the chainmail-wearing PC is. For the most part, it'll probably never come up... but on the off-chance it does, the two players should be aware of it and the re-skinning player just needs to know they don't get special dispensation just because in-game they "aren't wearing any armor".

Truth be told though... as someone also mentioned above (I'm A Banana?)... as I am also a big fan of feature swapping to get the kind of character you want (rather than more burdensome methods like 1-level multiclassing), I'd probably recommend swapping in Unarmored Defense to the cleric while swapping out another feature (like perhaps all the cleric's Armor proficiencies.) That way the player can get what they want and you never have to worry about balancing them against another player's character.

 

[leonardoraele]

About the cleric thing:

1. He wont be affected by spells like shocking grasp and heat metal, and his equipment will never be stolen, so this is technically a mechanical advantage. But still a minor change, since it may never come to the table at all. He also won't be able to upgrade to plate armor for 18 AC this way, which would make a fair drawback.
2. The use of Charisma for attacks, however, is a huge change, and I, as a DM, wound't allow. However, we can always make a fair house rule.
3. Attacking by touch means he have always a free hand. This is a minor advantage, but another one that may never come to the table, though.

Maybe a feat that let him cast barkskin and shillelagh at will? Needs playtesting.

 

[Greg K]

So, I could see the argument that this is a re-skin, since the AC and damage don't change.
On the other hand, unarmored defense is a class ability of monks and barbarians, and unarmed attacks is a class ability of monks. So I would argue that this is more than just fluff.

Why even reskin the armor? As an example of modifying a class, the 5e DMG specifically mentions modifying the cleric class by giving them an unarmored defense ability similar to the monk's in exchange for giving up proficiency in all cleric armors.

 

[Sunseeker]

Fluffing ends when the numbers change. Everything up to that point is just deciding if you want green elves or blue elves.