Monstrous Races, Polymorph, & Corpses

[NPC Logger Number 2]

This feedback thread is being made in regards to these changes:

- Corpses left behind by the following subraces will display their parent race type instead of their actual subrace, UNLESS shapeshifted into a "monstrous" form, where appropriate:
- Aasimar
- Deep Imaskari
- Dragon
- Genasi (all types)
- Rakshasa
- Tiefling
- Vampire
- Yuan-Ti Pureblood

If I understand correctly:

A dragon PC who gets killed in their humanoid form will leave a humanoid corpse.

A non-dragon PC accused of being a dragon now has no mechanical way to prove they are not a dragon.

Genasi and Rakshasa now turn into ordinary humans when they die?

If a vampire dies their fangs disappear and suddenly their pale undead skin becomes tan and healthy looking?

If a tiefling dies their horns and other devilish/demonic features just disappear?

Yuan-Ti also for some reason lose all their scales and their fangs and their vertical slit pupils upon dying unless in full-blown snake or naga form.



It seems like these changes were made purely to eliminate any and all role play consequence for dying for PC's of these monstrous races. This also has the possibly unintended side-effect of making it impossible for anyone accused of being a dragon or a yuan-ti to prove their innocence. This means if I don't like someone, I can just accuse them of being a dragon and killbash them over and over again, and if I'm the more influential member of the community and everyone believes me over them then tough luck there's nothing they can do to prove me wrong ICly. Furthermore these changes go completely against the rules of the original game, a polymorphed creature is supposed to revert back to their original form upon reaching 0 hit points. Even if they are hit by a disintegrate it has been officially ruled they revert to their original form before disintegrating. A dragon in a human shape is polymorphed. Furthermore things like Genasi and Vampires are not even polymorphed, there is no reason their corpse should appear as a normal human even if they bother using magic to polymorph themselves.

These are the reasons I think this change should be reverted:

- Reduces IC consequences for dying.
- Opens the door for baseless accusations against anyone you don't like which cannot mechanically be disproven now.
- Does not make sense immersion-wise for Aasimar, Tieflings, Genasi, Deep Imaskari, or Vampires..
- Blatantly violates the original rules of D&D regarding polymorph


I really hope I am misunderstanding the wording of this update. Discuss.

[Eira]

This means if I don't like someone, I can just accuse them of being a dragon and killbash them over and over again

Except that's griefing and you can't do that.

What's better? "Hey, kill me so I can prove I'm not a dragon."

At least now someone's entire rp concept won't be dunked into the swamp because they got eaten by goblins at lvl 5.

[NPC Logger Number 2]

At least now someone's entire rp concept won't be dunked into the swamp because they got eaten by goblins at lvl 5.

Now if someone doesn't like you OOC and they have enough OOC friends willing to help them metagame, they can dunk any rp concept you come up with into the swamp, and there's nothing you can do about it ICly. So congrats. Now everyone with enemies is a dragon PC or a yuan-ti.

[Skarain]

With Dragon PC accusations, you can draw some of the suspects blood, if they indeed want to prove their innocence. Then go forth and RP brewing an alchemical concotion that requires dragon blood. Inspect the results between results made with Wyvern blood and the PC's blood. If it lacks potency, the PC is not a dragon.

With Yuan-Ti accusations, you can ask them to strip and do a full-body inspection, paired with some RPed magic that removes illusions. Obviously, that also requires the target to either be captive or willing. Yuan-ti Purebloods can hide their snake-like features with magic, cosmetica and clothing, but such a through search should reveal something suspicion or erase any grounds for.

Does everything have to be mechanically supported? Let's face it. This is a game. The code will be limited, but some rules of FR universe and Lore applies.

A person who refuses to accept anothers innocence after a through inspections is not playing fair and nice, just as a person subjected to such inspections but lying on the results on what would reasonably be found is also not playing fair and nice. Record the case, compose a PM and ask for a DM to be the impartal judge. They are who can enforce the rules and laws of the setting.

The change to corpses is to reduce meta-gaming. If you were playing a Yuan-Ti yourself, let's face it, would you RATHER have someone recognize your dead body with naught but a glance as Yuan-ti and connect it to your person the next time they see you online, simply because you happend to die in PvE and will respawn soon anyways, OR would you rather have the secret to come out in a roleplaying scneario, even if the character was coaxed to it against their will?

Which option generates more enjoyable roleplaying to both sides?

[NPC Logger Number 2]

1. With Dragon PC accusations, you can draw some of the suspects blood, if they indeed want to prove their innocence. Then go forth and RP brewing an alchemical concotion that requires dragon blood. Inspect the results between results made with Wyvern blood and the PC's blood. If it lacks potency, the PC is not a dragon.

2. With Yuan-Ti accusations, you can ask them to strip and do a full-body inspection, paired with some RPed magic that removes illusions. Obviously, that also requires the target to either be captive or willing. Yuan-ti Purebloods can hide their snake-like features with magic, cosmetica and clothing, but such a through search should reveal something suspicion or erase any grounds for.

3. Does everything have to be mechanically supported? Let's face it. This is a game. The code will be limited, but some rules of FR universe and Lore applies.

4. A person who refuses to accept anothers innocence after a through inspections is not playing fair and nice, just as a person subjected to such inspections but lying on the results on what would reasonably be found is also not playing fair and nice. Record the case, compose a PM and ask for a DM to be the impartal judge. They are who can enforce the rules and laws of the setting.

5. The change to corpses is to reduce meta-gaming. If you were playing a Yuan-Ti yourself, let's face it, would you RATHER have someone recognize your dead body with naught but a glance as Yuan-ti and connect it to your person the next time they see you online, simply because you happend to die in PvE and will respawn soon anyways, OR would you rather have the secret to come out in a roleplaying scneario, even if the character was coaxed to it against their will?

Which option generates more enjoyable roleplaying to both sides?

1-2. These are wonderful ideas for role play and in an ideal world this would work. I've tried similar things to prove my character's case in the past and that role play was ignored by the town guards because it was not mechanically supported.

3. WYSIWYG. I tried proving my character's case through role play and it was flat out ignored by everyone, because it was not mechanically supported. So yes, sadly.

4. I've filed such reports and nothing was ever done except I was told to fight fire with fire and do the same back to them and to handle it ICly.

5. I think if you play a secret anything, whether it is secret good, secret evil, secret monster, etc. that there should be a risk of getting caught and you should go into it with the expectation you will be caught. Hiding things through mechanics is fine if there is a mechanical way to beat it, like disguise and spot. This effectively gives 5% monster races their own disguise mechanic which can't be broke by spot or even by death. In the example you gave, your arguments about metagaming and not being nice would also apply. How much faith do you have in a DM report being able to resolve that after everyone in the settlement already knows you are a Yuan-Ti/Dragon/etc.?

[Red_Wharf]

Not all characters from the races covered by this update have characteristics that immediately indicates their true nature, and in a perfect world we would be able find more about their nature through spot or lore checks or what have you, so for now I think this is an okay compromise.

Don't forget too that the description of the corpse and the description of the living character are the same. While you won't be able to tell anymore that a character is a Tiefling by checking the name of their corpse, you may still be able to guess their race out by checking the corpse's description. I know you can't count on everyone to provide enough details for that, but it's something at least.

A non-dragon PC accused of being a dragon now has no mechanical way to prove they are not a dragon.

Eira has a point, though. The only mechanical way to prove that is silly. The whole thing is silly, actually. Who even accuses random people of being dragons? Probably an adventurer clubbed on the head by a Goblin a few too many times.

[NPC Logger Number 2]

Eira has a point, though. The only mechanical way to prove that is silly. The whole thing is silly, actually. Who even accuses random people of being dragons? Probably an adventurer clubbed on the head by a Goblin a few too many times.

Quoting this specifically for the people accusing my character of being a dragon. You said it, not me.

[Batrachophrenoboocosmomachia]

The original issue is partially one of metagaming and partially one of basic QoL for reward races whose basic premise is founded on secrecy.

Both the old and new corpse tagging are a binary behavior, and the only change is that it now blanket protects, instead of blanket exposes. I'm not especially fond of either but I prefer protection to exposure, mostly looking at the issue of PvE deaths standing to expose a character out of pure bad luck, which isn't a fun behavior.

Keeping an eye on this thread, but I'm chiefly interested in non-binary solutions.

[NPC Logger Number 2]

Keeping an eye on this thread, but I'm chiefly interested in non-binary solutions.

Alright, here's a non-binary solution. Make it so monster races drop monster corpses, but with no character names. So if you are standing there when you watch them die you will know they are secretly a polymorphed monster. But if you walk into a dungeon and just see the corpse laying there after they got rekt earlier all you will see is "Corpse (Yuan-Ti)" so you won't know which polymorphed character it belonged to and can't use it to metagame. Done.

[Nitro]

Wow that's some hard slippery slope you're sliding on there.

[Kalopsia]

Keeping an eye on this thread, but I'm chiefly interested in non-binary solutions.

Alright, here's a non-binary solution. Make it so monster races drop monster corpses, but with no character names. So if you are standing there when you watch them die you will know they are secretly a polymorphed monster. But if you walk into a dungeon and just see the corpse laying there after they got rekt earlier all you will see is "Corpse (Yuan-Ti)" so you won't know which polymorphed character it belonged to and can't use it to metagame. Done.

We'd likely have to combine this with a confirmation prompt when people try to raise you, but besides that I really like this idea! :)

[strong yeet]

While there's a rather heavy dose of theatric rhetoric in this thread, I have to say I'm a bit chapped at the change myself; not because I think "body check RP" is particularly interesting or engaging (suddenly everyone's an expert on Yuan-ti infiltrators by seeing a corpse -- you know exactly what I mean) but because now there's no way for anybody to tell that you're a yuan-ti or a dragon or a rakshasa or whatever unless you transform in front of them. Vampires have some mechanical ways, though I'd probably leer at anybody using cure-wounds wands for "vampire checks."

This change doesn't really do much other than highlight a problem that already existed, namely that these races are TOO secret. How do you fix that? The best and least intrusive way is just to encourage people to roleplay better, but that's a lot harder than it sounds and not really possible dev-side anyway.

So how do you accomplish this? I like the thrust of Skarain's ideas, but "detect snake" and draconic blood tests seem a little hamfisted and weirdly specific. It's difficult to fit these things into a way that doesn't also shine a light on the foundation-cracks where very strange or alien races are supposed to "fit in" with the more terrestrial or mundane ones.

Maybe something that detects "illusions" or something, or a high spot check (like, very, very high) to detect something slightly "off" -- but not always. It should be something fallible, both in that it can't always see something wrong, and sometimes you see something wrong that isn't there. I suppose the flaw with this is now either you'll have fairly insular groups, distrusting outsiders without subjecting them to intensive vetting processes (this even more than the ubiquitousness of Discord already encourages), or the change will be... completely meaningless and useless and nobody will care about it except people who aren't "in the know."

All the same, this way is probably a little healthier than the way it was before. But I wouldn't call it, by any means, the way things ought to be. With that being said, if it's not already evident, that perfect blend called what ought to be is a little bit more illusory.

tl;dr I don't know, I don't have a good answer, and I hate these races already and this change puts a big ugly spotlight on all the warts spelling out why.

[Complex]

people can not start bashing over and over claiming you are a dragon/yuan-ti just because this change went live. besides, if someone got a greater/major reward it means that they spent quite some time and effort, and you want to police them on the consequences of dying? this change is here because there was something failing within the community, and it most likely had to do with people bashing liberally and then ruining the monster PCs' concepts. i have seen people parade monster heads around and i am glad that won't be a thing anymore. let people have their fun.

if the way you were finding out someone was a monster PC was because you decided to kill them, maybe find a new plotline to explore? what layer was that adding to the story? 'this evil person that I decided to kill is now double evil because I spy two sharp fangs'.

i agree that there should be ways to detect them, but they shouldn't come from slicing the PCs in half and having a whole forensics episode that you later pass on to all your allies in a neat report. it is fine that these races are too secret because i always expect that the secrecy will help them achieve a certain arc to make it all worth it, but again, having certain ways to tell something is 'off' could be cool.

tl;dr: i'm happy that whole concepts can't be destroyed because of bashing and maybe this will help monster PCs tell better stories. it's okay to have infiltrators.

[Arienette]

I don't think the implication was that randomly killing people to find out what race they are is an acceptable practice. I might not be understanding the change fully but I think this is the point some other players are bringing up:

Prior to this change, Guard Faction suspects for whatever reason that a character is a Suspect Monster. They attack, harass, try to imprison/interrogate the Suspected Monster. For various reasons this could lead to PVP. Suspected Monster dies, Guard Faction carefully inspects the corpse. They see Character Name (Monster Race) and say "Ah, we were right! Job well done."

Alternatively, they inspect the corpse and they see Character Name (Human) and say "Oh no, we have made a terrible mistake!"

Now with this change, they will see Character Name (Human) no matter what the true nature of the character is. Some people might RP this as "terrible mistake" and others might RP it as "Well, there's no way to know for sure. I'm sure we were right though!"

I think I understand the reason for the change but it does have at least this one potential downside, doesn't it?

[Anime Sword Fighter]

with high enough lore/spot can you not determine someone's subrace? I thought you could but IDK how it works

also

This means if I don't like someone, I can just accuse them of being a dragon and killbash them over and over again, and if I'm the more influential member of the community and everyone believes me over them then tough luck there's nothing they can do to prove me wrong ICly.

this is just griefing lol the person doing this should be reported and treated ICly as a murderous lunatic IMO

[Nitro]

I for one think this change is for the better. Corpse check RP was silly, especially when people actually killed each other IC'ly with the excuse of making sure X wasn't a dragon/yuanti/rakshasa. It was a cheap way to bypass any of the suspicion and investigation that you'd otherwise have to put in to find out. Why bother questioning or stalking a person about why they never seem to get poisoned when bitten by giant spiders? Just hit up a quick dash of the old PvP and make 100% sure that they are or are not dave snakeman. Find a dead yuan-ti in the bramble woods? Cut off its head and carry it around to show everyone! Wouldn't want that player to be able to do any of their infiltration RP after all :^)

[Itikar]

I very much agree with those who see this change as positive.

I am not opposed to some characters with specific skills being able to identify a race from a corpse, or directly even without the requirement to have the "specimen" killed, but that everybody suddenly became an expert coroner was a bit silly.

Ditto for the corpse rp to demonstrate one is not a dragon/yuan-ti/whatever. I think it's only a good thing to leave it behind.

[Curve]

Both the old and new corpse tagging are a binary behavior, and the only change is that it now blanket protects, instead of blanket exposes. I'm not especially fond of either but I prefer protection to exposure, mostly looking at the issue of PvE deaths standing to expose a character out of pure bad luck, which isn't a fun behavior.

The reason behind this statement is sound and true. It is the lesser of two evils, as good of a solution as exists.

Beyond that I can't imagine outing someone because they are not getting poisoned by spiders, or because I read their tracks, or found their corpse. I am not a super-rper but that feels cheap and I want to be better than that. On the other hand, if someone wants to never be found out as a special monster and gives no leeway to be found out I guess they just get the win on that one. I can not control other players, only myself.

[Seven Sons of Sin]

Checking corpses to determine race was an awful thing. On par with *describes Ayin Mesmer.*

NPC Logger, you gotta find some new groups to roleplay with. Hit me up. The server's not all bad.

[Dreams]

I think this is a great change. It shifts the focus more onto the RP of a character and less on the 'Haha I mechanically saw <RACE> so now I know it, my character knows it for sure, there can be no doubt, I 100% know it and if anyone asks I'll also tell them I saw their body when they were dead because then other people will also 100% know and believe me, which is something I also somehow 100% know'.

It's good for the players of these races because it doesn't potentially kill their concept due to lag or bad luck. It's good for other people because it should be a realisation that 'I need to focus more on RP and less on mechanics'.

[Xerah]

When I was playing a yuan-ti, I was always worried that I'd die while out and someone would find my body and know I was a yuan-ti ruining the entire concept. Yuan-ti are not supposed to revert to snake-ish form on death either.

If someone wants to RP the death of their character and turning into their natural form, then if they get raised they can do that.

The other reason this is required is because of metagaming. If you see a character is [monster] you can tell everyone and they can always know that [character name] is a [monster]. In a real D&D setting, there are no account names or floating names over heads, so this isn't as problematic since the creature can easily become someone totally new.

[Quidix]

I too see this as a really positive change - one should not rely on "examining dead bodies" for mechanical proof.

[Jagel]

Yeah the “reveal on death” is a bit like the old arc of light in Benwick that would reveal evil alignments. Not fun

[Party in the forest at midnight]

The entire premise of the thread is insane. Has anyone ever gone and accused people randomly of being a dragon, yuan-ti, or rakshasa? And if so, has anyone ever taken it seriously, without having seen a corpse as proof? This is just making up problems that don't exist. And if people start getting paranoid about these races? That's actually good and opens up more RP. You can sound like a tinfoil hat person randomly accusing people of being a shapechanger.

I think it's a lot worse to go "hey I'm not a dragon, kill me and read what my corpse says," that is not only meta but also diminishes the meaning of death.

[DM Rex]

Ultimately, this is a very low faith in your fellow player argument. Unfortunately this doesn't feature the solution that might've been offered up in this thread, and as such will shut it down for now.

Killing people willy nilly is breaking with rule 1 and the suggestion that characters respect the nature of death, rather than flaunt the player knowledge that we respawn until either MoD takes us, or we roll.

If there are concerns of metagaming, you can always reach out to us at the DM Team. Thank you.