The basic idea behind this redesign is to remove the slowness (or at least some of it) from Nagas and instead make naga occupy two square, one for their torso and one for their tail. Slowness is a kind boring mechanic and incredibly limiting and punishing. This redesign still needs a lot of more specifics but here is the gist of the idea.
Tail mechanics:
The tail behaves similarly to other multi-part monsters like kraken (it shares a common HP pool with the torso, shares resistances, etc). It occupies the pervious space that the naga moved through. The naga’s tail has a high and naturally increasing AC from its scales (probably starting at +6 and gradually increasing with levels to something like +10) but they only benefit AC wise from barding. Armor effects are resistances impact both the torso and tail (because magic affects the whole creature). The tail gets a natural EV benefit (+4 maybe?) but doesn’t benefit from shields. Cloud attacks could impact the naga twice. Other non-cloud AOE attacks like Fireball would impact only once but can hit either square.
The other aspects of this redesign are adding Rear Up and Strike as two natural abilities that replace Spit Poison (which is a relatively uninteresting power which quickly become pointless). Rear up uses an entire turn worth of movement but it has the naga raise itself up and bring it tail in closer. This reduces the naga to only occupying one square and hides the tail. The second move is Strike, which can only be done when a naga has Reared Up and allows the naga to launch itself in a straight line up to 5 squares or until it collides with a monster, dealing bonus damage with melee weapons if it does collide. At the end of a Strike, the naga occupies two squares again and can’t Strike again for 5 turns (though they can Rear Up). These values shouldn’t allow a naga to indefinitely kite an enemy by rearing and striking over and over again but would allow them to do some kiting if they are willing to take damage.
Why are tails an interesting downside to a species?
First, while early on the tail is a strong point on the naga but gradually becomes a weak spot on more melee focused players as armor and shields improve. At low levels, the AC is high enough that maybe a smart Naga could even use their tail as a barrier and fight with a weapon with reach. Second, being two squares in size can significantly increase the number of melee attacks you can take per turn when surrounded (two or four more depending on direction of movement). Third, in tight corridors, a monster can attack you but you can’t attack them without reach, swapping squares with your tail or Rearing Up. Fourth, tails can remain in sight of an enemy with ranged attacks when you aren’t. Finally, clouds are much more dangerous and hard to navigate and AOE attack are more likely to hit you.
Overall, tails I think are a major strategic downside but I also think Naga’s would be interesting to play. With the “Rear Up” and “Strike” mechanic, Nagas need to be very strategic in their movement but aren’t as stationary are they currently are with their slow movement. There are a lot of strategic decisions to make (“do I waste a turn rearing up or do I continue to fight with the tail behind me”, “Do I strike to reposition myself and risk having my tail exposed or remain in the fight”). The burst of rapid movement would work well with spell casters and other ranged attackers (especially with spells that make enemy movement slow or dangerous).
Implementation wise, I have not idea how hard this would be but my hope was that existing mechanics for multi-part monsters would have already solved a bunch of these problems.
Thoughts?