Races Re-Done

[For Valor]

This is me playing around with races and race equivalence. How does it look?

Half-Breeds:

Alright, 'cause there are some discrepancies and alternate opinions, there are now multiple ways to do this (goddamn you, Catharz, and your valid points):

A) Mix and match. You get 1 Major ability, 3 minor abilities (for the humans, that's 1 extra skill point each), and 1 extra type of sight (DV, LLV, whatever). Have fun.

B) You can be a half-breed: Pick the major and 1 minor ability from a single race list, and then 2 minor abilities and the visual trait from another race list. You can also be a quarter-breed: Pick 1 ability for each race list, and give the visual trait from a race with a minor ability. Quarter-breeds are basically the same as (A), so half-breeds are recommended.

C) Use pregenerated races. Who knows, maybe your DM believes that LLV is a dominant trait and that secret-door-searching is recessive. There will be pregenerated half-breeds soon.

OH! FORGOT TO MENTION SOMETHING! Half-breeds of the Planeborn are called Planetouched X (Planetouched elf, planetouched dwarf, etc), and half-breeds of Deathborn are Deathtouched just as Dragonborn half-breeds are Dragontouched. Did you see wat I did thar?

HUMANS: Common + 1
Med
Major: 1 Feat
Minor: 3 skill points


ELVES: Common + Elven
Med
Major: +2 Dex
Minor: +2 Spot/Listen, no sleep (4 hour trance), detect secret doors
LLV


DWARVES: Common + Dwarven
Med
Major: +2 Con
Minor: +2 v. spells, stonecunning (including appraise bullshit), dwarven build (+2 v. poison and +4 v. bullrush and trip)
DV


ORCS: Common + Orcish
Med
Major: +2 Str
Minor: (+2 Str, -2 Int), Orcish metabolish (+2 v. poison & disease, immunity to ingested poisons), +2 Athletics/Survival
DV


HALFLINGS: Common + Halfling
Sml
Major: +2 Dex
Minor: +1 to all saves, +2 Athletics/Move Silently, something


GNOMES: Common + Gnomish
Sml
Major: Basic access to either the shadow or deception sphere
Minor: (+2 Con, -2 Str), illusion affinity (+2 v. illusions, +1 when using illusions), +2 Listen/Craft
LLV


HOBGOBLINS: Common + Goblin
Med
Major: +2 Dex
Minor: (+2 Con, -2 Cha/Per), +4 Move Silently, something
DV


GOBLINS: Common + Goblin
Sml
Major: Mounted Combat feat (when not a half-breed, +2 to Ride as well)
Minor: +2 Ride/Move Silently, +10 ft speed, (+2 Dex, -2 Str)
DV


PLANEBORN: Common + 1 plane language (Celestial, Infernal, Abyssal, Modron, Giant Frog, auran, aquan, ignan, terran)
Med
Major: +2 to any stat
Minor: (+2 to stat, -2 to stat), lvl 1 SLA 1/day, +2 to two skills... honestly, this one varies wildly.
DV


DEATHBORN: Common + 1
Med
Major: +2 to any stat
Minor: no sleep (4 hours inactivity), 25% chance to ignore crits & precision damage, no eating necessary
DV


DRAGONBORN:
Med
Major: +2 Con
Minor: Dunno...


PREGENERATED HALF-BREEDS

HALF-ELF (Human/Elf): Common + Elven
Med
Major: +2 Dex
Minor: no sleep (4 hour trance), 2 skill points
LLV


HALF-DWARF (Human/Dwarf): Common + Dwarven
Med
Major: +2 Con
Minor: +2 v. spells, 2 skill points
DV


HALF-ORC (Human/Orc): Common + Orcish
Med
Major: +2 Str
Minor: Orcish metabolish, 2 skill points
DV


QUARTERLING/HALF-HALFLING/STRONGHEART HALFING (Human/Halfing): Common + Halfling
Sml
Major: 1 feat
Minor: 1 skill point, +2 athletics/move silently, something


HALF-GNOME (Human/Gnome): Common + Gnomish
Sml
Major: Basic access to the Shadow or Deception Sphere
Minor: 2 skill points, illusion affinity
LLV


HALF-HOB (Human/Hobgoblin): Common + Goblin
Med
Major: 1 feat
Minor: 1 skill points, +4 Move Silently, (+2 Con, -2 Cha/Per)
DV


HALF-GOBLIN (Human/Goblin): Common + Goblin
Sml
Major: 1 feat
Minor: +2 Ride/Move Silently, +10 ft. speed, 1 skill point
DV


PLANETOUCHED HUMAN (Human/Planeborn): Common + [1 language of the Planes]
Med
Major: 1 feat
Minor: (+2 stat, -2 stat), 1 skill point, lvl 1 SLA 1/day
DV


DEATHTOUCHED HUMAN (Human/Deathborn): Common + 1
Med
Major: +2 stat
Minor: no sleep (4 hours inactivity), 2 skill points
DV


DRAGONTOUCHED HUMAN (Dragon/Dragonborn): Common + Draconic
Med
Major: +2 Con
Minor: ...dunno...

ELVISH VARIANTS:

HIGH ELF: Common + Elvish
Med
Major: +2 Dex
Minor: +2 Spot/Listen, no sleep (4 hour trance), detect secret doors
LLV


DARK ELF (DROW): Common + Undercommon
Med
Major: +2 Dex
Minor: (+60' DV, Light Sensitivity), no sleep (4 hour trance), deeper darkness and faerie fire once per day
DV


AQUATIC ELVES: Common + Aquan
Med
Major: +2 Dex
Minor: Aquatic (breathe water, 40 ft swim speed, drown in air), no sleep (4 hour trance), +2 Spot/Listen
LLV x2


GRAY ELVES: Common + Elvish
Med
Major: +2 Dex
Minor: (+2 Int, -2 Str), no sleep (4 hour trance), detect secret doors
LLV


WILD AND WOOD ELVES: Common + Elvish
Med
Major: +2 Dex
Minor: (+2 Str, -2 Int), +2 Spot/Listen, no sleep (4 hour trance)
LLV


SUN ELVES: Common + Elvish
Med
Major: +2 Int
Minor: +2 Spot/Listen, detect secret doors, no sleep (4 hour trance)
LLV


STAR ELVES: Common + Elvish
Med
Major: Otherwordly Touch (look it up. p11 here),
Minor: (+2 Cha/Wil, -2 Con), no sleep (4 hour trance), detect secret doors
LLV

NOTE: Sun Elves are Outsider (Elf, Extraplanar)

[Maxus]

Well, I would argue half-dwarves could get a +2 Str. Why? They're combining the dense muscle of a dwarf with human leverage. Look up the chart--the average dwarf is, like, a foot shorter than a human. But at the same time, a nice chunk heavier. Dwarves are solid, man.

But mix-and-matching does have the benefit of being simple.

[CatharzGodfoot]

I'm a bit confused on how this mix & match works. You example 1/3 elf 1/3 dwarf 1/3 tiefling seems to have the elf major ability, one elf minor ability, two tiefling minor abilities, one dwarf minor ability, and darkvision which may have come from tiefling or dwarf.

Can I play a 1/4 gnome 1/4 human 1/4 goblin 1/4 planeborn with minor access to Shadow, +3 skill points per level, +10 to speed, +2 Int/-2 Wis, identify 1/day, medium size, low light vision, and darkvision?

Questions of how it works aside, with this system there's never a reason to play a member of a specific race. Every character will be some kind of species mish-mash designed to Min/Max her abilities.

What does it even mean to be a lizardman kobold dragonborn / deathborn / planeborn? What do you eat? You might as well throw away the concept of 'race' for a min/max point buy list and tell people that they can look however they want.

[For Valor]

The breakdown is:

1 Major Ability
3 Minor Abilities
1 extra type of sight (maybe)

You do whatever you want when you mix-match. I suppose you could put a cap on that somehow, but I'm not going to. And yeah, I accidently added in one extra minor ability. Changing that now.

So that answers your question about the 1/4 nonsense. You've picking up to 5 special abilites. One must be major, one must be minor, and you only get 1 extra type of sight.

Yes, there almost IS never a reason to play a member of a specific race. However, some DM's call the optimizing that race-mixing entails bullshit and will get all up in your grill about it.

I'll do something about the mixed breeds clause.

On eating:

dragonborns eat whatever dragonborns eat (RotD). Planeborns eat whatever demons, celestials, elementals, and the planetouched eat. Deathborn eat what zombies eat... namely, brains.

And yes, the system could basically be a point-buy. But what I've given here is a concrete way of saying "OK, you're an elf. Take abilities A, B, C, D, and E." That way the player feels like they've been given a definite race. Some people could give a damn about what they're named, but others like to be able to write "Wild Elf" on their char sheet under "names".

@Maxus: Well, I suppose that's true. However, there could be a similar argument for -2 strength. Human weight with the dwarf's size.

[Koumei]

Dwarves are fat, man.

Fixed

[PhaedrusXY]

Dwarves are fat, man.

Fixed

No they're not! They're just big boned!

[For Valor]

Dwarves are fat, man.

Fixed

No they're not! They're just big boned!

aw, man, look what you've done to poor gimli.

[CatharzGodfoot]

On eating:

dragonborns eat whatever dragonborns eat (RotD). Planeborns eat whatever demons, celestials, elementals, and the planetouched eat. Deathborn eat what zombies eat... namely, brains.

K, but what do dragonborn/planeborn/deathborn eat? Raw invisible stalker brains?

[For Valor]

Races of the Dragon says nothing about what Dragonborn eat, so I'm gonna say that they eat like regular humans and all.

Planeborn eat what outsiders eat. I have no idea how that works, but I really don't care.

Deathborn are zombies. They don't need to eat. Hell, I'll make that their last minor ability.

Moral of the story: I really could give a damn.

[Prak]

Dragonborn isn't really a true breeding race, it's a magical dragon-spunk infusion process or something, giving you an over coat of scales (I don't recall if you keep your original race traits, though I personally think you should...) hence why female dragonborns tend to have tits. They just magic dragon-spunk scales on them like a second suit. I imagine they eat whatever they ate as their original race.

[For Valor]

In RotD, they make you lose all your racial traits other than penalties (daylight sensitivity) and stat mods, actually. And then they give you some benefits, based on what you pick--breath weapon, flight, or sight ability bullshit.

[Kaelik]

In RotD, they make you lose all your racial traits other than penalties (daylight sensitivity) and stat mods, actually. And then they give you some benefits, based on what you pick--breath weapon, flight, or sight ability bullshit.

No, they don't make you keep penalties. Daylight sensitivity goes away.

[For Valor]

Are you sure? Checking now...