Wacky Races

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Fri Mar 21, 2014 11:14 pm

EDIT: I wound up using this as a general dumping ground for questions about my efforts to rebalance races. So I guess I'm taking a stab at writing the Tome of Tiamat? In any case, the meat of the thread begins with my giant long post near the bottom of the first page. Feel free to skip the rest.

The Tome Aasimar has the ability to cast Light once per day. Is there any reason this ability isn't at-will? I don't see how the ability to produce a magical torch could easily be abused no matter how often you use it. Even if it had a duration long enough to mass-produce semi-permanent light sources, that still strikes me as interesting setting flavor rather than something that will break the economy.

A Man In Black · Post by **A Man In Black** » Fri Mar 21, 2014 11:26 pm

Light at-will gives you a magic marker that can write on anything.

Gnorman · Post by **Gnorman** » Fri Mar 21, 2014 11:27 pm

This is conjecture, but possibly because of issues regarding solar power / photosynthesis?

Lokathor · Post by **Lokathor** » Sat Mar 22, 2014 12:06 am

Most of the racial spell like abilities for the playable races are once per day. It's probably just for consistency.

I'd probably just let a player cast Light as often as they want with a stipulation that they can only have 1 light active at a time. If they cared. Aasimar also have Darkvision so they probably don't really care.

Light at-will gives you a magic marker that can write on anything.

So does a piece of chalk. Or a jar of honey. Or lots of other things. Even if this became a totally unique ability of the race (that is: the ability to mark things, but also the mark is either "marked" or "not marked" without further info, and also everyone else can see your marks not just you), I still can't imagine people switching to Aasimar in droves just to get this ability.

RadiantPhoenix · Post by **RadiantPhoenix** » Sat Mar 22, 2014 12:06 am

Maybe it's supposed to parallel the Tiefling? If it is, though, I'd probably go with Daylight instead.

Or just go with Light at will and discard the parallel, whichever.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Sat Mar 22, 2014 12:06 am

Light lasts 10 minutes per level. I don't think it would be useful for mass-producing semi-permanent light sources or writing messages. It does mean you always have torches to hand to your friends, though. Which is... not at all a problem.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Sat Mar 22, 2014 5:13 am

Here's a distantly related question from the same project: Are there any implications for Hobgoblins having very short lives? Some research on the internet informs me that Goblin-Goblins typically only live to be about 50 years old, and I'd like to keep as many things consistent amongst Goblin types as possible, but if having lives that short is going to seriously impede the Hobgoblins' ability to build empires, then I'll have to bump them up to Human lifespan.

AndreiChekov · Post by **AndreiChekov** » Sat Mar 22, 2014 10:31 pm

There is no reason for a short life span to ruin empire building. In Mass Effect, the Salarians only live to be 40, but they have all sorts of technology, and are famous for being scientists.
Besides, the usefulness of a human ends around 50 anyway, unless they are a magic user of some sort. Muscle decay, and the like... etc.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Sat Mar 22, 2014 11:32 pm

The Salarians are fictitious, so all they prove is that the Mass Effect audience is willing to swallow short-lived empire-builders without noticing anything wrong. Of course, Hobgoblins are also fictitious, so that's really all I need, but it's not the same as an argument that short lifespans will not impede empire-building in the actual real world.

Also, while Humans of 50+ years are not terribly useful, Goblins hit that point sooner. They're middle-aged at 20, and enter old age when they're just 30 years old.

TarkisFlux · Post by **TarkisFlux** » Sat Mar 22, 2014 11:40 pm

I can make some shit up that sounds reasonable if it helps with your empire problems Chamomile.

While you get less direct contribution out of any individual in a short life span species, you also have a much shorter time when the old guard can hold progress back because they're grognards. Generational change happens much more quickly, so any empire growth that happens as a result of that is likely enhanced. Empire growth that happens as a result of individual power acquisition and drive is likely reduced, however. So you get fewer Napoleon's and more cultural expansion because of things like printing press tech adoption. Empires may also be more prone to burn out, because of a decreased presence of elder wisdom (it's useful once in a while) and the adoption of new tech / beliefs / fads without proper consideration.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Mar 22, 2014 11:41 pm

Honestly, with the goblin lifestyle, I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't actually accumulate age penalties, possibly indicating that goblin lifespan is actually due to attrition.

codeGlaze · Post by **codeGlaze** » Sun Mar 23, 2014 1:49 am

Their age penalties could come online at 40 instead of 50 with the caveat that they burn out faster. Sort of like when some people retire they begin to 'age' more quickly, goblinoids could have an extraordinary 'prime' then
burn out, hence a typical span of 50.

Sort of like how little kids are whirlwinds ALL DAY, then their head hits a pillow and they're done.

Goblinoids live fast, live hard and burn out early. You could even keep them relatively hardy until they're basically knocking on death's door. Their 'old age' doesn't have to mirror humans. It may even be more interesting to people that way.

Another example, dogs. Most dogs I've owned have stayed pretty fit and active their entire lives. Even 'on their way out'. They slowed down toward the far end of old age, but they still wanted to get out, play, run around and do shit that even middle aged humans look at and say 'fuck that'.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun Mar 23, 2014 1:56 am

Yeah, that's kind of what I'm getting at, that goblins' lives are so demanding that they have to stay ablebodied until they drop dead, those that don't drop dead sooner. Maybe they die at 50 because they live so hard, and goblins that had an easier life would actually live longer, sort of like as our society improves and makes our lives easier, our lifespans go up (barring leisure/surplus induced causes of death such as heart disease and clogged arteries).

codeGlaze · Post by **codeGlaze** » Sun Mar 23, 2014 2:19 am

Prak_Anima wrote:Yeah, that's kind of what I'm getting at, that goblins' lives are so demanding that they have to stay ablebodied until they drop dead, those that don't drop dead sooner. Maybe they die at 50 because they live so hard, and goblins that had an easier life would actually live longer, sort of like as our society improves and makes our lives easier, our lifespans go up (barring leisure/surplus induced causes of death such as heart disease and clogged arteries).

I noticed that was what you meant in your original post after I went back and read it a second time. Your wording was a little confusing. XD

I actually liked my dog analogy more, the more I thought about it. Even dogs now are pretty pampered (and mutts can live for a loooong time), but their life span is still pretty short. But they still manage to maintain strength and energy pretty well from beginning to end.

It's entirely possible that is just how they "evolved" because of their penchant for war or environment.

Oh, and historically some of the bigger empires were carved out by really young doodz.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Sun Mar 23, 2014 2:50 am

This post turned out to be way huge, so tl;dr I am houseruling in lots of odd races, and if you want to help but not badly enough to read the whole thing, just read the first two paragraphs and then skim the rest for a specific race or two you'd like to comment on. It's not like you need to read my musings on playable Driders to give helpful advice on making playable Trolls.

@Tarkis: Sounds good to me. No one's brought anything up, so I'll assume there's no particular reason to believe short-lived races can't build empires with the best of them.

Now on to questions concerning what level it would be appropriate to play certain bizarre creatures. Using Frank's one post on monster races as a guide, I'm experimenting with trading magic item slots for powers. Since this list is extremely long, feel free to cherry pick just one or two of the races and respond specifically to them. Also maybe this should be a new thread?

-Aquatic races. Assuming the campaign takes place underwater, is the Aquatic Elf usable as-written? Seems decent to me, but I'm not a balance expert. Related: If we make Sahuagin +2 STR, +2 INT, -2 WIS, take away the Blood Frenzy and Rake (assume that NPC Sahuagin get this from having a Barbarian-flavored variant on the Warrior class), and the Sahuagin basically has two abilities, which are "blindsense 30 ft." and "can't possibly be used in any adventure that takes place more than a few miles from the coastline." Unless I'm underestimating the utility of blindsense, that seems workable as a standard 0 LA race. Add in Merfolk as Humans with a swim speed and Tritons as a +2 WIS Druid-y race (rip out their ability to summon Water Elementals and replace it with a Gnome-esque set of water-themed cantrips) and we have four races for underwater fun, which I think meets the bare minimum. Granted, I'm not entirely clear on what the pragmatic difference between Merfolk and Tritons actually is, but if further study doesn't reveal any I can just make something up.

-Centaur. Is there any reason these guys can't just be a regular playable race? Sure, they have natural armor and +8 Strength for no damn reason at all, but if we tuned their stat bonuses down to +2 Strength, +2 Wisdom, -2 Intelligence and ripped out the natural armor and also tossed the racial hit dice/skills/feats, their only real trick of note becomes a 50 ft. movement rate and large size, and probably we should add in something about how climbing is no. Those tricks are neat, but are they significantly more neat than Gnome illusions, Halfling stealth, or the Orc's +4 to Strength? Also, concerning that statline: Which sounds more centaurian, +2 Strength or +2 Constitution?

-Driders. If we assume their Sorcerer spellcasting is due to actual levels in Sorcerer, these guys have a climb speed (not quite trash, but close), spell resistance that player versions don't need to have, some poison that is in my rough estimation about a level 3 effect, and some spell-like abilities, most of which are trash, but levitate, dispel magic, and suggestion definitely aren't. Would a Drider feel like less of a Drider if these more powerful spell-likes were dropped? A Drider could probably be given Drow ability adjustments and offered at level 1 if the poison were adjusted to scale with level. With the spell-likes and the poison, I'd place it somewhere around level 4, maybe 5, but I'm not really certain about that.

-Genies. Is there any way to make these guys playable without necessarily handing out free wishes to the entire party? A level ~6 genie buddy seems like a perfectly reasonable mid-level character for a planar adventure except for the fact that he is 100% guaranteed to immediately catapult the party into the wish economy.

-Minotaurs. These guys are basically just "bigger Orcs," so I think the only thing they need to have slapped onto them is a level minimum that guarantees a certain amount of HP (minimum level 3 should be enough, maybe even level 2) and an inherent +1/3 level STR effect like you get from a Tome item, and then also copy the Orc's +4 to Strength on top of that. They also get to be large. But I can't escape the feeling that I'm missing something.

-With Ogres I have basically the same question as with Minotaurs. But Minotaurs are first alphabetically and I'm constructing this list by going through the Monster Manual's contents and looking for things players might reasonably want to play as. If Ogres are meaningfully different from Minotaurs (or, for that matter, from any variety of Giant) please let me know.

-Satyrs. Getting towards the end of the alphabet here. Without pipes, a Satyr has DR, +10 ft. move speed, and low-light vision and that's it. If we tie DR to 1/3 level rather than giving a flat +5, this is a level 1 character, albeit one who is allowed one less magic item than his buddies. Ability adjustments are kinda crazy, though: +2 to everything but Strength. That's not really unbalanced because either you're MAD and need all the help you can get or you're SAD and don't care about anything but one your one stat, but it does make Satyr the do-anything race. It's not a huge deal, but I don't think Satyrs would be ruined by being reduced to a +2 DEX +2 CHA race. Of course, this is all without pipes, and pipes are a big part of being a Satyr, but I think that's something best covered by a Bard substitution level rather than being built directly into the race.

-How big a deal is the Troglodyte stench ability? Is this something that's worth losing a magic item slot for? Or is it something that can be handed out for free? I don't think Troglodytes need a level minimum if we scale their natural armor back a bit, and maybe drop the CON bonus to +2. I don't think CON is so useful that having a +4 bonus to it is immediately broken, but the average gamer might not think so.

-3.X Trolls don't have any kind of fast healing. This always struck me as odd. In any case, regeneration is not an amazingly large boost, so the only question here is 1) should Trolls have some kind of fast healing? And 2) How low a level can a Troll be while still having enough hit dice to reasonably be a Troll? Also: The Troll needs a STR and CON bonus significantly higher than recommended Tome items can actually grant. A Book of Gears ability bonus will be granting +2 even at level 4-6, but a Troll needs pretty significant bonuses on top of that. At the same time, STR and CON are not nearly as big of a deal for a creature with a level minimum of 4 as for one you can play at level 1. Would it be a big deal if playable Trolls just got to have like a +6 to STR and CON?

-Werecreatures. I'd like a unified method of handling these rather than making separate race entries for werebear, werewolf, weretiger, wereshark, wererat, werespider, and every other were that people might want to be. Advice on that would be welcome.

-Also, if there are any odd races that aren't on here that you think players might reasonably want to play, feel free to mention. I am aware that this list covers no outsiders or undead. I'm holding off figuring out what to do with them pending a reread of the Tomes of Fiends and Necromancy to refresh myself on what amount of that work has already been done for me. That said, if you have an awesome idea for how to handle playable mummies or something, that's cool too.

codeGlaze · Post by **codeGlaze** » Sun Mar 23, 2014 3:05 am

Chamomile wrote:-Werecreatures. I'd like a unified method of handling these rather than making separate race entries for werebear, werewolf, weretiger, wereshark, wererat, werespider, and every other were that people might want to be. Advice on that would be welcome.

There've been a TON of conversations on how to handle "Were"s and Vamps. Because they're largely the same problem. I don't think anyone has come up with a solution that even a majority of people are happy with.

Assuming you find a way to make Were-creatures viable as a race though...

Figure out a basic set of shit that ALL were-things get, then have a list for the "animal specific" traits they get. You could combine them into larger groupings like 'canine', 'feline', 'rodent' ... etc.

So all were-things get a generic STR boost, then a canine could get a further STR boost and some kind of scent or tracking ability. Felines maybe get a small DEX boost and... something something...

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Sun Mar 23, 2014 3:31 am

Do you happen to know of any conversations on weres or vamps which might be particularly helpful? Familiarizing myself with what's been suggested (or better yet, tried) and why other people hated it would be very useful.

darkmaster · Post by **darkmaster** » Sun Mar 23, 2014 4:09 am

Felines get a dex bonus and the ability to lick any part of their body, duh.

codeGlaze · Post by **codeGlaze** » Sun Mar 23, 2014 4:24 am

Chamomile wrote:Do you happen to know of any conversations on weres or vamps which might be particularly helpful? Familiarizing myself with what's been suggested (or better yet, tried) and why other people hated it would be very useful.

This is a relatively recent Frankism on lycanthropy:

FrankTrollman wrote:If you were going to make a brand new edition, you'd want to give people limits on how many buffs or magic items they could have at one time (or both). Once you instituted something like that, then the initial transformation into a Werewolf could eat into those limits and then you could become a werewolf in play and have that be a balanced thing.

The problem with having Lycanthropy use up feats or levels or any other advancement option is that players aren't liable to have a lot of those to spend in the middle of an adventure when they get bitten by a Wereswan. Such systems can be balanced, but only in the sense of "you must be Xth level to play a Weremoose", it doesn't do what people want it to do for acquired lycanthropy.

For Lycanthropy to be acquired in play, you need to already have a fungible power currency to spend on such things. It could be magic item slots, buff limits, or essentia, but it has to already exist as part of the game before acquired lycanthropy is going to be a thing that isn't extremely shitty.

Going forward into 5th edition, it's shit like this that should be high priority for the designers. Of course, what we actually have is Mike Mearls shitting himself while repeatedly bumping headfirst into the same basic design contradictions that are decades old and already satisfactorily solved in a dozen ways by games that came out in the previous century.

I recall conversations about lycanthropy and/or vampirism taking up magic item slots, specifically... I'll see if I can find it... or maybe someone else has it at hand.

edit: sorry about the tag.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Sun Mar 23, 2014 4:32 am

@Aquatic Elves: They are regular elves, but tougher and dumber and they can go on underwater adventures. If regular elves are okay, they are too.

@Centaurs: If the party ever has to leave behind their horses, they probably also have to leave behind the centaur PC. With that limitation in mind, it's not hard to make a level 1 appropriate centaur. They are defined by being fast and being buff.

@Driders: People who say they want to play a drider are probably telling you they want the spider parts, not the drow parts. Make sure you get them a climb speed and a poisonous bite, and drop all the "drow are magical" bullshit in order to make it a level 1 race.

@Genies: Someone made a Genie class. It gets the "grant 3 wishes a day" thing at level 11. It is kind of underwhelming - it doesn't get a lot of abilities, a lot of them are less about OOMPH and more about flavor, and it gets them fairly slowly to boot. I think someone made some level 1 genasi-ish races which were meant to serve as launchpads into it, but I would give class an overall polishing if you wanted PC's to pick them and not feel bad about it.

@Minotaurs: Slap a minimum level on them, give them an orc-like base, then fill in an item slot or two with minotaur-important things, like STR buffs, large size, and goring people to death.

@Ogres: This is pretty much the same problem as the minotaur.

@Satyrs: I don't think people who want to play a satyr really care about the DR or whether or not the stat bonuses are big enough. They want to play a woodsy and musical goatdude. I would look at the Tome Feytouched, because they already make a really damn good satyr. Make the magic pipes a feat (see Tome persuasive for some inspiration) or a racial paragon class or whatever.

@Troglodyte: It happens every fight, but it hits friends and foes and is a relatively mild debuff. It's hard to get worked up about. As for the +4 con bonus, I just want to make an aside: don't approach this as turning monster entries into playable races. Approach this as creating playable races which are thematically the same as what's inside those monster entries. Thinking about whether or not you should keep the +4 con bonus from the troglodyte entry is a bad approach. You should instead be thinking about what things in the troglodyte entry are thematically troglodyte, and then figuring out how to turn this into the lowest level race you can. This isn't to say +4 con is out of line, I'm just concerned that you're asking that question because the troglodyte in the SRD has +4 con. Who cares? I couldn't have even told you troglodytes had a racial bonus to con, because all I remember about them is that they're stinky and stealthy.

@Trolls: Trolls are ogres who gave up another magic item slot. That item slot gives them their con bonus and regeneration. Regeneration lets you regrow lost body parts and piece yourself back together, which is super troll.

@Werecreatures, vampires, templates applied during play: People are already covering this one. You basically slap a minimum level on the template (people below that level just die during transformation, or otherwise fail to become the thing they are supposed to), and it costs magic item slots.

Also, fix yer tags, codeGlaze.

TarkisFlux · Post by **TarkisFlux** » Sun Mar 23, 2014 5:07 am

Vampirism and lycanthropy conversation starts here-ish. It mostly devolved into 'use feats or items, but really items', and then was never hashed out because the thread wasn't really about that. If you're going to use items to give people positive things from these afflictions (like control of it, as a start), make it scale to level. Item slots normally scale from unused to lesser to moderate to greater, so not scaling the thing that can't be removed from that slot is just mean. You can require that unlocking new available things requires a time investment, so that new high level vampires aren't quite as vampirey as old high level vampires... if that's a thing you care about I guess. But scaling seems pretty non-negotiable if you don't want people just curing it after they outgrow the power they get from it.

You can do the same thing with feats, but that has problems with acquisition timing that item slots don't have.

Wiseman also wrote a lycanthrope paragon class, if you wanted discussion about that option.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Sun Mar 23, 2014 5:15 am

I'm not really looking for discussion on how to make lycanthropy work as a transformation template that can be applied to a character who is already balanced. I've already seen those discussions and am already using a certain system for them (specifically, the system where the transformation eats your magic item slots and replaces them with powers). What I'm hoping for is some way to make all were creatures work off the same basic formula. Makes it easier to write up ~6 of the suckers.

EDIT: Although I should note that the other contributions to this thread are appreciated.

codeGlaze · Post by **codeGlaze** » Sun Mar 23, 2014 5:21 am

Chamomile wrote:I'm not really looking for discussion on how to make lycanthropy work as a transformation template that can be applied to a character who is already balanced. I've already seen those discussions and am already using a certain system for them (specifically, the system where the transformation eats your magic item slots and replaces them with powers). What I'm hoping for is some way to make all were creatures work off the same basic formula. Makes it easier to write up ~6 of the suckers.

So you decide what is going to be the same and what is going to be different. Like I said above.

Most of my friends would consider any were-thing to be stronger than a human. So give every were-race a small bonus to STR. Maybe some other flat perks like a small bonus to perception skills.

Then decide what will be different. So canines get another boost to STR while felines get a boost to DEX.

They all get X for being "were-thing", then they get 1/2/3 extra perks from their specific grouping. Maybe they all get a stat boost, a skill boost, and a feat that all tie into their animal type.

TarkisFlux · Post by **TarkisFlux** » Sun Mar 23, 2014 5:28 am

DSMatticus wrote:@Genies: Someone made a Genie class. It gets the "grant 3 wishes a day" thing at level 11. It is kind of underwhelming - it doesn't get a lot of abilities, a lot of them are less about OOMPH and more about flavor, and it gets them fairly slowly to boot. I think someone made some level 1 genasi-ish races which were meant to serve as launchpads into it, but I would give class an overall polishing if you wanted PC's to pick them and not feel bad about it.

It's credited to Frank on the wiki (link), but I can't find it posted here to confirm that. IGTN incorporated it into his Book of Elements work (with some tweaks I guess since it's not a direct include) along with some Genasi rewrites that could advance into it.

AndreiChekov · Post by **AndreiChekov** » Sun Mar 23, 2014 5:30 am

One aquatic race I've always liked is the Aventi from Stormwrack or Stormwreck or storm tossed or something. Basically they get 30 swim speed, and amphibious, and human skill bonus. I allow my players to pick a con or wis boost when playing them.

Centaurs are my favourite race. I honestly don't think that being large is an advantage for centaurs, because they don't get any of the benefits of it. (bigger weapons). So, when I wrote my own Centaur, the first thing I did was make them long medium.

Ever played Skyrim? Centaurs can totally climb

. But seriously, if you have a rope, then you tie it to something at the top, and then the centaur climbs up. And if you are playing a game where you are going to be leaving the horses behind (Because cave, tunnel, racist king, etc...) then you just say no centaur. Leave a warning on the race or something.

Lycanthropy is a really easy thing in my opinion, because you can just make it a race, and then if you are infected you become that race.

About Minotaurs: +2 Str, Powerful build, gore natural weapon, always knows true north and up and down. There; A complete race in four things.

Also, were pixies ever mentioned anywhere? I think they are pretty cool. In a sparkly MLP sort of way.