Race Revisions and Race Trait system

[AcidBlades]

I often find the race selection in 3.5 to be a tad bit disappointing. This is a mixture of my own homebrew campaign ideas, but it is meant to be general enough for anyone to use.

1 - INTRODUCTION TO RACE TRAITS

It's a simple system really, in most races you want to have 4 trait systems. 10 cultural traits that is common in those in that society, and another set of traits that represent abnormal/super human abilities. These are typically 3-4 in number. Mutations cost 2 instead of 1 point though, so choosing a double mutant will leave you no room for a cultural character.

Certain races may deviate from this number though.

Orcs for example have 8 mutations to choose from, due to their lack of cultural sophistication and high suspect ability to environmental changes as a wee babe.

Races are assumed to have an average of +2 to their ability score totals.

2 - HUMANS and their HALF-BREEDS

Humans are, compared to other races, particularly successful whenever it comes to breeding and killing the fuck out of things. The normal human lacks much in the way of individual power, and thus turns to abstract concepts such as "kingdom", "nation", "church" for their reason to stay alive.

Humans are a social species of serial monogamists. Seeking "The one" until they breed up to 1-6 small, defenseless babies. Compared to other babies, human babies are particularly weak, unable to endure alcohol like dwarf babies, nor are they able to swallow leaves, like elf babies. As such they rely on breast milk a lot more than other babies. To determine how much children that an old, heterosexual couple has. Roll d6. Then roll 1d3 to determine how many of those children died during their formative years do to disease. If the second roll is higher than the first roll, the character is not considered dead, but a lone child. Same as it would apply to a character who's parents had 4 children, but lost 3 of them to polio.

Humans are medium whenever it comes to hair length, short on body-hair length and physically taller than the majority of races. Despite the height advantage, humans are rather weak-per-muscle and rely on their sturdy stamina to survive out in the wild. Giving them a +2 CON, often they are gifted mentally in one other area giving +2 to whichever mental statistic that you wish.

HUMAN TRAITS

Roll 1d10 or just choose these traits for yourself.

The theme is based on domesticated animals

1. Dog: Gains an overall 1+ to Will saves, and prof. in any piercing weapon that is Martial or Simple. Each time that you see a person die, you gain a cumulative +1 to Fort and Will saves that stacks up to 2+. The effect lasts for a minute, though certain dramatic situations require more. If a party member (including animal companions, cohorts but excluding strangers, familiars, undead, summons, planar allies.) you gain +4 to Will and Fort saves, that doesn't stack with the previous bonus.

2. Sheep: Gain +2 to Diplomacy and Sense Motive checks, may take one skill as it always being available as a class skill. No matter the class. Seduction is also easier for you, and you gain +1 AC and +2 to all Charisma skill checks whenever you are covering less than 1/4 of your body with your attire.

3. Pigs: Gain an overall +3 to Appraise checks, followed by +2 to Diplomacy and Bluff checks. Keeping 500 gold gives you +1 to all saving throws. Keeping 2000 gold gives you 10 feet of movement for your Run. Gain additional 10 feet per 2000 gold you have after to a maximum of 30 feet of movement. "Gold" could also be used to signify useless trinkets, gems and the like. But not equipment that has in-game mechanical use. (outside of using gems for material components and crafting. Artwork too)

4. Horse: +5 feet to overall movement speed. Gain an additional +5 of movement speed during a run. You may also run 3 more rounds. Gain +3 to Overrun Maneuvers. +2 to Jump, Balance, and Survival checks. You may carry 10 lbs of weight plus your STR mod times 3 more than the average person.

5. Goat: Gain +2 to all Poison resistances. You may devour rotten food and not suffer from illness. Gain your STR mod to resist charm and illusion effects, and you require 1/2 of the food that regular people need to do, in order to survive.

6. Cow: Bull's Strength and Bear's Endurance lasts 1/hours when cast on you. Gain +2 to Intimidate and Diplomacy skill checks, and gain +2 to Bullrush and Overrun attempts.

7. Cat: Gain +1 to all Charisma skill checks. Cat's Grace lasts 1/hours when cast on you. Pounce at the sacrifice of losing your Dex to armor class and 1d6 HP. +2 to Escape Artist, Move Silently and Hide skill checks.

8. Chicken: Instead of a +2 to one Mental ability score, instead they get +1 to all their mental ability scores. +2 to Intimidate, Spot and Listen checks. +1 to resist poison and disease. You may also attempt to spit an enemy, as chickens are good at spitting. They need to pass a 10 + STR MOD Reflex DC check and then to make a 10 + STR MOD Fort DC check or suffer blindness. If they fail the reflex save, but pass the Fort save. Then treat them as they are dazzled.

9. Donkeys: Gain +4 STR bonus to inventory cargo. Gain a 1d4+1/2STR Slam attack that can only be used a secondary Natural Attack. It stacks with other Slam Attacks that you might gain. +3 to Spot checks

10. Duck: Gain a +2 check to Grapple Maneuvers. +2 to Bluff and Diplomacy checks. Reroll a failed Reflex save once per day. +1 to all saving throws.

HUMAN MUTATIONS

1. Sublimation to Dark Instinct: These humans have been corrupted by the empty, thoughts of darkness. This emptiness robs complex thought, inducing a -4 Int malus, but a +2 to all of the other stats. You also get Darkvision 60' and you may cast Mage's Hand 4/day. Using the highest mental stat to give a bonus to how much weight that particular Mage's Hand can carry. So with 16 CHA, the Sorcerer uses it's Racial ability to snag a 8 pound dog.

2. Close to the Bestial side: You may not choose this mutation along with the others. You may shape-shift into a creature of the two-cultural traits that it represents. As such a character with the Horse and Goat trait, may shapeshift into those creatures 1/day. It lasts as long as 1/hours per HD that they possess. Unlike normal shapeshifting rules, you keep whatever stats that you have. Both mental and physical. You may never grow above your own Size, but you may shrink down to the size of the original animal. As such, you would be a medium sized horsed, but you could also be a Tiny Sized Cat. With say 14 STR 14 DEX 15 CON (Mental stats irrelevant.) You also don't heal your HP while you are shape-shift, keeping all wounds, status effects, and other abnormalities like normal.

3. Half-Metal/Wood/Stone: You are fused with the elements around you, physical preferably, but the end result is the same. You gain 2/Bludgeoning DR, Lose -2 DEX and are able to carry objects as if you are one size category larger. You may also choose between a 1d6 slam attack, Powerful Build or the ability to cast the Druid Spell Camouflage at will in non-combat situations.

I'm not going to bother to write more if this turns out to be a stupid idea from the outset, but if nobody is that bothered by it, or if it's a good deal, then I'll write more up for the other common races plus a few of the more popular non-core choices.

[Orion]

It's not clear how this works. You get 4 cultural traits, or 2 mutations, or 2 and 1?

[AcidBlades]

It's not clear how this works. You get 4 cultural traits, or 2 mutations, or 2 and 1?

Exactly. That is more or less uniform amongst the races, unless they are a race that don't possess any cultural or mutation traits. In which case they are forced to pick 2 mutations or 4 cultural traits.

I'm planning on Dwarves and Halflings to have only cultural traits, and Orcs to have only mutation traits though. Maybe I'll think up of some exotic races, but I'm just seeing if it'll work with basic DnD races first. And I'm clear in that this is 3.5 homebrew, which may be reworked into any system that would benefit from it.

[AndreiChekov]

1. Dog: Gains an overall 1+ to Will saves, and prof. in any piercing weapon that is Martial or Simple. Each time that you see a person die, you gain a cumulative +1 to Fort and Will saves that stacks up to 2+. The effect lasts for a minute, though certain dramatic situations require more. If a party member (including animal companions, cohorts but excluding strangers, familiars, undead, summons, planar allies.) you gain +4 to Will and Fort saves, that doesn't stack with the previous bonus.

Fiddly, but both interesting and useful.

2. Sheep: Gain +2 to Diplomacy and Sense Motive checks, may take one skill as it always being available as a class skill. No matter the class. Seduction is also easier for you, and you gain +1 AC and +2 to all Charisma skill checks whenever you are covering less than 1/4 of your body with your attire.

I don't understand why sheep is the one for this. Based on my knowledge of anime, it should be cat or bunny.

This is a good choice for mages to take, since they won't be wearing armour anyway. +4 to diplomacy checks is the sort of thing that is going to be very easy to abuse when breaking the RNG. If you are looking to make this the naked sorcerer party face thing, then, yes sense motive is nice, but their skill points per level, and their class skills... this doesn't help them much. Perhaps rather than choosing any one skill for permanent class skillishness, diplomacy, bluff, intimidate and sense motive are always class skills. (which I could see motivating someone to just take this for the bonus to talking.)

3. Pigs: Gain an overall +3 to Appraise checks, followed by +2 to Diplomacy and Bluff checks. Keeping 500 gold gives you +1 to all saving throws. Keeping 2000 gold gives you 10 feet of movement for your Run. Gain additional 10 feet per 2000 gold you have after to a maximum of 30 feet of movement. "Gold" could also be used to signify useless trinkets, gems and the like. But not equipment that has in-game mechanical use. (outside of using gems for material components and crafting. Artwork too)

This only works in games where the DM doesn't care about carrying capacities. However, this is also something that doesn't really apply until getting to a pretty high level, except for the saving throws bonus. Also, you need to have a type on that saving throws bonus, so that we can tell at a glance if it stacks with cloaks of resistance or not.

4. Horse: +5 feet to overall movement speed. Gain an additional +5 of movement speed during a run. You may also run 3 more rounds. Gain +3 to Overrun Maneuvers. +2 to Jump, Balance, and Survival checks. You may carry 10 lbs of weight plus your STR mod times 3 more than the average person.

Seems like a waste of time beyond 3rd level.

5. Goat: Gain +2 to all Poison resistances. You may devour rotten food and not suffer from illness. Gain your STR mod to resist charm and illusion effects, and you require 1/2 of the food that regular people need to do, in order to survive.

This is not balanced at all to the rest of them. This one is a specific resistance to 3 things, and affects your food in a weird way. Basically, taking this is a waste of time.

6. Cow: Bull's Strength and Bear's Endurance lasts 1/hours when cast on you. Gain +2 to Intimidate and Diplomacy skill checks, and gain +2 to Bullrush and Overrun attempts.

Interesting utility here, I'd pick this as a cleric or druid, but not any other class. because as a fighter unable to cast it on yourself, there still isn't much incentive to take the potential to use something that someone else has.

7. Cat: Gain +1 to all Charisma skill checks. Cat's Grace lasts 1/hours when cast on you. Pounce at the sacrifice of losing your Dex to armor class and 1d6 HP. +2 to Escape Artist, Move Silently and Hide skill checks.

This is so many conflicting things, I don't even know why they are together. Who is meant to take this? They are either going to care only about pounce, or only about the sneaky skill bonuses, and the sneaky skill bonuses aren't enough to be worth taking over dog, Basically, people will only take this for pounce, and if they really want pounce, they will get it from barbarian instead.

8. Chicken: Instead of a +2 to one Mental ability score, instead they get +1 to all their mental ability scores. +2 to Intimidate, Spot and Listen checks. +1 to resist poison and disease. You may also attempt to spit an enemy, as chickens are good at spitting. They need to pass a 10 + STR MOD Reflex DC check and then to make a 10 + STR MOD Fort DC check or suffer blindness. If they fail the reflex save, but pass the Fort save. Then treat them as they are dazzled.

Do you mean llama? Also, this one has too much work to put into using the spit, and it doesn't scale to level, so again this only matters at really low levels. Try this "With a ranged touch attak that requires a standard action to execute, you may spit in the eyes of enemies, up to a range of 10 ft. If the attack hits that enemy must make a reflex save with a DC of 10 + 1/2 of your levels + your dexterity modifier, or be blinded for 1d3 rounds. Even if they succeed on the saving throw, they still take a -1 penalty to attack rolls for 1d3 rounds."

This gives you the two checks that you want, one is on the player, with the ranged touch attack, and the other is on the ref save of the target.

9. Donkeys: Gain +4 STR bonus to inventory cargo. Gain a 1d4+1/2STR Slam attack that can only be used a secondary Natural Attack. It stacks with other Slam Attacks that you might gain. +3 to Spot checks

I suppose that you could combo this with cat and horse, for being a pack mule and pouncing... Although, I really don't see why a 1d4 attack needs to have limits to its use at all. Also, as a secondary attack, it already uses 1/2 strength.

10. Duck: Gain a +2 check to Grapple Maneuvers. +2 to Bluff and Diplomacy checks. Reroll a failed Reflex save once per day. +1 to all saving throws.

I'm seriously baffled here. Was this you just rolling dice to see what would be affected? Why do ducks grapple? Why is there bluff and diplomacy again? Shouldn't ducks have a bonus to swim?

So, this can all be abused to make a diplomancer. I mean, you get all the bonuses to diplomacy, and instantly rule the world. You don't have enough variation in the skills to actually have made this more interesting, it is just more tedious. I think you should make it so that each creature is aimed at a specific character type, and just give them things for that, otherwise you have things in each entry that no body will care about, and that leaves you with useless text that people have to wade through to find useful things.

Also, this all makes me think of strike witches.

I'll get around to looking at mutations at some point.

[Gnorman]

To determine how much children that an old, heterosexual couple has. Roll d6. Then roll 1d3 to determine how many of those children died during their formative years do to disease. If the second roll is higher than the first roll, the character is not considered dead, but a lone child. Same as it would apply to a character who's parents had 4 children, but lost 3 of them to polio.

This sounds a little too much like FATAL to me.

[AcidBlades]

Note that I shall only respond to criticism. Praise is only the bare minimum of what I want to inspire. I will also not respond to the criticism to bland +2 skill modifiers. As they are legitimate. Each one should probably just get only 1 or 2 of those mods. If that.

I don't understand why sheep is the one for this. Based on my knowledge of anime, it should be cat or bunny.

Reason is, because a sheep that is sheered is naked. You don't sheer cats or bunnies. Besides, we haven't domesticated the bunny enough for it to count as an archetype.

This is a good choice for mages to take, since they won't be wearing armour anyway. +4 to diplomacy checks is the sort of thing that is going to be very easy to abuse when breaking the RNG. If you are looking to make this the naked sorcerer party face thing, then, yes sense motive is nice, but their skill points per level, and their class skills... this doesn't help them much. Perhaps rather than choosing any one skill for permanent class skillishness, diplomacy, bluff, intimidate and sense motive are always class skills. (which I could see motivating someone to just take this for the bonus to talking.)

That is just a particularly egregious example of me not understanding proper scale.

This only works in games where the DM doesn't care about carrying capacities. However, this is also something that doesn't really apply until getting to a pretty high level, except for the saving throws bonus. Also, you need to have a type on that saving throws bonus, so that we can tell at a glance if it stacks with cloaks of resistance or not.

I explicitly made the bonuses typeless. Making the bonuses typeless would make some redundant combos useless instead of useful. Most DMs don't seem to count gold for some reason. But I think it's pretty useful whenever you get invested into a character well enough that you need to bounce out of the scene quickly. Though chargers would benefit more from the power.

Seems like a waste of time beyond 3rd level.

Agreed. It is rather useless.

This is not balanced at all to the rest of them. This one is a specific resistance to 3 things, and affects your food in a weird way. Basically, taking this is a waste of time.

Exactly, adding a slam attack would probably make it more useful. Though I don't see much that would redeem it personally. So it will likely get scrapped and replaced with something else.

Interesting utility here, I'd pick this as a cleric or druid, but not any other class. because as a fighter unable to cast it on yourself, there still isn't much incentive to take the potential to use something that someone else has.

No reason to modify it then?

This is so many conflicting things, I don't even know why they are together. Who is meant to take this? They are either going to care only about pounce, or only about the sneaky skill bonuses, and the sneaky skill bonuses aren't enough to be worth taking over dog, Basically, people will only take this for pounce, and if they really want pounce, they will get it from barbarian instead.

The Druid and Cleric (who utterly value their spell casting progression), will value having the pounce. Along with any sort of fighter, monk from Frank's games and not. While non-water balloon rogues will appreciate it's existence. It's a way to get pounce while being lawful. That in it's own, makes Cat's existence worthwhile. The HP damage will make weaker HP characters think twice on activating the ability, but large HP characters wouldn't care that much. Besides, the Tome barbarian has Move Silently, and Hide as class skills. They'd like it quite a lot.

Do you mean llama? Also, this one has too much work to put into using the spit, and it doesn't scale to level, so again this only matters at really low levels. Try this "With a ranged touch attak that requires a standard action to execute, you may spit in the eyes of enemies, up to a range of 10 ft. If the attack hits that enemy must make a reflex save with a DC of 10 + 1/2 of your levels + your dexterity modifier, or be blinded for 1d3 rounds. Even if they succeed on the saving throw, they still take a -1 penalty to attack rolls for 1d3 rounds."

This gives you the two checks that you want, one is on the player, with the ranged touch attack, and the other is on the ref save of the target.

That's excellent enough for me to just want to use what you wrote down. Though I'm not sure if you'd allow me to use it.

I suppose that you could combo this with cat and horse, for being a pack mule and pouncing... Although, I really don't see why a 1d4 attack needs to have limits to its use at all. Also, as a secondary attack, it already uses 1/2 strength.

I just clarified it for those who forgot. So it isn't really redundant, because the rule is already there.

I'm seriously baffled here. Was this you just rolling dice to see what would be affected? Why do ducks grapple? Why is there bluff and diplomacy again? Shouldn't ducks have a bonus to swim?

Ducks primarily mate through rape. Seriously, I recommend reading up on duck mating protocols, as they are fairly interesting and fucked up. As mother nature has shown us, even the most innocent of things, can be truly twisted.

Though your criticism is noted.

Also, this all makes me think of strike witches.

I'll get around to looking at mutations at some point.

The mutations aren't worded well anyways.I'm going to just put the "Errata" that I have for them here.

Besides, I wasn't inspired by Strike Witches. It's kind of Mediocre IMO.

___________________________________________________________________________________ERRATA___________________________________________________________________________________

1. Sublimation to Dark Instinct: These humans have been corrupted by the empty, thoughts of darkness. This emptiness robs complex thought, replacing the normal human stat modifiers, and instead inducing a -4 INT malus while giving a +2 Boni to every other stat. You also get Darkvision 60' and you may cast Mage's Hand 4/day. Using the highest mental stat to give a bonus to how much weight that particular Mage's Hand can carry. So with 16 CHA, the Sorcerer uses it's Racial ability to snag a 8 pound dog.

2. Close to the Bestial side: You may not choose this mutation along with the others. You may shape-shift into a creature of the two-cultural traits that it represents. As such a character with the Horse and Goat trait, may shapeshift into those creatures 1/day. It lasts as long as 1/hours per HD that they possess. Unlike normal shapeshifting rules, you keep whatever stats that you have. Both mental and physical. You may never grow above your own Size, but you may shrink down to the size of the original animal. As such, you may not become anything more than a medium sized cow (medium relative to DnD not the normal cow), but you may shrink yourself into the size of a common house cat. Inducing the size modifiers to the creature of that size. Unlike normal Tome-brew polymorphing, your mental stats are retained. Instead of using the creature's mental stats. While applying whatever bonuses that the base creature has. You also don't heal your HP while you are shape-shift, keeping all wounds, status effects, and other abnormalities like normal.

3. Half-Metal/Wood/Stone: You are fused with the elements around you, physical preferably, but the end result is the same. You gain 2/Bludgeoning DR, Lose -2 DEX and are able to carry objects as if you are one size category larger. You may also choose between a 1d6 slam attack(Metal), Powerful Build(Stone) or the ability to cast the Druid Spell Camouflage(Wood) at will in non-combat situations.

Dog: Kept as is.
Sheep: Reduce nudity based CHA mod down to +1, Remove +2 Diplomacy
Pig: Remove bonus to Diplomacy. Bluff reduced to +1
Horse: add the ability to fire a missile weapon, and move without taking a penalty to attack.
Goat: add the ability to Overrun and Charge at the same time. Essentially working as both as they normally would.
Cow: Kept as is.
Cat: Remove CHA and Escape Artistry bonus
Chicken/Llama: Remove Intimidate bonus. Add AndreiChekov version of skill.
Duck: Add Swim, Escape Artistry, and Tumble checks. Replacing social skill bonuses.

[Gnorman]

Ducks primarily mate through rape. Seriously, I recommend reading up on duck mating protocols, as they are fairly interesting and fucked up. As mother nature has shown us, even the most innocent of things, can be truly twisted.

Now it's really starting to remind me of FATAL.

[PhoneLobster]

These rules are a tack on hack for an old pre-existing system, so fair is fair they will be hacky. But they are just, in every way, really, can't even, why?

What are you trying to achieve here? What on earth do these... things... intend to fix and how do they intend to fix it?

This isn't selectable modularity and individual variation, but it isn't simple familiar memorable stereotypes either, but it sure as hell somehow manages to combine all the worst the weaknesses of both. And also pathfinder, it somehow missed both those two things badly enough it also got the bad bits of pathfinder.

And also, pro-tip, when separating cultural options from physical ones, don't give humans a list of "cultural" options only biological humans can pick and call it a day. Because that didn't really meaningfully separate anything and you might as well just call them all "Race" options and value some as being worth more of your race points.

Also, sexy sheep and rape ducks? And seriously, am I seeing an actual donkey slap mechanic in there?

[AndreiChekov]

First off, the criticism of the skill bonuses is that they are random, not that they are inherently bad. +4 is too much for diplomacy, use magic device, and sometimes craft.
Keep them, but think about who is going to take the set of ability and skills. sheep, you could give them intelligence skills (they are the dreamers on the chinese zodiac) a +2 bonus to any knowledge skill in which they have at least 1 rank. Pretty much every unarmoured class would like that, except for monk.

The other option might be to make them zodiac animals. Also, bears, bears have been completely domesticated by enough people that no one would find it weird to meet my pet. (after all, I am Russian)

Dog: Kept as is.
Sheep: Reduce nudity based CHA mod down to +1, Remove +2 Diplomacy
Pig: Remove bonus to Diplomacy. Bluff reduced to +1
Horse: add the ability to fire a missile weapon, and move without taking a penalty to attack.
Goat: add the ability to Overrun and Charge at the same time. Essentially working as both as they normally would.
Cow: Kept as is.
Cat: Remove CHA and Escape Artistry bonus
Chicken/Llama: Remove Intimidate bonus. Add AndreiChekov version of skill.
Duck: Add Swim, Escape Artistry, and Tumble checks. Replacing social skill bonuses.

Dog: good
Sheep: now it is a possible +1 and nerfed too far. Just remove the bonus to diplomacy.
Pig: that makes sense, but if you are keeping bluff at +1, then diplomacy should sit there two, you can synergize with sheep to get +2 for your diplomacy and bluff. which is an acceptable race bonus.
Horse: Do you perhaps mean mid movement? You can already do that.
Goat: Yes, let the anger flow through you.
Cow: with the changes to goat this one has value for not casters as well
Cat: Now we clearly know who is going to take this.
Llama: that now makes sense. however, +1 to all mental ability scores is actually a bad trade off. But with the blindness, it will probably be melee martial classes taking this. So, I guess it doesn't matter that it is there.
Duck: Replace this one with bear. You get +4 grapple bonus, shaggy furry hair of cold resistance (5 isn't going to break the game and matters at lower levels), and +2 survival

In other news, what phonelobster said does apply to some degree.
While I like this, I would only use it in a game that only has 2 or 3 races to begin with.

[AcidBlades]

Dwarves and their manly-ass beards.

Dwarves are a people that reside in the earth sphere. Despite this tendency of conquering the earth and having the cultural aptitude for it. They are not truly earth-spirits but rather a subset of depowered giants. Though they trade physical might in pursuit of intellectual rigor. In fact, their lineage with the giants manifest in very strange, if not borderline fey ways. These creatures were born from the intestines from fallen giants, whenever a giant of truly deific proportions is slain, a new subset of Dwarves are born. It is even rumored that new metals are grown under the earth, replanting metals that other humanoid races abstract from the earth. Particularly ordained and holy dwarvish relics have a 95% chance of being from the bones of a giant, or a preserved organ, and maybe possibly even strands of their hairs.

Dwarves are violent, yet loyal creatures that love crafts, contests of strength and intellect, and possess strange and long cultural memes that reside for centuries of a time. Humans tend to be ambivalent with dwarves, enjoying their violent ways, but tending to demand more spontaneity and thus tend to war with them due to their greedy natures clashing with the dwarves's own brand of hoarding greed. Dwarves are far less kind to humans, finding them to be pests at best and condescendingly viewing them as swindling marks as a standard protocol. Elves and Dwarves generally don't care about each other that much, with the Dwarf liking their individualistic ways, but at the same time viewing them as weak. Particularly whenever their constitutions can't handle their brew. An elf that can handle Dwarf ale is viewed as a treasure, much like how Elves tend to view anything that they are particularly fond of. Halflings and Dwarves tend to get along, but some clans of both side have immense anonymity towards each other. Gnomes find that Dwarves are generally incapability with them, and finding it agitating that they are thought of being more attune to the earth than they are. Dwarves view Gnomes the same as they view halflings, even whenever a Gnome takes the guise of a large monsterous wolf-man, or a coy cat-woman. Dwarves are racists towards Goblinoids, but not enough so that they have a unique crusade against them. Goblinoids are goblinoids. They find it amusing to piss in every races brandy.

Dwarf mating protocols are complex, rigorous affairs that are often accidentally homosexual. Due to both sexes of dwarves possessing beards, and they have little dimorphism sexually. They tend to lack much in the way of gender identity, though ones that mingle with other races do identify as male or female. In this regard, they are the most progressive of all the races, as other races find this sort of behavior queer at best, and disgusting and tasteless most of the time.

Due to the fact that the She-dwarf womb is 5 times stronger than that of a human's. They tend to be incapable of mating with anything other than giants, and some breed of particularly tough orc. As such, they are only capable of breeding with giants and giant orcs. A dwarf only produces 1d2 children per coupling, but have a much lower infant mortality rate. As a dwarf child grows in the womb of a she-dwarf for 5 years. Dwarf pregnancy does not impede a she-dwarf for long, and is in fact utterly painless for her. However, to off-set the low infant mortality rate, a dwarf fetus will rarely bloom to that of babe and possess a great degree of stillbirths. A she-dwarf with a still-born baby will be incredibly drunk, as the corpse of the fetus will desolve into alcohol. Powerful enough to kill several humans and scores of elves.

The dwarf's beard is one of their more eccentric qualities. As it is in fact not dead skin cells, but rather a live ecosystems that can qualify mostly an incredibly symbiotic relationship between a mammalian creature and a species of fungus. The rest of the dwarf's hair also possess this unique quality, but rarely do they do match the magnificence of a dwarf beard. Each dwarf's beard a unique ecosystem, and individual species to itself. Hiding under the typical human-like colors from the outside. The inside of the ecosystem of the dwarf's beard is often a variety of dark greens, deep purples and maybe a few blood reds mixed in there.

Dwarves rely on alcohol to survive, and naturally produce it in their beards as a back-up. However this is not sufficient enough to produce a happy dwarf, and dwarf nobility frown on the act itself. The shame of consuming alcohol from a beard, from the dwarf's own beard, to that of another is so powerful that any dwarf of higher standing will have to make a will save of 20 to retain their desire to possess authority over their clan. However some dwarf clans will regularly test their leader's will by annually chugging down their political rival's beard brew. Because of this, dwarfs rarely have kingdoms, but instead have republican oligarchies.

The alcohol is tasteless, but many dwarf peasants rely on their natural beer to survive. A dwarf that only prefers powerful booze will be seen as a brute, a dwarf that drinks the daintly elf whiskies and wines will be picked on to prove their power. A dwarf must keep constant balance in order to survive in the intense, and extreme cultural battle of the boozes. Those few dwarves that wish to see themselves as free-thinkers will pick only a beverage of choice and stick with it. Even going so low to drink their own neck-brew before. Of course there are many dwarf cultures that are the reverse of the above situation. Particularly whenever there are near-by races to be found, as the need to set themselves apart from other races by specializing only a few kind of booze. Specialist dwarves often favor boozes that favor their strength, unless they are often in the vicinity of orcs and some human cultures. Where they will favor refined drinks instead, to set them apart from the vulgarity of the filthy orcs and man.

Dwarves reside in the body of earth or within the corpse or animated body of a giant. Those who reside in the giant, are solely made out of 1d4+2 dwarves for a large Giant, and a Huge Giant might have 2d6+3 dwarves living iniside of it. The living conditions are incredibly cramp, but dwarfs usually use what used to be the giant's intestines as a ladder, escaping from the dried out, and mummified mouth and mine for materials while on the go. These dwarves are known as traveler dwarves, and are more hostile than the regular dwarf. The giant is animated using magic, but it is not quite undeath energy. As the soul of the giant does not reside inside of the body. It is simply an animated corpse.

These dwarves enters inside of a typically sleeping Giant, and then burrow their way out of his body. Typically boring a hole from along his waist, chest cavity, back and in some cases anal cavity. Then the dwarf would "mine" out all of the organs, shoving them out of the body while the giant would scream until it lost all of it's blood, and organs and died. Particularly brave dwarves would try to make themselves as tempting to giants as possible. Drenching themselves in beer-brew, game guts or any anything that a dumb hill-giant would want to snack on. Only about one in five dwarves that attempt this survive, but is often a way to redeem themselves in the eyes of the traveller dwarf clan. After the Giant is cleaned out, dwarf Magi would then pour in their mage-craft into the Giant, expanding it's size, turning the bones into various necromantic fetishes and the like before setting off into the world. Rarely are these dwarves harassed, but the politics of these dwarves are dangerous. These comprise of about 1% of all dwarves, many of which are exiles from their homelands.

DWARF TRAITS

All dwarves gain +2 to their poison resistance and towards resisting the negative effects from spells. +2 CON is a universal trait amongst dwarves. A dwarf should never be allowed a positive Charisma modifier or a negative Strength modifier. Most (but not all) move 20ft and don't let armor weight them down. Or heavy loads for that matter. +2 to Crafting with metals and stone. Along with the similar appraise check. Stability, Stone cutting and Dark vision are also universal.

The sun has strange effects on the dwarf's mental state and mystical abilities. As well as their physical presence. A dwarf also intuitively knows the maximum length their beards may grow. Some dwarfs don't really grow impressive beards, and as such it isn't wise to for a non-dwarf to know the maximum length of a dwarf's beard may grow. A dwarf that touches another dwarf's beard may determine the maximum length that their fellow dwarf may grow their hair, but this is universally considered to be private details that only dwarves may share with each other. Though other races my intuit the dwarf's max beard length, though the effects of dwarf's beard isn't commonly known to many outside of a few wizardly sorts.

Typically a dwarf that is out in the sun for more than 1 hrs without a beard will turn the stone. A beard that is grown full size is essentially immune from this effect and isn't bothered by the sun that much. Due to the intricacies of the beard's power being full. The dwarf is never hungry or thirsty, due to the beard supplying most, if not all of the dwarf's dietary needs.

A 75% grown beard dwarves are comfortable in the sun for 6 hours. Then they will succumb to light sensitivity. After 8 hours out in the sun. The dwarf will turn to stone. However this dwarf gains +2 to their Listen checks while on the Earth, and can survive in warmer and colder temperatures easier. Doubling the heat and cold tolerance for the dwarf by double that a human can tolerate. Dwarf must eat 1/2 the amount a regular human must in order to survive.

50% beard length dwarves may only be out in the sun comfortably for 3 hours, turning to stone after 5 hours. They however may telekinetically command stone. Which they may toss using their minds alone for 1d8 damage, instead of their regular stone damage. This is a standard action. The stone slice may only be 5 pounds, but they may drop the stone and pick up another slice of earth as per usual. "reloading" is a free action, and as such they may full attack as if they were always loaded up with bullets. The range increment is 50ft. Attack and damage relies on Wisdom or Charisma. Whichever is higher. In addition to the above benefits. Dwarf must eat as much as a human in order to keep on living.

25% beard length dwarves may only be out in the sun comfortably for 1 hour. An extra 5 minutes turns the dwarf to stone. This dwarf gains the Tremor sense ability and a +4 to their listen checks. They also gain the above 2 abilities detailed above. 50% more food must be consumed for the dwarf to be healthy. Desires only raw meat, and is immune to food spoilage affecting him.

Finally 0% beard length dwarves may never regrow their beards. They are instantly turned to stone while out in the sun and all of their other hairs will fall out of them. They gain 5/- DR and the ability sink into the earth. However they must suck the blood. A 0% beard length dwarf may live without blood for a week. Then they are forever turned to stone, and they are considered to be killed. The blood drain does 1d2 Con damage, and 1d2 Wisdom damage. As the dwarf sucks out the alcohol content of the target. They must also drink alcohol 2x more than a regular dwarf. If they do not, then they will incur a 2d8 Wisdom damage that is only healed by drinking alcohol. Restoring 1 Wisdom per pint of alcohol consumed.

Their earth telekinetic attack increases to 2d6 18-20, and they are immune to damage from heat and cold. Granting total Fire and Cold immunity. They also absorb acid damage. Unless otherwise noted, they gain the 3 abilities detail above.

A Dwarf that has been turned to stone in the day light is essentially immortal and doesn't age. They are completely unconscious in the sun, and they have 20/Adamantine DR. It also grants Fast Healing 2 to the dwarf. This effect lasts until the dwarf is away from direct sunlight, but may easily turn to stone again if the sun catches them again. These dwarfs are also unusually light weighing 1/10th the amount that they normally do.

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First set is based on the 7 metals of antiquity and alchemy. You only choose one. These are based on astrology, and as such dwarf births are unpredictable, yet always stable and equal in the allocation of each dwarf type. No type of dwarf is more pronounced on the whole, but some dwarf clans have more of a type than the other.

Their skin color always matches the color of their metal.

GOLD: -2 DEX, +2 CON, +2 WIS. The more charismatic sort of dwarf. Born under the sign of authority and power. This dwarf intuitively knows all manners of protocol, and thus get a chance to reroll any charisma based skill 1/2 their hit dice. These dwarves increase their ability to comfortably exist with the sun by 2 hours, and increase the time for them to not turn to stone by 3x. They are also gain 2 to Fire, and Lightning Resistance.

SILVER: -2 CHA, +2 CON, +2 WIS. These dwarves are passive, and more likely to be maternal than other dwarves. Dwarves of this type gain a +1 to all of their Wisdom checks, may bestow Stability to non dwarves as an Aura around them up to 60 feet to their allies. Spells of the [EARTH] qualifier are increased by +1 Spell level. Gaining 5 to Acid resistance on top of that.

MERCURY: -2 DEX, -2 CHA, +2 CON, +2 INT, +2 WIS. Intellectual, quick, and quick thinking dwarves. 1/skill per level + 4 skill at level 1. +2 to all defensive rolls against maneuvers (such as trip, overrun, grapple) and increase the movement speed up to 30 feet. 5 acid and cold resistance on top of that.

COPPER: -2 WIS, +2 INT, +2 CON. Passionate dwarves, always loving a good time. Their passionate intensity grants them a bonus feat, while also granting a +3 mod against Fear and Charm effects. Also they possess 2 cold resistance.

IRON: -2 CHA, -2 DEX, +2 CON, +2 WIS, +2 STR. Strong-willed belligerent dwarves that always look for a challenge. They possess the ability cast Enlarge Person on themselves, which last for their HD and they may cast it +1/5lvls topping out at 5 times per day. 5 fire resistance to go with that.

TIN: -2 CHA, +2 CON, +2 INT. Studious wizard sort of dwarf. Free Knowledge domain, even without cleric spell casting. Essentially granting all knowledge skills as class skills for every class. -30% to Arcane Spell failure. 2 to Fire, Cold and Acid Resistance.

LEAD: Keeper of the traditions. -2 DEX, +2 CON, +2 WIS. All universally applied dwarven traits are increased by 2x. IE they are granted +4 poision res +4 spell effect resist ect. ect. 2 to Acid, Fire, Lightning and Cold Resistances..[/i]

[PhoneLobster]

[AcidBlades]

[PhoneLobster]

I was rendered well nigh speechless by that... dwarfy... ick...

I seriously don't know how to respond to your material. I REALLY can't decide whether it is just really bad, or really bad satire.

It looks like bad satire. I hope it's bad satire. But even then. Your satire needs to be less... icky.

[AcidBlades]

I'll meet you half-way and say that I was giggling about it. But, the effort is sincere though. I thought I could really ramp up the dwarfishness, while returning them back to their Nordic routes a bit. That and to avoid the "Dwarfs are all the same" schtick.

[PhoneLobster]

I'll meet you half-way and say that I was giggling about it. But, the effort is sincere though. I thought I could really ramp up the dwarfishness, while returning them back to their Nordic routes a bit. That and to avoid the "Dwarfs are all the same" schtick.

And what part of that was 1d2 babies per coupling and getting drunk drinking dissolved fetus corpse super alcohol about?

You creepily focus on icky creepy stuff. Then you also word it poorly and get it wrong like the per coupling thing. Stop both those things.

And while you are doing that, stop trying to be "satirical over the top dwarves!" (which you did terribly, and in icky ways), and "literalist reading of random bits of mythology" (which you did in a particularly icky way) at the same time. Or indeed either of those things.

While you are at it, don't make beard length genetically set in stone, and have serious mechanical consequences by eliminating playability with lack of sun resistance, but somehow fail to at any point determine what the fuck actually sets/determines your beard length game mechanically for any given character.

While you are at THAT don't take all the bad things that racial attribute bonuses do and make them much worse for no reason by saying dwarfs are not allowed have positive Cha or negative Str.

In fact, in general if you are writing up a "universal traits" section with mechanical abilities that all dwarf sub types get, don't cram the majority of the mechanical abilities in a single vague poorly written paragraph at the beginning,

And THEN don't go on to spend the remaining 733 words of the generic dwarf mechanics section talking about the one stupid dwarf beards and sun resistance thing. 733 words might I add that are NOT the only LARGE section of text burbling over really icky beard wank/bashing, and not even the WORST section of extended disturbing beard fantasy.

And as for the specific dwarf sub types. "reroll any charisma based skill 1/2 their hit dice." does not even PARSE. "and increase the time for them to not turn to stone by 3x" suggests you didn't even take a cursory look at the maths since that now becomes things like "24 hours of sunlight" for (ugh) some beard lengths.

In fact, the sub types are just rife with horrible and could just use a significant rewrite for clarity alone, but also for less horribleness in general.

My number one suggestion for this whole thing is start again from scratch with entirely different and better methodology and ideas. But this dwarf section? Burn it with fucking fire.

[AcidBlades]

I'll meet you half-way and say that I was giggling about it. But, the effort is sincere though. I thought I could really ramp up the dwarfishness, while returning them back to their Nordic routes a bit. That and to avoid the "Dwarfs are all the same" schtick.

And what part of that was 1d2 babies per coupling and getting drunk drinking dissolved fetus corpse super alcohol about?

The reason why I've included that in, is because adventurers often have parents. It is just a quick way for the adventure to whip up a backstory with legs on them. Hell, some of them might even become pregnant. All I'm providing is a way to roleplay that sort of thing. Isn't this the sort of thing that people like anyways? Random rolls for things? I mean you don't have to use them or anything, but I believe the randomness does make it a tad bit more meaningful.

You creepily focus on icky creepy stuff. Then you also word it poorly and get it wrong like the per coupling thing. Stop both those things.

I suppose. I'm not an editor though, and even if I did have one. I wouldn't want to burden them. As they say in Murphy's Law. "If the editor is on the credits, there will be mistakes."

And while you are doing that, stop trying to be "satirical over the top dwarves!" (which you did terribly, and in icky ways), and "literalist reading of random bits of mythology" (which you did in a particularly icky way) at the same time. Or indeed either of those things.

People want to play dwarves. Not something that looks like a dwarf. Besides, I'm educating players about the original mythology of the dwarf. I admit that it might be a tad bit wrong, but it's still something interesting right? It's still got the LOTR flavor, but enough mythos to keep things from being the same ol' ramen n' onion flakes that people love to make.

While you are at it, don't make beard length genetically set in stone, and have serious mechanical consequences by eliminating playability with lack of sun resistance, but somehow fail to at any point determine what the fuck actually sets/determines your beard length game mechanically for any given character.

I am incapable of having a fully grown beard, because my mustache and neck-beard doesn't grow hair that connects the two. I'm pretty sure that genetics is a part of beard growth. That is just the facts jack.

While you are at THAT don't take all the bad things that racial attribute bonuses do and make them much worse for no reason by saying dwarfs are not allowed have positive Cha or negative Str.

This is frankly one of my most erroneous mispellings ever. What I mean was that if you were to homebrew your own dwarf sub-race. Then don't make it that they ever have a negative modifier on STR/CON and a positive one on CHA. A dwarf can, however be charismatic. They just aren't naturally so.

In fact, in general if you are writing up a "universal traits" section with mechanical abilities that all dwarf sub types get, don't cram the majority of the mechanical abilities in a single vague poorly written paragraph at the beginning,

And THEN don't go on to spend the remaining 733 words of the generic dwarf mechanics section talking about the one stupid dwarf beards and sun resistance thing. 733 words might I add that are NOT the only LARGE section of text burbling over really icky beard wank/bashing, and not even the WORST section of extended disturbing beard fantasy.

And as for the specific dwarf sub types. "reroll any charisma based skill 1/2 their hit dice." does not even PARSE. "and increase the time for them to not turn to stone by 3x" suggests you didn't even take a cursory look at the maths since that now becomes things like "24 hours of sunlight" for (ugh) some beard lengths.

That is a type on my part for the Gold Dwarf ability. It's a typical 1/2 HD/per level ability. Though I might tweak it so that it is 3 times per day. I unno.

As for 24 hours in the sunlight. Have you ever been up in the north poles? Those days on each side of the equator tend to be really fucking long. So polar dwarfs will find that valuable. Though that isn't what you'd pick the gold dwarf for in most cases anyways. IMO. If your 100% beard gold dwarf. You are playing them wrong. You play them as a face that has a shorter beard to get some nifty abilities.

In fact, the sub types are just rife with horrible and could just use a significant rewrite for clarity alone, but also for less horribleness in general.

Howso?

My number one suggestion for this whole thing is start again from scratch with entirely different and better methodology and ideas. But this dwarf section? Burn it with fucking fire.

Nah, I'm pretty secure in the fact that the methodology is pretty solid. It means that people can have snow elves and the like, while giving everyone else some of that action to. It means that culture matters, and that you pick a character for the benies they get. That means that being a viking human is as important as a Silver Dwarf with 25% of their beard on them. "A dwarf", "A human" those things just won't be a thing in my games. At least they wouldn't necessarily be true.

[PhoneLobster]

The reason why I've included that in, is because...

No damn reason at all, because you don't NEED a rolling mechanic to say "oh yeah, my character may have siblings in his backstory!" and all you do is limit the backstory on the rare chance a player actually wants siblings.

But more to the point I emphasized per coupling for a reason, it is just insanely shit wording which actually literally can (and for most people does) mean that you are saying 1d2 children per act of sex. Which is just stupid. And note also yes, you said children not pregnancies or still births or final siblings. So all your creepy focusing on drinkable dead fetus alcohol, your mechanic is utterly irrelevant to that. And your explanation of "well it generates siblings for backstories" is utterly irrelevant to the mechanic too because you mechanic explicitly renders it's output utterly useless for that purpose by introducing utterly undefined mortality rates.

It's not JUST a poorly conceived mechanic, it is a poorly executed one.

People want to play dwarves. Not something that looks like a dwarf.

Aside from being a questionable assertion it more importantly has no relevance at all.

Identifying and delivering some desirable stereotype of "dwarfyness" beyond the appearance has nothing to do with an obvious and extreme attempt at a giant alcoholic puss filled caricature of "dwarfyness".

"People want dwarves that feel like dwarves!" is not the same as "people want hideous fungus beard caricatures!".

You don't get to appeal to AND satirize AND break expectations SIMULTANEOUSLY. You pretty much can't even do two of those things at once, you definitely don't get to do all three.

Besides, I'm educating players about the original mythology of the dwarf. I admit that it might be a tad bit wrong

You don't get to educate and be wrong at the same time.

but it's still something interesting right?

No, it isn't because it's neck deep in a caricature and also full of creepy literalist bullshit.

If you WANT to make dwarves into creepy escaped bowel parasites or some weird alien component of a very alien Giant life cycle that could be "interesting", but putting the focus that you do in the ways you do, throwing around "its real mythology, ok it's wrong, close enuff right?" as an excuse doesn't help, and burying it deep along side some reeking caricature throwing in randomly obsessions on fetuses and coupling and fungal beard infections does not work. It undermines any impression you were going for "alien monstrosities" and instead just generates .

It's still got the LOTR flavor, but enough mythos to keep things from being the same ol' ramen n' onion flakes that people love to make.

No it doesn't. You don't get to make it all about giant bowel parasitism and alcohol fetuses and call it "close enough" to LOTR flavor. Nor do you get to call those departures "small but interesting new changes to the traditional fluff".

I am incapable of having a fully grown beard, because my mustache and neck-beard doesn't grow hair that connects the two. I'm pretty sure that genetics is a part of beard growth. That is just the facts jack.

But the god damn point is that if we were generating you as a RPG character and that trait meant something important mechanically then we need to know if you have that trait or not.

If a character's maximum beard length has real mechanical meaning that is covered in the part of the rules about how to generate that character, then there need to be included rules on what beard length is generated. If you just get to pick, we need to know that.

But also it shouldn't be so important, but that isn't the basic point you seem to be missing here.

This is frankly one of my most erroneous mispellings ever. What I mean was that if you were to homebrew your own dwarf sub-race. Then don't make it that they ever have a negative modifier on STR/CON and a positive one on CHA. A dwarf can, however be charismatic. They just aren't naturally so.

While better it's still pretty bad. Again. What is the whole point of these house rules? If "making a wider range of playable things still called dwarves" isn't one of them why even bother putting up with all the fungus beards, fetus alcohol popsicles and giant bowel babies?

As for 24 hours in the sunlight. Have you ever been up in the north poles? Those days on each side of the equator tend to be really fucking long. So polar dwarfs will find that valuable. Though that isn't what you'd pick the gold dwarf for in most cases anyways. IMO. If your 100% beard gold dwarf. You are playing them wrong. You play them as a face that has a shorter beard to get some nifty abilities.

North pole my ass.

But more importantly... what? Do you mean the nifty "beard" abilities? Those terrible inexplicable things you get randomly for different beard lengths for no reason?

Because the 75% 24 hours of sun dwarf is already getting stupid abilities. Negligible pointless ones, including the very amazing "eats half as much" one. But still getting stuff, AND gets to never get turned into stone just for turning up during standard work hours for all the other PCs.

Or maybe you mean the 50% guy who still gets 15 hours of sun as a gold dwarf? Who doesn't get what the 75% guy does, but does get "eat normal amount" and a bullshit ability to throw rocks that is neither as good as, nor as well described on how the hell it works, as shooting a crossbow at things.

Or is it the 25% beardo? who only gets 3 hours and 15 minutes in the sun (as a gold dwarf) before turning to stone. What with their large listen check bonus? and their shout out to the terrible "2 abilities above", and a proviso about food that manages to actually add up to them simultaneously eating 50% normal, normal, and 50% more than normal, all at once for ??? how much.

It can't be the no beard dwarf, since they don't have a sunlight tolerance time to multiply.

Nah, I'm pretty secure in the fact that the methodology is pretty solid.

While you clearly have some dramatic issues on your actual goals here being flawed/borderline non-existent I'm going to VERY strongly suggest that by a long shot your methodology is the biggest most obvious problem. Well. Aside from the donkey slap mechanics and the dwarves getting drunk on stillborn fetuses things...

It means that people can have snow elves and the like, while giving everyone else some of that action to.

What? You can just get that from writing some arbitrary amount of standard 3.5 "subraces" of whatever flavors you want. This messy "methodology" is in no way required if that is your goal.

It means that culture matters, and that you pick a character for the benies they get. That means that being a viking human is as important as a Silver Dwarf with 25% of their beard on them.

How? Where? When? You literally put culture down as a biological racial option. There is no concept of "culture" in this material, just the use of the word.

Further, if at any point anything you have produced in anyway generates "Viking Human" as a specific recognizable set of options you choose in order to get certain specific benefits then this is the first I've noticed of it.

As far as I can tell, as written a "viking human" just picks whatever off the human list of random creepy animal fetishes.

"A dwarf", "A human" those things just won't be a thing in my games. At least they wouldn't necessarily be true.

Wha... What?

Really? Your rules for being "A Human" and your rules for being "A Dwarf" do not generate characters that are "A Human" or "A Dwarf"? Really now?

[AcidBlades]

The reason why I've included that in, is because...

No damn reason at all, because you don't NEED a rolling mechanic to say "oh yeah, my character may have siblings in his backstory!" and all you do is limit the backstory on the rare chance a player actually wants siblings.

Well yeah. On the other hand, could you even see it ever being canon that there is going to be more than 4 siblings for each dwarf? At least within the same generation that humans understand it? No. It also functions as a soft cap for those who are particular about canonicity.

But more to the point I emphasized per coupling for a reason, it is just insanely shit wording which actually literally can (and for most people does) mean that you are saying 1d2 children per act of sex. Which is just stupid. And note also yes, you said children not pregnancies or still births or final siblings. So all your creepy focusing on drinkable dead fetus alcohol, your mechanic is utterly irrelevant to that. And your explanation of "well it generates siblings for backstories" is utterly irrelevant to the mechanic too because you mechanic explicitly renders it's output utterly useless for that purpose by introducing utterly undefined mortality rates.

It's not JUST a poorly conceived mechanic, it is a poorly executed one.

That's just a different set of dialects and such. I'm from the fucking south, that's how we do it down here. It's how we get all of our animals together, though I don't have any farm animals. But it is still a valid use of the term. It's a mistake, and your squick factor is so god damn low that it is frankly silly. Fine. I suppose you roll 1d2 per year of incubation.. Get 2, The fetus lives, get 1. The fetus dies. It is just an extrapulation of the dwarf's natural resistance against poisons. Something that I cribbed from 1d4chan.

Aside from being a questionable assertion it more importantly has no relevance at all.

I suppose I should just call my human a dwarf then. That is what people really want after all.

Identifying and delivering some desirable stereotype of "dwarfyness" beyond the appearance has nothing to do with an obvious and extreme attempt at a giant alcoholic puss filled caricature of "dwarfyness".

"People want dwarves that feel like dwarves!" is not the same as "people want hideous fungus beard caricatures!".

You don't get to appeal to AND satirize AND break expectations SIMULTANEOUSLY. You pretty much can't even do two of those things at once, you definitely don't get to do all three.

Y'know what? Even though I was being sincere. I'm pretty sure that anyone could do 2 or 3 of those things at the same time. Have you ever watched South Park, Spaceballs? Just to give you a few examples. Hell even Don Quixite paved the way for post-modernist literature, and it was a satire of the old knight ways.

I'm a human being. It is our desire to break the rules, to stress what is possible out there in the world. That is why we manipulate our environments. That is how we beat the neanderthal, simply because we have to FUCK WITH THINGS more than they do, and they died out because they couldn't tame nature.

Besides, my dwarves are plenty dwarfy enough. Sure some people might not like how I done the elf vs dwarf relationship thing. But it's pretty close to stock, while also being exaggerated in a fair few ways. Maybe you should expand your imagination more.

You don't get to educate and be wrong at the same time.

That's true. But the spark of the lust towards knowledge will flare up in a fair few folk and they will certainly gain the knowledge that I have not foreseen. Even if I do mislead people than I enlighten. I still did a somewhat good thing.

No, it isn't because it's neck deep in a caricature and also full of creepy literalist bullshit.

If you WANT to make dwarves into creepy escaped bowel parasites or some weird alien component of a very alien Giant life cycle that could be "interesting", but putting the focus that you do in the ways you do, throwing around "its real mythology, ok it's wrong, close enuff right?" as an excuse doesn't help, and burying it deep along side some reeking caricature throwing in randomly obsessions on fetuses and coupling and fungal beard infections does not work. It undermines any impression you were going for "alien monstrosities" and instead just generates .

This would imply that dwarves weren't just disgusting creatures that are loved solely because neckbeards hated on neckbeards of a different type. Those that love elves to be specific. To be frank, I find elf-fappers to be hella creepy.

Second of all, I didn't at all imply that the fetus alcohol was drinkable. The fetus would evaporate and sink into the she-dwarf's bloodstream. I doubt that most villains would even want to abstract poison from a still-born fetus inside of a dwarf woman, that hasn't been desolved yet. It would just be extremely time-consuming. You could just fabricate a bunch of regular ass poisons and be done with it.

No it doesn't. You don't get to make it all about giant bowel parasitism and alcohol fetuses and call it "close enough" to LOTR flavor. Nor do you get to call those departures "small but interesting new changes to the traditional fluff".

These dwarves are killy mining fuckbeasts that we know and love. Expanding the dwarven capabilities in literature is some ungrown terf. I believe that I am balanced whenever it comes to the fluff. Fresh, yet familiar.

But the god damn point is that if we were generating you as a RPG character and that trait meant something important mechanically then we need to know if you have that trait or not.

If a character's maximum beard length has real mechanical meaning that is covered in the part of the rules about how to generate that character, then there need to be included rules on what beard length is generated. If you just get to pick, we need to know that.

But also it shouldn't be so important, but that isn't the basic point you seem to be missing here.

As I stated, the maximum length that a dwarf may grow their beards is entirely a MTP mechanic, because I frankly don't see the point in adding in mechanics that would dictate how large their dwarf's beard might be whenever it's at full length. Sometimes it's shorter, sometimes it's longer. It is individual to the dwarf. They INSTINCTUALLY KNOW HOW LONG THEIR BEARDS WILL GROW. Read. Damnit. Stop being squicked out so easily. Jesus christ.

While better it's still pretty bad. Again. What is the whole point of these house rules? If "making a wider range of playable things still called dwarves" isn't one of them why even bother putting up with all the fungus beards, fetus alcohol popsicles and giant bowel babies?

A +2 DEX -2 CON +2 CHA is a dwarf to you then? I don't get the point of playing a damn-dwarf whenever you just bump their CHA to the sky. It's just pretentiousness. Fuck people who play a race that has a -2 penalty to a prime state of theirs. I have no interest in placating to them.

Either we keep the stat bonuses or we have absolute minimums or absolute maximums for stat potential in each race. IE you can't be a Dwarf if you don't have 13 CON 12 STR and can't raise your natural CHA above 16. Like in ADnD?

North pole my ass.

But more importantly... what? Do you mean the nifty "beard" abilities? Those terrible inexplicable things you get randomly for different beard lengths for no reason?

Considering your inability to intuit things, I will spell it out for you. The Dwarf's beard soaks up harmful sun rays that will turn the dwarf to stone. That is the purpose of the beard, outside of it's use as a status symbol. The mechanics might be iffy, but it does serve a mechanical and lore purpose. I'm not a basket-weaver. If it sucks, then I will look into it.

Because the 75% 24 hours of sun dwarf is already getting stupid abilities. Negligible pointless ones, including the very amazing "eats half as much" one. But still getting stuff, AND gets to never get turned into stone just for turning up during standard work hours for all the other PCs.

I suppose the ring of substance isn't a first pick for your first magic item then? The Gold Dwarf isn't super great, if you don't factor into it's ability to stay out in the sun longer. But it does work whenever you want it to do.

Or maybe you mean the 50% guy who still gets 15 hours of sun as a gold dwarf? Who doesn't get what the 75% guy does, but does get "eat normal amount" and a bullshit ability to throw rocks that is neither as good as, nor as well described on how the hell it works, as shooting a crossbow at things.

I don't know why you haven't thought up of any other utility that it might have? Say for digging your way out of jail whenever all of your magic-swank is gone? For a Cleric, it probably isn't that helpful. For a wizard however? Pretty nice. Especially sense that spellbook of yours is the first thing they'll take away.

Or is it the 25% beardo? who only gets 3 hours and 15 minutes in the sun (as a gold dwarf) before turning to stone. What with their large listen check bonus? and their shout out to the terrible "2 abilities above", and a proviso about food that manages to actually add up to them simultaneously eating 50% normal, normal, and 50% more than normal, all at once for ??? how much.

Yeah, the listen check bonus was a brainfart to me. Don't know what else to put there though. It's only utility is to buy some time for a dwarf grow his hair back if it gets shaved off. It's not like it's super tough, just fungus hairs that look like I unno regular hairs to me.

It can't be the no beard dwarf, since they don't have a sunlight tolerance time to multiply.

True. I suppose they will be an exception. 5 minutes out in the sun before they turn to stone. They are uncomfortable the entire time. Needing to make Concentration checks of 15+per minute or 20 will saves in the sun or else freak out for the entire time. This is extreme, that only applies to the gold dwarf. But it does give it time to mess around while it pretends to be a vampire.

While you clearly have some dramatic issues on your actual goals here being flawed/borderline non-existent I'm going to VERY strongly suggest that by a long shot your methodology is the biggest most obvious problem. Well. Aside from the donkey slap mechanics and the dwarves getting drunk on stillborn fetuses things...

Donkey slap mechanics? My goals are clear. Present options that pathfinder is too scared to make.

What? You can just get that from writing some arbitrary amount of standard 3.5 "subraces" of whatever flavors you want. This messy "methodology" is in no way required if that is your goal.

This is a fairly important story.

As I was browsing 4chan's /tg/ board. I came across an article that asked what the point was to making a non-human character. The majority of people are just in it for the bennies. This is fairly legit, but I also want to make races that are truly of that particular race. Dwarf mechanics that matter. Elf mechanics that matter. That is my second goal.

How? Where? When? You literally put culture down as a biological racial option. There is no concept of "culture" in this material, just the use of the word.

Further, if at any point anything you have produced in anyway generates "Viking Human" as a specific recognizable set of options you choose in order to get certain specific benefits then this is the first I've noticed of it.

As far as I can tell, as written a "viking human" just picks whatever off the human list of random creepy animal fetishes.

For humans. No. It is entirely cultural. For dwarves, yeah it is biological. Biology and culture are products of intelligence. It is natural for biology and culture to interact with each other. That is how racism and shit happens.

Besides, you can just pick the most viking sounding animal names. That ARE NOT fetishes. Again, you are squicked out by quite a lot of things apparently. The connection to Strike Witches wasn't even something that I intended. If it was a thing, I wouldn't want to make Strike Witches that were Dog/Cat/Bear/Llamas. That would be silly.

Wha... What?

Really? Your rules for being "A Human" and your rules for being "A Dwarf" do not generate characters that are "A Human" or "A Dwarf"? Really now?

I want people to describe their characters as beyond "a human" or "a dwarf". I want them to be more precise about it.

[PhoneLobster]

Wow. You really are just WTF all the way down aren't you?

...canonicity...

Holy fuck, cannon? Really now? Really? In a co-operative story telling game? Really? Cannon?

Something that I cribbed from 1d4chan.

1d4chan? Oh well that's fine then.

Have you ever watched South Park, Spaceballs? Just to give you a few examples. Hell even Don Quixite...

... those are satires. They are all just satires.

You really can't simultaneously pay homage to, satirize, and dramatically change a single piece of subject matter at the same time. All those things undermine each other.

To the point that if you actually say the words "a satirical homage" it doesn't even mean you are doing both things, it means you are just making fun of something by pretending to pay homage to it.

That is how we beat the neanderthal, simply because we have to FUCK WITH THINGS more than they do, and they died out because they couldn't tame nature.

What. The. Fuck.

But the spark of the lust towards knowledge will flare up in a fair few folk and they will certainly gain the knowledge that I have not foreseen. Even if I do mislead people than I enlighten. I still did a somewhat good thing.

WTF

Second of all, I didn't at all imply that the fetus alcohol was drinkable.

Stillborn. It's a word. You used it a lot for someone who apparently doesn't know what it means. Hint. It contains the word "born".

These dwarves are killy mining fuckbeasts that we know and love. Expanding the dwarven capabilities in literature is some ungrown terf. I believe that I am balanced whenever it comes to the fluff. Fresh, yet familiar.

Wow. Just. Wow.

They INSTINCTUALLY KNOW HOW LONG THEIR BEARDS WILL GROW. Read. Damnit. Stop being squicked out so easily. Jesus christ.

That text read as a (stupid) in game ability dwarfs have to determine what maximum beard length is, NOT a way to tell players what to write on their sheets at character generation. If you gave dwarves the ability to determine a character's strength score on touch it would not equate to telling players what the hell Strength score they get to write on their fucking character sheet.

Fuck people who play a race that has a -2 penalty to a prime state of theirs. I have no interest in placating to them.

Yeah fuck those guys, you arbitrarily won't give them a race/race option that gives them a bonus you think they need, so fuck them for being so stupid.

Seriously. If your cluster fuck isn't for those exact people what the hell is it even for? Why so much cluster fucking for nothing?

I suppose the ring of substance isn't a first pick for your first magic item then?

What. The. Fuck.

I don't know why you haven't thought up of any other utility that it might have? Say for digging your way out of jail whenever all of your magic-swank is gone? For a Cleric, it probably isn't that helpful. For a wizard however? Pretty nice. Especially sense that spellbook of yours is the first thing they'll take away.

Oh look. Locked in cells with no equipment and all your spells taken from you.

Pro tip. If anything you are doing requires defending it with that scenario you are in some pretty bullshit territory.

In the mean time. Your rock levitating text just isn't nearly comprehensive enough not to raise issues no matter HOW you try to use it. You think you wrote it well enough to meaningfully or practically dig out of a jail cell with it? What the HELL gives you that idea?

My goals are clear. Present options that pathfinder is too scared to make.

Wait there it is. There's the goal. And holy motherfucking crap is it really bat shit.

The entire POINT of these rules is in fact the crazy bits with the alcopop fetuses and junk.

That's just grand.

The majority of people are just in it for the bennies. This is fairly legit, but I also want to make races that are truly of that particular race. Dwarf mechanics that matter. Elf mechanics that matter. That is my second goal.

Your second goal is actually honestly to make mechanics that matter in a way that doesn't just make benefits people might want.

Your second goal needs significantly more elaboration and perhaps a complete rethink.

For humans. No. It is entirely cultural.

No it isn't. If it were learned culture then fucking dwarves could take the human cultural options. At least some of them, ANY of them. Holy crap how do you not grasp this? Anything that only a biological human can take is effectively a biological only trait.

Besides, you can just pick the most viking sounding animal names.

THAT DOESN'T DO THE THING YOU SEEM TO THINK IT DOES.

In fact, take that as a general rule for you know EVERYTHING about these mechanics.

That and "WTF".

[AcidBlades]

Through maybe what some might call cowardice, and others reason. I have decided to give up on the idea entirely. It's simply too clunky for me to really work with, and it isn't really fun at all. I remember how tedious picking out pathfinder traits is. It's essentially like that.

[Gnorman]

And the world breathed a giant fucking sigh of relief.

[JigokuBosatsu]

What the hell did I just read?

I have IRL Cleric levels now. I wish I could cast Flame Strike on this thread.

[AcidBlades]

Wow. You really are just WTF all the way down aren't you?

Nah, I believe myself to be a fairly orthodox human being. Sadness, frustration, joy, and the not. You believe that I am an alien?

Holy fuck, cannon? Really now? Really? In a co-operative story telling game? Really? Cannon?

Well people play forgotten realm games, or any other setting games fairly frequently. Even if the brew is made in the home. There is an expectation that it'll be able to synch well with the expectations that people have for the product. While it might be a good idea to throw some curve balls around, and to even upset people sometimes. It's not something that you should do regularly.

1d4chan? Oh well that's fine then.

Well inspiration, but the deal is the same. Would you believe that a dwarf's womb wouldn't crush any other species sperm?

... those are satires. They are all just satires.
You really can't simultaneously pay homage to, satirize, and dramatically change a single piece of subject matter at the same time. All those things undermine each other.

To the point that if you actually say the words "a satirical homage" it doesn't even mean you are doing both things, it means you are just making fun of something by pretending to pay homage to it.

IT seems like I missed that point. Because what you said was that satire can't break expectations, and that satire can't appeal to anyone. Again, a liberal satire of socialist memes would appeal to liberals, and it might even break new ground.

I'm not the only one who isn't communicating well here.

What. The. Fuck.

To be precise, the taming of nature is tamable only because it is indifferent to the nature of man. Neanderthals needed too much food to keep on growing, and because they couldn't harvest enough food from hunting and gathering. We have survive, while they have not. To be frank, even though they might've not been as empathetic as us. I believe that they would be more more suited to agrarianism. Too bad they died off around 22,000 years or so before that kicked off. They would've benefited from the surplus food, and they would've been the killingest motherfuckers that we have ever seen. Instead, us weak humans outlasted them. Simply because there were more of us, and that we took most of the food that they needed. We simply last longer without food, and we were omnivores, not carnivores like they were. This gave us the upper hand, more potential areas to shape our environment and overall increasing our complexity. Despite how good of a killer they were, and how their intelligence matched ours.

WTF

Do you believe it is evil instead?

Wow. Just. Wow.

What? Can't handle some slang?

That text read as a (stupid) in game ability dwarfs have to determine what maximum beard length is, NOT a way to tell players what to write on their sheets at character generation. If you gave dwarves the ability to determine a character's strength score on touch it would not equate to telling players what the hell Strength score they get to write on their fucking character sheet.

What? On Mythweavers they could probably just slap it on one of the plentiful bars that they had. If not on the note sections. It's not very complicated.

Yeah fuck those guys, you arbitrarily won't give them a race/race option that gives them a bonus you think they need, so fuck them for being so stupid.

Seriously. If your cluster fuck isn't for those exact people what the hell is it even for? Why so much cluster fucking for nothing?

Do you think that I planned to only create a dwarf race?

What. The. Fuck.

What? 2,000 gp in order for your GM to not fuck you over with food problems is a win for me.

Oh look. Locked in cells with no equipment and all your spells taken from you.

Pro tip. If anything you are doing requires defending it with that scenario you are in some pretty bullshit territory.

In the mean time. Your rock levitating text just isn't nearly comprehensive enough not to raise issues no matter HOW you try to use it. You think you wrote it well enough to meaningfully or practically dig out of a jail cell with it? What the HELL gives you that idea?

Okay, I admit that it could've done some work. Really all of this was a rough draft for my ideas. That sort of thing probably shouldn't be printed out though for the world to see, so shame on me.

Wait there it is. There's the goal. And holy motherfucking crap is it really bat shit.

The entire POINT of these rules is in fact the crazy bits with the alcopop fetuses and junk.

That's just grand.

To be specific, I was referring mostly to pathfinder's races and how their other worldliness could be something truly inhuman.

Your second goal is actually honestly to make mechanics that matter in a way that doesn't just make benefits people might want.

Your second goal needs significantly more elaboration and perhaps a complete rethink.

To be specific, I aimed to create dwarf and elf habits and needs to be more esoteric to fill, in exchange for generally more powerful options than what the base human does. Humans are weak, but we are also not very needy. While they are heavily specialized in their roles, but do their own things well enough. TBH I could've went further with the dwarf. It's still something that isn't unrelated enough to humans.

No it isn't. If it were learned culture then fucking dwarves could take the human cultural options. At least some of them, ANY of them. Holy crap how do you not grasp this? Anything that only a biological human can take is effectively a biological only trait.

You are implying that biology and culture are separate things. We simply would never truly be able to empathize with the culture that lions, apes and other intelligent species do. Cats are simplistic emotionally. Dogs are extremely hierarchical to the point of absurdity. Ect. Ect. We simply aren't capable of doing things the way that they do, because we are human beings.

THAT DOESN'T DO THE THING YOU SEEM TO THINK IT DOES.

In fact, take that as a general rule for you know EVERYTHING about these mechanics.

That and "WTF".

What's so egregious about it? Am I simply too desensitized. to see how shocking all of this is? I don't even know anymore.

[PhoneLobster]

Are you STILL rambling on with total WTF non-sequiturs that bare no relevance whatsoever to the things you seem to think you are replying to?

Why? I thought you had given up on this spectacular cluster fuck of bad ideas after the dwarf debacle.

But no, you are back to amongst other things tell us crazy bat shit things about neanderthals that range from laughably outdated to stupidly imaginary.

Let's re-iterate. Nothing works the way you think it does, nothing you write makes sense, your fluff is offensively juvenile and dumb, you don't have even a basic grasp of the major concepts you are claiming to interact with or represent, your goals are confused and stupid and your methodology has nothing to do with actually reaching them.

Is it really really mean for me to say that? Yes it is, I'm sorry, but it's the only accurate honest response your ongoing material seems to warrant.

[Hicks]

Hey PL. He quit. Let it go.

Hey AcidBlades. You quit. let it go.

The human write up was OK, I kinda liked reading it. The Dwarf write up was NOT OK, I couldn't look away as it train-wrecked my brain. My one true criticism of the dwarf post is that it was seriously NSFW and you should spoiler that with a warning.

Hey Hicks. He quit. Let it go.