Few Classes, Many Races

Alright, I just want some imput on the feasiblity of this concept.

I'm going to be starting a high fantasy homebrew camapign in a month or so, and I'm thinking of a few major changes to the character creation process.

First, I'm using the Generic Class system supplied by Unearthed Arcana. For those of you unfamiliar, it's a maleable system, with three classes, Warrior, Expert and Spellcaster. They each gain extra feats to be used on special abilities like Favored Enemy and Improved Evasion, etc.

To expand upon the lack of choices for this class system, I'm going to offer more races. I was going to do this anyway, because it fits with the mythology of the world. (Thirteen True Dragons who were in charge of shaping the world, each made their own child race.) The reduction of classes actually reduced my headache.

Yes, this means I'm allowing thirteen races. And I'd like to do them without ECL adjustments.

So far, I have the following races, with their in-world name and a brief description:
Human (Man) - Saxonish, spread most everywhere, centralized in one kingdom
Dwarf (Burgond) - Frankish, mostly in an eastern mountain kingdom
Elf (Mache) - Gaelic, very rare, in the southern foothills, loose city-states
Orc (Yrk) - Norman, mostly along and in the western sea, pirate nation
Halfling (Samman) - Also Saxonish, mostly in the human kingdom
Gnome (Lhurtur) - Lappish, most tribes in the colder southern tundra
Ratling (Munin) - Danish, living with the dwarves in the eastern mountains
Treemen (Bawnwere) - Neanderthalish, slannish society in the northern forest
Spiderfolk (Wyrdkind) - Turkish empire in the north-eastern mountains
Wood Troll (Wodos) - Pictish, tribal society in the southern forests
Goblins (Tanthir) - Tinkerish, dispersed among all peoples
Wavekin (Lidhe) - Welsh, a sea-based united city-states
Drakes (Skoffin) - Icelandic, shifting jarldoms in the northern wastes

These are obiviously very brief descriptions. I've most of the them stated out.

However, my questions are three-fold.

First, what's your opinion on my use of race for variety with the simplistic classes? Any problems you see, even with my sketchy details?

Second, do you have any suggestions on tailoring the classic PHB, or, in the case of orcs, MM races to fit their cultures? I've already done things like replace the gnomish familiarity with illusions with a wilderness familiarity.

Third, for those of you who've read Unearthed Arcana, or at least the Generic Classes section, what suggestions dow you have for converting the bardic music ability to that system?

I ask that last question because the munin, who are from an earlier campaign, are highly musical, gaining bonus ranks in perform that apply towards higher levels of bardic music. The simplest idea I can think of is to offer it in a series of feats, prerequisitied by ranks in perform.


That is all, citizens.

I like the idea but don't know how to help. It looks ok, but you might have problems with predictive stereotypes.

About the Bardic Music, if you make it into feats you have to deals with two separate benefits: how many times per day (normally 1/level) and how many forms (normally automatically gained at some level if enough ranks in perform).

In a way I think the whole Bardic Music is worth definitely more than a single feat, but the single abilities aren't always, so I'd go with grouping together 2-3 abilities into a feat, and let them use a number per day equal to the Cha bonus. This fixed number per day makes a difference only at levels 1-3 when it's better, later on it's not so bad because (1) you don't often need the same bardic music more than 3-4 times a day and (2) each feat grants its own separate uses.

For example:

Inspire Courage
Preq.: Cha 13+, Perform 3 ranks
Benefit: as PHB, with normal increases by level

Fascinate
Preq.: Cha 13+, Perform 3 ranks
Benefit: as PHB; as soon as you have 9 ranks you can use the Suggestion, and as soon as you have 21 ranks you can use the Mass Suggestion

Inspire Heroics
Preq.: Cha 13+, Perform 18 ranks
Benefit: as PHB; alternatively you could make it scale by level just as ICourage, since it's pretty equivalent (it's basically a defensive version)

Countersong, Inspire Competence, Inspire Greatness and Song of Freedom don't fit well together with each other, and they are quite week to be worth a feat each! If it's not too much for you, put them all together into a single feat still usable as many times per day = Cha bonus, each time using a different effect (which require the usual perform ranks to be done). In case someone wants more uses per day, you can always let him take these feats more than once.

Fairome said:

Human (Man) - Saxonish, spread most everywhere, centralized in one kingdom
Dwarf (Burgond) - Frankish, mostly in an eastern mountain kingdom
Elf (Mache) - Gaelic, very rare, in the southern foothills, loose city-states
Orc (Yrk) - Norman, mostly along and in the western sea, pirate nation
Halfling (Samman) - Also Saxonish, mostly in the human kingdom
Gnome (Lhurtur) - Lappish, most tribes in the colder southern tundra
Ratling (Munin) - Danish, living with the dwarves in the eastern mountains
Treemen (Bawnwere) - Neanderthalish, slannish society in the northern forest
Spiderfolk (Wyrdkind) - Turkish empire in the north-eastern mountains
Wood Troll (Wodos) - Pictish, tribal society in the southern forests
Goblins (Tanthir) - Tinkerish, dispersed among all peoples
Wavekin (Lidhe) - Welsh, a sea-based united city-states
Drakes (Skoffin) - Icelandic, shifting jarldoms in the northern wastes

...

Second, do you have any suggestions on tailoring the classic PHB, or, in the case of orcs, MM races to fit their cultures? I've already done things like replace the gnomish familiarity with illusions with a wilderness familiarity.

Click to expand...

Tell us a little more about the different cultures... I am not sure what you have in mind when you say "Lappish" even if I live in Finland

Minor skill bonuses and 1-2 free specific feats are the easiest way to add flavor to a race without really increasing its power. One example:

Orcs: +2 Climb, Jump, Balance and Use Rope (sailor-pirates) and one single Exotic Proficiency feat for free; remove Darkvision and Light Sensitivity.

Suggestion: have a lot of small race-specific PrCs, say two to three per race, which work like a cross between Racial Paragon classes and standard PrCs.

This allows some PCs to defy racial stereotypes, while also allowing others to embrace them.

-- N