Setting: Aleasana--Rules and So Forth...

Personally, I feel that the small races need a bit more oomph or something to make up for their weaknesses. As it stands, they're nearly equivalent to humans or urukh in racial traits, but still have the weakness of their small size without compensation. Any bodai or juni will be squirming fruitlessly as soon as a monstrous scorpion, dire lion, ogre/asani, or worse chuul, gets ahold of them. Being puny sucks when someone or something is trying to throw you around like a ragdoll or knock you to the ground for a good, savage mauling.

Not to mention that being small means they basically suck at disarming, tripping, bull rushing, or similar tactics, except when juni and bodai are using such tactics on eachother only.

BTW, it kinda irks me that everyone and their brother has a Survival bonus, seemingly. Juni and Urukhs crossed a desert to get to Aleasana. What the frell did Bodai do to become such great survivors of the hardships they never had to face? For that matter, their racial bonus on saving throws doesn't seem warranted either.

I propose: For Bodai, replace the +1 on saving throws with instead a +2 racial bonus on all Craft checks pertaining to the working of cloth and fur. Also, grant them Listen, Spot, and Craft as permanent class skills, as craftsmanship is important to their culture and the grasslands require good awareness to avoid great dangers. Lastly, I'd boost the bonus for using bows while mounted to +2, as firing from the back of a moving mount causes significant penalties; even the Mounted Archery feat won't negate the penalties, it only reduces them. For Juni, give them Perform (Oratory) and Survival as permanent class skills, and also grant Juni the +1 bonus on all saving throws that halflings no longer get, because Juni need to be good at escaping the unpredictable dangers of the desert.

Changes ...

Well ... the bodai doesn't get a bonus to Survival anyway

The Urukh and Juni do. We could give the Urukh something else rather than a bonus to Survival. Like Intimidate or some monkish skill, like Escape Artist or Tumble. The only race that should get a Survival as standing now is the Juni IMO.

The bonus to saving throws must just put in because their "supposed" to be halflings But I guess it's kinda of hard to see now, on any of the races

Isn't Craft a class skills for all PHB classes?

I am not sure about giving the permanent class skills. It might tip the scale of balance to overpowered. I'll add them and let it stand to see what people think.

Otherwise, I like your suggestions very much. They fit the flavor. We can always do more changes when the races become more fleshed out (such as details and cultural things not mentioned yet in the main thread).

Changes to the races
I've made some changes based on your feedback above. Thanks!

Bodai:
-- +2 racial bonus on all Craft checks related to working with cloth and fur.
-- Mounted Archer: Now grants a +2 circumstance bonus.
-- Bodai recieves Listen and Spot as permanent class skills.

Juni:
-- +1 racial bonus on all saving throws: Bodai are surprisingly capable of avoiding mishaps.
-- Juni recieves Perform (oratory) and Survival as permanent class skills.

I was also thinking about racial or paragon classes. What does people think about those? Should we have those for the races of Aleasana?

Just to make it official... I propose the following rule change for undead in Aleasana:

any undead may have an alignment which is one step closer to Lawful Good than listed

I.e. Lich goes from "Alignment: Any evil" to "Alignment: Any non-good"
Allip goes from "Alignment: Always neutral evil" to "Always LE, NE, or TN"
Ghouls and Ghasts go from "Always chaotic evil" to "CE, NE or CN"
Spectres go from "Always lawful evil" to "LE or LN"

etc...

Conaill said:

Just to make it official... I propose the following rule change for undead in Aleasana:

any undead may have an alignment which is one step closer to Lawful Good than listed

I.e. Lich goes from "Alignment: Any evil" to "Alignment: Any non-good"
Allip goes from "Alignment: Always neutral evil" to "Always LE, NE, or TN"
Ghouls and Ghasts go from "Always chaotic evil" to "CE, NE or CN"
Spectres go from "Always lawful evil" to "LE or LN"

etc...

Click to expand...

I don't like that rule. Now Liche I can see as being any non-good but things like Ghouls, Allips and Bodaks (sp) etc just shouldn't change just because ONE city has a Liche leader and maybe some zombie, ghoul and ghost citizens

Tonguez said:

I don't like that rule. Now Liche I can see as being any non-good but things like Ghouls, Allips and Bodaks (sp) etc just shouldn't change just because ONE city has a Liche leader and maybe some zombie, ghoul and ghost citizens

Click to expand...

It's not "just because ONE city has a Liche leader". We've proposed changes to favored classes and other wide-ranging changes to the default rules before. I just think it would make Aleasana a more interesting setting if undead aren't always required to be pure evil. The Odraani Imperium is only a convenient excuse to propose this rule - and it certainly makes the continuing existence of an undead "Imperium" a lot more plausible.

Just added the Tuatha to the races, and changed some favored classes.

Suggested rule--all dragons in Aleasana use the basic stats of Gold Dragons, though special abilities, breath weapon type, and elemental affiliation vary. Any kind of dragon may be of any alignment.