Aitan, new race; looking for advice

I'm simply looking on general advice on making this balanced to play in place of the core races, as they have been dropped for the campaign. Also I'd like some thoughts on the flavour as well.

Aitan

Personality
Brash and often overly confident, Aitan can sometimes find themselves as the centre of attention, whether they like it or not. This trait regularly leads young Aitan to more trouble then their rigid society seems to allow. But their overconfidence does help fuel a deep competitive spirit and Aitan are renowned for their athleticism. Often they can take these competitions to far but they are held in place by traditions and taboos that have lasted as long as the races surprising tact for spiritual thinking. They also hold stock in honour, and order, they often train in martial combat but that life is only for a few. A significant proportion of Aitan are noted for being pious, although it isn’t a racial trend, what can be said is as a whole they tend to err on the side of superstition, which hold true, and link into many of the traditions and taboos.

Physical description
Most Aitan stand at most 6’6” and at most weigh 270lb, they are athletically built. Most have stocky frames and calloused hands, which suits the loose clothing that they often wear, due to the physical work they often labour with, and the chafing climate most of them endure. The clothing itself is generally in plain colours, however on special occasion they often wear clothes with rich colours. Aitan most normally have dark hair, and it is either kept shaven due to the heat or wrapped into tight curls, plaits and dread locks. The native skin spreads across all the lighter shades of olive, with rare offspring showing a yellow tint that can often be mistaken for jaundice.

Relations

Diet
Aitan communities mainly survive on the arable farming, and a few livestock that can survive in the climate. The vegetables are usually plants like corn, wheat or yaka.

Alignment
Aitan are naturally ordered and thus biased slightly towards Lawful.

Homeland
Aitan are adaptive to any climate and nearly any terrain, although the main provinces lie within savannahs, plains and temperate zones in general.

Language
Aitan speak their own language; Aita. Aita is a language with many soft sounds with the words containing slightly more vowels than consonants, the alphabet has 29 letters.

Names
Aitan names sometimes have relation to the family often having children named after ancestors of their achievements.
Typical names include
Male: Jeur, Aryeh, Telouc, Ialua and Raoär
Female: Noehu, Alos, Teirvu, Weln, Ialua and Kerui


Racial traits:
Aitan are medium creatures
+2 Con -2 Cha
Movement rate of 30ft
+2 on any two craft skills picked at 1st level.
+2 on Jump, Swim, and Climb checks
+2 to fortitude saves against fatigue on, Constitution checks made to avoid nonlethal damage from starvation or thirst, to continue running, and to avoid nonlethal damage from a forced march.
+2 on will saves, Aitan can be incredibly stubborn.
+2 to hit whilst fighting unarmed, this only applies in their natural form.
The favoured class for Aitan is Fighter.

Hmmmmm...+2 Con/-2 Cha is purely beneficial for warrior-types, but it's not too unbalanced at all and their +2 with staves won't matter a whit because staves suck so much that unless one of them has Spinning Halberd or a similar feat (or you use the quite reasonable house rule that some polearms can be used as double) it won't come into play. Wizards and similar are poor enough combatants that +2 won't matter much, but ph34r the druid/clerics with shillelagh, brambles, or both.

EDIT: Yeah, mechanically it looks alright. Not as much goodies as dwarves, I'm thinkin'.

I think that the main problem of this race is that it has nothing exciting at all. It has no strong original concept on which to rely upon. At least you could make them a human variant who were bred long ago to become workers, or slaves, but then were freed. Nonetheless the race would have kept the emphasis on discipline and work. Even then, I don't see why a PC would be inteested in this race that looks bland with no interesting racial traits. I would much prefer like to play a human.

advice on making this equivilent to the main races, as they won't be present.

Click to expand...

What d'you mean? Equivalent = balanced? Won't be present = not available in the setting??

I want them on par with themain races i.e ecl +0 (so yes balance), but there are no elves, human, gnomes, halflings, half-elves half-orcs, dwarves or orcs, so yes not available in the setting.

I really missed out on the flavour text, There is some, but it's long. I'll write it down soon. In fact it might help get advice on what to give them, I kind of rushed their abilities....

I would:
- drop the +2 to hit with staff or staff-like weapons.
- apply the +2 fort saves also to resisting enviromental effects (temperature and the like)

The staff ability seems too powerful to me it is in essence giving Weapon Focus and Improved Weapon Focus to the race not just for one weapon, but a whole catagory. For reference one of the prerequisited for Greater Weapon Focus is fighter level 8th. So, to me, it seems a touch powerful.

I've taken off the bonus on staff, I wouldn't want to add another bonus to fortitude, for fear that would be come pidgeon-holed as fort monsters. As a whole I think they sould be balanced, I don't want to add any racial 'quirks' to set them apart, the reason why I dropped the core races is to avoid these cliches (mild they might be). I also think that they should be flexible, in almost the same way that humans are represented, and can be played as the character not the race.


[edit: As a secondary thought I'm not so happy on the abilities, mainly the one that has been penalised.