ECL +1 race - the wildings

This is a racial concept I've played with for many a year, also called ferals depending on my mood. They are loosly inspired by the Elfquest story of a 'druid' who went native in wolf form and started a line of part wolf elves. In this case the base stock was human and actually had at least two 'lost' druids when the first of their tribe were driven into a dense forest by their former people (whole backstory on that that I might post later.) I'm looking at them right now as ecl +1 so that I can include all the abilities I envisioned in the race. Wildings mature faster than humans, reaching maturity around 10 years. They don't tend to die of old age, so I haven't really considered upper limits. I also didn't give them common as an automatic language, because I think of them as totally cut off from the outer world - their closest border with civilization is the country which drove them out in the first place and would as soon kill them all and turn the forest into the D&D equivelent of a parking lot as look at them.

WILDINGS
• +2 Constitution, +2 Wisdom, –2 Inteligence.
• Medium: As Medium creatures, wildings have no special bonuses or penalties due to their size.
• Wilding base land speed is 30 feet. However, a wilding with nothing in her hands and crrying not more than a light load can drop down on all fours and gain a speed bonus of +10 feet.
• Low Light Vision : A wilding can see twice as far as a human in starlight, moonlight, torchlight, and similar conditions of poor illumination. She retains the ability to distinguish color and detail under these conditions.
• Scent : Wildings possess the scent ability as described in the DMG.
• Natural Armor : The tough skin of the wildings grants them a +1 natural bonus to their armor class.
• Wild empathy : Wildings gain the wild empathy ability as a druid of half their character level. If they take a class or classes which normally gains this ability, their wilding bonus stacks with their class ones.
• +4 racial bonus to Survival checks.
• +2 racial bonus to Spot and Listen checks made in a natural, wooded environment.
• Aversion to metal : Wildings are very uncomfortable wearing, holding or using metal, and suffer a -1 moral penalty to all attack and damage rolls, AC and skill checks when wearing metal armor or using a metal weapon or tool.
• Automatic Language: Sylvan. Bonus Languages: Common, elvish and gnomish.
• Favored Class: Ranger. A multiclass wilding’s ranger class does not count when determining whether she takes an experience point penalty for multiclassing.

hmm, 10 veiws, no comments. Ether its vaugly well ballanced, boring as hell, so broken its not worth talking about or all the semi-professional race critiquers aren't on line. I'm hoping to get some feedback before I post it as a proposal to LEW.

Kahuna Burger

Well, first let's run it through Soldarin's system to double-check the balance side of things:

Size: 0.0
Hit Dice: 0.0
Speed: Well, 30' is 0.0, 40' is +0.2. Requiring the hands to be free is a significant drawback, so let's call that +0.1.
AC: +1 Natural = +0.2

Scent: +0.2 (it should probably be worth more than this, Scent can be VERY useful.)
Physical stats: +0.2
Mental stats: 0.0 (although I'd be careful with any race allowing a bonus to a spellcasting stat)
Skills: Survival +4 (+0.2), Spot +2 conditional (+0.05), Listen +2 conditional (+0.05)
Wild Empathy: I'd call it a minor bonus (+0.2)
Metal allergy: -0.2 (a minor weakness, equivalent to light sensitivity)

Total: +1.0, which puts it on the weak end of the ECL+1 scale (you round down). You could make the 40' move be all the time, and bump the Natural AC to +2, and it'd still be fine as ECL+1.

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But enough of the math, let's analyze the race in context. First, I think you've got the wrong favored class; this race is ideal for a Druid. They already have something worse than the metal aversion, they'd love a WIS bonus, and the Wild Empathy stacks (which, by the way, I think could be a mistake. A Druid of this race would end up with Epic-level bonuses.) Add in a CON bonus, a speed boost, and some basic natural armor and you get a very survivable race for Druids. Possibly too good, because the weaknesses of your race overlap with the weaknesses of the class, but the benefits stack.

Think of it this way; I could be: A> a Human Fighter 1/Druid X (assume it went Druid, Fighter, then Druid X-1), or B> a Wildling Druid X.
Hit points? The Wildling ends up ahead thanks to his higher CON, although it'll take 8 or 9 levels for him to break even.
Skill points? Okay, the human comes out way ahead due to his bonus human points AND his higher INT. The Wildling gets a few skill bonuses to compensate, but not much. On the other hand, a Druid gets a decent number of skill points already.
But then all you're left with is 2 feats, Fort +2, and BAB+1 on side A, while side B gets Scent, Natural Armor, a speed boost, +2 WIS (giving +1 Will, +1 save DC, bonus spells, and +1 to all those WIS-based skills), low-light vision... definitely an advantage to the Wildling. The only thing I'd really say here is that many of the Wildling's nice abilities would go away if wildshaped.

I'd be really careful with the metal aversion, though, because unlike light sensitivity it isn't a conditional thing. For a Druid, Monk, Wizard, or Sorcerer it's meaningless, while for many other classes it'll always be on. Maybe a high-DEX Ranger with a bow and leather armor would be okay, but that's about it; the Ranger/Barbarian that this seems to want to mimic would be in trouble.

Or, instead of a Druid, how about a Monk? The WIS would also give extra AC, the CON gives extra HP, they're not really skill-dependent anyway, and they don't use weapons or armor so the metal allergy means nothing.

Anyway, the flavor of the class is okay, it just seems like you're trying to make a race whose abilities severely bias towards one or two classes. Not that that hasn't been done before, of course. Personally I'd toss the metal allergy altogether, in which case you could even get this down to an ECL 0 race pretty easily.

Spatzimaus said:

Metal allergy: -0.2 (a minor weakness, equivalent to light sensitivity)

Total: +1.0, which puts it on the weak end of the ECL+1 scale (you round down). You could make the 40' move be all the time, and bump the Natural AC to +2, and it'd still be fine as ECL+1.

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this was the math I got on the calculator as well, though I actually wasn't trying to include the metal aversion as a weakness. it was one of the flavor points of the orriginal character I used this concept for, and the most mechanical seeming of them so I threw it in.

sicne I'm already nterested in it having an ecl, I don't see the problem with a plus to a mental stat (I don't see a problem with that in general, but thats another subject). Since the race is literally anamalistic, and as far as I can remeber every mammal has a higher base wis than humans, not including that aspect would been silly. the fact that such a boost is good for the "natural" classes, that such a tribe would be mostly persuing is a good bit of in game logic.

But enough of the math, let's analyze the race in context. First, I think you've got the wrong favored class; this race is ideal for a Druid. They already have something worse than the metal aversion, they'd love a WIS bonus, and the Wild Empathy stacks (which, by the way, I think could be a mistake. A Druid of this race would end up with Epic-level bonuses.) Add in a CON bonus, a speed boost, and some basic natural armor and you get a very survivable race for Druids. Possibly too good, because the weaknesses of your race overlap with the weaknesses of the class, but the benefits stack.

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yes, druids of this race would be very powerful. However, this race does not exist to be the druids of a multi racial society, it exists as a isolated group of tribes whom the outside world may encounter as wanderers or if they go into their territory. It made the most sense for meto have them be slanted towards a combat class, and rangers made the most sense with tracking and such. pretty much all of their casters would be druids, and there would be some barbarians floating around, and maybe the occasional rogue/ranger. this was a choice based on seeing them as a plot point in a campaign (this race of feral humans honed in a constant battle for survival but a hard ally to make) and choosing a majority class for the race on that basis.

If the per hit dice bonus doesn't stack they would have to get a flat +4 or some such that would - rangers have wild empathy too, and I want this feature to improve it, not be meaningless (the same reason I didn't give them track). I disagree that it would be 'epic', since the overal bonus for a 20th level character would be +10, when a skill like hide gets that bonus from a common 3rd-5th level magic item. Wild empathy is just the replacement for the animal empathy skill with an autmoatic one rank/level, after all.

I'd be really careful with the metal aversion, though, because unlike light sensitivity it isn't a conditional thing. For a Druid, Monk, Wizard, or Sorcerer it's meaningless, while for many other classes it'll always be on. Maybe a high-DEX Ranger with a bow and leather armor would be okay, but that's about it; the Ranger/Barbarian that this seems to want to mimic would be in trouble.

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As I said before, the metal aversion is largely flavor, I wasn't counting it as a disadvantage for one reason - with a strong population of druids as these tribes would have, fighters who really needed it would have iron-wooded (via the spell or a magic weapon/armor abilty) gear that would serve the same purpose. I could have put it as flavor text entirely, but its a flavor I'd like to enforce.

Or, instead of a Druid, how about a Monk? The WIS would also give extra AC, the CON gives extra HP, they're not really skill-dependent anyway, and they don't use weapons or armor so the metal allergy means nothing.

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the flavor of the race is highly chaotic, based on the background and such I have for them, so monk wouldn't work. again, a flavor decision. I would be tempted even to assign the race as almost always non-lawful eliminating that choice... though in a campaig without allignment restrictions on the monk it would work well as their scouts over the rogue.

Anyway, the flavor of the class is okay, it just seems like you're trying to make a race whose abilities severely bias towards one or two classes. Not that that hasn't been done before, of course. Personally I'd toss the metal allergy altogether, in which case you could even get this down to an ECL 0 race pretty easily.

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yes, the race is biased. there are no wilding wizards or paladins, certainly. They are tribal and pretty primative. that is the flavor, and they are only a fit for the kind of campaign that wants a super dangerous "wilding wood" bordered on one side by an ultra order based society that drove them out.

Anyway, aside from the flavor, would a wild empathy ability with a flat racial bonus work better than the half level one, in your mind? And would you still be ok with the +1 race idea if the metal aversion was not counted as a mechanical disadvantage?

Kahuna Burger

Looks noticeably stronger than ECL +1 to me. IF the animal empathy didn't stack, maybe.

Maybe.

Whether you envision them as -not- being Druids, that is THE obvious path to take one. Sure, they may not produce a lot of them as a race, but I bet you'd see a lot of druids amongst the PC portion of the species.