Tiefling, Feytouched as LA +0

A short effort at a LA +0 Tiefling and Feytouched; I'm not real sure how balanced they are:

TIEFLING - The product of an encounter between a mortal and a fiend some generations ago, a tiefling's blood still exudes some of the taint from the lower planes. They are often marked by ruddy skin, black, oily hair, or purple, perhaps black, eyes. While not always evil; most tieflings of any alignment take steps to hide their more obvious traits.

While this corruption of the blood grants a tiefling a measure of quickness and personality, it saps away at the strength usually given mortal men.

* -2 Strength, +2 Dexterity, +2 Charisma
* Medium sized; Speed 30 feet
* Darkvision, 60 feet
* +2 Racial Bonus on Bluff, Hide, and Intimidate.
* Outsider: Tiefling are native outsiders, so they are vulnerbale to spells that affect the outsider type, but immune to others. A tiefling would take extra damage from an outsider bane sword, but be immune to hold person.
* Automatic Languages: Common; Bonus Languages: Infernal, Abyssal, Draconic, Goblin, Orc
* Favored Class: Rogue

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FEYTOUCHED - The lures of the fey are strong, and many humans succumb to their charms. Feytouched have some measure of fey blood in their veins. Often exotic and capricious in taste, their wandering ways and disdain for rules do not mix well with polite society. Somewhat frail of body, but deft in movement and charm.

* -2 Strength, -2 Constitution, +2 Dexterity, +2 Charisma
* Medium sized, Speed 30 feet
* Low-Light Vision: A Feytouched can see twice as far as a human in conditions of poor light.
* Freeminded: A Feytouched has a +4 racial bonus versus mind-affecting effects.
* Charm Person (Sp): A Feytouched may use charm person (CL equal to character level, Save DC 11 + Charisma Mod) once per day.
* Fey Blood: For all effects related to type, a feytouched is considered type fey. She would be subject to extra damage from a fey-bane sword, but immune to hold person.
* Automatic Languages: Common and Sylvan. Bonus: Goblin, Draconic, Giant
* Favored Class: Bard or Druid.


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I've no idea if these are properly LA +0. I'm pretty sure the Tiefling is, because it has a STR penalty, and it's not offset by being Small (+1 hit). I'm not sure about the Feytouched - the Charm Person may be too much, perhaps; but with both -2 STR/-2 CON, perhaps not. I'm operating under the WoTC assumptions that -STR,-CON is worth something more.

This is all somewhat culled from WoTC's Savage Progressions article on leveled races, though mixed up a bit. My problem is two-fold - I'm attempting to keep their stat modifiers different from Elves (esp. the Feytouched), but not stack so much penalties around that they become LA -1

If only t'were legal to have +1 to ability scores. Sigh.

Thanks for any sort of input!

Koewn

Durn it!

Land o' goshen! Please move me to house rules! I must've misclicked on which forum I wanted.

Thanks!

Koewn

I believe it was said somewhere that if the tiefling was not an outsider it would become LA +0.

Aye, the Outsider type is rather advantageous over the Humanoid type
usually. Anti-outsider stuff is generally Protection from/Magic Circle against
Alignment spells, Outsider Bane magic weapons, Banishment/Dismissal,
Planar Binding, and maybe a rare few I'm missing (referring to core rules
only, of course). Some low- and mid-level spells are only effective against
Humanoids, most of them offensive or manipulative rather than beneficial
(Daze, Charm Person, Hold Person, Dominate Person, Sleep I think, etc.).
Without the Outsider creature type, the Tiefling you posted would probably
be balanced at +0 LA as a Humanoid. If it stays an Outsider, then you need
to slap on something like a -2 Wisdom penalty and Light Blindness (like dark
elves) while reducing the skill bonuses to +1 each in order to make it
balanced at +0 LA.

As for the Feytouched, they're a bit more powerful. Unlike Outsider, there
are very few effects that specifically harm/weaken/repel Fey, so only the
more generic stuff like Charm Monster, Hold Monster, and Dominate Monster
really work on them, whereas Banishment/Dismissal and such does not. So,
for your LA +0 Feytouched, remove the Dexterity bonus. That should make
it fair for their capabilities and resultant immunities, or at least close to fair.

It seems that outsider type protects you from a few low level attack spells and a few low level beneficial spells.

At higher levels it it usually more of a bane than a boon, almost entirely.

I said that I believed it was said somewhere, and I still do, but I dont understand how taking it away really does anything but make them 'less' vulnerable, not more

Arkhandus said:

Without the Outsider creature type, the Tiefling you posted would probably be balanced at +0 LA as a Humanoid.

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Hmm. Not the response I guessed; but that's cool. I didn't think too much of the type when I was writing this up. For comparison, the Level-Adjusted Races section under Wizard's Savage Progressons articles on their website has this as the Tiefling at level 0:

* +2 Dex, -2 Charisma (I add -2 STR)
* Outsider Type
* Darkvision 60
* Lesser Darkness - 5 foot darkness, CL 1 (I don't have this)
* +2 Hide/Bluff (I add Intimidate)
* Resistance 2 to Electricity, cold, and fire. (I don't have this)

And that's all technically +0. Unless, of course, these were balanced only in the event you'd take both levels of the 'race', but I can't see that being the case, as one may never get around to taking the second level. At any rate, it's clearly better than mine. I'd think, that if a +2 Str is worth -2 Int/-2 Chr to a half-orc, -2 Str should be worth +2 Dex/+2 Chr without the benefits of Size Small to back it up.

The Feytouched on their site are like so:

* +2 Dex, -2 Con, +2 Chr (I add -2 Str)
* Fey Type
* Low Light vision
* +4 vs mind affecting effects.

Again. +0 on the site. The Charm Person is added at Feytouched Level 1, so perhaps I should take that out, but that was put in as a little oomph for the -2 Str. The -2 Str was added as a 'flavor' on my part - I want the humans that have been diluted with this non-humanoid-type blood to be weaker, physically, than a full mortal. At Feytouched Level 1, they are *immune* to mind-affecting effects - that's much bigger. Mine don't get that.

I don't know if the spell thing is that big of a deal. Quick glance through lowe-level Enchantment, aside from the 'X Person', Hypnotism, Hideous Laughter, Suggestion, they all target 'creature', not humanoid. Hold Person ain't what it used to be anyway. Sleep is 'creature' as well. Granted, +4 is pretty good, that could be taken down to +2, on the feytouched.


The website article is here:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20040213a

for reference. I realize I may relying on the suspect wisdom of Wizards on this project, but it's the best resource I've got.


Thanks!

Koewn

I think your races are solidly balanced at LA 0. You're definitely right about them being weaker than the ones given in the Savage Progression, which also don't require the second level being taken. (This was clarified on Sean Reynold's message board, unfortunately, I don't have a link.) The one big advantage of the tiefling, specifically, is the outsider type, which gives a lot of advantages to spellcasters with polymorph. Just something to think about.

TwoSix said:

(This was clarified on Sean Reynold's message board, unfortunately, I don't have a link.)

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You are saying that he said you dont have to take all racial levels before proceeding to other classes? or just in this one instance?

I would really have to see this quote, and the context it was in.

Scion said:

You are saying that he said you dont have to take all racial levels before proceeding to other classes? or just in this one instance?

I would really have to see this quote, and the context it was in.

Click to expand...

It wouldn't make any sense to break them out into levels if you had to take them all in a row.

Doing:

(Tiefling 0 race choice)
Tiefling 1
Rogue 1
Rogue 2

is the exact same as just doing the normal LA +1 Tiefling - you're still a level behind.

This way, you can do:

(Tiefling 0 race choice)
Rogue 1
Rogue 2

and then maybe take the first Tiefling level at Character Level 3, or not.

Technically, I could just take the (0 Level) racial start points off of that webpage and use them as LA +0 races, at least that's how it's presented - unless there are special rules for 'template' or 'racial' classes in Savage Species that I'm not aware of - I don't have the book.

Koewn

Koewn said:

It wouldn't make any sense to break them out into levels if you had to take them all in a row.

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I'll have to disagree. They are only broken up into levels to try to make them more playable at any level desired.

What 'doesnt' make any sense is to start taking racial levels but to not finish.

Under what was just described a character could take a single racial level of any race (be it 1 level, 5, 10, 20, a million) and then never take any more racial levels. Ever.

So, they are broken up into levels simply as an exercise to try to make them easier to play at whatever level of play is desired. Not to have creatures that have 3/7 of the racial levels and whatever else after that.

At that point of what you just said it is just a 'class'. How about I take 2 levels of ogre, 3 levels of troll, 2 levels of cloud giant, 4 levels of astral deva.. etc etc. That makes just as much sense