[3.x] Racial Ability Homebrew

[rogueboy]

I'm looking at altering the races for a campaign world that I am building, that I am hoping to get to run soon (though that may be unlikely, since I move across the country in a month). My main goal is to ensure that a character's race remains relevant through their entire career as a PC, something that I don't think is the case currently (as an example: an elf's immunity to sleep effects? probably not so useful when most have a relatively low HD cap). I am looking for input as to what abilities are considered useful throughout a character's career.

Which racial abilities are useful throughout the PC's life? Which aren't? I have several homebrew races and I am heavily modifying most of the others that I'm using, so I will have to craft or steal racials for most of the races. For now, I'm trying to get an idea of some good racials rather than assigning them to individual races, specifically.

Also, I'm looking at having a couple different sub-races for each of the 7 primary races I have (1 with a bonus to each stat, plus humans as the more versatile race), so I will need quite a few different abilities.

 

[Celebrim]

Sorry to be slow to respond. I've been busy IRL.

There are several things going on here and I think you need to separate them in your mind to some extent.

Your stated goal is to make the PC's race relevant for their entire career.

I believe this is a separate issue to virtually every other thing you mention in the post.

An elf's immunity to sleep effects would be IMO a prime example of something that remains relevant throughout the PC's career. The fact that a particular selection of rules doesn't have a lot of sleep effects doesn't mean that immunity is irrelevant to a generalized set of challenges. In some games the power isn't relevant because the character is never subject to a sleep effect. In other campaigns, the BBEG is the demon prince of nightmares and there are all sorts of hideous sleep effects, power word: sleep, and so forth (for an example, see Paxcreeg in the link in my signature). You can't judge the utility of a power based on an expectation of its relevance. You have to just look at the math. An immunity is an infinite resource. It cannot be overcome without a stated exception. That means that if you have an immunity that there is a good chance you are immune to the God of Sleep as well as a sleep spell. Incidently, I consider this a negative rather than a positive. Full immunity goes to far, and I generally try to remove straight immunities from the game. Typically, if I want to implement a race that is racially immune to sleep magic, I'll give them SR at something like 20+character level versus sleep inducing spells and effects. This gives them near immunity that scales with level but removes 'infinities' and the need for special exceptions from the game.

Secondly, you have to be careful with assumptions about how things scale. A straight +1 bonus is always relevant. It's a 5% increased chance of succees, period. At 1st level when you have a +5 bonus and need a 15 to succeed, its exactly like being 20th level having a +15 bonus and needing a 25 to succeed. The +1 bonus gives the exact same utility in both cases.

However, that isn't to say that a straight +2 bonus to two skills is as relevant as 1 extra skill point per level. Obviously, the latter scales even better with level, however that +2 bonus is still relevant. Don't assume that static bonuses have to scale with level.

Where you do have to watch is bonuses that are generally rendered obselete at higher levels usually by ready access to magic. A race that recieved bonus languages to start and a bonus to climb would find that for most campaigns without special rules limiting magic that their special abilities would decrease in utility over time (because of spells like Tongues and Fly). In cases like this, keeping the ability relevant might require scaling up the bonus over time. For example, learning a new language every level or recieving a bonus to the climb skill equal to the characters BAB would remain relevant even at higher levels in a way that one extra starting language a +2 racial bonus to climb wouldn't despite these being nice starting benefits.

Now, back to your central issue, which is making the PC's race more relevant over the entire course of play.

There are two basic issues here.

First, EL +0 races bring a small enough set of bonuses that you don't have alot of room to work in. It's very hard to provide alot of benefit in a racial template and still stay EL +0 and balanced with existing EL +0 races. If you bring alot of flavor in a race and have truly relevant abilities the tendancy is to actually push EL +1. One solution to this is rebalance your game so that races like human (or whatever your default race is) are actually EL +1 races. Under this model, everyone starts out with a free EL +1 racial template. This gives you more room to work out a flavorful and relevant set of bonuses.

Second, regardless of the racial template, they tend to be quite front loaded. In the case of PC races, they are entirely front loaded. This makes it very hard for them to feel relevant at higher levels. One solution to this is to grant new abilities to the race that arise only when the character has gained sufficient levels. That is, you can make races work more like a class, with new powers gained at intervals as the character level increases. If you were to go that route, my recommendation to you would be to create 8-10 racial feats for each race and give each race a bonus racial feat at 5th,10th,15th and 20th level (or whatever progression you prefer, but ideally the number of slots is only a fraction of the available options). This has the dual advantage of allowing the player to customize his character and ensuring that each race maintains a unique flavor. And it resolves the prior issue as well, since you can give players a package of small abilities without bumping up the effective power level of a starting character beyond what you'd expect for a 1st level character. I'd air on the side of making the racial feats minor - the goal here is mainly flavor and player interest not greatly increase character power.

I'll be happy to help with crunch once you decide on an approach.

 

[rogueboy]

Sorry to be slow to respond. I've been busy IRL.

Not a problem, I've been running a bit hectic as well, so I understand perfectly well . Thanks for replying!

An elf's immunity to sleep effects would be IMO a prime example of something that remains relevant throughout the PC's career. *snip*

Alright, I'll admit that I underestimated an immunity to sleep, probably because I have never run into any campaigns that use any sleep effects more powerful than the Sleep spell, and that includes things up to and including low epic and demon/devil lords. Well, the specific example was less relevant to what I was trying to get across than the fact that there are useless racial abilities (as you mentioned, a +2 to climb, or a bonus language).

Full immunity goes to far, and I generally try to remove straight immunities from the game.

I agree with this wholeheartedly, and incorporate that into every game that I run (and suggest it to the DM if I'm playing).

Secondly, you have to be careful with assumptions about how things scale. A straight +1 bonus is always relevant. It's a 5% increased chance of succees, period. At 1st level when you have a +5 bonus and need a 15 to succeed, its exactly like being 20th level having a +15 bonus and needing a 25 to succeed. The +1 bonus gives the exact same utility in both cases.

Perhaps I'm misremembering, but the last time I saw a discussion on this, I thought the conclusion (of at least a slight majority of those involved) was that because it's a lower proportion of the total attack bonus, it's less relevant at higher levels (a contributing factor to the suckiness of Weapon Focus). I couldn't provide a source for that, as I can't even remember which forum I read it on, much less when I read it.

Now, back to your central issue, which is making the PC's race more relevant over the entire course of play.

There are two basic issues here.

*snip* [EL+0 vs. EL+1 races]

My goal is to increase the power level of the base races, across the board. I do not feel the need to keep the default racial abilities presented in the PHB. I am of the opinion that at levels 1-3 (roughly) the PCs are too squishy to be able to take much of a hit, and combats are far too swingy for my liking. For this reason, I've altered starting HP, but I have no problem with a further increase to provide a more interesting decision to race.

Second, regardless of the racial template, they tend to be quite front loaded.

This is the crux of the race-relevance problem. Racial feats are an option that I have been considering, though your suggestion to give bonus racial feat slots hadn't occurred to me so I'll have to throw that into my list of possible solutions. While I want race to be important, and be a distinguishing 2 characters with the same class but different races, I would hope to avoid issues where there are more similarities than differences between 2 characters with the same race but different classes (more an issue with similar classes, ie Fighter vs Ranger), at least at low levels.

Hopefully this helps you understand what I'm trying to do with the new racial abilities a bit better.

 

[Celebrim]

Perhaps I'm misremembering, but the last time I saw a discussion on this, I thought the conclusion (of at least a slight majority of those involved) was that because it's a lower proportion of the total attack bonus, it's less relevant at higher levels (a contributing factor to the suckiness of Weapon Focus).

I've seen that argument made a lot of times and it's just based on bad math. A +1 bonus is a +1 bonus. It only becomes irrelevant at the extremes, for example, when you need a 20 and you already have a +18 bonus or when you need a 40 and you have a +10 bonus. Weapon Focus is only really sucky in comparison to say 'Wish', 'Resurrection', or 'Wall of Force'. It's sucky only in the sense that at high levels, it tends to be well overshadowed. But a +1 bonus is a +1 bonus, and the percentage of your total bonus doesn't matter. It only matters that there is one more side of the d20 that doesn't indicate failure, and that is as true at 20th level as it is at 1st.

My goal is to increase the power level of the base races, across the board.

Ok, that's going to make your other goal easier.

I am of the opinion that at levels 1-3 (roughly) the PCs are too squishy to be able to take much of a hit, and combats are far too swingy for my liking. For this reason, I've altered starting HP, but I have no problem with a further increase to provide a more interesting decision to race.

Ok, we seem to be in general agreement here. I've altered hit points by giving bonus hit points based on size class. Medium-sized creatures for example have 8 bonus hit points. This makes 1st level characters much less squishy and 1st level combat less swingy. Of course, 1st level characters tend to be facing things that also have more hitpoints, so they aren't greatly increasing relative power. A 1HD monster is also less squishy. On the whole, I've been greatly pleased with this change (though I'm still troubled by the question of how humans hunt deer successfully, at least I've solved the problem of housecat vs. farmer and no longer have to give all large or huge creatures large pools of hit dice and attendent skills, BAB, etc.).

This is the crux of the race-relevance problem. Racial feats are an option that I have been considering, though your suggestion to give bonus racial feat slots hadn't occurred to me so I'll have to throw that into my list of possible solutions. While I want race to be important, and be a distinguishing 2 characters with the same class but different races, I would hope to avoid issues where there are more similarities than differences between 2 characters with the same race but different classes (more an issue with similar classes, ie Fighter vs Ranger), at least at low levels.

One other thing I've been doing in my games is that all PC's start off as advantaged characters, meaning that they not only have a starting feat, but they also have a starting advantageous Trait. Most traits are roughly feat equivalent, but in general do not greatly impact combat ability (most are skill related though some effect saving throws etc). Most racial feats are treated as Traits (feats that are both Traits and General Feats can be taken with either 'slot'). It sounds to me like you might consider having characters start the game having selected one or more advantages from a racial pool in addition to some baseline racial template.

 

[Sylrae]

You could use racial paragon classes.

Basically, it's how Arcana Evolved, WoW d20, and most of the monsters I have ever designed handle LA. it's brilliant.
Essentially, every LA is an actual class level, designed to be on par with regular levels. They give a HD, skill points, and provide the same access to feats. Unlike Savage progressions, which don't give a HD at every level, and are simply the LA divided evenly for a monster.

If you want racial abilities to stay relevent for EVERYONE, I'd suggest you make something like this, but pull out the skills and hp and saves and feat progressions, and have them just receive the special abilities, and have them receive them automatically when they reach the appropriate number of hit dice.

So long as you give it to everyone, you should be good to go.

I'd recommend either the full classes, or giving the abilities automaically.

 

[Celebrim]

You could use racial paragon classes.

I've never been a fan of these. Alot of good designers go that route, but the basic problem I see is that its very hard to balance a racial class. Either the racial class is better than a base class so that anyone of that race will take it, or else its worse than taking a level in the base class in which case in practice no one will take it. It's very hard to balance it in such a way that it becomes just one of several concepts.

I think if you are going to make racial choice more relevanet, allowing a racial bonus feat at 5th, 10th, 15th, etc. is probably the better way to go. That way, you don't take a racial paragon class - you become one.

Incidently, that's my approach to PrC's as well. No one in my campaign takes a PrC; they become a PrC.

 

[Sylrae]

Having a racial feat you get automatically at specific levels, is alot like the paragon class idea. Pretty much the same as my racial paragon without the levels, requirement. but you'd have to make sure that thy don't spend their normal feats, and that they can't pick a normal feat instead of a racial one. I think that is a good route, for an LA+0 race. The problem with this is you need to have them for every playable race. It works if you have a limited selection, or a mountain of time, or are willing to work them out or each unusual choice a player makes.

If one race is going to be more powerful than others, or gets a unique caster progression (succubus, dryad, etc... mostly for powerful monsters as playable options), I would recommend having the paragon class to pick those up. That answers the "Why does the one in the monster manual have this ability that I dont?": "Because you haven't taken enough levels in succubus" or whatever. If you're doing the racial abilities for free as you gain levels, I'd say you should do that for these guys as well, on top of any paragon class. It might reduce the number of levels the paragon class requires. Of course, not everyone has the belief of "If it's as smart as an orc, and between sizes tiny and gargantuan, it should be playable (assuming it doesn't mess up the specific campaign plot to do so)." Not everyone would allow players to play a band of evil marauders who sack towns and their opponents are often good-aligned adventurers either, though. I tend to be pretty open minded, and cater the campaign to what the players decide to make, most of the time.

I'm going to run an FR game in the fall that will have a small subset of the FR races as available options, for example. Monster characters, and dwarves and gnomes and orcs/halforcs won't be viable options for the plot I intend to run. It depends on the parameters of what works with the story IMO.