Balanced Race? Judge the 'Perfects'
Changing the rule as you stated doesn't prevent abuse, it just inhibits the flavor of the class. They are made 'perfect', which just means better than humans, at everything. The wizard probably won't care that he only gets to raise dex, int, and con but raising the other 3 stats that won't come into play very often is a benefit of the race. Alternately, the paladin would probably like to raise more than str, wis, and cha and is happy to see his dex, con, and int go up. Good for him, but hardly 'unbalancing'. At least imo. I just wanted to see what other people thought.
The game I designed this for will be using Arcana Evolved classes with a couple of their races and some d&d races. One of the perfects will be the party's first challenges, along with a small cultish group of them. Prestige Classes will be allowed in on a review basis, and while multiclassing is 'free' (No favored class), you can only take 1 prestige class, ever. Campaign probably won't go past 12th anyway.
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Nifft
Penguin Herder
Say what? Every "Perfect" is better than every human at everything? That makes no sense, nor does it fit the mechanics that you wrote.Technik4 said:
+2 to each stat means you have +1 over someone who did the same point buy. Not that you are better at everything. It's likely that someone with different racial abilities will choose a different point buy, right?
You're not saying that a Perfect Barbarian will have a higher Int than a human Wizard, nor that he'll have a higher Charisma than a human Paladin, are you?
In this case, the CR adjustment is more important than the LA adjustment, right?Technik4 said:
Cheers, -- N
Right, it was exaggeration. If there are 100 human soldiers in a field of battle with 10 perfects in the group, odds are the perfects will live more often than the humans. That is what I meant by better at 'everything' (saving throws, AC, attacks, hit points (considerably at 1st level), skill checks). Those perfects will go on to become commanders and may exhibit better tactics than a human commander. These slight bonuses go on to become dominant forces, like in evolution (except in the case of my world, they were magically created super-soldiers, not the next step in evolution).
CR is a factor, but I would like to present it as an option at character creation too. The 1st level perfect will start with 0 exp and have to get 3,000 to reach level 2 (while everyone else will start with 0 exp and have to reach 1,000 exp to level up). Afterwards they should be balanced (when everyone has 3,000 exp, everyone levels up). For CR I will not be increasing it unless I deem it to actually affect the NPC. So a Perfect Warrior 2 will be CR 1 (on the high side).
Nifft
Penguin Herder
That doesn't help those of us trying to help you.Technik4 said:
There are technical reasons why a total of +12 to ability scores is too much for LA +1. You've brought up a bunch of practical examples trying to show that it's not too strong, but consider that your players may be smarter -- or more motivated -- than all of us in finding the specific cases where the applied bonus is maximized.Technik4 said:
If you're playing AE, I think you'll find that a lot of the classes have MAD (multiple ability dependency).
The only way I could see this race having the desired effect would be if you only allowed characters to use a fixed array of ability stats (e.g. "elite array" 15,14,13,12,10,8).
If you allow point-buy, I think you'll get cases like this:
Human: Str 14, Dex 12, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 13, Cha 10 -- "Don't want a penalty to Int or Cha, but don't much care about them either..."
Perfect: Str 18, Dex 15, Con 16, Int 10, Wis 14, Cha 10 -- "Sweet, I can take two from Int and Cha and put them in Str instead... and still no penalties!"
I'd consider that to be about right -- a Human Warrior 2 is also CR 1, right? NPC classes are "balanced" by pretty much sucking no matter what your ability scores are...Technik4 said:
Cheers, -- N
Ah, I plan on allowing rolling 4d6 6 times or an array. I don't like point buy as I think the characters tend to have too many cookie cutter even stats (and this is after making quite a few point buy characters myself). With an array, you can still create a range of characters and I think the race is balanced as LA +1. With rolling, well if my group is cool with rolling they hopefully won't be up in arms about an LA +1 class
I wanted to see if it was considered under or overpowered in the context of the greater d&d land, which it appears to be above +1 but below +2...
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eamon
Explorer
I'd say balanced, esp. if you start em out at 0XP and actually make the role-playing difficulty a real hassle. I'd also get rid of the +4 hp. It's not nearly a CR +1, either.Technik4 said:Ah, I plan on allowing rolling 4d6 6 times or an array. I don't like point buy as I think the characters tend to have too many cookie cutter even stats (and this is after making quite a few point buy characters myself). With an array, you can still create a range of characters and I think the race is balanced as LA +1. With rolling, well if my group is cool with rolling they hopefully won't be up in arms about an LA +1 class
I wanted to see if it was considered under or overpowered in the context of the greater d&d land, which it appears to be above +1 but below +2...
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Dagredhel
Explorer
Nifft said:
What if a Perfect character was limited to beginning ability scores of 10 or above, before the +2 racial bonus? That way, the Perfects will all be (at least slightly) above the normal human baseline for each attribute. At the same time, it'll have a slight leveling effect because players won't be able to take an 8 in their character's "dump stat(s)" to pump up a more important ability.
Why +4 hit points (+1 more from the raised Con score,) instead of either +3 like Toughness or +1 per level, like Improved Toughness?
As I said, I plan on using die rolls instead of point buy. I don't think placing restrictions on mechanics is a good way of balancing them though (why would this race work different from every other race?).
The flavor is that they were designed to be 'super-soldiers'. While over time the Con bonus will differentiate a perfect from a regular human, at level 1 (and while they wait for the long level 2) their hp should be higher than a human. I choose 4 as a 'virtual' HD (base d8, rounded down). This way they don't feel the sting of being 1 level behind the rest of the party (although their BAB will be lower than a fighters, spell levels 1 level behind, etc etc). If I removed anything for balancing, I would probably start with the bonus feat.
The fundamental questions is this: Is +2 to all your scores and a bonus feat and bonus HP worth 1 level of Level Adjustment at all levels of play for all classes (in the absence of other +1 LA options)?
Some races are virtually pigeon-holed into playing certain classes by their racial bonuses and penalties (although this can lead to making 'rogue' character concepts, it's a mechanical angle and usually not a story angle that impels it). My goal was a race that plays all classes equally well and is a riff on being an 'outsider' like the drow, half-orc, and half-elf are usually written about.
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