Yeah, the planar folk tend to be more haughty and stand-offish, but I agree that the -2 Cha on most of the races is one-sided. I did up a quick chart of the racial ability score bonuses and things are very skewed. For one thing, no race has a penalty for a physical stat, and there are plenty of bonuses with particular emphasis on Dex and Con. Int has only penalty and a mix of bonuses. Wis is a decent mix of bonuses and penalties. Cha is the most lopsided of all with a massive number of penalties and only one bonus.
So, yeah, it's terribly skewed. However, the races we statted (Modron Outcast, Nathri, Shad, and Tuldhara) seem to be quite justified. It's those darn WotC ones that I disagree with (all planetouched except aasimar get a Cha penalty?!)
Now, will we change it for the initial campaign setting book? I dunno. My goal is not to change anything unless it is VERY warranted. This borders that, but it's tough. Maybe we'll introduce a physically weaker race with good mental stat bonuses. Maybe we'll mess around with the races we statted a bit more (the Shad almost had a -2 Str anyway). *shrug* Most likely we'll leave them as is, and then in the Guide to the Planetouched books, we'll offer a greater variety of planetouched races including offering them as templates. There I think we'll have the freedom and variation to not give every single one of them a Cha penalty.
I would like the races as a whole to offer a good variation, and currently in stat bonuses, they do not. However, more important than the variation is that each race be properly balanced and interesting. I think they currently are, but giving the planetouched some more variation would help that even more (which we will be doing in the "Guide to the Planetouched").
Feel free to keep giving your opinions on this (and any other factor, that is). Sometimes someone points out an issue that we never took a step back and noticed.
So, yeah, it's terribly skewed. However, the races we statted (Modron Outcast, Nathri, Shad, and Tuldhara) seem to be quite justified. It's those darn WotC ones that I disagree with (all planetouched except aasimar get a Cha penalty?!)
Now, will we change it for the initial campaign setting book? I dunno. My goal is not to change anything unless it is VERY warranted. This borders that, but it's tough. Maybe we'll introduce a physically weaker race with good mental stat bonuses. Maybe we'll mess around with the races we statted a bit more (the Shad almost had a -2 Str anyway). *shrug* Most likely we'll leave them as is, and then in the Guide to the Planetouched books, we'll offer a greater variety of planetouched races including offering them as templates. There I think we'll have the freedom and variation to not give every single one of them a Cha penalty.
I would like the races as a whole to offer a good variation, and currently in stat bonuses, they do not. However, more important than the variation is that each race be properly balanced and interesting. I think they currently are, but giving the planetouched some more variation would help that even more (which we will be doing in the "Guide to the Planetouched").
Feel free to keep giving your opinions on this (and any other factor, that is). Sometimes someone points out an issue that we never took a step back and noticed.
