Rules/Crunch of Eyros

[Arkhandus]

.....I don't so much like the added Spellcasting Impotence part for orcs and half-orcs. They shouldn't necessarily be weak spellcasters, and it especially doesn't make much sense to limit their divine spellcasting power. I would say give orcs and half-orcs their usual mental ability penalties, but moved around a bit based on House. I.E. half-orcs of House Zhal suffer -2 to Wisdom and Charisma perhaps, since they control the far northern industrial province of Zhalccu, based primarily in the city of Mhur, leading them to be more inclined to developing crafts and such. House Vajar for instance might then produce half-orcs with -2 on Intelligence and Wisdom as they are a dominant ruling House, keen on political maneuvering moreso than wise rule.

Then make a Scion of the Orc-Blooded Pillars feat available for Eyrian orcs and half-orcs, which reduces one of their racial ability penalties to help balance the orcish and half-orcish weaknesses compared to humans and other common races. Of course Eyrian orc-bloods don't need to take the feat, but those who want to be more balanced and more capable at social or magic-using situations can take it. It's more powerful than a standard feat, but considering that it only slightly reduces or negates a racial penalty to a mental stat, and that orcs and half-orcs are kinda disadvantaged, I think it's fair. Also, I'm adding another potential feat for members of any Pillar.

SCION OF THE ORC-BLOODED PILLARS (General)
You are one of the orc-blooded nobility in the Sovereign Dominion of Eyros, more socially and mentally adept than orcish folk outside the Dominion. Generations of noble rule and education have civilized your race's natural crudeness.
Prerequisites: Must be an Eyrian, must have been born into an orc-blooded Pillar of Eyros, if half-orc must have been born to a human parent and an orc parent
Benefit: Reduce one of your racial penalties to either Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma by 2 points, but apply this change as though it were a natural racial quality rather than a feat.
Special: You can only take this feat as a 1st-level character.

NOBLE OF THE SIX PILLARS (General)
You were born into the Six Pillars of nobility, family Houses in the Sovereign Dominion of Eyros, and over time you have developed some courtly aptitude from this noble upbringing. You may be a soldier or an advisor, a royal heir or a priest of the Draconic Legacy, you are nonetheless an Eyrian noble and have learned to deal with the necessity of courtly matters.
Prerequisites: Must be Eyrian, must have been born into one of the the Pillars of Eyros
Benefits: Choose two skills from amongst Bluff, Diplomacy, Gather Information, Intimidate, Perform, and Sense Motive. The chosen skills permanently count as class skills for you, with all classes and hit dice you gain henceforth, but this does not change any skill point expenditures prior to the level you gain this feat. In addition, you gain +1 on checks with the chosen skills.

 

[Rystil Arden]

.....I don't so much like the added Spellcasting Impotence part for orcs and half-orcs. They shouldn't necessarily be weak spellcasters, and it especially doesn't make much sense to limit their divine spellcasting power. I would say give orcs and half-orcs their usual mental ability penalties, but moved around a bit based on House. I.E. half-orcs of House Zhal suffer -2 to Wisdom and Charisma perhaps, since they control the far northern industrial province of Zhalccu, based primarily in the city of Mhur, leading them to be more inclined to developing crafts and such. House Vajar for instance might then produce half-orcs with -2 on Intelligence and Wisdom as they are a dominant ruling House, keen on political maneuvering moreso than wise rule.

Then make a Scion of the Orc-Blooded Pillars feat available for Eyrian orcs and half-orcs, which reduces one of their racial ability penalties to help balance the orcish and half-orcish weaknesses compared to humans and other common races. Of course Eyrian orc-bloods don't need to take the feat, but those who want to be more balanced and more capable at social or magic-using situations can take it. It's more powerful than a standard feat, but considering that it only slightly reduces or negates a racial penalty to a mental stat, and that orcs and half-orcs are kinda disadvantaged, I think it's fair. Also, I'm adding another potential feat for members of any Pillar.

SCION OF THE ORC-BLOODED PILLARS (General)
You are one of the orc-blooded nobility in the Sovereign Dominion of Eyros, more socially and mentally adept than orcish folk outside the Dominion. Generations of noble rule and education have civilized your race's natural crudeness.
Prerequisites: Must be an Eyrian, must have been born into an orc-blooded Pillar of Eyros, if half-orc must have been born to a human parent and an orc parent
Benefit: Reduce one of your racial penalties to either Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma by 2 points, but apply this change as though it were a natural racial quality rather than a feat.
Special: You can only take this feat as a 1st-level character.

NOBLE OF THE SIX PILLARS (General)
You were born into the Six Pillars of nobility, family Houses in the Sovereign Dominion of Eyros, and over time you have developed some courtly aptitude from this noble upbringing. You may be a soldier or an advisor, a royal heir or a priest of the Draconic Legacy, you are nonetheless an Eyrian noble and have learned to deal with the necessity of courtly matters.
Prerequisites: Must be Eyrian, must have been born into one of the the Pillars of Eyros
Benefits: Choose two skills from amongst Bluff, Diplomacy, Gather Information, Intimidate, Perform, and Sense Motive. The chosen skills permanently count as class skills for you, with all classes and hit dice you gain henceforth, but this does not change any skill point expenditures prior to the level you gain this feat. In addition, you gain +1 on checks with the chosen skills.

Actually, I think orcs aren't really so underpowered because they get +4 Strength for -2 to all mental stats, and are still only ECL 1/2 like half-orcs. The half-orcs have it much worse.

The thing is, it says in the other thread that they *are* weak spellcasters, but I understand and respect your point, as I was somewhat leery of the idea myself at first. Coincidentally, if you allow the orc-blooded to take the Spellcasting Prodigy feat to recover from this, then a half-orc or orc under my definition who took this feat would become identical to one who took your Scion of the Orc-Blooded Pillars feat, which I think is interesting, and shows that in some sense, we are on the same wavlength about where the races should be, after a single corrective feat (also if you do this, it means less orc-blooded will be forced to spend their precious 1st-level feat to correct their racial problems, only the spellcasters will, leaving room for other cool feats like your Noble of the Six Pillars [which is probably balanced with the powerful Cosmopolitan 3.0, since it adds two skills to your class instead of one, but they are from a limited list; nonetheless, I'm tempted to limit this ability to maybe one of the six pillars, see below]). I'm also thinking of making a Scion of House X feat for each house (perhaps Scion of House Malarn would let their members, regardless of race since Malarn is diverse, would gain the humanlike benefit of 1 additional skill point per level at each level to represent Malarn's diversity).

 

[domino]

I'm also thinking of making a Scion of House X feat for each house (perhaps Scion of House Malarn would let their members, regardless of race since Malarn is diverse, would gain the humanlike benefit of 1 additional skill point per level at each level to represent Malarn's diversity).

Scions of each house would definitely make good ideas. Sort of like the Dragon Marks from Ebberon, maybe.

I like the Malarn one, though would that stack with the additional one for the majority of the house, being human already? And would that be worth a feat? Maybe for house Vajar, they could get a hobgoblin trait, to reflect their tainted bloodline. Their racial bonus to move silently, or something.

And the feats should probably provide some uniform bonus, relating to each family. +1 or +2 to diplomacy checks with other family members.

 

[Rystil Arden]

I was actually thinking of giving Vajar a hobgoblin trait and using that as my example rather than Malarn, but I couldn't find a good one that was worth a feat. Also, it would stack with human, and it is comparable or better to the XPH feat that gives 4 skill points.

 

[Arkhandus]

In retrospect, I had forgotten some mention earlier that the orc-blooded would simply be poor spellcasters. And I forgot about Spellcasting Prodigy because I never use the feat in my games, since it's rather unbalanced in most games (i.e. warriors have no feats to boost their damage with all weapons, or attack rolls with all weapons, nor their AC against all attackers, so how come any caster can take one feat to boost all their save DCs and also gain another bonus spell per day when they're an appropriately higher level?). In this case though it does seem that Spellcasting Prodigy would fit nicely for making orc-blooded spellcasters decent.

As for Noble of the Six Pillars, I figured it would be balanced since it's limited to only humans, orcs, and half-orcs, and only those of Eyrian nobility (effectively somewhat more limiting than the regional feats of Forgotten Realms), while inaccessable to gnomes, elves, dwarves, half-elves, halflings, foreigners, and so on. Humans and half-orcs are already a bit shortchanged compared to elves and dwarves, so I figured it would be fine. I thought it would help those orc nobles who have fighter as their favored class, and any other nobles who don't focus on the aristocrat, expert, rogue, or bard (the only classes that can normally have all those social skills as class skills), as well as some of the humans and half-orcs.

Anyway, I suppose ditch my idea and stick with what you had already, though maybe have Noble of the Six Pillars available if you don't decide on any appropriate feats for different Houses. As of yet the other thread still needs to establish some more facts about the Houses to differentiate them. *shrug*

 

[Rystil Arden]

In retrospect, I had forgotten some mention earlier that the orc-blooded would simply be poor spellcasters. And I forgot about Spellcasting Prodigy because I never use the feat in my games, since it's rather unbalanced in most games (i.e. warriors have no feats to boost their damage with all weapons, or attack rolls with all weapons, nor their AC against all attackers, so how come any caster can take one feat to boost all their save DCs and also gain another bonus spell per day when they're an appropriately higher level?). In this case though it does seem that Spellcasting Prodigy would fit nicely for making orc-blooded spellcasters decent.

As for Noble of the Six Pillars, I figured it would be balanced since it's limited to only humans, orcs, and half-orcs, and only those of Eyrian nobility (effectively somewhat more limiting than the regional feats of Forgotten Realms), while inaccessable to gnomes, elves, dwarves, half-elves, halflings, foreigners, and so on. Humans and half-orcs are already a bit shortchanged compared to elves and dwarves, so I figured it would be fine. I thought it would help those orc nobles who have fighter as their favored class, and any other nobles who don't focus on the aristocrat, expert, rogue, or bard (the only classes that can normally have all those social skills as class skills), as well as some of the humans and half-orcs.

Anyway, I suppose ditch my idea and stick with what you had already, though maybe have Noble of the Six Pillars available if you don't decide on any appropriate feats for different Houses. As of yet the other thread still needs to establish some more facts about the Houses to differentiate them. *shrug*

I agree, I'm waiting to hear more about the non-Malarn pillars, although we do know a decent bit about Vajar. Noble of the Six Pillars is a good concept, and I totally get where you're coming from (or at least, when you posted it, I realised the intention immediately). It probably shouldn't present a balance issue to have it remain, unless there's some obscure Prestige Class that is balanced on the fact that you can't possibly qualify by level X because it requires X Base Attack and X+3 ranks in a skill that no full-Base Attack class gets. Oh, and I only allow Spellcasting Prodigy in my games to assuage the pain of Spell Focus going down to the unbalancedly bad +1 bonus.

 

[Arkhandus]

Typical NPC "Claws of the Dragon" youth competitor.

Aristocrat 1/ Fighter 2
Medium Humanoid (Half-Orc)

Hit dice 1d8+2d10+0 (16 hp)
Initiative: +2
Speed: 20 ft in breastplate; base speed 30 ft
Armor Class: 18 (+5 breastplate, +1 shield/feat, +2 Dex) Touch 12, Flatfooted 15
BAB/Grapple: +2/+4
Attacks: Masterwork Two-Bladed Sword +4/+4 melee (1d8+2/1d8+1/19-20) or Masterwork Two-Bladed Sword +6 melee (1d8+3/19-20)
Space/reach: 5ft/5ft
Special Qualities: Darkvision, orc blood
Saves: Fort +3, Will +1, Ref +2
Abilities: Str 15 Dex 15 Con 10 Int 12 Wis 8 Cha 10
Skills: Bluff +4, Diplomacy +4, Intimidate +6, Jump +6, Knowledge (Local) +5, Knowledge (Nobility & Royalty) +5, Sense Motive +3
Feats: Two-Weapon Fighting, Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Two-Bladed Sword), Weapon Focus (Two-Bladed Sword), Two-Weapon Defense
Environment: Any
Organization: Individual
CR: 3
Treasure: Standard
Alignment: Any
Advancement: By Character Class

This young half-orc noble has trained for several years in the Claws of the Dragon martial art, which emphasizes use of the two-bladed sword with many leaping and charging attacks. He competes yearly in the Claws of the Dragon tournament in Eyrdeyn for the glory of his House, and of course his own personal pride. He can speak, read, and write High Eyrosian, Vulgar Eyrosian (aka Common), and Orc.

His combat gear is of fine quality but well-used from years of training and competing, and he fights with all the guile his noble upbringing has instilled in him. At the start of a battle he often charges the foe and delivers a two-handed overhead slash with his sword, then follows through with a brief flurry of chops from both ends of his exotic blade. He usually falls back at this point and takes up a defensive stance to assess his opponent and how much damage he may have inflicted. If the opponent is holding up well, he'll try intimidating them or distracting them with a feint so he can lunge with another quick strike. Against a formidible opponent he'll just continue to fight defensively while trusting in his superior defense to outlast the opponent's, though a match in the tournament rarely goes long enough to warrant such last-ditch tactics.

 

[domino]

I'm fairly sure that the CR for a level 3 character is a bit off. Remember, that a CR is for a group of 4 characters at that level. Thus, 4 level 3 characters, could effectively roll over a single level 3 character. I'd make him CR 2 or maybe even 1.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I'm fairly sure that the CR for a level 3 character is a bit off. Remember, that a CR is for a group of 4 characters at that level. Thus, 4 level 3 characters, could effectively roll over a single level 3 character. I'd make him CR 2 or maybe even 1.

Actually, no. A character with levels in the standard classes has a CR equal to his class level, by the rules. Thus, a 5th-level fighter is a CR 5 creature. That's why a group of 4 5th-level characters vs. a single 5th-lvel fighter should expend 1/4 of their resources--exactly as is the case with other CR 5 encounters.

However, the NPC classes have a CR 1 less than their level. Thus, a 5th-level warrior is a CR 4.

 

[domino]

Actually, no. A character with levels in the standard classes has a CR equal to his class level, by the rules. Thus, a 5th-level fighter is a CR 5 creature. That's why a group of 4 5th-level characters vs. a single 5th-lvel fighter should expend 1/4 of their resources--exactly as is the case with other CR 5 encounters.

However, the NPC classes have a CR 1 less than their level. Thus, a 5th-level warrior is a CR 4.

Well color me red and call me stupid. I've been doing CR all wrong for, well, ever.

However, with Rystil Arden's newest submission, we have an idea of what to use for a House specific feat for House Mulcibe. With their Eladrin blood, we can give them a minor eladrin trait. Maybe cold and fire resistance 3? I figure the full 10 is way to much, and immunities to electricity or petrification is out of the question for starting PCs.