Originally posted by Korimyr the Rat
It's not just the feat. It's also the ability penalties. From a Human, you're losing a feat, two skills per level, and one point of Will save.
And gaining a level, which gives 1/3 of a general feat, at least one point of saves on average (even if all three saves are "bad" for that class), at least 2+INT skill points, and any class benefits for the level.
For example, having an extra Fighter level gives d10+CON HP and +1 BAB. That flat +1 to BAB alone is superior to Weapon Focus, so losing a Feat doesn't seem like such a big deal.
This has been one of the big ironies of Savage Species. Everyone's so hot to play a "monster" race with all those neat abilities, and later realizing that the levels lost to ECL would have really been useful with all their uninteresting bonuses.
If you're any kind of spellcaster, you're even more hosed.
Other than Psion. Egoists, Nomads, and Savants would be perfectly happy sacrificing those mental stats. Likewise, a Psychic Warrior can almost ignore the mental stats as is.
If you're one of the four classes that don't cast spells, you're losing a feat and skill points, which those classes all desparately need.
But, as noted above, you're gaining saves, BAB, HP, and whatever class benefits you would have gained. It's the exact reverse of the normal ECL argument.
Any, you have FC: Expert, which is nearly worthless, especially as your skill loss also hampers your ability in that class.
And Favored Class only hurts multiclassers. If I went straight Psychic Warrior (which I have), then this race would be better than the standard Human. To make this be effective, you'd have to say that this race CANNOT play a PHB class.
IMC, we added Half-Ogre as a custom ECL 0 race (it was a homebrew, long before Savage Species). One of its drawbacks was "Favored Class: None". The only thing it's really done in practice was reduce the prevalence of Prestige Classes for that race; a Half-Ogre who takes 20 levels of Barbarian or Fighter will still be really effective in combat. In the long run, it was just a minor drawback, and it's more severe than what you're proposing.
There's the problem. No matter how you penalize the race, there'll pretty much always be at least one class that isn't harmed by your change, and a single-class player can then take advantage of that extra level to be a stronger character than before. While low INT, WIS, and CHA may hurt in general, just looking at Half-Orcs tells you it's not crippling.
To make a balanced ECL -1 race, you'd have to subtract from all six stats equally. Which, coincidentally, would put you exactly where you'd be if you rolled a flat 3d6 for stats instead of 4-drop-1, which is what they tell you to do for NPCs. Also coincidentally, NPC classes have CR of level-1...
