Another: Is this race balanced? thread

Quickleaf

Legend
Right now I have this race at ECL+0, but I'm not sure...

– Medium-size humanoid.
– Base speed is 30 feet. Earth spirits also have a burrow speed of 5 feet.
– Low-light vision to 60 feet.
– +2 saves against poison from an animal or plant.
– +1 racial bonus to attack and damage aberrations.
– Damage reduction (1 +1 per every five levels) against stone and sand-based attacks. This includes attacks by earth elementals, and weapons made out of stone.
– Suffer only half the effects/damage of an earthquake, whether natural or magical. Earth spirits consider such events to be the laughter of Geb in his goose form – the Great Cackler.
– Ra’s Mandate: Earth spirits are incapable of flying via magic. In fact, should their bodies be out of contact with the ground (a rug is ok, but a bed is not) for more than a moment, they suffer dire consequences. An earth spirit who is not in contact with the earth for 3 rounds suffers divine heat damage equal to 1d6 + 1/character level each round violating Ra’ mandate. Riding a mount works fine, as a living animal connects the earth spirit to its source (though a dead mount or a construct doesn’t).
– Weakness: Earth spirits are susceptible to spells which affect plants or plant-creatures.
– Soften Earth and Stone (Sp): Once per day as cast by a druid of their character level.
– Plant Growth (Sp): Once per week as cast by a druid of their character level.
– Imprison Buried Soul (Su): The earth spirit can imprison the soul of any recently dead (3 days +1 day/even character level) creature that is entombed within the earth by the earth spirit’s hands. Such a soul cannot answer speak with dead spells, be raised from death by any means, or return as undead. If used on a living creature that is in a coma-like state (i.e. due to an astral travel spell), this ability causes the creature to be paralyzed upon returning to their body in a state of suspended animation. This state lasts for 1 day/even character level of the earth spirit. An earth spirit abusing this power may be visited by the collective wrath of Geb and all the funerary gods!
– Sense Natural Hazard: This ability grants an earth spirit a +2 racial bonus on Spot or Search checks to notice natural hazards like quicksand, green slime, and potential avalanche or cave-in sites.
– Automatic Languages: Common, Terran. Bonus: Auran, Dwarf, Elven, Halfling, Gnoll, Gnome.
– Favored Class: Druid.

Concept:
When the gods created the Divine Races, Geb and Nut longed for each other, believing they could find no solace save for in each others arms. It was only after the creation of humanity by all the gods that Geb realized he might enjoy union with his wife vicariously through his offspring, and so the Erpat were created as lovers of Nut’s race. However, her race never came to be, for Ra learned of her plans and, fearing another group of gods would be born, forbade her from creating any offspring on earth. Thus, Nut was contented with the creation of the Zodiac creatures (see new template). The Erpat, haunted by a deep sense of unfulfilled longing as they gazed at the stars, found a new purpose after the Cataclysm. The land had been destroyed and cried for a healer – the Erpat would answer that call, maintaining oases, guarding wells, curing disease, and driving off aberrations. Their name means “hereditary chiefs” and comes from the belief among Geb’s faithful that he was the first pharaoh.

I've been getting a lot of help on these forums recently, and if anyone has a thread they're working on and need a pair of fresh eyes to check it out, just post your threat with your reply. Thanks! :)
 

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Looks good, I wouldn't say it was ECL +0, the weaknesses makes dents in the bonuses (which would give it quite a hefty penalty normally). But that doesn't cancel out the tricks they can pull. If you want to try and balance them out you'll need more general weakness.

Also Ra's mandate is harsher then you think, wooden floor boards, second floors, horses. It's less of a balancing factor then just a pain. It it works for your world though it's ok, I can imagine it being waved by others though...
 

I think Ra's mandate makes them a balanced race, because even though they can pull some pretty cool spells and especially that soul trapping thing...that mandate just really keeps them pretty screwed in a lot of situations. You may want to rework it a bit as a character playing this race may drag the party down to an annoying pace. I mean, the first couple times it'll be an interesting experience trying to find a way to get the guy places you need, but after a while it will wear on everone involved IMO.

Then again, if you reworked that you'd have to rework the bonuses and or penalties *shrug*

Cool race though, my $0.02
 

0.2

0.02

0.02

0.2

0.02

-0.5?

-0.04

0.02

0.02

1.0?

0.02

= 0.88

- Lots of rare situational effects to keep up with

- Is poison bonus for poison type or delivery method?

- Saves and attack methods for the Imprison Buried Soul ability on living creatures is needed


The two biggies by far are the Ra's Mandate (like being allergic to water) and Imprison Buried Soul (3+ /day high level spell-likes). I would explore more on how these affect the game. I erred in balancing towards inflating the bonus and downplaying the negative for these two. So you may be near the 0.0 mark. (balanced by my book)
 

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