Balance issues with racial templates in Dragon 306

[haiiro]

I like the variant racial templates presented in Dragon #306, but I wonder how balanced they are. I'll focus on the spark (magic-blooded template), as that's the one that interests me the most.

Sparks get an attribute shift, which is self-balancing (+2/-2). They also get low-light vision, which is a gain for races without it, neutral for races that already have it, and a loss for darkvision races. They get a free +2/+2 skill feat, and part of another feat (two knowledge skills untrained). Favored race becomes sorcerer, which is a loss for humans and half-elves but neutral for everyone else. Lastly, they get 4 minor spell-like abilities, each usable 1/day. The level adjustment for all of these changes is +0.

Two things come to mind:

1) That's too many extra abilities and perks to not merit a change in ECL, but I'm not sure what sparks get is powerful enough to warrant a +1 ECL.
2) Like some of the other templates, two of the changes (low-light vision and favored class) don't get applied evenly across the races. Although they're minor relatively minor changes, they still make me wonder about balance. (This also reminds me of kits in 2e, given that some of the templates seem balanced while others do not.)

Am I off base here, or are these templates problematic as written? If you think the spark is too powerful to be +0 ECL, what would you do to change it?

Personally, I'd remove all of the changes except the attribute shift and favored class to keep it +0 ECL, or just bump it up to +1 ECL. I'm not an expert at rules-tinkering by any means, so I'd love to get some feedback on this. Thanks in advance.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

I like the variant racial templates presented in Dragon #306, but I wonder how balanced they are. I'll focus on the spark (magic-blooded template), as that's the one that interests me the most.

I was too disgusted by the lack of creativity in the deep template to focus heavily on ballance issues in the others. Overall, the templates presented were disapointing to me, esp deep and wild. I would use the templates as a starting point only to change races in your campaign, and tweak the abilities and ecls as needed. (in fact, to go with the "options not rules" flow, it would have been more useful as an article on how to make and balance templates with examples and reasoning for ecls.)

Overall, I don't think the spark is seriously overpowered. The spell like abilities are all non combat, and none of the other perks struck me as excessive. And since I found the article weak overall, any problems I did find with that template should be taken with a grain of salt.

Kahuna Burger

 

[haiiro]

Re: Re: Balance issues with racial templates in Dragon 306

I would use the templates as a starting point only to change races in your campaign, and tweak the abilities and ecls as needed. (in fact, to go with the "options not rules" flow, it would have been more useful as an article on how to make and balance templates with examples and reasoning for ecls.)

That would have been an interesting tack to take, and I agree that the article is better as a jumping-off point than an "as is" source of material. I'd probably change most of the templates in some way.

Overall, I don't think the spark is seriously overpowered.

I don't think the spark's power level is going to break the game, but offering free benefits seems to fly in the face of a) the basic balancing work behind character creation and b) the benefit/drawback concept expressed in the some of the other templates.

What bothered you so much about the deep and wild templates?

Edit: typo.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Re: Re: Re: Balance issues with racial templates in Dragon 306

What bothered you so much about the deep and wild templates?

In the case of the deep it was the "all underground races are drow clones" sort of feel. The allignment and personality suggestions for the other templates were very reasonable and not overly dramatic then you get "evil denzins of the dark" who are sly and cruel and nasty. Oh, and sneaky. Definitly bonuses to sneaky things rather than listen, climb or a burrow speed. It was just awful. So much for helping out someone who wants a race that has been driven deep into the earth for any number of archetypical good to neutral reasons. Deep = dark = EVIL!!!!!

So that irked the hell out of me.

The wild was ok in comparison, but didn't even slightly match the feral 'feel' I had. No scent ability, bonuses to str instead of dex or wis, and while it might make sense to give penalties to sense motive and such, there should be an exception for the combat uses of those skills (archetypically, 'wild men' are usually thought to be very perceptive, and would certainly not be fooled by some city rogue doing the bluff and hide thing.) similarly, loss of cha makes no sense when thats what animal empathy and handling are based off.

I tend to think of wild/feral types as the wirey, agile, very perceptive, etc. like a feral cat more than a charging bull (think elfquest). The 'strong, stupid' type isn't my vision of 'wild'....

Obviously this is very personaly biased, but I don't think the wild template really fits the archetype.

Kahuna Burger

 

[Crothian]

d20 Dwarf wrote them, I wonder if he'll stop by and comment.

 

[haiiro]

d20 Dwarf wrote them, I wonder if he'll stop by and comment.

I didn't know d20 Dwarf was Wil Upchurch. I hope he does stop by -- I'd love to hear his comments on the article.

 

[d20Dwarf]

Thanks for taking the time to discuss the article.

First let me say that I'm happy with the article as it appeared, I think the editor did a great job with it and I'm happy with the changes that were made (and those that weren't ).

As for the balance issues, I thought about those quite a bit when writing the article, obviously. The only thing I wish I had known, which I have since learned, is that the WotC team thinks that any mental stat boost should be reserved for a +1 or greater ECL character. I admit I never made that connection from the PHB, but now I see it. That means the spark should probably be ECL +1, but not for the reasons that you mentioned. I don't think those spell-like abilities have any bearing on the character's ability to survive, which is really the benchmark for ECL I think.

Kahuna, sorry those templates didn't match your vision of the archetypes, not much I can do about that. I can post (I hope..hehe) one of the templates that was cut from the article, it was probably a little too close to the deep template, or it just sucked, I will never know. In any case, it's not exactly what you were looking for but could be of interest nevertheless. I'll do that in another post.

I agree, an article about creating templates and balancing them and such would be cool, but that's not what this article was meant to do. It would be difficult to present a single template that could cover all the possible archetypes for a particular terrain or idea, and that's not what I was trying to do. I'd envision a DM picking one or two templates and making new races for his campaign world, or just a single adventure or story arc, as I said in the article, and using the templates to create them. So, these present a specific type of aquatic creature, or a specific type of deep-dweller, not necessarily all possible types. It was a toolkit article rather than Our Home with Bob Villa.

Thanks for the great discussion, and let me know if there are any other questions I can answer!

 

[d20Dwarf]

Shadow Template

Here is a template that was left out of the article, for your enjoyment. Consider it an author's Web enhancement.

===

Shadow
Shadow creatures live in places filled with darkness; areas others dread spending the night in, much less making their home. In general they live far underground where the light of the sun can never reach, only venturing toward the surface on rare occasion. They stay in the shadows where they are most at home, sometimes fearing the light that makes them feel weak and vulnerable.

Personality: Shadow creatures act nervous around creatures who live in the light, as if they brought some dread illumination with them. They may seem shifty or dishonest to surface races, but this is not always the case. In general they are as curious and ignorant of life above ground as those who venture beneath the earth are about them.

Physical Description: Shadow creatures have dark skin that sometimes seems to change shade depending on the amount of ambient light. Their hair and eyes range from white to gray to black, and almost never have any other pigmentation. They seem much weaker than specimens of their ancestral race, but make up for this with speed and stealth.

Relations: Shadow cultures get along with each other relatively well in that each knows not to approach too closely or get too involved with any other. Those who live above the surface find it much more difficult to interact with a society of shadow creatures due mostly to the mutual distrust and ignorance of each other’s ways. Still, shadow creatures can be quite helpful to those with the patience to befriend them.

Alignment: Like most races who live deep beneath the earth, the constant struggle for territory and food makes it difficult to live a life of virtue. Thus the shadow races tend toward neutrality, though their loose social structure makes evil an all-too-common option as well. Their complex social structures would be defined as chaotic by most surface-dwelling races, and the typical individual mirrors this in personality and deed.

Lands: Shadow creatures form complex societies with very large social units most resembling a dwarven clan. Each individual is responsible for his own behavior, however, and punishments are carried out by any that catch a wrongdoer in the act. Outsiders view this behavior as anarchic, and most have trouble relating to the social interactions of shadow creatures.

Shadow creatures tend to define their lands regardless of who else lives in them, keeping out of the way of powerful residents and living alongside all others. This leads to them being seen as pests and scavengers by a number of underdark races, namely drow, derro, and duergar.

Religion: Religion is almost unknown among shadow creatures, whose lives are dominated more by the constant search for sustenance than by spiritual concerns. Like their deep cousins, however, they may be attracted to cults that are formed around powerful underdark creatures, seeing them more as powerful mortals worthy of obeisance rather than gods in the traditional sense.

Language: Shadow creatures speak a dialect of their ancestral tongue as well as Undercommon.

Adventurers: Quests to defeat an encroaching enemy or to find a new home for a migrating tribe are common amongst the shadow peoples. While they rarely go above ground for extended periods, they can act as contacts or guides to characters who find themselves traveling beneath the ground.

Racial Traits: Shadow races have the following racial traits:

-- +2 Dexterity, –2 Strength: Shadow creatures are physically weaker than their ancestral race, but they are quicker and more agile. These modifiers are in addition to those granted by the creature’s ancestral race.

-- Darkvision: All shadow races can see in the dark up to 60 feet. Shadow races do not have low-light vision, and lose this ability if their ancestral race has it.

-- Light Sensitivity: Deep races suffer a –1 circumstance penalty to all attack rolls, saves, and checks while operating in bright light.

-- Shadow Bending: Shadow creatures can manipulate shadows in their area as a move-equivalent action at will. This can have any one of the following effects:

- Grant a +4 circumstance bonus to Hide checks for the creature using the ability.
- Reduce the visibility of any light source by one half. This ability affects all non-magical and magical light sources.
- Cause shadows in a 30-ft. radius to flutter and seem to attack creatures in the area. This ability has a range of 60 ft., and affected creatures who fail a Will save (DC 14) are considered shaken for one minute.

-- Automatic Language: Undercommon. Shadow races know the language of the underdark in addition to any languages known by their ancestral race.
-- Bonus Languages: Drow or any other language common to creatures that inhabit the shadow creature’s territory.

 

[Gez]

the WotC team thinks that any mental stat boost should be reserved for a +1 or greater ECL character

Hence the ECL 0 grey elves of Greyhawk, or the ECL 0 gold elves of the Realms. It makes sense.

 

[d20Dwarf]

Yep, exceptions do prove the rule.