Bastards of Blood by Green Ronin

[Mrs. Dungeon Master]

Has anyone had a chance to pick up a copy of this book yet?

Overall I really like the varitey of mixed races to play, but I have one problem.

It appears that the ECL on each creature seems to be at least one level to high. I compared the Half-Ogre in the new book vs. the one in the Savage Spieces, almost completely identical, but in Savage Species it's only +1 level, in Bastards it was a +2.

On alot of creatures, using the rules from Savage Species, it appears IMHO that each monster is 1 ECL to high.

Anyone else agree or disagree?

I am thinking of using one from this book, as I said overall I really like it, and there is a pic for every half-race creature, but am concerned about the ECL.

Your help is greatly appreciated as my DM reads your board every day.

Thank you in advance.

 

[Liminal Syzygy]

Savage Species Half-Ogre ECL is too low in the opinion of many here.

 

[BigFreekinGoblinoid]

Ah the mystical magic of ECL's! Always a lot of fun.

Bastards & Bloodlines is a great book, and seems internally balanced well for the most part, but you have a good point on the half ogre - comparing it to the half-bugbear, it does seem a bit weaker ( 2 less net ability score bonuses & no situational benefits )

Perhaps you can lower it to +1 level adjustment, but add one "racial hit dice", ( as used in RoF etc... ) so the character would get one extra d8 roll for HP in addition to the other racial benefits. A mature Half-Ogre should have more than 10-15 hp !

So Racial HD + Level Adjustment + Class Level = ECL

edit - clarity

 

[JoeGKushner]

The lack of racial hit die, skill points, and feats on the higher level ECLs makes them a little too weak for almost anything other than an NPC. Even the web preview is something like an ECL of 5 so the character would be 6th level with some odd 4-12 hit points or so. Not good.

Most of the book is pretty decent though and the art is top notch. Enjoyed it very much.

 

[drnuncheon]

The lack of racial hit die, skill points, and feats on the higher level ECLs makes them a little too weak for almost anything other than an NPC. Even the web preview is something like an ECL of 5 so the character would be 6th level with some odd 4-12 hit points or so. Not good.

That's more an artifact of the ECL system, though. My personal guideline when choosing an ECL'ed character is that the level adjustment shouldn't make up more than half of the character's levels - so you wouldn't be playing that ECL 5 race until level 10 or so, when you've at least got enough hp and skill to be survivable (hopefully for long enough for the racial benefits to kick in).

J

 

[Owen K.C. Stephens]

Hi folks.

ECLs are among the trickiest things to figure out. Mrs. Dungeon aster is quite right that the 1/2 ogre in B&B is about the same as the one in Savage Species, but has a higher ECL. In fact, since the SS half-ogre has 2 more points of natural armor and is size large, it's better than the one in B&B, despite the smaller ECL. If you want to take that as a guideline and decide to lower all the ECLs in B&B by 1 step, I certainly wouldn't decry you as a heretic. Once you've bought the book, I'm happy with whatever use you get out of it.

SS wasn't out when I was working on B&B, and even if it had been I'm not sure I'd have agreed with it. I fall into the camp Cordo mentioned, who feel the SS 1/2-ogre's ECL is too low. For example, picture a 4th level game with a human barbarian and a half-ogre barbarian. If the human barbarian has an 18 Str, weapon focus, and a large +1 greataxe, we can reasonably assume he has an attack bonus of +10 and does 1d12+7 points of damage. The 3rd level half ogre can be assumed to have a 24 Str. Since he has one less feat and needs to do something to increase his AC, let's not give him Weapon Focus or a magic weapon. He can, however, carry a huge masterwork greataxe, with which he has a +10 attack bonus and does 2d8+10 points of damage. Additionally he has 10 ft reach, and thus gets an AoO against most things that try to move up to him, and may be able to hit things without exposing himself to attack. With his higher Con, the half ogre may only be a ½ a hit point behind his human friend, and by next level may have surpassed him.

My design theory was that an ECL had to assume the most min/maxed character design to avoid power-creep. A 1st level fighter houri clearly won't survive long in a 6th level game, but playtesting (in a game that's still ongoing) suggests an 11th level houri druid with the Lost Tradition feat does just fine in a 16th level game.

When I couldn’t decide between 2 ECLs, I went with the higher of them. Part of this was simple caution (I often worry what happens when rules I write for d20 games mix with the rules someone else writes - the result is almost never a less-powerful character). Part of this was because getting to be a green folk already has a "cool factor" attached to it - such characters should be -at best- on par with more typical characters, not -at least- on par with them. Third, some things are just very hard to slap a value on for ECL. How much is +10 Str worth? What's the value of being able to become diminutive? (Run a game with a trixie spellcaster before you answer that question. A first level trixie wizard with a 20 Dex, and shield has an AC of 26 for 1/2 the field!)

Also, I assume there’s a range in race power level as it is. I’m simply not convinced a half elf is on par with either a human or an elf. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it does mean it’s difficult to decide if a given race is on the high end of +1 ECL or the low end of +2.

And finally, in my experience players never complain when a GM decides to make something from a sourcebook more powerful, but act like the world has ended if he has to weaken it. I think drnuncheon's suggestion of not playing ECL characters unless the level adjustment is no more than have the character's total levels is a great one, and personally believe the ECLs stand up when used in this way. If you disagree, I heartily encourage you to change them. Things like a campaign's magic level and play style are going to effect what an ECL should be in ways I can't predict, and though I've done my best to do the work for GMs who buy my book, ultimately they know their games and players better than I possibly could.

Thanks for being interested enough to discuss B&B and for the great thoughts and ideas!

Owen K.C. Stephens

 

[Sinistar]

Thanks Mr. Stephens

I picked this book up yesterday and I have not had a chance to digest it fully. But I really like the ideas in it. I have at least one character who will want to adapt some of this right away.

But I have to ask...
What were you thinking on some of these? I mean a elf/nymph, sure that is going to happen. It would be a surprise if it didn't. I'll even give you the halfling/satyr and the goblin/gnome (those are going to be fun!) as plausible. But there are a couple that are just wrong. The worst is the dwarf/roper. Not in mechanics, it looks cool and solid. But the concept of the two... getting together... it gave me nightmares last night!

Seriously though, the book looks good at first glance. I am really glad to hear your design philosophy. As a DM most of the time, I am glad to see publishers "siding" with the DM. That may not be your intention, but anything that tries to keep power creep in check is very welcome.

Keep up the good work!

 

[Frilf]

I personally loved this book. Wish I had thought of the concept myself - earlier My faves are the burrower (half gnome/half umber hulk), wretch (half hag/half orc) and the trixie (half gnome/half pixie) - even though the name on that one was pushing it a bit...

I'm a templateer, too, so I loved the wacky templates in this thing. Very creative. The half-beholder and half-mind flayer are truly twisted, but fun.

Overall, I'd say B&B is great stuff and I'd give it at least a 4.5/5 rating (in fact, I just might review it)! I can't wait to spring these critters on my group. :insert subversive, scheming DM smile here:

I might even insist we create a party o' freaks to test them all out. How many elves do you need, anyway? Especially when you can have a wood wose, a lurker, and a whatnot.

Ian

PS Question for Owen Stephens: Will there be web enhancements for this product with additional half-breeds, templates, blood feats, etc? That would be great!

PPS Another question for Owen Stephens: How did you come up with some of these? By random? I mean, a dwarf/roper! A gnome/cloaker? Great Caesar's Goat, Man!!

 

[Owen K.C. Stephens]

First, let me say that while I appreciate everyone being polite and professional, feel free to call me "Owen." If you're writing directly to me in a forum, or sending me an e-mail, or even run into me at GenCon, I'm much more comfortable with Owen than “Mr. Stephens,” which always makes me think my father's around somewhere.

But I have to ask...
What were you thinking on some of these? I mean a elf/nymph, sure that is going to happen. It would be a surprise if it didn't. I'll even give you the halfling/satyr and the goblin/gnome (those are going to be fun!) as plausible. But there are a couple that are just wrong. The worst is the dwarf/roper. Not in mechanics, it looks cool and solid. But the concept of the two... getting together... it gave me nightmares last night!

Heh. You know, one of the reasons a group of people got Special Thanks in this book is that they've been playing in games from my fevered mind for years, and this kind of thing comes naturally to me. In fact, the ideas for some of these horrors are straight out of my own games.

The Lasher was just an obvious choice for me. Ropers in my games are subterranean creatures with strong ties to rock and stone. So are dwarves. And I prefer having an evil dwarf have something -wrong- with it rather than just be pale and nasty. Lashers are exactly the sort of things my players have to deal with, though I haven't actually sprung them on my PCs yet.

That may not be your intention, but anything that tries to keep power creep in check is very welcome.

I do think of power creep as one of the greatest failings of many sourcebooks. While some of it is inevitable whenever you add new options, as they may combine in ways the individual authors had not expected, I believe a sourcebook is most useful when it provides options that are interesting, but not obviously superior to existing options.

Keep up the good work!

Thanks!

I personally loved this book. Wish I had thought of the concept myself - earlier

Again, thanks for the kind words!

I might even insist we create a party o' freaks to test them all out. How many elves do you need, anyway? Especially when you can have a wood wose, a lurker, and a whatnot.

And of course, this is one way of avoiding the question of how ECL-ed races balance with non-ECL-ed races. Another idea I have had is to run a game where there is an assumed ECL shift, say of +5, and everyone who played a race of less ECL than that got +1 feat, +3 hp and +4 skill points per ECL they are under, so to soup them up to the same power as the ECL races (and make human characters still appealing in such a game). I haven't seriously looked at the balance issues for doing that, though.

PS Question for Owen Stephens: Will there be web enhancements for this product with additional half-breeds, templates, blood feats, etc? That would be great!

There's an enhancement/preview in last week’s D20 Weekly, which you can easily find in the archives if you subscribe (www.d20weekly.com). It has one breed from the book (the wretch, one of my favs as well), and then one whole new breed write-up for the Quarterling (half-human / half-halfling, another product of my own games), and two new templates, the half-barghest and the half-sphinx. I don’t believe there are any other plans for a web enhancement, but D20 Weekly is cheap, good, and has a new issue every week. (I don’t work for SJGs, but I am a good friend of editor Steve Miller, who’s name you’ll find next to mine on many Star Wars books, and I do write a lot for the magazine, so take my recommendations as officially biased.)

PPS Another question for Owen Stephens: How did you come up with some of these? By random? I mean, a dwarf/roper! A gnome/cloaker? Great Caesar's Goat, Man!!

LOL. Yeah, I’m twisted, and since Monte already did the Book of Vile Darkness, I felt liberated to pull no punches. Seriously, a lot of ideas came from long running games, and a lot came from looking at races with an average Int of 8 or higher and pondering how I could work a half-breed of them into the book. The rest you just have to chalk up to me being a sicko.

 

[Frilf]

Owen, I already subscribe to d20Weekly (yes, I'm a sad, sad d20 junkie itching for the weekly "fix"). I liked the stuff there, but was hoping for even more demented goodness (is that an oxymoron?)!

Got some ideas of my own, though, which may see the light of day in a half-breeds and other aberrations kinda book. Very inschpiring schtuff.

Ian