Shades of Green
Explorer
Good idea; bonus addedStoryteller01 said:
Thanks.
Celirans [Was: prehensile tails and PC races]
- Thread starter Shades of Green
- Start date
Thanks.
Shades of Green
Explorer
Made a few changes - reduced to speed to 20 to fit their size, removed the adaptive coloration advantage and increased their climbing/balance abilities instead. The purpose of these changes is to prevent the Celirans from outshining the Halfling race as rouges; they should fit a different niche. Also added a mention to tail-specific magical items (several tailed races make them and a Celiran's tail counts as a slot for them ).
).Storyteller01
First Post
Shades of Green said:Made a few changes - reduced to speed to 20 to fit their size, removed the adaptive coloration advantage and increased their climbing/balance abilities instead. The purpose of these changes is to prevent the Celirans from outshining the Halfling race as rouges; they should fit a different niche. Also added a mention to tail-specific magical items (several tailed races make them and a Celiran's tail counts as a slot for them
So what's it look like?
Shades of Green
Explorer
Updated Stats:
* +2 Dexterity, -2 Strength: Celirans are agile and naturally adept at tasks that require manual dexterity, but their slick, flexible bodies lack the physical prowess of other, stockier races.
* Small-size: As small-sized creatures, Celirans gain a +1 bonus to Armor Class, a +1 size bonus on attack rolls, and a +4 size bonus on Hide checks, but they must use smaller weapons than humans use and their lifting and carrying limits are three-quarters of those of Medium-size characters.
* Celiran base speed is 20.
* Tree-Dwelling: Celirans gain a +6 Racial bonus to Climb and Balance, and they can always take 10 on Climb and Balance checks, even under duress. They also recieve a +2 Racial bonus to Jump, but may not take 10 with it when under duress.
* Prehensile Tail: A celiran's tail can be used for almost anything that an arm and hand could be used for, with the following exceptions. The tail's lack of fingers, combined with its slightly lesser coordination than a true hand, and its lack of a true arm's bony support renders the tail less than adequate for certain tasks. It cannot use a weapon or shield, though it can hold one such item idly and uselessly. The tail cannot perform the somatic components for spells or other abilities. It cannot play any instruments that require the use of more than one finger (the tail can effectively hold something and simultaneously function as one finger, for purposes of manipulation), nor can it use tools that require multiple fingers. A Celiran's tail does not count as a magic item slot for shoulder, arm, hand, or finger items, with the exception that the Extra Item Slot epic feat can be applied to it as such. It does count, ofcourse, as a Tail slot for various Celiran (and Lizardmen) specific magical items.
* Tail Feint: A Celiran may add a +2 Racial bonus to her Bluff checks when (and only when) using her tail to pull off a combat feint.
* Tail Accomodation: A celiran needs to wear armor or clothes that accomodate their tail, as it can't fit in typical clothes made for other humanoids their size. Celirans must spend 10% more on armor and clothes when buying or trading for such goods not tailor-made to fit Celirans in the first place. This assumes that the armor or clothing is made to allow the tail's freedom of movement while still covering it partially or fully. It takes a day of an armorer's work, costing 10% of the armor's value, to make armor that protects the tail and suitably fits a celiran, without impeding use of the tail any moreso than the armor check penalty already does. This 10% cost increase applies even when the armor is made for celirans in the first place.
* Automatic Languages: "Common" and Ceran (the modern dialect of Celiran).
* Bonus Languages: Draconic, Treant, Goblin, Orcish, Old Dwarven, and Elven (each of the three variants is considered a seperate skill).
* Favored Class: Rogue. A multiclass Celiran's Rogue class does not count when determining whether she suffers an XP penalty for multiclassing.
* +2 Dexterity, -2 Strength: Celirans are agile and naturally adept at tasks that require manual dexterity, but their slick, flexible bodies lack the physical prowess of other, stockier races.
* Small-size: As small-sized creatures, Celirans gain a +1 bonus to Armor Class, a +1 size bonus on attack rolls, and a +4 size bonus on Hide checks, but they must use smaller weapons than humans use and their lifting and carrying limits are three-quarters of those of Medium-size characters.
* Celiran base speed is 20.
* Tree-Dwelling: Celirans gain a +6 Racial bonus to Climb and Balance, and they can always take 10 on Climb and Balance checks, even under duress. They also recieve a +2 Racial bonus to Jump, but may not take 10 with it when under duress.
* Prehensile Tail: A celiran's tail can be used for almost anything that an arm and hand could be used for, with the following exceptions. The tail's lack of fingers, combined with its slightly lesser coordination than a true hand, and its lack of a true arm's bony support renders the tail less than adequate for certain tasks. It cannot use a weapon or shield, though it can hold one such item idly and uselessly. The tail cannot perform the somatic components for spells or other abilities. It cannot play any instruments that require the use of more than one finger (the tail can effectively hold something and simultaneously function as one finger, for purposes of manipulation), nor can it use tools that require multiple fingers. A Celiran's tail does not count as a magic item slot for shoulder, arm, hand, or finger items, with the exception that the Extra Item Slot epic feat can be applied to it as such. It does count, ofcourse, as a Tail slot for various Celiran (and Lizardmen) specific magical items.
* Tail Feint: A Celiran may add a +2 Racial bonus to her Bluff checks when (and only when) using her tail to pull off a combat feint.
* Tail Accomodation: A celiran needs to wear armor or clothes that accomodate their tail, as it can't fit in typical clothes made for other humanoids their size. Celirans must spend 10% more on armor and clothes when buying or trading for such goods not tailor-made to fit Celirans in the first place. This assumes that the armor or clothing is made to allow the tail's freedom of movement while still covering it partially or fully. It takes a day of an armorer's work, costing 10% of the armor's value, to make armor that protects the tail and suitably fits a celiran, without impeding use of the tail any moreso than the armor check penalty already does. This 10% cost increase applies even when the armor is made for celirans in the first place.
* Automatic Languages: "Common" and Ceran (the modern dialect of Celiran).
* Bonus Languages: Draconic, Treant, Goblin, Orcish, Old Dwarven, and Elven (each of the three variants is considered a seperate skill).
* Favored Class: Rogue. A multiclass Celiran's Rogue class does not count when determining whether she suffers an XP penalty for multiclassing.
Arkhandus
First Post
Shade, your present version of the Celiran certainly looks better, though I still don't see the reason why their tail gives them +2 on Bluff checks to feint in combat, it's not a quality other races with flexible tails get. BTW, Sleight of Hand is the 3.5 version of what was called Pick Pocket in 3.0.
Also, just because I always feel the need to defend my judgment, if anyone mistook my version of the Celiran for being overpowered, they obviously over-estimated the usefulness of the prehensile tail and the tail slap. And underestimated the potency of the Dwarf and Elf in 3.5 and 3.0. The Celiran skill bonuses I gave were on-par with a human's bonus feat and skill points, while the Tree-Dwelling made up for their lack of a human's general flexibility, including multiclass flexibility (many people dismiss Favored Class as stupid or useless, but it does make some sense to me at least, and it does play a part in racial balance; some folks are just too used to playing one or two particular classes exclusively, and others are just too used to min-maxing any given class without multiclassing, but me and a lot of other folks tend to multiclass frequently and find the Favored Class mechanic to have weight; it's also important in official campaigns and such; I for instance am part of The 13 Kingdoms cooperative campaign setting, and both the games I DM and the games I play in using the T13K setting require adherance to the core rules and the setting's few additional rules).
Humans are sort of the low end of the totem pole in terms of racial balance, though they're better than half-orcs and half-elves at least, so my version of the celiran seems fine to me with its additional benefits of Prehensile Tail and Tail Slap..... Prehensile Tail only really lets them hold an extra item when it's convenient, but then that may prevent the tail from being used to grant certain racial skill bonuses as noted in my description for them. Since it can't wield a weapon or shield, and can't perform somatic components, it's only good for skill-boosting and idly holding items, though it does at least have use for wielding a wand, but so what; that doesn't mean the character could activate an extra wand each round, it still takes a standard action to use a wand. It does free up a hand for holding a weapon though at least, while the mage keeps their off-hand free to perform somatic components. The mage could always just take Simple Weapon Proficiency and wear a Spiked Gauntlet, then they don't need a free hand for a weapon, they could hold the wand in their gauntleted hand and use the other hand for somatic components. Not like Wizards don't already have feats to spare.
Tail Slap is quite average for a natural attack, and only slightly better than an unarmed strike for most characters. Celiran monks won't have much use for it, but it means other Celirans at least count as armed even when unarmed, and they can deal a bit better damage with the Tail Slap than they could with an unarmed strike, but no more than a dagger or something could do (well, a shortsword now that Celirans are apparently Small-sized), and unlike a dagger or shortsword, the Tail Slap can't be thrown, doesn't have a decent threat range, and can't be used normally during an iterative attack sequence. And it's certainly much weaker than any two-handed weapon. If you read anything at all about natural attacks in the Monster Manual or the System Reference Document, you'd know that natural attacks can't normally be used during a standard full-attack action unless the character uses only their natural attack sequence.
That means, for instance, that a 20th-level Celiran Fighter could, on a full-attack action, either strike four times with a weapon such as a Longsword at +20/+15/+10/+5, or he could strike just once at +20 with his Tail Slap natural attack. With my little caveat in the Celiran's Tail Slap description, though, I added an exception that lets them use their Tail Slap once during a normal full-attack action, as an additional secondary attack, rather than a primary attack. Thus it applies only one-half the Strength bonus to damage, if any, rather than one-and-a-half-times the Strength bonus to damage. And it's made at their full base attack bonus but with a -5 penalty for being secondary. Thus a 20th-level Celiran Fighter could get five attacks with a full-attack action this way, four of them at +20/+15/+10/+5 with a weapon, plus one Tail Slap at +15. It's like an alternate sort of Two-Weapon Fighting, except that the off-hand strike is a Tail Slap and there's just a -5 penalty with that attack roll, and no penalty on the other attack rolls that round. And there's no way to get extra Tail Slap attacks in a round, the Celiran is always limited to just one Tail Slap per round. Unlike Two-Weapon Fighting. And Two-Weapon Fighting works with weapons, which deal more damage or have better critical/threat stats than the Tail Slap does.
Tail Slap is, effectively, like a bonus Two-Weapon Fighting feat, only slightly different and marginally more useful to some characters. It's worth no more than 2 feats, tops. The way I handled Str to damage is just as per the MM/SRD dictates for critters with only one natural weapon. Except for the whole "secondary Tail Slap" thing that I added, which makes it useable similar to Two-Weapon Fighting, rather than the tail slap becoming completely useless once the character picks up a simple gauntlet or dagger. Most creatures in the Monster Manual, even such humanoids and monstrous humanoids as Lizardfolk, Centuars, and Troglodytes, have more natural attacks per round and/or better damage with them.
Also, just because I always feel the need to defend my judgment, if anyone mistook my version of the Celiran for being overpowered, they obviously over-estimated the usefulness of the prehensile tail and the tail slap. And underestimated the potency of the Dwarf and Elf in 3.5 and 3.0. The Celiran skill bonuses I gave were on-par with a human's bonus feat and skill points, while the Tree-Dwelling made up for their lack of a human's general flexibility, including multiclass flexibility (many people dismiss Favored Class as stupid or useless, but it does make some sense to me at least, and it does play a part in racial balance; some folks are just too used to playing one or two particular classes exclusively, and others are just too used to min-maxing any given class without multiclassing, but me and a lot of other folks tend to multiclass frequently and find the Favored Class mechanic to have weight; it's also important in official campaigns and such; I for instance am part of The 13 Kingdoms cooperative campaign setting, and both the games I DM and the games I play in using the T13K setting require adherance to the core rules and the setting's few additional rules).
Humans are sort of the low end of the totem pole in terms of racial balance, though they're better than half-orcs and half-elves at least, so my version of the celiran seems fine to me with its additional benefits of Prehensile Tail and Tail Slap..... Prehensile Tail only really lets them hold an extra item when it's convenient, but then that may prevent the tail from being used to grant certain racial skill bonuses as noted in my description for them. Since it can't wield a weapon or shield, and can't perform somatic components, it's only good for skill-boosting and idly holding items, though it does at least have use for wielding a wand, but so what; that doesn't mean the character could activate an extra wand each round, it still takes a standard action to use a wand. It does free up a hand for holding a weapon though at least, while the mage keeps their off-hand free to perform somatic components. The mage could always just take Simple Weapon Proficiency and wear a Spiked Gauntlet, then they don't need a free hand for a weapon, they could hold the wand in their gauntleted hand and use the other hand for somatic components. Not like Wizards don't already have feats to spare.
Tail Slap is quite average for a natural attack, and only slightly better than an unarmed strike for most characters. Celiran monks won't have much use for it, but it means other Celirans at least count as armed even when unarmed, and they can deal a bit better damage with the Tail Slap than they could with an unarmed strike, but no more than a dagger or something could do (well, a shortsword now that Celirans are apparently Small-sized), and unlike a dagger or shortsword, the Tail Slap can't be thrown, doesn't have a decent threat range, and can't be used normally during an iterative attack sequence. And it's certainly much weaker than any two-handed weapon. If you read anything at all about natural attacks in the Monster Manual or the System Reference Document, you'd know that natural attacks can't normally be used during a standard full-attack action unless the character uses only their natural attack sequence.
That means, for instance, that a 20th-level Celiran Fighter could, on a full-attack action, either strike four times with a weapon such as a Longsword at +20/+15/+10/+5, or he could strike just once at +20 with his Tail Slap natural attack. With my little caveat in the Celiran's Tail Slap description, though, I added an exception that lets them use their Tail Slap once during a normal full-attack action, as an additional secondary attack, rather than a primary attack. Thus it applies only one-half the Strength bonus to damage, if any, rather than one-and-a-half-times the Strength bonus to damage. And it's made at their full base attack bonus but with a -5 penalty for being secondary. Thus a 20th-level Celiran Fighter could get five attacks with a full-attack action this way, four of them at +20/+15/+10/+5 with a weapon, plus one Tail Slap at +15. It's like an alternate sort of Two-Weapon Fighting, except that the off-hand strike is a Tail Slap and there's just a -5 penalty with that attack roll, and no penalty on the other attack rolls that round. And there's no way to get extra Tail Slap attacks in a round, the Celiran is always limited to just one Tail Slap per round. Unlike Two-Weapon Fighting. And Two-Weapon Fighting works with weapons, which deal more damage or have better critical/threat stats than the Tail Slap does.
Tail Slap is, effectively, like a bonus Two-Weapon Fighting feat, only slightly different and marginally more useful to some characters. It's worth no more than 2 feats, tops. The way I handled Str to damage is just as per the MM/SRD dictates for critters with only one natural weapon. Except for the whole "secondary Tail Slap" thing that I added, which makes it useable similar to Two-Weapon Fighting, rather than the tail slap becoming completely useless once the character picks up a simple gauntlet or dagger. Most creatures in the Monster Manual, even such humanoids and monstrous humanoids as Lizardfolk, Centuars, and Troglodytes, have more natural attacks per round and/or better damage with them.
Nifft
Penguin Herder
Shade: I like the updated version. Very well done, if a bit on the weak side. To enhance them, consider allowing them to pick a Favored Class from a list (maybe: Ranger, Rogue, Shaman, Scout, Swashbuckler, Barbarian).
Arkhandus: Look at the size a Dragon has to be to get a tail slap. Tail slaps come from BIG critters, and these little lizard dudes are small. So, I disagree on critter design principle.
-- N
Arkhandus: Look at the size a Dragon has to be to get a tail slap. Tail slaps come from BIG critters, and these little lizard dudes are small. So, I disagree on critter design principle.
-- N
Arkhandus
First Post
The tail slap is no different than a slam attack with the fist. Plenty of critters get a slam attack. If the critter's tail is strong enough to support its body weight hanging from a branch, it's strong enough to thwack a guy just as well as a fist, if not better. How many average guys can do pull-ups on a bar with just one hand? Not a lot of average guys, to be sure. Buff guys sure, but us average joes? Heck no. If a fella can lift his own body weight by one limb, he can damn well slap you with that limb hard enough to hurt like a punch. Saying that only stuff like dragons get a tail slap is silly. Small monstrous scorpions can still sting for a bit of damage can't they? Their tails aren't phenomenally stronger than a Cerilan's are they? If their stingers were blunted, they'd still deal damage from the force of impact. A choker is a small humanoid aberration with long limbs, and it can hold itself reasonably well with just one or two of them, and still gets natural attacks with those limbs.
3.x, or at least 3.5, has no rules for facing in general. Combatants are already assumed to be turning around during combat and watching out for foes behind them. No reason to say that a humanoid with a 3-4 foot long tail can't turn around and thwack a guy with it, when a humanoid monk could just as easily spin-kick the guy behind him. If they can reach far enough to punch someone with their 2-3 foot long arm, they can just as well smack someone with their 3-4 foot long prehensile tail that's strong enough to help them in climbing and swinging around in the trees. I find it odd how easily people disregard and ignore things as "silly" when they refuse to even so much as give such matters a moment's serious thought. Yet everyone seems to dismiss things so easily and readily.
3.x, or at least 3.5, has no rules for facing in general. Combatants are already assumed to be turning around during combat and watching out for foes behind them. No reason to say that a humanoid with a 3-4 foot long tail can't turn around and thwack a guy with it, when a humanoid monk could just as easily spin-kick the guy behind him. If they can reach far enough to punch someone with their 2-3 foot long arm, they can just as well smack someone with their 3-4 foot long prehensile tail that's strong enough to help them in climbing and swinging around in the trees. I find it odd how easily people disregard and ignore things as "silly" when they refuse to even so much as give such matters a moment's serious thought. Yet everyone seems to dismiss things so easily and readily.
Storyteller01
First Post
Arkhandus said:
Having a tail that can support your weight while hanging is not the same as a tail that can lift your weight. Check out aborial monkeys. None that I've seen that can hang by their tail actually lift with it. They swing up to a point, catch a limb, and lift with arms and legs. The tail acts as a pivot point or a rope to climb on.
Also. watch a scorpion when it stings. It doesn't use just its tail. The entire rear end of the critter moves, adding momentum to the sting. IT's kind of like a human punching; body movement counts. If I blunted a hypodermic needle and stabbed someone, I'd get the same effect (proportionaly) that you described with the Monstous scorpion's blunt sting. It's the same as a punch.
ANother example: why is it safe to holds a scorpion by the tail? If it were that strong, why doesn't it lift itself up and claw you? Granted, some do, but this is usually do to human stupidity.
If the pictures of chokers I've seen are accurate, a chokers limb has a significantly greater musculature than creatures with prehensile tails (I'm looking at monkeys, opossums, etc).
Tail slaps would probably be better suited to animals who use their tails for strength purposes, such as swimming or defense. Alligators, dragons, dinosaurs, etc.
Given the mass of muscle and bone, a Cerilan (or monkeys) tail weight less than a whip. How much damage can a whip do? Keep in mind, even a whip snap transmits full body movement (and a human weighs a heck of a lot more than the critter in question).
I do question the tail bluff bonus. I'd just make that a feat that all tailed PC's could use (I don't see why it would be available only to this singular race).
Halflings, as a balance, gain a bonus to all saves do to luck. You could given the same bonus to your new race, stipulating that living in the wild tends to heighten a critters instincts 0and survival traits (resistance to natural poisons, heightened reflexes, flight responses that override mental tampering, etc).
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Arkhandus
First Post
I see your point in that regard, so I guess it is reasonable to leave out the tail slap attack, I just don't think that it is in any way absurd or silly for a medium or small humanoid to have a decent tail slap attack. Some races may have a strong, powerful tail, small size or no. Others may have a tail good only for supporting weight while hanging, though.
So it may not fit the Celirans, but it's still a quality of my homebrew Genosan race, four-armed, one-tailed, two-legged, four-eyed small humanoids (yes, they are quite odd, aren't they? They have a level adjustment and never get the normal 1st-level feat that other characters get though, so their strengths balance out, and they're limited in the sort of Two-Weapon/Multi-Weapon/Multi-Attack feats they can take, since they aren't quite perfectly dextrous with each limb). I first devised the race about half a year ago, and have tweaked their stats and capabilities to the point where I'm finally satisfied with their balance and fun (their personalities are, ahem, vaguely reminiscent of kender, only they aren't quite as wanton, and aren't awesome at anything in particular). Thus my overly-defensive interest in this thread and the earlier thread some months ago about a four-armed race someone was devising. Apologies for any heatedness in my earlier posts.
So it may not fit the Celirans, but it's still a quality of my homebrew Genosan race, four-armed, one-tailed, two-legged, four-eyed small humanoids (yes, they are quite odd, aren't they? They have a level adjustment and never get the normal 1st-level feat that other characters get though, so their strengths balance out, and they're limited in the sort of Two-Weapon/Multi-Weapon/Multi-Attack feats they can take, since they aren't quite perfectly dextrous with each limb). I first devised the race about half a year ago, and have tweaked their stats and capabilities to the point where I'm finally satisfied with their balance and fun (their personalities are, ahem, vaguely reminiscent of kender, only they aren't quite as wanton, and aren't awesome at anything in particular). Thus my overly-defensive interest in this thread and the earlier thread some months ago about a four-armed race someone was devising. Apologies for any heatedness in my earlier posts.
Storyteller01
First Post
Arkhandus said:
Agreed, but I'd be more inclined to make such a race either a water based or long term runner/desert type critter. NIce thick tails, one for swimming and the other for balance and nutrient storage (like a gila monster!).
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