Crazy good races.

[Alexander123]

How do you all decide whether your players can take races which are crazy good like Anthropomorphic Animals? (Savage Species.) I limit their access to such races due to its being rare but I also want to give them a chance to play such races so I allow them to roll d100 and if they get 100 on the roll they can play it. I do this to maintain realism in the game since we don't all get what we want in life. What do you all think? Do you do things differently?

 

[Dandu]

The man-bat is overpowered.

 

[kitcik]

They can take any race they want, but if I feel the LA is incorrect I adjust it (before they make their final selection of course).

 

[Dross]

For us it is usually a campaign theme/style question.

If it fits it is possible, if it does not then you can't do it.

We don't really have an "anything goes" style, and even our more "open" games have fairly set limits on sources available.

Personally the important thing is that no one ends up being at an incompatible power level to the others (low OR high).

 

[Magesmiley]

My general rule is that it has to fit within the campaign setting that I'm running. And if the creature is from a remote area of the setting, then they have to help come up with a plausible and reasonable explanation for why the race fits.

I also tend to further complicate things by having the NPCs not as accepting (or even totally hostile) towards unusual races. From the view of the average peasant, an anthropromophic animal is probably some monstrosity created by the foul experiments of an evil wizard. This forces the players to consider what would be accepted in the area, without completely ruling out unusual races.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Well, usually Level Adjustments combined with a campaign's starting level takes care of what races PCs will take. Its hard to be an Anthropomorphic Polar Bear when everyone is starting at level 1. And even if the race is technically allowed, I do make players aware that NPCs might have poor reactions if their PCs are too outré. They may think a Bear Man is the result of a mad wizard's experiments, but they KNOW that Tiefling is evil incarnate...worse than an Orc or Drow! (To be clear: this is RP info, not actual mechanics.)

IOW, Smoky the Ranger may be the object of both fear and pity, but Saris the Cleric of Heironeous may find herself the target of a potential lynching because she didn't hide her horns & pointy tail.

I do, however, also limit race selections based on campaign setting. If my setting has no elves, there will be no elves or half elves. If I'm running Humans Only, then Humans Only it shall be.

If, OTOH, I'm running a wide open game, unless I think its a seriously bad idea, I let what I posted first in this thread be the sole control.