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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EditorBFG" data-source="post: 3664176" data-attributes="member: 24719">The reason this all began was because, when I started doing racial talents, I realized they could eliminate L.A., so I decided to work up one L.A. race (planetouched) to test the theory, and I posted it. It was just an intellectual exercise, but now that it is out there it does seem worthwhile to figure out how to do it right, because it will affect the philosophy behind race design in general.Also, there will be some attempt to merge L.A. subraces (drow, duergar, svirfneblin, etc.) into the core race via talents.That said, I do not think we need more non-core races at this point beyond the ones we have. I will state that it is likely orc will be included as a core race, because of the way the half-orc race will work.I do agree that the base racial talent each race receives at 1st level needs to balance with other base racial talents. What I meant is they do not need to balance with class talents. Now, talents farther up the path should be roughly equivalent to class talents, because there is a choice, but the base talent automatically given to each race can be more powerful than others.But as you say, each race's base talent must scale with the others, otherwise the races with weaker base talents won't get played.And there are a couple reasons for that.First of all, I think giving every race a talent, a feat, and a skill schtick is a simplification in line with the philosophy behind saga. Since we will not be able to convert every race out there, we are creating a simple model for those who want to port over their favorites.Second, races in the SRD are very different from Star Wars species. For example, no alien race ever published for any d20 Star Wars book looks like this: That is a lot of stuff. So we have to get creative to convert with any degree of faithfulness, even as we attempt to simplify.Third, the Star Wars species do not have the archetypal depth of the D&D races. Elves, dwarves, gnomes, etc. have long-standing subraces, cultural nuances, interrelations, etc., all of which give them far greater substance and intricacy than wookiees and rodian. Racial talents allow us to honor these things in a way that is unified and elegant, rather than having the bevy of extra special rules and exceptions other d20 games would require to accomplish the like.I tried to guide the discussion towards races a bit because I was working on that part, but obviously you guys are free to move on to other stuff if you thinking I'm bogging us down in minutia at this point.I absolutely agree, but when we try to fix this mentality we probably want to do so in a way that does not wander to far from the core. For example, I want to use Spycraft's version of the Dodge feat, which works something like this:Dodge [General]Prerequisite: Dex 13.Benefit: During your action, you may designate a single opponent and receive a +2 dodge bonus to Armor Class against attacks from that opponent, or you can choose to receive a +1 dodge bonus against all opponents. You can choose which bonus to receive, or designate a new opponent for the more specific bonus, on any action.This version makes the feat more attractive, but also maintains the "Dodge buddy" choice that other 3rd party and Core feats have built upon. I think this is the kind of philosophy that should be used to "improve" any weak core feats.</blockquote>

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