Fun With Templates #6: The Ling (Laiceps Yad Sdrawkcab)

[Kafkonia]

Ling
Small Humanoid, 1st level Warrior

Hit Dice: 1d8+2 (8 hp)
Initiative: +2
Speed: 20 ft.
Armour Class: 17 (+1 size, +2 Dex, +3 studded leather, +1 light shield), touch 13, flat-footed 15
Base Attack/Grapple: +1/-3
Attack: Longsword +4 melee (1d6/19–20) or light crossbow +4 ranged (1d6/19–20)
Full Attack: Longsword +4 melee (1d6/19–20) or light crossbow +4 ranged (1d6/19–20)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: ----
Special Qualities: Ling traits
Saves: Fort +6, Ref 4, Will +2
Abilities: Str 11, Dex 14, Con 15, Int 8, Wis 10, Cha 9
Skills: Climb +4, Jump +4, Listen +4, Move Silently +6, Hide +2
Feats: Weapon Finesse
Environment: Warm hills and plains
Organization: Company (2–4), squad (11–20 plus 2 3rd-level sergeants and 1 leader of 3rd–6th level), or band (30–100 plus 100% noncombatants plus 1 3rd-level sergeant per 20 adults, 5 5th-level lieutenants, 3 7th-level captains, 6–10 dogs, and 2–5 riding dogs)
Challenge Rating: 1
Treasure: Standard
Alignment: Usually neutral
Advancement: By character class
Level Adjustment: +1

Between the trees, you can vaguely make out what looks like a small, hairy human watching you. In an instant, it is gone.

Lings are secretive humanoids that live primarily in isolated areas of wilderness. They tend to eschew contact with fellow humanoids, especially larger and more violent ones such as orcs, dwarves, and humanity. They will socialize with smaller and more peaceful races, and ling communities have been known to maintain good relations with gnomes or kobolds (though not both.) Amongst those who know of their existence, lings are renowned for their braver. Tales are even told of ling squads facing down young dragons to defend their band.

Lings speak Ling and Common.

Most lings stand just under 3 feet in height, and weigh approximately 30 lbs. Both males and females exhibit quite a large amount of body hair, but their faces are usually hairless.

Most lings encountered outside their home are warriors; the information in the statistics block is for one of 1st level.

Skills: Lings receive +4 racial bonuses on Climb, Jump, Listen, and Move Silently checks.

Lings as Characters
--Small size. +1 bonus to Armor Class, +1 bonus on attack rolls, +4 bonus on Hide checks, –4 penalty on grapple checks, lifting and carrying limits 3/4 those of Medium characters.
--A ling’s base land speed is 20 feet.
--Dexterity +2, Constitution +2
--Racial bonus of +4 to Climb, Jump, Listen, and Move Silently
--+2 racial bonus to all saving throws
--+4 morale bonus to saves vs. fear (this stacks with the racial bonus above.)
--Automatic Languages: Common, Ling.
--Favoured Class: Ranger
--Level Adjustment: +1

The ling warrior presented here had the following ability scores before racial adjustments: Str 11, Dex 12, Con 13, Int 8, Wis 10, Cha 9.

----

This is a quirky one, as I actually took the Amalgam template from Advanced Bestiary and the Metatemplate from Book of Templates and reverse-engineered the Ling from the halfling and the human, treating the halfling as a half-ling human. I can post the half-ling template if people are interested.

 

[Land Outcast]

Argh!
Amalgam, Metatemplate, Dread zombie

Templates!... I will get my hands on those!... somehow

.........

Oh, on the creation: fun for some reason I find it humorous...

 

[SpiralBound]

I really like these guys, kinda like "Lucy" for RPGs! I do have a few questions though...

1) Why the odd weapon choice? Isn't a longsword rather, um, long? These guys averaging 2' 10" or 2' 11" inches tall. I have wooden rulers taller than these guys! And you have them swinging around a massive (to them) hunk of metal? Kinda seems odd... Heck, forget thesize thing for a minute, why a sword at all? These guys live deep in the forest, melting from sight... A sword would be extremely impractical for them. To effectively use a sword, you need swinging room like is readily available in the open battlefield. In a forest you'd never have enough room to really gain the full use of this kind of weapon. Naw, what these guys need are bows (not crossbows which are more complicated, slower to use, and can break), blowguns (an excellent medium range weapon that is ideally suited to being used within the cover so amply available in the woods), and for melee combat, knives and spears. Knives don't need as much room, but spears are where it's really at for forest combat. You can keep the opponent at a distance, and the stabbing motions in using it are better suited to an environment where you don't have much swinging room. Plus, a spear can be thrown, and also used for hunting inbetween actual combat situations. I can see some tribal Ling warrior being given a sword, and it gets used to dig trenches or is kept at the village for cutting up goat haunches or something, but not carried into the confining terrain of forest underbrush.

2) Studded leather? That stuff is heavy and restricting. Again, I find it hard to picture a small woodland creature preferring this form of armor. Given their racial dex bonus and their bonuses to Climb, Jump, Listen, and Move Silently, +4 bonus on Hide checks, and their combined +6 save vs. fear. I would think that a) they'd consider wearing hearvy protective armor a sign of fear (probably a BIG no-no in their society) and b) they'd much prefer wearing natural camoflage and surprise attacking their enemies with several quick, dex-reliant attacks, and then disappearing again. I would expect their favoured attack method would be to use multiple "attack and fade" maneuvers, gradually weakening their opponent until they could close in for the kill, or perhaps even a swarm attack, physically overwhelming them with numbers. Using sword and shield with studded leather armor feels too... "trained medieval soldier on the open field of war, executing careful battle maneuvers" and doesn't really seem (IMHO) to fit the "tiny, hairy humanoids who live reclusively in deep wilderness and isolation, leading lives of intense bravery" that you outline above.

3) Why all the save bonuses? I'm not opposed to them, but I am curious as to why you gave them out. A plus 2 to all saves and a further plus 4 vs. fear is significant, and obviously not randomly assigned, so I was just wondering why?

4) Why no bonuses to making, using and disarming traps? I would think that these guys would LOVE things like pit traps, spear traps, deadfall traps, net traps, etc. I would so totally have them trap the bejeebus out of their homelands. Traps are an excellent way to soften up the biggun's before you finish them off! These guys don't have any Int penalties, so I would think that they're mor than bright enough to protect themselves from all the bigger races using ambushes and traps.

Lastly, let me repeat my opening sentiment. I like your Ling! Don't let all my questions and suggestions above be viewed as a sign that I dislike them. In fact, it is because I like them so much that I'm making the above observations. I genuinely think that my ideas would improve their abilities and better match their flavour. Of course, feel free to disagree with me and point out reasons that support your choices in armor, weapons, fighting tactics and various other abilities. After all, they're YOUR creation!

 

[Kafkonia]

I really like these guys, kinda like "Lucy" for RPGs! I do have a few questions though...

Actually, I have a short answer to all of your questions: Blame the halfling.

To make the halfling into a half-ling, I had to make the ling following certain guidelines. Thus, they have twice the bonus to saves that halflings have; likewise, their stat bonuses were established by scaling a human to small and determining what the ling would have to provide to give the halfling the stats they have.

The sword stats were, in all honesty, just copy-pasted from the halfling's stat block and adjusted for the ling's modifiers.

I agree with most of your points, and when I rejig the ling for the final product (oops... did I say that? ) I will take them into account -- although I probably won't include the trap bonuses, simply because that feels like it'd be stepping on the kobold's toes, and I heart kobolds.

 

[SpiralBound]

Ah... now it makes sense. I would be quite interested to know when your finished version is available. An email dropped to a certain gmail account with the same name as my username would be greatly appreciated! Until then, I think that I will "appropriate" this current incarnation of the Ling, apply my suggested changes, and drop them into a dense and remote forested area in my next appropriate campaign. I'm just imagining a bunch of low level adventurers getting trounced by a Ling tribe!

As for stepping on the Kobold toes, perhaps Ling traps would be more passively defensive and less sadistic than Kobold traps. Where a Kobold trap is designed to maim you as much as possible, a Ling trap could be designed to slow you down, misdirect and confuse you, hurt or annoy you, and generally make you either get lost or want to leave rather than continue on in the direction of the Ling village. Perhaps also, Ling traps (maybe it's more accurate to call them "defenses") are designed to look natural instead of lingmade. I don't know, I'm just ideasurfing right now. I agree with not stealing the Kobold's thunder (all my Kobolds are "Tucker's Kobolds"!) Still, it seems to make sense that a small race that tries to avoid the other races would try to use their surroundings to aid them as much as possible to offset their lacking in size and strength. Perhaps they would also use a lot of concealment tactics. (DC 30 to spot a Ling footpath, a Ling village, or track a Ling who doesn't want to be followed)

 

[Quartz]

Isn't this a bit too good for LA +1? On initial inspection, the Ling make awesome Rogues and Ranger / Fighter / Rogues. Heaven help whosovever meets a Ling Rog 4 / Rgr 4 / Pal 4 / Kt 4 / Ftr 3. And a Ling Paladin could have awesome saves straight off.

 

[Kafkonia]

Isn't this a bit too good for LA +1? On initial inspection, the Ling make awesome Rogues and Ranger / Fighter / Rogues. Heaven help whosovever meets a Ling Rog 4 / Rgr 4 / Pal 4 / Kt 4 / Ftr 3. And a Ling Paladin could have awesome saves straight off.

That's a good question. Comparing it to the Aasimar:

+2 Wisdom, +2 Charisma vs Dexterity +2, Constitution +2

Both races have unbalanced ability scores; the Aasimar's are better geared for spellcasters, the Ling's for combat. Slight edge to the Ling because the stat bonuses can be useful for everyone.

Medium size vs Small size
An aasimar’s base land speed is 30 feet vs A ling’s base land speed is 20 feet.

The main downside to small size is arguably the drop in strength, which the Ling doesn't suffer. That being said, the drop of 10 feet from base speed can be pretty bad. Slight edge to the Aasimar.

Darkvision: Aasimars can see in the dark up to 60 feet.

Lings have neither darkvision nor low-light vision. Decided edge to the Aasimar.

Racial Skills: Aasimars have a +2 racial bonus on Spot and Listen checks. vs. Racial bonus of +4 to Climb, Jump, Listen, and Move Silently

More bonuses and bigger bonuses. Decided edge to the Ling.

Special Attacks (see above): Daylight.
Special Qualities (see above): Resistance to acid 5, cold 5, and electricity 5.

Lings have no special attacks or special qualities. Decided edge to the Aasimar.

+2 racial bonus to all saving throws
+4 morale bonus to saves vs. fear (this stacks with the racial bonus above.)

Aasimar do not get bonuses to their saves. Decided edge to the Ling.
_____

So, I'd say that they match up fairly well to the Aasimar. Although they might be a bit on the high side for LA +1, I think they'd be grossly underpowered for a +2 LA. But maybe someone can sway me.

 

[Quartz]

There is no downside to small size. As you note, there is no drop in strength noted in your OP. And a Ling character - especially a paladin - can use a wardog as a mount, gaining a significant advantage over medium-sized characters.

I'd stick the Ling as LA +2 and adjust later if found wanting. It's easier to add a level somewhere later than to drop one.

 

[Nifft]

So, I'd say that they match up fairly well to the Aasimar. Although they might be a bit on the high side for LA +1, I think they'd be grossly underpowered for a +2 LA. But maybe someone can sway me.

Wait, wait. Let's not forget the Aasimar's real chief ability:

I'm a frikkin' Outsider, mang (Ex): Immunity to charm person, hold person, dominate person, etc., and some other stuff like lycanthropy. Ability to use alter self and polymorph to turn into cooler stuff than usual. Under some DMs, I also get proficency with all martial weapons, because it says so right here: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/typesSubtypes.htm#outsiderType

Lings are strong, sure. Are they stronger than Dwarves? I dunno.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Quartz]

Wait, wait. Let's not forget the Aasimar's real chief ability:

I'm a frikkin' Outsider, mang (Ex): Immunity to charm person, hold person, dominate person, etc

And how often does that actually come into play? Besides, Elves have something similar.