Half-breed feats

[Asmor]

Inspired by this thread

I think feats would be a great way to do half-breeds. It's always bugged me that half-breeds are their own races. For example, you can have a half-elf and a half-orc, but it's understood the other half is human. Why not half-dwarf/half-orc or half-elf/half-halfling?

Some feats would help fix that!

Elf Blood [Racial]
One of your parents was an elf.
Prerequisities: Not an elf, must be taken at level 1
Benefit: You gain low-light vision, a +2 racial bonus on search, spot and listen checks, and immunity to sleep effects.

Human Blood [Racial]
One of your parents was a human.
Prerequisities: Not a human, must be taken at level 1
Benefit: You get 4 extra skill points at level 1 and 1 additional skill point at each other level.

Dwarf Blood [Racial]
One of your parents was a dwarf
Prerequisities: Not a dwarf, must be taken at level 1
Benefit: You gain darkvision and stability, as the Dwarven racial trait.

Orc Blood [Racial]
One of your parents was an orc
Prerequisities: Not an orc, must be taken at level 1
Benefit: You get a permanent +2 bonus to strength, but take a -2 penalty to intelligence and charisma. You also gain lowlight vision.

Gnome Blood [Racial]
One of your parents was a gnome
Prerequisities: Not a gnome, must be taken at level 1
Benefit: You gain low-light vision and the same spell-like abilities as a gnome.

Halfling Blood [Racial]
One of your parents was a halfling
Prerequisities: Not a halfling, must be taken at level 1
Benefit: You get a +1 racial bonus on all saving throws and a +2 morale bonus on saving throws against fear.

 

[Archade]

Not a bad idea!

However, some of those feats are unbalanced compared to existing feats. However, it would explain a halfling with elf blood or the like.

Elf Blood - I'd change this to +1 bonus on search, spot and listen, and a +2 bonus to save vs sleep effects, and elf blood.
Human Blood - Your favored class changes to "any" and you gain 2 skill points (this is weak, but it puts it in line with other feats. There's one in Races of Destiny that just gives 4 skill points).
Dwarf Blood - You gain lesser stability (+2) and Stonecunning and Dwarf blood
Orc Blood - You gain +2 to Intimidate and Orc Blood (it's weak, but a feat that gives +2 to Str is a no-brainer for everyone. Half-orcs would abound and outnumber humans!)
Gnome blood - You gain +1 CL to illusion spells and whatever gnome racial bonuses on skills
Halfling Blood - Not sure ...

 

[Xath]

I agree with Archade. The original feats you propose are too powerful, and they aren't on par with each other, balance-wise.

I think you could make them slightly more powerful than regular feats, using the same mindset of the regional feats from Forgotten Realms.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

I have never liked the whole implementation of races as a whole, and have an alt Races and Culture thread where I started a project regarding that.

However I stuck to the paradigm of half-breeds only being able to work with humans for a couple reasons. One reason is that mechanically I could replace the humans bonus feat with a 'blooded' feat similar to your ideas above.

Of course I took it a step farther to seperate what the character is born as from how the character was raised, which adds a level of complexity.


But regarding the OP, assuming you could balance out the abilities gained from the racial feats to avoid the no-brainer combos... this could be a nice addition to the game.

For instance, any Rogue I played with these rules would have Dwarven blood. Any Barbarian I played would be a Dwarf with Orc blood... its just too good to pass up.