Is PF a good system for a party of "Bad Guys"

[DMBrendon]

I've just come off 3 years of 4E, and am a bit out of touch with 3.5 / Pathfinder. For my next campaign I was thinking of running a party of the normal "Bad Guys" - orcs, goblins, hobgoblins, kobolds etc. Is PF a good system for doing this? Is it feasible to have a kobold and orc in the same party, what are the balance issues?

 

[Spatula]

I've just come off 3 years of 4E, and am a bit out of touch with 3.5 / Pathfinder. For my next campaign I was thinking of running a party of the normal "Bad Guys" - orcs, goblins, hobgoblins, kobolds etc. Is PF a good system for doing this? Is it feasible to have a kobold and orc in the same party, what are the balance issues?

Here is the Pathfinder SRD on monsters as player races. They did away with LA and treat monster CR as LA for races with > 1 HD, so it's definitely friendlier to the concept than 3e was.

 

[Systole]

I currently run an evil campaign which is a lot of fun (imagine a Paranoia game set in Mordor). I felt it necessary to revamp pretty much all the evil races though, as some of them were horribly overpowered (goblins), moderately overpowered (tieflings), or woefully underpowered (kobolds).

What's the ETA on the Paizo's race handbook? Anyone know?

 

[Alzrius]

I currently run an evil campaign which is a lot of fun (imagine a Paranoia game set in Mordor). I felt it necessary to revamp pretty much all the evil races though, as some of them were horribly overpowered (goblins), moderately overpowered (tieflings), or woefully underpowered (kobolds).

What's the ETA on the Paizo's race handbook? Anyone know?

It comes out June 20. In the meantime, there's the playtest document (which is, obviously, not indicative of the final version of the book).

 

[DMBrendon]

I currently run an evil campaign which is a lot of fun (imagine a Paranoia game set in Mordor). I felt it necessary to revamp pretty much all the evil races though, as some of them were horribly overpowered (goblins), moderately overpowered (tieflings), or woefully underpowered (kobolds).

Thanks for letting me know that there is a bit of work required.

 

[gamerprinter]

I currently run an evil campaign which is a lot of fun (imagine a Paranoia game set in Mordor). I felt it necessary to revamp pretty much all the evil races though, as some of them were horribly overpowered (goblins), moderately overpowered (tieflings), or woefully underpowered (kobolds).

What's the ETA on the Paizo's race handbook? Anyone know?

Thanks for letting me know that there is a bit of work required.

For a Paranoia type game set in Mordor, perhaps they are overpowered, but for a D&D or Pathfinder game those races are balanced fine, and not overpowered at all. If you nerf these races, humans will seem overpowered as the good guys. Our group has played entire campaigns as evil beings, though we played standard races with evil alignments, not so much evil goblin races. Still, I wouldn't spend any work nerfing them down, it will only hurt your party's chance to survive against the non-nerfed good guy opposition.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Hobgoblins are balanced w/ the core races, goblins arguably are, depending on how much you value a +4 instead of a +2 (they're probably fine). Drow are balanced, Drow Nobles should never be a PC race.

Orcs need buffing, a +4 is not worth 3 -2's in a system where the norm is a net +2, and light sensitvity sucks. Should drop at least one of their -2's, maybe 2 of them. If dropping only 1, get rid of light sensitivity.

Kobolds...need lots of help. Dear god do they suck.

 

[Kaodi]

Kobolds...need lots of help. Dear god do they suck.

I tried using the playtest rules to build a better kobold. This was what I came up with:

KoBOLD
-4 Str, +2 Dex, -2 Con; Small Size; Speed 30 ft.; Darkvision 60 ft.; Light Sensitivity; +1 Natural Armour; +2 Racial Bonus on Craft (Trapmaking), Perception, and Profession (Miner); Craft (Trapmaking), Perception, and Stealth are always class skills; +1 Racial Bonus to Knowledge (Dungeoneering) and Survival checks made undergrounds; Poison Use (never risk accidentally poisoning themselves); 1d2 Bite attack; Speak Common and Draconic; and Cat's Luck (once per day you can roll twice on a Reflex saving throw and take the better result).

 

[Systole]

Hobgoblins are balanced w/ the core races, goblins arguably are, depending on how much you value a +4 instead of a +2 (they're probably fine).

I really don't like +4 to a stat, and I think it's undervalued by most race creation systems. If there were a race that was +4 Int, -2 Str, -2 Cha, it would be difficult to choose anything else for a wizard character. A +2 bonus I can work around -- I don't feel too bad if I take a gnome wizard rather than elf or human. But if I leave a possible +4 Int on the table, then I'm letting my fellow players down if don't take it. Well, maybe I could play an elf or a human, but a gnome wizard? Fuhgeddaboudit. I might as well play an orc.

In my opinion, a +4 stat bonus needs to have some pretty crippling disadvantages to balance it. And I use the word 'crippling' very deliberately. Most disadvantages are easy to work around or relatively unimportant (Str and Cha to a wizard, for example). For +4 races, the disadvantages have to be a lot harsher to balance their ease of optimization. I should have to think long and hard about whether that +4 is really worth it.

In the case of goblins, no doubt it's worth it. Even the Str penalty isn't terribly difficult to work around. And on top of their Dex bonus, they also have a +4 Stealth racial, as well as +4 for small size. Your typical PC goblin has +16 Stealth at level 1. It makes it difficult to choose a non-goblin for pretty much any Dex-based class.

In my opinion.

 

[Nebten]

I'm currently involved in an evil campaign of Council of Thieves in which we have three characters that are tieflings. We are having a great time with just a little adjustment of motivation by the DM.

But there are resources for evil races such as orcs, goblins, tieflings and worshipers of evil deities which can be found here: http://paizo.com/pathfinder/companion/pathfinderRPG