Is this a fair _flavourful_ 0LA Satyr?

[Evilhalfling]

I woud say that this looks like a +1 LA race as written.
unbalanced abilitiy modifiers: A big problem, to be LA +0 the rest of the abilites have to come out as a negative. Saytrs Sorcerers would be better than any other race.
+dx and Cr are bot high value sats
Lowlight vison is fine, lots of races have it, it is necessary to the concept.
Horns - possibly reduceable to d4? It could be a strong advantage, but the str penalty makes it less so.
Speed: an important advatage. The armor limitation is fine
-2 will saves - a strong disadvantage. will offset some of above.
unbalanced stance won't come up much, its a minor flaw. Perhaps it offsets the vision.
-2 to rage saves? when does this come up? you could just keep it as flavor that the get mad easily, its just not going to come up, even if it did its pretty well covered with the will save penalty.


Dancing benifits :
Moonclad dance is perfect for Sorcerers, and Monks. For either it has no drawbacks and will be on most of the time. Ignoring the flavor (which is fine, btw) the ability seems much like the githzari inertial armor ability. If your make it an armor bonus instead then it reduces the stacking problems, and makes it less subject to abuse, while allowing unarmored characters.

 

[Machiavelli]

It sounds like you are stubbornly clinging to your design elements, so you need to modify them to achieve balance, not just eliminate some of them. Yes?

To that end, how about the head butt be usable only on a charge (so that it doesn't threaten, can't be used in a grapple, and barring some pounce ability will not add an extra attack to a full attack)? Also, as Nifft pointed out, you should note that the "head" slot is only available for circlets and headbands: no helms.

I think you could drop the stat modifiers completely, but barring that drastic modification the Dex could go without losing much flavor. That +2 Cha is still a bit problematic, though, in that it's a rare boost for sorcerers and bards. Without the Dex, the stats are balanced, but you'll need to keep in mind that a player will automatically want to make a sorcerer or bard out of a satyr... which needs to be countered to build a well-designed race.

You could apply the Instability penalty to ALL bullrush and trip checks (not just defensive), and even bump it up to -4. Also note that the hooves can be shod, but not booted. It's not all bad, though: horseshoes of the zypher, anyone?

Now, to keep Moonclad but make it less useful for the usual unarmored folks, you could treat it as an actual set of light armor. When moonclad, the satyr gets a +2(or +4) armor bonus, and is treated as wearing light armor with an ASF of, say 15% from the interference that the mystical energies of the ritual offer. Basically, the Moonclad dance would be a replacement for wearing light armor (leather or a chain shirt), but without the options for upgrades. Its usefulness would be drastically lower for PCs, but the satyr population as a whole would be quite blessed.

Now, if you nerf the rest, you could pick one of these nerfs to ignore.

 

[Griffith Dragonlake]

I suggest giving the Satyr a -2 Wisdom adjustment for two reasons: 1) You mentioned the Satyr as being impulsive and quick to anger; 2) The DMG suggests offsetting a +2 mental stat boost with a -2 mental stat penalty.

Also, consider chaning Dex to no adjustment or -2 penalty. The goat legs would inhibit reflexes and AC bonus at least as much as much as a Dwarf's short legs (no adjustment) and probably even more.

The drawback of having a Strength, Wisdom, and Dexterity penalty is that players would probably only choose to play bards and sorcerers — but this is not necessarily a bad thing IMHO. Most players would never pick wizard, sorcerer, or bard for their Half-Orc. I see nothing wrong in adding exotic races that do not have the same options as the core race. If you want most of your sorcerer and bard PCs to be Satyrs, so be it. Same as the DM who wants most of their barbarians, fighters, rangers, and monks to be half-orcs.

 

[Kisanji Arael]

I never remember hearing anything about Satyrs being especially dexterous. Doesn't Lucy catch one in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe? Isn't she about seven at the time?

And why, why for the love of Gygax, do they earn a speed bonus?

So... I may be alone in thinking +2 adjustments to a mental stat can be balanced, but what if:

You made the race +2 Cha, -2 Wis.

You gave skill bonuses to Perform (dance) and any one other type of perform check?

You made it so that they had to make a check to resist any invitation of drink, they had a penalty to concentration checks when any form of bacchanalia was occurring and the Will penalty?
---

You do this, you could even add other cool things.

 

[Gloombunny]

The Charisma bonus is tricky because it's so good for classes like sorcerer that balancing it requires loading the race down with so many drawbacks that no one will want to play a satyr for any class that doesn't have Cha-based spellcasting. Suggestion: instead of +2 Charisma, give them a racial bonus on Perform, Diplomacy, and/or Bluff.

You might also consider dropping the speed to 35', which would preserve the flavor while keeping the power level down.

 

[Quartz]

The Charisma bonus is tricky because it's so good for classes like sorcerer that balancing it requires loading the race down with so many drawbacks that no one will want to play a satyr for any class that doesn't have Cha-based spellcasting. Suggestion: instead of +2 Charisma, give them a racial bonus on Perform, Diplomacy, and/or Bluff.

Perhaps even better would be to say that they're always class skills?

 

[Sigurd]

Satyrs Speed & Wisdom

It depends greatly on your source of inspiration.

The speed and dexterity thing is a virility element. They're classical fey with, in some stories, great violence and aggression. They're not really built to be weight lifters so speed and dexterity are the next thing. In mythology they are mostly pretty robust creatures - far more threatening than Newt in the TV series.

The wisdom negative I can understand and perhaps that would be the balance.

The charisma bonus, even the unbalanced stats, are really indicative of them having a fey background. Dont forget this isn't a half race its a fey creature in a humanoid world. They will have larger hurdles fitting in and the wrong setting will make their life hell.

'Flavourful' is important here too.

Opposing the charisma bonus opens up a whole ball of wax. The presence of the charisma dependent classes should not make it impossible to use a race that traditionally has a very high charisma.

Fey creatures mostly have higher charisma, satyrs certainly do in my mind. They are the wild voice that seduces women. Poster children for the lure of the woods.


Sigurd

 

[Aus_Snow]

Would you be open to the idea of starting with a fairly balanced - if not outright quite as cool - LA +0 race, then providing an optional racial class (kinda like paragon class) to gain the other goodies? It strikes me as win/win, without most of the unfortunate fallout from using LA per se.

Even a 1-level class could work (to make it basically like LA +1, if so desired) but of course having a few levels open means the player can choose how satyr-ish they want their character to be, and when (grades of 'fey-ness', I guess.) I'd probably go with 3, if it were me.

 

[Phlebas]

Would you be open to the idea of starting with a fairly balanced - if not outright quite as cool - LA +0 race, then providing an optional racial class (kinda like paragon class) to gain the other goodies? It strikes me as win/win, without most of the unfortunate fallout from using LA per se.

Even a 1-level class could work (to make it basically like LA +1, if so desired) but of course having a few levels open means the player can choose how satyr-ish they want their character to be, and when (grades of 'fey-ness', I guess.) I'd probably go with 3, if it were me.

if you were doing the MM Satyr its 5HD + 2 LA, which would be a seven level racial class. a satyr-light progression could be 3. treat it like paragon rather than racial and you can mix / match at any time.
Add in some fey only feats and you've given yourself much more flexibility in the design.....

The speed and dexterity thing is a virility element. They're classical fey with, in some stories, great violence and aggression. They're not really built to be weight lifters so speed and dexterity are the next thing. In mythology they are mostly pretty robust creatures - far more threatening than Newt in the TV series.

to me that sounds much more like con than str or dex but thats even more diffcult to balance.....

i'd go for no stat modifiers and lots of skill bonus / class skills to give you the flavour you want and make balancing much easier!

 

[Aus_Snow]

if you were doing the MM Satyr its 5HD + 2 LA, which would be a seven level racial class. a satyr-light progression could be 3. treat it like paragon rather than racial and you can mix / match at any time.

Add in some fey only feats and you've given yourself much more flexibility in the design.....

Bingo.

Yeah, I meant paragon-like, in terms of how it would work, and satyr-light for sure. Otherwise, as you say, that's a lot of levels.

Still haven't heard back from the OP, so I'm not sure whether to go into specifics - even the idea might be totally repulsive or something. :\