It's back! Nightfall's "Ask the Sage" Scarred Lands Q&A

Nightfall said:
Plus fewer mechanical mistakes. (Except regarding LA) That, however, is a minor point since they fixed the things that truly needed fixing, like BAB, HP, and other standardizations of 3rd edition monsters.

NF --

What LA issues are you referring to? I noticed that in Revised, they updated the LA of various ratmen (Slitherin) subraces, and I think the Aassathi were tweaked as well.

Are you suggesting that the revised versions of these races got their LAs messed up?

Catsclaw
 

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*ten*
Cats,

Well I think they could use some adjustment yes. I mean is Assatthi really need to be +5 LA? I me add that with the +3 racial HD, you an ELC of 8. I'm not sure that's necessarily accurate. 5 ELC seems more appropriate to me.

The Ratmen too might have too low an LA, considering some have a +6 Con for starters. I'm just suggesting a revision of what LA/ELC means is what needed there, just for that. Otherwise their stats and pics are fine.
 

In my opinion, both of those need complete overhauls to be made into character races. Instead of subtracting 10 or 11 from each stat to get the racial stat bonus, each should be made with the elite array and THEN subtract those numbers out to come up with the racial stat bonuses. Also, the assathi shouldn't ALL be 3rd level wizards. Knock out that and bump the HD back down to 1dX and you have a LA+2 race (Base speed 40, +5 natural armor, low light vision, still nice stat bumps....). Same for the ratmen, there is NO way a freakin RATman shoulld have +6 con. Give them immunity or +4 racial bonus to saves vs poison and disease instead. Lord, the same thing with The Proud. They ALL cast as 7th level druids?? I used the wemic from the PGtF as a base, and added in Proud features to remake that race into something that wasn't ECL 13 at 1st level.

....but that's just me.
 

So, would one of you be willing to write up the Assathi and ratmen as you think it should be? That would give me a framework for adding a special NPC to my game.

Any help to get me started on my SL campaign would be awesome.

CC
 

*one*

Well I think the adjustments should different. I don't know about the changes that Two is suggesting. On the one hand they do make sense, but the other I am a little concerned about doing so, especially if it ruins the flavor of them.

I happen to think perhaps for the Assatthi instead of casting spells, they get spell-like abilities and the ability to use arcane scrolls, and arcane spell trigger items (like wands, staves, etc), to make them decent spellcasters still. To completely remove that aspect of the Assatthi I feel ruins the flavor.

Now as for the Dex bonus, I agree that a +6 is kind of high. But that shouldn't mean you can't make a variant or at least a "normal" breed Ratman/Slitheren that's usable at +0. The way I'd do it is probably keep the +4 Dex and +2 Con, but also give them say a -2 Str, Int, Wis and Cha. That way they can still be usable without being totally ridiculous.

The Proud...are something I think needs work, but again I'd probably lump them in with some higher level monsters, especially since they can cast spells. They'd be more likely to be in higher level games.

Gnolls, goblinoids, and some other MM monsters with low to none +0 LA/ELC should be consider as part of the norm more than the Proud, more than Hags certainly, and probably more than most titanspawn.

Indeed I am considering specialized human like race that are natural sorcerers, much like a lower level version of spellweavers. I wonder if anyone would be interested in that.
 

catsclaw227 said:
So, would one of you be willing to write up the Assathi and ratmen as you think it should be? That would give me a framework for adding a special NPC to my game.

Any help to get me started on my SL campaign would be awesome.

CC

After I run my Scarred Lands game this weekend, I can post or send you what I did for the Proud. I've been mulling over what to do with the Assaathi, but nothing serious yet. I'm not at all worried about "ruining the flavor" of either. If one thinks the snakemen should all cast spells, then give them 2-3 levels of wizard to go with their +1 LA. The Vigil Watch: Assathi book really took the race in an oriental direction, and I think making an assathi "samurai" pay for 3 wizard arcane caster levels is counter productive.

What kind of NPC did you have in mind?

I have also made 3.5 ed updates of a few monsters, like the Ioun Beholder, if anyone is interested.
 

*ten*

I guess I'd prefer to allow the Assatthi a chance to be decent to good wizards along with them being samurai-esque types as presented in Secrets. (Which I do agree with you, giving them that hit on wizards can be counter productive at times.)

If you did happen to do 3.5 updates, which books did you draw from? I might use them myself, Two Wolves. (I WILL credit you in my work.)
 


You guys want me to email them or post them? I'll dig around after tomorrow's session and see what I have concrete and finished.

(I also have a Displacer Beast/Blade Beast hybrid I made for an orcish breeding program experiment, if anyone wants).
 

Twowolves said:
You guys want me to email them or post them? I'll dig around after tomorrow's session and see what I have concrete and finished.

(I also have a Displacer Beast/Blade Beast hybrid I made for an orcish breeding program experiment, if anyone wants).
Whichever you want to do.
 

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