Lesser Shadar-Kai (Fiend Folio)

[Cabral]

The Fiend Folio introduces the Shadar-Kai, a race of fey with a cursed relationship with the plane of shadow.

I really like the race but want to make a little more PC friendly. I don't really like the levels of fey. So here is my straight Shadar-Kai race with no inherent HD. What do you think the LA should be?

Shadar-Kai, Medium Humanoid
Shadar-Kai characters have the following abilities:

• +4 Dexterity, -2 Constitution, -2 Charisma
• Medium Creature, speed 30 ft.
• Hide in Plain Sight (Su): as per FF p 150
• Shadow Curse (Su): As per FF p 150
• Superior Low-light Vision (Ex): as per FF p 150
• +2 racial bonus on Hide and Move Silently
• Feyblood: For all effects related to race, Shadar-Kai are considered Fey.

This version looses the sneak attack, better racial hide bonus and has toned down stat bonuses (somewhat)

I'm shooting for a +1 LA, but would be happy with a +2 LA ...

 

[Cabral]

Are there so few replies because of the reference to the Fiend Folio rather than explaining the abilities?

 

[Cheiromancer]

I think it looks fine at +1 LA. 3 fey hit dice aren't worth very much, so if all you did was drop them, the LA might have gone up (from the original value of +1). But the fiend folio Shadar-Kai have more dex (+2) and 1d6 sneak attack. The -2 penalty to Con will have a big long term effect on the character, quite comparable to having to have a few fey hit dice for another character.

And the hide in plain sight (being able to make a hide check whenever they are not in sunlight or a daylight spell or similar bright light) is worth a lot less without the +10 racial bonus.

So yeah, it's good.

Don't worry about not getting replies the first time around. Sometimes posts slip past people- very often people don't like to be the first to comment. They like to have someone else's comments to either agree with or disagree with.
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[Nifft]

Don't worry about not getting replies the first time around. Sometimes posts slip past people- very often people don't like to be the first to comment. They like to have someone else's comments to either agree with or disagree with.

I disagree.

Anyway, it looks pretty good, if a bit on the strong side. +4 Dex is quite a lot -- I'd prefer +2 Dex / -2 Con, since we know that's fairly balanced.

The worrysome thing to me is the Fey part. That makes you immune to a lot of early Will save type spells, and Fey-bane weapons are rarer than (say) Outsider-bane weapons.

Shadow Curse is a serious drawback, especially for someone without a few HD to serve as a negative level buffer, and super especially without the FFolio listed items which somewhat compensate, and are cheap.

-- N

PS: If you're open to changes, consider the following:

- Lose Hide in Plain Sight
+ Gain +10 to Hide checks
+ Gain racial ability to ignore Hide skill rank requirement of Shadowdancer (so, you can enter 2 levels earlier than anyone else) -- a dip in this class will give you HiPS at (near) the appropriate level for such an ability.

 

[Cabral]

Sorry, I put the Feyblood in to replace the Fey type. This version would be a humanoid. The feyblood entry was adapted from the half-orc orcblood.

As for the Gal-ranans, I had considered changing the Constitution penalty to -2 and either including a +1 gal-ranan as part of the racial package, or simply reducing the cost and allowing characters to buy them with their starting funds. (300 gp, I think for an ECL character) Assuming I include the gal-ranan at no cost, that would change the stats effectively to +4 Dex, -4 Contitution, -2 Charisma with +1 on all saves and an additional +2 versus death effects, energy drains, and soul effects (such as the Shadow Curse).

The concern about the Shadow Curse (Will DC 15 save) and low level characters is one I hadn't considered. The difficulty in repairing the Shadow Curse, as well as the high DC for the will save means that a lot of low-level characters could be up a creek the first time they unvoluntarily fall unconcious. particularly with no Xp gain while afflicted. I'll have to think about that ...

 

[Cheiromancer]

Hmmm. I had overlooked the whole shadow curse bit. Which is silly of me, considering that this is one of the main features of the race. They'd pretty much have to have a gal-ralan as part of their initial equipment. Even then you might want to tweak the effects of the curse, or low-level characters will never become mid-level ones. Maybe make it so that lesser restoration can fix things?

BTW, I had interpreted the "counts as fey" ability to not give immunity to effects that affect humanoids. I.e. it makes them count as few, not as non-humanoids. And I also notice that the -2 to Con makes all their HD effectively one category smaller. So they might as well be fey, with those silly d6 hit dice.