Lotus

[Murtov]

Lotus {plant-people}

Personality- Lotus are very humble and keep to theirselves in most cases unless their homes are in trouble.

Physical Description- Lotus typically stand from 5 feet to a little over 6 feet tall and weigh from 100 to 180 pounds, they are known for being very lean people. Their skin is a dark brown type of bark with dark green moss for hair, and their facial hair (for men) is thick to burly.Lotus have long life spans reaching adulthood at age 20 then at age 400 they root into the ground and become a tree elder.

Relations- Lotus keep to theirselves, not having much contact with the outside world, but that dosent mean the Lotus are only found on their secluded island.

Alignment- Lotus are usually chaotic neutral not really caring about anyone but theirselves.

Lotus Lands- Lotus lands are massive woods with trees over 300 feet tall, which they make their homes out of.

Religion- Lotus worship Pelor, the sun god.

Language- Lotus speak Loti, sylvan, fey, and common.

+2 wisdom
+2 dexterity
-2 Strength



Lotus Racial Traits-
~ medium
~ lotus base land speed is 30 feet
~ +2 racial bonus on saving throws against poison.
~ +2 racial bonus on craft alchemy checks.
~ +2 racial bonus on appraise checks that are related to wood or plant items.
~ -2 racial modifier to spells with the fire descriptor
~ add +1 to the difficulty class for all saving throws against conjuration spells cast by lotus.
~ Lotus breath carbon dioxide and require water but also extract sun into their bodies to make energy instead of having to consume food. If at any time a lotus is not exposed to sunlight for an extended period of time [3 days] they must consume normal food.
~ Lotus can stay underwater for an extended period of time [Five hours} without having to go up for air.
~ Lotus can regenerate body parts over a long period of time (not including major body parts needed to live such as the brain and heart)
~ Blood is a green chlorophyll.
~ Favored Class: Sorceror.
~ At the age of 400 every Lotus roots into the ground and sprouts into a massive tree, bringing about healthy vegitation and a perfect environment for forests and animals to grow.

 

[Murtov]

Just post your opinion if i should have this in my next dnd campaign or not and if it is a good race or not...

 

[Arkhandus]

There are a few points that may need clarification....

You should specify at what ages they reach each age category; obviously they reach adulthood at 20 years, and transform into some kind of tree or whatnot at 400 years; but when do they reach middle age, old age, and venerable age?

In the description, what's meant by 'tree elder'? Did you meant 'elder treant' or just a big, old, normal, mindless, inanimate tree? Do they actually carve out their homes from the husks of their own ancestors' tree-morphed bodies?

What creature type do Loti belong to? Humanoid? Plant? Something else? If not Humanoid in type (with the Lotus subtype or something), they probably would deserve a +1 Level Adjustment due to the extra benefits inherant to being of the Plant type or whatever.

What is the fire-related penalty applied to? It's not at all specific. I think you meant for it to be a penalty to the DC of fire spells they cast, but it's equally possible in my mind that you mean for it to be a penalty on their own saving throws against fire spells; whichever or whatever it is, you should be more specific about it in the racial description.

The Appraise line should note 'plant-matter derived items' rather than 'plant items'.

How and why do Loti subsist on sunlight for energy rather than physical nutrients like other races? Plants normally just use sunlight to power their metabolism in absorbing nutrients from the soil through their roots, far as I know. I can see them needing less food than normal when receiving good sunlight exposure, since less food would be used to fuel their metabolic functions, but would have a hard time seeing them as just surviving on water and sunlight. If they had some mystical connection to the sun and derived some supernatural nourishment from it, though, then I could accept their strange lack of need for food.

Why do Loti last longer without breath underwater compared to normal, oxygen-breathing races? To my limited knowledge, water bodies have more abundant oxygen than carbon dioxide....at least I'm pretty sure. Not really certain where/how to search for information on the exact content of freshwater/seawater bodies....

How long do new body parts need to grow? It may be best to specify something like a certain number of cubic inches worth of flesh regenerating every X number of days, weeks, months, or whatever.

As for actual analysis.....

It's hard to tell if they're too strong or just right, because of the peculiarities of their benefits and penalties. I don't feel like typing out right now the specifics, but they're definitely either just fine or a tad overpowered, and I'm leaning towards the latter as being most likely (though I'm not one of those odd people who thinks any mental ability score boost is too potent for a playable ECL+0 race).

They are, however, rather one-sided in their value; no reason to play a Lotus who isn't a spellcaster. The Dex bonus is completely negated in usefulness to most non-casters by the Str penalty (whereas casters usually don't need to worry about Str much, but do benefit from high Dex). The other racial benefits are very minor or useless to non-casters. NPC Loti may be warriors sometimes, but PC Loti will almost never be warrior-types.

You should probably consider tweaking or removing one of their benefits, to weaken them slightly. Maybe weaken/remove two benefits and replace with a single, minor benefit that would help non-caster Loti.

I won't go into spelling errors unless you care about such things. Though I will note that, by common language conventions in English and I think some other Romance (that is, Roman-based or Roman-influenced) languages (like Latin, the Roman language itself, though it had many different dialects), the plural for a name ending in " us " would end in " ii " or " uses ". Just in case ya care, it's your game after all. For future reference though, anyway.

 

[dante58701]

I like it, its cute and simple. Youve done excellent work here. You should post ages, but everything else is fine. Excellent work. What kind of homes do they live in? I definately like the pelor thing..it makes a lot of sense.

One note tho...brains arent necessary for life. A chicken once had it's head removed and it lived for over ten years with just a brain stem. Perhaps a saving throw to avoid dying when a vital organ is destroyed? A successful save meaning the organ's vital portion somehow survived? Then you could have them be incapacitated until the organ grows back?

Just an idea.

 

[librarius_arcana]

This reminds me of the "tree-people" in the Dr Who episode called "The End of the World"

They looked cool

 

[Darthbelch]

xD Ha. Murtov is one of my ex-players from a game a while back, and he's taking a crack at making races. This was a very rough draft and just really an idea we threw together. Though I did like your suggestion on tweaking their benefits to aid non-spell classes for the Loti so ty for all the thoughts Arkhandus. Either way, we'll spend a while fixing up the minor kinks and then post it back up for the final judgement.

 

[Murtov]

Ah Okay, yea sorry about it being as though it were thrown together like that. Loti, sounds alot better than just Lotus.


So let me Repost the Race with all of the changes.


Loti {Humanoid-Plant}

Physical Description- Loti typically stand from 5 feet to a little over 6 feet tall and weigh from 100 to 180 pounds, they are known for being very lean people. Their skin is a dark brown type of bark with dark green moss for hair, and their facial hair (for men) is thick to burly.Lotus have long life spans reaching adulthood at age 20, Middle Age 150, Old age at 300, and Venerable at 350 then at age 400 they root into the ground and become a massive tree.

Relations- Loti are not known to go to great extents to make contact with the rest of the outside world, but that does not mean that none have ever decided to see what was out there, and decide to set out on an adventure or what not.

Lotus Homeland- The Loti take refuge on their solitary Island of Tal'rith, covered in a dense forest and hardly explored the rest of the world.

Religion- Loti worship Pelor, the sun god.

Language- Lotus speak Loti, sylvan, fey, and common.

+2 Dexterity
-2 Strength


Lotus Racial Traits-
~ Loti are medium sized creatures
~ loti base land speed is 30 feet
~ +2 racial bonus on saving throws against poison.
~ +2 racial bonus on craft alchemy checks.
~ +2 racial bonus on appraise checks that are related to Plant matter deprived items
~ -2 racial modifier to saving throws against spells with the fire descriptor
~ add +1 to the difficulty class for all saving throws against conjuration spells cast by lotus.
~ Loti breath carbon dioxide/their lungs allowing them to filter out oxygen from the CO2, the oxygen is just breathed right back out. \They require water but also extract energyfrom the sun into their bodies to make energy instead of having to consume food. If at any time a lotus is not exposed to sunlight for an extended period of time [3 days] they must consume normal food.
~ Loti can stay underwater for an extended period of time [Five hours} without having to go up for air.
~ Lotus can regenerate body parts over a long period of time, Limbs growing back at a rate of 1 cubic inch of flesh over one month. Major bodily organs cannott be regenerated
~ Blood is a green chlorophyll.
~ At the age of 400 every Lotus roots into the ground and sprouts into a massive tree, bringing about healthy vegitation and a perfect environment for forests and animal live to prosper.

Yes, they make their homes out of the husks of their ancestors, its not really a bad thing to them, their people just returned back to nature.


As for your issues with their abilities to go without food: Photosynthesis does increase their metabolic functions as you stated earlier, but the process does a bit more than that. [Dont want to turn this into a science project, but well ya know.]

Carbon Dioxide + Water + Light energy → Glucose + Oxygen + Water

6 CO2 + 12 H2O + ATP + NADPH → C6H12O6 + 6 O2 + 6 H2O

This is the process in which plants, take in Carbon, water, and light energy and produce Sugar [food source!], Water. Oxygen being the waste product. Or if you want me to, lets just say Pelor likes to be generous and dosent really want his followers to eat? But it's not like their ruling out the ability to take nourishment from their environment, these people are sort of the middle step in humans and plants.

As for their ability to breath underwater for an extended period of time, well..they can take in nutrients from the water for 1, but that dosent explain the CO2 problem, well they'll be able to filter what small amount of carbon dioxide is in the water. So lets change it from a five hour period under the water, to hmm...1 hour? Maybe 2? Yea. I like two
Well yea, as my friend DarthBelch has stated, This was a quick rough draft thrown together at a friends house. So yea here it is, not exactly a final draft, but its getting there.

Oh and Dante, I love your idea for the organ regeneration, but I think them being able to grow Limbs at a slow rate enough. Ty for the feedback though!

 

[Kisanji Arael]

Just a thought. It might be easier to say that the limbs regrow 1 inch /month. So that way, it would take an arm and hand about 2.5 years to regrow, not twenty or so. If it were one cubic inch, it would take... well, a while.

Also, can they reattach limbs?

 

[Murtov]

yea thank you for that idea i thought about it and it would take quite awhile but yea im gonna change it to 1 inch. also im trying to keep them as close to plant like as possible and ive never heard of a plant that re attach limbs but if you could find one then please let me know so i could think of new changes i could make to the race. Thanks for your ideas.

 

[Notmousse]

It's a simple matter to graft a bit of orange trree to say a lemon tree, so I'd say it's plausible, just not quick. Perhaps if it were held together for a couple hours instead of the instant fix as do characters with regeneration?