New race, opinions welcome!

[Nyaricus]

My only beef is with monk being their favored class. A race's favored class should never be one that only 'unusual specimens' would take; either give them lawful tendencies (not my first choice) or change their favored class to something else...ranger or scout immediately come to mind.

Klaus already mentioned that she (I beleive it's a she, my apollogies if not) hinted in her last issue that monk was going to be favoured class. Personally, I'd just drop it and move on (with a disclaimer in it) but it's an interesting concept.

Land Outcast, remember that a monk taking that feat is pretty nifty, and althoguh my intention was to steer this race away form the monk as a favoured class with that, I knew that it was a petty increase (although 1 damage is 1 damage); but anyways, I'm not sure how that meshes with natural attacks and monk unarmed attack progression (but not unarmed attacks - darned WotC for their odd termiology choices!!!). Thats more of a Rules Question, which I'm not the best answerer of.

 

[Land Outcast]

The thing is that you mentioned taking the feat to improve their claw damage; Which, albeit a +1 to damage is worth a feat without prerequisites, you still have two "daggers" which can't be enchanted except at a hefty price, and only with +1 to +5 enhancements (magic fang).

Anyone would be better off with two daggers here than with Imp.Natural Attack (claw).

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Note: Claw damage for medium creatures is normally 1d4, and with Imp. Natural Attack would turn into 1d6... Now, that could be worthwhile

 

[Klaus]

Thanks for the help, everyone. The article is written, and the race shaped out really well-rounded. Here's the feat I added:

Paws of the Tiger
You master a combat style that takes advantage of your natural weapons.
Prerequisite: Improved Unarmed Strike, natural weapon (claw)
Benefit: When attacking unarmed, you have the option of dealing slashing damage, instead of bludgeoning. If you choose to do slashing damage, it can't be nonlethal. You can change between slashing and bludgeoning damage with each attack. If your claws have any special properties, they do not carry over to your unarmed strike. The ammount of damage dealt is as usual for your unarmed strike.
Normal: Unarmed strikes deal bludgeoning damage.
Special: A kathos monk can choose Paws of the Tiger as a bonus feat at 1st, 2nd or 6th level.

 

[Land Outcast]

So the only difference between a
Kathos Monk lvl 1 with Paws of the Tiger
and normal
Kathos Monk lvl 1

Would be that one of them can do either bludgeoning or slashing damage?
Isn't it too weak?

 

[Klaus]

Not anymore than Toothed Strike (a feat from Stormwrack that essentially does the same thing, but for piercing damage).

 

[CRGreathouse]

Claws ordinarily deal both piercing and slashing damage. If you thought the feat was weak (as I tend to feel), you could let it act as S/P instead of bludgeoning.

 

[Land Outcast]

Surely I'm underestimating the power of dealing slashing damage...

 

[Klaus]

Claws ordinarily deal both piercing and slashing damage. If you thought the feat was weak (as I tend to feel), you could let it act as S/P instead of bludgeoning.

Ooh, this I like!

 

[Machiavelli]

This may be the first cat-race that I've liked. I may need to look into them more deeply, but usually with cat-races my first impression is that someone wanted to drag their love of cats into their fantasy game, and didn't care much about how they did it.

This, though... this looks rather good. You've turned me onto cat-people, and I just got here

Oh, but the monk thing does slightly bother me. Other than that, and my praise for your work here, I've got nothing to add.

 

[Bront]

Surely I'm underestimating the power of dealing slashing damage...

Potential to overcome DR makes multiple types useful.

But I have to agree with everyone else who's stated this before. The monk thing simply doesn't make sense, and makes them look like they were mechanicaly tuned to be monks (particularly with the Wisdom Bonus). I think they would make better favored Clerics, simply because it's a little more open, and they've been mentioned as being spiritualy focused. It doesn't mean they can't have monk feats or racial sub levels.