Other races -Iron Heros

[Nightstorm]

Since there are no other racial choices in Iron Heros they create "Shadow Born" to give the feel of having a tiefling character (very week tiefling at that). Would including 1/2 elves be too powerful? If you would create a trait giving you a fae bloodline what would that trait give you(in your opinion).

 

[Bagpuss]

Since there are no other racial choices in Iron Heroes.

Technically that's not true, the only race presented in Iron Heroes is human, but you could convert any other race from the traditional PHB, or other sources with little or no problems to Iron Heroes.

I would either not allow them traits or give them restricted options like one trait from a much more limited list, to give humans some advantage. But none of the races from other sources would be particularly unbalanced.

 

[CCamfield]

Since there are no other racial choices in Iron Heros they create "Shadow Born" to give the feel of having a tiefling character (very week tiefling at that). Would including 1/2 elves be too powerful? If you would create a trait giving you a fae bloodline what would that trait give you(in your opinion).

I don't think "Shadow Born" is in there because there are no other racial choices, but more because it's appropriate to have it in the game, and - with the Swordlands - others are not. If you haven't picked up the Mastering Iron Heroes PDF... and I wouldn't blame if you haven't for whatever reason; having the hardcover would be nicer... anyhow, all the magic items have some sort of demonic link to them. Having dwarves, elves, halflings, etc right from the start would rather change the flavour of the Swordlands.

Anyhow, I think I read somewhere, but I can't at all remember where, that if want to use non-humans, drop both background traits in compensation for ECL0 racial abilities.

Having some other traits for various bloodlines would be interesting, though...

For something fey-touched, I wonder about adapting the benefits of the (overpowered for a feat) "Nymph's Kiss" from the Book of Exalted Deeds. Or something like that.

Anyhow, for elven blood, maybe it would involve being recognized as "elven" by elves, a resistance bonus to enchantments, being able to see further with small light sources (double?)

But you could also simply pick other traits and explain them as having come from a racial heritage instead of training or life experience.

Elven/fey blood: Forest Born, Bewitching, and/or Dexterous
Dwarven blood: Tough As Iron, Resilient Toughness, or Stout perhaps

 

[Michael Tree]

Another approach would be to give nonhumans the two backgrounds, but remove the normal benefits of being human, a feat and 1 extra skill point per level. So an elf would get the elven racial benefits and two backgrounds, but at 1st level would have only 1 feat instead of 2, and would have 1 skill point less per level than the standard for his class.

I don't know if this would be balanced, but it would make nonhuman races more interesting and less homogeneous.

 

[Baragos]

Another approach would be to give nonhumans the two backgrounds, but remove the normal benefits of being human, a feat and 1 extra skill point per level. So an elf would get the elven racial benefits and two backgrounds, but at 1st level would have only 1 feat instead of 2, and would have 1 skill point less per level than the standard for his class.

I'd give them the standard racial benefits, 1 trait and 1 feat at first level...2 traits seems too powerful...whterher I'd limit which traits they could choose from I don't know...I'd probably say no to an Elf taking Agile for instance...

 

[Baragos]

How would giving +1 to one or two masteries, instead of aotu proficiency sound? For instance all elves have +1 to Projectile and Finesse Mastery, while dwarves have +1 tp Power, for instance. It's not as powerful as it may sound as you still need to use one or more feats to get the benefits. It would make elves better with bows than most others, and dwarves better with large Power-weapons.

 

[ruleslawyer]

Question, Baragos: Why only one trait for demihumans? Is there a reason why the balance between D&D humans (1 feat and 4+1/level skill points vs. racial abilities) doesn't work in IH?

 

[Acid_crash]

I'd say create the races using the Traits to build them, but still let humans keep their versatility in selecting two of them.

 

[Ryngard]

Another approach would be to give nonhumans the two backgrounds, but remove the normal benefits of being human, a feat and 1 extra skill point per level. So an elf would get the elven racial benefits and two backgrounds, but at 1st level would have only 1 feat instead of 2, and would have 1 skill point less per level than the standard for his class.

I don't know if this would be balanced, but it would make nonhuman races more interesting and less homogeneous.

In Iron Heroes Humans do NOT receive the bonus feat and the extra skill points. All you get (not to make it sound like it isn't good enough, cause it is) are the two Trait picks (and you can only choose 1 Background Trait, the other has to be ether Mental or Physical).

IF you were going to port them in the "balanced" way would be to leave them as written. They do not gain a Trait pick at all. Also, you'll notice that in Iron Heroes, characters begin with two feats. I always presumed one of them was the human bonus feat. I would take away one of those feats as well as the Traits.

If you want a simple way to do it, just allow them to use the same mechanics as Humans (Two Traits, two feats at 1st, etc) and say they are Elves, Dwarves, etc and just use roleplaying and background material for flavor to show the differences. They don't need special abilities to stand out... (though you could let them keep their vision or something or a handful of abilities at the cost of a Trait pick... you'd have to test it for balance).

 

[ruleslawyer]

In Iron Heroes Humans do NOT receive the bonus feat and the extra skill points.

Actually, that's a matter of perspective. As you point out, IH humans get 2 feats at 1st level and ([skill points per level by class] + Int) x4 skill points at 1st level. You can easily argue that these constitute the bonus feat and extra skill points. The question is whether knocking off a feat and 4 skill points + 1 per level after 1st "rebalances" elves, dwarves, etc. with humans in IH. IOW, is an elf archer with 1 starting feat and (3 + Int bonus) x4 skill points balanced with a standard IH human archer?

One IH house rule that I liked was to give nonhumans a set of preselected racial abilities roughly equivalent to THREE traits, but to prevent them from acquiring regular traits:

http://www.iron-league.com/displaycontent.cfm?iCatId=3&iConID=33

Personally, all I can say is that (1) I'm all about traits; and (2) not a player in my previous D&D games has considered the human feat and skill points worth passing up for those silly nonhuman traits. Thus, I think nonhumans are PROBABLY balanced in IH at one fewer feat at 1st level and 2 fewer skill points per level OR at one trait and one feat at 1st level instead of the normal two and two for a human.