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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Arbiter of Wyrms" data-source="post: 2467186" data-attributes="member: 18021">Okay, Krishnath. Thank you for the feedback. You've made it clear that I ought to explain my thinking process.Starting with PHB gnomes and the concept (stolen from a video game) for briliant inventors and machinists made sicly and weak by enslavement, I added the phrenic creature template from the XPH, with the rationale that the gith are basically emaciated, psionic humans, so these little guys would be sickly little psionic rock gnomes.I do have a concept that I want to implement with this race, but almost as important to me as staying true to that vision is avoiding LA.Ability scores: Two things are important: The moggae should be riduclously intelligentThey should be sicklyWith gnomes as the base creature, I regard the starting point as +2 Con, -2 Strength, which is not unbalanced, according to the Ability Score Equivalencies table on page 173 of the 3.5 DMG.  As I said, I want these guys to be sickly and weak, so I take 4 points off their Constitution, and two points off of their Strength.  Now they've got -4 Str, -2 Con.  We're already talking about a PC race that will never hack it in melee, so combat abilities might not weigh as heavily.As for Intelligence, +2 is pretty good, at, what 34% smarter than the average human.  It's not balanced against -4 Str and -2 Con, but it's pretty good, and few races get a bonus to Intelligence.If I had to go with -4 Str, -2 Con, +2 Int to balance other cool powers, I could live with that.  These are the ability scores that matter.Phrenic template adds:  quoted link is here: <a href="http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/monsters/phrenicCreature.htm" target="_blank">http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/monsters/phrenicCreature.htm</a>size and speed I have taken over unchanged from gnome.I let them keep the gnomish low-light vision, but figured that the ability to see in utter darkness might be important for mind flayer thrall.bonuses vs. illusion don't really make much sense any more, but if they are to have thrown off the illithid yoke, a bonus vs. MA spells makes sense.+1 vs kobolds doesn't make sense anymore.  +1 vs illithid makes much more sense.  *Note however, that 1st level characters, who might actually fight kobolds, can really use every +1 they can get.  A bonus this small is probably less important, though, when PC's reach high enough level to fight mind flayers.  Moreovers, illithid's ACs aren't really the problem.  It's the Mind Blast DC and extraction that you have to worry about.+4 dodge vs giants doesn't fit the flavor at all.  I could just drop it.  This might make more sense, in the long run, than replacing it with favored enemy: illithid, as I've done in this first draft.rock gnomes get a +2 to Listen and Craft (Alchemy).  I want craftsmen, so I broadened the craft bonus.  It now affords them bonuses to a LOT of skills, but they're all flavor skills, not really power skills.  With low-light and darkvision, they better see well, but why bother listening when all you hear are cries of misery or the occasionaly slurping of brains?  Sense Motive makes sense in detecting dominated infiltrators and adds to the whole suspicious and insular thing.  I could give them a penalty to Sense Motive (and Diplomacy) just as easily as a bonus, explaining that they're always distrustful.I don't care about Naturally Psionic.  I just swiped verbage from the prenic template.Likewise, I don't care what psionic abilities they have, only that the illithid have left their mark.  I suppose I could even take the whole psionic aspect out altogether, but I've kind of gotten attached to the idea of them being both magical and psionic, and would like some way to quantify this in game terms.I didn't want to leave them with the distincly gnomish-flavored spell-like abilities, and it occurred to me that illithid, being unable to effectively track mindless creatures near their homes, might want thrall to serve as early detection/defense against undead.  I swapped out the Speak with Animals ability for Detect Undead, and I swapped out the cantrips for disrupt undead and two more that I could justifiably explain.  Now that I look at them again, though, I realize that I'm not really in love with either touch of fatigue or message. Thin connections, at best.The chance to take the scent feat is standard for both gnomes and half-orcs in my campaign, so I added it without even considering balance.  Maybe with a tendency toward chronic fungal sinus infections, this would be unavailable.Okay, I think I'm ready for more feedback.  Thank you again, everybody, I don't have anybody with whom I can discuss balanced mechanics in person, and I've been wanting for some time now to build this race.EDIT: Almost forgot. I added the racial HD as a balancing factor, not as a boost or as an integral feature of the concept, since humanoid HD are never as good as class levels.</blockquote>

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