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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 1680637" data-attributes="member: 4937">Comparing your Fey archer against a 4th level Elven rogue, I find that it takes the Fey archer roughly 14 shots to defeat the Elf.  The Elven archer can defeat the Fey in roughly 8 shots, and can possibly do it as soon as the first shot.  Also, I think most PC elfs would go straight for Rapid Shot, which lets the Elf dispatch the Fey in 5 rounds rather than 8 (and makes him much better against low AC opponents).I know that head to head combat isn't the best way to compare characters, but I do think it indicates that there is a wide variaty of situations in which the Elf is heavily advantaged against the Fey.  Most particularly, against average challenges that a 4th level party would expect to face, the Elf does a better job.  In particular, you are failing to note that the Fey has 32 skill points to the Elf's 63 - a difference of 31 skill points!  As the skilled member of the party, this is a significant problem.  Plus the Elf has significantly better saving throws across the board.  In fact, without SR, the Fey has no real chance of surviving against most 2nd level attack spells. And the Elf is a creditable melee fighter if need be, and has a threat zone (which is very important if your a rogue in a party).  Without Flight, the Fey doesn't have a chance because the first thing that it fights that has improved grab is going to be the end of it.  Plus the Elf can carry out more treasure and carry in more equipment than the Fey. I don't think its much of a contest, the Elf is clearly superior and is clearly superior at 3rd level as well.  It's closer at 18th versus 20th level, but its still pretty close because the flight and SR become alot less important."Change Self (in 3.0) is a first level illusion spell that only changes appearance. I agree that Alter Self at will would be nice; even the weakened 3.5 version."Exactly.  I'm trying to get the LA as low as possible.  I'd accept +1, but +0 is really what I'm going for.  Alter Self adds to many additional situations to the list of those that the Fey beats the elf.  I mean Change Self as per 3.0 rules, not the much more powerful Alter Self."I also wonder as to the motivation behind creating this race. It doesn't seem at all like the fey presented in the MM."It's not.  The fey presented in the MM are monsters.  As such, the DM has loaded them up with goodies to make them challenges for the PC's.  This fey is intended to be a playable character race, which means that as a DM you have to be real careful with the goodies."By looking at them, you can pretty much come up with a rule that if fey have modifiers, it's negative to Str, and positive to anything else."Which is kinda silly if you ask me.  This things are the size of a house cat.  Anything that small should have a negative CON modifier simply because of weight (smaller doses of poison needed to kill, less resistance to damage, (fur aside) less resistance to temperature change, smaller fat reserves, ect.)."And they should almost always have a positive mod to Cha."Why?  Think Tinkerbell here."It seems like this race is being tailor made for some purpose, and that almost always leads to balance problems."The reason for the race is to fit a unique cosmology for my world.  It's not being tailor made to fit any sort of role in a party (archer, spellcaster, rogue, etc).  It's being tailor made to fit a role in a mythology. Arguably, all the races except humon in the core books are tailor made for some role and are almost always played in conjuction with a particular class. That's why humans are so popular (as they should be) in 3rd edition."The thing doesn't seem to have any character as far ability mods go, either. What about this race causes those mods? Why the negative to Con? Int? Wis? What kind of race is this?"It's a _tiny_ race.  Tiny size means lower strength and lower constitution.  While brain size isn't directly related to intelligence, below a certain size you can't encephalize enough to have high intelligence.  Small creatures simply don't have room for alot of abstract thought.  They need most of thier brains to control thier bodies.  Think Tinkerbell again.  She's so small (she's actually Diminutive) that she only has room for 'one thought at a time'.  So lower Int and Wis.I'm sorry if my realism disturbs you, but I run a fairly gritty campaign."But then the low ability scores are contrived to lower the LA."  Well, yes, they are.  But you might as well say that the Flight and SR are contrived to raise the LA.  Noone is going to play a net -6 race without something big in return.  As I said before, the role is designed to fit the cosomology not completely to meet some player need.  I need seven races that are basically balanced with each other and have particular attributes and Halflings and Gnomes are both removed for reasons of personal preference.  The 'eternal child' of the Fey is one of them.</blockquote>

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