Race books

[Mistwell]

Mythic Races

Allow me to take this opportunity to make a pitch for the Mythic Races book, from the Legends & Lairs line of d20 books (Fantasy Flight Games). I do not work for them, nor am I affiliated with them in any way. I just LOVE this book. It is, in my opinion, hands down THE BEST non-WOTC d&d3e book out there. It offers 27 new races (30 with the free web suplement at http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/llmr.html) (some with additional subspecies, like Seelie and Unseelie for Fairies), and 1-2 Prestige Classes for each race as well (and some unique equipment and weapons sometimes). Each new race comes with detailed descriptions, history, stat adjustments, favored classes, level adjustments (if necessary), and everything you would need to put it into your game.

Here is a brief sample of the races (copyright owned by Fantasy Flight Games, used for discussion purposes only):

1. Aaleear: Tiny halfling-like fey humanoids, relatives of sprites; +
2. Anaema: Insubstantial human-looking beings
3. Animen: Planetouched: beast-headed men
4. Artathi: Feline-race, various types, tight caste system
5. Blickish: Half-celestial, half-halfling
6. Coivalds: Gnomish forest-dwelling race
7. The Curst: Physically deformed human-looking race
8. Eleti: Undead, humanoid skeleton
9. Fairies
a. Seelie: (good align, rarely neutral)
b. Unseelie (evil align, rarely neutral)
10. Illonis: Gray, sightless humanoid race
11. Ittakkens: Giant insectoids
12. The Luminous: Elf-shaped energy being
13. Mahkim: Amphibian-like four-armed race;
14. Mannikins: Intelligent, self-replicating constructs
15. Mhuinntirs: Human/Jaguar shapechangers
16. Niomus: Winged humanoids
17. Ooloi: Blue-skinned watery humanoids with head-tails
18. Pevishan: Magic-infused human-looking race w/magic birthmarks
19. Quissians: Big, reptilian humanoids
20. Rezurbeks: Canine/boar looking humanoid race
21. Rhonians: Long-beaked, long-legged, bird-looking race
22. Rhoode: Toad-looking humanoid race
23. Risen Demons: Demon fallen to good (outsider type)
24. Sendasti: Desert-dwelling humanoid race
25. Siarrans: Tall, thin, 4-armed humanoid race
26. Sktak: Big, scaly humanoid race
27. Stonegrunts: Large, magical stone-humanoids
28. Tremen: Plant-looking fey humanoids
29. Uthuk Y’llan: Human-looking, horned, drug addicted race
30. Vermen: Evil Anthropod or Worm headed humans

Go check it out, you won't regret it. http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/llmr.html

 

[Crothian]

Mythic Races is a pretty good. Haven't had a chance to use any of them yet, though.

I'd live to try out a Siarran Tempest. You'd have so many attacks at a high level, it'd be fun.

 

[jollyninja]

I thought mythic races was broken and craptastic, uninteresting races that didn't really have any use for me. but that's just me.

 

[Arani Korden]

Mythic Races mutter mutter mutter. Can't believe they cut the Mannikins and left the freakin' Coivalds in.

(Not that the Coivald were bad, per se - they're just Halflings that live in the woods. I needed a book for that?)

 

[JoeGKushner]

Mythic Races had it's good points and bad points. Bad point was no quick reference table of for ECLs. Good stuff though.

 

[Hedgemage]

Instead of trying to come up with enough fluff to fill a book the same size as the classbooks, why not put all the PC races into one book that is about the same size as the classbooks, or maybe a wee bit bigger.

A few prestige classes and feats for each race and a short bit on some racial variants would be just fine for me.

Dragon magazine has done several issues with long articles on the culture of certain races, and that is exactly the kind of thing I DON'T want to see in a race book. I don't mind that sort of thing in Dragon, but I don't need it codified in another product. Dragon also has a half dozen or so racial feats which are really cool and add lots of flavour. I think putting them all together into a PC races book would be cool, as well as some PrC's.

 

[trancejeremy]

I'd like to see race books on Half-Fiends or Half-Celestials (and planetouched). Or one on crossbreeds, like half-elf, half-gnome (Gnelf), or half-dwarf/half-orc (Dworc)



The Mythic Races book is something of a mixed bag. IMHO, Some of the races are interesting, most suck. Though it's really subjective.

I would agree, one of the more interesting ones, the Mannikins, got cut. But as a plus, it's available for anyone for free on their web site.

 

[DM_Matt]

I thnk that WoTC will eventually do it just because thet are running out of good ideas for 3e rulebooks, and know that tyhey will sell better than adventure modules.

 

[FireLance]

What I would really like to see is a collection of new, balanced, ECL+0 character races. I don't like "adjusting" for powerful races by a higher ECL, as was done for aasimar, tieflings and genasi. I would rather tone down the benefits so that all races can start on the same footing.

 

[Arani Korden]

Missing Mannikins aside, Mythic Races has its high and low points. There are about five races in the book that I really like, and the rest I could take or leave.

The real problem with the book, IMO, is how they handled the Open Game Content. The stat blocks and names are OGC, while the descriptions aren't; this essentially orphans the book, since Fantasy Flight doesn't seem to have any intention of using MR content anywhere, and since the descriptions are generally the interesting part, there's no real reason for any other publisher to use any of the races.