Race classes?

[Evenglare]

Is there any material out there about races converted into classes? What I mean about this is if you wanted to make an elf, you could of course choose what ever class you wanted. However I think it would be cool if you could take a level in your "race" and treat it as a class. These classes would simply be a reinforcement of races traits and abilities. They would feature everything following the core classes. Things like HP, saves would be there, as well as some other things. Perhaps the race could gain some minor spells, as an example of class abilities. Is there anything out there like this ?

 

[Fooly_Cooly]

3.5 had savage species I believe. Broke some of the stronger races into class like lvls. However I dont think you could do much with something as simple as an elf . Not with out making the race much more powerful. In wich case the whole world would change as most people would have race lvls and no class lvls.

 

[Mad Hamish]

I have a recollection that some of the alternative 3.x campaigns had things along those lines.
I think Arcana Unearthed or Arcana Evolved had racial levels for many classes. I can't recall if any others did

 

[udalrich]

Unearthed Arcana for 3.5 had racial paragon classes, for those who wanted to be more elfy than most elves. Converting them to Pathfinder should be pretty simple.

 

[Chalice]

Unearthed Arcana for 3.5 had racial paragon classes, for those who wanted to be more elfy than most elves. Converting them to Pathfinder should be pretty simple.

It needs a lot of work, I think.

• Good Ref and Will would be a start.
• +1 level of arcane casting (in place of each instance of that for Wizard only).
• Something in place of Weapon Focus - either a feat from a menu, or a class ability.
• Pathfinderise the skills, of course.
• Another thing in place of +2 Int, as I just remembered Pathfinder gives them that at 1st level anyway!

Otherwise, I suppose it would be okay, if underwhelming and decidedly boring. Elves are meant to be so many things, and this class doesn't cover very much of that. It's a (very brief) half-hearted Fighter/Wizard, really.

 

[BriarMonkey]

It needs a lot of work, I think.
...

Agreed.

Racial Paragons, to me at least, seem to be squarely aimed at the assumptions made by the 3.x Player's Handbook. Meaning, if you are an Elf, you are a Wizard; if you are a Half-Orc, you are a Barbarian; etc.

That in turn, makes those mini-classes (they only were built out for 3 levels) pretty narrow in focus. To make them truely utile, or memorable, one would need to rebuild them to match the campaign they are used in.

For instance, in my world Gnolls are fast and renown for their hunting and scavenging. However, to have a paragon class for them, trying to tie in the different facets of their backstory and abilities, meant I'd either need a class that ran for 5 or more levels, or a class that was so scattered in focus that it made no sense. So instead, we have a paragon class that focuses on a Gnoll's ability at the hunt; another that focuses at the scavenger; and another that focuses on their connection to their liege Yeenog.

For something like an Elf, I could see a similar approach. In a campaign where Elves are as much likely to be Druids as arcane casters, there could be a paragon class for druidic Elves; another for the arcane spell casting Elves; maybe another for the more martial Elves.

In essence, you'd have a paragon class for each major archetype of each race in the campaign.

Of course, all of that would take time to get the balancing of abilities right, as well as creating of elements that wouldn't make them all cookie-cutter. I'm not thinking a quick and easy task if you want to do it right.

An alternative that I've been playing with though, which came out of some racial discussions pre-playtest for 5E as well as some ideas I gleaned from the Advanced Players Guide, was the idea of your race advancing as you leveled up normally. By this, as your character advances, you would gain racial feats and bumps as you went - which means you don't need to take paragon or racial levels. For instance, with the Elf, at 1st level you get all your Elfy goodness. Then, say at 3rd level, you get an Elf specific racial feat. At 5th level you get a +1 racial bonus to your Int. At 7th, 11th, 15th, and 19th levels you get another racial feat. Etc.

Unfortunately, none of that is pre-made as was requested in the OP.

 

[gamerprinter]

While this doesn't apply to all the races, nor even all the normal races, Rite Publishing offers the "In the Company of..." series, for Rite Publishing's varying monsters.

In the Company of Monsters ($9.99 PDF) has racial classes for: gargoyles, giants, Ironborn (construct race), Minotaur, Restless Souls and Wyrd. Each include a 10 level or 20 level racial paragon class.

For my Kaidan setting books, there exists the "In the Company of..." series for kappa, tengu and henge (traditional Japanese folklore races), each containing both varying archetypes, as well as a 20th level racial paragon class.

I can agree that dwarves, elves, halflings, gnomes - should all get some kind of racial paragon class of 20 levels, but not all would agree which races get which classes. Thus for Rite Publishing, staying setting specific is the best way we create racial classes as they apply to specific monsters within specific publications.

 

[Matthias]

IMO racial classes come a little too close to allowing a "mary sue" character to be born...the character to one-up all others of their race (paragon class is aptly named). I'd much prefer (with reluctance) to adopt race-centered feats as available for those PCs who want to be "special" in a way not directly tied to their class/es. Invoking the usual tradeoff mechanism for feats (you can have X or Y but not both) coupled with the implied modularity of extensive feat trees allows more customization than would be provided by the inherently cookie-cutter approach provided by racial paragon classes (where everyone gets the same things and at a more severe cost to development ie level advancement in one's primary class).

 

[gamerprinter]

IMO racial classes come a little too close to allowing a "mary sue" character to be born...the character to one-up all others of their race (paragon class is aptly named).

I would say regarding Rite Publishing's racial paragon classes - this is not the case.

For example in In the Company of Tengu supplement for Kaidan, the Hishoken paragon class epitomizes the known to folklore tengu aspects of an affinity for flight (tengu are otherwise a non-flying avian race), mobility, and skill with blades. The paragon class design focuses on what traditional folklore states are known aspects that best fit the concept of tengu.

That said, the supplement also includes tengu archetypes for cavalier, fighter, magus and paladin. I would have to agree with one of the reviews of this supplement that states both the cavalier and magus archetypes are very interesting versions of those base classes - perhaps even better than the racial paragon. Read the review discussed.

I am sure somebody else working with the racial paragon class concept might develop a 'Mary Sue' character for a given race, but such is not the case for Rite Publishing's racial paragon classes. All are very much balanced with the rest of the available classes. Being a paragon class does not equate to an overpowered racial class, rather it very closely hews to folklore description of a given race. Thus the paragon class matches the concept of it's race in folklore - not as some means of creating an 'overpowered' class.