Race Concept: Incorporeal?

[Aristotle]

I'm working on a homebrew and have a concept for a race, but there is a catch. The concept requires them to be incorporeal. I'd like to collect ideas, if anybody is willing to offer any, on how an incorporeal race could be brought into a level of balance with basic races which are wholly physical.

...aspects of the race that make it a trade-off?

...aspects that could be added to the campaign setting that might help to bring them back into line with other races?

I can't tell you how much I could use some help/input here.

 

[Cergorach]

Because they have little to no interaction with the physical world give them a penalty to CON (instead of giving them no CON score). -4 is a biggy. Maybe even a penalty to strength...

 

[Grazzt]

Because they have little to no interaction with the physical world give them a penalty to CON (instead of giving them no CON score). -4 is a biggy. Maybe even a penalty to strength...

Actually incorporeal creatures could/would have a Con score (only undead and constructs have no Con score because they are not "alive" per se). Incorporeal creatures wouldn't have a Str score however.

 

[Aaron2]

I'm working on a homebrew and have a concept for a race, but there is a catch. The concept requires them to be incorporeal. I'd like to collect ideas, if anybody is willing to offer any, on how an incorporeal race could be brought into a level of balance with basic races which are wholly physical.

Rather than incorporeal, I would make them natives to the Ethereal plane. This is because there are some threats on the Ethereal plane as well as the ability for Ethereal object to block them.

I was considering a class that had the ability to go Incorporeal at will. Normally a character cannot go Ethereal until 9th level so a race that was permanently Incorporeal would be around LA+9. Even if all his stats were 1, he still has the ability to scout ahead with relative safety and complete silence. That's hard to balance against.


Aaron

 

[Cergorach]

Actually incorporeal creatures could/would have a Con score (only undead and constructs have no Con score because they are not "alive" per se). Incorporeal creatures wouldn't have a Str score however.

*starts hitting head on desk*
Erm, i was thinking of incorporeal undead, whoops.

 

[Aristotle]

Rather than incorporeal, I would make them natives to the Ethereal plane. This is because there are some threats on the Ethereal plane as well as the ability for Ethereal object to block them.

Part of the concept is that they are from another plane (similar to an astral or etherial type plane), and are now caught between worlds. So while they are incorporeal here, they are also incorporeal there as well.

Of course I would be willing to alter the concept to get the idea in line with the rest of the game...

 

[GolemBane]

If you have access to Fantasy Flight's Mythic Races book you might want to look over the Anaema. They are not incorporeal, but they do have a trait called Insubstantial.

Damage from non-magical sources is considered subdual damage. Anaema are immune to non-magical poisons, which cannot properly interact with their bodies. Weapons and poisons from an ethereal source have their full normal effects. Anaema cannot pass through solid objects like incorporeal creatures can. An anaema's body flows around corporeal attacks, but they cannot move through openings any smaller than a normal human could.

The anaema also have other abilities that might be suitable for your game, or the entire race might fit the niche you are looking for. Just an FYI though, they are an ECL +3 race.

 

[Aristotle]

Thanks GolemBane, I'll check that out...

I'm embracing the idea of racial levels, and all of the races in the setting will have 5 racial levels available to them. That said...

I was thinking I could change the race so that they start out mostly corporeal (say a 5% chance that attacks miss?) and then they become more and more incorporeal (for better and for worse) as they progress in racial levels. At 5 racial levels they would become fully incorporeal. This would be a sort of "fading" effect... possibly a curse or other affliction of the race.

It's not "EL +9" but its closer, and it would require the dedication of several character levels to get there. I'm thinking that, that may be a better way to go about it than my original plan.

 

[monboesen]

Even though it is a cool idea, you should really think hard before allowing a race that can go incorporeal at will. It will screw up a normal game in so many ways. Especially if they can interact with the corpereal world in a meaningful way.

Ill bet you are going to see lots of spellcasters and rogues of this race, unless it has a very high ECL. One major problem will be the devaluation of many many skills. Who cares about traps, locked doors, moving silent, hell even hiding when you are incorpereal.

I do not think I would ever let anyone have that kind of ability.

 

[Aristotle]

Well, they wouldn't become incorporeal at will. They would always be so. They would have no control over it. I think that, that alone has a number of drawbacks to it.

Of course it is still a lot of power. My point of posting here was to brainstorm and see if it would be possible to counter it within the race and the world around them to a point of making it somewhat "balanced".

So far the best thing I've gotten is to make them insubstantial, but not actually incorporeal. I think I can work with that, but I'd still like to collect some thoughts on the idea.