[Races] Homebrewing: Please critique

[Slider Wade]

I've started working on a 3E homebrew world and the first thing I'm doing is considering races. Some are going to be reworked and other will just get mionor tweaks.

I've decided to import two races from Mythic Races; the Artathi and the Luminous.

I don't think the Artathi need any modifiactio or update to be compatible with 3.5

However the Luminous are a different matter.

 

[Slider Wade]

Luminous Racial Traits (Need advice on LA); Mythic Races pgs. 67-72

• +2 Wisdom, -2 Charisma: Luminous are gifted with insight and a strong bond to both divine powers and the positive energy plane. Their rigid beliefs and values sometimes lead to the luminous being characterized as harsh and closed minded, and this often impairs their ability to interact with others.
• Medium-size: As Medium-size creatures, luminous have no special bonuses or penalties due to their size.
• Breathless: Luminous do not breathe, so they are immune to drowning, suffocation and attacks that require inhalation.
• Poison Immunity: As beings of energy, luminous have a racial immunity to all natural poisons. This ability does not protect the luminous from magical or supernatural poisons
• +4 racial bonus on all saving throws vs. Necromancy magic. As beings of positive energy, the luminous have an increased resistance to the powers of necromancy.
• Unique Anatomy: As a being of pure energy, a luminous can intensify his natural glow to match the effects of torchlight or moonlight. A luminous can also dim this glow at times when stealth is called for, but this is more difficult to accomplish. A luminous must make a Fortitude save (DC 20) to dim his glow for a number of rounds equal to his Constitution score. The character can attempt this any number of times, but it requires a Fortitude save each time. The luminous’ unique anatomy also allows him to be excepted from a rogue’s sneak attack.
• Turn Undead: Luminous are treated as having one virtual level in the cleric class for the purpose of being able to Turn/Rebuke Undead. If the luminous gains levels in the cleric class, her virtual stacks his actual cleric or paladin levels for the purposes of determining his Turning result.
• Outsider: Luminous are native outsiders.
• Automatic Languages: Lumin and Common.
• Bonus Languages: Celestial and Elven. A well-traveled luminous can learn a wide variety of languages.
• Favored Class: Paladin. A multiclass luminous’ paladin class does not count when determining whether he suffers an XP penalty for multiclassing. The luminous are inherently suited to lives as champions of law and goodness.
• Level Adjustment: +2. Luminous are slightly more powerful and gain levels more slowly than most of the other common races of XXXXX (haven't yet thought of a name for my world). See the Powerful Races sidebar for more information.

 

[Aus_Snow]

I'd say they're weak for LA +1, let alone +2. Mind you, I'm a big fan of the Immortals Handbook (and therefore Grim Tales) take on CR, LA, etc. It tends to lead to lower LA values, which, as it turns out for actual play experience, is (IMO) a Good Thing(tm).

I would suggest comparing them to the Aasimar, if you prefer a fairly standard 3e reference for LA +1. Even here, I think you'll find LA +1 to be a poor fit. . . and not because they'd be overpowered.

 

[freyar]

It seems to me that these will vary a lot by campaign due to the specific nature of the save bonuses and immunities. LA +1 is probably ok.

One thought: for clarity, I'd probably split Unique Anatomy into 2 SQs, one for the light and one for the sneak attack immunity. Also, does the light give a specific Hide penalty?

 

[javcs]

• +2 Wisdom, -2 Charisma: Luminous are gifted with insight and a strong bond to both divine powers and the positive energy plane. Their rigid beliefs and values sometimes lead to the luminous being characterized as harsh and closed minded, and this often impairs their ability to interact with others.
• Medium-size: As Medium-size creatures, luminous have no special bonuses or penalties due to their size.
• Breathless: Luminous do not breathe, so they are immune to drowning, suffocation and attacks that require inhalation.
• Poison Immunity: As beings of energy, luminous have a racial immunity to all natural poisons. This ability does not protect the luminous from magical or supernatural poisons
• +4 racial bonus on all saving throws vs. Necromancy magic. As beings of positive energy, the luminous have an increased resistance to the powers of necromancy.
• Unique Anatomy: As a being of pure energy, a luminous can intensify his natural glow to match the effects of torchlight or moonlight. A luminous can also dim this glow at times when stealth is called for, but this is more difficult to accomplish. A luminous must make a Fortitude save (DC 20) to dim his glow for a number of rounds equal to his Constitution score. The character can attempt this any number of times, but it requires a Fortitude save each time. The luminous’ unique anatomy also allows him to be excepted from a rogue’s sneak attack.
• Turn Undead: Luminous are treated as having one virtual level in the cleric class for the purpose of being able to Turn/Rebuke Undead. If the luminous gains levels in the cleric class, her virtual stacks his actual cleric or paladin levels for the purposes of determining his Turning result.
• Outsider: Luminous are native outsiders.
• Automatic Languages: Lumin and Common.
• Bonus Languages: Celestial and Elven. A well-traveled luminous can learn a wide variety of languages.
• Favored Class: Paladin. A multiclass luminous’ paladin class does not count when determining whether he suffers an XP penalty for multiclassing. The luminous are inherently suited to lives as champions of law and goodness.
• Level Adjustment: +2. Luminous are slightly more powerful and gain levels more slowly than most of the other common races of XXXXX (haven't yet thought of a name for my world). See the Powerful Races sidebar for more information.

Stat mods: pretty much a wash.
Medium size: nothing special to see here
Breathless: This is actually pretty good - immune to anything that requires breathing is something that IME is almost always useful
Poison Immunity: Pretty good - less important if you never run into anything with poison, but IME it's awesomely useful.
Necromany resistance: Never a bad thing to have a bonus on saves against necromantic effects.
Unique Anatomy: Glowing like a torch is something of a wash (I'd make the Fort save to suppress the glow get tougher, the longer it's been suppressed). Immune to Sneak Attack - damned handy and awesome - the way it is worded implies to me that Crits would also probably be negated, which just makes an already powerful ability even more so.
Turn Undead: as a 1st level cleric ... 1st level turning isn't great, but, it's not a bad thing - so a minor benefit.
Native Outsider: quite good - immune to all those pesky charm/dominate/hold person spells, they've gotta toss a higher level spell at you, and, it's not a common type, so you won't usually run into issues with bane and favored enemy effects. And, you can still get brought back to life with the lower level effects.
Languages: 2 automatic languages is good, only having 2 bonus languages isn't so good.
Favored Class=Paladin: Meh, this goes against the charisma penalty, paladins are heavy on the charisma.

Basically, it's all pretty useful stuff - it's not an LA +2 - it's more, it's at least an LA+3.
Not knowing the source material version, I can say that if I were building a positive energy based creature, and wanted a low LA, it would have a vulnerability to anything that involved negative energy.

 

[Slider Wade]

Asaatth Racial Traits (Need advice on LA); Creature Collection Revised pgs. 12-13

• -4 Str, +2 Dex, +2 Wis, +2 Cha
• Medium-size: As Medium-size creatures, asaatth have no special bonuses or penalties due to their size.
• An asaathi's base land spped is 30 feet.
• +2 Natural armor bonus
• Special Attacks
  • Poison (DC15/nasueation); 1d3+1 duration in minutes.
• Special Qualities
  • Low-light Vision
  • Sharp Senses: +2 Search, Spot, Listen
• Automatic Languages: Assath and Common.
• Favored Class: Sorcerer. A multiclass asaath's sorcerer class does not count when determining whether he suffers an XP penalty for multiclassing. The luminous are inherently suited to lives as champions of law and goodness.
• Level Adjustment: +1.

 

[Arkhandus]

Your Luminous is definitely not worth a +3 LA as one guy suggested, and I don't think it's quite worth +2 LA either. I'd say +1 LA. The poison immunity is useful but not insanely so, a high Fortitude is usually enough to avoid natural poisons. I don't understand why they're immune to sneak attacks (especially the sneak attacks of other Luminous or people who have studied their anatomy, unless they have no vital organs or equivalent, in which case they should be immune to critical hits and the effects of massive damage as well). Being an Outsider has some advantages, but it's not hugely beneficial in and of itself. Low-level sorcerers can generate decent light any time they need it, and an Everburning Torch is cheap.

So LA +1. The ability scores are a bit more than an even trade (the Wis bonus is more useful than the Cha penalty is detrimental, in general), but not huge.


The Asaath look like either a strong LA +1 or an LA +2. The poison is what makes me uncertain. I think it's an LA +2, because nausea is pretty debilitating for a creature to suffer in combat, and the asaath's poison lasts rather long, with a decent save DC. You don't say how they deliver the poison, though, but then I don't have the book they're from, so I don't know if they're OGC or not.

Hard to tell though. Either LA +1 or LA +2 though.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

I don't see why the Luminous should need a fortitude save to put out their light. Illumians from Races of Destiny have glowing sigils around their heads they can hide and retrieve at will, no roll needed. The exalted feat that grants you a radiance can be turned on and off at will without a roll, too.

Otherwise, agree with Ark on luminous.

For the second one, first off your favored class entry has an error.
How is the poison delivered? Usually, it'd be a natural poison delivered via injury from a a natural weapon attack, but the race has none. Poisons should also list primary and secondary effects, even if the secondary effect is "nothing." The save DC should maybe scale with level, like 10 +1/2 HD +con modifier. I forget if poison DC scales with all Hd or just racial normally. Otherwise, it will quickly become a 5% save failure rate (natural 1) for almost every enemy. The main issue with the poison is the long duration. I don't know how it's delivered or anything about the race, but for example say they had a scorpion stinger and thus could make natural attacks with it. If the poison was delivered on injury from stinger with no secondary effect and initial effect of 1d3 +1 rounds, it'd be much more balanced,even if the DC scaled with level. In that example, the poison would come for "free" with an attack, instead of needing to be applied to a weapon (like drow poison), but the creature would probably fight with weapons and only use the stinger as a secondary attack on a full attack.

So, it could be ok at +1 LA, depending. 1d3 +1 minutes is just a really long time.

 

[awayfarer]

I'd agree that the Luminous looks a bit weak for LA +2, but the sneak attack (and crit?) immunity puts them up there. If it were lowered to a fortification effect I could see LA +1.

I'm thrilled to see someone using Asaathi.
-4 strength is a pretty harsh penalty though, and it completely blocks them from being effective as anything other than casters. I might make the strength penalty -2 and ditch the wisdom bonus to even it out. -2 is managable and leaves players with more options. That should still work out to LA +1.