Viktyr Gehrig
First Post
Alright, I'm trying to hammer out how exactly templates work in my House Rules, as well as polishing up some of the weak spots in my handling of the Planetouched.
Right now, I've decided that any race of Planetouched can be applied as a template (simply layering their racial statistics over the base creature) for an LA of 2.
I've also decided that Humans are ineligible for any template with a Level Adjustment-- instead, templated Humans are treated as a hypothetical base creature: a Medium Humanoid with no racial subtype that has no racial modifiers, no racial abilities, and a base speed of 10. In exchange, the Level Adjustment of the template is reduced by 1. (Making planetouched templates LA +1 and creating a creature identical to "normal" Planetouched.)
This also neatly mimics one of my favorite features of Alternity-- mutant Humans don't qualify for Human racial traits.
Based on this thread, I've decided to replace the Tiefling Paragon (and by extension, the non-existent Paragons of the other planetouched) with the transitional class to the appropriate Half-template. After all, what is a Tiefling Paragon if not a Half-Fiend?
This would also allow me to continue the progression by designing appropriate Paragon Classes for the various Half-X templates, along the lines of the Half-Dragon Paragon. (Hopefully answering, in part at least, the question posed in the linked thread above.)
The problem is... the Aasimar to Half-Celestial (and Tiefling to Half-Fiend) transitional classes are three levels long, but there's only a two-LA difference between the template forms. The situation is even worse with the Draconic/Half-Dragon template and the Genasi/Half-Elemental templates, as there's only a one level difference between them.
I guess what I'm looking for is appropriate abilities to add to the Half-Celestial, Half-Dragon, Half-Elemental, and Half-Fiend templates to raise them all to an even LA of +5, and then appropriate three-level transition classes for the lesser versions of these templates.
I've considered granting them effective caster levels, since all of these templates have a Favored Gestalt that includes a spellcasting class-- but I'm not sure that would balance properly, or feel consistent with the spell-like abilities that the Half-Elementals and Half-Outsiders already get. (Not to mention, their spell-like abilities already provide them with a small bonus in their respective casting classes-- I add racial spell-like abilities to the characters' Known Spells list of a specific class.)
Any ideas?
Right now, I've decided that any race of Planetouched can be applied as a template (simply layering their racial statistics over the base creature) for an LA of 2.
I've also decided that Humans are ineligible for any template with a Level Adjustment-- instead, templated Humans are treated as a hypothetical base creature: a Medium Humanoid with no racial subtype that has no racial modifiers, no racial abilities, and a base speed of 10. In exchange, the Level Adjustment of the template is reduced by 1. (Making planetouched templates LA +1 and creating a creature identical to "normal" Planetouched.)
This also neatly mimics one of my favorite features of Alternity-- mutant Humans don't qualify for Human racial traits.
Based on this thread, I've decided to replace the Tiefling Paragon (and by extension, the non-existent Paragons of the other planetouched) with the transitional class to the appropriate Half-template. After all, what is a Tiefling Paragon if not a Half-Fiend?
This would also allow me to continue the progression by designing appropriate Paragon Classes for the various Half-X templates, along the lines of the Half-Dragon Paragon. (Hopefully answering, in part at least, the question posed in the linked thread above.)
The problem is... the Aasimar to Half-Celestial (and Tiefling to Half-Fiend) transitional classes are three levels long, but there's only a two-LA difference between the template forms. The situation is even worse with the Draconic/Half-Dragon template and the Genasi/Half-Elemental templates, as there's only a one level difference between them.
I guess what I'm looking for is appropriate abilities to add to the Half-Celestial, Half-Dragon, Half-Elemental, and Half-Fiend templates to raise them all to an even LA of +5, and then appropriate three-level transition classes for the lesser versions of these templates.
I've considered granting them effective caster levels, since all of these templates have a Favored Gestalt that includes a spellcasting class-- but I'm not sure that would balance properly, or feel consistent with the spell-like abilities that the Half-Elementals and Half-Outsiders already get. (Not to mention, their spell-like abilities already provide them with a small bonus in their respective casting classes-- I add racial spell-like abilities to the characters' Known Spells list of a specific class.)
Any ideas?
