What would you do if you were....[Race and Culture Thread]

[Primitive Screwhead]

Well personally speaking, I would annex the Sudatenland....

[edit]
I have formatted this whole deal as a word document, altho it still needs a bit of work. I have finished off the major nations in Khorvaire, along with some sidetreks into odd cultural choices such as the Feral..

Let me know what y'all think!

Oh, I formatted for actually posting, to all the code tags look a bit silly
[/edit]


But seriously, now that I have you reading the thread

I have been bantering an idea around for quite some time, but really have not had the time to invest in it properly. I thought I would resurrect the idea here and gather suggestions, input, improvement, and criticism from the wonderful folks at EnWorld.

Problem statement: RAW races have hard-coded cultural ties and do not handle half-breed and cross-culteral raised characters very well.

Suggestion: full rewrite of how races and cultures are handled mechanically

Preferences:
- The race slice I will focus on a short list of mostly core races; Dwarf, Elf, Halfing, Orc, Ogre.
- The Culture slice I will focus on is that of Eberron, simply because thats the setting I currently run.

Concept: split racial and cultural mechanics into feats. All characters start with 3 feats, one General, one Racial, and one Cultural.
A human character is one who has choses to use the Racial feat as the Human bonus feat.

Neat ideas to add in:
- Blooded aspect... Bane weapons only work against creatures with the Racial feat or monster types. Humans are immune to Bane enhancements. Enhancements can be made to target or require a certain Blood line.
- Blooded Feats instead of favored class, Perhaps Elves have an inate arcane ability that grants them a +1 effective caster level.


Before diving into the weeds on this, what sort of constructive criticism can I get on the overall project?

If you want to dive into the weeds right off the bat, don't hold back! Eventually a Feat writeup is needed for each race, culture, half-race, and any nice Blooded traits.


Thanks in advance for a good debate on this. I hope the resulting discussion will be useful

 

[Piratecat]

Have you seen Iron Heroes? You may like what Mearls has done with feats there; it's quite similar to what you're planning.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

No I haven't, altho I have heard a number of good things about it. I tend to like the more grim-n-gritty/low-magic world as well..but those elements dont mesh well with Eberron published modules

I will definately add that to my list of 'check this book out', but have doubts on actual purchase as my gaming funds tend to be limited.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

First off: Culture feats..

Concept, feats that identify culterally training and enviromental conditioning.
Standard feat would include the following:
- Nationality/area
- Favored Class
- Bonus to select profession/craft skill
- Fluency in regions language
- Bonus to Gather Info and Knowledge (Local) skills
- Profiency in culteral weaponry

Possible for tat ability based on extreme weather or variant terrain.

Culture feats are obviously weaker than a normal feat. As far as scope, they can be continent spanning {Sarlona} or tight focused {Breland: Sharn}
This will allow characters to have distinct backgrounds that are recognizable IC.

Examples:
Culture: Aundair
Favored Class: Wizard
Bonus to Profession: Merchant and Craft: {select one}
Proficient in Rapier. Most carry a Main Guache, and many fight with both.
{add fluff}

Culture: Frostfell
Favored Class: Ranger
Bonus to Profession: Hunter and Craft: Scrimshaw
Proficient in battle-axe
Cold Hardened, gains DR 2 vs cold based attacks and the effects of cold weather. Takes an additional 2 points of damage from heat based attacks and the effects of hot weather

Culture: Razorcliffs
Favored class: Rogue
Bonus to Profession: Mountaineer and Use Rope
Proficient in Short Bow
Gains climb speed of 20'

...
Sound like this is the right track?

 

[Nyaricus]

Have you seen Iron Heroes? You may like what Mearls has done with feats there; it's quite similar to what you're planning.

I read this first post, and then read the second. My heart broke when I eralised you'd beaten me to the punch

Screwhead, while 40-50 bucks Cdn might not seem like a good idea, IH is an amazing book, if only to get your creative juices going; and it's background feats are almost exactly what you are doing here. As for if you are on the right track, for the "regional" bit, yeah, you are, and I have to say I like adn might steal somehting like a mix between this, IH and FR regions for my homebrew

 

[GreatLemur]

Problem statement: RAW races have hard-coded culteral ties and do not handle half-breed and cross-culteral raised characters very well.

Suggestion: full rewrite of how races and cultures are handled mechanically

Concept: split racial and culteral mechanics into feats. All characters start with 3 feats, one General, one Racial, and one Culteral.

You're absolutely right about the problem ("racial" traits based on cultural practices was always such a dumb part of D&D...), and your solution definitely seems to be headed in the right direction. The only deviation I might suggest would be to use a word other than "feat" for these racial and cultural background components, but I'm not even sure of that quibble.

However, I would revise your spelling of "cultural."

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Drove past my FLGS on my way to the weekends drill... unfortunatly too early for it to be open
Maybe will have time to grab IH on the way back tommorow. In the mean time, I realized I had started a bit wrong. I should take an easy core races and split it up between Racial and Cultural. This way I can get the basics down before moving to the other races.

One other thing that wandered through my brain, have the Racial piece be Half-Breeds. Pure Blood would be tied to a culture. This would provide a mechanical reason for the typical enclave behavior of the various races and encourage play of half-breed types.

Of course, my initial race to work on doesn't really have a half-breed option

New Mechanics:
Favored Skills. This is a skill that the character can consider a class skill regardless of which class they take. This reflects a skill or skills that are extremely common in the culture.

Favored Weapons. These are weapons that the character considers one step easier than normal. Eg, an Exotic Weapon only requires a Martial proficiency, a Martial weapon only requires a Simple Weapons proficiency. This reflects a weapon that is a cultural icon.

Blooded Feats. These are feats that the character may take with their first level slot

Halfings are sturdy creatures of small stature. They are unusually hardy and have a keen eye for spacial relationships. They are nimble but lack brute force strength.
Racial aspects
• +2 Dexterity, –2 Strength.
• Small: As a Small creature, a halfling gains a +1 size bonus to Armor Class, a +1 size bonus on attack rolls, and a +4 size bonus on Hide checks, but she uses smaller weapons than humans use, and her lifting and carrying limits are three-quarters of those of a Medium character.
• Halfling base land speed is 20 feet.
• +1 racial bonus on all saving throws.
• +2 morale bonus on saving throws against fear: This bonus stacks with the halfling’s +1 bonus on saving throws in general.
• +1 racial bonus on attack rolls with thrown weapons and slings.

Cultural aspects:
Talenta – Nomad
The Nomad riders of the Talenta Plains. Keen eyed and swift warriors.. but it is rare that you will encounter them alone. The Nomads life is surrounded by animals, often those of the dinosaur kind. Nomad riders tend toward flowing, earth tone clothing for everyday use, blending in well with thier arid climate. Festival clothing goes to the other extreme in a proliferation of bright colors. Spirit Masks are worn by the warriors and a coming of age ritual is marked by the crafting of a young warriors first mask.
• +2 racial bonus on Survival, Spot, and Move Silently checks.
• Favored Skills: Ride, Handle Animal and Survival
• Favored Class: Ranger
• Favored Weapons: Talenta Boomerang, Talenta Tangat, Talenta Sharrash


Talenta – Settled
The Halfing cities and traveling caravans are full of glib and hospitable folk. Never fear being robbed in these town…at least not without your consent! Settled Halfings beleive that each day is special, so while thier attire does not attain the full riotous enthusiasm of their Nomad kin, it is characterized by a conglomerate of bright colors. Festival clothing is much of the same but adds faux Spirit Masks worn by pretty much everyone.
• +2 racial bonus on Profession: Merchant, Spot, and Gather Information checks.
• Favored Skills: Diplomacy, Bluff and Sense Motive
• Favored Class: Rogue
• Favored Weapons: Talenta Boomerang, Talenta Tangat

Savage
During the Demon Age, Halfings ran amok under the feet of the demons and devils. {Modified an adventure module ‘The Coils of Set’ to fit in with Eberron.. it has a ‘flashback’ to the Demon Age where savage Halfings serve the demon and ride Dinosaurs…}
Savege attire is.. well, they aint that fashion sensitive. Loincloths and hide seems to do quite fine.
• +2 racial bonus on Survival, Spot, and Move Silently checks.
• Favored Skills: Ride, Handle Animal and Survival
• Favored Class: Barbarian
• Favored Weapons: Talenta Boomerang, Great Club

Basically I am keeping anything that can be explained by genentics, such as good spacial oreintation, in the Racial aspect..and moving any skill based stuf into the Cultural.

I agree that 'Feat' may be the wrong thing to call them. Trait or Aspect....or something else. I am sure by the end of this I will have settled on something
Either way, each character choses one 'Racial whatever' and one 'Cultural whatever'

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Racial Aspect:
Dwarves are a dour lot, usually focused on the acquisition of crafted items of lore..or just pure weatlth for wealths sake.

• +2 Constitution, –2 Charisma.
• Medium: As Medium creatures, dwarves have no special bonuses or penalties due to their size.
• Dwarf base land speed is 20 feet. However, dwarves can move at this speed even when wearing medium or heavy armor or when carrying a medium or heavy load (unlike other creatures, whose speed is reduced in such situations).
• Darkvision: Dwarves can see in the dark up to 60 feet. Darkvision is black and white only, but it is otherwise like normal sight, and dwarves can function just fine with no light at all.
• Stability: {See SRD}
• +2 racial bonus on saving throws against spells and spell-like effects.
• Stocky Build: The physical stature of Dwarves let them function in many ways as if they were one size category smaller. A Dwarf can us weapons designed for a creature one size smaller without penalty. Generally speaking, the dwarf will benefit from: a +1 size bonus to Armor Class, a +1 size bonus on attack rolls, and a +4 size bonus on Hide checks. The benefits of this racial trait stack with powers, abilities, and spells that change the subject’s size category.

Cultural Aspect:

Mhor-Hold Clansman
A member of the main clans in MhorHold, known for their cunning bartering and steadfast defense of their homeland. They are also masters of the Forge, creating a great many of the best armors and weapons available. Only the poorest Dwarf will be found without a Masterwork weapon.

• Stonecunning: {See SRD}
• Favored Enemy, choose one Humanoid{Orc} or Humanoid{Goblinoid}
• +2 racial bonus on Appraise and Craft checks that are related to stone or metal items.
• Favored Class: Fighter
• Favored Weapons: Dwarven Waraxe, Dwarven Urgosh
• Favored Skills: Sense Motive

Deep Delvers
The clan {whose name I forgot} that delved too deep. Recently a few explorers have returned to the surface to tell tales of how the clan has survived.

• Stonecunning: {See SRD}
• Favored Enemy, Aberration
• Climb Speed: 10’
• +2 racial bonus on Craft checks that are related to stone or metal.
• Favored Class: Ranger
• Favored Weapons: Dwarven Waraxe, Dwarven Urgosh
• Favored Skills: Survival

FrostFell Barbarians
Dwarves originally migrated from Frostfell to the Mhor-Holds. But not all flew from the Ice Age, some embraced it.

• Cold Resistance 5
• Ice Walk: Ignores the difficult terrain and balance/tumble penalties of walking on ice
• Favored Class: Ranger
• Favored Weapons: Dwarven Waraxe
• Favored Skills: Survival
• Blooded Feat: “Fell Dwarf”, Gains Cold Subtype

You may notice I have a tendancy to favor the Ranger class. IMO it makes sense for those ‘frontier’ cultures where the environment is shared with many nasty critters.

I made a couple tweaks to the race, getting them a bit farther away from the built in Nordic theme. Ditching the Anti-Giant bonus and trading Favored Enemy in for the +1 vs ability should wash out.

 

[Nyaricus]

PS, I just have a few comments:

- You should try to be consistent with certain things here. Some cultures get no favoured weapons, some get 3 - choose a number (for anything pertanent) and try to give each culture an even amount.

- Don't forget languages! Some (like elves) would speak different dialects, depending on culture they came from.

- For dwarves, don't give favoured enemy. That steals some of the rangers *bang* and entrouches (sp?) on his territory too much. Racial Hatred, with a straight +1 bonus to attack and damage will do fine.

Other than that, this is a great way to do sub-races (or "cultures as you more aptly put it) in D&D, and I think this has been officially yoinked for my campign setting. My thanks

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Thanks for the encouragement

It would be nice to be able to cookie cutter em all, but it kinda makes sense for some cultures get more weapons than others..

In the Core rules all Halfings gain the three Talenta weapons regardless of where they came from. I figured a city bred would maintain the historical boomerang and the easier to carry sword... and then the savage ones are pre-metal working

For the Dwarves, I wanted to get rid of the +4 vs Giants and replace it with something similarly useful. The Sturdy Build is a bit underwhelming..altho helps out squeezing through tunnels. Honestly I am not sold on the Favored Enemy bit for pretty much the same reasons.. still gots to thing about that.

Next: Orcs!.. probably sometime tommorow