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

[Nyaricus]

Thanks for the encouragement

Hey man, no problem I know that people here strive for attention on ther creations, and your is looking pretty good. Actually, it works as a Cultural "Mini-Template" for races... so you could take the basics, add in say Dark Sun cultural stuff, and let'r rip!

Cultural Mini-Template... has a nice ring to it

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..

Well... cookie-cutter seems a little strong, but that's basically it, yes

and then the savage ones are pre-metal working

Halfling Skiprock prof for free? Greatclub? I could think of a few

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.

FE just seems too good AND is stackable with class abilities in a way whihc is too good. I looked at this option myself, and I couldn't do it for my homebrew races, just it was too good. YMMV, of course, but that's JMHO

Next: Orcs!.. probably sometime tommorow

Neat, looking forward to it.

And please note that I know nothing about Eberron (well, minimal stuff) but a pretty good head for balance

 

[Dog Moon]

Next: Orcs!.. probably sometime tommorow

Gah! Nightfall is getting to me... I read that as Orcus. I was like 'holy crap, a race of Orcuses!'


Also, am I missing something? You mentioned Racial, Regional, General. I assume General is the normal 1st level feat and Regional is Regional, but I don't see any Racial Feats... I think.

And for ease of eyes, can you format the Dwarves and the others like the Halflings? [I like blank lines separating things]. As for the other stuff, I look through that in the next day or two.

Or maybe I should start posting a link to one of my random House Rule threads and say "I look at yours if you look at mine." [j/k].

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Hmm a race of Orcuses

Sorry bout the formatting.. I had cut and pasted from a Word Doc that has all the formatting nice and neat.

So far all the above has been based purely from the SRD and my memory of the ECS. Now that I am home, I should be able to make the fluff more appropriate and have time to look up alternate favored weapons....

At least, now I can do it without the threat of the boss looking over my shoulder and asking "Iis *that* what I pay you for?"

 

[paradox42]

I've been doing this in my homebrew for years now- I discovered the problem when I was considering what an NPC would prefer to Polymorph herself into, and realized that by the RAW she could gain racial traits of an alternate race if she turned herself into a member of that race.

My solution was to carefully check the granted Extraordinary abilities of each race, and decide whether they were essentially "genetic" or cultural. And I made up a new category of ability, the "Cultural" category (abbreviated as "Cu"). (Cu) abilities are defined as Extraordinary for all purposes except two: first, a creature using a Polymorph effect to turn into the race doesn't get them, and second, a character/creature from one race raised in an alternate culture doesn't get its own racial (Cu) abilities and instead gets those for the culture it was raised in. For example, a Human raised by Elves won't get the bonus feat that Humans raised in their own culture get, nor will he get the extra skill point at each level; instead, he gets the elves' proficiency in swords and bows. A human raised by Dwarves would instead get Stonecunning, Weapon Familiarity, and the bonuses to Craft and Appraise checks.

It's worked well for me as a system, though only one player has so far used the system for a PC- he played an orc of one subrace raised by a different subrace (there are several different subraces of orc in my game, and all are allowed as PCs if the background meshes with the party okay). But then, I heavily house-ruled the core races anyway due to the way my world is set up, so YMMV.

I haven't read Iron Heroes, but it doesn't surprise me at all to hear that professional game designers grappled with the same issues. It's a fringe problem, but it can become a big one once it rears its head.

 

[Nyaricus]

paradox42, that was an interesting solution. Thanks

 

[paradox42]

Welcome. The main gotcha with my own racial house rules, compared with other worlds, is that I deliberately made all the races more powerful- at the time I originally did it, it was done by ear, but I've since estimated that each race is now worth about a +2 LA in a standard campaign. So the min-maxing possibilities of the exchange of (Cu) abilities can easily disappear into that phantom LA- +2 can give pretty significant powers. Works for me, but somebody else may find powergaming players abusing the general Lower Planes out of it.

Still, the cultural mini-template idea is pretty close to what I did, so I thought it was worth sharing.

 

[Nyaricus]

honestly, so long as the rest is balanced to your "LA +2", and the players are having fun, what does it matter. Anyways, thansk for sahring and don't feel afraid to post this up in another thread - I am interested in seeing this, and I wouldn't doubt PS would be as well.

Later.

 

[Dog Moon]

honestly, so long as the rest is balanced to your "LA +2", and the players are having fun, what does it matter. Anyways, thansk for sahring and don't feel afraid to post this up in another thread - I am interested in seeing this, and I wouldn't doubt PS would be as well.

Later.

Well, apparently, you were right. I've now seen you post 'Thansk' on another thread.

 

[paradox42]

honestly, so long as the rest is balanced to your "LA +2", and the players are having fun, what does it matter.

Agreed. Fun is, of course, the most important factor ("Sacred Cows" threads in General notwithstanding. )

Anyways, thansk for sahring and don't feel afraid to post this up in another thread - I am interested in seeing this, and I wouldn't doubt PS would be as well.

What in particular are you suggesting I post? Do you mean the rules text I wrote for (Cu) abilities, or more examples of the abilities themselves, or something else?

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

I am glad to see I am treading down a decently worn, if not well travelled path

My main inspiration for this is the Eberron setting where nationality is supposed to define your character more than race. I will freely admit that I am an 'old-school' DM in that I tend to eye-ball things more than get into the nitty gritty. Its taking me about an hour for each race posted so far... and I picked the 'easy' ones first

I am interested in a less 'eye-balled' take on my choices for the (CU) abilities.. it looks like paradox42 and I are on the same track, just different formats.

Standardizing a bit, I am looking at 2 favored weapons per Culture.. but ran across something doing the Orcs. I like the idea of bringing the Bastard Sword into Droam, but making its two-handed weilding a simple weapon could have some Dastardly results

I am also trying to get at least one culture with a 'Blooded' Feat in each race-block.
This is the first race to get the ‘half-breed’ treatment.. hopefully it works out J
It is also the first race to have cultures often chosen by Humans

An orc’s hair usually is black contrasting sharply with the green cast of thier skin. It has lupine ears and reddish eyes. Orcs prefer wearing vivid colors that many humans would consider unpleasant, such as blood red, mustard yellow, yellow-green, and deep purple.
They have a distinct preference to humid, wet enviroments such as swamps and shallow cave systems.

Racial Aspect:
· +2 Strength, -2 Intelligence, –2 Charisma.
· Medium: As Medium creatures, Orcs have no special bonuses or penalties due to their size.
· Darkvision: Orcs 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.
· Bonus Feat: Toughness, +3 hps

Cultural Aspects:

Full Blooded:
Full Blood Orcs live in close knit tribes in remote areas of the Shadow Marches. More apathetic to the ‘new empire’ of the humans than xenophobic, the Orcs tend to leave well enough alone. Support for the druidic Guardians is widespread.
· +2 Strength, -2 Wisdom
· Light Sensitivity
· Favored Weapons: Orcish Double Axe, Great Axe
· Favored Class: Druid
· Favored Skills: Intimidate, Survival

Shadow March:
Sharing territory with their full-blooded cousins, you mix in well in both Full Blood and human company. The adventuring bug hard to avoid, with journeys to seek out Eberron Shards hiding in the tepid waters, seeking out the residue of the ancient Dhakaani empire, or seeking out the various abominations slithering up from Kyber.
· +2 Racial bonus to Search and Swim
· +2 racial bonus vs Poisen
· Favored Class: Ranger
· Favored Weapons: Orcish Double Axe, Great Axe
· Favored Skills: Survival
· Blooded Feat: “Swamp-Walker”, You gain the ability to treat standing water as if it was one size category smaller {Wildscape rules that limit movement based on depth of water}

Droam:
Sharing territory with their more monstrous cousins, bestial and savage attitudes tend to be a bit more of an advantage. Leadership by strength in arms is common. Metal items tend to have the ‘Brutish’ masterwork enhancement {Black Company rules}.
· +2 Racial bonus to Intimidate and Bluff
· +2 racial bonus on Craft Weaponsmithing.
· Favored Class: Barbarian
· Favored Weapons: Bastard Sword, Great Club
· Favored Skills: Intimidate
· Blooded Feat: “Embrace of the Beast”, You gain a rage ability as if you had 2 additional levels of Barbarian.