For example, the Halfling has 5 special abilities on top of Saving Throw bonuses, now some of these abilities are very restrictive in how they work (+1 Initiative in an all Halfing party only) and others are very general (+1 To Hit on missile attacks).
Compare that to the Half-Orc, who only has two (a bonus to secret door detection and 60' Infravision), you could say 3 if you added the fact he can speak orc on top of Common and his alignment language I suppose.
Now all of these are also counter balanced by Ability Score Modifications, Max/Min, Thief Ability adjustments, Class/Level restriction. It's a lot of stuff!
That said, let's dissect what I have about the Lizard Folk so far and see if we can start narrowing in on final design.
Abilities
I gave the Lizard Folk a Requirement of having a STR of 9, the requirement of an ability or two at 9 seems to be the standard across the races in AEC (save the Gnome and his 8 in DEX), and it states quite clearly in the monster write up for Lizard Folk that they get +1 damage due to their high strength. This seems to indicate on average they are stronger then the other playable species, so I felt I'd carry that on.
The +1 STR to -2 CHA got atleast one mention of it not being a fair trade, and I agree, it's not, but there are lots of unfair Ability modification "trade offs" in the AEC. The Half-Orc is +1 STR and +1 CON to a -2 CHA which is even more ridiculous then the Lizard Folk modifier. Of course this is slightly balanced by not having as many abilities and class options. The -2 CHA is to portray the sorta cold demeanor the Lizard Folk have compared to other species (and a nod to being cold blooded), their emotions are a lot less expressive and a lot more black and white, that makes them slightly off putting to most other playable species.
No one seemed to have issues with the Ability Min/Max scores, they carry over the strength of course and add an 8 minimum to both INT and WIS, meaning this is a learned race (very rarely does a Lizard Folk not possess the ability to read and fully write, for instance)
Special Abilities
This is the heart of the discussion, as I came up with a lot of ideas for special abilities and I'm not sure which ones to go with or how many of them to use. Below are the ones I ended up with, along with a mechanic benefit if I could think of it (if I don't have the benefit and you like the special ability, suggest a mechanic behind it!)
- Scaly Hide: Gives them a natural AC of 7, this is overridden when armor is worn, but magical items that affect AC directly would subtract from this, not AC 9.
- Fire Resistance/Cold Vulnerability: They take half damage from fire based attack but double damage from cold based attack.
- Claws: This lets them do 1d4 + STR Mod damage with an unarmed attack as opposed to the standard 1d2 + STR Mod.
- Ultraviolet Vision: Something with rules for in the AEC and something I was told many reptile possess. It's a type of night vision that works better outside then in dungeons (see AEC for complete details)
- Taste the Air: Lizard Folk tongues flick in and out like many lizards and snakes (maybe the oddness of that adds to the CHA penalty too) which allows them to "taste the air" gaining information about where things are even if they can't fully see them. Because of this if a Lizard Folk becomes blinded he only suffers a -2 penalty to hit (-4 being the standard penalty to blindness, finally found that in the LL rulebook), this includes the ability to hit invisible creatures (which is also -4 in the same sentence as the blindness rules). If I wanted to extend this ability, you could also say that they only may be surprised on a 1 on 1d6.
- Cold Blooded: This actually give the Lizard Folk two advantages, first, Lizard Folk only need to eat once a week, instead of once a day (as mentioned in LL under Rations and Foraging) and two, their near match in temperature to the environment makes them hard to see with Infravision, thus, a group of only Lizard Folk (or I suppose a Lizard Folk traveling solo) will surprise a group using only Infravision to see on a 1-3 on 1d6, this bonus is negated if the Lizard Folk is carrying a light source (like all surprises are negated with the presence of a light source)
- Balance: Tails give the Lizard Folk good balance, though I'm not sure mechanical how to represent that.
The +4 Save vs. Poison is quite obvious, I think, most reptiles have higher toxic immunities then warm blooded mammals, mostly due to reduced metabolism and because many of them produce toxins.
Class/Level Limits
I changed the Class/Level Limits around a little bit, the list now stands are follows:
- Druid (7th Level)
- Fighter (12th Level)
- Illusionist (8th Level)
- Magic User (8th Level)
- Ranger (8th Level)
- Thief (14th Level)
Thief Skill Adjustment
Finally, the Thief Skill Adjustments I mentioned in a previous post:
"The penalty to picking locks and pockets come from clawed hands that don't have the same amount of fine manipulation that other species do, the bonus to climb walls is also based on the claws, and the move silently, hide in shadows bonuses come from the quiet and stillness most cold blooded creatures seem to excel at."
In Conclusion
So that's everything ripped apart again, for one final round of debate and discussion, let's get lively here, yay or nay on choices and see if we end up with an approved Species for this book!
Eating once a week instead of once a day seems a bit drastic to me, maybe just once every other day? That's the one thing I have a particular problem with. Other than that, everything seems fine to me.
ReplyDeleteInfravision is ruled pretty inconsistently from game to game IME (YMMV). You and I run it quite differently, for example. I'd attempt to avoid mechanics based on that.
ReplyDeleteHow is +1str +1con -2cha an unfair trade?
Scaly Hide/Claws kinda steps on the Monk's toes a bit, though it's nothing *too* extreme. But, you'd probably end up making a lv1 Lizard M-U better at unarmed combat than a lv1 Monk (not counting HP)
I'm surprised you were able to pick level limits without first picking how many special abilities the race would have. :P
Charisma has very little effect, rules wise, on the game, for most classes. It's often thought of as a dump stat for a reason. So, you're a little uglier and a little more crass, but the two +1s can add additional damage and additional HP, if the rest of the numbers are right. It makes sense fluff and rp wise, but not crunch wise.
ReplyDeleteThe elf steps on the MUs toes, too, so the precedent is set.
In the original Dystopia, we had proposed a new race and threw it up on EW for suggestions. This was 3.5e, but they STRONGLY recommended that we not do +1s, just +2s. I can't remember their reasoning, and EnWorld won't let me view all my started threads, probably because I don't pay them (I only visit once or twice a year, anymore, not worth it to me...). LL has some +1s, so there is a precedent there, too.
I don't like level restrictions, in general, and totally would support slapping some bonuses on Humans and eliminating the restrictions all together.
I just read the AEC rules for UV vision. My only thoughts are that what they are seeing is reflection of light from a UV source - likely light reflected from the moon, so you'd have additional light to work with when outside, but pretty much boned in the forest and stuff - or on a moonless night. Fun fact - Sunscreen absorbs UV energy, so you'd be invisible to UV cameras/etc when wearing it.
Again, a lot of uppers here, not so much on the downers. I don't really know what we can do, fluff wise, to nerf them.