How is a drow noble balanced as a character race?
+4 Dexterity, +2 Intelligence, +2 Wisdom, +2 Charisma, –2 Constitution
Constant—detect magic
At will—dancing lights, deeper darkness, ....
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Monster races in general, are not designed to be balanced for play as player characters. They are designed to be challenging threats. I don't know how anyone could argue that the Drow Noble is balanced against an ordinary elf or human.
There were rules in 3.5 for level adjustment, in order to compensate for more powerful monster race PCs, but nothing has been published yet for Pathfinder.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32
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How is a drow noble balanced as a character race?
ummm... they're not.
That's what normal Drow are for, to be a viable PC Race (even though that isn't really what they're meant for).There are no more LAs in Pathfinder. Instead, races have a +CR.
If you look at a viable PC Race, then as a first level Character they are CR 1/2 (unless they have an NPC Class, in which case they are CR 1/3). A first level Drow Noble character has a CR of 1.
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Yea I was wondering about the philosophy here too. All of the other races listed for use as characters seemed balanced, with the +2/+2/-2 or some variation, like the orcs or the svirfneblin. Those that were worse also seemed to have compensating abilities. Drow nobles just seemed to be strictly better versions of the drow, which makes me concerned about the balance among the other races presented.
They like normal drow are not made as a player race, they are the more powerful version of normal drow. Monsters are not made to be player races. The core races are made to be player races, sure you can make other races into player races but that is not what they are aimed at.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32
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Yea I was wondering about the philosophy here too. All of the other races listed for use as characters seemed balanced, with the +2/+2/-2 or some variation, like the orcs or the svirfneblin. Those that were worse also seemed to have compensating abilities. Drow nobles just seemed to be strictly better versions of the drow, which makes me concerned about the balance among the other races presented.
Orcs are a viable Base Race as their CR is my above mentioned 1/2 (1/3).
Svirfneblin are not. They are on par with the Drow Noble in terms of Power and thus have the corresponding CR of 1.Don't always look at the Ability Bonuses to determine whether a creature is a balanced PC race or not, it can be misleading. Svirfneblin receive a lot of other bonuses and abilities that make them much more powerful than a Base Race.
It specifically says drow nobles as characters therefore it was intended to be used as a possible template for a character race, and i am aware of the LA but this thing doesn't have one so WTH!!!!! Can you explain in more detail how it has a CR 1, and where it says you add their cr for their ECL?
it says character as you may want to stat up an BBEG or just some NPC's. They provide info in case you want to allow them but they are not player character races and are not balanced as such. Pathfinder does not have LA
Monster pc's here is what ya got.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32
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It specifically says drow nobles as characters therefore it was intended to be used as a possible template for a character race, and i am aware of the LA but this thing doesn't have one so WTH!!!!! Can you explain in more detail how it has a CR 1, and where it says you add their cr for their ECL?
Monstrous PC Races are such because they do not inherently have a CR. They actually need a level in a Class to gain a CR. This is true for the Races from the Core Rulebook as well (Dwarf, Elf, Human, etc...)
OK look at the Drow entry in the Bestiary.
For the Drow it says they have a CR of 1/3 as they have an NPC Class (Warrior in this case). If they were to have a level in a Base Class (such as say the Aasimar on p.7, Tengu on p.263 or Tiefling on p.264) then they would have a CR of 1/2.
Now look at the Drow Noble.
It has a R of 3, since it is a third level Character (in this case Cleric). Therefore it has a Base CR of 1. This is also true for the Svirfneblin on p.261. It has a level of Ranger and has a printed CR of 1.
The Bestiary probably doesn't set it out in the best way, but if you were to look in Qadira, Gateway to the East, they have Monstrous races in there that clearly state whether or not they have a +CR or not (Suli-Jann have a CR of +0, hence they are viable as a Base Race, whereas Half-Janni are +2CR and are more powerful accordingly).
I hope this helps.
Creative Director
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It's important to remember that CR adjustments are NOT the same as 3.5's old Level Adjustments. A creature's CR is a measure of its power in a battle against player characters, and takes in to account the fact that the monster won't be "on stage" for more than several rounds; it's not going to be influencing every single role in a game (which is what the PC race modifiers do).
And the "monsters as characters" entries in the Bestiary aren't there to give permission to players to use them as PCs. They're there because those creatures don't have racial hit dice, and thus are custom built each time by adding character levels to them. We probably should have titled these sections "Monsters as Non-Player Characters" since that's mostly the intent.
Of course, if a GM is cool with letting players play monsters, the "monsters as characters" entries help a lot in getting those particular monstrous PCs off the ground. Chapter 12 in the Core rulebook and the appendix of the Bestiary have guidelines for how to handle playing monstrous player characters.
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Yea I was wondering about the philosophy here too. All of the other races listed for use as characters seemed balanced, with the +2/+2/-2 or some variation, like the orcs or the svirfneblin. Those that were worse also seemed to have compensating abilities. Drow nobles just seemed to be strictly better versions of the drow, which makes me concerned about the balance among the other races presented.Orcs are a viable Base Race as their CR is my above mentioned 1/2 (1/3).
Svirfneblin are not. They are on par with the Drow Noble in terms of Power and thus have the corresponding CR of 1.
Don't always look at the Ability Bonuses to determine whether a creature is a balanced PC race or not, it can be misleading. Svirfneblin receive a lot of other bonuses and abilities that make them much more powerful than a Base Race.
Ah, thanks for pointing that one out. In that case... hobgoblins would probably be okay but gobbos would be under par?
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Creative Director
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Ah, thanks for pointing that one out. In that case... hobgoblins would probably be okay but gobbos would be under par?
Depends on your play style and the type of character you're making. A hobgoblin would make a better fighter than a goblin, but a goblin would make a better rogue or ranged weapon user. In the end, they're more or less equal.
Ah, thanks for pointing that one out. In that case... hobgoblins would probably be okay but gobbos would be under par?
Goblins under par? heh, no 30' move small size a total of +8 stealth and +4 dex. Very much worth -2 str,-2 cha
They are hella rogues
It specifically says drow nobles as characters
Characters, but not necessarily player characters.
therefore it was intended to be used as a possible template for a character race, and i am aware of the LA but this thing doesn't have one so WTH!!!!! Can you explain in more detail how it has a CR 1, and where it says you add their cr for their ECL?
The CR is not exactly spelled out, but it's said that drow nobles have a CR equal to their character level (for regular classes. A character with NCP class levels are at -1 as usual). A human has a CR equal to his character level -1, so the drow nobles are more powerful.
There are no hard and fast rules for level adjustments, you'll have to come up with something as GM if you want to allow non-standard races. There are some suggestions in the monster book, though. Some thoughts of mine:
Drow nobles just seemed to be strictly better versions of the drow, which makes me concerned about the balance among the other races presented.
They're not meant to be playable races, so it's not that important for them to be on par with humans and the like.
I play as one, with a few adjustments, I am a summoner, so I removed my nobles dexterity bonus, his sleep immunity, and his poison working immunity(Came up with some fluff as to why he's missing these abilities.
I also gave him normal drow spell resistance, not the beefed up version drow nobles get(although I wish I could have kept it :( )