There have been a lot of homebrew races posted in these forums, and a great many of them are quite broken and very one-sided. There ARE some minor guidelines in the pathfinder conversion guide for making or converting races (which are often ignored, I might add) but not a lot of information on building up races that will lack an adjustment. So, after looking over the races I've written up a rough set of guidelines for making a race that will not be game-breaking, and which will be roughly on par with existing races, without having a level adjustment (typically).
Start here for stats. For the purposes of the guidelines, stat category means "physical" or "mental":
- +2 to a stat of choice if the race is at least half human.
- +2 to a predetermined stat and +2 to a stat of the other category, balanced with a subtraction from the same stat category.
Bonuses are racial bonuses, penalties are untyped penalties. Thus, racial bonuses do not stack, but the penalties do. The guidelines for races in PF are not "any combination of stats that sum to +2" as some people seem to believe.
As for racial abilities, races should have roughly the equivalent of 2.5 feats worth of abilities. To avoid dealing with fractions, we'll convert the 2.5 feats into 10 points... thus, 4 points is equivalent to 1 feat. Here are some examples of racial abilities and their "point cost":
10 point racial ability:
- Improve a racial stat bonus from +2 to +4
8 point racial ability:
- A feat of the player's choice
- Add a new +2 bonus to a stat that lacks it in a category that already has a bonus
4 point racial abilities:
- up to 30 foot fly, burrow, climb speed or up to 50' swim speed
- negate -2 worth of racial stat penalty.
- switch a racial stat bonus to the other category.
- +2 to a stat in a category with no stat bonuses yet.
- +1 bonus to all saving throws
- +1 AC bonus (armor, natural armor, etc)
- spell resistance of 6+class levels
- One natural attack that deals 1d6 or two (ie claws) that deal 1d4
- anything that resembles an existing feat (ie, gnome magic's +1 DC is identical to spell focus)
2 point racial abilities:
- 1 bonus skill point per class level
- +2 save bonus vs. small set of specific things (ie, fear, poison, disease... up to 3)
- +2 racial bonus to two different skills.
- Immunity to one type of effect (ie fear, sleep, poison)
- +5 spell resistance if the race already has it.
- One natural attack that deals 1d3 points
- Amphibious (breath both air and water)
- Darkvision 60'
- speed not reduced by heavy armor
- anything that resembles an existing feat but with half the bonus
1 point racial abilities:
- +4 dodge bonus vs. a specific creature type.
- +4 CMD bonus vs. one type of combat maneuver.
- +2 save vs one very specific thing
- +2 racial bonus to a skill.
- +1 attack bonus vs. specific creature types (one type - for humanoid and outsider must select up to two subtypes)
- Low-Light vision
- Weapon familiarity (up to 4 martial weapons - if only exotics for the race, costs 0)
- anything that is fairly trivial or minor
Things that give you MORE points to work with are generally penalties that are half as powerful as their same-point positive equivalents.
-4 point racial drawbacks
- -2 penalty to a stat that lacks a penalty in a category that has no existing penalties.
- -10 foot movement speed (a 5 foot penalty is worth nothing)
- Vulnerability to fire or cold.
-2 point racial drawbacks
- -2 penalty to a stat that already has an adjustment (positive or negative).
- Negate racial bonus to one stat
- Vulnerability to electricity, acid or sonic.
-1 point racial drawbacks
- -2 penalty to a stat in a category where additional penalties have already been applied.
- Light sensitivity
- Very situational penalty (ie, merfolk not liking to be out of water for long)
These are by no means complete or comprehensive, but they do give a rough guideline for building PF races that have no level adjustment and are on par with the existing examples of races from the Core books. Here's a quick look at a few of the existing races:
Human:
+2 to any stat
bonus feat of choice (8 pts)
+1 skill point per level (2 pts)
Half-Orc:
+2 to any stat
Darkvision (2 pt)
Intimidating (1 pts)
Orc Blood (1 pt)
Orc Ferocity (4 pts)
Weapon Familiarity (1 pt)
Gnome:
+2 Con, +2 Cha, -2 Str
Small (none)
Slow (-4 pts)
Low-light vision (1 pt)
Defensive Training (1 pts)
Gnome Magic +1 DC Illusions (4 pts)
Gnome Magic cantrips (4 pts)
Hatred (1 pts)
Illusion Resistance (1 pt)
Keen Senses (1 pt)
Obsessive (1 pt)
Dwarf:
+2 Con, +2 Wis, -2 Cha
Slow (-4 pts)
..and steady (2 pts)
Darkvision (2 pts)
Defensive Training (1 pt)
Greed (none - so specific that its fluff)
Hatred (1 pt)
Hardy (3 pts) - ad hoc +1 adjustment since "spells and spell like abilities" is pretty broad
Stability (2 pts)
Stonecunning (2 pts) - ad hoc +1 adjustment for the utility of 10' notice range
Weapon Familiarity (1 pt)
Merfolk:
+2 Dex, +2 Con, +2 Cha
Slow x 2 (-8 pts)
Negate racial penalty (4 pts)
Swap bonus to other category (4 pts)
+2 bonus to another stat (4 pts)
50' swim speed (4 pts)
Ambibious (2 pts)
Low-light vision (1 pt)
Can't (or won't) spend too much time out of water (-1 pts) ad hoc
Goblin:
-2 Str, +4 Dex, -2 Cha
Improve +2 Dex to +4 Dec (10 pts)
-2 Str (-4 pts)
Negate bonus to mental stat (-2 pts)
Darkvision (2 pts)
Skilled (4 pts... +2 to two skills x 2)
Orc:
+4 Str, -2 Int, -2 Wis, -2 Cha
Improve +2 Str to +4 Str (10 pts)
Negate mental bonus (-2 pts)
Penalty to mental stat with bonus (-2 pts)
Penalty to new mental stat (-1 pts)
Penalty to new mental stat (-1 pts)
Darkvision (2 pts)
Ferocity (4 pts)
Light Sensitivity (-1 pt)
Weapon Familiarity (1 pt)
Hobgoblin (12 pts, thus +1 adjustment... or CR 1/2 rather than 1/3):
+2 Dex, +2 Con
Negate racial penalty (4 pts)
Swpa bonus to other category (4 pts)
Darkvision (2 pts)
Sneaky (2 pts)
Kobold (0 pt, thus -1 adjustment.. or CR 1/4 rather than 1/3):
-4 Str, +2 Dex, -2 Con
-2 Con (-4 pts)
-2 to Mental stat with bonus (-2 pts)
-2 to Strength with penalty (-2 pts)
Darkvision (2 pts)
Armor (4 pts)
Crafty (3 pts) +2 to 3 skills, and two are always class skills ad hoc +1 pt
Light Sensitivity (-1 pt)
As always, the best guideline is to look at a racial ability and say "would I accept this ability as being about as powerful as a single feat? Would I let players have this ability as a feat without reservation?" If no, its worth more than 4 points! In fact, if its something you probably wouldn't let a player have as a feat, the race as a whole probably needs a level adjustment and thus the ability should be worth 8, 10, or even more points. You'll note, for example, that no 3.5 race had "Powerful Build" and 0 level adjustment... Goliaths and Half-Giants were both +1 ECL... and yet maybe a third of the races people post have powerful build with 0 adjustment.
Also notice the diminishing returns on stat penalties in the same category. This prevents people from category-loading their penalties in order to super-charge the race's stats in the other category and/or give lots of racial abilities. The Orc is an example of how you can category-load your penalties and get a pretty decent focus on the other category, but not superhumanly so!
I hope this helps some folks. Obviously when you get into fancy and intricate races you'll need to use ad-hoc point adjustments in conjunction with your common sense - the latter being the best tool of all.
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