Adv Race Guide / Race Builder / Reduced stats?

[ArVagor]

I'm helping a friend design some dwarven sub-races for a home campaign; it's not Pathfinder, but we're using the Advanced Raced Guide for guidance to keep the sub-races balanced.

One of the sub-races has more affinity for earth and stone than the others—similar to an Oread, but not quite the same. We also found the "earth dwarf" variant in the D&D 3.5 Unearthed Arcana, and those stats were just about right: +2 Str, –2 Dex, +2 Con, –2 Cha. The Str and Con bumps for the hardiness of stone, Dex penalty since stoney things aren't generally very agile, and Cha penalty because, well ... they're *dwarves*.

So Specialized (1 RP) seems to be the best starting point, with the following base: +2 Str, +2 Con, –2 Cha. But can anyone suggest what the point value might be to lower that last stat (Dex)? Advanced Dexterity grants a +2 bonus for 4 RP, but I can't really see a –2 penalty to a stat being worth –4 RP? I've also tried various combinations of Greater Weakness, Mixed Weakness with Advanced (whatever), but one stat always gets out of hand (either to a +4 or –4)...

[UnArcaneElection]

You may have to wing this and accept some imbalance (not necessarily in your favor). The race creation rules from the Advanced Race Guide (at least as they appear on the d20pfsrd page for this actually don't seem to balance all that well. For instance, Fetchlings come out really expensive in Race Points (total 17) while Humans come out fairly cheap (total 9). Fetchlings are not terrible, but not so awesome as to warrant twice the RP expense of Humans, which are the best at most things. The disparity gets even more when you look at the elemental plane-touched: Ifrits (6 RP), Oreads (6 RP), Sylphs (6 RP), and Undines (7 RP) -- they have some limitations compared to Humans that make it worth them being somewhat cheaper, but they aren't THAT awful compared to Fetchlings. Aasimars (15 RP) and Tieflings (13 RP) are worth some extra expense (especially Aasimars), but they still come out less expensive than Fetchlings.

With that in mind, you could start with the concept of Mixed Weakness (-2 RP), which normally could give you +2 Phys1, -2 Phys2, +2 Mental1, -4 Mental2 (or the other way around), but can't get you +2 Phys1, -2 Phys2, +2 Phys3, -4 Mental1. Then think of the relation between Standard (0 RP), which gets you +2 Phys1, -2 Phys2_or_Mental2, +2 Mental1; and Specialized (1 RP = 1 more than Standard), which gets you +2 Phys1, +2 Phys2, -2 Mental1 (or the other way around). So by analogy, a house-ruled "Specialized Weakness" would be -1 RP (1 more than Mixed Weakness) and get you +2 Phys1, -2 Phys2, +2 Phys3, -4 Mental1, which for your purposes is +2 Str, -2 Dex, +2 Con, -4 Cha. Then use Advanced Charisma (4 RP) to get you +2 Cha (ofsetting part of the -4 Cha). Congratulations: You have just paid 3 RP extra to be 2 total Ability points worse off than a standard Dwarf; even if you house-rule in a discount of 1 or 2 RP for using this to offset part of a -4 penalty instead of boosting from no modifier or an existing bonus, you still paid 1 or 2 RP extra to be worse. Note that the Advanced Ability Score Modifier Quality, not to be confused with Advanced (1 Specific Ability Score such as Advanced Charisma), also costs 4 RP, but gives you +2 Phys1, +2 Phys2, +2 Phys3, +4 Mental1, -2 Mental2 (or the other way around), although it does add the prerequisites of "Advanced or monstrous power level".

I haven't done a careful analysis, but stuff like this already in the system (but not necessarily as easily visible) is likely responsible for making the Fetchling more expensive than the Aasimar and Tiefling and WAY more expensive than the Humans and the elemental plane-touched races.

[Timebomb]

The Adv Race Guide isn't exactly known for it's ability to precisely gauge "OPness" of races, it is decent at getting a general feel however.

I'd not worry about the points terribly, limit yourself to ~15 RP and post what YOU feel is a balanced race to the boards. The ~15 points will keep you from making something heinous (though if you go a bit over to get the flavor and think it is balanced you should be OK). We can then give you what we think about the races and try to point out anything you missed. Just be careful about giving spells (or movement abilities/tweaks, but if you're making alternate dwarfs you should be fine between the dwarf, slow, and normal movement options).

As to the actual question, I'd put +2 Str, –2 Dex, +2 Con, –2 Cha at (-2 RP)

[Deadmanwalking]

ArVagor wrote:

I'm helping a friend design some dwarven sub-races for a home campaign; it's not Pathfinder, but we're using the Advanced Raced Guide for guidance to keep the sub-races balanced.

This is a tragic error that will only result in tears.

Any system where +4 Str, +2 Con, with no penalties is quite a bit cheaper than +4 Str +2 Con, -2 Int, -2 Wis is not designed well and will not in any way result in balanced characters.

In short: Don't ever use the race point system if trying to balance things.

[ArVagor]

Thank you all for the input. As I said, we are consulting the ARG just for guidance, not as hard and fast rules on race development. I'm well aware of the wide RP range (Svirfneblin == 24 RP? Really???)

The gist of the race is that dwarves in his world are really derived from elemental earth, very similar to the background John Wick describes for them in his Wicked Fantasy line. So there is a core dwarf based on Earth, as well as four sub-races/ethnicities tied to the plane of Earth's interaction with the planes around it (Mineral, Magma, Ooze, and Dust). The dwarves are not themselves elemental (in other words, the ethnicity tied to Magma wouldn't have the (fire) sub-type); we just want their nature (and stats) to reflect that (so the "magma" dwarves, being connected with fire, should be more agile, "mineral" dwarves should be more structured, etc.)

FWIW, after some discussion last night, we're thinking that adding a –2 Dex onto the Specialized line is only going to be worth –1 RP. Mainly because it feels about right; this also happens to be the difference between "Standard" and "Weakness" (which has a net –2 to a single score).

[Enlight_Bystand]

You should also consider that between 3.5 and Pathfinder most every race got a +2 boost to their modifiers, which will be why the options are struggling to get you that 3.5 array.

[Secret Wizard]

I would place the value of the stats you mention at -1, but I prefer not to have two bonus to two physical attributes (or mental).