KingmanHighborn |
As I mentioned here on my comparision between 3.5 and Pathfinder classes, now comes the race comparisons.
Keep in mind this means playable 'at' lvl 1, so no level adjustments or extra hit dice allowed. So while 3.5 had Aasimars and Tieflings and elemental children like the Genasi, and other 'humanoid' monsters they were not technically playable...more on that later.
1. Arctic Dwarf` (small sized not medium like normal Dwarf)
2. Asherati
3. Aventi
4. Azurin
5. Bhuka
6. Changeling
7. Darfellan
8. Deep Imaskari`
9. Dragonborn (RoD)
10. Duskling
11. Dwarf (Deep, Dark*,Gold`, Mountain~, Stone ~, Dream, Badlands, Seacliff)
12. Elan
13. Elf (Aquatic, Gray, Wild Wood, Kagenesti*, Qualinesti*, Silvanesti*, Sea*, Dargonesti*, Dimernesti*, Sun`, Star`, Painted)
14. Extaminaar`
15. Gnome (Forest, Whisper, Wavecrest, Mad*, Deep~)
16. Goblin
17. Gully Dwarf*(Gnome and Dwarf crossbreed)
18. Hadozee
19. Half-Elf (Half-Drow)
20. Half-Hobgoblin~
21. Half-Kender*
22. Halfling (Tallfellows, Deep, Ghostwise`, Strongheart`, Golden~, Shoal)
23. Half-Orc (Scablands)
24. Hobgoblin~
25. Human (lots of ethnic choices but nothing 'really' counting as a ‘subrace’)
26. Illumian
27. Kalashtar^
28. Kender* (like a Halfling to the point of interchangeability but stats and mentality vastly different enough to be separate)
29. Kenku
30. Killoren
31. Kobold
32. Krinth`
33. Maened
34. Minotaur* (medium size)
35. Mongrelfolk
36. Orc
37. Raptoran
38. Rilken
39. Sea Kin
40. Shifter^
41. Skarn
42. Spellscale
43. Spirit Folk`
44. Tarmak*
45. Underfolk
46. Warforged^
47. Wild Dwarf` (small sized not medium like normal Dwarf)
48. Xeph
Since Pathfinder after Bestiary 1 did away with the royally stupid ECL and LA rules for the RP system in ARG you'll notice I put gnoll and lizardfolk in here as they were down in the ARG book, which supersedes the Bestiary 1's LA on these two. Also Svirneblin which have 24 rp are included since they are put among the 'uncommons' and I'm only counting regular and not noble Drow. Otherwise I only included races at or under 20 RP.
1. Aasimar
2. Android
3. Catfolk
4. Changelings
5. Dhampir
6. Drow (not noble)
7. Duergar
8. Dwarf
9. Elf
10. Fetchling
11. Gathlain
12. Ghoran
13. Gillmen
14. Gnoll (ARG)
15. Gnome
16. Goblin
17. Grippli
18. Half-elf
19. Halfling
20. Half-orc
21. Hobgoblin
22. Human
23. Ifrit
24. Kasatha
25. Kitsune
26. Kobold
27. Lashunta
28. Lizardfolk (ARG)
29. Merfolk
30. Monkey Goblin
31. Nagaji
32. Orc
33. Oread
34. Ratfolk
35. Samsarans
36. Skinwalker
37. Strix
38. Suli
39. Svirfneblin
40. Sylph
41. Syrinx
42. Tengu
43. Tiefling
44. Triaxian
45. Undine
46. Vanara
47. Vishkanya
48. Wayangs
49. Wyrwood
50. Wyvaran
Okay first thing is first Pathfinder just edges out 3.5 in numbers of playable races, though 3.5 has several variants of Dwarves and Elves, and there is a lot of races that look human, (Xeph, Asherati, The Incarnum races, Illumian, etc. Heck Deep Imaskari and Underfolk are humans evolved to live in the Underdark) but share zero mechanical similarities and are generally shown as parallel to humans and not a branch of it. Of interesting note, is the difference in presentation of Changelings, with 3.5 a cross between human and doppelgangers, and in Pathfinder an all-female race born of human and hag parents, and capable of turning into a hag after puberty if they heed their mother’s call. Then there is the 3.5 Dragonborn, and yes they were a playable race BEFORE 4th, and they had a much cooler back story then they got in 4th. The TLDR being a youth of x race becomes a dragon by literally being willing transformed inside a magic egg and re-hatched to help Bahamut in his fight against Tiamat. Personally the rp and backstory with that makes a character as rich as expensive German chocolate.
3.5 had some duds in the race department like the Hadozee (winged orangutans…-_-;) and the apes of the hairless variety (humans and their human wannabes for the most part. But other than this I won’t go into my dislike of humans in fantasy.) But they did have winner winner chicken dinners: The Darfellan were very unique humanoid ‘orca’ like race that could live on land,3.5 Dragonborn before they got watered down in 4th, Gold Dwarfs, Mongrelfolk (A literal if too many half this and half that’s get together this will happen), Spellscales, Shifters and Warforged were all very unique and cool races.
3.5 and Pathfinder also have some overlapping races outside of the Core; Orcs, Goblins, Kenku (Kenku…Tengu…same thing.) , and Kobolds all represent, (Hobgoblins are bit different in Kalamar but still cool) and make fine PC choices. But other than that, the similarities start to divert. 3.5 only has one race that at lvl 1 that can get air born. (Raptorans, I think Hadozee get glide IIRC) Pathfinder has 3 (Strix, Syrinx, and Wyvaran, 4 if you count a feat for Aasimar, and Kobolds have trait to let them glide.) Now to me flight is not that big of an advantage, better mobility sure, but it’s also a great way to make yourself a target. (A flying wizard is a flak magnet for example, and people forget most dungeon ceiling are like…10ft high at best? Not to mention the flight mechanics as most can’t fly like a bee and just stop and start or turn on a dime.) So it’s a balance.
So 3.5 had quite a few cool races and some duds, but if we threw in all the possible racial variants from 3.5 it’d still get buried by the racial options in Pathfinder. Some call this bloat, me I call it being realistic as no two people ‘should’ be alike even within their own race. Even as vanilla as humans are, there is still some nice quirks of vanilla bean, French vanilla, vanilla and chocolate swirl…you get the point.
Now Pathfinder isn’t without faults, there is some dumb races that while I wouldn’t begrudge a PC for playing them I still don’t have to like em’ (Gripplis…frogs…-_-…eww. And Ghorans…a walking fruit salad for when the party gets hungry, literally!) And the water only races like Gillmen and Merfolk.
But where they just beat the every loving pants off 3.5, where they take 3.5 behind the woodshed and just beat em’ bloody is the vast amount of races that 3.5 locked away and said ‘These are monsters only’ and ‘you can only play these at x lvl once you figured in the races HD, LA, and it equals the ECL once they take a level of this…only then can you play them’…Pathfinder unlocked them and said ‘go to town’ (I don’t agree with PFS locking out most of the races, but I can see the point of simplicity in a more streamlined living storyline thing PFS does, so…don’t agree but not a big deal.) In a regular game of Pathfinder the races listed above once you add classes, aren’t really more powerful than one or the other. Some are tailor fitted for some classes, and you have munchkins, and power gamers, but that’s been true of D&D 3.5 too.
Aasimar, Tiefling, the not Genasi (Ifrit, Oread, Slyph, Undine) , Gnolls, Lizardfolk, Duergar, Svirfneblin, Drow, Catfolk and Hobgoblin (not counting KoK) were all locked away by an unnecessary and overly complicated mechanic. There was a lot more in 3.5 that could of made great PC characters (There is a polar bear race in Dragonlance that springs to mind.) but weren’t even given a ‘player stat’ block (Like +2 Str, -2 Dex, etc.) but were given LA, and sometimes even stated they favor ‘x’ class and advance in class. -_-;… so it was mathematical headache, and the way leveling was done a massive kneecap if you wanted to have fun. Because let’s say I wanted to play a Gnoll paladin in 3.5 (I did actually by the way. He is my divine hunter in Pathfinder.) In 3.5 Races of the Wild came out and made the race a quasi-class you had to take 3 levels in before you could take your first level of pally, (But at least it and few other books did do this for other races making them playable but hear me out.) what stunk though was those 3 levels literally got you just HD, a point of nat. armor, and martial weapon prof, with I think med. Armor prof. You were gimped hard compared to just playing a 6th lvl pally. In Pathfinder my Gnoll Pally rocks just as hard a humie pally does because both are lvl 6 when they have the same exp. And it made no sense because the race features really didn’t add up to the LA, drop the HD and there is literally NOTHING the race offered but a racial adjustment (again solely thanks to RotW), some profs. And some nat. armor. Other races like 3.5’s Catfolk got hurt even worse cause they got a level adjustment for no reason and NO HD. Yeah a level 2 3.5 Catfolk Wizard would have 1d4+Con. That hurts.
Thank Caydean, Pathfinder later knifed this stupid system. (B1 still had it, but it seems like it’s dead now, with ARG burying it and letting the cats use it for a litter box.)
Pathfinder also expanded what 3.5 didn’t offer, Kitsune, Androids, Ratfolk , Wyrwoods and Skinwalkers (discount Warforged and Shifters…but I’ll take em’.) and Wyvarans (not a half-dragon but good enough ^-^)
Anyway that’s my two coppers. And a rant/vent.
TLDR 3.5 races had some cool things I still like to this day but Level Adjustment, and ECL was a very bad mechanic and Pathfinder won the day with their races and racial options.
Also Pathfinder has the ONLY cool monkey race in the Vanara.
MMCJawa |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Pathfinder also has the Shabti (Mummy's Mask) and Kuru (Shackles Campaign Setting book)
I would also say Pathfinder has done a bit better on putting all their races in one setting. Yeah some are rare and are mostly found on other world/continents, but with the exception of a few ARG races, they mostly fit in someplace. A lot of 3.5 races get mentioned once, and never brought up again in any other book.
pres man |
ECL (HD + LA) was complicated, but I understand some hard a hard time with it. Also Savage Species had rules for playing many of the monsters races at 1st level. Basically it was just like multi-classing.
That isn't to say I think it was perfect. In my own version, each LA gives you 1d4 HD, 2+Int skills, poor saves. One reason is that the rules for ECL were written to make the monster choices weaker overall, this helps mitigate some of that. It also makes character level = hd, which effects some spells and other abilities.
I will note that PF doesn't do that for some monsters, focusing on CR instead of HD, this can lead to some confusion as to whether to apply the character level, the HD total, or party level.
KestrelZ |
The best advancement Pathfinder made was a guide for a GM to create races. Yes, it is flawed. It is still a guide and far better than 3.5 asking people to look in he monster manuals and guesstimate if a home brew race was suitable.
Arturius Fischer |
3 people marked this as a favorite. |
First--Just because ECL was poorly estimated in many cases doesn't mean it's a bad system. It's certainly better than NOT having it and just having heaps of racial abilities with no cost, like the last half of the Advanced Race Guide. In most cases the problem is that they looked at the stats from a 1st-level character's perspective and assigned a Level Adjustment, THEN they said you had to pay for the Hit Dice as well. Instead of, say, having the Monster Hit Dice 'buy back' some of the Level Adjustment.
Second--Don't mock the Hadozee. They have a longer history than most of the weird new races on this list, coming from 2nd Edition, specifically Spelljammer, one of the coolest settings ever (Although they also existed in a SciFi game called Star Frontiers they put out at about the same time, though they had a different name there, I believe). And having an orangutan that can drop down on you like a freaking flying squirrel and rip your face off only sounds funny until it happens to you. I like the 'deck apes'.
Third--Thanks for pointing that out about the Dragonborn. While I already knew it, it was tiresome to hear people constantly bring up how they were imported from 4th. What was really fun is that they were a 'pseudo-template' race in 3.5 since you could make them from other races, rather than just being a single set of stats like in 4th. You want to play an actual 'Dragon Man' without LA? Raptoran Dragonborn. BOOM, Flight -and- Breath Weapon (measured in rounds rather than X/day) that slowly scale with level.
Fourth--If you include Savage Species (which some decry as being overpowered in some cases, but hey, go check out the Advanced Race Guide someday), you had a pile of +0 level adjustment Small anthropomorphics.
Fifth--Pretty sure Gripplis existed prior to PF. In fact, they're one of the older critters around, and I remember them being in one of the old Dragon magazines for 3rd (though I believe they predate it from at least 2nd). However, I despise them as a race and wish they had never been made. Halfling are already pushing it in the believability scale, but having such tiny AND thin things without terrible stat penalties is annoying.
Sixth--PFS didn't ban races due to story reasons in most cases, but mechanics reasons. Many of the races are straight out broken compared to the more 'core' races. They can present problems to party balance, game balance, and can give problems to some DM's. In a home game, this sort of thing is easily houseruled or adapted to by the one DM who runs it. PFS decided to avoid the headache altogether.
Seven--Someone already pointed out Vanara came from Oriental Adventures. Amazingly, SO DID THE SPIRITFOLK you had on your list. And the Spiritfolk were awesome. So you had to at least look at the book, how did you miss the Vanara? They were one of the few races that gave more positive stats while having abilities.
Eight--Goblins have been poop in every prior version. It took Pathfinder to make them awesome.
Nine--Math isn't hard. Especially when, to find a stat modifier, you just have to subtract 10 or 11 depending if it was even or odd. 19/14/17/10/12/9? +8/+4/+6/+0/+2/-2. Easy. This is something 3rd had going for it real good, and it's just as simple to do now.
Ten--Both editions have some terrible, derivative races (see any 'human variant'). But both have some really awesome, flavorful, mechanically fun races. Taking all this into consideration, it's fun to see what the editions came up with. And since PF is basically 3.75 anyway, it's fairly easy to just 'adopt' all those 3.5 races (in most cases slapping on a +2 stat mod somewhere for balance, or let it 'float' for the Human-variants) into a campaign. MUCH less work than trying to convert over some of the cool classes like Dread Necro or Warlock.
Orthos |
Taking all this into consideration, it's fun to see what the editions came up with. And since PF is basically 3.75 anyway, it's fairly easy to just 'adopt' all those 3.5 races (in most cases slapping on a +2 stat mod somewhere for balance, or let it 'float' for the Human-variants) into a campaign. MUCH less work than trying to convert over some of the cool classes like Dread Necro or Warlock.
Regardless of anything else, this I have to agree with. I'm pretty lenient in what I allow for races, and I bring in 3.5 stuff to my games all the time.
Dragonchess Player |
2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Second--Don't mock the Hadozee. They have a longer history than most of the weird new races on this list, coming from 2nd Edition, specifically Spelljammer, one of the coolest settings ever (Although they also existed in a SciFi game called Star Frontiers they put out at about the same time, though they had a different name there, I believe).
Star Frontiers was published at the same time as 1st Ed AD&D, and the hadozee (along with plasmoid, rastipede, and syllix) were Spelljammer adaptations for the yazirian (as well as draslite, vrusk, and sathar, respectively) from those rules.
/RPG history lesson
pres man |
The best advancement Pathfinder made was a guide for a GM to create races. Yes, it is flawed. It is still a guide and far better than 3.5 asking people to look in he monster manuals and guesstimate if a home brew race was suitable.
Well that was the default way of doing it. The more advanced way was to buy the Savage Species rulebook. It had rules for determining LA. Again, just like with PF, the rules weren't perfect and D&D didn't follow all of themselves, but let's not suggest there wasn't any guidance given, you just had to pay for it.
Instead of, say, having the Monster Hit Dice 'buy back' some of the Level Adjustment.
Actually I think that was the way it worked. It was basically a 2 racial HD = 1 LA trade. So a race that was suppose to be LA 4, might be 4 racial HD and LA 2. This was because too much LA (being just empty level slots in 3e) would make the creature way too weak. The compromise was to give it some HD in exchange for some of the LA.
KingmanHighborn |
First--Just because ECL was poorly estimated in many cases doesn't mean it's a bad system. It's certainly better than NOT having it and just having heaps of racial abilities with no cost, like the last half of the Advanced Race Guide. In most cases the problem is that they looked at the stats from a 1st-level character's perspective and assigned a Level Adjustment, THEN they said you had to pay for the Hit Dice as well. Instead of, say, having the Monster Hit Dice 'buy back' some of the Level Adjustment.
Well I like the ARG and they have a cost in R. Points, most of the time if you just dropped the extra HD you had no need for level adjustment. Tieflings and Aasimars for example just didn't need it.
Third--Thanks for pointing that out about the Dragonborn. While I already knew it, it was tiresome to hear people constantly bring up how they were imported from 4th. What was really fun is that they were a 'pseudo-template' race in 3.5 since you could make them from other races, rather than just being a single set of stats like in 4th. You want to play an actual 'Dragon Man' without LA? Raptoran Dragonborn. BOOM, Flight -and- Breath Weapon (measured in rounds rather than X/day) that slowly scale with level.
Yeah while I'm not nuts about Raptorans, (I see the flavor of Raptoran Dragonborn though that's pretty cool.) I really did love the 3.5 backstory. The idea of 'giving' yourself over to a dragon and being reborn was so cool.
Fourth--If you include Savage Species (which some decry as being overpowered in some cases, but hey, go check out the Advanced Race Guide someday), you had a pile of +0 level adjustment Small anthropomorphics.
ARG isn't overpowered at all though. And you are still stuck in Savage Species having to take the race as a class. Which is something I despise.
PFS didn't ban races due to story reasons in most cases, but mechanics reasons. Many of the races are straight out broken compared to the more 'core' races. They can present problems to party balance, game balance, and can give problems to some DM's. In a home game, this sort of thing is easily houseruled or adapted to by the one DM who runs it. PFS decided to avoid the headache altogether.
But what I'm saying is there is ZERO brokenness in any class under 20 rp, zero, nada, none. They present zero problems in party or game balance. Now I see the ones that crest over the 20 mark like Centaur (which still isn't mechanically more powerful level for level compared to oh say...a human.) Maybe it's just me but it's not avoiding a headache when there is no headache to begin with.
Someone already pointed out Vanara came from Oriental Adventures. Amazingly, SO DID THE SPIRITFOLK you had on your list. And the Spiritfolk were awesome. So you had to at least look at the book, how did you miss the Vanara? They were one of the few races that gave more positive stats while having abilities.
Hmmm yeah I must have missed them, those were the L5R books right? Spiritfolk was in a Faerun book, Unapproachable East I think.
Nine--Math isn't hard. Especially when, to find a stat modifier, you just have to subtract 10 or 11 depending if it was even or odd. 19/14/17/10/12/9? +8/+4/+6/+0/+2/-2. Easy. This is something 3rd had going for it real good, and it's just as simple to do now.
Ten--Both editions have some terrible, derivative races (see any 'human variant'). But both have some really awesome, flavorful, mechanically fun races. Taking all this into consideration, it's fun to see what the editions came up with. And since PF is basically 3.75 anyway, it's fairly easy to just 'adopt' all those 3.5 races (in most cases slapping on a +2 stat mod somewhere for balance, or let it 'float' for the Human-variants) into a campaign. MUCH less work than trying to convert over some of the cool classes like Dread Necro or Warlock.
I forgot about the subtraction formula but it's just nicer to be given +2 this, -2 that TBH.
And yeah I agree most of the dumb races were human variants (humans in general are blech XP) But yeah I agree on that point, as far as bringing them over to Pathfinder, most you can just ignore the HD and LA and roll them at 1st level.
Raymond Lambert |
3.5 had rules for buying off level adjustments. Think it was next to a page with artwork of a beholder conducting a ritual. Guessing unearthed arcana(for back in the day when we only had the MMs to get LA+) or savage species.
Did gnolls not get either lowlight or dark vision? Natural armor is not given out cheaply. You also fail to point out the gnoll bite attack. That bite was more valuable before the barbarian rage power and half orc racial option for bite attacks.
I'm not saying I would play a LA race without it being a story over mechanics option because the no hit die levels are really hard on the bulid of a chatacter. So hard i dissmiss them for machanical reasons, but I don't agree that these races should just give all their extra power away for free.
KingmanHighborn |
Gnolls in the ARG get +2 Str and Con, +2 Nat. Armor, 60ft Darkvision, and the xenophobic trait so they have to 'buy' common with a rank in Linguistics. Gnolls in Pathfinder also don't get a bite attack. Nor do Gnolls in 3.5 have a bite attack.
As I said compare any race to human and you'll find that the races in ARG alone are not really any more powerful.
Arturius Fischer |
Well I like the ARG and they have a cost in R. Points, most of the time if you just dropped the extra HD you had no need for level adjustment. Tieflings and Aasimars for example just didn't need it.
And if you built a race with, say, 25 Race Points, how DO you balance that to the others when things like LA don't exist?
I'm totally OK with allowing such races... but for every 10 above the base 10, it's +1 LA.I 'sawed off' the Resistances in my came. Aasimar/Tiefling are the same, but they only get ONE of the Resistances, player's choice. This helps show some differential in their ancestry.
ARG isn't overpowered at all though. And you are still stuck in Savage Species having to take the race as a class. Which is something I despise.
See my example above. Look at the crazy races toward the back with heaps of abilities.
For that matter, look at the freakin Strix with a 60' fly speed and a host of other racials with no penalties (nerfed back down to 30' and Average in my games). The Raptorans were the right idea, and it was downright brilliant how they worked the low-level mechanical limitations into the actual 'fluff' RP history as to how their society worked. Wish that was done for more races, honestly.And no, those Small Anthros that were single-HD races? You DON'T keep that monster HD. It gets replaced with a class level if you have one, like all the other 1HD examples in the game. Bat, Lizard, Monkey, Rat, etc... all swapped out that first level and had +0 ECL.
But what I'm saying is there is ZERO brokenness in any class under 20 rp, zero, nada, none. They present zero problems in party or game balance.
Yeah, no. Comparing those to the 'standard' Core races results in a difference in balance, to the point where if they are an option, almost nobody will pick the old ones at all. Now, some people may cry 'RP purposes!', but those people are less concerned with rules balance anyway and don't quite grasp the problem. Generally you're not too worried about the people farther along the Role-playing side breaking your game.
Now, to be fair, what's really broken are goofy rules adjudications such as allowing Spell-Like Abilities to count as "Spells" for prestige class qualifications and the like. That's a glaring flaw that needs to be patched, and they even did so in PFS by brining the hammer down too hard and banning Aas/Tief as starting races without special permission.Hmmm yeah I must have missed them, those were the L5R books right? Spiritfolk was in a Faerun book, Unapproachable East I think.
Apparently there were multiple Spiritfolk, then. They might be the same, not sure. Out of all 3rd Edition, I permabanned all the Forgotten Realms stuff as it was several orders of magnitude more cheesy and broken than most other things. It was easier to just nuke it all than to sort through and find what WAS balanced. So if that's the case, my bad, I didn't know FR put a copy out too. And if they ARE different, I don't even want to know their version. This explains the lack of the Nezumi, though, who were better Ratfolk than the modern variety.
Oriental Adventures was one of my fav 3rd Edition books.I forgot about the subtraction formula but it's just nicer to be given +2 this, -2 that TBH.
It's nicer. But nothing to really complain about. Generally if the designers thought it would be too much hassle, they didn't bother. If one is a newer DM who didn't know the simple subtraction formula, one should probably avoid allowing that race anyway. It's not a bug, it's a feature! ;)
---
Star Frontiers was published at the same time as 1st Ed AD&D, and the hadozee (along with plasmoid, rastipede, and syllix) were Spelljammer adaptations for the yazirian (as well as draslite, vrusk, and sathar, respectively) from those rules.
Awesome! That means one of my favorite races is even older than I thought--Thanks!
I only ever had the starter box of Star Frontiers which I picked up from a yard sale as a kid, but had long since lost it, so most of my memory in that regard is hazy. I didn't care for the Yazirians much in that setting, but man, I loved 'em in Spelljammer!---
Woebegone Necromancer---Daelkyr Half-Bloods! YES! Another awesome 3rd Ed race. Nothing like having a conjoined twin who's also a symbiotic weapon that grows with you. They made for some really fun Druids, too...
KingmanHighborn |
Yeah but the ARG made them a 6 RP race by getting rid of the HD.
But yeah Gnolls are badass, of course so are kobolds ;)
And if you built a race with, say, 25 Race Points, how DO you balance that to the others when things like LA don't exist?
I'm totally OK with allowing such races... but for every 10 above the base 10, it's +1 LA.
I 'sawed off' the Resistances in my came. Aasimar/Tiefling are the same, but they only get ONE of the Resistances, player's choice. This helps show some differential in their ancestry.
I'll admit 25 is a bit hard (hence I cut it off at 20 plus svirfneblin) But the thing is under 20 they are not more powerful then a core race once you add classes and things like a human's free feat it's not game changing. I don't see the Aasimar and Tiefling resistances as a big problem at low levels the resistances are circumstantial at best, nice if they apply when the bad guy has a flaming/shocking/frost/etc. weapon but once things like Fireballs and stuff start getting broke out that R 5 is rinky dink.
For that matter, look at the freakin Strix with a 60' fly speed and a host of other racials with no penalties (nerfed back down to 30' and Average in my games). The Raptorans were the right idea, and it was downright brilliant how they worked the low-level mechanical limitations into the actual 'fluff' RP history as to how their society worked. Wish that was done for more races, honestly.
And no, those Small Anthros that were single-HD races? You DON'T keep that monster HD. It gets replaced with a class level if you have one, like all the other 1HD examples in the game. Bat, Lizard, Monkey, Rat, etc... all swapped out that first level and had +0 ECL.
Again flight makes you a TARGET. You have to invest in the Fly skill, Average maneuverability is nice for Strix but you still have to account it's got some limitations. And you need 'space' to fly, and most dungeons have very small ceilings. So again a perk at best but not overly powerful. Not to mention if your wings get clipped 100 ft. up by a spell or just a sudden storm, you could be borked quick.
Yeah, no. Comparing those to the 'standard' Core races results in a difference in balance, to the point where if they are an option, almost nobody will pick the old ones at all. Now, some people may cry 'RP purposes!', but those people are less concerned with rules balance anyway and don't quite grasp the problem. Generally you're not too worried about the people farther along the Role-playing side breaking your game.
Now, to be fair, what's really broken are goofy rules adjudications such as allowing Spell-Like Abilities to count as "Spells" for prestige class qualifications and the like. That's a glaring flaw that needs to be patched, and they even did so in PFS by brining the hammer down too hard and banning Aas/Tief as starting races without special permission.
I politely disagree of course, the core races are very competitive with at minimum what's in the ARG. Kitsune, Aasimar, Tiefling, etc. isn't more powerful then Human for example. A Half-Elf with Ancestral Arms is pretty beastie start in some builds. Are you honestly going to tell me this: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/races/other-races/uncommon-races/arg-svirfneblin Is more powerful then this: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/races/core-races/gnome
Yes Svirfneblin have SR, but I've seen DMs rule it blocks the party's buffing and healing magic too unless consciously lowered. They have some neat abilities sure, but it's nothing game breaking.
I do agree on the Spell-Like Abilities thing. I wouldn't allow SLA's to count in my games. It just should of been errated rather then ban Aasimar and Tieflings.
Scythia |
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Quote:But what I'm saying is there is ZERO brokenness in any class under 20 rp, zero, nada, none. They present zero problems in party or game balance.Yeah, no. Comparing those to the 'standard' Core races results in a difference in balance, to the point where if they are an option, almost nobody will pick the old ones at all. Now, some people may cry 'RP purposes!', but those people are less concerned with rules balance anyway and don't quite grasp the problem.
That must be why nobody plays humans anymore.
Oh, except they're still exceedingly popular with optimizers, even beside those "broken" non-standard races. In fact, if it hadn't been for the FAQ about using an SLA to get early entry into a prestige class, human would likely be the undisputed king for optimizing.
KingmanHighborn |
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Arturius Fischer wrote:
Quote:But what I'm saying is there is ZERO brokenness in any class under 20 rp, zero, nada, none. They present zero problems in party or game balance.Yeah, no. Comparing those to the 'standard' Core races results in a difference in balance, to the point where if they are an option, almost nobody will pick the old ones at all. Now, some people may cry 'RP purposes!', but those people are less concerned with rules balance anyway and don't quite grasp the problem.That must be why nobody plays humans anymore.
Oh, except they're still exceedingly popular with optimizers, even beside those "broken" non-standard races. In fact, if it hadn't been for the FAQ about using an SLA to get early entry into a prestige class, human would likely be the undisputed king for optimizing.
^ This *hugs Scythia*
And KC Lizardfolk only have a +2 to Nat. Armor.
Adjule |
You might want to double-check that.
He's talking about the one in the ARG: This Lizardfolk
Orthos |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Arturius Fischer wrote:
Quote:But what I'm saying is there is ZERO brokenness in any class under 20 rp, zero, nada, none. They present zero problems in party or game balance.Yeah, no. Comparing those to the 'standard' Core races results in a difference in balance, to the point where if they are an option, almost nobody will pick the old ones at all. Now, some people may cry 'RP purposes!', but those people are less concerned with rules balance anyway and don't quite grasp the problem.That must be why nobody plays humans anymore.
Oh, except they're still exceedingly popular with optimizers, even beside those "broken" non-standard races. In fact, if it hadn't been for the FAQ about using an SLA to get early entry into a prestige class, human would likely be the undisputed king for optimizing.
Heck, they still are. I see humans recommended more often (floating stat boost, free feat, free skill points, and most of all guaranteed to be allowed in almost any game by even the most restrictive of GMs) than any other race combined.
I'm very tempted to link my rant on why I don't like humans in RPGs, with them being mechanically superior to everything and its grandmother being one of the main points, but I'll spare you. =)
MMCJawa |
Oddly enough, as someone who prefers "Human Dominant" settings, I actually agree with Orthos. It bothers me that Humans have their superiority built into them, and when people play up how "special" humans are compared to everything else.
I prefer a heavy extraplanar/extraterrestrial element in my settings, so I just roll with Humans being common on certain worlds, while Dwarves dominate others, Lizardfolk are common on these worlds, etc.
Samy |
Both 3.5 and PF should, IMO, have some modularity to their races. In 3.5 terms, different versions for +0, +1 and +2 LA. Savage Species did that a little bit with "monster levels", but it should have been more ubiquitous. FRCS had the "lesser aasimar" and "lesser tiefling" so you could play those races as +0 LA. I think just about every +1 LA race should have had a sidebar for "if you want to play this race as +0 LA, change these things". Similarly I think PF should definitely have a mechanic for making non-core races more palatable to DMs, although it is more difficult to codify because LA doesn't exist. And it doesn't of course help with those DMs who ban races for fluff reasons rather than crunch reasons. But I certainly would want rules that would state how to downgrade various races so that more DMs would accept them.
On another tangent, despite the posted list of fifty or so, I find that, to me, subjectively, personally, races are the most sorely lacking part of Pathfinder. I'm drowning in classes, traits, feats, but I'm always having trouble finding an interesting race. I always end up going to a short list of half a dozen or so same races all the time.
Actually I think more alternate racial traits would help more than new races. There's a lot of races that I find interesting on a fluff level, but they just have stupid abilities. Playing a dhampir, for example, I find it interesting, but that asinine negative energy affinity throws such a wrench into healing that the race becomes more of an annoyance than fun. I would pay fricking $100 for an Advanced Race Guide 2 that left out the core races, and just spent 200+ pages on providing more options to the non-core races. There's a reason why Blood of Fiends/Angels are my favorite Player Companions of all time, and it's because they provide so many mechanical options for the races that you can do practically anything with those two races now. It's a shame that Blood of Night and Blood of Elements dropped the ball so badly mechanical-wise, because I would've loved to play dhamps and geniekin more, but their mechanical options remain totally crap compared to aasimar/tieflings.
KingmanHighborn |
I don't think Pathfinder NEEDS to downgrade any of it's races though tbh, a downgrade guide would of been nice with 3.5 such as just flat out dropping level adjustment all together, (use the previously mentioned subtract method Arturius mentioned, ignore extra HD all together, etc. and I really don't like the idea of races being classes.)
More race traits are always welcome, but I happen to think the negative energy affinity is both a blessing and curse, and unique wrinkle for Dhampir.
Josh M. |
Actually I stated they look human, "but share zero mechanical similarities and are generally shown as parallel to humans and not a branch of it"
Not shortchanging them, but they are physically indistinguishable from human if you took the arcane ring around their heads away.
So, does that mean your only basis for comparisons between 3.5 and PF races are appearance?
But even beyond that, they are unlike anything in Pathfinder. They are a quite complicated race. They did something really different; they gave a plthora of options for mechanically customizing a single race, before the advent of Traits in PF.
They were the perfect race for multiclassing, which, given Paizo's tendency to frown on multiclassing, certainly puts them at odds with Paizo's design style. Still, they are a part of D&D's(and by extension, PF's) legacy, and something that future materials could be built off of.
Adjule |
Dragon Compendium Volume 1 is the name you're looking for =)
And alas, it was the last volume as well. Volume 1 makes you think there are others, but it is not true.
That thing had quite a few pretty cool things in it. Like all those sorcerer bloodline feats that seem to have been the precursor to Pathfinder's sorcerer bloodlines. Though, I haven't seen a Law and Chaos bloodline (like celestial and the 2 fiendish ones). Protean would be close to the Chaos, but what would the Law be? I believe we have a Neutral one.