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I ran a campaign a while ago that used the monsters called Vegepygmy as a player character race. I revamped it and made it roughly a 10 RP race. Let me know what you guys think of it!
I got a few concerns:
First:
They are proficient with the longspear and the javelin. This rarely makes a difference. Of the top of my head, a druid learns to use a javelin and a commoner learns to use either two weapons or one of them.
Second:
They are a small race with a floating +2 stat bonus. So no reduced strength here. Additionally, they are small and 30 ft fast. Additionally, they gain the unique, awesome and ratfolk-race defining swarm ability. As a cherry on top they gain plant immunities, which both takes out a lot of threats in an adventuring day and at the same time stops the race from benefiting from a lot of stuff or even stops them from using certain classes(Skald, Bard, Bloodrager and Babarian come to mind)
Third:
The toxic alternative trait is crazy good. It only replaces low light vision and grants a far too good scaling poison. Constitution damage never gets bad.
Overall this race-design feels far too good. With only one downside(vulnerability) but major upsides(swarming+full plant immunity) it feels offbalance.
In the end, i would not want a player using this race at my table, purely due to the crazy amount of stuff he would be immune to.
whoops! My bad on the whole oversight of all of the different benefits but the swarming one I had in mind more so due to the fact that they would defend and go pretty much ape sh*t when it comes to fighting for their Mold patches and as for the +2 anywhere I was thinking b/c of their origin that it is why the +2 was there. While they don't actually retain any abilities or appearances of their "birthcorpse" they all vary greatly in what they can do. I can make changes to their speed and I was running this off the book and missed the standard stat setup for the race itself. I had also had a unique drawback idea for the race where they were sun dependant and would start to die when they would go places that were too dark for their plant nature to gain benefits from the light.
I will replace the toxic trait with swarm so they can only get 1 or the other. Speed will get dropped as well, and I will make it so they are proficient with javelins, but not longspears perhaps some unique bonus to how they use them that ties into their unique weapon. I decided that while they do have plant immunities, I would make it so that they have a charisma score and wisdom score b/c a character with only 4 scores is a little lopsided.
There, I updated the Vegepygmy. I tried to balance them more by saying that they are a hybrid of plant and humanoid so they lost a chunk of their plant immunities and I made it so toxic and swarm cannot be used at the same time. I slowed down their speed and changed up their ability score bonuses so that they lose a lot in the strength department. I still want them to retain most of what else I have given them seeing as this is based on what the actual creature is that you would encounter but otherwise I am still open for more suggestions.
Lesser vegepygmy have not inherited the full capabilities of their race. Either weaklings or hybrids, many strike out on their own, to explore the greater world. This is a balanced player character race that can be used with any other core race or standard race in the game.
Lesser Vegepygmy Racial Traits
+2 Dexterity, +2 Wisdom, -2 Intelligence: Vegepygmy are fast and insightful but relatively dull-witted.
Subtype: Varies. Choose one other humanoid race to represent your former life. You gain that race type as a subtype, and also count as that race for all effects. You do not gain any bonuses or penalties, nor other abilities associated with that race.
Plant: Vegepygmy are plants, possessing the following features:
• Immune to all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, morale effects, patterns, and phantasms).
• Immune to paralysis, poison, polymorph, sleep effects, sonic, and stunning.
• Gain resistance 5 to electricity.
• Breathe and eat, but do not sleep unless they want to gain some beneficial effect from this activity. This means that they can sleep in order to regain spells, but sleep is not required to survive or stay in good health.
Small: Vegepygmy are Small creatures and gain a +1 size bonus to their AC, a +1 size bonus on attack rolls, a -1 penalty to their CMB and CMD, and a +4 size bonus on Stealth Checks.
Normal Speed: Vegepygmy have a base speed of 30 feet
Damage Reduction: Vegepygmy gain DR 5 / slashing or bludgeoning.
Darkvision: Vegepygmy can see in the dark up to 60 feet.
Low-Light Vision: Vegepygmy can see twice as far as humans in conditions of dim light.
Elusive: Vegepygmy gain a +4 racial bonus on Stealth checks, this bonus increase to +8 if they are in vegetation.
Verbal Component Vulnerability: Vegepygmy are unable to cast any spell that only requires verbal as the spell casting component (such as blur, blindness/deafeness, power word kill). However, vegepygmyies crude form of communal language does not interfere with multiple component spellcasting that includes verbal. The verbal components are sounds that are not tied to a specific spoken language when they are used in conjunction with somatic and/or material components.
Languages: Vegepygmy begin play understanding Undercommon and Vegepygmy, but cannot speak actual words. Vegepygmies communicate via a crude language of rhythmic taps, beats, hoots, whistles, and clicks. One way to make themselves understood is through pantomime. While overly complex conversations are not possible, a DC 10 Linguistics check should allow simple communication (such as buying something). More complex communication (such as getting directions) requires a DC 20 Linguistics check. Vegepygmy with high intelligence can choose from the following languages: Aklo, Dwarf, Common, Elven, Sylvan, Terran, and the primary language of their former life.
Alternate Racial Traits
Clawed: Some vegepygmy receive two claw attacks. These are primary attacks, dealing damage based on size. This trait replaces darkvision.
Putrescence: Some vegepygmy have a natural ability to sniff out decaying organic matter. This functions like the scent ability, but only for corpses and badly wounded creatures (creatures with 25% or fewer hit points). This trait replaces damage reduction.
Flora Symbiosis: All vegepygmy can empathically communicate with plants as if subject to a continual speak with plants spell. This trait replaces darkvision.
Vegepygmy Race Traits
Botanic Oculus: Your connection to flora is exceptionally strong. As a swift action, you gain greensight to a range of 60 feet. This effect lasts 1 minute. You can use this ability once per day at 1st level, plus one additional time per day at 5th level and every 5 levels thereafter, to a maximum of five times per day at 20th level.
Bone Collector: You gain a +1 trait bonus on all Craft (weapons) checks when making bone weapons, and reducing the cost of making the item by 5%. You also gain a +1 trait bonus on attack rolls made with weapons which include bone in their design.
Bone/Wood Affinity: You may reduce the Armor Check Penalty of bone/wooden armor and shields by 1.
Verbal Component Alternative
Their crude form of language does not interfere with spellcasting, but it does apply to spells that are language dependent. When casting a spell that is solely verbal for component requirements, a natural primal magic events occurs. The primal magic event’s CR is equal to caster level.
Lesser Vegepygmy Racial Traits (18 RP)
Type
Plant 10
Size
Small 0
Base Speed
Normal 0
Ability Score Modifiers
Standard (+2 Dex, +2 Wis, -2 Int) 0
Languages
Standard 0
Defense
Damage Reduction 1
Defense
Elemental Resistance (electricity 5) 1
Senses
Darkvision 2
Senses
Low-Light Vision -
Skill
Camouflage 1
Skill
Sneaky 5
Weakness
Verbal Component Vulnerability -2
Total 18
Alternate
Claws 2
Alternate
Putrescense 1
Alternate
Flora Symbiosis 2
This following is the monstrous race version which can be used in high-powered campaigns with the permission of your GM. It is far more powerful than other starting races, though, and it can unbalance a beginning game.
Vegepygmy (23 RP)
Type
Plant 10
Size
Small 0
Base Speed
Normal 0
Ability Score Modifiers
Standard (+2 Dex, +2 Wis, -2 Int) 0
Languages
Standard 0
Defense
Damage Reduction 1
Defense
Elemental Immunity (electricity) 4
Offense
Claws 2
Senses
Darkvision 2
Senses
Low-Light Vision -
Skill
Camouflage 1
Skill
Sneaky 5
Weakness
Verbal Component Vulnerability -2
Total 23
Alternate
Putrescense 1
Alternate
Flora Symbiosis 2 (replaces claws)