EltonJ |
The racial character maker has struck again, hahaha! This time it has to do with the phins.
Dolphin Racial Traits. Take a look at them and tell me where you'd adjust them. I'd like to put this up on Pathways.
EltonJ |
I made some changes to the Racial Traits based on the suggestions of everyone and I'll be making some more changes.
Battle-hardened can be added as an additional trait, as Dolphins have been seen to have been going to war before.
Cyrad RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16 |
It makes more sense you'd take a penalty to Intelligence for being a dolphin because...well...you're an awakened animal. While dolphins are smart compared to most animals, they're not smart compared to humans. Ability scores are based on relative ability compared to an average human. Even familiars are less intelligent than the average human up until higher levels.
The Boss |
I have been in close proximity while in the water to bottle nose daulphins ( what we call porpoise, on the AL gulf coast) three times in my life. They are roughly the size of a horse, 1100 lbs or more (adult). One gave me a pretty good nudge, I have never been so scared in my life.
They should be large, granted some species are medium. There are porpoises in the Amazon river and tributaries that are about 200-300 lbs
Most are big though
EltonJ |
It makes more sense you'd take a penalty to Intelligence for being a dolphin because...well...you're an awakened animal. While dolphins are smart compared to most animals, they're not smart compared to humans. Ability scores are based on relative ability compared to an average human. Even familiars are less intelligent than the average human up until higher levels.
Try these stats on my Dolphin page. Reduced intelligence, size changed to large.
Ken Marable |
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Nice work. I don't recall what stats they used, but waaay Bastion Press has dolphins as a PC race in their Oathbound setting but that was probably 3.0 and what you have is likely better anyway.
Not sure how to fit it into stats, but if you want some other flavorful ideas that have some basis in reality, I have studied dolphin brains a bit and they are awfully fascinating. the Int penalty makes sense also because their logic/reason (e.g. Frontal lobe) parts of their brains aren't as developed as even some other primates, but the emotional parts of their brains are actually more complex than humans. So their emotional experiences may be even richer than our own. Not sure how to translate that into game terms, maybe bonus saves against emotion-based effects, or morale bonuses are increased by 1, or something, I don't know. At the very least a bonus to Sense Motive would be appropriate (land mammals are so emotionally predictable). :)
Personally, I would be inclined more towards a Cha bonus than Con, but whichever.
A fun little oddity is that dolphins can't smell, and there are doubts about taste but that hasn't been confirmed. I suppose if you wanted to be accurate, you could make them immune to stench effects. Those are rare enough that I don't think it would be a big bonus, mostly some quirky flavor. But it's not exactly a fundamental trait to them, and more like something that would come up in a trivia game.
There is also some evidence that their senses are far more integrated than ours, but that's not fully agreed upon and I'm not sure what that would work as except a Perception bonus which you already have.
EltonJ |
Nice work. I don't recall what stats they used, but waaay Bastion Press has dolphins as a PC race in their Oathbound setting but that was probably 3.0 and what you have is likely better anyway.
Not sure how to fit it into stats, but if you want some other flavorful ideas that have some basis in reality, I have studied dolphin brains a bit and they are awfully fascinating. the Int penalty makes sense also because their logic/reason (e.g. Frontal lobe) parts of their brains aren't as developed as even some other primates, but the emotional parts of their brains are actually more complex than humans. So their emotional experiences may be even richer than our own. Not sure how to translate that into game terms, maybe bonus saves against emotion-based effects, or morale bonuses are increased by 1, or something, I don't know. At the very least a bonus to Sense Motive would be appropriate (land mammals are so emotionally predictable). :)
Personally, I would be inclined more towards a Cha bonus than Con, but whichever.
A fun little oddity is that dolphins can't smell, and there are doubts about taste but that hasn't been confirmed. I suppose if you wanted to be accurate, you could make them immune to stench effects. Those are rare enough that I don't think it would be a big bonus, mostly some quirky flavor. But it's not exactly a fundamental trait to them, and more like something that would come up in a trivia game.
There is also some evidence that their senses are far more integrated than ours, but that's not fully agreed upon and I'm not sure what that would work as except a Perception bonus which you already have.
Thank you so much. I love your comments.
Cyrad RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16 |
Cyrad wrote:It makes more sense you'd take a penalty to Intelligence for being a dolphin because...well...you're an awakened animal. While dolphins are smart compared to most animals, they're not smart compared to humans. Ability scores are based on relative ability compared to an average human. Even familiars are less intelligent than the average human up until higher levels.Try these stats on my Dolphin page. Reduced intelligence, size changed to large.
Better, but I disagree with the suggestion to make them Large. Porpoises range in size from 4.6 feet to 7.5 feet. That clearly puts them in Medium size.
Also, remove Gregarious and Masters of Swimming. Gregarious doesn't make sense for a race that doesn't get a Charisma bonus. Masters of Swimming should actually be totally useless because of the swim speed. Creatures with a swim speed automatically gain a +8 racial bonus to Swim checks. An additional +2 racial bonus on top of that won't stack.
A minor tangent: Any reason why you're listing RP costs? You're not following the race creation guidelines and some of your RP costs are WAAAAAY off. Like blindsight, which I have overlooked largely because this is a special race that would only see play in a special campaign that could allow an exclusively seaborne character.