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I like the elemental outsiders, but I feel like the opportunity for one of the in-between elements is ripe for ideas. we have elementals for fire, earth, air, etc... even down to ice, mud, and lightning.
So, on the note of a lightning-themed race option, I'd like to hear some thoughts on my stab at an interesting form of native outsider.
Rare in the extreme, the nomadic nature that seems to overtake the Tintreach makes an individual even harder to find. Though, this wanderlust doesn’t seem to preclude making deep connections with other people. Many Tintreach keep in contact with their homes, and seem to value family highly.
However, the Tintreach as a whole seem to lack a level of inner focus. Possibly due to the inherently erratic nature of the forces that created them. Tintreach seem disorganized and poor in leadership roles. Surprisingly in light of the above, they have yet to gather in higher numbers than a dozen, and even these groups never last more than a few months before the urge to go their separate ways overtakes them.
Creature type: Tintreach are Outsiders with the Native Subtype.
Size Category: Tintreach are Medium creatures and thus have no bonuses or penalties due to their size.
Base Speed: Tintreach have a base speed of 30 feet.
Ability Scores: The Tintreach have the benefit of fast reflexes, the loud, strong presence of lightning itself… and the physical instability that comes with such a thing. They gain +2 Dexterity, +2 Charisma, and -2 Constitution.
Languages: Tintreach begin play speaking Common, and either Auran or Ignan. Tintreach with high intelligence scores can choose from the following: Aklo, Aquan, Auran, Elven, Ignan, Orc, Sylvan, and Terran
Defense Racial Traits:
Energy Resistance: Tintreach have electricity resistance 5.
Erratic Mind: The wildly fluctuating force of lightning suffuses the Tintreachs entire being, making them naturally resistant to assault of the mind. Tintreach gain a +2 bonus on all Will saving throws.
Feat and Skill Racial Traits:
Magnanimous: The Tintreach are born with a strong personality that they can hone to persuade others. Tintreach gain either a +2 to Diplomacy, or Intimidate, and Handle Animal.
Offense Racial Traits:
Supernatural Co-ordination: Wild yet focused, the forces of nature weave in harmony, and the Tintreach embody this affinity for co-ordination. The Tintreach take half the normal penalty for two-weapon fighting.
Alternate Racial Traits:
Call of the Storm: The Tintreach’s inherent powers manifest in a more eldritch manner. The individual can cast Light three times per day, or Continual Flame once per day. Tintreach sorcerers and bloodragers with the Elemental (Air) bloodline treat their charisma as 2 points higher for the purposes of their spells and class abilities. Tintreach spellcasters with the Weather Domain use their domain powers and spells at +1 caster level. This replaces the energy resistance and magnanimous race traits.
Wherever I may Roam: The need to survive in the treacherous reaches of the land have taught some Tintreach to thrive on scraps. The Tintreach may choose an improvised weapon type (subject to GM approval). They take no penalty to hit with this weapon, and gain a +1 insight bonus to hit. In addition, they gain Survival as a class skill and a +1 bonus to all Survival skill checks. This replaces magnanimous and supernatural co-ordination.
I'm also interested in hearing some ideas about new alternate racials if anyone has any. I'm gonna try to use these as a balancing point for future similar endeavors.
magnanimous seems to be redundant with a +2 charisma ability score.
wherever I may roam is kinda weird, having a specific kind of improvised weapon isn't very useful.
otherwise, it has some grammatical mistakes but is balanced enough.
Can you point those out for me? I'd like to fix them.
Would you make the improvised weapon a general thing?
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D'ot.
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(Ina Gcónaí) Tintreach
Creature type: Tintreach are Outsiders with the Native Subtype.
Size Category: Tintreach are Medium creatures and thus have no bonuses or penalties due to their size.
Base Speed: Tintreach have a base speed of 30 feet.
Ability Scores: The Tintreach have the benefit of fast reflexes, the loud, strong presence of lightning itself… and the physical instability that comes with such a thing. They gain +2 Dexterity, +2 Charisma, and -2 Constitution.
Languages: Tintreach begin play speaking either, Auran and Common or, Ignan and Common. Tintreach with high intelligence scores can choose from the following: Aklo, Aquan, Auran, Elven, Ignan, Orc, Sylvan, and Terran
Defense Racial Traits:
Energy Resistance: Tintreach have electricity resistance 5.
Erratic Mind: Wildly fluctuating forces of lightning suffuse the Tintreach's entire being, making them naturally resistant to assault of the mind. Tintreach gain a +2 bonus on all Will saving throws. (this is also pretty powerful now that I see it)
Feat and Skill Racial Traits:
Magnanimous: The Tintreach are born with a strong personality that they can hone to persuade others. Tintreach gain either a +2 to Diplomacy, or Intimidate, and Handle Animal. (commas make it unclear if this is +2 to (diplomacy or Intimidate) and handle animal{Diplomacy or Intimidate, and Handle Animal}, or +2 to Diplomacy or (Intimidate and handle animal){Diplomacy, or Intimidate and Handle Animal}) (should change this to making them class skills instead of a +2 to a bunch of stuff, feels better)
Offense Racial Traits:
Supernatural Co-ordination: Wild yet focused, the forces of nature weave in harmony, the Tintreach embody this affinity for co-ordination. The Tintreach reduce the penalty for two-weapon fighting by half (min 1???).
Alternate Racial Traits:(this was a grammatical nightmare, technically they should be separate racial abilities and this makes it a nightmare to parse)
Call of the Storm: The individual can cast Light three times per day. Tintreach sorcerers with the elemental (air) bloodline treat their Charisma score as 2 points higher for all sorcerer spells and class abilities. Tintreach spellcasters with the Air domain use their domain powers and spells at +1 caster level. This replaces the energy resistance and magnanimous race traits.
Call of the Flame: The individual can cast Continual Flame once per day. Tintreach sorcerers with the elemental (fire) bloodline treat their Charisma score as 2 points higher for all sorcerer spells and class abilities. Tintreach spellcasters with the Fire domain use their domain powers and spells at +1 caster level. This replaces the energy resistance and magnanimous race traits.
Wherever I may Roam: The need to survive in the treacherous reaches of the land have taught some Tintreach to thrive on scraps. They gain Survival and knowledge(local) as a class skill and a +1 bonus to all Survival skill checks. This replaces magnanimous.
Good notes
As for Wherever, the design idea behind that was to give the option of someone who had to scrape by, sometimes that means scrounging for food (Survival), or defending yourself with whatever is available, even if it's just a hook, or shovel, or some other non-weapon item. and offering Know (Local) with survival wouldn't be a very even trade in general, I don't think.
So the improved block should look like this:
Creature type: Tintreach are Outsiders with the Native Subtype.
Size Category: Tintreach are Medium creatures and thus have no bonuses or penalties due to their size.
Base Speed: Tintreach have a base speed of 30 feet.
Ability Scores: The Tintreach have the benefit of fast reflexes, the loud, strong presence of lightning itself… and the physical instability that comes with such a thing. They gain +2 Dexterity, +2 Charisma, and -2 Constitution.
Languages: Tintreach begin play speaking Common, and either Auran or Ignan. Tintreach with high intelligence scores can choose from the following: Aklo, Aquan, Auran, Elven, Ignan, Orc, Sylvan, and Terran
Defense Racial Traits:
Energy Resistance: Tintreach have electricity resistance 5.
Erratic Mind: The wildly fluctuating force of lightning suffuses the Tintreachs entire being, making them naturally resistant to assault of the mind. Tintreach gain a +1 bonus on all Will saving throws.
Feat and Skill Racial Traits:
Magnanimous: The Tintreach are born with a strong personality that they can hone to persuade others. Tintreach gain a +2 to Handle Animal, and their choice of either Diplomacy or Intimidate.
Offense Racial Traits:
Supernatural Co-ordination: Wild yet focused, the forces of nature weave in harmony, and the Tintreach embody this affinity for co-ordination. The Tintreach take half the normal penalty for two-weapon fighting.
Alternate Racial Traits:
Call of the Storm: The Tintreach’s inherent powers manifest in a more eldritch manner. The individual can cast Light three times per day. Tintreach sorcerers and bloodragers with the Elemental (Air) bloodline treat their charisma as 2 points higher for the purposes of their spells and class abilities. Tintreach spellcasters with the Air Domain (or Cloud sub-domain) use their domain powers and spells at +1 caster level. This replaces the energy resistance and magnanimous race traits.
Call of the Flame: The individual can cast Continual Flame once per day. Tintreach sorcerers and bloodragers with the elemental (fire) bloodline treat their Charisma score as 2 points higher for all sorcerer spells and class abilities. Tintreach spellcasters with the Fire domain use their domain powers and spells at +1 caster level. This replaces the energy resistance and magnanimous race traits.
Wherever I may Roam: The need to survive in the treacherous reaches of the land have taught some Tintreach to thrive on scraps. The Tintreach may choose an improvised weapon type (subject to GM approval). They take no penalty to hit with this weapon, and gain a +1 insight bonus to hit. In addition, they gain Survival as a class skill and a +1 bonus to all Survival skill checks. This replaces magnanimous and supernatural co-ordination.
How does this look?
Good notesErratic Mind: I agree that it's pretty powerful. It's basically Dual-minded. Be that as it may, I feel that the stat array is a rather weak one, with few characters in general getting much out of Cha, and the Con penalty in particular is a relatively hefty hit in defense, and so, I wanted to give Tintreach some valuable defensive bonus to make up for it. Would a +1 bonus be more in line, you think? Magnanimous: Thanks for the heads up on this, I do want it to be clear that its a bonus to Handle Animal and one of Diplo. or Intimidate. I've always been under the impression that adding something as a class skill represented training more than innate talent, which I felt this would be. Though I'll take it into consideration. Supernateral Co-ordination: I'm actually unaware of any class/ability combination that can bring the penalty of TWF to zero even with this racial ability available, so the (min 1) addition seems like it would be superfluous. With the exception of Shield Mastery, but that overrides this anyway. Alternate: After looking at them for a bit, I think I like the Call of x options. I admit I only skimmed over the Weather Domain, so looking back it doesn't really do what I want. I'm curios why you left Bloodragers out of the description though. They have an Elemental Bloodline too. As for Wherever, the design idea behind that was to give the option of someone who had to scrape by, sometimes that means scrounging for food (Survival), or defending yourself with whatever is available, even if it's just a hook, or shovel, or some other non-weapon item. and offering Know (Local) with survival wouldn't be a very even trade in general, I don't think.
So the improved block should look like this:
** spoiler omitted **...
erratic mind is simply powerful, not OP, it's just one of those things you look at and it's up there. Like Aasimir not having a negative racial, or that dwarves basically have a +2 save against anything that is a spell.
magnanimus, I always felt it meant that in general every person of that race has a natural ease for picking it up, even if it isn't related to their job. also you're still confusing where to put the punctuation. You put the comma between the thing that is not and option and the 2 that are.
Supernatural whatever, I saw an ability somewhere recently that reduced the penalty for wielding one-handed weapons by 1 or something. It nice to have there, just in-case there's 3pp being used as well that might reduce TWFing further.
alternate: I straight took the racial abilities of the air and fire elemental halfies. It was just more to show that they needed to be separated(makes them easier to read, no confusion on when you get to make a choice between the two abilities) than what the actual abilities needed to do.
I still stand by my opinion that an improvised weapon type is too unclear and undefined to really be useful... like what, my character is good at wielding stools? also why is this entire race uniquely good at doing this? maybe make a racial feat to remove the penalty for using a specific type of weapon as an improvised weapon.
maybe instead replace it with the ability to add 1d6 damage to their next attack as a swift action a number of times per day as their charisma modifier (min 1).
Make it a separate ability obviously.
personally i like the idea of them having a general improvised weapon thing. it may not be useful for all builds but as a flavor thing and for certain builds and situations it could be cool.
Making this a racial feat would be pointless in my opinion, stepping to far in the actual feat's territory, making more than one feat for basically the same thing isn't good. as has been told and though i despise it pathfinder is a game of suspension of disbelief an entire race having a natural instinct to use a weapon could make sense.
Though i propose an alternate idea for this, make it unique to them that they could treat improvised weapons as if they were normal weapons, able to take things like weapon focus or such with them. something not normally doable.
i'm not sure changing it to be another skill bonus thing is a good idea
giving them options for both magic and martial classes is a good idea.
personally i like the idea of them having a general improvised weapon thing. it may not be useful for all builds but as a flavor thing and for certain builds and situations it could be cool.
Making this a racial feat would be pointless in my opinion, stepping to far in the actual feat's territory, making more than one feat for basically the same thing isn't good. as has been told and though i despise it pathfinder is a game of suspension of disbelief an entire race having a natural instinct to use a weapon could make sense.
Though i propose an alternate idea for this, make it unique to them that they could treat improvised weapons as if they were normal weapons, able to take things like weapon focus or such with them. something not normally doable.
i'm not sure changing it to be another skill bonus thing is a good idea
giving them options for both magic and martial classes is a good idea.
it just doesn't really make sense for a race to want to use things naturally as a weapon unless they're exorbitantly blood thirsty, and also why only a single type of improvised weapon?
maybe a trait IS indeed more in the lines of it's power, so maybe a racial trait would be better.
...which is totally the reason I gave them a constitution penalty. Yeah... a science thing.