Skill Unlocks as a Racial Feature?


Homebrew and House Rules

Shadow Lodge

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I have been going through some of the races in an unpublished campaign setting, in an attempt to make them less... ARG-extruded. One of them, one that I was actually quite happy with, was the domestic gnoll, a smaller relative of the 'feral' gnoll (they are visually styled after African wild dogs) that, to escape persecution by their larger kin, fled en masse to the cities of the world. They 'domesticated' themselves, and take pride in their position as the best service available in urban areas.

In my latest run, I've been thinking of replacing two of their features, Lucky (same as the halfling ability, but if I keep it I was going to rename it Guarded) and Domesticated (renamed version of gnomes' Obsessive), and giving them a new form of Domesticated: the domestic gnoll chooses one of the following skills: Appraise, Craft, Heal, Handle Animal, Linguistics, Perform, or Profession. It becomes a class skill if it isn't already, and the domestic gnoll is treated as having skill ranks equal to their class level (so it's like Skilled for humans, but it's locked into one tertiary skill). Additionally, once they reach level 5 (and thus 5 ranks), they gain the skill's Skill Unlock.

The skill list was chosen for skills that would be the most... domestic. There is a similar race in the setting, the arctien, that was previously similar to the domestic gnoll (Dex/Wis, small), but much better. Automatically got Weapon Finesse, stealthy, initiative bonus. Since we started trying to differentiate these two more, I decided making the domestic gnoll to be a better at skills would be the best thing I could do.

Is it a bad idea for a racial feature to grant a skill unlock, even if it for a relatively harmless skill? Additionally, I had a feat in mind that was domestic gnoll-exclusive to expand on this, Domestic Dilettante. Basically, it allows a domestic gnoll that takes it to select another skill to have the same mechanics as Domesticsted (free ranks plus unlocks), plus the ability to retrain your skill ranks in the chosen skill for free. The big thing was that I was going to let it be taken for any skill, as the domestic gnoll's better version of Signature Skill. Any thoughts?


I like the idea. If you used the ARG to create the race, handing out a skill unlock for a specific skill would cost only 2 RP. Its interesting in that a race's features are most helpful at early levels and most become less important at higher levels, but that skill unlocks are useless at low level and become stronger at high level. Its more interesting than spending 2 RP on a getting a skill to count as a class skill or getting a +2 to it.

Shadow Lodge

Well, they get it as a class skill, plus free ranks, plus the unlock. Granted, it's only for those tertiary skills (all of which except Heal are considered background skills), but it still has interesting implications.


It's cool enough that I'm... quite honestly, if you don't mind, probably am going to borrow the idea for a homebrew setting of mine. Skill Unlocks as a racial feature just sounds awesome.


Inlaa wrote:
It's cool enough that I'm... quite honestly, if you don't mind, probably am going to borrow the idea for a homebrew setting of mine. Skill Unlocks as a racial feature just sounds awesome.

Think I'm just gonna echo this.

Verdant Wheel

+1

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