Sovereign's page

I've been slowly expanding on a little homebrew setting to inflict on someone should my local gaming group ever revive. One of the things I wanted to do was to try and evoke a different feel.

So to that end I tossed out every race except Humans, and tried to rustle up something new...here's the first (and most complicated) new race.

As I am currently unable to really play test this, I thought I'd open it up to the scrutiny of your collective expertise. Have I balanced enough? Is it different enough?

So without further preamble, here you have the...

ATLANTEANS
“… best described as intellectual hedonists.”

Features: Ancestor worship, Caste System, Ancestor Channeling abilities, lost immortality in ages past, former masters in a slave culture, beginning to prosper and multiply after a long period of decline.

Rules Detail:
+2 Intelligence, +2 Charisma, -2 Strength, -2 Wisdom

Size: Medium. As Medium creatures, Atlanteans have no special bonuses or penalties due to their size.
Speed: Atlantean base land speed is 30 feet.
Special: +2 racial saving throw bonus against mind-effecting spells & effects, Caste system, Channel*
Automatic Languages: Atlantean,
Favored Class: Characters place in the Caste system determines her favored class.

Atlantean Caste System: Noble, Priest, Sage and Warrior castes each grant specific bonus class skills, and access to Caste specific feats. Also determines favored class.

*Channel (Su) – Once a day as a Free Action, the Atlantean may channel a particular ancestor from their caste for a limited time and gain the benefits of their specific affinity for that time (1 + Cha modifier + ½ ECL rounds). An Atlantean can only channel one ancestor and it must be from his Caste.

The following are the temporary benefits of the specific ancestor types:

Noble Ancestor: +2 Charisma, +4 bonus on Bluff, Diplomacy and Gather Info checks. Gains a bonus equal to Charisma bonus (if any) on all saving throws. Gains Charm Monster as a spell-like ability, cast as sorcerer of ½ effective class level. If the Atlantean can already cast Charm Monster, her caster level increases by 2 for that spell.

Priest Ancestor: -2 Charisma, +2 Wisdom, Lay Hands as Paladin of same level, Turn Undead as Cleric of same level. If one or both abilities already possessed, they use them as if the Atlantean is 2 levels higher in the relevant class.

Sage Ancestor: -2 Constitution, +2 Intelligence, +4 bonus on Performance checks. Gains Bardic Lore ability as a Bard of ½ effective class level. If Bardic Lore already possessed, it can be used as if the Atlantean is 2 levels higher in the Bardic class.

Warrior Ancestor: – 2 Wisdom, +2 Strength, +2 to Constitution. Gains +1 dodge bonus to AC when wearing light armor. This bonus increases by 1 every 3 effective character levels. The Atlantean loses this Dodge bonus when wearing medium or heavy armor.

Physical Appearance: Atlantean males are generally tall, in the range of 5'9 to 6'6 and they typically favor leanness, although the robust Atlantean appetite does lead to a certain amount of beefiness among the more sedentary. Atlantean females are smaller, in the range of 4’6 to 6’ and they favor a buxom physique. The dominant Atlantean skin tone is gold, although pale blue or deep red tones are not uncommon. Atlantean hair is worn long, usually with a single braid arranged in a manner indicative of caste and social standing. Atlanteans are wholly uninhibited particularly in their attire, often wearing billowing garments, or ornately decorated capes in bright colors when in public. In more casual settings both male and female Atlanteans wear only fine, and intricately designed waist-tunics.

Atlantean Names: still to be determined

Oh hells yeah. Point buy almost ruined the game I'm in currently. I was the only one to roll dice for everything- even alignment, race and class- and ended up with a very interesting character for it. The rest of the PCs were so enamoured of what happened that they looked at die rolling in a new light.

This quote from the Ability Stats: evens vs. odds thread, inspired me so much, that I started a pbp adventure offering a randomized character generation mechanic and it's really got some excitement abrewin'

One thing I added was that once they've rolled for their stats, they roll a d6 to pick which stat will receive their highest roll. This is before they roll for race or class.

I hope no one is too disappointed if they roll up something as normal as a Neutral Good Human Fighter with a Military Background, and a High Str or Con.

I'm working on a homebrew low-magic campaign set in Europe and the Americas circa 16th century. I wanted to keep the choices of gods simple to match the setting...Europeans have Christianity, in the Americas there would be Meso-American pantheon(s) - one of the things I thought about doing was allowing Christian clerics to be of any alignment despite their professed alignment - in the vein of how Eberron handles alignment. I would set the organization of the European church itself to be Lawful Neutral, with maybe individual brotherhoods having their own differing internal alignment, Lawful Good or/Evil.

I'm uncertain how to handle the Domains. Just leave them up for grabs? Limit them to certain sects/brotherhoods? Any thoughts.

Also, I'm not fully fleshed out on the low-magicness of the campaign. I believe there's a discussion elsewhere on the boards about that. I just don't want glowing swords around every corner, and stuff like mass teleport and planar travel don't gibe too well with what I envision.

I'd appreciate any thoughts on the above.

Hello all,
fairly new to the boards, but not to gaming. Having a hard time finding a local game that suits my already taxed schedule. So I thought I'd look into PbP.

I was wondering if there was a primer out there for play-by-post...covering say, ettiquette, conventions, how rolls are handled, character sheets.

Thanks in advance...