lawst's page

A player race, regardless of implementation, should not supplant other forms of character development or render any of those forms obsolete.

I agree, that a player race should not replace forms of character development. I may have been unclear in my approach to the racial classes. I am not saying to provide a progression in which monstrous races start at level one, but rather a launching point from when they begin. Using the example from above, a bugbear would start their adventuring career at level 5 (4 racial + 1 class), not at level 1.

Classes are the main construct under which character abilities are granted. If you create a race, even if using "racial levels" that makes you a better fighter than a fighter, you've essentially created an unbalanced class that makes the fighter obsolete, in the guise of a race.

My objective is not to create new races from scratch, but rather find ways to adapt current monsters as potential playable races. Could the system be abused to front-load characters? Yes, it could, especially from the stand point of creating such creatures from scratch. But that's where the not only mitigation of DM helps, but also some sense of fair play. Most of the monsters printed have abilities that are close in level that matches their challenge rating, which is close to the level of character many of those races would be ranked at using this idea.

As far as having "racial levels that makes you a better fighter than a fighter," the goal in this approach is to make it so that a monstrous creature is not better, but different, just as a barbarian is different from a fighter, or a cleric from a wizard.

I understand that. But from my stand point, it is essentially multi-classing, so yes, you're right with a fighter-type race is difficult with a caster type. With the idea it wouldn't be any different than a fighter multi-classing into a wizard. It's built more for a less optimized group and more one for flavor and roleplaying, but still keeping it within the context of the rules.

I suppose what I'm proposing is to regard the monstrous portion of a race more like a short-leveled class. Just to clarify, the idea is to not have a LA or ECL. Instead, what I am saying is to essentially make it to where the monstrous abilities that make it more than a standard race are the "class" abilities, and then give them starting levels or HD in that monstrous class to balance the hp, saves, base attack of any other class.

For example, using the point system presented in the Advanced Race Guide (ARG) places the Bugbear at 20 points, where as a standard race is equal to 10 points. Therefore, the bugbear is worth an additional 10 points of "class" abilities.

To find the value of the class abilities, again using the point system, let's look at fighter for example. At first level, the fighter gains a bonus feat, where a comparable race ability in the ARG is 4 points. At second level, they gain another feat and a +1 bonus to saves against fear which is similar to the fearless ability (+1 pt), but only half as effective. Ad hocing the armor training at +1 pt, and the weapon training which is equivalent to a feat, but not the freedom of any feat, at +2 pts. Add up the first 5 levels worth of points, and divide by 5, and you get roughly 3 (4+4+1+1+4+2 = 16 / 5 = 3.2).

With this idea, the bugbear, with his base race abilities, would be granted 4 hit dice ( (20-10) / 3 = 3.33 rounded up) of humanoid, granting only the base attack, saves, and skill points (2+int modifier per HD for humanoids) associated with that (no class skills).

I know this is an aged old debate and discussion on how to handle the ECL aspect of monstrous races, but I'm asking for an opinion on a different way to handle them.

First, where this idea is stemming from.
Now in both the Advanced Race Guide Playtest by Paizo, and a system built by VooDooMike(VDM) on the Paizo forums cover a couple of various ways that races can be built using a point system. And, I am sorry for I do not recall where I read it, but there was a published idea that to rid the ECL of creatures was to replace their racial hit die with hit die equal in number to their CR + 1. Whilst in theory it can make sense, but in practice their are too many variables.

After compiling the ideas that each bace race built before the addition of class levels is roughly, as VDM puts it, equal to 2 1/2 feats that is divided into 10 points. Now in pathfinder, each class grants some special ability at each level. Looking at just the abilities of the class and comparing it to that of the point systems, the class abilities are worth between 2-4 points.

So here is my question. If we took this into account when building races greater than the 10 point base, stripping them of their racial hit dice and just looking at their abilities, would it be more balanced to grant the monstrous race one racial hit die for every 3 points beyond the initial 10?