"High" Human Races in Pathfinder?

Colleagues,
High human races have been a standard fantasy trope for a long time, with Atlanteans, Numenoreans (and arguably) Melniboneans and Valyrians being examples. Usually these strains of humanity are presented as coming from ancient, advanced cultures, often with great acumen at magic and perhaps access to forbidden or forgotten technologies. I've also noticed that they're usually healthier, smarter and generally more beautiful than run of the mill or common humanity.

I'm curious if you've ever played with such a concept in your Pathfinder game, and how you worked it all out mechanically. Did you just use the rules for Elves?

Green Ronin introduced High Humans called "Great Ones" in thier Advanced Race Codex - Humans.

The Racial Paragon rules from 3.5 Unearthed Arcana could be used for that purpose.

Not Pathfinder, but the Illumians used to fill this niche in an old 3.5 homebrew campaign world I used to run. Nobody ever wanted to play one so I made them a lost civilization of humans who had cloistered themselves within a hidden city in a mountainous jungle for a few thousand years after splitting off from a society, which eventually crumbled due to a combination of its own extravagances and the ever-growing horde of lizardfolk, bullywugs and kobolds they used for slave labor.

I didn't make any changes to their racial abilities, but I gave them an advanced, enlightened culture and their society became the dumping ground for all the obscure spells, magic items and monsters that popped up in Dragon Magazine and other sources, which my players never used. Individually, they weren't any more powerful than the other core races but, as a society, they had access to magic nobody had ever heard of and "laboratory-crafted" monsters the players had never faced so they could easily defend themselves from nations who later discovered and tried to conquer them.

High humans? See the drugs section in the Gamemastery Guide.

High humans? See the drugs section in the Gamemastery Guide.

*snare drum Du-dum CH

Azlanti.

Azlanti.

+1.

You could argue that Varisians are the degenerate descendants of the Thassilonians in the same way that Cimmerians are the degenerate descendants of Atlanteans. But yeah, Azlanti.

Jeremy Puckett

You could argue that Varisians are the degenerate descendants of the Thassilonians in the same way that Cimmerians are the degenerate descendants of Atlanteans. But yeah, Azlanti.

Jeremy Puckett

Varisians were contemporary with Thassilonians, though, along with the Shoanti. In Thassilon, the Varisians served as the providers and artisans for the nobility, while the Shoanti served as military units. Giants served as the builders of their cities. The Thassilonians themselves were, of course, exiled Azlantis.

The EASIEST way to model a "high" human race (of which I could certainly see Azlantis being) is to just apply the Advanced Creature simple template to a human.

Or you could simply raise their base build template for NPC's. One of the common themes about such races is there are very few of them left. So a bog-standard member of the High Men might be 10 point buy. A large fraction of them would be PC-grade, whatever that is in your campaign. Their major figures might be even higher than that. You can also do stuff like raise their lifespans (like the high men in Tolkein) without any particular game balance effect, but with a profound effect in terms of how their culture will shake out.

I have several 'ancient' human subraces that have their own 'racial feat' or such. One has special abilities in certain classes (They hate arcane casters), another has special rules allowing them to cast certain spells at a higher level, a third has EWHM's mentioned lifespans (and bonus vs disease).

Make a list of what features you want to apply to the 'High Human' race/culture and work from there.

Colleagues,

High human races have been a standard fantasy trope for a long time, with Atlanteans, Numenoreans (and arguably) Melniboneans and Valyrians being examples. Usually these strains of humanity are presented as coming from ancient, advanced cultures, often with great acumen at magic and perhaps access to forbidden or forgotten technologies. I've also noticed that they're usually healthier, smarter and generally more beautiful than run of the mill or common humanity.

I'm curious if you've ever played with such a concept in your Pathfinder game, and how you worked it all out mechanically. Did you just use the rules for Elves?

I would just apply the advanced template, and give them a longer life span as needed.

hida_jiremi wrote:

You could argue that Varisians are the degenerate descendants of the Thassilonians in the same way that Cimmerians are the degenerate descendants of Atlanteans. But yeah, Azlanti.

Jeremy Puckett

Varisians were contemporary with Thassilonians, though, along with the Shoanti. In Thassilon, the Varisians served as the providers and artisans for the nobility, while the Shoanti served as military units. Giants served as the builders of their cities. The Thassilonians themselves were, of course, exiled Azlantis.

The EASIEST way to model a "high" human race (of which I could certainly see Azlantis being) is to just apply the Advanced Creature simple template to a human.

ninja'd by 2 hours, oh well at least it was JJ.

I like the idea of high men not able to use magic. Perhaps they think it's beneath them or perhaps they just can't use it due to whatever caused their ancient civilization to fall (perhaps they have innate magic resistance).
So, they focus on self perfection in other areas - becoming extraordinary men at arms (combat bonuses to compensate for their resistance to magical healing) or craftsmen (who just plain avoid needing magical healing). They might all get skill focus as a racial trait.

It's so completely unexpected from the plebian notion of "high men" (which assumes that they are masters of everything - including magic) and, I think, the concept twist adds for a good deal of setting potential.
High men may not be able to cast magic, but nothing says they can't be the rulers of hundreds of mages who can. Further, with their skill focus, they may be able to craft items of such extraordinary quality that they become heirlooms with significant non-magical bonuses.

For ease of statblock use, I actually sometimes assume that the Humans depicted in the core rules actually represent "High" humans (or at least exceptional humans).

Base humans can then be formulate without having to deal with bonuses to a stat of choice, a bonus feat or bonus skillpoints.

A human commoner with perfectly average ability score only has the normal feats and skill points per HD. Same with warriors and other window dressing characters. NPCs with actually names and plot value are constructed according to the standard core modifiers.

I generally do something similar with halflings but generally keep all dwarves and elves as normal (they are pretty much all elite).

Varisians were contemporary with Thassilonians, though, along with the Shoanti. In Thassilon, the Varisians served as the providers and artisans for the nobility, while the Shoanti served as military units.

Hmm, my mistake then. I seemed to remember Varisians and Shoanti being descendants of Thassilonian survivors, rather than just another pair ethnic groups in the empire. I did recall that Thassilonians were descendants of Azlanti refugees and expatriates, though. There wasn't really enough gap in between there for them to be considered "degenerate," which is why I didn't mention it. Maybe a better analogy would be the Azlanti as they relate to the gillmen. ^_^

Jeremy Puckett

James Jacobs wrote:

Varisians were contemporary with Thassilonians, though, along with the Shoanti. In Thassilon, the Varisians served as the providers and artisans for the nobility, while the Shoanti served as military units.

Hmm, my mistake then. I seemed to remember Varisians and Shoanti being descendants of Thassilonian survivors, rather than just another pair ethnic groups in the empire. I did recall that Thassilonians were descendants of Azlanti refugees and expatriates, though. There wasn't really enough gap in between there for them to be considered "degenerate," which is why I didn't mention it. Maybe a better analogy would be the Azlanti as they relate to the gillmen. ^_^

Jeremy Puckett

I think some of the more in character stuff about them was a bit fuzzy on their relationship, and it was possible to interperate it as degeneration rather than enslavement.