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the title says it all.
Ive been sitting on an egg (pun intended, the race I made lays eggs) for a while now. My first feeble crack at an article for Dragon. But, it seems that the collumn I would be writing it for has dissapeared. does anyone know if Winning races is ever coming back, or If I should send in my idea regarless, and try to revive it?
What happened?
It lost the race. *rimshot*
... Okay, that wasn't nice. For enduring my weak comedy, I'll give you a better explination.
When the team at Dragon was grinding down features, Winning Races was on the list of features to be dropped, at least for the time being. Why? The answer seems to be "lack of quality submissions." Erik Mona, I believe, also said something about there being too many "animal-heads" among the submissions and the printed results alike. I can't disagree with either point, just about the only race I'd liked was the Diaboli, and that was an update. Anyway, Mona implied that Winning Races could return to the field of battle... If they got some unique submissions. Easier said than done, really. I've tried myself, but most of my ideas are too hard to work out. That's neither here nor there, however.
All that said... Hate to break it to you, but Raptorans from Races of the Wild lay eggs too. If yours is not a race of bird-men (or, at least, isn't similar to the Raptorans), I say pitch it. Worst that happens is it gets turned down (something you should get used to, if you want to write freelance at all). Hopefully, you'll get a "Thank you for sending X, but at this time, we're really looking for Y and Z instead" sort of response.
Either way, good luck!
My understanding is that races requests could still be pitched as feature articles.... which means you'll probably wait for a fair length of time to hear back on them. That said, submitting sooner is almost always better than waiting, unless something similar was published very recently.
- Ashavan
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Thank you. and I know what they mean about 'animal heads.' My race is animal headed, animal bodied, and animal brained, so i think its different enough to qualify. and they are birds. Sort of (this is a point of contention). but they cant fly. I think i will polish the article up and send a query.
I think this race has possibilities. I created them back when i first started playing, and they have 'evolved' ever since. They are very fun to roleplay, because you can mimic their distinct body language and mannerisms easily. and making five natural attacks in a round is so much fun. the drawbakc is they have a hard time using magic weapons (they have hands, they just dont gain weapon proficiencies through class levels). and they have Scent, which i think is a very cool ability for a race to have.
All this for the low low price of +1 LA.
thank you again for the encouragement.
i guess the word is that there haven't been a great number of decent queries regarding this column.
Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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Thank you. and I know what they mean about 'animal heads.' My race is animal headed, animal bodied, and animal brained, so i think its different enough to qualify. and they are birds. Sort of (this is a point of contention). but they cant fly. I think i will polish the article up and send a query.
Before sending in your query, please be sure to make them conceptually distinct from kenku or raptorans, or I'm afraid you're not going to get a very positive reaction from the staff.
--Erik
and making five natural attacks in a round is so much fun. the drawbakc is they have a hard time using magic weapons (they have hands, they just dont gain weapon proficiencies through class levels). and they have Scent, which i think is a very cool ability for a race to have.
Well, for starters, I can tell you I would never play this race; I can't even ever gain Simple Weapon Proficieny? No thanks.
That said... I don't know what else the class has as benefits and drawbacks, but it seems to me that - at least by WotC's standards - a creature that gains 5 natural attacks and scent at "1st level" should have a higher LA than +1. In fact, all other things being equal, you could easily argue that the scent ability alone is worth a +1 LA.
*shrug* Don't get me wrong - I hope you send in the query, and I hope it gets accepted.
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No, the point is, you dont NEED even simple weapons. You have claws (1d4), teeth(1d6), talons (1d8), and once you reach 4(?) HD, you can Pounce. In any case, you could blow a feat MWP if you really need it.
Im also working on the specialized magic items they can use, that give thier natural weapons special qualities like a maigc weapons (Drawback: hard to come by and slightly more expensive. you'd need to have them custom made to order, find a place that specializes in that sort of thing, or make them yourself).
is scent really that good?
another drawback to these guys is that, for the purposes of spells and effects that target animals, they count as animals. that means they need to watch out for druids and high-level rangers. this, combined with the need for custom armor, and no weapons proficiency, makes them balanced IMO
(note: these guys are VERY different from Kenku and raptorians. when i say bird, its more of a technicality. they have feathers and digitigrade legs, but thats about it)
No, the point is, you dont NEED even simple weapons. You have claws (1d4), teeth(1d6), talons (1d8), and once you reach 4(?) HD, you can Pounce. In any case, you could blow a feat MWP if you really need it.
(note: these guys are VERY different from Kenku and raptorians. when i say bird, its more of a technicality. they have feathers and digitigrade legs, but thats about it)
Jodah,
Stop talking about your idea in a public venue and start typing up your proposal! :)
Best case, a lot of people like it and begin sharing their own ideas on this thread, cutting you off at the knees creatively.
Worst case(s):
-One of the editors weighs in and expresses some reservations making the hill you have to climb to get your greenlight that much higher
-A bunch of fans hate the idea, or say its similar to something already out there, etc before they have a chance to see the real deal, and the negative feedback kills your enthusiasm for the project or the editors' interest in reading it.
As a rule I only talk about a project I have in the works when someone else brings it up first and that's usually to say something like "guess I won't pitch that idea now"
The best time to talk about your stuff is when it finally makes its way into print :)
Good luck nonetheless, it sounds interesting.
(so much so that I'd like to share the following ten feat ideas for bird like characters... :) see my best case scenario above :) )
another drawback to these guys is that, for the purposes of spells and effects that target animals, they count as animals. that means they need to watch out for druids and high-level rangers.
Be careful with this - it's not the drawback you think it is. Read the spells awaken and animal growth to see why.
I think just the stuff you can do with awaken would be a min/maxxers wet dream. ;)
I think it was Monte Cook who once said that you should absolutely never make animal races, because they're incredibly cliche. (Then again, he did later write a campaign setting that included jackal people and lion people as standard races...)
I also had bad luck with Winning Races submissions. I made a race of glacier-dwelling people that got rejected because it was too similar to the cold terrain book that came out soon after, and then Winning Races was scrapped after I submitted another race.
I figure they scrapped it in part because new races aren't that useful. You can take a feat at any point in your career, but you can only take a new race when you start a new character, and even then the DM has to find a way to explain why you've never seen any Diaboli or Raptorans or Repentants before in his setting.
I also had bad luck with Winning Races submissions. I made a race of glacier-dwelling people that got rejected because it was too similar to the cold terrain book that came out soon after, and then Winning Races was scrapped after I submitted another race.
I figure they scrapped it in part because new races aren't that useful. You can take a feat at any point in your career, but you can only take a new race when you start a new character, and even then the DM has to find a way to explain why you've never seen any Diaboli or Raptorans or Repentants before in his setting.
Winning Races wasn't exactly scrapped - they'll still run it as a feature if they see submissions of an appropriate quality at an appropriate time.
I love new races, but I understand the humanoid with animal head problem. Unfortunately, the further you get from this concept the more difficulty a DM has in bringing the new race into the campaign.
- Ashavan
eh, there are quite a few non-animal humanoid races. unfortunately, they are buried in a sea of animal-heads. ;)
Perhaps some day I should write up a bunch of LA +0 loyal dog-people, sneaky cat-people, cowardly rat-people, and so on, just to stop people making any more!
Then again, they did have all those humanoid animal races in Savage Species, perhaps specifically for that reason.
I would like to see some races that are unique and different, perhaps even experimental.
Maybe some new playable races with original, fun options or rules (like the Dvati or Tibbit) would be a hit with readers?
A race that is actually a self-aware swarm of fine-sized creatures who can go solid and pass for human?
A ghost/entity/parasite race that can take over a host and must find a new host every few levels, switching bodies (and therefore race/classes etc) as they advance.
They would have a chance to escape to a new body if the current host is killed but would be weakened and if they dont find a suitable new host within a few rounds they die.
Just think, you could be a dwarf fighter for a few levels then switch to a drow wizard at level 12, later you ditch the drow for that shiny warforged paladin you've had your eye on at 20th...
Another thing that I'd like is maybe some rules for mini-templates that would help you to create your own races.
Like super-feats that give you a cool abilty like a prehensile tale with a poison sting for +1 LA, or how about flight, +2 strength and eye-rays for +3 LA? That sort of thing. There was something like this in the DMG2 although they were aimed at npcs only.