I've been coming up with character ideas lately. In the process I took a look at several of the templates like 1/2 Dragon and what not. Came to the problem over and over of while I like and want that about this template I don't want this (doesn't fit the character concept not that they were bad abilities). So I came up with the idea of Racial Feats described here.
Racial Feats
Taking one of these feats shows that you have some kind of lineage that even you were unaware of. The abilities can manifest themselves at any time after you meet the requirements.
Can only be taken by a race that has no template added. If for any reason a template is later taken by (or forced on) the character the benefits of the Racial Feats are lost with no replacement. At such time the template is removed the benefits of the Racial Feats are restored. Example if Dulwar the Dwarf takes Half Dragon Stats at 6th level then 2 days later gets turned into a Werewolf (I.E. Lycanthrope Template added) he loses the benefit of Half Dragon Stats. He then (with or without help from his friends) gets cured of the Werewolf the Half Dragon Stats would resume.
Cannot take more than one race of Racial Feats, I.E. if you take Half Dragon then you cannot take any Ogre. Cannot have more than 1/2 of a particular races Racial Feats. To take more means you should take the template instead.
Or
Cannot have more than 2 Racial Stats.
Cannot have more than 5 Racial Feats total.
Racial Stats
Celestial: Str +4, Dex +2, Con +4, Int +2, Wis +4, Cha +4. Must be 3rd level
Dragon: Str +8, Con +2, Int +2, Cha +2. Must be 3rd level
Fiend: Str +4, Dex +4, Con +2, Int +4, Cha +2. Must be 3rd level.
Ogre: Str +10, Dex -2, Con +4, Int -4, Cha -4. Must be 3rd level.
Racial Special Attacks
Celestial: Daylight (Su) – Can use the daylight effect (as the spell) at will.
Smite Evil – Once per day can make a normal melee attack to deal extra damage equal to its HD (+20 max) against an evil foe.
Spell Like Abilities – If you have and Int or Wis of 8 or higher has 2 or more spell like abilities depending on HD. The abilities are calmative. Unless otherwise noted, an ability is usable only once a day. Caster level equal your HD and the save DC is Cha based.
Dragon: Breath Weapon - Based on dragon variety usable once a day. Does 6d8 damage, Successful Reflex save (DC = ½ HD + CON mod) for ½ damage.
Natural Weapons – Gain claws and bite.
Fiend: Natural Weapons – Gain claws and bite.
Smite Good – Once per day can make a normal melee attack to deal extra damage equal to its HD (+20 max) against an good foe.
Spell Like Abilities – If you have and Int or Wis of 8 or higher has 2 or more spell like abilities depending on HD. The abilities are calmative. Unless otherwise noted, an ability is usable only once a day. Caster level equal your HD and the save DC is Cha based.
Racial Special Qualities
Celestial: Darkvision 60ft
Immunity to disease.
Resistance 10 to Acid, Cold and Electricity
Damage Reduction of 5/magic (if 11 or less) or 10/magic (12+ HD)
Spell Resistance of 10+ HD (35 max)
+4 Fort against Poisons
Wings – Grow feathery wings allowing you to fly at twice your base speed with good maneuverability.
Dragon: Hard Skin +4 Natural Armor Class
Wings – Grow leathery wings allowing you to fly at twice your base speed with average maneuverability
Vision – Gain Darkvision 60ft and Low Light Vision
Immunity to Sleep, Paralysis, and one other based on dragon type.
Fiend: Darkvision 60ft
Immunity to poison.
Resistance 10 to Acid, Cold, Fire and Electricity
Damage Reduction of 5/magic (if 11 or less) or 10/magic (12+ HD)
Spell Resistance of 10+ HD (35 max)
Wings – Grow bat wings allowing you to fly at twice your base speed with average maneuverability.
Ogre: Darkvision of 60ft.
Base speed is 40ft.
Thick Hide +5 Natural Armor Class
Tell me what yall think.
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Not sure what you are trying to do here. Are you actually making feats or modifying templates. As far as feats are concerned, these are WAY more powerful than say Weapon Focus. Huge balance issues if these are truly to be used as feats. If they are more like templates, you should assign some kind of level adjustment to them.
From a standard D&D perspective Kuthax you have a lot of problems here. The biggest problem is that your feats are way too powerful. You are basically reproducing the abilities of a template with a feat. That is a terrible thing to do. If you don't believe me stack your feats up with any of the feats in the PHB. You have developed feats that give a character multiple powers and ability score increases for no cost (and having to be 3rd-level is not a sufficient cost).
And let me add to what Moff has said. This would add a level adjustment of +3 to +4 for each racial feat. If you don't know what level adjustments are then you probably shouldn't be playing around with racial feats like the ones you have created.
By the way, the D&D splat books out there (CM, CAr, the DRAGON COMPENDIUM, etc) already have racial feats. Of course, their racial feats are far less powerful than yours and don't allow you to become a half-fiend or half-dragon simply by taking a feat (which, by the way, neuters the Dragon Disciple class in the DMG).
I'm sorry to be brutal, but from a normal D&D design standpoint your feats are Broken before they even begin.
Sorry again Kuthax, but as much as you might want to disagree with me ditch these racial feats and start from scratch. Of course, you are also free to ignore me, but then why bother asking for peoples opinions?
Good DMs can take criticism (see my bad DM thread).
One last thing. Calmative is not a word that I know of. I think the word you're thinking of is cumulative.
Gee, I'm harsh at times!
If you want to add additional abilities to a standard race without applying templates, you can use Bloodlines. WotC has done most of the work for you and it's OGL.
There are also Bloodline and Heritage feats in Races of the Dragon, Complete Arcane, and Player's Handbook II (among others). The Heritage feats in Complete Arcane and Player's Handbook II require at least one level of sorcerer, but you could modify them to x/day and remove the restriction if you want.
From a standard D&D perspective Kuthax you have a lot of problems here.
Good DMs can take criticism (see my bad DM thread).
One last thing. Calmative is not a word that I know of. I think the word you're thinking of is cumulative.
You are right there are a lot of problems. Hence why I'm trying to see if they can be fixed before trying to implement them at all. I ran into a wall doing it strictly on my own so I posted here. Yes I can take criticism, again why I asked for it. And you are right it is cumulative not calmative. Apparently calmative is a word at least according to Microsoft Word which is where I do most of my typing before posting to help me catch my misspelled words and occasionally bad grammar.
As I stated I was looking for alternate ways to get some of the abilities without having to take the whole template. Each thing on the list would be its own feat. I.E. Dragon wings is one feat. Dragon stats is another. As I also stated I was looking at trying to limit how many someone could take to stop someone recreating the template without taking the level adjustment of the template. I hadn’t fleshed all of it out. The post was to show what I have come up with so far and get some general ideas of both the concept in general and where to take it from there. Like what requirements you would put on certain feats listed. Example if you think that before someone could take the Celestial DR they would have to be 6th level, have Celestial Stats and one other celestial feat.
In my opinion most of these feats are not all that more powerful than other things that are out there. Such as Vow of Poverty which allows, amongst other things, for you to eventually have: Regeneration, no need of food, stat increase, and all the while allowing you to gain more feats through the use of the first. Yes I will admit any one of them is more powerful than Weapon Focus. So is Damage Reduction (3-), Vorpal Strike, Precise Shot, and several others.
This may seem rather defensive and not taking to criticism, but I feel all of you have at the very least missed my point. Not to start issues but with you in particular Phil I feel you didn’t fully read my post. Just said they are broken and refer me back to the very rules I’m trying to change. That’s not helpful. I’ve obviously read those rules and have taken some issue with them explained in my first post.
I think Dragonchess Player has offered a pretty good option here.
Vow of Poverty is widely considered broken in its own right but if nothing else it comes with near crippling restrictions which are meant to - in theory at least, balance out its power.
As to power level - I'd at least go to the bloodlined feats as they are basically more or less balanced.
Basically speaking these just are not feats. One of your players can't choose to be part celestial and get +20 to their stats while another player considers this but goes for weapon focus instead (and weapon focus is a pretty good feat). There is nothing close to balance here. Now what you could do is see if your players want to play some kind of a high powered game and have them all choose to be part of a bloodline but they have to give up some of their feats along the way. That would at least sort of set the stage for the campaign and all the players would be equally overpowered. Personally I think this type of an option might be your best bet.
There is also a problem that the celestial options are generally to much better then the rest of the options available - a problem when dealing with level adjusted characters as well - I know because I have a half-celestial player, man that is a phenominally good template at the price of a mere 4 levels.
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As I stated I was looking for alternate ways to get some of the abilities without having to take the whole template. Each thing on the list would be its own feat. I.E. Dragon wings is one feat. Dragon stats is another. As I also stated I was looking at trying to limit how many someone could take to stop someone recreating the template without taking the level adjustment of the template. I hadn’t fleshed all of it out. The post was to show what I have come up with so far and get some general ideas of both the concept in general and where to take it from there. Like what requirements you would put on certain feats listed. Example if you think that before someone could take the Celestial DR they would have to be 6th level, have Celestial Stats and one other celestial feat.
Ok, I missed what you were trying to do -- sorry.
Take a look at some of the things that are out there that already exist.
For example -- there is a feat that improves a character's damage reduction. Usually it is used for the barbarian's ability, but I don't know that it necessarily needs to be that way. Each time a character takes the feat it improves by 1 point -- so in order to get to DR 3/- it should take 3 feats.
Similarly -- There are epic feats that improve one of a character's stats by one point. So in order to do some of the stat adjustments you have listed, it would take quite a number of feats to accomplish. (The celestial feat as shown should take 20 feats to get all the stat bonuses you have put in.)
Things like Natural Armor bonus are also existing feats -- and each point of Natural Armor is one feat.
Vorpal Strike is an epic feat. The vorpal ability for a weapon (I feel) should be an epic weapon ability -- and even then I wouldn't allow it in my games.
I guess that what I am saying is that while it might be possible to break down what you have proposed into feats, the number of feats that they would be equivalent to makes doing it that way unrealistic to do as feats. Again, I would suggest to make it as a template.
As a side note, if everyone is doing similarly powered things, then it really doesn't matter how powerful each "step" would be. Break up each thing that you have proposed into 3 or 4 "steps" and improve the entire group at the same time. They should still be fairly balanced with each other -- but I don't think that it makes sense to make them into "feats".