Hey everyone! I've just been tooling around with the Race builder guide from VoodooMike, and have decided to make a race of people that are tribal and live mostly in forest and jungles. Seems like the race is pretty interesting and quite playable, but I was curious if it seemed too all-over-the-place, or if it seems like it might be fun to play. Here's what I have so far (And the point values for everything, race-builder-calculation-wise).
Dymn Racial Traits
+2 To One Ability Score: The Dymn receive a +2 bonus on any one ability score to represent their varied nature.
Medium: Dymn are medium creatures and have no bonuses or penalties due to their size.
Normal Speed: Dymn have a base movement speed of 30ft.
Brachiation: The Dymn are traditionally raised in treetop villages, and are capable of swift movement through trees. Because of this, they gain a +2 racial bonus on climb checks, and are capable of moving at their full movement speed through trees as long as there is a sufficient amount of branches and other such things to support them. This ability can only be used if the Dymn is wearing no armor, light armor, or medium armor, and not carrying a heavy load.
Hardy: Dymn typically live their lives in forests and jungles surrounded by supplemental medicinal herbs, and much of their lives they have fought to survive against poisonous animals and plants which they have built up a slight resistance to. Dymn gain a +2 racial bonus to saves against animal and plant-based poisons, and all non-magical diseases.
Tribal Role: At a young age, the majority of Dymn are taught skills to fill a particular role in their tribe. The three most common roles of their tribes are hunter, craftsman, and storyteller (the keepers of their history, as their language has no written alphabet). Dymn begin play selecting one role that cannot be changed thereafter. Each role gives a racial bonus to a particular skill, listed below:
Hunter: +2 to Survival or Knowledge (Nature)
Craftsman: +2 to one craft skill from the following; baskets, bows, carpentry, cloth, clothing, fletching, jewelry, leather, poisons, pottery, sculptures, tattoos, and traps.
Storyteller: +2 to Perform (Oratory), or Knowledge (History)
Ritual Combat: From a young age, Dymn are trained in their tribes’ traditional ritual battles. Due to this intense training, the Dymn gain a +4 CMD bonus to both the grapple and tripping combat maneuvers.
Illiterate: Due to their main spoken language having no written alphabet, the Dymn begin play as illiterate. They are the only characters that do not automatically know how to read or write. A Dymn character is able to spend 1 skill point in linguistics (With no other benefit) to gain the ability to read and write all languages they are able to speak.
Languages: Dymn begin play speaking Wildspeech and Common. Dymn with high Intelligence scores can choose from the following: Dwarven, Elven, Giant, Goblin, Halfling and Orc.
Ritual Combat (2) (+4 CMD to 2 combat maneuvers)
Hardy (2) (+2 save to small group of things)
Tribal Role (2) (+2 to one skill check, but with options)
Brachiation Climb Bonus (1) (+2 to one skill check)
Brachiation (4) (Effectively a feat)
Illiterate (-1) (Small and nearly negligible)
So that's what I have so far. Was just looking for opinions and thoughts on it; like if it seems playable, or if it seems WAY too scattered on what it can do to seem logical or reasonable. I tried to give it abilities in both the role-playing and combat sense, so it isn't just a warmongering race. :) Thank you all for your time and attention.
Okay, so far, I have the input that the race's Tribal Role ability should possibly be changed to a small list of traits. Perhaps I'll make the race have their own racial list of traits, and they MUST pick at least one role trait. That seem like it'd be fair?
I'd have to slightly weaken them and make them make the skill a class skill, but should be able to easily do that.
Update!
Here's what the new and current state of the race is. Changed the ability scores and made the Tribal Role thing a trait system, but I don't know 100% if any of the tribal role abilities are just better than every other trait or anything like that, so muchos gracias for any feedback :)
Dymn Racial Traits
+2 Strength, +2 Intelligence, -2 Charisma: The Dymn are strong, and quite resourceful, but have become distanced and less personable due to the curse that had kept them from many other civilized races for a millennia.
Medium: Dymn are medium creatures and have no bonuses or penalties due to their size.
Normal Speed: Dymn have a base movement speed of 30ft.
Brachiation: The Dymn are traditionally raised in treetop villages, and are capable of swift movement through trees. Because of this, they gain a +2 racial bonus on climb checks, and are capable of moving at their full movement speed through trees as long as there is a sufficient amount of branches and other such things to support them. This ability can only be used if the Dymn is wearing no armor, light armor, or medium armor, and not carrying a heavy load.
Hardy: Dymn typically live their lives in forests and jungles surrounded by supplemental medicinal herbs, and much of their lives they have fought to survive against poisonous animals and plants which they have built up a slight resistance to. Dymn gain a +2 racial bonus to saves against animal and plant-based poisons, and all non-magical diseases.
Ritual Combat: From a young age, Dymn are trained in their tribes’ traditional ritual battles. Due to this intense training, the Dymn gain a +4 CMD bonus to both the grapple and trip combat maneuvers.
Tribal Role: Dymn traditionally are trained at a very young age to fulfill roles in their tribe by taking advantage of what they are considered good at, whether it be hunting, or weaving. When selecting traits, Dymn characters must select at least one Dymn racial trait, to represent their given role in the tribes they grew up in.
Illiterate: Due to their main spoken language having no written alphabet, the Dymn begin play as illiterate. They are the only characters that do not automatically know how to read or write. A Dymn character is able to spend 1 skill point in linguistics (With no other benefit) to gain the ability to read and write all languages they are able to speak.
Languages: Dymn begin play speaking Wildspeech and Common. Dymn with high Intelligence scores can choose from the following: Dwarven, Elven, Giant, Goblin, Halfling and Orc.
Ritual Combat (2)
Hardy (2)
Brachiation Climb Bonus (1)
Brachiation (4)
Illiterate (-1)
So currently at a 2 point deficit of the 10 point general rating.
Dymn Traits
Tribal Role: Hunter – The Dymn character was trained throughout his early life to take on the role of the hunter; helping the tribe forage and hunt for food, and track invading outsiders. The character gains a +1 bonus to either Survival or Knowledge (Nature), and the chosen skill is always considered a class skill.
Tribal Role: Craftsman – The Dymn character was trained throughout their early life to take on the role of the craftsman; creating the many objects that the Dymn have used throughout their history. The character gains a +2 bonus to one craft skill from the following; baskets, bows, carpentry, cloth, clothing, fletching, jewelry, leather, poisons, pottery, sculptures, tattoos, and traps.
Tribal Role: Storyteller – The Dymn character was trained throughout their early life to take on the role of the storyteller; the history keepers of the Dymn. Due to their lack of a written language, this is a truly important role in the tribes. The character gains a +1 bonus to either Perform (Oratory) or Knowledge (History), and the chosen skill is always considered a class skill.
The roles of Hunter and Storyteller may be chosen twice, for a +1 bonus to two separate skills. Craftsman, however, may only be chosen once.
Not sure if I should make Craftsman give just a +1 bonus and be allowable to be taken twice as well, or not. I thought that since most (See: All) classes already got craft as a class skill that it kind of weakens it to make it give a +1 bonus but not be able to make something a class skill. I then thought that a +2 bonus to a skill is almost as good as skill focus itself, so I made it only selectable once. Not sure if I'm doing a good job of balancing all this or not. Any thoughts? Also, thank you for your time and attention.
Okay, so, for that 2 point deficit, my friend had come up with a pretty rocking back story. It involves them eventually making a pact with nature itself, and therefore possibly getting some form of bonus when casting nature spells, or spells with certain elemental ties. I'm not sure on how many points that'd be worth, race-creation-wise, so that seems to be the hardest part to balance.