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tl;dr What are good races for PCs beyond the usual?
I'm hoping the boards can help me with a problem I'm having. My players have kind of fallen into a rut, and I'm hoping to shake them out of it with an unusual campaign idea:
The PCs will be villagers who got on the wrong side of a powerful witch, who has used her Forced Reincarnation hex on them. As such, the PCs will be playing odd, randomly picked races with one level of commoner, taking PC class levels as the game goes on.
The problem I'm having is that I'm looking for races that are powerful enough to run a module for 1st-level characters with only one level of commoner (so kobolds are probably out), weird enough to be interesting and inspire some player creativity , and monstrous enough that the villagers have a reason to have fled their village to the campaign is setting in Kaer Maga (so aasimar won't work).
So far, my short list is:
Drow Noble
Grippli
Hobgoblin Ogrekin
Svirfneblin
Tengu
Skulk
But I'm hoping for more. Any ideas?
You could use the elemental races from the Bestiary II. They're not super powerful, but a level of commoner can probably survive until they get a class level.
Dhampyr from B2.
Fetchling or Gimpli from B2.
Duerger from B1 would work well.
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You could use the elemental races from the Bestiary II. They're not super powerful, but a level of commoner can probably survive until they get a class level.
Dhampyr from B2.
Fetchling or Gimpli from B2.
Duerger from B1 would work well.
Good ideas, but my problem is that the Fetchling and the elemental races are outsiders, not humanoids, so I don't think a human could reincarnate as them, and the Dhampyr is a little too... Blade... for me.
The Duegar is a good idea; I missed that one, thanks!
I wouldn't count out the good ol' Goblin, it's a viable race, somewhat. I recommend the Gnoll and Lizardfolk as well, though since they have racial HD they'd probably be a tad too powerful. Whoever gets the short stick can become the Merfolk.
Just a bit of advice, the Drow Noble is obscenely powerful for a PC, I'd just sub it with the normal Drow, they get enough abilities as is.
I've been interested in the idea of Soulbound Dolls as characters since I first saw them. Your witch could have been trying to create servants and made a mistake that left the PCs with their memories.
They're CR2 creatures, so they would have a reasonable chance of surviving with a level of commoner.
tl;dr What are good races for PCs beyond the usual?
I'm hoping the boards can help me with a problem I'm having. My players have kind of fallen into a rut, and I'm hoping to shake them out of it with an unusual campaign idea:
The PCs will be villagers who got on the wrong side of a powerful witch, who has used her Forced Reincarnation hex on them. As such, the PCs will be playing odd, randomly picked races with one level of commoner, taking PC class levels as the game goes on.
The problem I'm having is that I'm looking for races that are powerful enough to run a module for 1st-level characters with only one level of commoner (so kobolds are probably out), weird enough to be interesting and inspire some player creativity , and monstrous enough that the villagers have a reason to have fled their village to the campaign is setting in Kaer Maga (so aasimar won't work).
So far, my short list is:
Drow Noble
Grippli
Hobgoblin Ogrekin
Svirfneblin
Tengu
SkulkBut I'm hoping for more. Any ideas?
Try this thread. It has a few cool custom races in it that are balanced with the core races.
Are you looking strictly for core stuff, or 3PP and OGL or Free online races also?
Tengu, Orc, Clockwork, Kobold, Awakened Ape ala Mwangi Jungle ;) Awakened animal of any kind because of some Druid :) Grig, Homunculus, Mongrelman, Pseudodragon, Vegypigmy, races from Psionics Unleashed if you have it,
I've dabbled with the idea of an awakened Evil Monkey Assassin.
@mdt: I'm open to suggestions from non-core products, but I might not have access to the books, though I would prefer to draw from PFRPG sources.
@Spring Heeled Jack: Where are Clockwork drawn from? And the Awakened animal idea is AWESOME!
Reason I was asking is, there is a large resource of races available on PathfinderDB. I have two races myself (Fashtali and Forge Goblins). The forge goblins might be good for you if you want a 'goblin' with a bit more punch (it's about as powerful as a core race). The Fashtali are four clans of catfolk (although I'm doing some tweaking of them right now).