Back in 3.5 my group and I came up with a number of Races for games. Some worked out well and were popular, some didn't. My questions are:
*What are they?
*How'd you get them to stack up against the core races popularity wise?
*How did you convert/balance them to Pathfinder?
I've had a few that I've yet to convert to PF that I'll be working on. Brief descriptions:
Avriel- I was going with humanoids with a connection with celestial entities similar to what Elves (3.5) and Gnomes (PF) had with Fey. I went with Greek heroes as inspiration. They were athletic, vital, charming, but tended to be proud and have poor impulse control.
Sairs- The oppisit of Avriel. My initial problem was how would a race survive having spent time on the lower planes. I imagined a race that was manipulative, cutthroat, and completely loyal to each other.
Taros- This race has gone through a number of name changes and since Pechs are now in B2. They were small humanoids that were actually strong. One thing I did was that, when they aged, their physical stats increased but their mental ones decreased until they became out of control.
I still have to figure out how to convert the stats over but ,in the mean time, what have you got?
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
|
I had a race called the Verminspawn, based on The Mummy (I think, or some other movie where a creature formed out of insects). Basically they were a swarm of tiny vermin that piled into a humanoid shape. They had the vermin and swarm traits. Penalties to Str but bonus to Con. They had a hive mind and lost the mindless trait. They could occupy the same space a another creature and use the swarm attack as long as they were not wearing armor or clothing. When dropped to 0 hit points they would scatter and at -10 they died as normal. They healed at quadruple the normal rate for a day without needing rest and when HP equaled 1, they could reform. Healing magic was useless on them, since damage meant individual creatures died. A modified version of summon swarm was needed to heal. I had 2 players bug (hehe) me to let them play them as characters. They both liked the race, but were upset based on the healing limitations. Played using the Rogue and Barbarian classes.
I am currently redoing them for Pathfinder. Since I am restating, going to make several types of Verminspawn, each with a different ability score increase. Each will have a unique natural attack. A scorpion will get a tail with poison, Fire Beetle will have luminescence and flash, bombardier beetle an acid bite, centipede will have a poison bite, a mantis with lunge and sudden strike, and spider with a poison bite and grapple bonus. There will be a flying version, the wasp swarm, and an aquatic version, the crab swarm. Still not done balancing, since they are more powerful in terms of survivability than the normal races.
I am making a Golarion based adventure using a Mite with the Vermin Shaman archetype for the druid I created. He is using the Verminspawn to protect his clans tunnels but they have reproduced out of control and are beginning to terrorize a city/countryside.
Interesting, I was throwing around the idea a while back of a race that was actually a hive that reanimated a fresh body, returning it to life and with some of the host's personality.
Here is my first conversion of the Avriel:
Avriel:
+2 to Con & Cha, -2 to Int. Avriel are energetic and charming but generally rely on instinct rather then planning.
Size: Medium
Natural Athletes: Avriels have a base speed of 40ft and a +2 to all Athletics checks.
Vital: +2 save versus Disease and Necromancy Spells and Spell-like Abilities.
Empathic: Avriel are naturally gifted at reading emotions and body language. They gain +2 to Diplomacy and Sense Motive checks.
Divine Vigor: Avriel add their Charisma modifier to the amount of Hit Points they recover naturally and gain an additional 1 Hit Point/per dice from magical healing effects
Weapon Familiarity: Avriel treat Shortswords and Ranseurs as Simple Weapons. They treat all Exotic Weapons with the word “Avriellic” in it as a Martial Weapon.
Languages: Avriel begin play with Avriellic and Common. Avriel with high Intelligence scores can choose from the following: Celestial, Demonic, Elven, Halfling, Infernal, and Orc.