Talking Animals as Player Races

[BobChuck]

I've been thinking about Animals (intelligent, talking, etc) as Player Races off and on for a while, and a friend of mine recently (if in-eloquently) brought up the topic, so I thought I'd post what I've got.

Step Zero: Heres a link to the Race Building Guide, and another for the Beast Shape spell.

First: Let's eliminate the obvious pitfalls. For the initial set of rules, limit animals to Small or Medium size only, no fly speed, no "hands". So no rabbits, monkeys, eagles, horses, gorillas, etc. "Dire" versions are okay, as are "runts" of larger critters.

Second: I cannot emphasize this enough, toss out the stat block. Those were designed as monsters and support, not as Player Characters. They are fine for reference, but trying to write a single set of unified rules for converting every animal in the game into a viable Player Race is basically impossible.

Third: actually, this is where I'm stuck at the moment. Figuring any given race out should be done using the Race Building Guide, with the animal's stat-block and the Beast Shape spell serving as guidelines. But there also needs to be some common rules, and that's where I'm stuck.

All should get a racial quality indicating they don't have hands and thus cannot effectively use most tools (at least a -10). All should get the Wild Shape feat for free, and probably Eschew Materials as well (technically 8 points, but should be less IMHO). They are not humanoid in shape, so have to pay double for armor (-2 or -4). That said, they should have a feature that has them counting as both humanoids and animals for the purpose of spells and effects (net zero; vulnerable to Charm Person and various social skills, but also get benefits of druid spells). I can't think of any other common features they should all share.

It's almost like, in order to do it properly even with the limitations stated above, there needs to be a "build your own animal" table, with various options listed. Various natural attacks, speeds, quadruped bonus, +1 natural armor, +2 natural armor, a flexible but limited set up for determining ability modifiers, etc.

For more complicated traits, the list should either include them or stick them in the "advanced" list (where flight, tiny, large, etc, currently are). Things like poison, grab, constrict, pounce, and so on.

[Mok]

You might want to check out the Noble Wild which is completely devoted to making animal player characters.

[BobChuck]

Mok wrote:

You might want to check out the Noble Wild which is completely devoted to making animal player characters.

Anyone have this book? Are there any reviews, other than the one on the Paizo Product webpage?

[Mok]

You could check out the 3.5 version of Noble Wild, it has a few reviews.

It's been so long since I looked at the 3.5 version it that I don't have much that I could intelligently say about it. It's pretty comprehensive in its approach, taking into account all sorts of issues of trying to get an animal to work in the system.

In the end I didn't use it simply because the player who had expressed interest in playing an animal eventually changed her mind, but from what I recall I didn't think that the author had slacked off and just thrown something together.

[Icarus Pherae]

BobChuck wrote:

Mok wrote:

You might want to check out the Noble Wild which is completely devoted to making animal player characters.

Anyone have this book? Are there any reviews, other than the one on the Paizo Product webpage?

I actually just bought that book ( the pathfinder version to be honest I'm not sure there is that big of a difference) and I love it, it will do what you would like it to and quite well, there are a few things here and there I would tweak but they are minor details.