Hello all, I'm making a homebrew campaign and the native race of a planet is this race, I was just wondering if anyone could give me their opinion of it to see if its too good:
Sentians are an intelligent native species of the planet Melot. They have a metallic skin and their eyes are like gems which come in a variety of colors. Pacifists and curious by nature, their base form is a liquid metal, but they can copy the appearance of any humanoid race by engulfing a host that the sentian finds fascinating, this copy ability does not hinder the subject at all, but he/she is covered in tiny shards of leftover metal that shine when exposed to the sun for about two to three weeks. The sentian takes the basic shape of the subject but does some minor adjustments here and there, such as appearance, these changes are what, in the mind of the sentian, are improvements to the race it has copied. After taking the shape of a humanoid, the sentian loses the ability to copy another humanoid forever.
Physical Description: It is difficult to give a general description of a sentian because they meld with existing races, taking their forms and making adjustments to “improve” the race, there is a quality that all sentians do share, and is that they look about the same as the humanoid they copied, except for the obvious metal skin and gem-like eyes, their hair is as varied as the sentian wished it to be, but its pretty flexible. The sentians have no male or female genders as they reproduce asexually once a year by depositing a “metallic cell” inside raw metals of sufficient size to produce a medium sized humanoid, the “metallic cell” takes about a month to develop in to liquid version of the material used. Its diet consist of rocks and soils which they use to replenish the minerals found in them. Their feces are sought after many greedy adventurers for, if treated properly, it can be used as raw metal of the type the sentian is. The sentians dislike this feces much like any other humanoid race dislikes their feces. Sentians can live up to about 300 years, they sleep like any other humanoid race. When a sentian dies, its body quickly rusts, leaving a pile of rust of whatever metal it was composed of.
Society: Due to their ability to copy and “perfect” other humanoid races, they see no incentive to gather, and thus can be found anywhere, since they can be valued allies to many races, some are kept as slaves, whereas others roam free. Among the humanoid races, they get along with the dwarves, often forming pacts to better serve the necessity of their communities.
Relations: Sentians get along very well with all races, as they are always finding a way to perfect their chosen base forms, they hate slavery as any other race, and although serene and curious, sentians can go in to outburst of rage if they find any mistreat of another sentian.
Alignment and Religion: Sentians are very diverse in their aligments, but they tend towards good, for they are so obsessed with perfecting life forms, that they often loathe to harm any other intelligent race. Sentians tend to adopt the local religion of their chosen community, and make up for fervent leaders.
Adventurers: Sentians who have adopted a form are usually found among their absorbed form, a few however seek out other races places where they can leave a youngling in order to copy that race, and commence the circle of “perfection” once again.
Sentian Racial Traits:
+2 to One Ability Score: Sentian characters get a +2 bonus to one ability score of their choice at creation to represent their varied nature.
Variant Size & Weight: Sentians are the same size as their chosen form. They weight 50% more than their chosen race.
Variant Speed: Sentians have the same base movement speeds of their chosen race.
Metallic Skin: +1 natural armor, Damage Reduction 1/- (stacks). Sentian skin is made of metal, while not as sturdy as the raw ones, they are indeed a bit more resilient than their chosen race.
Sturdy: Sentians have a 25% of ignoring a critical hit or sneak attack.
Darkvision: Sentians can see in the dark up to 60 feet.
Metal Type: Chose a type of metal the sentian is at the time of creation:
Copper: Acid Resistance 5.
Bronze: Fire Resistance 5.
Silver: Cold Resistance 5.
Gold: Sonic Resistance 5.
Admiration: +2 Diplomacy with copied race. Sentians get along, and are admired by the race they chose to copy.
Adapted Skill: Sentians receive a racial bonus from the chosen race that applies to skills. (Example: +2 intimitade from half-orcs, +2 acrobatics from halflings).
Metal Based: Sentians are subject to any effect that affects metals.
Conductive: Sentians have a -4 penalty to saves related to electricity.
Languages: Common, Sentian, and any racial languages from their chosen race.
I'd say the energy resistance and damage reduction are throwing you into the ball park of tifflings and Asmir. Do able as a player race but more powerful that the basic races.
Allow me to compare this to a couple other races to illustrate why this is incredibly overpowered for a player race. To be as simple as possible, let's compare it to a human because that's easy.
+2 ability: Identical, and within the standards of the system.
Variant size/weight/speed: This is where it gets tricky, because size/speed are tailored to a race as a whole for balance reasons, where-as you are tacking it on at the end. Balance is incredibly difficult to determine here.
Metallic skin: Roughly equivalent to two feats.
Sturdy: Roughly equivalent to a feat, though particularly powerful none-the-less.
Darkvision: One of the nicer vision types, but common.
Metal type: Roughly equivalent to a feat.
Admiration & Adapted skill: Equivalent to a feat.
Metal Based: A drawback, but not a particularly serious one. At best they'd need to remain wary of druids.
Conductive: A serious drawback, particularly if the DM is willing to exploit it.
So that pits a human who has, let's say, the equivalent of 3 feats worth of racial traits (choice of feat is equal to roughly 2 feats), against a race who has 5 feats, better vision, a choice in size, and one serious drawback to speak of.
I really, really like the flavor, but I would rate this as overpowered. And not like the Tieflings or Aasimar who are only overpowered for the early levels and then gradually have their bonuses out-powered by their class features and equipment. Your Sentians would be overpowered well into high levels, in my opinion, mostly because they have only one real drawback and many of their traits stack and synergize in exploitable ways. Have you considered making some of these bonuses into race-specific feats, at the very least?
Also, what if they could change their copied race every time they leveled up?
If they weigh more, wouldn't that slow them down? I'd make them Slow and Steady like a Dwarf while also giving them a negative to Swimming, cuz, ya know, heavy and metal and not shaped properly for buoyancy.
Why Darkvision? How's that fit the metal theme? I just don't see the point of it.
I really like choosing what type of metal you are, but Energy Resistance, +1 to AC, stackable DR 1, and a 25% chance of ignoring crits and sneaks? Ouch. At first level, who could hurt them with all that defense? Maybe the metal type should grant you a couple little SLAs or something. I see how you're trying to tie the resistances into the unique properties of the metal (possibly), but I still don't like it.
Metal Based is barely a drawback, but Conductive is nice.
I like Adapted Skill. It's self-balancing and fittingly flavorful. But then, you factor in my opinion on Admiration and it kind of screws things up.
On the other hand, Admiration kind of bugs me. I think it would make more sense that a Sentian would be viewed as a creepy copycat with ulterior motives and get penalties aplenty to Bluff, Disguise, Diplomacy, etc when dealing with flesh and blood races. And animals should be freaked out by them. Or maybe just not notice them because to a dog, a Sentian is just a rock. Maybe that's going to far. I've had very little sleep.
And maybe copying someone should give the copied person a negative level and require them to be willing or do a Will save. Maybe make it vaguely sexual (similar to how vampires are portrayed in that it can be damaging but there are plenty of willing participants). Like, the act itself is very intimate to the Sentian. I can see some fun/moral quandaries in that.
Regardless, being a mistrusted outsider would also make them more interesting to role play, in my opinion. Flawless races are only interesting to the person making them.
And what's with the metal feces? In the world of Pathfinder, nobody poops. :)
I really, really like the flavor, but I would rate this as overpowered. And not like the Tieflings or Aasimar who are only overpowered for the early levels and then gradually have their bonuses out-powered by their class features and equipment. Your Sentians would be overpowered well into high levels, in my opinion, mostly because they have only one real drawback and many of their traits stack and synergize in exploitable ways. Have you considered making some of these bonuses into race-specific feats, at the very least?
Also, what if they could change their copied race every time they leveled up? No, i'ts part of the flavor, once they copy a race, they are stuck with it.
If they weigh more, wouldn't that slow them down? I'd make them Slow and Steady like a Dwarf while also giving them a negative to Swimming, cuz, ya know, heavy and metal and not shaped properly for buoyancy.
The weight is jsut there for fluff, but giving them a swim penalty is kind of harsh, i'll see what i can do here.
Why Darkvision? How's that fit the metal theme? I just don't see the point of it.
Agreed, will take it out, it does not fit.
I really like choosing what type of metal you are, but Energy Resistance, +1 to AC, stackable DR 1, and a 25% chance of ignoring crits and sneaks? Ouch. At first level, who could hurt them with all that defense? Maybe the metal type should grant you a couple little SLAs or something. I see how you're trying to tie the resistances into the unique properties of the metal (possibly), but I still don't like it. Yeah maybe cutting out the crit resistance and DR would balance it a bit.
Metal Based is barely a drawback, but Conductive is nice.
I like Adapted Skill. It's self-balancing and fittingly flavorful. But then, you factor in my opinion on Admiration and it kind of screws things up. Well, to be frank, I was thinking it based ion the campaign im gonna do, since the races are highly advanced and don't discriminate.
Will probably get rid of this.On the other hand, Admiration kind of bugs me. I think it would make more sense that a Sentian would be viewed as a creepy copycat with ulterior motives and get penalties aplenty to Bluff, Disguise, Diplomacy, etc when dealing with flesh and blood races. And animals should be freaked out by them. Or maybe just not notice them because to a dog, a Sentian is just a rock. Maybe that's going to far. I've had very little sleep.
And maybe copying someone should give the copied person a...
Allow me to compare this to a couple other races to illustrate why this is incredibly overpowered for a player race. To be as simple as possible, let's compare it to a human because that's easy.
+2 ability: Identical, and within the standards of the system.
Variant size/weight/speed: This is where it gets tricky, because size/speed are tailored to a race as a whole for balance reasons, where-as you are tacking it on at the end. Balance is incredibly difficult to determine here.
Metallic skin: Roughly equivalent to two feats.
Sturdy: Roughly equivalent to a feat, though particularly powerful none-the-less.
Darkvision: One of the nicer vision types, but common.
Metal type: Roughly equivalent to a feat.
Admiration & Adapted skill: Equivalent to a feat.
Metal Based: A drawback, but not a particularly serious one. At best they'd need to remain wary of druids.
Conductive: A serious drawback, particularly if the DM is willing to exploit it.So that pits a human who has, let's say, the equivalent of 3 feats worth of racial traits (choice of feat is equal to roughly 2 feats), against a race who has 5 feats, better vision, a choice in size, and one serious drawback to speak of.
Actually conductive used to be electricity vulnerability! but its too much, so I changed it to a penalty to electricity-based.
Metal type basically makes you rust monster fodder, repel metal and stone affects you etc.
Ok, after looking at the post, I made the following changes:
Sentian Racial Traits
+2 to One Ability Score: Sentian characters get a +2 bonus to one ability score of their choice at creation to represent their varied nature.
Variant Size: Sentians are the same size as their chosen form.
Variant Speed: (1 point [ad hoc]) Same as the chosen race.
Metallic Skin:(4 points) +1 natural armor. Sentian skin is made of metal, while not as sturdy as the raw ones, they are indeed a bit more resilient than their chosen race.
Metal Type:(4 points?) Chose a type of metal the sentian is at the time of creation:
Copper: Acid Resistance 5.
Bronze: Fire Resistance 5.
Silver: Cold Resistance 5.
Gold: Sonic Resistance 5.
Adapted Skill:(1 point) Sentians receive a racial bonus from the chosen race that applies to skills. (Example: +2 intimitade from half-orcs, +2 acrobatics from halflings).
Metal Based:(-1 point) Sentians are subject to any effect that affects metals.
Conductive:(-2 points) Sentians have a -4 penalty to saves related to electricity.
Languages: Common, Sentian, and any racial languages from their chosen race.
Total points 7/10
Looks a lot more balanced than before! You're still a few points shy of 10, so you might consider buffing them up a bit. Giving them an additional skill point each level (ala human) wouldn't be bad. I feel like they need something unifying them as a race; after all, most of what they get is just based on their "parent" race. How about bonuses to disguise, bluff, or knowledge: local? Or the ability to hold their breath for twice as long as a standard person?
There's one thing I overlooked....druids... can they even be druids XD?
Sentian Racial Traits
+2 to One Ability Score: Sentian characters get a +2 bonus to one ability score of their choice at creation to represent their varied nature.
Variant Size: Sentians are the same size as their chosen form.
Variant Speed: (1 point [ad hoc]) Same as the chosen race.
Metallic Skin:(4 points) +1 natural armor. Sentian skin is made of metal, while not as sturdy as the raw ones, they are indeed a bit more resilient than their chosen race.
Metal Type:(4 points?) Chose a type of metal the sentian is at the time of creation:
Copper: Acid Resistance 5.
Bronze: Fire Resistance 5.
Silver: Cold Resistance 5.
Gold: Sonic Resistance 5.
Adapted Skill:(1 point) Sentians receive a racial bonus from the chosen race that applies to skills. (Example: +2 intimitade from half-orcs, +2 acrobatics from halflings).
Resilient:(2 points) +2 to saves versus poison and disease.
Metal Affinity: (1 point) Sentian wizards with the elemental (metal) school or oracle with the metal mystery treat their intelligence (for wizards) or charisma (for oracles) as 2 points higher for all spells or class abilities. Sentian spellcasters with the metal subdomain use their domain powers and spells at +1 caster level.
Metal Based:(-1 point) Sentians are subject to any effect that affects metals.
Conductive:(-2 points) Sentians have a -4 penalty to saves related to electricity.
Languages: Common, Sentian, and any racial languages from their chosen race.
Total points ~10/10
Metal Affinity: (1 point) Sentian wizards with the elemental (metal) school or oracle with the metal mystery treat their intelligence (for wizards) or charisma (for oracles) as 2 points higher for all spells or class abilities. Sentian spellcasters with the metal subdomain use their domain powers and spells at +1 caster level.
I'm with you right up until this point. You've essentially created a race that has, in essence, a +4 to their casting stat if they choose to play a specific caster. This, sir, is a bad idea. Tieflings have this feature because they have a penalty to charisma and it doesn't make any sense that they wouldn't be good abyssal/infernal sorcerers.
What if you replace this with something much more tame, like offering +1 level when determining the power of class abilities (but not spells)?
Also, you could scrap metal affinity and instead give Sentians the ability to choose favored class bonuses based on their "parent" race.
Also, random question here: for a race that has no interest in gathering and forming its own society, why does it have its own language? That doesn't really make sense to me.
Metal Affinity: (1 point) Sentian wizards with the elemental (metal) school or oracle with the metal mystery treat their intelligence (for wizards) or charisma (for oracles) as 2 points higher for all spells or class abilities. Sentian spellcasters with the metal subdomain use their domain powers and spells at +1 caster level.I'm with you right up until this point. You've essentially created a race that has, in essence, a +4 to their casting stat if they choose to play a specific caster. This, sir, is a bad idea. Tieflings have this feature because they have a penalty to charisma and it doesn't make any sense that they wouldn't be good abyssal/infernal sorcerers.
What if you replace this with something much more tame, like offering +1 level when determining the power of class abilities (but not spells)?
Also, you could scrap metal affinity and instead give Sentians the ability to choose favored class bonuses based on their "parent" race.
hmmmm, agreed, I will tame down that a bit.
Also, random question here: for a race that has no interest in gathering and forming its own society, why does it have its own language? That doesn't really make sense to me.
Knowing a language and having no interest in forming their own society are two different things, I forgot to mention this but, sentians don't speak sentian in a normal way, they using doing metal hums and the like, only sentians can "speak" sentian.
New changes to metal affinity:
Metal Affinity: Sentian spellcasters use their class special abilities and spells that are related to, or affect metals in some way at +1 caster level.
A bit more versatile now, and less powerful.