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Someone yesterday proposed an idea that the playtest doesn't include, and I think that it's worth considering.
Consider the teifling. It has the ability where for sorcerous magic you treat your charisma as though two points higher. This basically patches them so while they may get charisma screwed in other areas, they aren't terrible as sorcerers or bards, which makes sense for the concept.
Now if you give that to a race that already gets +2 Cha, or even +4 cha, that ability stops being a little patch and starts providing substantial benefit.
What someone proposed yesterday, is that instead of just pricing the abilities at one price, and hoping the GM can make sure they make rounded races, what about this?
Abilities cost less race points when they don't synergize with the abilities you already have. So if I have a character with some melee combat abilities, and -2 wisdom, but say, have +1 vs mind affecting effects, that +1 would cost less than if I was a race with a bonus to wisdom.
Now, their idea was to break it into categories, like traits, and charge you more if you take more than one in the same category. Those categories could be based on attributes or something else synergy based.
What do you think of the concept? Do you have any ideas on how to do it?
If things are cheaper when you don't synergize, it encourages people to build races that aren't minmaxed for a specific class.
I think the idea has real merit, and is worth looking into in further detail.
I can dig it.
I think thats a good concept.
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What someone proposed yesterday, is that instead of just pricing the abilities at one price, and hoping the GM can make sure they make rounded races, what about this?
I think this goes a step too far, in what I assume to be a GM toolbox, more than a player toolbox. Yes, players will end up designing their own pet races, and some of them will go nuts and stack racial Cha bonus on top of Advanced Cha bonus on top of stuff like Fiendish Sorcery and / or Elvish Magic (and tiny size and winged flight and a huge stealth bonus...) to make the 'perfect' optimized Sorcerer race, but, ideally, the GM should, at that point, simply put his foot down and say, 'no.'
And that's *assuming* that he encouraged a player to design their own race anyway.
I'd prefer that the various racial knick-knacks be appropriately balanced (no uber cheap Hardy or overpriced Skill bonuses), but this level of fine-tuning seems like 'letting the terrorists win,' in that the game design shouldn't have to be held slave to what a munchkin is going to do with it. The clever munchkin is going to find something to abuse no matter how carefully it's designed. I'd rather Paizo not waste design time trying to play that arm's race.
If someone wants to break stuff, they'll break stuff. It's up to their GM to either smile and say, 'sure, go for it' or to shake his head and say, 'No. I design the races, classes, etc. in my game world. Tell me what you are interested in playing, and we'll work together finding acceptable abilities, and a place in the world for this race.'
On the other hand, the writer/developer could take a cue from Mutants & Masterminds and have a sidebar somewhere that points out problem combinations, that a GM should look out for. Leave the option to use them up to the GM, if he *wants* an uber-optimized race for a bad-guy encounter (or a high powered 'design your own race' Spelljammery / Gamma Worldish game).
While I think it would definitely make things more complicated, I also think it would work very well toward the intended goal. Is it worth the increase in complexity, however? I would very happily work with such a system, but many others may find it too difficult.
Working out what abilities synergise strongly would also be difficult. Does claws cost more on a race with a strength bonus? Are skills worth more or less for a race with high int? And so on. I'm sure there would be people arguing for both penalties and bonuses for the same ability for a large number of the abilities relative to a given stat.
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Ooh! Idea!
Scaling trait costs add the relevant ability score modifier (from a base score of 10 plus or minus racial) to their cost. For our purposes here, the cost of such a trait is noted as 'X/ability' where X is the base cost and ability is the relevant ability score.
A 2/Wis trait costs 2 points for a race with no wisdom modifier. It costs 3 points for one with a +2 to wisdom (+1 modifier) or 1 point for one with -2 wisdom (-1 modifier). Minimum cost of 1, I suppose.
To go even further, some might be so sensitive to ability score variance that double the modifier is added. Dunno about that.
While I think this is a pretty nifty idea, I think I already know what Paizo would say: How much text will this add to the allotted space?
Putting this "clause" or "line" on even half of the abilities listed would add up, and there would have to be a very concise way to word it so as to take up as little space as possible while still making the meaning understood.
God, I would fail so hard at doing that.
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While I think this is a pretty nifty idea, I think I already know what Paizo would say: How much text will this add to the allotted space?
Putting this "clause" or "line" on even half of the abilities listed would add up, and there would have to be a very concise way to word it so as to take up as little space as possible while still making the meaning understood.
God, I would fail so hard at doing that.
You could give everything a triple cost: Anti-synergy / neutral / synergy. So the +1 to resist mind affecting might cost 1/2/3 points. Each ability could then just say: "Synergy: Wisdom", with the general rule being a penalty in the synergy stat lets you get it cheap, and a bonus makes you pay the expensive end.
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I don't think it is possible to measure synergy, especially across so many classes and ability scores. A grab bag of abilities that wouldn't "synergize" under any reasonable system may actually be a stealthy set of traits designed for unstoppable Barbarians. Others, like a bonus to will saves, "synergizes" with basically everything. For a low-wisdom race, it plugs a hole. For a high-wisdom race, it gives them godly saves. For a normal-wisdom race, it is still a nifty bonus.
A synergy system would, at most, prevent "piling." This may be a noble goal, but I don't think it is necessary for two reasons. First, as people have mentioned, this could conceivably add a LOT of complexity and pagecount. Second, it can really be dealt with with a simple bit of advice in the instructions. "Races are supposed to be varied. Using all your points towards a single goal, while possible, will make for characters far stronger than the base races."
If someone is dedicated to making a game breaking race, there is nothing that can stop them. And if that is the game everyone wants to play, that is fine. If you want balanced races, the GM needs to make them or closely watch players. Any systematic attempt is doomed to failure. At most, you will force people to be sneakier, choosing abilities that support their character concept without hitting synergy modifiers.
^See Above Post^
Well said. The playtest even addresses this, but I don't think many people have looked at it. Step 1: Concept deals with all of that. If, in the end, a DM allows something like that, then that is the prerogative of a DM - to allow or disallow certain things.
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Good Arguments, cleverlynamed.
I think the synergy measurements wouldnt be perfect, and yes there would be corner cases that slip by as you noted, but it would seriously cut down on the minmaxing, and encourage people to make more balanced races.
But as you mentioned, it may be too much extra efoort for the book, and may take up more page count than Paizo's willing to give it.
Here's my take around the synergy principle: Trait Trees. (gotta find a less creepy name though... lol sounds like french «traîtrise», treason)
Rationale: From an Evolution point of view (which is all I think about when imagining how a race came to be, not much into Creationism), as I was saying from an Evolution point of view, abilities develop because of ecological niches, and tend to come together. For example, sea mammals can swim + have a lot of fat, flying mammals rarely have a lot of fat. :) This is a powerful way to justify changing RP cost along other variables than creature type or subtype, and also an incentive to buy some non-combat traits to fit a concept cheaper. But the main part would be to represent the evolutionary cost of certain combo.
Examples:
You buy WINGS (2 RP).
You can have a Wing Natural Attack for +1 (Prerequisite)
You can have Fly for +2 (Prequisite - some other features might give access to it too, though)
You can have Climb for +1 (Normal cost raised to +2)
You must pay +1 for any trait that grants Stealth bonus
You must pay +1 for any trait that grants Swim bonus
You buy CLAWS (1 RP).
You can have a Claws Natural Attack for +1 (Prerequisite)
You can have Climb for +1 (Normal cost raised to +2)
You must pay +1 for any trait that grants bonus with specific weapons or weapon proficiency
You must pay +1 for any trait that grants Diplomacy bonus
You buy GOOD EYESIGHT (1 RP).
You get Low-Light Vision for +1 (Normal cost raised to +2)
You get Skill Bonus (Perception) for +1 (Normal cost +2)
You get Skill Bonus (Any Craft) for +1 (Normal cost +2)
You must pay +1 for any «Underground» trait and for Darkvision (why develop darkvision when your eyesight is awesome?)
You buy MASSIVE BODY (1 RP).
You are not slowed by armor (other slow medium creatures are) but you must pay +1 for Normal Speed.
You get Stability for Free
You get Hardy for +2 (Normal cost raised to +3)
You get Dwarven Weapon familiarity for +1 (Normal cost +2)
You must pay +1 for any movement trait
Etc.
(Also, MASSIVE BODY explains why Dwarves would be 10 RP cost and balances Hardy, wink wink)
What do you think?
I agree with Set, that it falls under the DM's prerogative to set the level of rules abuse that their players can get away with.
I would also argue that it is important for a well-conceived race to have a theme of some sort, and any synergy adjustment would effectively penalize this method of design.
Also as many have pointed out there are too many permutations which could be perceived as "too good" for various purposes, which would make any such system prohibitively complex.
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Also as many have pointed out there are too many permutations which could be perceived as "too good" for various purposes, which would make any such system prohibitively complex.
Perhaps.
Too complex to do manually, but you could always use the help of computers, and give it instructions, and have it go to town.~Says the programmer.
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Relying on the GM's prerogative is not going to address the issue. In general, I would expect the GM to come up with a conceptually based race, rather than a minmaxed one. However, some of the builds are obviously better than others. If there is an apparent synergy or lack of synergy, the only way for the GM to address that is to use more or less points, or simply not to build a race to that concept.
I would also argue that it is important for a well-conceived race to have a theme of some sort, and any synergy adjustment would effectively penalize this method of design.
How so? The core races, as written, are mostly not synergized to any great extent. A synergized race, even with similar numbers, would probably be more powerful, especially if it were suitable for hyper-specialization. Hyper-specialization tends to break the game at both ends, making characters simultanesouly too strong (in their focused area) and too weak (at surviving things outside that area).
Also as many have pointed out there are too many permutations which could be perceived as "too good" for various purposes, which would make any such system prohibitively complex.
I don't agree at all. You don't have to assess all permutations, you just have to identify enough key relationships that within 10, 20, and 30 points, you tax out the most egregious options.
There's definitely a concern here, but I don't think it necessarily has to be addressed mechanically. An introductory bit of text along these lines might get the job done:
Remember when designing new races that you are creating an entire race, not an individual character. Don't focus too heavily on a particular strength. A given race should represent an entire culture, and have abilities flexible enough to allow some diversity. Once you've finished designing a new race, stop and consider, could you see a member of this race as a paladin? A wizard? A bard? If not, you should remove an ability tied to its main strength, and replace it with one that anyone would find useful.