Is it just me, or are the Racial Weaknesses under utilized and overly specific?
Now, before I go any further, I realize that I am free as a GM to Rule Zero anything and say "This Race has the following weakness," and that's all fine and well. I fully intend to.
However, and there is always a however, of the six weakness abilities listed (four Standard, two Advanced), we have four that deal with sunlight, and two that do not. This is, I feel, a great and terrible oversight. There is a lot that could be done, here.
I won't pretend to have a complete list of suggestions, but I do think that "All these races hiding from the light" will get old really fast. Racial weaknesses that are not tied to size, speed, or linguistics currently seem to be geared specifically overlook a great deal of potentially adverse situations, while zeroing in on the rather stereotypical "Dark Things Of The Night" tack.
Again, there's nothing really wrong with this, given that so many of the non-standard PC races live underground or are generally considered to come from evil, anti-light-and-goodness backgrounds (c'mon, how many of you play Drow? Be honest, now!), so I suppose it's understandable.
But what about a race that was "Created in the dim times, as a servant to the Ancient Men. Pleasing in form, but weak in spirit, they do not linger when their blood is spilled, expiring and passing from the Waking World as quickly as a candle is snuffed out," hm?
What if I want a race that takes an extra point of damage per round when bleeding to death?
What if I want a race that takes an extra point of damage/effect from poisons?
What if I want a race that is vulnerable to Negative Energy damage?
Perhaps a race that is especially susceptible to Illusions/Enchantments, taking a -2 Will Save against them?
A cold-blooded Serpent-borne race that suffers a -2 penalty to Initiative in very cold environments?
One of these can be reskinned from another (Elemental Vulnerability), but the others cannot.
There are some categories of weaknesses that are missing, here, I think. Like I said, I won't pretend to believe that I can list them all off, but just off the top of my head, I can easily see a need for:
* - Skill Penalty Weakness
* - Save Penalty Weakness
* - Damage Penalty Weakness
For my own game world, I took a look at my various "Type: Humanoid, Subtype: Created" races, and found that not a one of them comes anywhere close to 10 points. That's okay, I think they're more-or-less balanced with Humans, and my players do, too.
But what I found is that I can't properly map the various racial weaknesses (all of which are listed up above), even if I stretch quite a ways and reskin things like Light Blindness or Elemental Vulnerability.
I'm really interested to hear/read/converse about this. I'm sure I can't be the only one who's noticed it.
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I agree that more weaknesses would be a good way to add more choices. I also wanted to add that the resurrection vulnerability is a VERY minor weakness - adding a single spell that works as a SOD. I don't think this is worth the -1 point at all. I'd either make it part of the undead type, or reduce it to - 1/2 point in value.
One that came up while I was trying to create a quickling playable race, their Slow Vulnerability. I admit it's kind of a corner case, but worth mentioning.
JoelF847 - The Undead Subtype is already vulnerable to Positive Energy (Healing), and regains health from Negative Energy (Inflicting). Currently they are actually, physically, changed "back" into whatever Race they were before they became an Undead when resurrected, while raise dead and reincarnate have no effect. While I agree that it's a single spell working as a Save-Or-Die vulnerability, I feel a need to point out that I have never in my 30-some-odd years of gaming seen a Cleric who hasn't had a Raise Dead lying around somewhere during the course of play. That being said, if it were me, I'd make "Resurrection Vulnerability" into something that encompassed Raise Dead, Reincarnate, Resurrection, True Resurrection and Heal, myself. Basically "This Race is pretty much turned to dust when powerful healing and revivification magics are used against them," and call it a -2 RP penalty.
But maybe I'm crazy.
ShadowcatX - Agreed. That's why I'm posting this thread. The more feedback we can provide, the better.
Peanuts - That's exactly the kind of thing I was hoping someone would bring up. We can't rightly model that susceptibility in the Advanced Race Guide rules as they stand now. Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see a single weakness sprinkled within those pages that says "Take this if a particular effect or type of effect causes (N Reaction) in the members of this Race." You could currently build PC Quicklings, but they'd be head-and-shoulders above their NPC Brethren, since they'd never know the Slow Sickness.
Good stuff, guys! Thanks! Can't wait for more! :)
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I would point out that weaknesses are very difficult to balance (see 3.5 Flaws).
True except that flaws were designed to be a player resource. The Race Builder is not. I see this misconception all over the forum, the Race Builder is a GM tool only. That does not mean a player can't design a race with the help of the GM or bring a created race to the GM, but it is not a tool for a player to make a character.
Ahh, well glad I could help :)
Another one that came to mind. Carytid Column (Bonus Bestiary 8) contains as part of it's Immunity to Magic ability "In addition, certain spells and effects function differently against the creature, as noted below. A transmute rock to mud spell deals 1d6 points of damage per caster level to a caryatid column, with no saving throw. Transmute mud to rock, on the other hand, heals any lost hit points. A stone to flesh spell does not actually change the column’s structure but negates its damage reduction and immunity to magic for 1 full round."
I know the mud to rock/rock to mud, & soften earth and stone have come up in a few different creatures as well... and now that I go looking for them they seem to be the ones with Immunity to Magic (golems and other constructs, which is relevant to this test what with the Construct Type) that all have these odd, corner case abilities.
A froghemoth's "Slowed by Electricity" weakness.
These would be fairly hard to write generic examples for though... would have to be something like:
"Spell/Damage Weakness (X RP)
When the creature is hit by <spell type or damage type> the creature <takes Xd6 damage, or suffers Y condition for X rounds>"
but even that's kind of vague, and of course not all conditions are equal...
Also realize that Paizo playtests rarely include every single thing in the playtest that they include in the actual release. They included enough to allow the playtest to use them.
The most important thing about a racial weakness is that it affects any character of that race, not just a select few. A racial weakness of 'minus 1 to caster level' is a terrible weakness and a race that has it should get no points back for having it, as it affects only spellcasting members of the race. Similarly, a 'must use weapons one size smaller' weakness only affects combatants and not most primary casters.
Before I fall over dead for the night, thought I'd pop back in and see what else has been wrought, here.
Realmwalker - I do realize that. I must ask - are you commenting because you feel that this thread is misplaced or unnecessary? Your comment doesn't seem constructive. That may be because I've been awake for 20 hours, however, and thus am not entirely all here.
Umbral Reaver - That's kind of my point. Of the non-size, non-language RP-Refund abilities, four of the six weaknesses listed are sunlight related. Is that really the way that things should be shaped when building a race? As I mentioned in the examples I gave, what if I want a race that is quick to die when bleeding out? Or becomes sluggish and slow-witted in conditions of extreme cold? These are not weaknesses that should impact only a select subset of the race. Anyone can find themselves bleeding to death. Anyone can find themselves up to their necks in Frost Giants (and their accompanying snow banks).
I think there's a lot of potential being wasted, here. Makes me wonder what else Paizo's got up their sleeve, personally.
So, apologies for the self-bumping, here, but I've been thinking.
Weaknesses as portrayed in the standard ruleset thus far come in one of three types:
* Attribute Penalties - "-2 to (X) Attribute"
* Lack of Environmental Adaptation - "Light Blindness"
* Vulnerabilities - "Elemental Vulnerability"
Unfortunately, the current rules in the Advanced Race Guide only address the stock variations of these, as listed before.
I'm wondering if perhaps something like the following might be more appropriate:
* Attribute Penalties - Unchanged. A Race's inherent disparity from the Human Baseline is dealt with here.
* Physical Penalties - Covers issues with various types of physical harm that may befall the members of this race. A winged race with hollow bones may take an extra point of damage from bludgeoning weapons per hit, for example.
* Mental Penalties - Covers issues with various types of psychological or spiritual harm that may befall the members of this race. A race that was created to be slaves by the Ancient Lich Kings Of The World Before might be susceptible to coercion, intimidation, or the like.
* Environmental Penalties - Covers issues with environments that may be foreign or hazardous to the health of members of this race. An aquatic race that can't survive for more than 12 hours a day out of water would have penalties of this type.
* Magical Penalties - Issues such as Elemental Vulnerability would fall under this type, as would susceptibilities to certain types of magic. The Created Race I mention under Mental Penalties would suffer their -2 to all saves vs. Enchantment under this heading.
Borrowing liberally from the HERO system, I'd suggest the following attributions for weakness point refunds:
* Does Not Impact: A weakness that does not impact actual game play is worth 0 RP. e.g. - Members of this race have blue hair in a world where blue hair is only found on members of this race. Sure, it means they're members of this race, but it doesn't impact them in a negative fashion.
* Rarely Impacts: A weakness that is a weakness, but rarely impacts actual game play is worth -1 RP. e.g. - Members of this race have blue hair in a world where three nations consider blue hair to be an unwelcome sight and thus suffer a -1 to all social interaction rolls with citizens of those countries.
* Moderate Impact: A weakness that is a pronounced weakness, or is moderately impacting through normal game play is worth -2 RP. e.g. - Blue hair? Don't want none of that 'round here, son. Best be movin' along. Includes penalties of -2 to -4 on rolls, or the like.
* Severe Impact: A weakness that impacts in every session (such as Light Blindness) is worth -3 RP. e.g. - Holy crap! That thing's got blue hair! KILL IT!
Going with my previous race examples from my older posts, the Weak Blooded races would suffer a Moderate Impact weakness from their "Takes 1 extra point of bleeding damage" weakness, and a Rare Impact weakness from their susceptibility to Intimidation checks, for a total of -3 RP. They suffer nothing quantifiable from being short and generally looked down upon by society in terms of game play, so that's a 0 RP penalty.
Just some thoughts from my head this week. Very rough, but perhaps someone will find them useful.
I don't have a lot to say except I agree more weaknesses are desperately needed, and your categorization looks spot-on so far.