Homebrew Race Balancing

[Ironic Hero]

I've made three homebrew races for my campaign setting, and will be playtesting them soon, but I would like an initial impression. They can be found here. Are they balanced with the core races? What changes, if any, could/should I make?

[Bwang]

Lots more detail

[Ironic Hero]

What specifically needs more detail?

[Lightbulb]

We the Gahri really let their menfolk go adventuring if they are so revered? I really doubt it.

Now I realise I have gone into a lot of detail but the thought experiment interested me. A species in which males are exceedingly rare is going to have severe trouble keeping itself going.:

You mate with someone you revere, hope you survive child birth then become a male and are revered? In order to be rare you are talking less that 1 in 1000? Roughly 4 per litter (you said max 5). So: 1/250 (0.4%) survive giving birth. If the average is 3 then its 1/333 (0.3%).

This assumes that everyone mates. So each male would have to mate with 1000 females.

Now since you give give to more that 1 child the population will grow but its more like moths than a mammal species.

Perhaps most importantly: 1000 population give birth: 3000 to 4000 babies but only 4 females (and the male) to look after them. How will they get fed?

So this wouldn't work. To maintain population of males you will need roughly 300 to mate. Then you get roughly 1200 babies. This is a growth of more than 100% each generation. 1200 babies looked after by about 700 females seems more plausible. Especially if they don't all mate at the same time.

However that basically points to a very long life span. How else will one male mate with so many females?

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Anyway enough of that but one last thing:

The gender changing part after child birth would also cause a very alien social structure. Would be quite hard to roleplay I think.

Overall I would change some of that background if it was me. Get rid of the rare part. It leads to a very interesting social structure but if you don't I would very much doubt a male would be let go. They are too important.

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Mechanicswise are they meant to be the best fighters in the world?

+Str +Dex -Int seems very powerful. Add in the extra speed and the natural attacks and you have a very nice combat race with a slight downside.

I think they could do with a negative to balance.

[Tinalles]

The Advanced Race Guide should help with this once it comes out. In the meantime, the playtest for the advanced race guide should give you decent baseline for comparing your races.

[DarkLightHitomi]

The 3.5 books(DMG, I think) have good info for balancing and one thing I remember is to look at how many places the stats are usefull in. Str is more often used and more useful then int so int should be penalized more then the amount of bonus to str or if not then add another penalty to counter-balance the str bonus. You have to look at more then straight numbers to truly balance race.

[Ironic Hero]

@Lightbulb: The males rarely go adventuring, and are typically placed in leadership positions or just become breeders. The litters often exceed 5 young, but population control is maintained through constant war among Gahri tribes, and now with the Novenians (colonists composed of the core races). The pregnant women take care of the babies until the reach 1 year of age (about 3 in human age) and the adolescents take care of the other children. Women do not mate until they have achieved prestige on the battlefield, and thus children are not being produced at quite that rapid a rate. The ratio of men to women is closer to 1:100, but due to the small sizes of the individual tribes, most warrens have 2 or less men. Your mechanical advice is much appreciated, and I will look into giving them some sort of penalty.

@Tinalles: The playtest has been very helpful, but it doesn't address unique concepts such as the Artiari's Aviar or the Natlari's beast form ability, and I was mostly looking for insight on these aspects.

I didn't put too much work into explaining the cultures of the races in the document, as it's mostly meant to explain the races mechanically, but I would be happy to give more in-depth explanations if anyone is interested.

[Ironic Hero]

DarkLightHitomi wrote:

The 3.5 books(DMG, I think) have good info for balancing and one thing I remember is to look at how many places the stats are usefull in. Str is more often used and more useful then int so int should be penalized more then the amount of bonus to str or if not then add another penalty to counter-balance the str bonus. You have to look at more then straight numbers to truly balance race.

You make a great point. It got me thinking, and I realized that it would fit their fluff much better and help to balance their martial supremacy if I switched the penalty from Int to Con. Thanks for the feedback. I'm actually much happier with the new stats.