Allergy - a new weakness for the Advanced Race Guide

[IamUru]

While reading the Advanced Race Guide I was concerned with its lack of weaknesses. A lack of weaknesses means a lack of choices so; I made a new weakness – Allergy. Tell me what you think.

Allergy (-RP varies): Prerequisite: none; Weakness: The race exposed to the allergy suffers the sickened condition when in prolonged proximity to it (one minute or longer), and 1d6 damage per round when in direct contact with it. Damage done by the allergy prevents any form of regeneration and cannot be healed by anything short of magical or natural healing.
Note: This weakness can be chosen multiple times, for each different source of allergy.

The easier it is to obtain the item the race is allergic to, the higher the RP penalty to the race. If an allergy fills two categories, pick the least common.
For examples, see the table below:

Allergy Penalty
Common (Fire, Water) 5
Uncommon (Salt, Silver) 4
Rare (Plants) 3
Scarce † 2
Unique ‡ 1
†A scare allergy is made of something that can no longer be created, or is in very limited supply.
‡A unique allergy is often a specific weapon or item, usually magical in nature.

[+5 Toaster]

so what would allergy(bane weapon property)be? i do feel that your unique option is a little too specific to be viable, both mechanically and thematically. it is basically saying all members of this race are weak to this one specific weapon. someone finds it, destroys it, yay free RP.

[IamUru]

First of all thank you for the response. I’ll expound from your two comments, and go forward from here.

This isn't a “Bane” property. This is a thing inside of the game that explains weird and unique weaknesses – it can be as common as water to a fiery elemental race, or the Jabberwock and the Vorpal Sword.
Speaking of the latter, the item in question (if I were the GM) would have to be something not only unique but artifact quality. I leave it to the general discretion of the Game master – and his or her level of scruples – as to define the qualities of that unique item in their world. At the cost of –RP, that’s not enough to blow a gasket.

[+5 Toaster]

IamUru wrote:

First of all thank you for the response. I’ll expound from your two comments, and go forward from here.

This isn't a “Bane” property. This is a thing inside of the game that explains weird and unique weaknesses – it can be as common as water to a fiery elemental race, or the Jabberwock and the Vorpal Sword.
Speaking of the latter, the item in question (if I were the GM) would have to be something not only unique but artifact quality. I leave it to the general discretion of the Game master – and his or her level of scruples – as to define the qualities of that unique item in their world. At the cost of –RP, that’s not enough to blow a gasket.

i meant what would the cost of having a allergy TO the bane weapon property cost? i would use that to represent a race, who being hunted and not hunting, is ingrained in their very being.

P.S. as to my later question, i guess i could conceive of an artificially created race weak to a specific artifact. Perhaps even the one that was used in their creation. i will concede your point there.

[LovesTha]

To just one type of bane, or to all banes?

[Ilja]

I like the idea, but I think the RP gain from an allergy is far too high atm, especially for the uncommon and rare ones. I'd put it at 4 points for common, 2 points for the uncommon, 1 point for rare and not care at all for something rarer than a specific plant.

[+5 Toaster]

LovesTha wrote:

To just one type of bane, or to all banes?

i guess the property itself, meaning they cant even wield weapons with it.

[IamUru]

I thought of the cost or gain to the -RP, but this is a direct offset for monstrous race builds. If anything, I should probably look at this as having/needing a requirement for Monstrous builds - right now the weaknesses in the book are less than favorable.

I still think its viable to make things higher than rare - this gives the GM a chance to introduce an item into his/her game that is directly in defiance of that race, or even built to destroy it.

If you look at the cost for some Monstrous builds, (things above 20-30 RP) reduction of the race cost by 5 points is not a huge offset.

[Big Lemon]

I think if a GM really want to introduce soem sort of race-bane weapon or item that is that rare, he may as well just make something up, because having a race gain RP for something that they will never encounter unless the GM specifically want that to be a part of the game doesn't help to balance out the class much. Things like elemental vulnerabilities, players have basically a 1/4 chance of encounter that damage when they come up against a magical creature or spellcaster in game regardless of the setting's theme, and those only give 2 RP.

[IamUru]

Fair enough regarding the last post. So a scale back on the -RP and the removal of "Unique" is good, but I think even if the common element is a 4, that's not too much for something that a player could easily encounter as simply as going into an urban sprawl, or dungeon.

Thank you for the feedback.