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Ok, so my secondary role-play group of friends (the ones who meet much less frequently, but who are much better at it) are starting their first Pathfinder game. They're converting their characters from this barebones, simple game called Gates and Gorgons. And in that game, there's a were-wolf thing called a Gylf, and the DM made this for them (copy/pasted from facebook):
The Gylf-Wolf: Racial Traits 1 through 7 (edit: except 5) applies when in human form or wolf form. 5, 8, 9, and 10 apply when in wolf form only.
1. +2 Dexterity, +2 Constitution, +2 Wisdom. NO PENALTIES TO ABIITIES. Gylf-Wolves are quick, durable, and perceptive.
2. As a Medium creature, Gylf-Wolves get no bonuses or penalties due to size.
3. Movement 30 feet.
4. Gylf-Wolves can see twice as far as a human in starlight, moonlight, torchlight, and similar conditions of shadowy illumination. It retains the ability to distinguish color and detail under these conditions.
5. +2 racial bonuses on Listen, Spot, and Survival checks: Borrowing from their wolf bond, Gylf-Wolves have an acute perception of their surroundings and double their Wisdom bonus when tracking.
6. Languages: Common and Wolf.
7. Bonus Languages based upon Intelligence: Dwarven, Elf, Goblin, Halfling, Orc, Sylvan.
8. Movement 40 feet.
9. When in wolf form their attack routine is either 2 claw attacks per round (1d6 + Strength mod) OR 1 bite attack (1d8 + Strength mod).
10. Trip tactic: a hit with a bite attack (no damage) can attempt to trip the opponent as a free action without making a touch attack or provoking an attack of opportunity. If the attempt fails, the opponent cannot react to trip the Gylf-Wolf.
LIMITATIONS: Gylf-Wolves can only choose the Fighter, Barbarian, or Ranger classes. Whenever the character wants to shape change, they have to get nude or they will rip their clothing apart. Gylf-Wolves cannot use any weapons when in wolf form. If armored, the character must take it off because they are changing into human sized four legged wolves. When in wolf form the character can only speak wolf. However, he or she can understand other languages.
I thought maybe I could still be a decent half-orc, since I could technically crank up the strength higher then this thing, but... we're rolling for stats and I have no idea what I'm going to get. And since this thing gets +2 to 3 stats (save stats no less), I feel like it would be foolish to do anything else.
On the one hand, unless I don't care about my armor and weapons, I'd never really use the wolf thing. So effectively, it gets no race features besides really good stats. But... that's a net +6 over a normal races +2. Gawd.
Should I recommend a tone down? The only person running one will be a ranger, the one thing that a power gamer would make after looking at these stats, so my gut reaction is that this is cheese. I'm just worried about it, since most people in this group are very casual and RP focused, and it would super unbalance things if that one ranger is way more amazing.
It does sound over-powered. Technically, i would rework the stats just a wee bit.
+2 Constitution, +2 Wisdom, -2 Intelligence
Medium
Low-Light Vision
Survivalist: +2 Perception, +2 Survival
Shape Change - As per the spell Beast Shape I (Wolf), except as follows:
Gain the Trip ability and either 2 claw attacks (1d4+str) or one bite attack (1d6+str), This form only lasts a number of rounds equal to 3+Con Mod in rounds, these rounds are need not be consecutive. (Note - have changing shape take a full round).
Ignore the class limitations, they were a bygone age idea and really not all that needed in pathfinder.
I would however keep the idea about the clothes and whatnot in mind. This would probably work. Also i would probably limit the number of round he can stay in wolf form to something like (3 + Con Bonus) and have it go up in level (Like the barb). Hope this helps a little bit.
Oh yeah! and yeah its still pigeon holed... *Shrug* shouldn't be to OP'd though.
Overall? It's not that bad. +2 to three ability scores with no penalty isn't unheard of (Merfolk do the same, with a number of other racial bonuses, with the only major penalty being a land speed of 5 which can be easy to get around). Matching their [DPR/HP/Defenses/Whatever] with a regular +2 net bonus wouldn't really be difficult, though I admit this stacks things up in their favor when optimizing.
On that note though, this is probably overpowered if most of the group are not optimizers. If RP is more important to most of the players, this should probably be toned down. I would recommend your GM (at your suggestion?) takes a look over the Race Builder and see how this stacks up against core races, or the other kinds of races that are allowed. I'm not sure what would be an appropriate cost on the current version or the version JadedDemiGod put up, but it would be a good guideline on this.
My 2 copper.
A + to Dex, Con and Wis is pretty good for any class that has AC, hps, or makes saving throws, so it's not THAT much cheesier for a ranger than for a fighter or a barbarian.
Worrying about cheese because your player wants to play one of the three classes you allow for the race seems a little odd. Maybe this particular player leans to cheese and it's a real concern, or maybe you're having second thoughts about the race because it is significantly more powerful than the standard races.
I would suggest scaling the race back a la JDG's suggestion, or just telling the player his first level will be an NPC class (which is how I get my players to stop trying to play Drow Nobles). At first level, he'll still be pretty badass as a warrior, and by midlevels, he probably won't be transforming much.
Mkay, duly noted. I forgot all about the race builder. I'll mention that, and that the consensus is that it seems like it should be toned down a smidge.
But wait, how is the mermaid's speed easy to get around? I always thought that was a huge deal.
Grab yourself a mount, or any class that gets access to flight through spells or class features.
Or, even easier, just grab the strongtail alternate racial trait for a land speed of 15, which'll put you at the same as a slow speed character in medium or heavy armor. And all that does is knock your swim speed down to 30.
There's probably others that I can't think of off the top of my head, but those would be simple enough, in my opinion.
Grab yourself a mount, or any class that gets access to flight through spells or class features.
Or, even easier, just grab the strongtail alternate racial trait for a land speed of 15, which'll put you at the same as a slow speed character in medium or heavy armor. And all that does is knock your swim speed down to 30.
There's probably others that I can't think of off the top of my head, but those would be simple enough, in my opinion.
flight seems to be popular as well.
speed is a big thing, especially at low levels. it's both a major penalty to the merfolk (before level 5, no class can reliably fly, and up to level 9 only druids and summoners can - mounts have a lot of issues of their own, such as being very vulnerable in combat and requiring skill investment to be even controllable in combat). It is also a major benefit of this werewolf race above - a speed of 40 means a 1st level barbarian with this will have a massive speed of 50, three natural attacks, free trips, and great saves and HP. So the merfolk's penalty is faaar greater than this race's, and the merfolk is considered a very strong (by some even overpowered) race.
I think the werewolf above is far more powerful than any of the core races. Restricting the werewolf to a few classes, which from a power perspective would consider this race the best race, is more or less meaningless from a balance perspective.
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Oh yeah, I agree. As far as I can tell, this race doesn't honestly have any drawbacks whatsoever aside from restricted classes, which all work very nicely with its abilities. It's definitely more powerful than core races.
What I'm saying is just that I'm not so sure it would necessarily overshadow all other races.
The stats are a pretty big deal, certainly, but it's not pushing them beyond the realm of what other characters can match. It at least has no racial bonus to strength, which is something I'd say all of the classes it is limited to would want a fair amount of, so they'd likely need to devote quite a few points to that. Like I said, they are certainly good modifiers though, no arguments there.
The shapeshifting seems limited quite a bit by not having equipment meld with the form. Once the players have any items that they would prefer to keep on (magic items primarily), I'd think the wolf form would be less useful. I would however, say that it could probably do with having just a single bite attack, as regular wolves in PF have. Though, according to the OP, it's not three attacks but a choice of 2 claws, or 1 bite (which does seem like a weird way to set it up).
As for merfolk speed, the strongtail racial for 15 feet on land means their speed is at least not terribly crippled. Mounts do have their own difficulties, admittedly, but with 15 feet to fall back on, and the ability to get a combat trained horse for 110 GP, I think it's manageable for getting three +2 stats, natural armor, amphibious nature so they never have to worry about drowning, a swim speed, and immunity to trip. I can certainly understand people saying the merfolk is a very strong race, even with its speed penalty.
Like I said, I agree this race is definitely more powerful than the norm, I'm just saying that I don't think it's entirely out of the same league, or that it will, just on its own abilities, completely surpass all others.