I decided I wanted a toned down version of drow for my homebrew that could be used as a PC without level adjustments or similar, with a look more relevant to living underground for aeons. I used the Race Builder rules.
Let me know what you think:
DEEP ELF
This pale-skinned elf stands in a battle-ready pose, his hair black as night, and eyes white and pupilless.
DEEP ELF
CR 1/3
XP 135
Deep Elf Warrior 1
CE Medium Humanoid (elf)
Init +5; Senses darkvision 120 ft., low-light vision; Perception +4
DEFENSE
AC 15, touch 15, flat-footed 10 (+5 Dex)
hp 5 (1d10)
Fort +2, Ref +5, Will +1
Defensive Abilities bond to the land (favored terrain [underground])
Weakness light blindness
OFFENSE
Speed 30 ft., terrain stride (favored terrain [underground])
Melee Masterwork Dagger +7 (1d4+1/19-20)
STATISTICS
Str 12, Dex 20, Con 11, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 13
Base Atk +1; CMB +2; CMD 17
Feats Weapon Finesse
Skills Perception +4, Stealth +8, Survival +2; Racial Modifiers +2 Perception, +2 Stealth, underground sneak
Languages Common, Undercommon
Gear masterwork dagger
ECOLOGY
Environment underground
Organization pair, squad (3–4), patrol (5–8), or war party (10–40)
Treasure NPC Gear (leather armor, light steel shield, dagger, hand crossbow with 20 bolts, deep elf poison [2 doses], 3d6 gp, other treasure)
SPECIAL ABILITIES
Bond to the Land (Underground) (Ex) +2 dodge bonus to AC when underground.
Darkvision (120 feet) Deep elves can see in the dark (black and white vision only).
Light Blindness (Ex) Deep elves are blinded for 1 round in bright light, and dazzled as long as they remain in it.
Low-Light Vision Deep elves see twice as far as a human in low light, distinguishing color and detail.
Poison Use (1/day) (Ex) No risk of accidentally poisoning yourself.
Terrain Stride (Underground) (Ex) Deep elves are not slowed by difficult terrain when underground, unless magically manipulated.
Underground Sneak (Ex) Gain additional +2 to Stealth underground.
Based on DE from DCSS? If so, I'd roll up a DEFE.
Kazaan wrote: Based on DE from DCSS? If so, I'd roll up a DEFE. I have no idea what you are saying.
Those stats are way too good, a 15 touch does not a CR 1/3 make. I'd recommend balancing the scores a little better and giving it some armor so the AC stays at about 15, which is still high for CR 1/3, and lower that DEX score.
No. Its not based on a Deep Elf from DCSS.
The Warrior clsss build was based on a standard 25 point build although admittedly most of the points were spent on Dex but not illegally AFAIK.
NPCs of the warrior class are generally made based around the elite ability array: 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8. On the flip side, pcs don't get xp (well, they get xp but you know what I mean) or cr scores.
That's what the problem is with your build.
steerpike65 wrote: No. Its not based on a Deep Elf from DCSS.
The Warrior clsss build was based on a standard 25 point build although admittedly most of the points were spent on Dex but not illegally AFAIK.
Do your players get a 30 point build? Typically unless it's a boss encounter your NPCs should be significantly weaker. I also vote for using the elite array rather than giving them a 25 point buy build.
I thought he was looking at a PC race.
In which case why not use the alternate drow racial traits to tone things down?
Also Drow Nobles are way overpowered, but most GMs of the home games I've played in have allowed regular drow. Just a few stipulations: regular elves all want you dead, light blindness, etc.
Or we played in all-drow parties in which case the point was moot.
OK, so here's a revised version using the Elite Array (plus racial modifiers)although it was supposed to be a race for PCs so I really don't get the concern about the stats:
Deep Elf Warrior
CR 1/3
XP 135
Male Deep Elf Warrior 1
CE Medium Humanoid (elf)
Init +3; Senses darkvision 120 ft., low-light vision; Perception +3
--------------------
Defense
--------------------
AC 13, touch 13, flat-footed 10 (+3 Dex)
hp 5 (1d10)
Fort +2, Ref +3, Will +0
Defensive Abilities bond to the land (favored terrain [underground])
Weakness light blindness
--------------------
Offense
--------------------
Speed 30 ft., terrain stride (favored terrain [underground])
Melee Masterwork Dagger +5 (1d4/19-20)
Special Attacks poison use (1/day)
--------------------
Statistics
--------------------
Str 10, Dex 17, Con 10, Int 13, Wis 10, Cha 14
Base Atk +1; CMB +1; CMD 14
Feats Weapon Finesse
Skills Intimidate +6, Perception +3, Stealth +6, Survival +1; Racial Modifiers +2 Perception, +2 Stealth, underground sneak
Languages Common, Terran, Undercommon
Gear Masterwork Dagger
--------------------
Special Abilities
--------------------
Bond to the Land (Ex) +2 dodge bonus to AC when underground.
Darkvision (120 feet) Deep elves can see in the dark (black and white vision only).
Light Blindness (Ex) Deep elves are blinded for 1 round in bright light, dazzled as long as they remain in it.
Low-Light Vision See twice as far as a human in low light, distinguishing color and detail.
Poison Use (1/day) (Ex) A deep elf does not risk accidentally poisoning himself.
Terrain Stride (Ex) Deep elves are not slowed by difficult terrain underground, unless magically manipulated.
Underground Sneak (Ex) Gain additional +2 to Stealth underground.
NPCs shouldn't be able to kill your PCs faster than they kill the NPC. A CR that low should not have an attack bonus that allows them to hit more than 50% of the time, assuming this guy is meant to fight low level characters whose AC rarely goes over 15.
If the race is meant to be offered to a player as a PC option in Pathfinder, then it would be better to present it in the same fashion as the other PC races in the CRB. That is to say, show what the racial adjustments are, instead of making the reader try to retro-calculate them from what is - essentially speaking - a monster stat block. (It's difficult to evaluate if the reader doesn't know what kind of point-buy is being used, or if a stat array is being used instead.)
Also, if you're asking for a quick critique based on the ARG options, I suggest that you include the RP "prices" of each ability.
Furthermore, the Warrior class is meant for low-powered NPCs. It is not a PC class at all (unlike Fighter, Ranger, etc.).
OK, there's clearly confusion being caused by me using an NPC class for a PC build, which is detracting from advice on the race build. Let's try it this way - what do you think of this Deep Elf PC?
Deep Elf Fighter
CR 1/2
XP 200
Male Deep Elf Fighter 1
CE Medium Humanoid (elf)
Init +5; Senses darkvision 120 ft., low-light vision; Perception +4
--------------------
Defense
--------------------
AC 15, touch 15, flat-footed 10 (+5 Dex)
hp 10 (1d10)
Fort +2, Ref +5, Will +1
Defensive Abilities bond to the land (favored terrain [underground])
Weakness light blindness
--------------------
Offense
--------------------
Speed 30 ft., terrain stride (favored terrain [underground])
Melee Masterwork Dagger +7 (1d4+1/19-20)
Special Attacks poison use (1/day)
--------------------
Statistics
--------------------
Str 12, Dex 20, Con 11, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 13
Base Atk +1; CMB +2; CMD 17
Feats Blind-Fight, Weapon Finesse
Skills Perception +4, Stealth +8, Survival +5; Racial Modifiers +2 Perception, +2 Stealth, underground sneak
Languages Common, Undercommon
Gear Masterwork Dagger
--------------------
Special Abilities
--------------------
Blind-Fight Re-roll misses because of concealment.
Bond to the Land (Ex) +2 dodge bonus to AC when underground.
Darkvision (120 feet) Deep elves can see in the dark (black and white vision only).
Light Blindness (Ex) Deep elves are blinded for 1 round in bright light, and dazzled as long as they remain in it.
Low-Light Vision Deep elves see twice as far as a human in low light, distinguishing color and detail.
Poison Use (1/day) (Ex) Deep elves do not risk accidentally poisoning themselves when making poison.
Terrain Stride (Ex) Deep elves are not slowed by difficult terrain when underground, unless magically manipulated.
Underground Sneak (Ex) Gain additional +2 to Stealth underground.
Fair point Bellona. Here's the Racial Build:
Standard Abilities: +2 Dex, +2 Wis, -2 Con (0 points)
Bond to the Land (Ex) +2 dodge bonus to AC when underground. (2 points)
Darkvision (120 feet) Deep elves can see in the dark (black and white vision only). (3 points)
Light Blindness (Ex) Deep elves are blinded for 1 round in bright light, and dazzled as long as they remain in it. (-2 points)
Poison Use (1/day) (Ex) Deep elves do not risk accidentally poisoning themselves when making poison. (1 point)
Terrain Stride (Ex) Deep elves are not slowed by difficult terrain when underground, unless magically manipulated. (1 point)
Underground Sneak (Ex) +2 to Craft (alchemy), Perception and Stealth, additional +2 to Stealth underground. (5 points)
Miscalculated points, so had to take out low-light vision.
steerpike65 wrote: Fair point Bellona. Here's the Racial Build:
Standard Abilities: +2 Dex, +2 Wis, -2 Con (0 points)
Bond to the Land (Ex) +2 dodge bonus to AC when underground. (2 points)
Darkvision (120 feet) Deep elves can see in the dark (black and white vision only). (3 points)
Light Blindness (Ex) Deep elves are blinded for 1 round in bright light, and dazzled as long as they remain in it. (-2 points)
Poison Use (1/day) (Ex) Deep elves do not risk accidentally poisoning themselves when making poison. (1 point)
Terrain Stride (Ex) Deep elves are not slowed by difficult terrain when underground, unless magically manipulated. (1 point)
Underground Sneak (Ex) +2 to Craft (alchemy), Perception and Stealth, additional +2 to Stealth underground. (5 points)
Miscalculated points, so had to take out low-light vision.
Thank you for the change in format. :)
The new race looks good to me too: 10 RP total, not too many from any one category, and all from standard traits. I believe that it was a good idea to remove the low-light vision - beyond the RP total issue - as few (if any?) PC races have both darkvision and low-light vision.
The only thing that could raise some problems is the Poison Use. It often requires the GM to supply some shady alchemist-types to sell the stuff to the PC, and might create some alignment problems with certain character types in a party (e.g., paladins, other extremely lawful or good characters). I suggest that you supply an optional replacement for the Poison Use ability, such as Sprinter (movement category), Illusion Resistance (defence; is the race in conflict often with Svirfneblin?), Mist Child (defence), Stability (defence), Cave Dweller (feat + skill), Skill Training (feat + skill), Stalker (feat + skill), and/or Stonesinger (magic).
Thanks for the advice Bellona - I had originally had Cave Dweller instead of Poison Use but had looked at the Underground Sneak ability, which gave a Craft (alchemy) bonus, and started to think about the social aspects of Deep Elf life, realising I had very little about the way they interacted, and the Underground Sneak already provided three skill bonuses while the Cave Dweller trait only gave more skill bonuses.
I like the concepts of Mist Child (but Bond to the Land seems similar)and Stonesinger and Illusion Resistance(but my homebrew is very low magic so may be useless).
What do you think about using Skill Training to reflect some sort of social aspect? I'm thinking:
Bluff and Intimidate - for a more evil, 'might makes right' society
Diplomacy and Knowledge (nobility) - for a society where you have to be very careful of the nobility
Bluff and Knowledge (nobility) - for a society where it's all about scheming to get a foot up the social ladder
Diplomacy and Intimidate - where the society is about back-stabbing and assassination
steerpike65 wrote: Fair point Bellona. Here's the Racial build. Small nitpick: That's not a build, it's a race. (You should change the thread title too) A build is a combination of race, class feat and perhaps equipment choices, i.e. a quick sketch of a PC/NPC statblock.
Is this for a Golarion Campaign?
(Calling them Deep elves threw me a bit at the beginning, because I was thinking of the neutral/good elven race introduced in 2e's Night Below box campaign.)
I would be more inclined to give the race either Int +2 or Cha +2 (instead of Wis +2), but that is possibly more of a flavour issue.
Skill Training is a good option. I would definitely include Intimidate as one of the class skills, the other one would be up to precisely how you see these elves interacting with each other. Possibly Perception?
I still like Sprinter. It's a good call-out to 1e Drow. Back then, the females were faster than the males (the equivalent of Move 40' instead of 30').
Even with a low magic world/campaign (or maybe because of it), I think that Stonesinger is a good idea as an option.
How about - after the ability score adjustments and darkvision/light blindness - offering a menu on which a character can spend the final 9 RP? The choices would then be:
Bond to the Land (Underground)(2 RP),
Poison Use (1),
Skill Training (Intimidate + your [GM's] choice)(1),
Sprinter (1),
Stonesinger (1),
Terrain Stride (Underground)(1), and
Underground Sneak (5).
That should offer something to just about every class.
blackbloodtroll wrote: Is this for a Golarion Campaign? No. Homebrew.
steerpike65 wrote: blackbloodtroll wrote: Is this for a Golarion Campaign? No. Homebrew. That's Deep, man.
Bellona wrote: (Calling them Deep elves threw me a bit at the beginning, because I was thinking of the neutral/good elven race introduced in 2e's Night Below box campaign.) LOL. That must have surfaced from my subconscious, it's years since I read through that (never played/ran unfortunately).
Bellona wrote: I would be more inclined to give the race either Int +2 or Cha +2 (instead of Wis +2), but that is possibly more of a flavour issue. I was seeing them as very alert, heavily linked with dark cthonic gods, underdark survival specialists. But I'm open to other thoughts.
Bellona wrote: Skill Training is a good option. I would definitely include Intimidate as one of the class skills, the other one would be up to precisely how you see these elves interacting with each other. Possibly Perception? Already have a bonus to Perception in the traits so I think I will run with Intimidate and Bluff/Diplomacy. I like the concept of a more feral community, although the drow Houses concept would then get lost, which would be a shame.
Bellona wrote: I still like Sprinter. It's a good call-out to 1e Drow. Back then, the females were faster than the males (the equivalent of Move 40' instead of 30'). Meh. I'm not feeling the love for a sprinter trait in an underground environment. MMV.
Bellona wrote: Even with a low magic world/campaign (or maybe because of it), I think that Stonesinger is a good idea as an option. That's a fair point and I have no magic-oriented abilities in the traits. It certainly meshes with the underground thang.
Bellona wrote: How about - after the ability score adjustments and darkvision/light blindness - offering a menu on which a character can spend the final 9 RP? The choices would then be:
Bond to the Land (Underground)(2 RP),
Poison Use (1),
Skill Training (Intimidate + your [GM's] choice)(1),
Sprinter (1),
Stonesinger (1),
Terrain Stride (Underground)(1), and
Underground Sneak (5).
That should offer something to just about every class.
I very much like the idea of the choices - that way, people that like Sprinter (like you) can still take it but it doesn't define the race.
Thanks for your input.
Thanael wrote: Small nitpick: That's not a build, it's a race. (You should change the thread title too) A build is a combination of race, class feat and perhaps equipment choices, i.e. a quick sketch of a PC/NPC statblock. Bah! Semantics. I 'built' the race using the Advanced Race Guide point system, but I take your point :-)
How do you change the thread title? I want to change the Deep Elf wording as well so as not to confuse Bellona any more. :-)
EDIT: Searched and discovered it seems not to be possible to change a thread title (nor even a post after an hour) - that sucks.
IIRC, if one Flags the opening post in one's own thread, one of the Flag options is to change the thead title.
Some dark, chthonic deities have a nasty habit of reducing their worshippers' Wis/sanity :0 ... so maybe this race has survived _because_ they have a bonus to their Wisdom. :)
Bellona wrote: IIRC, if one Flags the opening post in one's own thread, one of the Flag options is to change the thead title. Nope, that doesn't seem to work - no obvious option for thread title changing in the Flag options.
Bellona wrote: Some dark, chthonic deities have a nasty habit of reducing their worshippers' Wis/sanity :0 ... so maybe this race has survived _because_ they have a bonus to their Wisdom. :) LOL. Yes. Yes, it all makes sense now.
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