Is this a better list of races for the Reincarnation spell?
If so or if not, please let me know kay?
Dwarf (1-4), Elf (5-8), Gnome (9-12), Halfling (13-16), Half-Elf (17-20), Half-Orc (21-24), Human (25-28), Catfolk (29-32), Dhampir (33-36), Ratfolk (37-40), Tengu (41-44), Changeling (45-48), Grippli (49-52), Kitsune (53-56), Meroflk (57-60), Nagaji (61-64), Samsaran (65-68), Strix (69-72), Vanara (73-76), Vishkanya (77-80), Wayang (81-84), Lashunta (85-88), Skinwalker (89-92), Triaxian (93-96), Other [GM's choice] (97-100)
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Not all the races should have equal probability. In most campaigns, the core races are the most common and the others are very rare (a 1% chance at most).
Elf (12-22)
Gnome (23-33)
Halfling (34-44)
Half-Elf (45-55)
Half-Orc (56-66)
Human (67-79)
Catfolk (80)
Dhampir (81)
Ratfolk (82)
Tengu (83)
Changeling (84)
Grippli (85)
Kitsune (86)
Meroflk (87)
Nagaji (88)
Samsaran (89)
Strix (90)
Vanara (91)
Vishkanya (92)
Wayang (93)
Lashunta (94)
Skinwalker (95)
Triaxian (96)
Other [GM's choice] (97-100)
And you might even skew the core races if some of them are less common. For example, in my current campaign humans are most common, followed by halflings, with the rest of the core races roughly equal in third place, so:
Human (1-30)
Halfling (31-45)
Dwarf (46-52)
Elf (53-59)
Gnome (60-66)
Half-Elf (67-73)
Half-Orc (74-79)
Catfolk (80)
Dhampir (81)
Ratfolk (82)
Tengu (83)
Changeling (84)
Grippli (85)
Kitsune (86)
Meroflk (87)
Nagaji (88)
Samsaran (89)
Strix (90)
Vanara (91)
Vishkanya (92)
Wayang (93)
Lashunta (94)
Skinwalker (95)
Triaxian (96)
Other [GM's choice] (97-100)
Of course, if all races are about equally common in your campaign, the list you've posted is just fine.
I don't think that Samsaran should be in the list, because this race is basically already reincarnating in human babies. This race is far more spiritual than physical, and reincarnate is basically a body changing spell, not a «get a new free soul» thing.
Also, you should be at least two times more likely to turn human than anything else, they are by far the most common race.
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I don't think that Samsaran should be in the list, because this race is basically already reincarnating in human babies. This race is far more spiritual than physical, and reincarnate is basically a body changing spell, not a «get a new free soul» thing.
Pretty sure Samsaran reincarnation isn't a new soul, it's the same soul with a new mind/personality as well as a new body. It's certainly not the same thing as the spell, but I don't think it's implausible that passing through death and being thrust into a new body might occasionally connect someone to the spiritual reincarnation cycle as well. It's actually an interesting prospect since it would change the target's afterlife thereafter. And according to this post, it is possible for non-samsarans to enter the samsaran reincarnation cycle:
Samsaran children exist when something else dies and is reincarnated into a samsaran child body.
Then of course, you get the question of whether a Samsaran would be removed from the spiritual reincarnation cycle by the Reincarnate spell...
EDIT: Oh hey, reincarnating into a Samsaran is confirmed as possible later on that thread - whether that permanently changes their afterlife to a reincarnation cycle is left up in the air.
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So the default reincarnate table breaks down as follows:
Humans- 15%
Core, non-half-human, non-dominant races- 4 at 12% (in the standard reincarnate table, these are dwarf, elf, gnome, and halfling)
Half-human races- 2 at 10% (half-elf and half-orc)
CR <1 nonstandard race- 3 at 4% (goblin, kobold, and orc)
CR 1-2 nonstandard race- 4 at 1% (bugbear, gnoll, lizardfolk, and troglodyte)
GM's choice- 1%
CRB races make up 83% of the table, so for an at-home table, that's probably the thing to aim for (I'm keeping to it with mine unless an area has a distinct lack of one or more Core races; feel free to do what thou wilt). If you want to trim the chances of that down, there's plenty of points to steal from in there. I'd suggest sticking to the Humanoid type, CR 1/2 or less (if you're using the ARG, that's pretty much any race that's under 15 points). I could see the nature magic of reincarnate aiming to ensure creatures return as something similar to their original species.
Also, I'd stick to races native in some amount to the area. This means, in Golarion for instance, that western Avistan is going to have a lot of goblinoids, but no gnolls. It also means on Triaxus, say, that you basically are going to come back as a Triaxian (83%if there's other humanoids on the planet, 99% if not). Castrovel will offer a bit more diversity (say, 25% female lashunta, 25% male lashunta, 33% elf, modified by how many other humanoids they have). Akiton will have even more diversity (33% human, 25% Ysoki, 25% lizardfolk, also modified by potentially less-common humanoids).
Region-specific tables offer some interesting moments: imagine a group exploring the Darklands having to reincarnate one of their party. The table could easily be made almost exclusively of Darklands races:
15% Drow
2% Dwarf
12% Duergar
1% Elf
1% Gnome
12% Goblin
10% Half-drow
2% Half-elf
4% Half-orc
2% Halfling
4% Human
5% Kobold
5% Orc
12% Troglodyte
12% Svirfneblin
1% Other (GM's choice)
Anyhoo, I gotta run off and prep for a game. I'll be back later.
None of the native outsiders?
What happens when you reincarnate a Sylph or Assimar?
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None of the native outsiders?
What happens when you reincarnate a Sylph or Assimar?
I've been mulling on that, actually. I'm considering making an Outsider table. Also, some areas (Qadira and Osirion, for instance) have a higher than normal number of planetouched in 'em, so those places might have a chance of bringing you back with a bit of the elemental planes coming with you.
Also, I fully endorse samsarans as part of a list in Tian Xia.
You could really go into something like this. It seems like the chances of your new race depend heavily on what your current race is. IF I made a reincarnate system, I would do the following:
1) Reincarination probability has a soft normal distribution with your previous race as the mean and similar races gravitating towards the mean.
2) There's an additional roll to determine your sex, though you have a higher chance of having the same one as before.
3) Humans have an additional roll to determine nationality.
4) Native outsiders always reincarnate as the same race due to the connection between their soul, body, and ancestors' native plane. However, the new body will likely have a radically different appearance and heritage. In my campaigns, native outsiders can resemble any humanoid creature due to heritage. For example, an aasimar can look like an elf and an ifrit could look like a catfolk.
5) If the new body's race has multiple heritages, roll to determine the new body's heritage.
6) If both the caster and recarnating character are devout worshippers of a patron god of a particular race, there's a 20% chance the character will automatically reincarnate as a member of that race. Seeking the god's approval with commune, casting the spell in a place holy to that god, and the recarnated having levels in a divine class that worships that god can accumulatively increase the chance by 20%.
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You got some good thoughts there, Cyrad. I've got some of those in my home game. We've got an ethnicity table and a gender table, and for those ethnicities with multiple sub-ethnicities, I've got tables for that, too.
I'm talking with my home game about ideas on stuff like native outsiders and whatnots as well. I'm trying to not go TOO crazy with it, since I have other things I should probably spend my time on, but as long as it's fun, why not. :)
It brings out some interesting ideas, like how one of the hypotheses about how Tian Xia became populated is a bunch of spontaneous reincarnation from Azlant occurring there. That gives some theological/metaphysical widgets to play around with.
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Since I get the feeling every GM is gonna have a different preference for how to handle native outsider reincarnations, I'll do a few different native outsider reincarnate tables and suggestions.
This table brings any native outsider back as a a random native outsider race with no preference to former species. As an alternate, you can also roll a 1d8, negating the GM's Choice option.
Native Outsider Reincarnate Table 1
01-12 (1) Aasimar
13-24 (2) Fetchling
25-36 (3) Ifrit
37-48 (4) Oread
49-60 (5) Suli
61-72 (6) Sylph
73-84 (7) Tiefling
85-96 (8) Undine
97-100 GM's choice
If you like sub-tables (and hey, who doesn't), here's some for aasimar and tieflings.
Aasimar Reincarnate Sub-Table 1
1 Agathion-blooded
2 Angel-blooded
3 Archon-blooded
4 Azata-blooded
5 Garuda-blooded
6 Peri-blooded
Tiefling Reincarnate Sub-Table 1
1 Asura-spawn
2 Daemon-spawn
3 Demodand-spawn
4 Demon-spawn
5 Devil-spawn
6 Div-spawn
7 Kyton-spawn
8 Oni-spawn
9 Qlippoth-spawn
10 Rakshasa-spawn
NEXT UP: A more biased option.
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This one's gonna be tricky, since there's a lot of playable native outsider races, two of which have lots of subtypes, and there's room for expanding the options along a large number of axes. I'm gonna take it from the simplest possible option, that the touch of your planar heritage affects how you return to life, reworking your new body into something akin to your heritage if possible. Intrepid GMs could take the idea and expand further, considering alignment, associations between assorted kinds of native outsiders, and all sorts of factors to make this a massive pile of tables.
01-50 Aasimar, same type
51-70 Aasimar, standard (as per Advanced Race Guide)
71-80 Aasimar, other type (use Aasimar Reincarnate Sub-Table 1 above)
81-82 Fetchling
83-84 Ifrit
85-86 Oread
87-88 Suli
89-90 Sylph
91-92 Undine
93-97 Tiefling, standard (as per Advanced Race Guide)
98-100 Tiefling, other type (use Tiefling Reincarnate Sub-Table 1 above)
01-05 Aasimar, standard (as per Advanced Race Guide)
06-08 Aasimar, other type (use Aasimar Reincarnate Sub-Table 1 above)
09-10 Fetchling
11-12 Ifrit
13-14 Oread
15-16 Suli
17-18 Sylph
19-20 Undine
21-70 Tiefling, same type
71-90 Tiefling, standard (as per Advanced Race Guide)
91-100 Tiefling, other type (use Tiefling Reincarnate Sub-Table 1 above)
I'll do ones for elementals-blooded folk in just a sec.
Of course reincarnation in the Kaidan setting of Japanese horror (PFRPG) by Rite Publishing is completely different than Golarian, or any reflection of settings of D&D before that. In most cases reincarnation is to a human, however, an additionally used mechanic is your karma score, and when one reincarnates (as nobody can be resurrected) it depends upon your accrued karma score which determines which caste on the wheel of life your spirit goes. Of the six social castes of Kaidan, the "Animal caste" includes all non-humans - which are limited to: kappa, korobokuru, kitsune, hengeyokai, or tengu (there ain't no elves, dwarves, halflings, etc in Kaidan).
Dot.
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Think I'll stop trying to alphabetize the lists. Not worth the effort. :P
01-50 Elemental-blooded, same type
51-60 Elemental-blooded, non-conflicting type (flip coin to determine which)
61-65 Elemental-blooded, opposite type
66-75 Suli
76-80 Aasimar standard (as per Advanced Race Guide)
81-85 Aasimar other type (use Aasimar Reincarnate Sub-Table 1 above)
86-90 Fetchling
91-95 Tiefling, standard (as per Advanced Race Guide)
96-100 Tiefling, other type (use Tiefling Reincarnate Sub-Table 1 above)
I'm assuming we all know the relationships between the elemental types, but for those who don't: air (sylph) opposes earth (oread) (and vice versa), and fire (ifrit) opposes water (undine) (and vive-versa).
Personally, I've never had a fetchling come up in-game, so I'll leave that to individual GMs. They're sort of the odd-race out among the planetouched, though I could see them having a higher-than-average chance of coming back as kyton-spawn tieflings above all the other planetouched.
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None of the native outsiders?
What happens when you reincarnate a Sylph or Assimar?
Since Reincarnate specifies you return as a creature of your original type, humanoids should never reincarnate as a native outsider, and native outsiders should never reincarnate as humanoids - they would need a separate table like N'wah's above.
Biasing in favour of original race makes sense given that your physical stats remain the same aside from racial modifiers - since you don't have entirely new physical stats, the spell is definitely using your old body for reference. Without going into quite as much detail as N'wah:
1-10 Original Race (10%)
11-40 Roll on same table as original race (40%)
41-50 Roll on regional table (10%)
51-80 Common race (30%)
81-85 Aquatic or reptillian race (5%)
86-90 Other animalistic race (5%)
91-95 Other unusual race (5%)
96-100 Other [GM choice]
Common race:
1-25 human (25%)
26-40 halfling (15%)
41-50 dwarf (10%)
51-60 elf (10%)
61-70 gnome (10%)
71-75 half-elf (5%)
76-80 half-orc (5%)
81-87 orc (7%)
88-94 goblin (7%)
95-100 hobgoblin (6%)
Aquatic or reptillian race:
1-16 kobold (16%)
17-32 gillman (16%)
33-48 merfolk (16%)
49-64 grippli (16%)
65-80 nagaji (16%)
81-96 vishkanya (16%)
97-100 lizardfolk (4%)
Other animalistic race
1-15 ratfolk (15%)
16-30 catfolk (15%)
31-45 kitsune (15%)
46-60 vanara (15%)
61-75 tengu (15%)
76-85 strix (10%)
86-95 skinwalker (10%)
96-100 gnoll (5%)
Other unusual race:
1-17 dhampir (17%)
18-34 samsaran (17%)
35-51 wayang (17%)
52-68 changeling (17%)
69-85 drow (17%)
86-90 lashunta (5%)
91-95 triaxian (5%)
96-100 bugbear (5%)
Common races come back as common races 70-80% of the time depending on what the regional tables look like, while uncommon races come back as a relatively similar uncommon race 55% of the time and a common race 30% of the time. Most of the races are from the ARG but there's still about a 1% chance of a CRB race coming back as a bugbear, lizardfolk, or gnoll.
I don't know enough about Golarion to make regional tables but the Darklands one above looks good. If you don't want a regional table you can change "same table as original" to 11-45 and "common race" to 46-80. If you treat native outsiders as humanoid (planetouched) as I do, you could make that a subtable:
11-40 Roll on same table as original race (40%)
41-50 Roll on regional table (10%)
51-80 Common race (30%)
81-84 Aquatic or reptillian race (4%)
85-88 Other animalistic race (4%)
89-92 Planetouched race (4%) - use Nwah's non-biased
93-96 Other unusual race (4%)
97-100 Other [GM choice]
Karma modifiers might be interesting. You could base it on Good/Evil, or you could just add an entry for "Philosophically similar race, GM discretion" and have tricksters come back as Kitsune, barbarians come back as Orcs, wizards come back as elves, etc.
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On the gender front, I roll a d% with the following results:
01-50 Female
51-99 Male
100 Other
...With the "other" category currently lacking a table (solid counts of non-binary populations are hard to come by, so anything I whipped up would be me guessing at numbers). I've rolled on this dozens of times (I use it to determine genders for random NPCs when needed) and only gotten 100 once, for an unnamed temple guard. I rolled again for gender identification and got female, IIRC, so since they never came up again they were, for all intents and purposes, female. I'm sure if it comes up again for a recurring named NPC I'll have to delve further into the numbers.
Also, astute statisticians (or anyone with basic math skills) will note that there's a 1% higher chance of females than males. Population statistics backs that up, at least as closely as a d% can get.
I've yet to do one officially for sexual preference and gender identification, but again, for unnamed NPCs, that's really not coming up in casual interaction. It also suffers from lack of solid numbers to work with, making solid percentages had to come by.
YMMV for your home-game, and if you just roll 50/50 (or if reincarnate often returns you in your original gender in your game, some other binary percentages) I'm not gonna sue you.
Those numbers also work best for humanoids that are pretty clearly similar in demographics to real-world humans. A lizardfolk gender table would probably look completely different; on the other end, races with extreme sexual dimorphism (lashunta, for instance) might be a straight 50/50 (or however you like their gender balance/imbalance to work).
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Since Varisia's the Silver Marches/Dalelands of Golarion (meaning the place the plurality of games are set in for its campaign setting), let's give them a table. This one's easy, since about the only race they don't have on the default list is gnolls, and the default list doesn't include hobgoblins.
I'll also add in a new feature: human ethnicity. Varisia has a lot of Varisians (no surprise there), followed most likely by Shoanti, followed by Chelaxians, followed by everyone else. Technically I wouldn't be surprised if Chelaxians now outnumber Shoanti, but since we're dealing with nature magic and Chelaxians have only been in the region for about 300 years, let's make them an equal percentage but let the Shoanti have the second slot.
01 Bugbear
02–13 Dwarf
14–25 Elf
26–37 Gnome
38–41 Goblin
42–51 Half-elf
52–61 Half-orc
62–73 Halfling
74 Hobgoblin
75–80 Human, Varisian
81-84 Human, Shoanti
85-88 Human, Chelaxian
89 Human, other
90–93 Kobold
94 Lizardfolk
95–98 Orc
99 Troglodyte
100 Other (GM's choice)
Now for our "Human, other" table, I'm going to suggest the table in the inner front cover of Quests & Campaigns. It's got most everything, barring Erutaki, Varki, and Skraelings, but all those are pretty isolated to their regions. And of course if you don't care about/don't use ethnicities, you can consider all Human rolls as just Human.
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...cranky people come back as dwarves...
Let's make that cranky SHORT people. Which explains the sheer number of dwarves, since we all know short people got no reason to live.
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Let's jump ahead to later APs and try a wacky place: Ustalav, the land of Gothic horror. I've only skimmed Rule of Fear, but I've sure read all of the Carrion Crown AP, so I think we can rock this bad boy out pretty nicely. We'll end up cutting out a lot of "standard" monster races like goblins, since they don't seem to make much of an appearance, but we get to add in dhampirs and skinwalkers.
Since skinwalkers come in eight different types, let's pick the classic four were-types and use those, since weresharks don't make much sense in a landlocked country. Also, Ustalav is primarily Varisian again, but they also got leftover Kellids, so we'll replace Shoanti with Kellids and alter some distribution percentages.
01-05 Dhampir
05–16 Dwarf
17–28 Elf
29–40 Gnome
41–50 Half-elf
51–60 Half-orc
61–72 Halfling
73–80 Human, Varisian
81-83 Human, Kellid
84-87 Human, other
88-90 Skinwalker, werebear-kin
91-93 Skinwalker, wereboar-kin
94-96 Skinwalker, wererat-kin
97-99 Skinwalker, werewolf-kin
100 Other (GM's choice)
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Is this a better list of races for the Reincarnation spell?There shouldn't be.... Reincarnation is a means to bring you back when resurrection isn't available. It's not meant to be a buff spell.
He means a more complete list, with races from the ARG and other sources.
I like that Karma concept, Weirdo. I might have to play with that, actually.
Thanks, I think I'll have to play with it too. Quick ideas for common races' karmic associations:
Elves - arcanists, archers, nature-lovers (esp plants)
Dwarves - smiths, stoics, defensive warriors
Halflings - travellers, entertainers
Gnomes - inventors, misc craftspersons, obsessives, animal-lovers
Half-orcs - survivors
Half-elves - diplomats / mediators
Orcs - barbarians and other brute-strength warriors
Hobgoblins - tacticians and tyrants
Goblins - pyromaniacs and pranksters
You could even have particularly heroic or villainous characters reincarnated as aasimar or tieflings in defiance of normal type restrictions.
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I'm likin' that a lot, actually. I know from an alignment standpoint, using the 1-9 scales from Ultimate Campaign might allow you to come up with a modifier of some sort. But it might just be easier to use those as guidelines for GM fiat/GM's choice rolls.
On the front of PCs using reincarnate as a weird post-death buff, I think it'd be hilarious if there were PCs whose dying words were something akin to "carry... my corpse... to the place... with the most... bugbears... and reincarnate me..." before dying.
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I'm likin' that a lot, actually. I know from an alignment standpoint, using the 1-9 scales from Ultimate Campaign might allow you to come up with a modifier of some sort. But it might just be easier to use those as guidelines for GM fiat/GM's choice rolls.
You could certainly guess at a modifier. The problem is whether you use only one axis for karma (probably good-evil) or build yourself a reincarnation square where your score is based on a separate law/chaos and good/evil roll. There's also the philosophical issue of declaring that some races are superior (associated with high karma) and some are inferior (associated with low karma).
Definitely less hassle and more effective to make it a GM choice.
imho, roll a dice to choose the monster book, then open a random page and voila.. your new form! :D
Well sometimes you havre to redo it, unless you believe one can reincarnate as a iron golem.
It would be a fun addition to the philosophy of a campaign world to state that the list of creatures available in Reincarnate is also a list of the only creatures in your game world deemed to have souls.
So all those other sentient creatures may walk and talk and such, but the Druids don't consider them "true souls" because you can never reincarnate as one.
Just a thought for some ecclesiastic shenanigans.
Intelligence doesn't give a creature a soul. Only creatures with an alignment have a soul.
I have the player roll 3d4. They can pick that many races as options. Half can be weird, half have to match the setting, all up to approval. They can double up, but no more than 2 slots
Then I pick enough to make 20 and a d20 is rolled.
holding this for reference
So, maybe something like this then (for non-native outsiders at least):
I figure with this chart at least the chances of you rolling and becoming something that's hard to play are pretty low.
Lemme know if this is better.
Human (1-9)
Dwarf (10-17)
Elf (18-23)
Gnome (24-27)
Half-Elf (28-33)
Half-Orc (34-39)
Catfolk (40-42)
Dhampir (42-45)
Changeling (46-48)
Kitsune (49-51)
Samsaran (52-54)
Vishkanya (55-57)
Lashunta (58-60)
Android (61-63)
Triaxian (64-66)
Skinwalker (67-69)
Strix (70-72)
Nagaji (73-75)
Drow (76-78)
Duergar (79-81)
Syrinx (82)
Kasatha (83)
Svirfneblin (84)
Vanara (85)
Tengu (86)
Wayang (87)
Merfolk (88)
Gillman (89)
Grippli (90)
Ratfolk (91)
Goblin (92)
Monkey Goblin (93)
Hobgoblin (94)
Kobold (95)
Orc (96)
Ogre (97)
Gnoll (98)
Lizardfolk (99)
Player's Choice (100)