I recently started looking into the rules for creating new races and I started thinking that some of the racial traits you can get for RP are a "better deal" than others. I realize that when creating a race there should be some balance, and of course the DM must approve, but let's lay that aside for a few moments. What are the best Racial Traits per Race Point Cost?
I'm still quite new at this but here's some initial thoughts:
- Ability Score Modifiers: Advanced-+2 bonus to all of mental or physical scores, and a +4 bonus to one score and a –2 penalty to one score of the other type, 4RP
- Resistance: Celestial Resistance-acid resistance 5, cold resistance 5, and electricity resistance 5, 3RP
- Resistance: Spell Resistance, Greater-spell resistance equal to 11 + their character level, 3RP
- Defense: Damage Reduction-DR 10/magic, 6RP
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Hoo boy, this is going to get broken fast. The ARG race builder is notoriously abusable, which is why players aren't supposed to be the ones using it.
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It's not just abusable it's flat out stupid and broken.
The simple fact that I can make a race with +4 Str, +2 Con, no penalties significantly cheaper than one with +4 Str, +2 Con, -2 Int, -2 Cha is telling, and one of the first things I ran into.
The various traits are in no way balanced against each other in terms of actually being useful and the race builder should be ignored by everyone, everywhere.
For example, a Halfling who takes the Fleet of Foot alternate racial trait is, by the rules, giving up 4 Race Points for 1 Race Point. Who here actually thinks +2 to Climb and Acrobatics is as good as +10 foot movement speed, much less 4 times as good?
The Feats system, in contrast, gives out +2 to two skills for one Feat, and upgrades them to +4 at 10 ranks...and offers another Feat for +5 feet movement.
The same is true of Humans who take the dual talented racial trait. By the rules, they're giving up 8 Race Points for 1...and yet people do it, because it's a pretty good trade in a lot of ways.
The Race Builder doesn't work. Basically at all.
I've used the race builder, I'll admit it. And as a player too (the game is of a scope that it's almost irrelevant). The GM has approved what I created, lamented one aspect (basically the bits that do matter for the game are kind of easy to cheese with the race builder), but agreed that for what I was trying to do it really was the only reasonable option (and was probably still less-good than simply using the equivalent monster).
Then the thought crossed my mind that GURPS has something like this, that's pretty open to use, and relatively bala--no it's not. Who am I kidding? BALANCED? Hardly. It was for the game I was actually in, but in general, its far from it. GURPS: the only game where everyone else is making moderately competent, non-magical, humans and you can show up with a levitating psychic bunny (you have any idea how many BP you get for being small?).
I'm not even sure it was balanced for the game I was in. Sure, my character spent most of his points on race, had a small selection of skills, but basically would have been useless in a fight. Of course, if we ever in a fight, Seaworm would have gone, "Ooh! h'orderves!" and eaten everyone...on account of being a 200 foot long sea-snake/dragon-thing. Fortunately that game was more "explore, solve, negotiate" than it was "kill the monsters."
Hardy: 3rp. The thing that makes dwarves so good.
Counting the ARG, I have 5-6 systems I am torquing into one I'll go with. Everyone is off in one way or another, valuing this over that, etc. My ultimate advice is to justify each in your own game.
The biggest 'snit' I have is with the 'Ability Score Modifier Quality' section and the bit on further bonuses. One is too cheap, the other prohibitively expensive. I was griping about this recently and another GM laughed, pulled out her copy and showed me HER 'corrections'!
Said under-priced one is the one I used for the race I built.
I actually tried really really hard not to. But none of the other +this -that resulted in what I actually wanted:
+STR +CON +WIS -CHA
The wisdom was important, as I wanted it to be viable for the race to be clerics, even if more generally they were fighters (high strength and con). I also didn't want to penalize intelligence at all, so that wizards were rare, but possible.
So I ended up with:
Advanced (4 RP) +2 STR +2 DEX +2 CON +4 WIS -2 CHA
Just another example of paying your writers per-word, with poor play-testing from anyone but fan-boys.
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Which is why I always run things past Mother.
If my mother doesn't understand the instructions, they're poorly written. If she doesn't find it engaging, then its not fun. If she can find a point of weakness, then its broken.
The simple fact that I can make a race with +4 Str, +2 Con, no penalties significantly cheaper than one with +4 Str, +2 Con, -2 Int, -2 Cha is telling, and one of the first things I ran into.
Hmm... how is that done, exactly?
Flexible gets you +2 to two scores, free floating, for 2 RP. Advanced whatever gets you an additional +2, for 4 RP.
Specialized (+Str, +Con, -Int) for 1 RP and Advanced Int for 4 RP get you a new +2 Str, +2 Con for 5 points... Or just go with Flexible for +2 whatever x2, for 2 points.
That's really a big pointer right there. You can go with Flexible for +2 wherever, or you buy Advanced Ability for the same +2, fixed, at twice the price.
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Hmm... how is that done, exactly?
Flexible (2 RP) + Advanced Strength (4 RP) = 6 RP and +4 Str, +2 Con (no penalties).
Paragon (1 RP) + Advanced Constitution (4 RP) + Advanced Wisdom (4 RP) = 9 RP and +4 Str, +2 Con, -2 Int, -2 Cha.
There's a 5 point version using specialized that's still better than the 9 point one (only has one -2).
I actually just found this out by accident trying to make a Gnoll PC race (the first thing I did with the Race Builder)...which should have those second set of stats. Only that's prohibitively expensive. Which is really dumb.
Just another example of paying your writers per-word, with poor play-testing from anyone but fan-boys.The racial builder got raked over the coals during the playtest and pretty much all the problems were identified (most of which come from trying to balance around the original core races). The feedback was ignored and the system was released in its current form.
That's very interesting. I'm just wondering how you know this. I am also wondering if you know why feedback was ignored. Is it because it was just too hard to balance the system against the core races?
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That's very interesting. I'm just wondering how you know this. I am also wondering if you know why feedback was ignored. Is it because it was just too hard to balance the system against the core races?Just another example of paying your writers per-word, with poor play-testing from anyone but fan-boys.The racial builder got raked over the coals during the playtest and pretty much all the problems were identified (most of which come from trying to balance around the original core races). The feedback was ignored and the system was released in its current form.
The playtest forums from ARG are still available. Go read the feedback for yourself.
You can find the playtest forums for the Advanced Race Guide here somewhere. The big issue that was identified, is to assume that all the core classes have roughly the same number of race points is a bad point to start for costing the various abilities. It puts an additional constraint on the balancing and works from an assumption that has not really been reviewed to see how well it holds up. There were a number of posts (and threads if I recall correctly) urging Paizo to reassess how they were valuing the various racial point packages. In the end a few minor changes were made, but most of the system went live unchanged. This is why I said ignored, although disregarded might be a better way to express it.
Thanks. I appreciate that.
The playtest forums from ARG are still available. Go read the feedback for yourself.That's very interesting. I'm just wondering how you know this. I am also wondering if you know why feedback was ignored. Is it because it was just too hard to balance the system against the core races?Just another example of paying your writers per-word, with poor play-testing from anyone but fan-boys.The racial builder got raked over the coals during the playtest and pretty much all the problems were identified (most of which come from trying to balance around the original core races). The feedback was ignored and the system was released in its current form.
Tsk tsk, a bit snippy today? I was unaware that there are playtest forums. I just might do that.