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Ok I don't know if the RP creation system is even PFS legal, but I am putting that aside for now. I am wanting advice as to other possiblities and idea for balance, flavor, and effectiveness...
Umbraphites are a homebrew race for a campaign that I run on roll20. It is a pathfinder rule system based on the principle of: Golarian has been destroyed, Long story short Rovagug broke free and succeeded in the destruction of Golarian. The survivors fled on enormous mythallar powered cities to a different planet to recolonize. The planet they landed on is overwhelmed with planar energies that spill over do to coterminous boundaries (kind of like Eberron). During the day positive energy covers the planet. During the night it is overwhelmed by energy from the Shadow Plane.
The energies over the course of tens of thousands of years have warped life on the planet AND have allowed previously unknown races and such to make their way to the planet, called Shae-Occuli. The mythallar cities are after a couple hundred years of keeping to themsleves without much exploration starting to become overpopulated. Sandbox style campaign the players are now paving the way for future citizens expansion by exploring and mapping environements, making allies, and enemies while traveling this alien planet.
I have been trying to come up with totally new races and monsters as well as warped versions of those that are native to golarian and other planes of existence to give a different feel "Naked and Afraid" sandbox exploration to the campaign. This is one of the races I have come up with...tell me what you think and if you have any suggestions they are welcome. Please I am not looking for ridicule or "why didn't you just use this creature." I just want positive and constructive criticism without negativity thrown in the mix. Also I am looking for more ideas on unique extraplanar races from all the planes since there are areas where different planar energies are more abundant than normal.
UMBRAPHITES:
Description:
Umbraphites are a race unique to Shae-Occuli. They originally came to Shae-Occuli from the Darklands and the Shadow Plane after their race faced extinction at the hands of the cruel denizens of their home planes. They are fey who have lived and existed beneath the lands of Shae-Occuli before written history and have come to call this world home. The Gorgebringer Wars drove many of them from their ancestral homelands. The umbraphites have always had uneasy if not violent relations with orcs and goblins of Subshae (essentially the underdark). During the Gorgebringer Wars the tension became worse and now they seek vengeance against the orcs and goblins that all but destroyed their homelands and murdered so many of their numbers. The Umbraphites are the same size as goblins. They have large eyes, pale skin, four fingered hands, and three toed feet. They are extremely agile and tough as nails though they are not the most intelligent of creatures.
The Umbraphites tend to live in isolated underground monasteries where they train under their honored Sensei's. They are a very martial society and train in a variety of combat styles and martial arts. Many umbraphites are monks, ninja, samurai, sword saints, oracles (mostly battle and dark tapestry mysteries), bards (mainly geisha or arcane blade archetype), magus (eldritch scion archetype, with either the Black Blood, Fey, or Destined Bloodlines), sorcerers (mainly impossible, fey, shadow, and aberrant bloodlines) and even the occasional warpriest. Their race does not worship any particular god and instead focuses on the Divine Concepts the War, Darkness, Good, Law, Wrath, Fate, and the Circle of Life and Death. Umbraphites also tend to lean toward neutral, lawful, and good alignments. Only rarely one will encounter an evil Umbraphite. They are very brave little beasts but have a natural fear of fire. They also tend to dislike light and stay in shadowy homes. Those that do live above ground rarely travel during the day though if the situation calls for it they will brave the light of day.
They are extremely friendly and easy to get along with. They go out of their way to protect those that they believe to be pure of heart and once they make a friend it they will usually shadow them secretly to ensure that they are out of harms way. Most races that are unfamiliar with umbraphites will right them off as inquisitive little wretches that are so ugly they are cute. They will soon realize that these little shadowy fey are masters of battle, especially when the creature unleashes it's "battle croak" which is frightfully disturbing. The thunderous croak that issues from such a small creature can demoralize even the most powerful of enemies (and non-umbraphite allies) and outright scare away lesser enemies. Umbraphites tend to begin a fight with said "battle croak" and then charge in bravely or if trained in the silent arts of ninjitsu fall back into the shadows to outflank their demoralized foes.
Umbraphite: (16 RP)
Type: Fey, Outsider [Humanoid, Native] gains Low-Light Vision and Darkvision 60 ft (5 RP)
Size: Small: +1 size bonus to AC and all attack rolls. -1 to CMB and CMD, +4 size bonus to Stealth Checks. (0 RP)
Base Speed: Normal Speed 30 ft (0 RP)
Ability Score Mod: Specialized +2 Dex, +2 Con, -2 Int (1 RP)
Languages: Standard [starts play with Common and Aklo: Bonus Languages: Dwarven, Infernal, Abyssal, Terran, Dwarf, and Gnome (0 RP)
Race Traits:
-Fearless: +2 to saves vs. fear (1 RP)
-Hardy: +2 saves vs. poison, spells, and spell-like abilities (3 RP)
-Shadow Blending: when in dim light or less the miss chance to hit an
Umbraphite is 50% instead of 20%. (1 RP)
-Fey Damage Reduction: Umbraphites gain a DR 5/Cold Iron (3 RP)
-Swarming: up to two Umbraphites can share the same square at the same time. If two Umbraphites are occupying the same square and attacking the same foe, they are considered flanking that foe as if they were in two opposite squares. (1 RP)
-Light Sensitivity: an Umbraphite is dazzled in areas of bright light (-1 RP)
-Terrifying Croak: Once per hour as a standard action, an umbraphite can emit a thunderous croak. Any creature not of the Fey type must make a successful Will saving throw (DC 10 + 1/2 the umbraphite's character level + Charisma Modifier) or become shaken for 1d4 rounds. A target that successfully saves cannot be affected by the user's terrifying croak for 24 hours. Creatures that are already shaken become frightened for 1d4 rounds instead. This is a sonic, mind-affecting effect. (2 RP)
-Vulnerability to Fire: an umbraphite takes double damage from fire. (-2 RP)
-Shadow Resistance: umbraphites gain cold resistance 5 and electricity resistance 5 (2 RP)
ALTERNATE UMBRAPHITE RACIAL TRAITS:
-Hatred: an umbraphite has a burning hatred for goblins and orcs. They gain a +1 racial bonus on attack rolls against creatures of these types/subtypes. This ability replaces Fearless (1 RP)
-Swift as Shadows: some umbraphites are much more stealthy when moving or striking at a distance from the shadows than others of their race. They reduce the penalty for using Stealth while moving at full speed by 5, and reduce the Stealth check penalty for sniping by 10. This ability replaces Hardy. (3 RP)
-Fleet Footed: some umbraphites were raised above ground and have learned to react much quicker to dangerous situations and also learned to outrun dangerous situations. The receive Run as a bonus feat and gain a +2 racial bonus on initiative checks. Being raised above ground and exposed they have lost their keen sight that comes with their adaptation of underground life and their innate ability to blend into shadows. This ability replaces Darkvision, Light Sensitivity, and Shadow Blending. (3 RP)
-Change Shape, Lesser: Umbraphites who take this trait choose either goblin or monkey goblin. Once chosen this choice cannot be changed. The umbraphite can assume the appearance of the chosen creature. This form is static and cannot be changed each time it takes this form. He gains a +10 racial bonus on Disguise checks made to appear as the member of the race whose appearance he assumes. Changing shape is a standard action. This trait otherwise funcitons as alter self, save that the umbraphite does not adjust it's ability scores. This ability replaces Terrifying Croak and Shadow Blending. (3 RP)
For starters, no the race creator is NOT legal for PFS.
That aside, you seem to have a solid concept for your race; most people (myself included) suffer from toomuchitis and pour more abilities than are necessary. It's important to keep in mind that every member of your race has these abilities, so try to keep personal abilities out of it (especially if you've already got a character in mind)
Looking at your race, it seems pretty solid. Better than Halflings and Gnomes, but I suppose that's to be expected when generating your own race with higher RP caps. If you wanted something on par with Aasimar, Tieflings, and Fetchlings, you've got it. Small, fast, and well protected while still having notable drawbacks. That said, if your world is a lot of dim light/shadow, then I can see them becoming overpowered.
Remember to keep in mind the following two questions:
Why would I want to play this race instead of any of the others?
Why would I want to play any other race over this one?
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I figured it wasn't PFS legal but it's cool anyway since this is a homebrew campaign non-pfs. I just know alot of peeps get mad when you start posting things about non-PFS material at times.
Ty for the compliments. Another thing...yes this world will have alot of shadow/dim light...The world has a strange night/day cycle...the "positive energy infused" day time sun stays up for only 8 hours a day, while the sun infused with shadow energy lingers longer and actually blankets the world in extraplanar energy from the plane of shadow. The normal sun is still up for the beginning of the "shadow-rise" but the shadow sun overpowers it quickly and blankets the lands in dim-light until the "positive" sun finishes setting. Then it's the blackest night, almost identical to the Plane of Shadow, only slightly different.
This race is NOT meant to be a player race initially. I designed it to be one of the more friendly indigenous natives of the planet. The players are working for their cities within a government supported adventuring company known as the Shadow Pioneer Agency. They are pretty much the only people allowed to explore outside the cities at this time and they have a very rigid militaristic set of rules and guidelines.
The cities in which have made it to this planet (Shae-Occuli) are COMPLETELY IGNORANT to this world, its history, customs, languages, and its inhabitants. They have a long way to go before they are comfortable enough to begin letting citizens stray from the cities (Known as Primes) until the Shadow Pioneer Agency has thoroughly explored and obtained intel. Pretty much the only thing they DO KNOW is that this world is in a constant state of Planar Instability. (Nobody realizes that this world is actually in a completely different multiverse altogether, with new deities, races, magic, etc...)
The main duties of the agents of the Shadow Pioneer Agents is...
-Explore the world
-Map the terrain and obtain as much knowledge on this unknown world as possible
-Note the dangerous denizens, slay them if need be, bring back specimens of wildlife, enemies, art, etc...
-Make allies with any friendly indigenous
-Do your best to maintain good relations with any of these alien races.
So far the pc's have realized that even the more "normal" races that they have encountered are vastly different that what was on Golarian and their languages are completely different dialects than the standard for that race. It makes for difficult communication and even with "Comprehend Languages" the dialects are so unrecognizable that there is a 30% chance of malfunction.
They have encountered variants of goblins, ogres, orcs, giants, and now elves (who seem to have fiendish blood coursing through their veins). These creatures have mainly been immediately hostile or turned hostile quickly after meeting them due to misunderstandings.
I made Umbraphites as an NPC race that will eventually become available as PC races well down the line from the current timeline. I am looking for good suggestions for other custom races both friendly and unfriendly.