Counteracting high RP races


Advice

Sovereign Court

Obviously, RP is only a rough estimation of a race's power, so it isn't necessarily indicative of how much a race will break a campaign. The suli, for example, does disrupt a campaign nearly as much as a syrinx would, despite them having the same RP cost (16). Likewise, gathlain (RP 12) are far more disruptive to most campaigns (unfortunately for my illustrative purpose, due primarily to the same reason) than a wyrwood (RP 20).

Now, this in mind, I have a player who wants to play a trox. This race has a hefty RP cost of 28, but it's really all in brutish strength (both from a +6 Str, as well as abilities like frenzy and grappling arms). These don't strike me as especially unbalancing, but 28 is just way too high to ignore (as well as that +6 Str, even with a -2 to just about everything else).

I'd like to at least consider the player's character so what would you think about making him start with a NPC class for a level or two before getting to take PC classes? I may also drop a couple of the abilities like burrow or reducing the Str bonus to +4 (which together account for 7 RP).


I'd go ahead and take off whichever abilities you felt were appropriate to remove, then let the player take levels as normal. Most players are willing to accept a weaker version of what they want if it makes things more fair for everyone else. ^^


If it were me, I would tell the player Trox are on their own unbalanced against other races that players will be.

I would however compromise with him and make a "half-trox" race.

Basically I would change the stats so they get only +4 strength -2 int/wis/cha (like an Orc) and are medium sized instead of large, and then can be played without any level penalty at all.

This would place their RP values at 17, but 6 of that is the grabbing arms which are honestly not worth that at all so it's really more like an 11 point race. Which is where it should be to be played IMO.


I'm a fan of GM Rednal's approach. At the same time, I've given a bit of a boost to kobolds since there was a player who wanted to play a kobold fighter in our group in order to get it to something close to the core races.


Speaking for the Player, just outright deny him the Trox versus neutering what he wants to play. If he can't eat his cake, don't let him get it. If you predict that it will imbalance the table, then make the call.

Is there any context for this Campaign? Like what other race/class combos will he be playing alongside that will justify a Half-Trox by the numbers as Claxon proposed. I do consider that a fair compromise versus adding a Level Adjustment where none existed.

Outright fair denial is better than Counteracting. It becomes a DM versus Player Meta issue off the board if left unchecked.

Sovereign Court

What I've decided to do is go with sort of a hybrid. I've removed burrow (and its alternate, tremorsense), but allowed them to be taken as feats with no requirements beyond being a trox. The Str bonus is reduced to +4, and size is reduced to Medium, but I've added the Powerful Build racial trait (essentially allowing the character to be treated as Large for CMD and weapon usage, but still taking the Stealth penalty and not benefiting from reach), and will probably allow a feat to grant Large size around level 5 or 7. He also gets to keep grabbing appendages even though it normally requires Large size. Lastly, if being monstrous humanoid turns out to be too problematic then he may end up being subject to effects as a regular humanoid (like charm person), although I hope not to do that.

I believe that the suli race is the highest RP cost of the other common races in the setting. Geniekin replace the standard races in terms of population, so the average RP cost of races is probably shifted up a bit, but even so 28 is pretty high. I have expressly mentioned wyvaran as being a somewhat common race, but would prefer if players avoided chosing it. That one I probably will have to water down - probably in a similar, feat-assisted way - since I really don't want to remove them entirely. I feel they add too much to the setting, despite their infrequence.


Racepoints are simply very broken.

They have only a very flimsy relation to how strong an option is. And totally ignore any synergies between abilities.

You NEED to compare a race as a whole total with the standart races. And sometimes, the best answer longtime is: No.

A miffed palyer for an evening is way better for your gaming enjoyment then a problem character for the whole campaign.


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The star system used in Inner Sea Races might be a better ranking for races -- it is too bad that neither d20pfsrd nor the Archives of Nethys have gotten around to using those rankings. Basically, you have the no star races (no more powerful than the standard races), the one star races (situationally more powerful than the standard races), and the two star races (definitely not balanced with the standard races). Flying races invariably get two stars.


At least your player didn't request Drow, Noble. An unfortunate DM of mine left his wording open and that was my proposal. I did it in jest, but boy did I enjoy watching him backpedal from that for days as he tried to reason me out of it. Come to think about it, it is funny finding yourself being asked advice about on the Paizo forums.

How serious are they about Trox? Is it something negotiable to bring into line with the rest of the party. A world with Geniekin would just unlock Uncommon Races, maybe Advanced, and I would've been happy with Kasatha on the table. DM, you may be more putting more effort in on the character than the player is.

Regarding Race Points, anything can be broken if it is quantified and within the limits of a system because optimization exists as the natural desired goal. Some choices are better than others of the same cost. Some choices next to each other are incredibly powerful, but unless you want to add another layer of points or penalties, there's the reality of the system. There is a lot that can be done, especially if one willingly absorbs penalties. For example, one could say Point Buy is broken because not all arrays are equal, and some are more optimal than others for MAD/SAD of classes.

Sovereign Court

Well they weren't dead set on it, but I do try to be an accommodating GM to well-intentioned players. I mean for one thing, what's the point in having all these options if no one's ever allowed to use them? Not to mention that as the GM, it's rather expected of me to put more effort into the game than the players. In my personal opinion, if you're not then you're GMing wrong. That or you have either the best or worst player imaginable (depending on whether their effort is in trying to enhance the campaign or their own character).

And yes, as I said before, Race Points are really just for approximation that aren't meant to be taken as a hard-and-fast metric. But when they fall into extremes, it's certainly a good idea to have a critical eye. As David Knott said, the star ranking is a bit more appropriate, although you'll notice that the one star races have RP values in the mid teens, while the two star races have RP values around 20 or more, so it's really just lowering the resolution of the same system.

Basically, I do know to use judgment rather than blindly follow mechanics, and that's kind of why I started this thread. If I thought RP were completely balanced then there wouldn't be any need for this thread - I'd either disallow the race entirely, or trim off abilities until it cost 10-12 RP. To reiterate so that we can avoid reiteration, RP costs are simply loose guidelines, not concrete rules.


There really isn't a race though under 20 RP that's any more powerful than a standard race (the most powerful across the board race IS a standard race after all.) , and the star system in ISR isn't really that good of a power estimate either. Trox do edge above the average race and early on are going to be great until class abilities and BAB catch up. Maybe allow them to switch a class ability for a race ability or something if they really want to play one. The half-trox compromise isn't to bad either.


The moment we start trimming bits off a race is the moment we dispense with concrete rules in order to make things work -the hope is that when we do so, it's fair across the board, done to facilitate the campaign and players, and we did not just nerf the edge that player wanted to keep up/have fun. There's a line to draw at interfering with a player's options particularly if they demonstrate the competence that they can be trusted with their choices. It's a Yea or Nay and let them know the reason why -even if it's as simple as "I don't like it/I am not comfortable with it" because that's the DM's right to be fully in the zone in his setting. Unless it's a rules violation, these affairs tend to be stylistic differences colliding.

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