I know RP means race points, and it's an at a glace way to judge a race's power in comparison to others in a setting, but I'm confused as to why Drow have two numbers instead of one.
Does it mean depending on choices they can be above average or absurdly over powered? Or is there some subtle nuance I am missing?
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The 14 is for regular drow, and the 41 is for the noble drow.
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http://www.d20pfsrd.com/races/other-races/featured-races/arg-drow
Look for the table called Race Point Costs (Drow Noble) and compare that to the standard drow table above it.
Drow Nobles are more powerful compared to normal Drow.
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^The out-of-the-box Drow Noble also has bether ability scores. If I understand correctly, the Drow Noble was written by conversion from D&D 3.5, and then somebody at Paizo went to the trouble to add up the Race Points when they did the Advanced Race Guide, even though this also introduced a chain of feats to upgrade a normal Drow into a Drow Noble (except without the pumped ability scores).
Ahhhh... It seems so obvious in hindsight, as no doubt many things in life are... lol
But I agree, Drow Nobels seems absurdly overpowered, but I'm guessing they tend to be rare by their very nature then? I doubt a GM would allow on in place of a commoner Drow without a proper setting or reason.
A drow being on the surface is rare enough as it is. A drow noble even more so! But yeah, I think almost every GM would not let someone make a drow noble character in a normal campaign.
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Ahhhh... It seems so obvious in hindsight, as no doubt many things in life are... lol
But I agree, Drow Nobels seems absurdly overpowered, but I'm guessing they tend to be rare by their very nature then? I doubt a GM would allow on in place of a commoner Drow without a proper setting or reason.
Drow Nobles increase a character's CR by 1 compared to a normal Drow. The race is meant to be the equivalent of an entire class level in power(although it's probably not quite that good). It would be a perfectly reasonable race(weak, even) in a campaign where the GM is allowing other people to play Natural Lycanthropes and things like that.
Ahhhh... It seems so obvious in hindsight, as no doubt many things in life are... lol
But I agree, Drow Nobels seems absurdly overpowered, but I'm guessing they tend to be rare by their very nature then? I doubt a GM would allow on in place of a commoner Drow without a proper setting or reason.
Drow Nobles, or for that matter Drow themselves were created to be monsters, not standard player characters for a standard campaign. It's certainly plausible to run a drow centered campaign even if the characters were all Drow Nobles. It would however have to be run differently from the standard assumptions.
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Drow Nobles, or for that matter Drow themselves were created to be monsters, not standard player characters for a standard campaign. It's certainly plausible to run a drow centered campaign even if the characters were all Drow Nobles. It would however have to be run differently from the standard assumptions.
Yes but I feel storytelling has moved well and truly past the Tolkien era of "this race is the default evil mooks and have no good/redeeming qualities about them".
People say Blizzard really started it, and some despise them for it but I for one loved the fact they tell the story behind why, how and when Orcs where evil, as the old saying goes (most) every race is born with a b&*&**$+ but no one is born one, there is a reason why races, and for that matter people are who they are.
Even the stereotypical uber demons of X sin of Y realm have a reason why they exist and act as they do, are they born from the combined evil lurking in the souls of all mortal races? Are they the spawn of a long dead ultimate evil being who died fighting the ultimate good being who death made all that was good in the world (like angels)?
I find Drow fully capable of redeeming qualities, Lolth is the reason they are evil, without her and the other "evil" Drow gods constant meddling Drow would be just as split between good, neutral and evil as humans are.
Eilistraee herself is proof redemption and good lies even in a Drow souls, blame their millennia old, brainwashed, drider run society for they way they act, nature vs nurture as it where.
Drow Nobles, or for that matter Drow themselves were created to be monsters, not standard player characters for a standard campaign. It's certainly plausible to run a drow centered campaign even if the characters were all Drow Nobles. It would however have to be run differently from the standard assumptions.Yes but I feel storytelling has moved well and truly past the Tolkien era of "this race is the default evil mooks and have no good/redeeming qualities about them".
People say Blizzard really started it, and some despise them for it but I for one loved the fact they tell the story behind why, how and when Orcs where evil, as the old saying goes (most) every race is born with a b%@~@#&% but no one is born one, there is a reason why races, and for that matter people are who they are.
Key difference however is that in Blizzard's case, none of the player character races really have more than flavor differences over each other. Tauren don't outrun gnomes, and weapon damage is independent of character size. All races are pretty much equal.
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Blizzard did not invent this, plenty of fantasy novels were doing it years in advance.
The original dark elves from Norse mythology were not evil, nor did they live underground and worship a spider queen. All of those tropes were invented by Gary Gygax.
It was the R.A. Salvatore's novels that made them not quite so universally evil in D&D anymore.
As for the Drow Noble, 41 is actually too low a number. If you add up all of their SLAs, you'll find their actual number should be much higher. I no longer allow drow nobles for that reason. Even in a game that starts at higher levels, their SLAs are just too unbalancing. It works much better if characters take regular drow and use the feat chain to slowly gain the drow noble abilities.
Eilistraee herself is proof redemption and good lies even in a Drow souls, blame their millennia old, brainwashed, drider run society for they way they act, nature vs nurture as it where.
She's also proof that redemption comes at a heavy price.
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She's also proof that redemption comes at a heavy price.Eilistraee herself is proof redemption and good lies even in a Drow souls, blame their millennia old, brainwashed, drider run society for they way they act, nature vs nurture as it where.
To quote Jim Raynor from Starcraft; "Somethings are just worth fighting for." Even if that fight is an uphill battle in a driving wind threatening to blow you end over end all the way back to the slinking abyss at the bottom, better to fight for a chance at a better life then to live with the one you have.
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{. . .}
Key difference however is that in Blizzard's case, none of the player character races really have more than flavor differences over each other. Tauren don't outrun gnomes, and weapon damage is independent of character size. All races are pretty much equal.
That depends very much upon whether you are talking about the WarCraft Universe as presented by World of WarCraft (which for balance reasons had to narrow down differences an awful lot) or WarCraft III/TFT, in which different units are REALLY different (and people continue to argue, with significant justification, that Blizzard didn't get the Heroes balance right even to this day, nor for that matter the race/faction balance, to the point that I keep having this urge to call up Orcs to fight an Undead problem, even though that probably DOESN'T WORK AT ALL in the Pathfinder Campaign Setting).
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I know RP means race points, and it's an at a glace way to judge a race's power in comparison to others in a setting, but I'm confused as to why Drow have two numbers instead of one.
Does it mean depending on choices they can be above average or absurdly over powered? Or is there some subtle nuance I am missing?
Mostly, it means the Race Builder is busted.
^Actually, both are known to be true. Drow Nobles are overpowered at the low levels(*), AND the Race Builder is busted.
{. . .}
But I agree, Drow Nobels seems absurdly overpowered, but I'm guessing they tend to be rare by their very nature then? I doubt a GM would allow on in place of a commoner Drow without a proper setting or reason.
Well, there you have it: Of course Nobels are overpowered relative to Commoners -- they wouldn't be winning one of the world's greatest prizes if they weren't. Proper settings for Drow Nobels would be places like Harvard University research labs . . . and Stockholm, Sweden.
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Mostly, it means the Race Builder is busted.
Here's a fun game. Try to come up with the most broken race possible at the lowest cost possible. I think I can beat the Noble on an 11pt buy.
Name:Toxic Munch-kin
Outsider(Munch-kin, Native) (Earth, Air associated)(3)
Size:Small(0)
Speed:Slow(-1)
Ability Score(Advanced):+2 to physical, +4 to primary mental stat, -2 to mental dump stat(4)
Language:Standard
+2 to primary mental Stat(4)
Quick Reactions:Improved initiative as bonus feat(2)
Flexible Bonus Feat(4)
Lucky:+1 to all saves(2)
Elemental Vulnerability(Acid, Electricity)(-4)
Light Blindness(-2)
Negative Energy Affinity(-1)
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Mostly, it means the Race Builder is busted.Here's a fun game. Try to come up with the most broken race possible at the lowest cost possible. I think I can beat the Noble on an 11pt buy.
** spoiler omitted **
That's not that bad, really. Compare to human as the gold standard. How are they toxic?