Hey ya'll,
I made a thread a little while ago seeking advice on creating custom races for a setting I'm working on, which is a world populated entirely by islands, full of wild areas, international war, merchants, pirates, etc. One of the big things I want to do is have a setting with atypical races, and none of your standard Tolkien races: no elves, no dwarves, no halflings. Originally I was planning on going no humans, although I've since decided to have them as an extreme rarity (most of the other PC races are in some way descended from/originally humans, with original humans being incredibly rare and declining). After getting a lot of good advice, I've basically scrapped the mechanics for the old races and followed a suggestion to take already-built weirder Pathfinder races and adjust them as needed for the setting.
Here's a link to an updated races document.
So far, there are nine PC races: humans, skinwalkers, aasimars, tieflings, ratfolk, oreads, changelings (Eberron style), gripplis, and undines. The document shows the full backstory/fluff for each one, including sections copied from the original source, but currently only includes a changelog when it comes to mechanics, with everything not mentioned remaining the same as in the source given. I'll probably update this to have the full information before I hand it out to my players, but that'll be a task.
I'm looking mainly for feedback on the mechanical changes/additions I've made (are these races, with the changes made, roughly balanced with each other? Are any of the changes glaring problems?), but feedback on the fluff/backstory information present here is also greatly appreciated.
I'm considering adding a few more races, and I'm interested in any apparent holes you think there are (none of these races can do ____!). Ifrits and Sylphs would complete the elemental races, but I'm not sure they have a place in my world. If they do, it'd likely be very small compared to Oreads and Undines.
I'm also strongly considering a small insect-like race (Entobians?) to join the ratfolk in my version of the "underdark", but so far most of the insectoid races I've found have been very poorly developed or not at all what I'm looking for; the Entobians are close, but I'd probably move the CHA bonus because... I cannot give giant bugs a +2 CHA and maintain a good conscience. I can hardly resist giving them -2 CHA, but I already have quite a few races with -2 CHA.
The last race I'd really like to add is some sort of construct, similar to the Warforged: mechanical-like creatures made to serve but (some of whom) have gained sentience. The issue there is that there are no construct or half-construct races available in Pathfinder (that I can find) that aren't really much higher above the races I'm currently using in power level. I'm considering using the Pathfinder Eberron conversion for Warforged from the same guy who did the changelings I'm using as a base, but I'm not so sure.
Thoughts on any of this and what I've done so far?
For construct races, look up the Wyrwoods, from Bestiary 4. Being small wooden creatures, rather than iron brutes, might make them fit into a nautical setting far more easily.
Unless you already deemed them too powerful, in which case you might consider reskinning the Android race. Or leave them as is, if you don't mind getting sci-fi in your fantasy (I know I don't).
Brew Bird wrote: For construct races, look up the Wyrwoods, from Bestiary 4. Being small wooden creatures, rather than iron brutes, might make them fit into a nautical setting far more easily.
Unless you already deemed them too powerful, in which case you might consider reskinning the Android race. Or leave them as is, if you don't mind getting sci-fi in your fantasy (I know I don't).
Thanks for the suggestions, although I've already seen both. Wyrwoods have "Construct" as pretty much their only racial trait, and they're still costing 20 RP according to race-building numbers, which puts them into the top of Advanced tier. Sigh. The highest I currently have are Aasimar, which I nerfed somewhat by making them count as humanoids (although I did this for all the PC races, which nerfed oreads and undines... who were already among the lowest-RP races... oops. Still considering if I need to do more to buff them). I'm starting to think RP are a bad method of measuring races, honestly, but I'm not sure.
Androids are also interesting, but I'd have to pretty heavily refluff them. While my world is more technologically advanced than a typical D&D world, I'm carefully avoiding things like "circuits" for now, and leaving it to "vague unknown weird magitech." I also envisioned them more as artifical soldiers and beasts of burden; I'd probably change the bonuses to +STR and +CON (or maybe keep +INT, but I've already got a lot of +DEX races).
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Sciamancer wrote: I'm starting to think RP are a bad method of measuring races, honestly, but I'm not sure. You are far from alone in that belief.
Some 3PP construct races you may not have looked at:
I have no opinion on how powerful or suitable they may be. I'm sure I missed some.
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With a nautical setting I can see Sylphs more easily than Oreads - a huge part of sailing depends on the wind, after all. Ifrits seem far less likely, unless that island is volcanic.
For other 3PP races I could see Cerulean Seas Selkie race. It's more of an underseas campaign, but the Selkie is capable both underwater and on the surface.
Distant Scholar wrote: Sciamancer wrote: I'm starting to think RP are a bad method of measuring races, honestly, but I'm not sure. You are far from alone in that belief.
Some 3PP construct races you may not have looked at:
I have no opinion on how powerful or suitable they may be. I'm sure I missed some. Thanks! I looked over them. Forgeborn are ok, but they're psionic (boo) and don't have a whole lot of options/support. Ironborn are interesting and highly customizable, and their lore almost perfectly fits what I had in mind, but they're really poorly written. e.g. "Ironborn do not need to sleep and are immune to all sleep-based spells, poisons, and other attacks", but then later Ironborn options give bonuses to saves vs. poison... and it's not clear what "other attacks" means. Gearforged are full constructs (and probably too costly as such by RP...) but I'm probably going to go with them anyway. I like having a full construct race. Plus they have a good level of customizability.
edit: It looks like Gearforged don't have any ability score modifiers, unless I missed something, which is weird, but I suppose "lacks a CON score" is a decent enough benefit for that purpose XP
Grey Lensman wrote: With a nautical setting I can see Sylphs more easily than Oreads - a huge part of sailing depends on the wind, after all. Ifrits seem far less likely, unless that island is volcanic.
For other 3PP races I could see Cerulean Seas Selkie race. It's more of an underseas campaign, but the Selkie is capable both underwater and on the surface.
You make a good point with Sylphs. I've been considering putting them in and giving them a flying city of sorts. That opens the door to possible airships at later levels, as very rare cutting-edge technology. Then I'm pushing it awfully close to Eberron, though, with Changelings and pseudo-Warforged XP
If I include Sylphs I'll definitely include Ifrits, but make them rare. I'll have to look at the maps I have for the campaign world and determine if I could reasonably fit in a Volcano X)
Selkies... interesting. I tried looking for them, but it appears Cerulean Seas isn't on d20pfsrd, and I don't have it from the Pathfinder humble bundle I bought a while ago :( ah well. Looking at the non-PC Selkies, though, they sound too similar to changelings to include as PCs. Two shapeshifting PC races and they lose their specialness a bit, you know?
Selkies are part of the Cerulean Seas setting, and it isn't available unless you have purchased the book or pdf from Alluria. If you don't plan on doing much underwater stuff it might not be worth the $20 for the pdf (my group runs a campaign on an island chain too and we haven't used the book much at all, either).
Grey Lensman wrote: Selkies are part of the Cerulean Seas setting, and it isn't available unless you have purchased the book or pdf from Alluria. If you don't plan on doing much underwater stuff it might not be worth the $20 for the pdf (my group runs a campaign on an island chain too and we haven't used the book much at all, either). Yeah. There might be more underwater stuff at higher levels, but we're starting somewhere lvl 1-3 (haven't decided exactly yet). I'll hold off for now. I modified Undines to be always amphibious, added a Grippli alternate with swim instead of climb, and there are the Shark skinwalkers, so I think that should be enough "water people" for PCs to pick from. We'll be sticking to land and ships for most of the fighting for a while.
OK, so I decided I didn't really like any of the Construct race options I had, so I combined features of a couple of them to come up with my own "Ironborn" (might change the name).
They're in the Document with all the other races, now (at the end). I'd appreciate a special look at that one, since they're pretty heavily homebrewed.
I've decided to add Sylphs and Ifrits, too, but I'll do that later. Adding both of them without modifying their ability scores will definitely slant my races in favor of DEX (if you don't take into account all the Skinwalker variants, anyway), but I think that's probably alright. There really aren't enough core races to get a feel for if such bonuses should be balanced equally (since there are only four core races without a "+2 to any ability score").
I could modify them; I modified Undines' ability scores completely on a whim (to get a slightly different flavor and to provide bonuses I didn't have a lot of). But I think I'll keep em the same. Sylphs and Ifrits both make sense with the bonuses they have, and they also give CHA and INT, which I currently have the least races boosting. And Sylphs will be my only race with a CON penalty, but... nobody likes CON penalties anyway. That each race is well-developed and fun to play is more important, too.
I would add strix or tengu, but make their appearance similar to tropical birds, like parrots.
I would suggest getting Cerulean Seas. Worked great for my oceanic campaign.
I'd recommend forgeborn. and if your setting does not include psionics, just remove Naturally Psionic and Psionic Aptitude. Interestingly that link doesn't seem to include the alternate racial traits, the race traits, or the racial archetypes found in Ultimate Psionics... weird.
Here's a thought... Talislanta's slogan was "No Elves". There was a D20 version of it and it even had an culture called the Sea Nomads who lived on an island of lashed together structures who believed that they would all suffer a curse if they touched land.
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