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For your gaming enjoyment, I present the Narok
This is a massive rewrite of my first homebrew race (rhinotaurs) from way back in my 3.5 days. I'd really appreciate any feedback you guys have.
In terms of balance, I'm aiming for something that would be comfortable in a party alongside humans, drow, tiefling and aasimar. Since they are built around abilities that are not anywhere in the race builder, the RP value is very much unknown.
As for the flavor text, it is a bit more setting specific than I normally do, and it even references races I am working on but haven't finished yet, so keep that in mind. Don't worry too much about golarion lore or anything.
Hope you like it.
The race looks interesting, but you should probably move the statistics of the race before the lore. Its a *lot* of text that people need to skim/skip to see if they like the mechanics of the race. Maybe move the Racial Traits to right before the History section?
The Emerging Bloodline feat might be really strong in practice. Could get a ton of utility from the spell list, plus bonus spells per day. Not sure how I would change it though.
Sorcerous Manifestation and Physical Manifestation using a different number of charges per day is weird to me. Would probably make more sense to make them both 3 + 1/4 or 3 + Cha.
The Powerful Frame ability is cool but its weird how it interacts with other sources of Armor Training. Wouldn't it be easier (and less confusing) to have it reduce the armor check penalty by 1 (to a minimum of 0) and increase the maximum Dexterity bonus by 1 + normal speed in medium armor? Means you don't have to look up armor training to see how the ability works as well.
The race looks interesting, but you should probably move the statistics of the race before the lore. Its a *lot* of text that people need to skim/skip to see if they like the mechanics of the race. Maybe move the Racial Traits to right before the History section?
I've only ever seen stats at the end of the flavor text. It seems pretty standard. If anyone wants to skip ahead, it isn't hard to just scroll until you see the crunchy stuff.
The Emerging Bloodline feat might be really strong in practice. Could get a ton of utility from the spell list, plus bonus spells per day. Not sure how I would change it though.
I struggled a lot with this one, and I am still not 100% certain that I made the right decision. I could split it into two feats, one giving the spell list and eldritch heritage prerequisite waiver, and the other giving the ability to cast spells using manifestation points. It feels a bit more like a feat tax in that case, but I suppose I might have underestimated the usefulness of adding spells to your spell list.
Definitely something about which I would like more feedback.
Sorcerous Manifestation and Physical Manifestation using a different number of charges per day is weird to me. Would probably make more sense to make them both 3 + 1/4 or 3 + Cha.
Fluff-wise, my thinking is that those who tap into their power to perform magic get better at wielding magic as they level up. Those who manifest physically do so intuitively, limited more by their natural ability than by skill at weaving magic.
Mechanically, it is because making the Sorcerous Manifestation charisma based skews the balance in favor of a few specific classes, while non-magical classes can't throw everything in CHA, even if they are using it for class features.
The Powerful Frame ability is cool but its weird how it interacts with other sources of Armor Training. Wouldn't it be easier (and less confusing) to have it reduce the armor check penalty by 1 (to a minimum of 0) and increase the maximum Dexterity bonus by 1 + normal speed in medium armor? Means you don't have to look up armor training to see how the ability works as well.
I thought it was easier to just tie it to an existing ability, rather than reinventing the wheel.
Thanks for your input.
Alright, I separated out the emerging bloodline feat into two feats. To balance it out, I lowered the prerequisites, so now it can be taken at level 1, with the class skill and 11 charisma. The spellcasting has to wait until level 5 anyway, so it is basically unchanged other than being its own feat.
Good to see some free naroki/narokian stuff out there. ;)
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Glad you like the Narok.
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Update: Changed the powerful frame ability to no longer reference the fighter's armor training ability, and instead spelled out the effects to avoid any confusion. The only mechanical difference is that narok don't actually have armor training, so things like a Sash of the War Champion no longer work without fighter levels.
Also made a few tiny changes to the wording of some feats, nothing noticeable. And tweaked a few bits in the fluff to be more compatible with other race documents.
Finally, added 3 traits and a bunch of favored class bonuses.
Emerging bloodline doesn't add spells to your spells known, it adds them to your class spell list. And you can only take the feat once, so you can only add 9 spells to your spell list, assuming none of them were already on your spell list.