New Racial Traits RP cost

[amyhart420]

I'm working on creating the homebrew vampiric races for my game and I have most of their strengths from the basic list of racial traits but their weaknesses aren't really options that are included among the list. I am planning on homebrewing in the ones I need but I have to decide on a decent Racial Point cost for them. So if you guys don't mind. How would you rate these weakness?

Blood Dependency: Members of this race are dependent on blood to survive. While they do not need to consume food as other creatures they do have to intake a serving, 1 pint, of blood just as a meal or they suffer fatigue. If they do not consume blood within 2 days their body begins to wither and they begin losing 1 point of constitution every hour.

Requisite Blood: Members of this race need to consume blood fairly regularly. Their bodies require a blood intake at least once a month. If they do not consume blood once a month their body begins to wither and they begin losing 1 point of constitution every day.

Vulnerable to Silver: Members of this race are weak to Silver and take X1.5 damage from silver. This can be taken up to twice. The second time increase damage to X2 damage from silver.

Vulnerable to Holy Items: Members of this race are weak to Holy symbols of a specific alignment. Choose Good, Evil, Lawful, or Chaotic. The race becomes shaken when in presence of a holy item of such alignment. This can be taken multiple times each time a different alignment must be selected.

Any other suggestions are always welcome.

Also would shape change for a lycan need to have a racial point value? If so what would you consider it? Doesn't match up with Shape Change, Greater or Lesser.

Also a question for flight:

Flight (4 RP)
Prerequisites: None.
Benefit: Members of this race have a fly speed of 30 feet with clumsy maneuverability.
Special: This trait can be taken more than once. For each additional 2 RP spent, the race’s fly speed increases by +10 feet, and the maneuverability improves by one step.

How would you interpret the RP cost and times taken for this to get to a 60 feet total with good maneuverability? BTW this isn't for vampiric race, I'm working on multiple races builds at once.

Thanks for any help.

[avr]

First, always, always look at the final race to see whether it's balanced. Race Points are a terrible mechanism with costs way out and no consideration of synergy or vicious circles.

Requisite blood is just flavour text unless the blood has to come from a sapient humanoid or something like that.

Blood dependency requires you to be a predator, or to have a very good friend (& lesser restoration to keep them alive), or to travel with a few horses. It could be a problem occasionally. If the blood has to be from a sapient humanoid then it's more of an issue.

Vulnerable to silver will come up once in a blue moon in a normal game if you're not being targeted specifically. If races/people with it are common in your setting then it's possibly a danger; if someone with it is being targeted (& the person who wants them dead has a reasonable way of knowing about it) then it's definitely a danger.

Vulnerable to holy items needs a definition of 'in the presence of'. It's a definite danger.

I'm not sure how your lycan shifting works. Is it anything like a skinwalker?

If you're going to use RP and that flight then you need 10 RP (4 base, +30' speed and +3 levels of maneuverability means 3 increments of 2 RP each).

[Lady-J]

those weaknesses are horribly crippling
but to answer the question 10 race points
and lycan shape change into what exactly? and why? its hard to base a cost with out knowing the effect but also why not just use the vampire templates?

[amyhart420]

One reason these weakness are so bad is because of the strength that the races get. They have enhanced speed, strength, and intelligence. They also get resistance to mind altering spells and other bonuses so they need some strong weaknesses to balance out getting that power.

okay so requisite blood basically could be a 0 effect to Race points. So adding that basically won't make the race any weaker.

Withing my world there is a whole kingdom of vampiric races and human and other races can get jobs there to become "food" so in a less traveling situation getting the blood wouldn't be too hard. When traveling you are correct that they would need to hunt or feed off of companions.

As I said since there is a kingdom with vampiric races, it is one of the known weaknesses of a vampiric being so anyone traveling through who may afraid of an attack or such would probably be carrying such.

By "In the presence of" I mean similar to how a cleric must present their holy symbol to cast their spells. The symbol need to be out in the open and pushed upon their attention. A church would do so simply by having a large symbol upon it's roof, as that draws attention. So basically them seeing the symbol is what causes them the fear to be shaken.

As far as the lycan shifting they have 3 forms similar to the lycanthrope template, a base humanoid form, animal form, and hybrid form. They have basic skills split between the 3 but gain different abilities when shifting to hybrid and animal forms. As far as the physical transformation it is a mix between the shifting in underworld and twilight. They pain and visual shift if more like underworld as they shift to hybrid form and then continues as they shift to the animal form. Also while the animal forms are larger then a normal animal of the species they aren't as large as twilight wolves.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDngSZIjbu8 Underworld
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOnWEmbW3OQ Twilight

Thanks on the flight I wasn't sure if the increments would be +2 or +4 for each.

The main reason I don't want to use the template is because it doesn't cover different variants. My world have vampyres which are a born race. They are the race which has long life and the only one that can create vampires. The vampires can not infect others and while their lives are longer then humans they are not as long as elves. They are levels of what a vampiric being can be and between the two combine many mythos of vampires. Another reason I'm looking into how these weaknesses are valued is I plan to create some non-playable races as well to be monsters for example vampiric oozes. These with give me a starting point to create those as well.

Again thanks for the help.

[Lady-J]

why not just use vampire templates and the dampir race

[amyhart420]

It still would not match my vision, which is why I am making a Homebrew. Dhampirs are half human and half vampire. Their mothers often die during child birth, where as my vampyres are born from two vampyre parents. The vampyres bodies are able to withstand the stress of carrying a vampyric child and thus not needed for the mother to die because of this cause, not saying it couldn't happen just as it does among humans but it isn't always the cause. Dhamphirs also do not have the speed or strength enhancements of my vampyres. Adding the vampire template to them doesn't do much to help. It enhances strength but makes them undead which they are not. The vampire template has that vampires are almost immediately destroyed by sunlight, within 2 turns, and being that I want this to be a playable character this isn't something I want for my game. In my version Vampyre have a dazzled like state in sunlight similar to the Dhampir, while Vampires have a more paralyzing state. While the sun can injury and even destroy it's not nearly as deadly as the vampire template has it.

While both Dhampirs and the vampire templates have their merits they don't meet the vision I have and thus creating my Homebrew is my best and easiest option.

[Lady-J]

so you are not looking for vampires then but bloodsucking living beings

[amyhart420]

The term vampire is just a name of a mythical fantasy being. There are many mythos of creature and my versions are just two new ones to add to the list, and I don't see the problem with this. I have vampyres and vampires. There are created from a mix of many mythos to form 2 versions that I believe encompass enough that no matter what mythos my player believe that they will have a version that they like and are willing to play. Just because I don't want to use the "SET" standard of vampires that Pathfinder has put forward it does not make my vampires any less vampiric, it only makes them mine. We are in the Homebrew section of the forum to discuss things that are Homebrew, and that is what my vampires are. Homebrew is there to create the things like custom versions of races. I am sure I am not the first to make a different vampire and I know that I am not the first one to to make it so vampires are not dead, hence where I got the idea to include it into my mythos.

[Fuzzy-Wuzzy]

The OP is perfectly correct; plenty of fictional vampires are alive, and probably some mythological ones too. There is a lot of variation in vampire tales.

That said, is "vampyre" pronounced differently from "vampire"? Seems a bit confusing.

[amyhart420]

Yes Vampyre is pronounced Vam-pier while vampire is vam-pie-er. Sorry with spelling I didn't think to include that detail.

[Bwang]

Playing in a campaign with an array of vampiric creatures, it can be revealing. Our current GM gave them all an 'evil outsider/vampiric' Type so that she can use a host of versions from around the world. The last one we met was an African spirit that was able to go incorporeal like the amorphous blood sucker in original Star Trek. It was said to attack sleeping homes, the victims all being dead with no marks, the life sucked from them. Very unsettling and creative on her part!

[amyhart420]

That's really cool I hadn't thought of vampiric spirits. Gonna have to start thinking on that now.

[Cyrad]

Those weaknesses should be no less than -1 RP. Weaknesses need to be conservative because players choose races, not racial traits.

It's better to look at the whole picture for a race because a race is often greater than the sum of its parts.

[amyhart420]

So I have to ask because I'm a little confused, when you say no less than -1 RP you mean, -1 or 0 right? And for these races I'm being a little strong on weaknesses because they have powers that exceed other races to keep the races balance throughout the game.

Perhaps you are right. I will see about typing out the statistics that I have so far for the two major races I'm looking at here.

[Bwang]

amyhart420 wrote:

That's really cool I hadn't thought of vampiric spirits. Gonna have to start thinking on that now.

Vampiric creatures are rife in mythology, though they don't always work as Bela Lugosi knock offs. Lost Boys shook my view in the way they were handled and as long as you don't go sparkly, you will find some 'killer' examples out there, especially if you blend them in with outsiders.

Our game also has a guy 'cursed' with no real powers, think Renfield without a master. He's not dead and will never be a real vampire, but has several nasty disadvantages. He's our contact with the undead.