Creating a new race RP cost question


Advice


Just for the fun of it we are working on creating a new race with a variety of quirks not normally found on the new race table. The only one we're having trouble figuring out a fair RP cost reduction for is this:

The race may not be any class that receives it's primary powers from divine or nature sources. So, cannot be cleric, druid, paladin, etc. May be a ranger, but will never get the ranger spells, they would only receive the class feats such as animal companion, two weapon fighting, or bow feats.

This would seem to be a fairly significant drawback for the race, but how much of would it be?


Stop. The race point system is bad enough that Paizo doesn't use it regularly. The costs are not thought through to the point of being contradictory and there is no thought given to synergy or vicious circles.

Make your race with its quirks and advantages and then decide whether it needs a power up or down relative to the others in your campaign.

As to this exact quirk - it is meaningless unless the PC decides to become a divine caster. If they do it is a major problem, if they don't it's worth nothing. Assuming that the player isn't going to do that when they see the quirk it's worth nothing. The race as a whole may have problems in warfare, but that's no problem to a mixed race adventuring party.


Do note you're trying to put a class restriction into a race generation system. Not quite apples into the fruit salad, but getting there. Otherwise, as avr said, it's not a flaw at all if you're playing this race and take levels in, say, wizard. Who cares if you can't be a cleric or druid if you can be a wizard and don't want to be a cleric, druid, etc.? At that point, the flaw has zero value.

If you think about it from the race's perspective, you might say, 'oh wait, they won't have healers!'

Then I point at the bard, alchemist, witch and say 'oh really?'

Look at Rahadoum: they outlaw the divine and manage to get by. So it's still doable.

The rare occasions the race generation system references a class, it gives a narrow boost (e.g. tieflings taking specific sorcerer bloodlines). Wholesale penalties like this, harkening back to early editions of D&D, have largely gone by the wayside. They're not interesting to many anymore; we'd all rather take the suboptimal choice and make it work on a lark or ignore it completely.

Sorry I'm coming off harshly, but overall, I think you might want to rethink the idea.


It was just a fun discussion and exercise we were getting into after a game session ended. I do agree that the rp chart is hard to follow, ambiguous in many places at best and contradictory many others.

A good many of the point costs made little sense to us while we did the exercise...such as having claw attacks costing 2 rp for something that gives 2 attacks for 1d4 ea vs. 3 RP for a tail slap that does 1d6 damage but at -5 to hit.

So, back to the original question...*IF* you were to use the rp system, and assuming that the race is something that for flavor or whatever other reason it's something players might want to use regardless of class...how much of a RP reduction should such a drawback have?


None - it's not really a meaningful restriction.


If you're trying to balance the race for use by PCs or individual NPCs, I agree it's not worth any points. If you're trying to balance an NPC army of this race against an NPC army of another race it becomes meaningful. In that case I'd give it -3 to -5 RP for the lack of magical healing etc. That should ameliorate the cost of the fast healing they'd better have.


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I have to agree that this would not be worth any points. To get a RP reduction the weakness should penalize every member of the race. This does not meet that qualification, so should not be worth any points. This should be a 0 point weakness.

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It should be a 0-point weakness. Players choose races, not racial weaknesses. If a player wants to play a divine caster, they can just pick another race.

The RP system is not a substitute for game design.


Golarion hobgoblins usually have no arcane casters - mechanically they totally could, but there is a story reason why they (usually) don't. Paizo didn't go as far as prohibiting it completely - and I think that's a good course to pursue. It adds structure, but doesn't really reduce player choices...


Reestricting classes from races really doesn't make sense to me. It simply raises too many questions. As for race builder, don't use it. Sorry, but while it was a good idea in theory...it is way too limited and easy to abuse to be of any good. None of the races i have created use it.


[First I do agree that the point system really doesn't work]

The main issue is that someone might end up picking something like a fighter anyways, so it's an increase.

So maybe something like they always have to save against divine spells, even if they are harmless. You could use the points to give a bonus to saves against divine spells as well, which makes this a double-edged sword.


If you are running a game where everyone is going to be this race I think you could give this a -2 or -3 rp value. With no divine casters healing will be a problem and extra racial abilities that cost rp would help balance that out. However if it's just another race to add to the many others then like others said it's probably a 0 due to just avoiding the drawback.


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The idea that you need to be a divine caster to heal is false. Alchemists, Bards, Investigators, Spiritualists, and Witches can all heal to some degree. Alchemists, Investigators and some Witches can often heal as well as a divine caster.

Liberty's Edge

A Healing Patron Witch can do almost literally all the healing spells there are. This disadvantage is worth no points even on a macro level.

Other non-Divine classes with Healing include Alchemist, Investigator, Occultist, Medium, Spiritualist, and Bard. All of those are only 6-level casters, but that's still a wide range, y'know? And Witch is 9 levels and, with Healing Patron, has everything.

Now, a complete lack of synergy (basically, an Int penalty and Wis bonus on a race with this restriction) might be worth penalty points...but even then there's a Charisma Archetypes for Witch (though it can't have the Healing Patron), and I wouldn't say it's more than -1 or -2 points. But what this idea would result in is a race very few people play and those who do still complain about. It's un-fun and basically bad design to build something specifically to screw over people who take it in this manner. In short, even though it's mine, this idea is terrible and I would not recommend it.

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