Hi,
I spent a good deal of time putting together a wasp race called Vespidan with subraces based on their caste system as well as a good amount of racial lore. Hope you enjoy!
All supplied art is by:
https://twitter.com/dinerforwolves
They could be easily reskinned as a spacefaring bee race.
When I have more time I will see if they communicate by dance.
*scrolling*
*scrolling*
*wasp with boobs*
:O
Only thing I'd change is the four arms thing. Being able to wear a shield and wield a two-handed weapon with no penalties makes vespidans much more effective at melee combat than any other race (despite lacking a boost to STR).
Yeah that'd be my take immediately as well.
Small race with no strength penalty for AC and bonuses to hit: Check
Natural armor on top of it: check
Still speed 30 despite being small, cause reasons: check
Best stats for physical and mental boosts, penalty to the weakest: check
Darkvision: check
Bonus to perception: check
Ability to use 2-handers and still wield a shield: check
I mean before we even get into swarmfighting shananigans, you've already picked to give bonuses to nearly every desirable thing for a melee fighter to have while eliminating any meaningful drawback. You're way past core, and likely better than a huge chunk of advanced races in terms of power level.
I don't know if you're thinking about it this way, but let's take a stock human two-handed user. A character of your race is going start stock with an AC that's 4 points higher, potentially *5* if I also count the +2 Dex... Will the human do more damage? Yeah, sure, but to steal the MMO adage, "dead characters do 0 damage."
It's too much. It needs to be toned back and given more of the "fluffy" race builder abilities. Small + Natural Armor + Two-handed and can still use a shield + Full 30' speed + a Dex bonus is way too much.
Please don't take the criticism too harshly, as I think your fluff is good. I had similar issues when I was laying out homebrew races. I fell in so much love with my fluff that I had come up with that I wanted everyone to be one of my new races, so the crunch ended up totally out of whack compared to core.
Thanks for the feedback!
I get what you are saying, I knew it might be hard to pare down what I wanted into something playable. I was not looking to core for this reason, rather, my initial target was to balance them to Aasimar, by far one of the more powerful 'standard' races. I am considering altering their four-arms to be more like prehensile tail, giving them more efficient item retrieval and a bonus to climb rather than the weapon options.
Also considering a type shift to humanoid(vespidan) retaining low-light, and losing darkvision, which came with monstrous humanoid, but wasps can't see at night
Thanks for the feedback!
I get what you are saying, I knew it might be hard to pare down what I wanted into something playable. I was not looking to core for this reason, rather, my initial target was to balance them to Aasimar, by far one of the more powerful 'standard' races. I am considering altering their four-arms to be more like prehensile tail, giving them more efficient item retrieval and a bonus to climb rather than the weapon options.
Also considering a type shift to humanoid(vespidan) retaining low-light, and losing darkvision, which came with monstrous humanoid, but wasps can't see at night
Both of these would be positive changes that would reduce the power level of the race down to something more manageable, especially the whole shield thing. I think this would put it far more comparable to the Aasimar if you consider all the rediculous stat switching "subtypes."
*scrolling*
*scrolling*
*wasp with boobs*
:O
Lol, what did you expect with Calistria xD
And thanks again, that was about what I was hoping to get, I'll give them an update when I get home later
It's clear you've put a lot of work into this effort, but what makes your race distinct from the formians? They share a lot of traits, including being lawful insect people. Obviously formians ate monsters and can't be played as adventures normally, but they fit a similar niche.
Actually a better comparison is the Thraie. So there's already a fair number of Golarion creatures filling this niche. Is this for a homebrew setting?
I definitely share other posters' concerns about power level compared to other races.
Interesting points. Balance is in the works. As for the other points, though they share a similar aesthetic with thriae and formians, they have more individuality, form much smaller colonies and lack the aggressive expansionism of the latter space-faring, hive-minded ants. With thriae they would make vicious rivals wherever their territory meets. Their similar appearance could cause interesting confusion to locals but the wasp-like vespidan would attempt regular raids of the bee-folk's highly desirable honey. Lastly, it would be wildly unrealistic to think that any given niche could be universally filled by a single race given the scope of Golarion's setting.
I have made the changes