Custom Tengu Ancestry, (constructive) Feedback requested:

[Artofregicide]

One of my players wants to be a Tengu in my converted 2e Hell's Rebels game. Thus I created a custom one. Feedback appreciated:

Tengu (custom)

Beak attack (1d4 P, finesse, agile)
Lowlight
Common, Tengu, +INT
HP: 6
Abilities: +2 DEX, +2 WIS, -2 CON, +2 Free
Move 25 ft

Feats:
1)
*Go for the eyes- as Bestiary
*Sword trained - treat all blades as common, trained
*Flutterfall - Fall under effects of feather fall
*Tengu Lore- Lore: Tengu, Acrobatics, Stealth
Gifted Linguist - 2 languages, +1 per training society
Claws- gain claws 1d4 (finesse, agile)

5)
Tengu Glide (require Flutterfall)
Sword Savant - Critical Specialization all swords
Blood beak - 1d4 bleed on critical beak, 1d6 damage

Languages: infernal, tengu, strix, shadowtongue, celestial

[BellyBeard]

Tengu (custom)

Beak attack (1d4 P, finesse, agile)

Lowlight
Common, Tengu, +INT
HP: 6
Abilities: +2 DEX, +2 WIS, -2 CON, +2 Free
Nothing about tengu suggests a wisdom bonus to me, in fact that's the given tengu's lowest stat. I would do +DEX, +INT, -CHA. Dexterity is obvious. They are described as "canny and clever" and crows are known for their intelligence, so INT bonus. I give a charisma penalty to represent their ostracism from normal society, and the disdain and mistrust people have for them.

Move 25 ft

Feats:
1)
*Go for the eyes- as Bestiary
*Sword trained - treat all blades as common, trained
Does this mean every weapon in the sword group? That's a lot of weapons, including a lot of weapons unique to other ancestries, like elven curve blade.
*Flutterfall - Fall under effects of feather fall
*Tengu Lore- Lore: Tengu, Acrobatics, Stealth
Gifted Linguist - 2 languages, +1 per training society
Claws- gain claws 1d4 (finesse, agile)
This doesn't give any benefit over the beak except a different damage type. Would be too weak for a feat. Consider adding a weapon trait.

5)
Tengu Glide (require Flutterfall)
What does this one do? Fly speed but you have to end your turn on ground would be a good fit for this slot.
Sword Savant - Critical Specialization all swords
As above.
Blood beak - 1d4 bleed on critical beak, 1d6 damage

Languages: infernal, tengu, strix, shadowtongue, celestial
Infernal and celestial?

---

Other than that I think it looks good. Are you also planning on adding heritages?

[Samurai]

Looking at the Goblin, their Bite can do 1d6 damage and has Finesse, but not Agile. You could copy that for the Beak and give the Claws 1d4 damage and both Agile and Finesse. That way, a full round attack would go Beak/Claw/Claw for a "normal/-4/-8" attack pattern using Dex to hit and 1d6/1d4/1d4 (+Str mod) for damage (unless he is a Rogue Thief, then it's Dex to everything!).

Also, I would limit the Sword abilities to Common Simple and Martial weapons only. That is 9 different swords, which is already more than double the Elven Weapons and 3x or 4x some others

[BellyBeard]

The beak attack for the listed tengu is 1d4,which I think is why he went that route. I think it makes sense, the beak attacks are less powerful and more precise compared to chomping down with a bite.

[K1]

The sword feat needs to be somehow lowered in terms of power.

Also you have to add

- a lvl 13 feat for expertise
- a pair of lvl 9 feats ( one could be improved fly ).

[Draco18s]

All simple and martial blades might work better. Or just drop the "make them common" part. You might be able to consider yourself trained with an elven blade, but its still uncommon in availability (ie you can't buy it in char gen).

Agree on INT instead of WIS, but definitely a CON penalty. If you want to do a WIS penalty, then give them a weakness to bludgeoning damage (5) to represent the hollow bones aspect instead. Birds really are owned hard by bashing; kick the goose attacking you, it'll either back off or be too injured to continue. If not, kick it again.

[CorvusMask]

Canniness/cunning is often used in Pathfinder for Wisdom instead of Int. Its why lizardfolk have int penalty despite being canny.

(1e Tengu got wisdom bonus for being observant though :P)

[BellyBeard]

Draco18s wrote:

Agree on INT instead of WIS, but definitely a CON penalty. If you want to do a WIS penalty, then give them a weakness to bludgeoning damage (5) to represent the hollow bones aspect instead. Birds really are owned hard by bashing; kick the goose attacking you, it'll either back off or be too injured to continue. If not, kick it again.

I agree with CON penalty. Unfortunately that's exactly the elf's stat changes. It's not the end of the world for them to be the same, but that's why I chose CHA instead.

[Dusbringer]

I'd put the natural Bite and the Swordtrained in separate heritages, maybe even make the whole glide thing into a third. Other potentially thematic Ancestry feats could include Long Nose Form and the various 'turning into ravens' powers.

[Artofregicide]

BellyBeard wrote:

Tengu (custom)

Beak attack (1d4 P, finesse, agile)

Lowlight
Common, Tengu, +INT
HP: 6
Abilities: +2 DEX, +2 WIS, -2 CON, +2 Free
Nothing about tengu suggests a wisdom bonus to me, in fact that's the given tengu's lowest stat. I would do +DEX, +INT, -CHA. Dexterity is obvious. They are described as "canny and clever" and crows are known for their intelligence, so INT bonus. I give a charisma penalty to represent their ostracism from normal society, and the disdain and mistrust people have for them.

Move 25 ft

Feats:
1)
*Go for the eyes- as Bestiary
*Sword trained - treat all blades as common, trained
Does this mean every weapon in the sword group? That's a lot of weapons, including a lot of weapons unique to other ancestries, like elven curve blade.
*Flutterfall - Fall under effects of feather fall
*Tengu Lore- Lore: Tengu, Acrobatics, Stealth
Gifted Linguist - 2 languages, +1 per training society
Claws- gain claws 1d4 (finesse, agile)
This doesn't give any benefit over the beak except a different damage type. Would be too weak for a feat. Consider adding a weapon trait.

5)
Tengu Glide (require Flutterfall)
What does this one do? Fly speed but you have to end your turn on ground would be a good fit for this slot.
Sword Savant - Critical Specialization all swords
As above.
Blood beak - 1d4 bleed on critical beak, 1d6 damage

Languages: infernal, tengu, strix, shadowtongue, celestial
Infernal and celestial?

---

Other than that I think it looks good. Are you also planning on adding heritages?

I pretty much more or less copied the 1e tengu from the 1e bestiary.

I wouldn't put too much faith in one bestiary entry. They're a rogue, so they have higher CHA and INT.

Yeah, trying to convert the sword trained ability from 1e. Tengu should be able to use katanas and all sorts of unusual blades, including other races in 1e.

Swapping agile to claws is a good idea. Maybe make the bite versatile B or something.

Glide should give them a fly speed but just while falling. 30ft maybe, and they can't go up?

The languages were a mistake.

[Artofregicide]

Hadn't thought about heritages. How dip these sound as a general outline?

-swordtrained
-natural weapons (beak, claws)
-yamabushi blood (innate magic)

[BellyBeard]

Heritages are usually supposed to deal with physical or cultural differences between people groups. Snow goblins have physical adaptations to the cold, other goblins learn to eat refuse from living near cities as a cultural adaptation. Things anybody of the ancestry could learn should be feats. (Humans are the exception here, since their heritages are basically purely mechanical)

Based on that, I would agree with Natural weapon and innate magic heritages, but not with sword training heritage. That seems like something innate to all tengus to me, unless you decide it only applies to one tengu subculture who are dedicated to the blade and other tengus have no such natural inclination (notice how all the ancestral weapon abilities for existing ancestries are feats). Maybe flutter fall becomes a heritage instead, as those tengu with that heritage have limbs more like wings compared to other tengu?

[Artofregicide]

BellyBeard wrote:

Heritages are usually supposed to deal with physical or cultural differences between people groups. Snow goblins have physical adaptations to the cold, other goblins learn to eat refuse from living near cities as a cultural adaptation. Things anybody of the ancestry could learn should be feats. (Humans are the exception here, since their heritages are basically purely mechanical)

Based on that, I would agree with Natural weapon and innate magic heritages, but not with sword training heritage. That seems like something innate to all tengus to me, unless you decide it only applies to one tengu subculture who are dedicated to the blade and other tengus have no such natural inclination (notice how all the ancestral weapon abilities for existing ancestries are feats). Maybe flutter fall becomes a heritage instead, as those tengu with that heritage have limbs more like wings compared to other tengu?

I think that's a better breakdown, strong-winged Tengu or something?

[BellyBeard]

That sounds good to me. Hope I've helped point you in the right direction! :)