How far would you go reflavouring a race or class?

[Minigiant]

I am interested to hear other peoples experiences with this.

How much reflavouring have you done to a race or class?

I have reflavoured a Catfolk; Felix Genus, to Panthera Genus. In my opinion, that isn't much. I have just written up a Lizardfolk for a Crucible of Chaos game that is reflavoured as a Triceratops Humanoid. Would that work for you?

What things have you done?

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

Can't really say I've done much reflavoring. In general, if I want to play something not covered by the current rules, I prefer to find a conversion acceptable to me and the GM, or do some brewing. The most I've done, I think, is restrict the Magus to elves in my current Mystara campaign, in honor of the old elf class from when I got started in BECMI.

Rakasta come in a variety of flavors and the catfolk alternate racial traits do a decent job of bringing these out in play so I don't really consider that reflavoring.

Setting-specific classes or feats are usually easily reflavored to other settings. Those that aren't easily reflavored aren't permitted.

[TxSam88]

Little or none, there is so much written and available already for PF1, that we find very little need to do any kind of homebrewing if any at all.

In fact, aside from creating one's own world, I tend to find that most homebrew stuff that people offer up, is already in PF1 somewhere, they just haven't taken the time to find it in one of the many Players Companions or AP's

[Syntax_error]

I mean, as long as it fits in the same class/race chassis, I don't see any reason not too.

[Mysterious Stranger]

I used a couple of races to create unique characters with unusual backgrounds. Take a race that is not being used in the campaign and use that as a basis for creating special abilities. For example, if you want a cursed character similar to the beast from beauty and the beast Catfolk works well. Take the alternative racial traits cleaver claws and climber. Use the adopted trait to take tusked to get a bite. I used Aasimar for a character that actually did have divine right. I Took the scion of humanity for that character.

[DAOFS]

If I needed to, I think I'd go pretty far, but as has been stated, I have yet to encounter the need to homebrew what with all the official stuff out there.

[Chell Raighn]

I haven’t reflavored races before, though I have been tempted to a couple of times… however, I have reflavored a few classes a couple times…

I had a Catfolk Rogue with the Eldritch Scoundrel archetype that I reflavored to be a self-taught Wizard… throughout the whole campaign I had her in I played heavily on her limited spellcasting and even got her a wand at one point… For all intents and purposes she was a Wizard, rarely ever used her rogue features without the aid of magic even. The only problem was that our DM for that game kept referring to her as “the rogue”… if you are a DM and you have players who reflavor a class to fit a character concept, please respect their reflavoring and don’t refer to them by their actual class…

In a current campaign I’ve got a Green faith Martial/Sacred Huntsman Inquisitor who is for all intents a druid… she’s even been accepted into the local druid circle… the DM for this campaign loved the reflavoring and has been running with it.

I have a Towershield Specialist Fighter planned for a future campaign who’s flavored as a Paladin… I do plan to take a couple levels of paladin on her eventually but for the entire campaign she’s in I intend to RP her as a paladin even when she has no paladin abilities. When I do take a couple levels of Paladin its going to be one of the archetype that gives up spellcasting as well, so I can easily keep up the ruse that she’s just not good with magic.

My favorite reflavoring though was a Phoenix Blooded Goblin Sorcerer… though this one wasn’t so much reflavoring as story concept… throughout the entire campaign she was in she believed herself to be a Cleric of Sarenrae, and she made sure others knew thats what she was… she ended up amassing a following of goblins who she managed to convert to worshiping Sarenrae. She was one of the most entertaining characters I had ever played… unfortunately we never got to finish that campaign, our DM had everything for it saved to a google drive account that got hacked and deleted…

[Ryze Kuja]

I will re-flavor or custom create just about anything; races, archetypes, feats, spells, or special abilities, whatever a player wants. You should play whatever you want to play. Games should be fun.

Honestly, if a player is asking for custom stuff, it means they're invested and imaginative, and I would do whatever it takes to make that spark never go out.

[Heather 540]

One of my characters is a kitsune hunter. I reflavored his cat animal companion to be a fox. Didn't change anything about the stats, just the image. It's gotten a bit funny since the companion is medium sized now while the kitsune is tiny when he transforms. There have been a few times when the companion has carried him by his scruff.

[Maverick898]

I heavily reflavored a clan of orcs in my homebrew world. They were heavily inspired by the Iron Horde in World of Warcraft: WoD expansion.

A bit more modernized with access to explosives and firearms

ORCS

[Tim Emrick]

When I was converting a v.3.5 campaign to PF1 halfway through, I had to find a way to convert a hadozee PC (a simian race with gliding flaps like a flying squirrel's). Vanara was already a good match for everything but the gliding, so I used that race as-is, with the kobold's gliding wings alternate race trait added as a new option.

[Dragonchess Player]

Ah, the hadozee... The AD&D 2e/Spelljammer reflavoring of the old Star Frontiers yazirian. [/RPG history]

The hadozee/yazirian didn't have tails, so swapping the vanara's Prehensile Tail for Gliding Wings would probably work.

[Java Man]

For the section of my homebrew that is a shameless rip off of the Orcs of Thar I reflavored wyvaran as a race of draconic humanoids, no kobold or wyvern connnection (turns out wyvern is a draconic word that equates to "stupid hill billy").

As a legacy for a construct building wizard PC I was going to introduce androids as his free willed "children" in a future campaign, but that player had a social meltdown and left the table, so maybe not.

[DungeonmasterCal]

I re-flavored the Hobgoblin from the PF1e version, which I did not like at all. They're a PC race in my homebrew and I changed up a few things.

[Java Man]

Class weapon proficiencies, mostly druid, ninja and samurai.

In my campaign Druids are not pseudo-celtic gardeners with a curved weapon fetish. So they drop sickle, scythe and scimitar from the class weapons, but add longspear, javelin, hand axe, morning star and greatclub.

Many ninja and samurai are not from 'asian' regions or cultures. For these I remove wakizashi, katanna and naginata, and replace with appropriate options for their home culture. Ninjas frequently get kukri, elven blades (if elven), drow razors, etc.

Samurai get whatever exotic sword or axe type thingy is proper.

[TxSam88]

Ryze Kuja wrote:

Honestly, if a player is asking for custom stuff, it means they're invested and imaginative, and I would do whatever it takes to make that spark never go out.

sometimes this is true, usually however, it's a power gamer.

[Syntax_error]

TxSam88 wrote:

Ryze Kuja wrote:

Honestly, if a player is asking for custom stuff, it means they're invested and imaginative, and I would do whatever it takes to make that spark never go out.

sometimes this is true, usually however, it's a power gamer.

I think they mean custom stuff in a reflavoring sense.

[TxSam88]

Syntax_error wrote:

TxSam88 wrote:

Ryze Kuja wrote:

Honestly, if a player is asking for custom stuff, it means they're invested and imaginative, and I would do whatever it takes to make that spark never go out.

sometimes this is true, usually however, it's a power gamer.

I think they mean custom stuff in a reflavoring sense.

I stand by my statement. IME, People tend to want to reflavor something ultra powerful into something playable using some stretched storytelling logic. PF1 has enough options to have almost no need to reflavor anything to play as something else, as that "something else" already exists legally in some form or fashion.

I see people in multiple different PF forums, here an in other sources asking how to play a certain something, and I can quite often recommend a legal way for that item to be played, yet they invariably want to reskin something "powerful" instead.

[Tim Emrick]

Dragonchess Player wrote:

The hadozee/yazirian didn't have tails, so swapping the vanara's Prehensile Tail for Gliding Wings would probably work.

I'd have to dig out my old notes to be sure, but I'm pretty sure that's what I swapped out.

[Azothath]

there's room to tweak everything.
Read the Race point system. Design a few races sticking to 3@9pts then 1@13 points. The Race Point system is a bit off, wonky, and limited in scope but it's good practice. Get them critiqued by your players. Generally the complaints will tell you what's wrong with the race designs (and Race Point system) AND what they want (not about the race itself).

> First thing I'd do is look at feats and think about granting access (no or reduced requirements) to 3-4 feats (and Alt Racial abilities) over the level range (3-15) to various races as they are just front loaded (and that's not good).
> Rework favored/flavored class leveling bonuses to 4-5 (class) types with specifics for a few classes. Humans need the bump here.
> Add weapon proficiency options as traits(professions), fav'd class option, and rework the basic feats (simple, martial, exotic, {ranged}) incorporating fighter weapon groups.

I've made several races that I like based on various themes; humanoid (insectoid) with 6 limbs and 6 sex roles(one gets changed during molting as a queen would prevent equal social standing), human-giant, human(native outsider dreamlands), anthropomorphic humanoids(human-animal traits), children of the Muses, ...

[Ryze Kuja]

The stuff we create is balanced. It's not for power gaming.

[DungeonmasterCal]

Ryze Kuja wrote:

The stuff we create is balanced. It's not for power gaming.

Indeed. While I'm not the best at figuring out balance by numbers, I do my best to keep things along the same levels as the rest of our campaigns. I only change things for flavor, not to "fix" something I see as wrong.

[Ryze Kuja]

DungeonmasterCal wrote:

Ryze Kuja wrote:

The stuff we create is balanced. It's not for power gaming.

Indeed. While I'm not the best at figuring out balance by numbers, I do my best to keep things along the same levels as the rest of our campaigns. I only change things for flavor, not to "fix" something I see as wrong.

Yep absolutely :)

[Azothath]

look, people have their home games and GMs live or die by their reputation. It's not like they are publishing this stuff... otherwise I charge as it is professional... LoL