Fancier races

[Yakk]

So I was thinking that races in D&D are pretty dull.

They tend to be a bunch of abilities at level one, and then nothing.

The bloodline and paragon systems aren't bad, but I was thinking something that every character would take. You are a human, and thus you have the human class abilities.

So, what if we did a gesalt class/race system?

We'd have to make up racial abilities for each race. Players would also be more powerful than standard D&D classes. If a race was about half as strong as a class, it would result in a campagn about half way between D&D and gesalt D&D.


NAME OF RACE
Level|HP [br]Bonus|Fort Save|Ref Save|Will Save|Special
1st|+x|+x|+x|+x|Race Ability
2nd|+x|+x|+x|+x|Race Ability
3rd|+x|+x|+x|+x|Race Ability
4th|+x|+x|+x|+x|Race Ability
5th|+x|+x|+x|+x|Race Ability
6th|+x|+x|+x|+x|Race Ability
7th|+x|+x|+x|+x|Race Ability
8th|+x|+x|+x|+x|Race Ability
9th|+x|+x|+x|+x|Race Ability
10th|+x|+x|+x|+x|Race Ability
11th|+x|+x|+x|+x|Race Ability
12th|+x|+x|+x|+x|Race Ability
13th|+x|+x|+x|+x|Race Ability
14th|+x|+x|+x|+x|Race Ability
15th|+x|+x|+x|+x|Race Ability
16th|+x|+x|+x|+x|Race Ability
17th|+x|+x|+x|+x|Race Ability
18th|+x|+x|+x|+x|Race Ability
19th|+x|+x|+x|+x|Race Ability
20th|+x|+x|+x|+x|Race Ability


Tossing together such a racial-class:

Elves, Noble
The elf class is an arcane int-based non-spontanius caster. The elf uses the Wizard spell list.
Spells from the elf list have a 10% lower chance of arcane spell failure in armor.

At each of L 1 through 4, an Elf gains access to a MWP from the following list:
Longsword, Shortbow, Longbow, Rapier

Every four levels, an Elf gains access to a bonus feat.
These feats are restricted to
Weapon Focus Longsword, Rapier, Longbow, Shortbow, Weapon Finess(Rapier), Point-blank shot, Far Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Shot

and, at L 12 and above:
L 12+: Improved Precise Shot, Shot on the Run, Mobility, Manyshot

At 8th level, and every even level until 12th, an Elf gets to pick a weapon focus feat from the following list:
Longsword, Rapier, Longbow, Shortbow

An Elf's caster level is 1/2 of her racial level.

Elves, Noble
Level|HP [br]Bonus|Fort Save|Ref Save|Will Save|Special
1st|+0|+0|+0|+1|Low light vision, -2 Con, +2 Dex, Immune to Sleep, Feat
2nd|+1|+0|+0|+1|2 cantrip, 0 first
3rd|+1|+0|+0|+1|+2 racial Spot/Listen/Search
4th|+2|+0|+0|+1|2 cantrip, 1 1st, Feat
5th|+2|+0|+0|+2|Auto-search
6th|+3|+0|+1|+2|3 cantrip, 2 1st
7th|+3|+0|+1|+2|+2 racial vs Enchantments
8th|+4|+0|+1|+2|4 cantrip, 2 1st, 1 2nd, Feat
9th|+4|+0|+1|+3|+5 racial Sneak/Hide in Forests
10th|+5|+0|+1|+3|4 cantrip, 3 1st, 2 2nd
11th|+5|+0|+2|+3|+1 damage with LS/Rapier/Longbow/Shortbow
12th|+6|+0|+2|+3|4 cantrip, 3 1st, 2 2nd, 1 3rd, Feat
13th|+6|+0|+2|+4|+4 racial Spot/Listen/Search
14th|+7|+0|+2|+4|4 cantrip, 3 1st, 3 2nd, 2 3rd
15th|+7|+0|+2|+4|+2 racial Int
16th|+8|+0|+3|+4|4 cantrip, 3 1st, 3 2nd, 2 3rd, 1 4th, Feat
17th|+8|+0|+3|+5|+6 racial vs Enchantments
18th|+9|+0|+3|+5|4 cantrip, 4 1st, 3 2nd, 3 3rd, 2 4th
19th|+9|+0|+3|+5|+4 racial Dex
20th|+10|+0|+3|+5|4/4/3/3/2/1 spells, Feat



So at L 20, a Noble Elf would have:
-2 Con, +4 Dex, +2 Int
Access to up to L 5 arcane spells (4/4/3/3/2/1 per day) as a Wizard (about as strong as a L 9 Wizard)
6 feats focused on archery and/or elven melee weapons
+5 sneak/hide in Forests
+4 racial Spot/Listen/Search
+6 racial vs Enchantments
+5 racial Will save
+3 racial Reflex save
+10 racial HP
Immune to Sleep, Low-light vision

...

To max half-breed races, simply alternate levels.

A half-elf half-human would get 1 level of human, 1 level of elf, and alternate back and forth.

Am I crazy?

Another attempt

Human's bonus feats can come from any class they are a member of.
Humans at L 7, 12 and 17 earn a Weapon Proficiency. If the human has Martial Weapons, this can be an Exotic Weapon.
Otherwise, it is proficiency in one Martial Weapon, or Weapon Focus in a weapon the human is already proficient in.

Extra class skills are the ability to select skills that the human has as cross-class or class skills and make them "universal class skills". From then on, they are considered class skills of every class.

Human
Level|HP [br]Bonus|Fort Save|Ref Save|Will Save|Special
1st|+1|+0|+0|+0|+4 skill points, Bonus Feat (any)
2nd|+2|+0|+0|+0|+1 skill points, Extra class skill(any)
3rd|+3|+0|+0|+0|+1 skill points, +1 racial to any save
4th|+4|+0|+0|+0|+1 skill points, +1 initiative
5th|+5|+0|+0|+0|+1 skill points, Bonus Feat (any)
6th|+6|+1|+1|+1|+1 skill points, +1 to all stats
7th|+7|+1|+1|+1|+1 skill points, Weapon Proficiency
8th|+8|+1|+1|+1|+1 skill points, +1 to all skills
9th|+9|+1|+1|+1|+1 skill points, +1 to any one stat
10th|+10|+1|+1|+1|+1 skill points, Bonus Feat (any)
11th|+11|+2|+2|+2|+1 skill points, +1 to any save
12th|+12|+2|+2|+2|+1 skill points, Weapon Proficiency
13th|+13|+2|+2|+2|+1 skill points, Extra class skill(any)
14th|+14|+2|+2|+2|+1 skill points, +2 to all stats (inclusive)
15th|+15|+2|+2|+2|+1 skill points, Bonus Feat (any)
16th|+16|+3|+3|+3|+1 skill points, +2 to all skills (inclusive)
17th|+17|+3|+3|+3|+1 skill points, Weapon Proficiency
18th|+18|+3|+3|+3|+1 skill points, +1 to any one stat (can stack)
19th|+19|+3|+3|+3|+1 skill points, +1 racial to any save (can stack)
20th|+20|+3|+3|+3|+1 skill points, Bonus Feat (any)


How does that stack up against the Elf?

5 Bonus feats and 3 (weak) Weapon Feats
2 extra Class skills
23 extra skill points
+2 to all stats, and an extra +2 anywhere
+3 to each save type +2 extra save points
+2 to all skills
+20 HP

Thoughts? I suspect the above might be more powerful than I intended. :)

[F.H. Zebedee]

Hmmm... Well, they're both fairly powerful. I guess that powerwise, they are what you're intending. However, I fear that by giving racial levels, you risk taking away uniqueness by adding flavor. Of course, I'm fairly new to this. I like the idea, but think it should be more subtle, if just as effective.

[Yakk]

/shrug -- I probably made them too powerful. :)

I started with the elves' racial abilities. Gave them the "must have" ones at L 1 (stats, low-light vision, immune to sleep). Then I got the idea of "1/3 wizard" -- the idea that basically all elves are magical beings who have some spell casting abilities.

Then I had to populate the other half of the tree...

Then I made the Human balanced with that Elf.

I should probably tone them down. :)

[Mauril Everleaf]

so basically you are returning to original dnd, where the "classes" included elf and dwarf? i mean thats great and all, but there is a reason that there are races and classes which are independant of each other. if you want to make a similar effect, but not revert and overhaul the entire dnd world (which you can do if you want, im sorta doing it in my world) consider giving each race some spell like abilities which get better/more uses per day as they level up.

[Yakk]

Not really an elf "class", but an elf "race" with 20 levels.

Your elf will still be a figher, cleric or ranger. But each race will get 20 levels of racial progression in addition to their class progression.

In a way, everyone would be "multiclass" race/class, even humans.

A human warrior and a dwarf warrior won't be interchangeable at L 10.

The human would have more well-rounded stats, more skills, and some extra feats.

The meanwhile, dwarf might have a bunch of extra HP, some DR, extra constitution, the ability to march 24 hours and fight, and near immunity to poison.

Giving strong racial features at L 1 is a balance headache. You need to make sure each race is balanced.

But if you can spread the abilities over 20 levels -- elves and dwarves and humans and halflings and gnomes can become fundamentally different from each other.

D&D 1.0 made races into classes. This wasn't good -- it eventually led to "the elvish rogue", "the dwarven priest" classes, and it got silly.

Making races matter so little, like in 3.5, also seems like a not-good thing.

Hence this attempt. :)

It was inspired by the d20 SRD "bloodlines" and "paragon classes", and the "fleshwroght" from the communal world building.

With half-a-class's worth of power to play with, you could create interesting diverse races. As it stands, people who want races that will be played carefully build races so they don't get even a ECL+1, and stay the heck away from higher-than-one-HD races.

[Telonius]

I think the idea behind the simple racial bonuses is that they're balanced for a mature member of the race. Currently, the elf doesn't get better at being an elf, just by getting more experience points. He becomes a better fighter, or cleric, or whatever, by becoming more experienced in doing what that class does.

You'll run into a couple problems in this. The bonuses ought to be balanced; it's either balanced at first level (like it is now) or balanced at 20th; but either way, if one race has a significantly higher level of bonuses, everybody's going to want to play it. Similarly, if one race is particularly well-suited to a certain class (your elf, for example, looks like it would be excellent as a Rogue or Arcane Trickster), the only people playing that class would be the optimum race. (And maybe the only people playing that race would be the ones playing that class!)

Another issue you'll have is balancing encounters. Any kind of significant racial boosts that go along with class levels means that monsters will have to be more powerful in order to provide the same level of challenge. This problem will increase as the characters' levels increase. A current CR 1 challenge might not be that much easier for a Noble Elf 1, but a current CR 20 monster will be a whole lot less powerful against a Noble Elf 20.

[Telonius]

EDIT: Going along with that, something else just occurred to me; with more discrepancy in power between levels, and monsters needing to scale in power along with the PCs, not keeping up with the main party's level is going to be a lot more hazardous to your health. Not everybody would consider this a bad thing (the "death should be permanent" people), but it's a consideration for any spellcasters who are going to be crafting items (and thus not having full XP along with the rest of the group).

(EDIT2: Errrr ... what just happened to that post? I think I may have clicked a wrong button, sorry for the double-post)

[belboz]

That's true, but it's not really more of a problem than it is in Gestalt, right?

It might be a bit tricky figuring out *how* to re-adjust monsters. Most mosters (all those that don't rely on save-or-lose, which get -2) get -1 to CR in a Gestalt campaign. You'd somehow need to lower CRs by less than 1, whatever that would mean.

Actually, probably the best way to do it would be to give up on having exactly the same level of challenge as a normal campaign. Give save-or-lose monsters a flat -1 to CR. Then decide whether you want your campaign to be slightly more or slightly less deadly than the usual, and give other monsters either a -1 or no adjustement to CR.

[Yakk]

That elf would make a damn good Warrior. Sadly, it would make a poor Wizard.

I'm almost tempted to give it "+1 level of Wizard spell progression & Caster level, limited by character level" every even level. This means a L 10 Elf Fighter will be a L 5 Wizard, or she could be a L 10 Wizard L 5 Fighter (by simply taking a level of Fighter every even level), or a L 10 Rogue L 5 Wizard, or a L 10 Wizard L 5 Rogue, or a L 10 Bard L 5 Wizard...

You might end up with alot of Eldrich Knight elves, Arcane Trickster elves, and Arcane Archer elves ... but that sort of makes sense, if you want Elves to be a society in which the ability to do Magic is dirt common.

[Yakk]

Using that pattern, and gesault rules for merging:
Dwarves get +1 Ftr or Paladin level every even level.
Halflings get +1 Rogue or Ranger level every even level.
Gnomes get +1 Bard or Sorcerer level every even level.
Orcs get +1 Barbarian level every even level.
Elves get +1 Wizard or Druid level every even level.

Toss "core" racial abilities at L 1, and add the rest over the first 6 or so levels.

Add in higher level of "core" racial abilities and modifiers.

Half-races get both race's L 1 abilities at L 1.
At L 2, they don't get anything.
At L 3, they up one race to L 2.
At L 4, they up the other to L 2.
At L 20, they will be L 10 in both races.

Then how does one do humans?

...

The above might be too much of a pattern. Worth thinking about.

[belboz]

Actually, it looks like not quite *enough* of a pattern, to me. "Thog's racial abilities also sub-par." Everyone should get a choice, or nobody should.

Also, there's a big difference between gaining a couple of (even very important) class features, such as spell progression and caster level, and actually gaining the level (including HPs, save bonuses, etc).

Actually having characters gain the level seems more powerful than gestalt classes. A Wizard 10/Fighter 5 is, I think, more powerful than a Wizard/Fighter Gestalt 10. A party of Gestalt characters takes 1 off most monster CRs; a party of *these* guys would have to take off 1/3 the CR.

I don't think that's what you want (having to bring epic monsters in--as typical encounters--at level 14 is not what most DMs have in mind). You need a way to:

1) Grant something that's useful but less than a bonus level (as gestalt does--using overlapping, rather than stacking, powers).
2) Is useful to a character whose main class matches the "semi-class" dictated by race (which gestalt isn't; no such thing as a wizard/wizard gestalt).

You've actually solved the *hardest* problem--spellcasting. Including 1/3 wizard progression *just of spells and CL* for elves and 1/3 sorceror progression *just of spells and CL* for gnomes sounds good.

For other races, the bonuses can be a bit more straigtforward. Figure out appropriate bonuses for dwarves, humans, and the rest, that match the spell progression in power. HP, saves, rogue abilities, whatever.

BTW, I think you're wrong that you'd see a lot of Arcane Archer/Trickster elves, with your system.

In a regular campaign, an elvish 3/3/4 fighter/wizard/AA has the casting ability of a L.7 wizard, and the fighting ability of a L.7 fighter. That's 2 levels each better than a 5/5 fighter/wizard. Those two levels each are in exchange for secondary class features, the costs of qualifying for AA, etc.

In your campaign, a 3/3/4 fighter/wizard/AA has the casting ability of a L.10 wizard (capped by character level), and the fighting ability of a L.7 fighter. A straight 5/5 fighter/wizard would still have the casting ability of a L.10 wizard, and the fighting ability of a L.5 archer. So in your campaign, the AA has to give up the same secondary class features, costs of qualifying, etc, for a 2-level bonus to fighting only.

AA, AT, and similar classes for elves are still a good deal in your proposed system, but they're actually less of one than in the standard system.

[ed: Wait. I see above you said "gestalt rules for merging." But that contradicts your elf case, right? That doesn't use gestalt rules, because the magic progression stacks, up to a point, which it doesn't in gestalt.]