[3.5] Altered Races for my Campaign...

[Zovc]

In my setting, for the fist campaign, the only races that players should encounter are Dwarf, Gnome, Halfling, and Human. The races have different flavor, if only slightly, and I'd like to design my own in hopes of smoothing out balance.

Humans, I think, will stay the same. If they seem weak compared to the other races, I'll boost them somehow... if they seem strong, the other races should be boosted up.

Dwarves in the SRD get +2 Con, -2 Cha which seems really powerful, I feel like that needs to be changed. I'm considering making the dwarves small and giving them powerful build in order to justify their 20ft movement speed. +2 Con, -2 Dex is what I was thinking of as new ability modifiers. Dwarves will be much less tied to stone (minus stonecunning), and more tailored to being great craftsmen (bonus to all craft skills, not just stone-based crafting). I am considering removing darkvision or replacing it with low-light vision, Dwarves haven't dwelled in caves for very long--if at all. I don't have a particular class in mind that Dwarves should be tailored to, as I'd expect most of them to be Experts. I suppose Cleric or a martial character is what they would be well suited for.

Gnomes are alright the way they are, but I'm not sure I like the spell-like abilities. I almost want to give gnomes a -2 to Wisdom or Charisma. I will probably end up scrapping most of the gnomes SRD characteristics. Instead of giving them a bonus to DC for illusion spells, I think I will give them +1 caster level for one school of magic of their choice (chosen at character creation). If Gnomes get a bonus to any skill, it'd be Spellcraft, perhaps Use Magic Device after that. Gnomes should be extremely tailored to spellcasting classes, particularly Wizard. If I can get away with that without sacrificing Cleric (wisdom) or Bard (charisma) aptitude, great, but if not, that's fine.

Halflings are supposed to be extremely athletic. I like Strongheart Halflings, and may try to squeeze in a bonus feat. Halflings are a lot like humans in that they are found in nearly every field. Halflings would probably get bonuses to skills like Balance, Climb, and Tumble. They should be well tailored to classes like Rogue or Scout.

No race will have an attack or armor class bonus against any particular race.

Rough Mechanical Outline:

Spoiler

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Dwarves
Attributes: +2 Constitution, -2 Dexterity
Size: Small (+ Powerful Build) or Medium
Speed: 20ft
+3 bonus to any trained Craft check. (Allows a Dwarf to put 1 in a number of skills and be as good as a level 1 human, or put 4 and be much better than a level 1 human.)
Low-light vision or no special vision.
Aiming for +0 LA, Human power level (I know I'm not there)

Gnomes
Attributes: +2 ?, -2 ?
Size: Small
Speed: 20ft
+1 to caster level to one school of magic, chosen upon character creation.
Low-light vision or no special vision.
Aiming for +0 LA.

Halflings
Attributes: +2 ?, -2 ?
Size: Small
Speed: 20ft (30ft?)
+2 to athletic skills?
Bonus Feat?
Aiming for +0 LA.

[Temotei]

Personally, I think dwarves should keep their darkvision, but I like the idea of changing the craft bonus to allow an even more customized character. Also, the dexterity bonus is fine. I think there's a subrace of dwarf that has +2 con, -2 dex...Gold dwarf? I dunno.

I hate gnomes. Hehe I'm biased, so I won't comment.

For halflings, I always thought +2 dex was a good bonus for them. -2 str seems fitting enough, although that lowers their damage potential even further after having smaller weapon damage anyways...

Look at some of the subraces. There might be something there. I recommend http://www.crystalkeep.com/d20/rules...ndex-Races.pdf

[Anonymouswizard]

Good work, although I think that if dwarves are having their darkvision replaced it should become infravision, same machanics except that they do not see it in black and white, but heat instead.

[Latronis]

Powerful Build is quite a significant power increase. Especially if you drop it too small size without throwing on a strength penalty.

[deuxhero]

Humans weak and Dwarfs over powered? TC that runs directly against the general thoughts on race power.

[Yora]

Though I still don't understand why humans are considered to be THAT good.

If you don't optimize at a very high level, you could use the bonus feat to get bonuses other races are getting for free, and often more of those.

Elves get bonuses to skills equal to two Skill Focus feats. Halflings get +1 to all saves, for a total of +3, which is more than you get from Iron Will or Great Fortitude. And they get a lot of other stuff as well.

[onthetown]

+2 Dex, -2 Con for halflings? That way you can keep the strength mod for using the smaller weapons. They'll be more agile, but have lower hit points as a result. Apart from strength, which smaller creatures seem to need, it seemed like the only good trade.

+2 to Tumble and Jump sounds like relevant athletic skills...

I'll have to agree with Latronis - the power build is a significant increase. There might be other ways to get the dwarves' power level up to normal human standards.

Are there any changes to humans in this, since they're not the all-powerful race, or just the three other races?

[deuxhero]

Though I still don't understand why humans are considered to be THAT good.

A free feat and free skill points beat just about every racial advantage in existance and can qualify you for many prcs

[Zovc]

Aside from giving you the choice of what to do with your racial bonuses (which, as said, is good for qualifying for PrCs), Humans are the only SRD race whose ability 'scales' with their level. Not only do they get 4 skill points at level 1, they get 1 at every level afterward. This, I think, is why most races get 'bigger' bonuses (although not having actual ranks hurts a lot for qualifying for prestiege classes) to skills, and sort of justifies getting 'improved' versions of feats (I.E. multiple martial weapon proficiencies), since you don't have nearly as much flexibility.

Strength and Constitution are more important to athletics in D&D than Dexterity is. I'm having a lot of trouble with halflings, simply because I feel like they should get the +2 to dexterity, but it just doesn't really represent athletes very well (Balance and Tumble [Dex] vs Climb and Swim [Str]; Con determining things like how long you can run without getting tired/how long you can hold your breath)... There's also the fact that being small gives you +1 to hit and AC, which is really powerful. A strength or dexterity bonus would actually seem a bit redundant. Thus, I think they need a +2 to Constitution. Deciding what to give them a penalty to is another story. Possibly dexterity, although I'm sure that slaps all of our common images of halflings in the face. A -2 to wisdom seems appropriate, but far too powerful. Small giving Halflings a +1 to hit and AC, and the constitution modifier giving one more hit point every level (Although being restricted to 20ft/15ft and having less reach weapons is nothing to sneeze at, is it?).
If anything, I can make the dexterity or strength bonus 'effective' to relevant skills by giving them +1 extra to skills using those abilites (I.E. +4 instead of +3).

...and it looks like it's time to go, possibly. I'll touch on Dwarves and Gnomes later. Thanks for the replies, people.

[ShadowsGrnEyes]

+2 Dex, -2 Con for halflings? That way you can keep the strength mod for using the smaller weapons. They'll be more agile, but have lower hit points as a result. Apart from strength, which smaller creatures seem to need, it seemed like the only good trade.

+2 to Tumble and Jump sounds like relevant athletic skills...

I'll have to agree with Latronis - the power build is a significant increase. There might be other ways to get the dwarves' power level up to normal human standards.

Are there any changes to humans in this, since they're not the all-powerful race, or just the three other races?

i pretty much exactly agree with that assesment.

[Zovc]

Looking at what I proposed for Dwarves gives me a few ideas.

Type 1: -2 Dexterity, -2 Charisma, small race with Powerful Build. (Negates the +1 to AC and the +1 to-hit with ranged weapons)

Type 2: +2 Constitution, -4 Dexterity, small race with powerful build. (Brings the AC modifier to -1 [+1 - 2 = -1], puts them at -1 with ranged weapons as well. Leaves dwarves with only a +2 bonus to hide (+4 for small, -2 for dex). This also leaves room for a number of cool abilities, probably. Dwarves can move at 20ft, and have the ability to stay moving at 20ft in heavy armors, and there's good reason to give them bonuses to balance against bull rushes now, since they are smaller than humans now.

Type 3: +2 Constitution, -2 Dexterity, medium race. Go from there.

With the gnomes, I'm wondering how powerful you guys think the caster level bonus I proposed is... Here's a rough idea of the bonus' wording:
"Gnomes are rather capable spellcasters, they treat their caster level as if it was one level higher than normal."
Should I restrict this to one class, one school, both, or neither?

[Temotei]

One or two schools, probably. It seems pretty powerful. Then again...I'd love nothing more than to nerf the gnomes, so...yep.

[Zovc]

Just a friendly bump. I'll not bump this thread again until Friday, it seemed to get a lot of responses Friday night/Saturday morning.

I will bump the thread before if any ideas hit me, naturally.

[Zovc]

Promised bump has arrived.