Gruhl (homebrewed race) {Please critique}

[Kenneth]

•+2 Strength, +4 Constitution, -2 Intelligence, -2 Charisma.
•Medium size.
•A Gruhl’s base land speed is 30 feet.
•Racial Hit Dice: A Gruhl begins with three levels of humanoid, which provide 3d8 Hit Dice, a base attack bonus of +2, and base saving throw bonuses of Fort +3, Ref +0, and Will +0.
•Racial Skills: A Grul’s humanoid levels give it skill points equal to 4 × (2 + Int modifier). Its class skills are Climb, Intimidate, Listen, Search, Spot, and Survival.
•Racial Feats: A Gruhl’s humanoid levels give it a feat.
•+2 natural armor bonus.
•+4 racial bonus on Surival checks.
• Endurance as a Bonus Feat
•Special Qualities: Powerful Build, scent.
•Automatic Languages: Gruhl Bonus Languages:Giant, Gnoll, Orc.
•Level adjustment +1.

Gruhl are large boar men, normally used to heavy labor and at times, Shock troops. Most of them you find in human controlled lands are slaves ( slavery is not inherently evil in my campaign world) They are known for their endurance and ability to survive blows that would cripple a lesser being.


Just want to know if my level adjustment is good for these guys.

[Hanuman]

I'd say the balance is appropriate if not underpowered for player use/monsters with class skills as it's a 3HD +1LA meaning a first level barbarian would be ECL 5 under this race.

Compared to a Half Giant, having 2HD or more actually makes it less powerful than SRD RAW.

I think I'd play one just for the scent, but to be honest having 3HD for a boar creature I'd expect it to also have Diehard, a natural gore attack, and maybe even a rage class feature.

[Kenneth]

opps i need to change some things around as I relaized i looked at the 2 HD line and not 3HD line for saves and such LOL

I thought about diehard or that boar ability where they suffer no penalty to fightnig while dieing. but Gruhl are not simply anthropromorphic Boars. so decided against it though i have to admit.. gore totally slipped my mind LOL here the race is again.

•+2 Strength, +4 Constitution, -2 Intelligence, -2 Charisma.
•Medium size.
•A Gruhl’s base land speed is 30 feet.
•Racial Hit Dice: A Gruhl begins with three levels of humanoid, which provide 3d8 Hit Dice, a base attack bonus of +2, and base saving throw bonuses of Fort +3, Ref +1, and Will +1.
•Racial Skills: A Grul’s humanoid levels give it skill points equal to 6 × (2 + Int modifier). Its class skills are Climb, Intimidate, Listen, Search, Spot, and Survival.
•Racial Feats: A Gruhl’s humanoid levels give it a feat.
•+2 natural armor bonus.
•+4 racial bonus on Surival checks.
• Endurance as a Bonus Feat
•Special Qualities: Powerful Build, scent, Gore attack as a secondary attack 1d8+1 1/2 str.
•Automatic Languages: Gruhl Bonus Languages:Common, Giant, Gnoll, Orc.
•Level adjustment +1.

[Hanuman]

Boars don't actually have diehard, they have Ferocity, which is a greatly improved version of the feat.

Yeah that's looking a bit more balanced, I'd probably have one of those if I wanted something like a higher calibur barbarian cohort or wanted to create a melee npc.

[Zombimode]

Honestly, I would drop the LA.

Players wanting to play this race are looking at 3 crappy RHD. No further punisment needed.
Yeah, powerful build is nice. Scent is better than nothing, sure.
The stat adjustments are nice. But the Int and Cha penalty will limit this race almost exclusively to the Fighter and Barbarian classes. All other martial classes need Cha or skill points (hm, I dont know about the Totemist).

[Hanuman]

Honestly, I would drop the LA.

Players wanting to play this race are looking at 3 crappy RHD. No further punisment needed.
Yeah, powerful build is nice. Scent is better than nothing, sure.
The stat adjustments are nice. But the Int and Cha penalty will limit this race almost exclusively to the Fighter and Barbarian classes. All other martial classes need Cha or skill points (hm, I dont know about the Totemist).

Gruhl are large boar men, normally used to heavy labor and at times, Shock troops.

Sounds like the point is limitation of class choices for the race... but dropping the LA just further limits it's options.
Though, you could specifically say that the first 3HD can be substituted for class levels.

[Kenneth]

so.. what zombi is saying is everyrace should be good at every role possible and there shouldn't be a race that is better at being strong and tough and another that is better at being agile and smart?

I dislike that. for me some creatures are just inherently better at some things than others.

and yeah being a Gruhl is more geared towards melee brute stuff, but is that so bad.

and for the record my fighter is basically the warblade without the int to random stuff and teh fighter feats and some otehr cool stuff combined.

[Togath]

Also don't neglect that this race can still use incarmum just fine(better than most races, as they have extra high con), and can make a fairly good wisdom based caster(such as cleric or druid), and it could also be used fairly well for a swordsage.
Even warblades of this race aren't that bad, you just have to put 2 extra points into int.
Even not taking into acount your campaign's houserules the race appears to work pretty well.

[Hanuman]

Also don't neglect that this race can still use incarmum just fine(better than most races, as they have extra high con), and can make a fairly good wisdom based caster(such as cleric or druid), and it could also be used fairly well for a swordsage.
Even warblades of this race aren't that bad, you just have to put 2 extra points into int.
Even not taking into acount your campaign's houserules the race appears to work pretty well.

I have to disagree with the wisdom caster, but you could make a decent cleric gish i guess-- a full caster would have trouble with the -4ECL