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Kinslayer777
2010-05-07, 07:08 PM
The Bah'it

http://media.comicvine.com/uploads/0/6754/1074356-673936_x_super_super.jpg

An exceptionally scholarly people, the Bah'it are a race of bipedal felines driven by the all-consuming urge to understand what makes the universe tick. This urge is imperative to the personality of the Bah'it. If there were but two words to describe these cat-like characters, it is this: academically ambitious.

Heralding from the southern region of the dense Evertree forest of Elderland, the Bah'it were not always as they appear now. They were originally humans. A highly intelligent, highly magical human race that sought the study, scientific categorization, and understanding of all things. Obsessively researching for ways to accomplish such a monumental goal, the Bah'it stumbled upon a tome. An ancient tome without an author. The tome itself spoke of the tree of Acumen, a tree was nurtured by an underspring of pure World Magicka. The fruit, it was said, would allow the eater insight and knowledge of all things. The majority of the Bah'it high council quickly rejected this proposed solution, as it's probability of existence and miraculous heralding did not sit well with Bah'it sense of logic and reasoning, proclaiming that "No knowledge comes without price.".
However. there were a few members of the high council that disregarded the ruling of it's majority. Setting out on a defecting expedition, 5 of the 50 high council members quested for this legendary tree of Acumen. And they found it. 10 years of endless searching, but still they found it.
An ashen-black tree of Acumen loomed before them, 60 ft tall with boughed branches upon which the exotic, brightly-colored fruit hung. Seeing it was pleasant to the eyes and able to grant understanding, the wayward Bah'it took of the fruit and ate. And ate. And ate. And their intelligence grew and grew. Gorged, they set off for home, their pack-animals loaded with the forbidden fruit.
Upon reaching their homeland, the rogue Bah'it took to their city streets, proclaiming themselves omniscient, offering the uninformed Bah'it the tempting fruit. Enchanted by their words and the lusty fruit, the Bah'it commoners took of the fruit. Word spreading to the high council, the 5 defectors were brought forth. Upon examining the 5 Bah'it and finding no negative symptoms along with their now supernatural sense of understanding, the high council remained cautiously guarded, taking a single piece of fruit for examination and study.
The 5 defectors, outraged at the lack of reverence of their newly acquired knowledge, verbally rejected the high council to the Bah'it people, heralding themselves the proper leaders. The Bah'it people, unanimously addicted to the fruit of the 5, could not resist dividing from the high council. And thus, they too, began to gorge themselves on knowledge. But the high council had been right. No knowledge comes without a price. The Bah'it eventually ran out of fruit. And the consequences quickly became evident. The fruit was not meant to be abused, only taken at a small portion. And then, only one portion was to ever be eaten by an individual. The result: the Bah'it defectors and their followers began to to bend at the spine, forced to arch their backs to walk or crawl comfortably. Their eyes changed color and shape. Their skin grew blue fur. And their bone structure painfully transformed. They took on the form of feline. And those that had gorged themselves, they took on more than the physical appearance. Their speech became savage, their senses agitated, and their instincts savage. Chaos and death broke out among the Bah'it. Those Bah'it that had only taken but a portion of the fruit fled to the high council, groveling and crying for mercy and help. The council, heart-broken for the love of their people, took each a portion of the single fruit, and the form of the feline. The 5 defectors and their followers dead or scattered, the council and their followers, clad in blue fur and whiskers, departed from their homeland, 120 left of an original 144,000, in search of a new haven, fresh and unburdened with all of the sad memories of their civilizations past.

Standing at about 7-7.5 feet tall, the Bah'it resemble upright-standing felines with broad chests. They have blue fur and a muscular body tone.

The Bah'it dwell in the nation of Elderland, on the plains of Nod, where they have befriended the humans that dwell there. Human-like in nature, with heightened senses, strong bodies, and a keen intellect, the Bah'it were greeted warily at first. But, the human quickly realized the common spirit that they had in outlook and focus.

Alignment: Any, though normally Neutral Good.

Racial Traits:


+2 Int, +2 Dex, -2 Wis: Though innately intelligent and cat-like in grace, the Bah'it often forsake their intuition in their pursuit of knowledge.
Medium: As medium creatures, the Bah'it have no special bonuses or penalties due to their size.
A Bah'it has a base land speed of 40 ft
Feline eyes: A Bah'it can see 6x as far as a human in starlight, moonlight, torchlight, and similar poor illumination. He retains the ability to distinguish color and detail under these conditions. The Bah'it also has Darkvision up to 90 ft.
Cat nip: A Bah'it gains a bite attack which deals 1d6 plus Strength modifier for medium creatures.
Cat scratch: A Bah'it gains 2 primary claw attacks which deals 1d4 plus Strength modifier each for medium creatures.
Feline Balance (Ex): Bah'it have an innate ability to stay balanced on their feet. They gain +4 on Balance checks and always land on their feet if jumping or falling, but they still take any applicable damage.
+2 racial bonus on Jump, Climb, Hide, Listen and Move Silently checks.
Knowledge of All Things (Su): +2 on all Knowledge checks
Catfight (Su): Undomesticated felines don't take very kindly to the Bah'it, breeding a scent of malice between the two groups. Bah'it will automatically fail on all Handle Animal checks involving them. For domestic felines, they make a roll like normal but suffer a -8 racial penalty.
Scent (Ex): Th Bah'it have the scent (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Scent) ability.
Automatic languages: Common and Feline.
Favored class: Wizard


Optional Bonus Racial Feats:
Nine lives: after you are reduced to -10 hit points and 10 rounds have passed you are returned stable and conscious at -9 hit points, but can take no action, in the exception of movement at half speed, retrieving and item (such as a potion), or another such mundane activity until you are healed. This ability only works once per day and can only work 9 times (or 8 i guess if you want to be technical) before it loses effect and the feat is removed. If this feat is removed it is not replaced by any other feat, and it can never be taken as a temporary feat in anyway (such as the Chameleon's bonus feat ability).
Hunter: against bird and rodent like creatures you receive a +2 to all attack and damage rolls when using your natural attacks. you also receive a +2 on survival check to track such animals and a +2 on intimidation checks with intelligent variants of these animals (this would include wererats).

Balanced for Pathfinder, +1 Level Adjustment for 3.5

NineThePuma
2010-05-07, 07:20 PM
To the untrained eye, looks like it need level adjustment.

Kinslayer777
2010-05-07, 08:00 PM
To the untrained eye, looks like it need level adjustment.

Ah, just to clarify: this is for 3.5 but I use racial adjustments from Pathfinder.

Bhu
2010-05-07, 08:22 PM
Congrats on a cat race not fitting the usual stereotypes :smallcool:

Cute_Riolu
2010-05-07, 08:34 PM
I very much like. In fact, I may recommend it to a player in one of my games instead of Catfolk.

Kinslayer777
2010-05-08, 12:57 AM
Thanks for the feedback guys. Any suggestions for possible bonus racial feats?

cattoy
2010-05-08, 01:16 AM
One thing that I would suggest is that you replace the -2 cha with -2 con.

Felines are all short-winded. Not a long distance runner amongst them, they're all sprinters. It's part of why they're so agile. The extremely flexible spine and floating shoulder blades allow them to take very long strides and power their way through the run cycle, but at a cost. They tire very quickly.

Compare to the wildebeest which has a stiff spine that isn't very flexible. When they bend their spine to take a stride, the spine automatically snaps back, which propels the thing forwards easily and sustainably, just not quickly. (relative to a cat, anyway)

Also, cats tend to sleep. A lot. Seems consistent with a low con to me.

Averagedog
2010-05-08, 09:13 AM
my suggestion is that you create a separate LA for regular 3.5 games as an alternative i we don't want to do pathfinder. LA 1 should suffice for this class as with the Shin'Ta.

ninjaneer003
2010-05-09, 07:23 PM
think you might want to make the scent ability a racial feat in and of it's self since even with the ability it would still take a little training to tell different scents apart and not get them confused.

the x6 is pretty far probably start with the standard lowlight vision and you could make it a feat called Cat's Eye or something that allows them to see that far in the dark

probably reduce the racial bonuses to a +2 instead of a +4. That's what the actual catfolk in Races of the Wild have.

and maybe add like a +2 to all knowledge checks since they gain "understanding of all things"

some feats i thought of:

Nine lives: after you are reduced to -10 hit points and 10 rounds have passed you are returned stable and conscious at -9 hit points, but can take no action, in the exception of movement at half speed, retrieving and item (such as a potion), or another such mundane activity until you are healed. This ability only works once per day and can only work 9 times (or 8 i guess if you want to be technical) before it loses effect and the feat is removed. If this feat is removed it is not replaced by any other feat, and it can never be taken as a temporary feat in anyway (such as the Chameleon's bonus feat ability).

Hunter: against bird and rodent like creatures you receive a +2 to all attack and damage rolls when using your natural attacks. you also receive a +2 on survival check to track such animals and a +2 on intimidation checks with intelligent variants of these animals (this would include wererats).

that's all the advice i can give cuz otherwise this race looks really solid. I like the story line behind them but am a little confused, is it just the people that ate a lot of it were killed and the people that ate a little bit were ok or why did the council eat of the fruit? was it to be like the rest of there fallen people? was there a chance that any amount of the fruit would eventually kill or did you have to abuse the fruit to a certain degree to suffer it's ultimate price?

and what are some of your other ideas for races or am i just going to have to wait to find out? and are you going to also post other things about this world your making?

Kinslayer777
2010-06-21, 11:44 AM
think you might want to make the scent ability a racial feat in and of it's self since even with the ability it would still take a little training to tell different scents apart and not get them confused.

the x6 is pretty far probably start with the standard lowlight vision and you could make it a feat called Cat's Eye or something that allows them to see that far in the dark

probably reduce the racial bonuses to a +2 instead of a +4. That's what the actual catfolk in Races of the Wild have.

and maybe add like a +2 to all knowledge checks since they gain "understanding of all things"

some feats i thought of:

Nine lives: after you are reduced to -10 hit points and 10 rounds have passed you are returned stable and conscious at -9 hit points, but can take no action, in the exception of movement at half speed, retrieving and item (such as a potion), or another such mundane activity until you are healed. This ability only works once per day and can only work 9 times (or 8 i guess if you want to be technical) before it loses effect and the feat is removed. If this feat is removed it is not replaced by any other feat, and it can never be taken as a temporary feat in anyway (such as the Chameleon's bonus feat ability).

Hunter: against bird and rodent like creatures you receive a +2 to all attack and damage rolls when using your natural attacks. you also receive a +2 on survival check to track such animals and a +2 on intimidation checks with intelligent variants of these animals (this would include wererats).

that's all the advice i can give cuz otherwise this race looks really solid. I like the story line behind them but am a little confused, is it just the people that ate a lot of it were killed and the people that ate a little bit were ok or why did the council eat of the fruit? was it to be like the rest of there fallen people? was there a chance that any amount of the fruit would eventually kill or did you have to abuse the fruit to a certain degree to suffer it's ultimate price?

and what are some of your other ideas for races or am i just going to have to wait to find out? and are you going to also post other things about this world your making?

I want to keep the scent where it is because that was something they gained with the curse. It WAS horribly confusing for the 1st partakers of the fruit.

As with the scent, the eyes were just thrust upon the Bah'it with the curse. Unless you think it's unbalanced I would like to keep it as is.

Good call on changing the racial bonuses. Done.

Used both your racial feats. Still have to pan out their requirements. Any suggestions?

Ok so the council took it to endure the same pain as their people. Those that gorged themselves on the fruit were turned totally bestial. Their minds retain all of that knowledge and sentience, but they are unable to communicate it since the greater part of their minds are controlled by animal instinct now. Horrible fate. Like being paralyzed in an animals body.

Thanks for the help sir.

P.S. Changed their negative from Cha to -2 Wis.