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View Full Version : The Oul (new race, 3.5, regenerating) PEACH



The Anarresti
2010-08-29, 06:30 PM
The Oul are an ancient race, but only because of their amazing longevity: they rarely build large cities, or great civilizations. They are considered odd by other races, both for the fact that they appear to have no gender, and that they laugh at wounds that would cause another being to bemoan their fate.
Ouls are scrawny creatures about the size of an elf. However, they are stronger than they first appear, and can recover from damage that would fell a human.
They tend to be loners, and it is common to see an adult Oul with their child: most Ouls travel in pairs, parent and child.
The one thing that tends to freak other humanoids out about Ouls is their (apparent) alarming tendency toward violence. It is often seen Ouls cutting of each other's fingers as pranks, or "sparring" with each other, apparently aiming to kill. Many an Oul has been known to pluck an arrow out of their shoulder, laughing, which is an uncanny experience for any watching humans.

Appearance: Ouls are about the size of elves, however, they lack elves's natural grace. They have ears with several small points, almost like a serrated edge, on the curve of ear. They usually wear their hair long, in a ponytail. They usually have hair that ranges from blood red to bright yellow, and streaks of different shades on the same person are the norm. Their eyes are usually light pink. Their skin is often pale, chalk white, but they almost always tattoo it with black tattoo marks. Oul will also pierce themselves or tattoo themselves. They can stick a pin in themselves and have it heal in place in second, similarly with a tattoo. Also, if they do not like a tattoo they have, they will often just cut off that patch of skin and let it grow back.

Racial Traits

Medium Humanoid(Oul)

Ability Adjustment: -2 Wisdom, +2 Strength: Ouls tend to be rash and shortsighted, cocky because they can survive events that would destroy a lesser being. However, their regenerative nature allows them to build muscles easier than most other races.

Base speed 30 feet.

Light Fortification: If a critical hit or precision damage is scored on an Oul, there is a 25% chance that it will be counted instead as a normal hit, thanks to an Oul's defense mechanisms. The vital organs of an Oul are even more adept at healing themselves than the rest of the body.


Ouls have a racial +2 bonus on Fortitude saves: their hardy physique can withstand a surprising amount of punishment.

Ouls receive a racial +2 bonus to saves verus fear effects: they rarely fear anything, learning from infancy that they can survive almost anything.

Regeneration (Ex): An Oul treats all normally leathal damage (save fire, acid and negative energy) as non-leathal damage. An Oul treats all normally non-leathal damage as Subdual damage, which is distinctly separate from non-lethal for the purposes of this explanation Any effect that provides a regular humanoid with immunity to "non-leathal damage" provides an Oul with immunity to Subdual damage only.
An Oul heals subdual damage at a rate of 1 point per character level per round.
An Oul heals non-leathal damage at a rate of 2 points per character lever per 10 minutes.
For example, Yaan, 2st level Oul barbarian, is slashed with a mundane greatsword twice, amounting to 25 points of Damage. Yaan has 15 hit points normally. Right now, he still has 15 hit points: he just is unconscious, and appears dead because of the wounds on his body. Ten minutes pass, with the wounds clotting and fading. Yaan has healed 4 points of damage. He will continue to heal 4 points every ten minutes until he wakes back up.
Yaan is then burnt, for 7 points of damage. Yaan now has 8 hit points and has to recover those normally.
Yaan is then hit on the back of the head with a sap, for 3 points of subdual damage. Three rounds later he has healed from that.
In addition, if an Oul looses a limb or other body part (save the head), it regrows in 1d4+2 days. This may be adjusted depending on the body part lost: an Oul might regrow an ear overnight, or a foot in a day and a half. If the severed body part is reattached within a number of rounds equal to the Oul’s constitution modifier, and held in place for a full round, it automatically reattaches. This applies to the Oul’s head. Therefore, if an Oul is beheaded, the head remains alive for a number of rounds equal to the Oul’s constitution modifier before dying, and can take purely mental actions (but must succeed on a DC 25 concentration check to do so).
This ability is known on a Knowledge(Local) check of DC 20. Most people don't know about the Oul's ability to heal themselves, but learned professionals do.

Favored Class: Barbarian.

LA: +0

Languages: Common, Oul. Bonus Languages: Giant, Halfling, Orc, Elven, Sylvan

Alignment: Usually Chaotic. Ouls are nomadic and free-feeling, without cities, marriages and even the grim reaper seems far off. Ouls have no tendency on the moral axis: the best and the worst are found among them.

Relationships with other races: Ouls often laugh at other races, seeing them as needlessly careful of their own safety, or thinking it funny that they wimper over broken bones or cut knees. The nomadic Ouls often make friends with Halflings, and are hired as caravan guards sometimes. They usually get along well with Trolls for this reason: evil Ouls often are seen with Trolls, and neutral or good Trolls can usually count on Ouls to not judge them. Similarly, Ouls will trade with Giants, possibly being the only humanoids to be stepped on and then laugh it off. Ouls get along famously with Grugarach (wild elves), given their very similar outlooks and lifespan: they often become fast friends. However, Ouls usually don't like other elves, especially grey elves, considering them stuck up and tied down in silly cities.
Ouls have a hard time relating to dwarves: the two races have little in common. In fact, Ouls often clash with dwarves and gnomes: those two races view giants and foes, while Ouls view giants as friends.
Ouls get along well with humans, if only because the flexible humans usually have some specimens accepting of this odd race. However, Ouls find humans amusing, short lived and squishy.

Age: Adult: 30 Middle Age: 150 Old: 270 Venerable: 390 Maximum age: + 1d% years.

Changelog: Added +2 Charisma, Light Fortification, Heal Self
9:30: removed Heal Self (if you where curious, it was a nerfed Wholeness of Body) added Regeneration 0, Languages, Relationships with other races.

Aran Banks
2010-08-29, 06:41 PM
Ehh. The only real benefit here is (at low levels) the fortitude bonus and the ability to reattach limbs. And since D&D goes off an abstract HP system... I don't see much benefit.

I'd rather see them a rage of some kind that gives Fast Healing. It would work well with the barb-as-a-favored-class thing.

Zaydos
2010-08-29, 06:55 PM
There is a feat in Complete Warrior that almost does the same thing as their lesser regeneration (minus the limb reattachment) or a pair of feats in XPH that also almost replicates the ability.

There Fort saves is another rather bad feat. So we're at 2 bad feats.

They get a bonus on saves versus fear.

And -2 Wisdom.

2 (3) bad feats that only one of which is ever even rarely used, at the cost of 2 Wisdom. I wouldn't take that deal.

Give them some more useful abilities. Like Aran Banks said maybe some X/day fast healing for Y rounds (maybe a Con boost for the duration as well).

Aran Banks
2010-08-29, 07:01 PM
HEY! I LIKE GREAT FORTITUDE!! IT GIVES ME... um... IT GIVES... erm.

Yeah, I guess it does suck :smallwink:

Zaydos
2010-08-29, 07:04 PM
HEY! I LIKE GREAT FORTITUDE!! IT GIVES ME... um... IT GIVES... erm.

Yeah, I guess it does suck :smallwink:

In a low op game it's a nice little defensive boost and I've seen it put to good use (on a defense crazed warlock) but it isn't that good later on (you can buy Iron Will for 3000 GP if the DM will let you use the location from Complete Scoundrel in your back-story).

DracoDei
2010-08-29, 07:17 PM
Interesting enough race... for most classes -2 wisdom comes out to -1 to will saves... looked at from that perspective, they aren't that bad, they just lack much of an up side as far as PCs go (vorpal weapons are too rare in most campaigns, and the only place I remember seeing rules for other limbs getting severed in 3.X is the Tome of Horrors). I agree that fast healing (at least at later levels) would be something useful to a PC. Or say that fearless inquisitiveness grants them +2 to Intelligence.

The Anarresti
2010-08-29, 07:54 PM
If I change it, I'll probably give them either a +2 to Charisma, or Light Fortification due to their strange anatomy. I've seen some limb severing rules on the boards somewhere, so this would be a good race to use in one of those settings.
EDIT: I added an ability now, Regeneration 0. This means that although an Oul can still be dropped in combat like any other humanoid, it really drives home the fact than an Oul can get up and walk away from things that would kill anything else.

DracoDei
2010-08-29, 08:25 PM
I am not seeing Regeneration 0 in your post... I do see the light fortification, and a vestigial ",+2" on the ability score adjustments line.

Aran Banks
2010-08-29, 08:45 PM
DON'T USE LIMB-LOSS SYSTEMS! It's a bad idea with D&D; it screws with all sorts of crazy balance.

Also, I'm with DracoDei. Did you accidently cut yourself off? Or are you pulling a Frank and jumping from topic to topic without finishing your

The Anarresti
2010-08-29, 08:49 PM
I posted the reply before finishing my edits, sorry. It is up there now, under "Regeneration," in the first sentence of that unnecessarily long block of text.

Aran Banks
2010-08-29, 09:25 PM
they heal one hit die per hour? Like... you roll d12 if you're a barbarian? That's full of holes... Maybe you meant one hit point, which means it takes Oul's about 10 hours (minimum) if "killed" before getting up they can get up and walk around, and high-level Ouls will die of thirst before they become strong enough to stand up and fight some monsters (I'm assuming they're adventuring and get killed in some cave).

I'd give then 1 HP/minute. That's enough to let them heal up quickly if they've been absolutely ravaged (and it'll let them get up and walk away after "a couple of hours" after being killed, like you said). Also, Regeneration classically has a couple weaknesses. Trolls, which are way stronger, are weak to fire and acid. You're doing negative energy (does that count for all Regeneration creatures? I'm pretty sure it doesn't..) and you need 2-3 more damage types. Maybe fire and sonic or something.

And I think the check would be Know (Nature).

The Anarresti
2010-08-30, 07:22 AM
1 hit point per hour per character level. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

Milskidasith
2010-08-30, 07:30 AM
The regeneration should have some way to bypass it (besides stuff that auto-passes it, like trollsbane or whatever it was called), just because that's too powerful with immunity to nonlethal (which is incredibly easy to get; not sure if Necropolitan keeps the regeneration, but spells certainly allow it).

Otherwise, the race is pretty weak even for cha focused characters.

The Anarresti
2010-08-30, 02:49 PM
The regeneration should have some way to bypass it (besides stuff that auto-passes it, like trollsbane or whatever it was called), just because that's too powerful with immunity to nonlethal (which is incredibly easy to get; not sure if Necropolitan keeps the regeneration, but spells certainly allow it).

Well, a creature must have a Constitution score to have regeneration, so an Undead Oul would loose their regeneration ability.
How should I go about closing this loophole? To an Oul, there are three kinds of Damage: Real Leathal Damage, such as fire or acid, Non-leathal damage, such as slashing damage, and Subdual, such as damage from a sap.

Zaydos
2010-08-30, 02:52 PM
Well, a creature must have a Constitution score to have regeneration, so an Undead Oul would loose their regeneration ability.
How should I go about closing this loophole? To an Oul, there are three kinds of Damage: Real Leathal Damage, such as fire or acid, Non-leathal damage, such as slashing damage, and Subdual, such as damage from a sap.

Subdual is the same as non-lethal. Regeneration turns any damage that doesn't bypass it into subdual damage like from a sap. Give it some ways to be bypassed (most often acid and fire).

Aran Banks
2010-08-30, 02:58 PM
Non-lethal and subdual are the same thing. 3.0-->3.5 just changed the name

You need to say something like: "Oul's have Regeneration 0, which is ovecome by fire, acid, and [energy type here] damage. A detached limb that has been seperated from the body for a number of rounds equal to or less than the Oul's Constitution Mod can be held to the stump of where it was cut off for a full round. At the end of the round, the limb is reattached. If an oul loses a limb, they can regrow it in 1d4+2 days, except for heads. If an Oul is beheaded, and the head isn't reattached to the body within ConMod rounds, the Oul dies. "

The Anarresti
2010-08-30, 03:20 PM
I tried to change it to close that loophole of "immunity from damage gotten by immunity from non-leathal damage." I realize that subdual and nonleathal are the same, I specified "for the purposes of this explanation."
I also added apparance, and +2 strength instead of +2 charisma. Also, fire and acid deal normal damage to an Oul now, as well as negative energy.
EDIT:I also re-fluffed Light Fortification.

My goal here, with the Regeneration, is to make a race that can be beaten down into a bloody pulp, apparently dead, but then to the surprise of everyone else gets back up a few minutes later, perfectly fine. The kind who takes "risks" that aren't really risks, like Wolverine in X-men.