[PF] 40 Races based on animals - [peach]

[Karuth]

I found a guide to make races on the Paizo forums and began to build them for fun. Since the savage species were not very satisfying I tried to make races based on animals... and then I suddenly had... a lot.
I posted it in Paizo's forums, but it hasn't gotten a lot of attention so far (zero to be exact ^^).

Parts of it are still unfinished, but I would appreciate it if somebody could skip through it and tell me what he or she thinks. Balance, flavor, typos, complexity... whatever you wanna tell me.

Race Dokument (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/26910282/Path_Rac_Cre01.doc)

Thank you

[nonsi]

The web page opens and then closes before page load even begins.

this dropbox address seems invalid.

[Dust]

It downloads the document from that link without confirmation.

I find this to be an interesting idea that's in need of a spellcheck (Sqirrel, Krokodile, Orang-utan, Loyality, etc) but don't have much to add in terms of balance other than my gut instinct regarding certain races.

Bat is just AWFUL. At the cost of having a clumsy 20ft fly speed, you lose the ability to cast spells with somatic components or use weapons during flight, suffer a -2ish penalty to hit at ALL TIMES, gain half the normal AC from armor and increase the cost of buying it by 50%.
Wow.
The other two abilities are passable at best, offering no real benefit or reason to go into this race other than masochism.

I'd also like to suggest giving Hamster an intelligence penalty instead of a dexterity one. They're good scurriers like most rodents, but embarrassingly dumb from generations of inbreeding.
Bear needs to have more interesting stuff. It's too generic and boring for such a neat animal species.
Platypus with Spell Resistance 11 + level is worrisome at first glance, but I don't know how pathfinder does SR.

Coyote and Fox are both good. Kudos on getting those races just right.

A lot of the creatures with natural attacks, bite attacks and so on, seem to need tweaking. While it makes sense, spending 40% of your points on something that will rarely, if ever, be used just makes for an inferior class.

[Karuth]

Nonsi:
I just tested the link and I get a window asking me to save a word file. I don't know what could be the problem.

Dust:
Thank you for the feedback :)

Wow. I borked the Bat so badly? I guess was a bit afraid of the flying ability being too strong for 1st level characters and as such I tacked on too many penalties to make it useful.
But you are right. At the latest when Fly is "officially" available due to a spell the player of a bat will feel bad. I will rethink the bat.

Hamster stat change sounds good as well. I guess having reversed bonuses/penalties for small size is a bit too much overall.

Yeah I drew a blank with the bear. Just couldn't get any good ideas :(
Maybe I should make him large.

Well the pricing for spell-resistance was mentioned in the guide I read (not the official one, since that one wasn't out when I started doing this). It is a 50% chance of miss for a caster of equal level. Hm... is kinda harsh. I will see if I can come up with something better.

Glad you like the two pranksters.

The problem with the natural attacks is that I am not sure how they are handled exactly in Pathfinder (I was hoping somebody well known with pathfinder could help me on that). I think you get them on top of all your other attacks in a full attack, so they are still useful for those that want as many attacks as possible.
If I know details I will look at the natural attacks again.

[nonsi]

Nonsi:
I just tested the link and I get a window asking me to save a word file. I don't know what could be the problem.


For some reason Google Crome download bar didn't appear when I downloaded.
After restarting Google Crome, I tried and it worked... and I found myself with 5 extra downloads :smallbiggrin:

[Dust]

After re-reading my post (which was typed at 3am when I was very sleepy), I also wanted to note that I think this is a good idea, even coming from someone with no real interest in playing an anthro character. You've put a good amount of work into this, and I hope you keep it up! There's a lot of good stuff here to build from. :smallsmile:

[Karuth]

Good that it works now Nonsi :)

I don't think I will get many chances to play anthro characters either. I mainly made them cause it's fun to make them.

Problem is of course that different GMs value the abilities differently. And also the setting and playstyle influences this.
Flying in an underground setting where you crawl through tunnels 75% of the time is not comparable in usefulness to flying in an open setting with mostly above ground adventures.
Likewise burrowing is much more worth if you play on the plane of earth, than elsewhere.

And I just remembered another advantage of natural attacks. If you deliver a touch spell you can deal lethal damage on top of that (if you are a melee oriented caster) and if you use reach weapons you still threaten the squares around you.