Sprucing Up the Killoren

[Palanan]

I have a player who's interested in playing a killoren, from Races of the Wild. I'm willing to allow it, but looking through the racial traits it seems rather bland. The various Aspects involved with "manifesting nature's might" don't look especially impressive, and I worry that the daily rotation of these will become a hassle to keep track of.

The smite attack in particular has a very strange mechanic, --once per hour, up to the killoren's charisma bonus per day? The campaign is starting at fourth level, so it won't provide much of a benefit...and he's thinking of playing a killoren druid, so charisma probably won't be a priority anyway. I'm not fond of smite attacks to begin with, and this doesn't seem worth it.

What I'm thinking of doing is dropping the Aspect that grants the smite attack, and turning the other two into "always-on" features, so he would have modest racial bonuses to several outdoorsy skills. I'm also thinking of granting him a +1 CL on plant-related spells, and perhaps allowing a very modest alternate plant form when he reaches 5th level, more for vegetative flavor than anything else.

Would these changes together give the killoren too much of an advantage, compared to other races? I'm going for small tweaks rather than an overhaul. How do these changes look? Any other suggestions?

[Zaq]

In my experience (played a killoren Bard once in a level 3-4 game), the Smite ability is one of the killoren's strongest, at least on a CHA-heavy character. It was one of the two reasons I took the race, truth be told. It's something you really notice in a way that you'd rarely notice "+2 to X, Y, and Z skills" or whatever the vast majority of racial features are. On a non-charismatic character, yeah, it'd be less good, but you're not going to manifest that aspect on that character, now are you? The fact that they get multiple smites per day at level 1 with no investment other than CHA (which you're going to have on a smite-happy character anyway) is really nice, and it's actually unique among races. There are so many races out there that really don't make much of a difference in how your character actually plays, but for a smite build, killoren do things that other races simply can't. The 1/hour limitation makes it so that they can't pour them all into one glorious nova, but the fact that they get multiple smites per day makes them useful even at level 1. (If you don't want to keep track of time on an hourly scale, just make it 1/encounter. I'm sure your player won't mind.)

The other aspects are honestly not that bad. A scaling bonus to K: Nature checks is fun (and does lead to some hilariously high checks on a smarty-pants character), but even if I were explicitly playing a know-it-all, I'd probably choose another race before the killoren—but I could be talked into it, I suppose. Likewise, all of the skills Aspect of the Hunter gives a bonus to are useful for a lot of classes (Spot and Listen are good for everyone, and if you care about stealth, you're not going to turn down Hide and MS)—and how many races give you a racial bonus to four skills that are all useful to you? I can think of about one other. Also, they have one of the only two sources of a racial bonus to initiative that I know of, which is pretty cool.

They're really not a bad race, and I consider them to be relatively well-designed, since they appeal to a variety of classes and builds. Most characters will choose one aspect and stick with it (an attitude which is mentioned and agreed with in the fluff), so you're unlikely to need to deal with a "daily cycle" of them. Frankly, I don't think you need to change much. If you wanted to make them more powerful, I doubt your player would object, but it's probably not necessary.

[Fax Celestis]

Perhaps the best (and probably the most powerful) thing about killoren is the non-humanoid type. Fey are terrible racial HD, but it's also a type that rangers generally won't pick for Favored Enemy, there aren't many anti-fey spells or feats, and "humanoid only" targets (like hold person) can't hit you.

[Cieyrin]

The Killoren feats that enhance an aspect are all pretty decent, as well. +4 Knowledge that are treated as trained regardless of your ranks? Daze on smite? Lifesense? Yes, please.