Sharakim 0 +La?

[silverwolfer]

Sharakim


From best I could tell, is not a very "powerful" race do you think it should be +0 instead of +1?


(Races of Destiny book)

[Novawurmson]

I'd give it to a player at LA +0 with no qualms in my heart whatsoever. Maybe even drop the light sensitivity.

[Urpriest]

3.5 has this weird trend of trying to get rid of every +0 LA race with bonuses to mental stats. Note the Vanara, for example: in Oriental Adventures they've got +2 Wis, +2 Int, -2 Str, but they got a 3.5 update in Dragon Magazine which for no apparent reason got rid of all the stat bonuses and penalties. While I think part of the point was to curtail DC scaling on spells, it's largely a silly trend and I would have few qualms giving a player access to Sharakim for LA +0.

[Zaq]

Like everything else, context is everything. If the other PCs are playing half-elves and rilkans, I probably would raise an eyebrow at a player asking to play a sharakim to make his Wizard better. If the other PCs are running around with neraphim and whisper gnomes (or humans), I don't think letting sharakim be LA 0 is going to break anything.

That said, this attitude stems primarily from an almost knee-jerk revulsion to anything that makes casters better, simply because they just don't need it. On some level, I do recognize this as what it is, and a +2 INT isn't going to make the difference between a tame and cooperative Wizard and a game-breaking monstrosity (though the attitude of "must find every bonus possible, including weird LA races just for the stats" is probably the real red flag there, not the +2 INT race itself). If the player asking to play a sharakim were playing, say, a Warblade, or even just a Fighter who wanted a break qualifying for Improved Trip, I'd be almost certain to have no problems with it, assuming that the rest of the party shows even a glimmer of optimization sense.

[Essence_of_War]

I'll 2nd what Zaq said. That's spot-on analysis.

But in general, no, they're not really that powerful. LA+1 has a pretty huge variance across it. As a result, I'm partial to some of the changes pathfinder made where they basically pushed up most of the LA+0 races, pulled back some of the LA+1 races, and called that new re-centering LA+0.

[silverwolfer]

My Twin Brother You Come Back Home!

[StreamOfTheSky]

A lot of +1 LA races aren't worth it. Most of them. I might still nerf them a slight bit before dropping them to +0, but for the most part...not by much.

There's a reason LA +1 is ultimately just a 3000 xp paycheck, and nothing more, in the LA buyoff rules... It's a trivial pittance in the long run. Because in the long run, the benefits of nearly every LA +1 race is are also trivial pittances. The "long run" being the first 4-6 levels of the game.

[Mithril Leaf]

At first I thought you were talking about Sharalin, now those are an example of an unbalanced +0 LA. I'd still let them slide mind you, but I'd make sure the player is on par with the party.