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inuyasha
2013-04-11, 09:48 PM
HOW TO MAKE A RACE!
A 9 STEP GUIDE!

Step 1: What is your race?
This is the most important step, where you realize that your race needs to be made, well of course, how do you want to make it? Just think of why this race will exist, does it live in a certain place in your world? Are they the founders of an important religion? What is their name? What do they do in your world? This can take a while, don't be afraid to spend days, even weeks on this only step, go as detailed as needed for your campaign. This step, while it might not appear important at first, adds a sense of realism to your race, and makes them realistic and serious, not just cardboard cut-outs of a scary humanoid reptilian monster someone wants to play, got it?

Step 2: Begin to flesh it out a little
Now that you know why you need your race, you need to know how you're going to stat them up, lets say you have a race that lives in arctic regions, is this just going to be a bit of fluff? Or will they have cold resistance, cold missiles shooting out of their left eye. If they live in the underdark, do they have darkvision? Can they navigate really well in underground conditions. Can they actually manipulate the stone around them? This step has limitless possibilities and can be used in many different ways. This is the step where you figure what abilities your race has, what their strengths and weaknesses are, and what they can do really well, and while youve given it thought, you havent completely given it Crunch and Rules and Stats are you following me so far? good :).

This is where the fun and rules begins, if you are just making stuff for a story or book, do not continue, if you want an RPG race, follow me
From here on, this uses a system of Race points, usually just called points, to build and flesh and stat up your race, this is where you get to play :)

Step 3: What Level Adjustment are you shooting for
This step determines how many points your race gets to be based off of

{table]LA| Points to spend
0| 10
1| 15
2| 20
3| 25
4| 30
5| 35
+1| +5
[/table]
These points are a soft limit of how much you can spend to build your race, you can build a race with less, but remember that it will be weaker, and even though a level adjustment 0 race only has 10 by this chart, nobody really cares if you go over by one or maybe two points. After all, its just a game :).

Step 4: determine size
Is your race a giant race? Towering over humans and stepping on them with its gigantic feet? Or is it a little race, stabbing at spines and disabling traps, this is up to you as the races designer. Here is a range of sizes and how many points it costs to be that size

{table]Size| point cost
Tiny| 5
Small| 3
Medium| 0
Large| 5
Huge| 10
[/table]
Yes I know small and large have different point costs. For those of you who enjoy symmetry so much, consider this: is it more advantageous to be small, or to be large, large creatures can use much bigger weapons, grapple easier, and reach farther, smaller creatures have a +1 to armor class, +1 to attack rolls a penalty to grappling, and can go through smaller doors...yipee...doors. Tiny however, is much different, the bonuses are higher, and you have much less chance of being noticed, pixie to the rescue! I dont think I need to explain huge Mr. Godzilla.

Step 5: Speed
You get to determine the speed of the race you are making as well, use the following chart
{table]Speed| point cost
20| 2
30| 3
40| 5
50| 8
[/table]
I don't feel the need to really expand this chart further, should I?

Step 6: determine ability score adjustments
heres the part people really like in a race, ability score adjustments, they determine if your race is strong, tough, quick, dumb, cocky, or anything of a similar nature
{table] summed bonus to ability scores| penalties needed to balance| point cost
+2| -2 to one ability score| 0
+4| -4 to one ability or -2 to two abilities| 2
+6| -6 to one ability or -4 to two abilities| 4
+8| -8 to one ability or -6 to two ability scores| 6
[/table]
I am not going to expand this because if your race adds up to a total of +10 to ability scores, its probably overkill and you might need to rethink things.

Step 7: Determine creature type
Not all races are humanoids, minotaurs, mind flayers, war forged, shadar-kai, and other interesting races are different, some are monstrous humanoids, animalistic and brutal, while others are aberrations, alien creatures from the far realms, and some are even constructs, beings made of cloth, stone, wood, and steel as opposed to living flesh. This is the step where you choose what type your race is
{table]Type| cost
Aberration| 3 points
Construct (living)| 8 points
Dragon| 10 points
Fey| 2 points
Giant| 2 points
Humanoid| 0 (and you must pick a subtype for your race)
Monstrous humanoid| 3 points
Outsider (native)| 3 points
Undead| 16 points
[/table]

Step 8: Abilities...the really fun part
Here is where you pick your races abilities, like a dwarves stonecunning, or an elves proficiency with weapons, this section will take a bit of work so if you have more abilities I've left out tell me.
Abilities can be bought more than once with points, but do not stack, they are only bought to get new uses for the ability

{table]Ability| notes if needed| point cost
Attack bonus +1|this applies with a certain weapon or certain type of creature| 2
Attack bonus +2|this applies with a certain weapon or certain type of creature| 4
Attack bonus +3|this applies with a certain weapon or certain type of creature| 6
Bonus feat (Any)| an extra feat of any kind may be chosen at 1st level if prerequisites are met| 6
Bonus feat (selectable)| a list of 2-4 feats is created, at 1st level a member of that race can choose one of those as a bonus feat| 4
Bonus feat (specific)| one specific feat is chosen at 1st level, every member of this race has this feat| 2
Bonus skill points| 4 at first level| 2
Bonus skill points| 1 at every level after first| 3
Spell like ability|adding points to get to 10 times a day makes the power at will, also, changing the energy type of damage really doesnt matter, just have fun with creativity|Spell level*Caster level*times per day/2
Darkvision| 60ft| 2
Darkvision| 120ft| 4
Lowlight vision||1
Superior lowlight vision|double the range of lowlight vision| 2
Fast healing| 1| 5
Fast healing| 2| 7
Fast healing| 3| 9
Natural weapon| 1d3 points of damage| 1
Natural weapon| 1d4 points of damage| 2
Natural weapon| 1d6 points of damage| 3
Natural weapon| 1d8 points of damage| 4
Natural weapon| 1d10 points of damage| 6
Natural weapon| 1d12 points of damage| 8
Natural armor| +1| 2
Natural armor| +2| 4
Natural armor| +3| 6
Natural armor| +4| 8
Save bonus| +2 against one type of thing, such as enchantment, necromancy, sleep, fire, etc| 1
Save bonus| +4 against one type of thing, such as enchantment, necromancy, sleep, fire, etc| 2
Save bonus| +6 against one type of thing, such as enchantment, necromancy, sleep, fire, etc| 4
Misc. extraordinary ability| Like stone cunning, or the elven search thingy, this is for miscellaneous stuff like that| 1-5
Skill bonus| +2 to one skill| 2
Skill bonus| +4 to one skill| 4
Skill bonus| +6 to one skill| 6
Weapon familiarity| the race treats one exotic weapon as martial or one martial weapon as simple| 2
Weapon proficiency| the race is proficient with 1 weapon automatically| 4
Conditional| add to just about any ability or ability score adjustment, this means that the ability can only be used in a certain situation, some abilities already have this added in like save bonus, or attack bonus, and this may not be added again| 3/4 of original cost if the situation is extremely common 1/2 if moderately common and 1/4 if rare
[/table]

Step 9: dissabilities
This is where you can add dissabilities to your race and actually get points back, which means more abilities, but certain weaknesses to your race, cool huh?
TO BE ADDED

NOTE: Step 9 is under construction and unfinished


And note that this system is for making new races, not de-constructing old ones, please dont get mad at me because this system cannot perfectly replicate existing races. Yes I know this system is a little weird, but then again, you really cannot find an absolutely 100% perfect system can you? And yes it probably needs a few adjustments, feel free to help me with this, I just want to make a good guide to homebrewing for newcomers to the forums, and for other people :). This is a mixture of my own stuff, and about 5 more different systems into something truly unique to me.

inuyasha
2013-04-11, 09:49 PM
RESERVED FOR SPELLS

inuyasha
2013-04-11, 09:50 PM
RESERVED FOR CLASSES AND FEATS

inuyasha
2013-04-11, 09:51 PM
RESERVED FOR TEMPLATES AND MONSTERS


this is the last reserved post