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Kazyan
2014-01-07, 02:14 AM
Fharrice

Fharrices are a race of strong-willed laborers, primarily used as a cheap workforce for the more common races. Fharrices take pride in their discipline and willpower above all else, and it's easy to see why--with effort, they can force their strength of mind outside of their bodies, forming it into a personal fey-like ally: a willstruct. Even a weak fharrice is never truly alone, and almost every fharrice is two laborers in one, this way. With their hardworking, self-absorbed approaches to life, fharrices have made few magical or technological improvements to the world, and aside from adventurers, will likely remain as aimless laborers for the foreseeable future.

Personality

Above all, fharrices are disciplined, and apply that to almost all aspects of their life. Unlike most races, none of them seem to "run out" of self-control after being tested; they simply have the willpower to do something or they don't. Fharrices are not particularly social and don't see the point of speaking unless what they're saying is very important, so they use body language and wordless noises between each other--often to bully those more mentally subdued than themselves.

Fharrices don't have a concept of leisure time. While they understand that most races need to go do nothing useful sometimes, fharrices personally strive to be productive though every minute of their lives until they die, and when they have nothing better to do, they simply meditate or catch up on the sleep they often deprive themselves of.

Physical Description

A fharrice looks roughly like a human in proportions, but with ashy gray skin, visibly rough and pockmarked. Fharrices grow their bright golden hair in striped patterns along their limbs and head, often growing out and braiding each stripe. They also have sunken bellies, small mouths, and flat noses. Their eye colors are usually very bright in contrast with their gray skin.

Relations

Fharrices don't have much contact with other races outside of being tasked for work, so to describe their relations is not generally meaningful. However, Fharrices have a particular social bond with illumians, who also spurn leisure time for productivity. Fharrice workers are sometimes allowed to work and live in an illumian cabal, and though the fharrices are given little respect in this arrangement, they don't seem to mind. Fharrices mostly interact with their own willstruct. They are also well-received by dvati, because a fharrice's willstruct can partly function as a separate person, including speaking the Dvati language.

Alignment

Fharrices are almost all lawful, with deviations either being anomalies among the race's psychology or just insane. Being mostly self-absorbed, they also tend towards evil.

Lands

Fharrices live wherever their employers tell them to go, usually on farmlands or in mines, but they have no states to call their own; they are not a majority anywhere.

Religion

Fharrices don't worship any god in particular--rather, they tend to worship the Twin Paradises of Bytopia as a hard worker's paradise, even if it's unlikely for them to go there. Some Fharrices become adventurers just to amass enough wealth for a casting of plane shift to Bytopia.

Language

Fharrices don't speak much, but when they do, they find Common just fine.

Names

Fharrices usually go by nicknames given by other races, because they don't receive names of their own. When addressing other fharrices, they just point, and if sound must be used, they call out a fharrice by something descriptive about them ("You, with the purple scarf. Come here.") For that reason, rare fharrice artwork gives its subject distinctive physical traits.

Fharrices think of themselves in terms of the pronoun "I" or "me", and don't need anything else to designate themselves. Because they are given nicknames, they're usually gnomish, as gnomes have such a propensity for names. Adventuring fharrices often adapt their gnomish names as official.

Adventurers

Adventuring is a rare profession among fharrices; they're usually perfectly fine living the lives of workers. However, sometimes a fharrice comes to hate their cultural emphasis on self-control, and with a desire to find something more important, goes adventuring into different cultures.

Racial Traits
+2 Wisdom, -2 Charisma: Fharrices are strong-willed and clear-headed, but asocial.
Humanoid type
Medium size
Land Speed: 30 feet.
Willshaping (Su): At character creation, a fharrice may select two of the benefits listed below; either of these may then be activated as a swift action, a number of times per day equal to the fharrice's will save modifier (minimum 1). The chosen benefit lasts for 1 round, unless stated otherwise. If the fharrice activates this ability a second time while a previous benefit is still in effect, the first benefit ends immediately. None of the other benefits are available after selecting the first two at character creation, by default; for example, a fharrice with Might and Speed could not activate Focus as a swift action. When using one of the following benefits, skin surrounding the relevant portion of the fharrice's body turns crystalline white, except in the case of the willstruct.

Might: +2 bonus on melee damage rolls.
Mobility: +2 competence bonus on Balance, Climb, Jump, and Swim checks.
Savagery: Primary claw attack dealing 1d6 points of damage (assuming Medium size).
Speed: +5-foot enhancement bonus to any one movement mode they already possess.
Focus: At any time before this benefit expires, the fharrice can choose to reroll a Will saving throw (taking a -3 penalty to the reroll) before the DM announces the result of the roll. The result of the reroll must be accepted even if it is worse than the initial roll.
Willstruct: A Medium-sized mindless humanoid construct is created in an adjacent square, referred to as a willstruct, which is under the fharrice's absolute control. A willstruct lasts until dismissed as a standard action, but cannot stay further than 60 feet from the fharrice without dissipating. If a willstruct is destroyed, the fharrice loses the benefit of Willshaping for 24 hours. While using Willshaping to gain benefits, relevant parts of the fharrice's body are reinforced by white crystalline material. The willstruct has 10 HP (even though it should otherwise get 20 bonus HP due to its size), Strength and Dexterity scores of 10, and Wisdom and Charisma scores equal to that of the fharrice. The willstruct cannot attack. If the fharrice has ranks in Profession or Craft skills, the willstruct gains a competence bonus to those skills equal to the number of ranks. Willstructs last for 24 hours instead of 1 round. Due to social pressures, almost all non-adventuring fharrices develop the ability to form a willstruct.
Conscious Focus (Ex): Though a fharrice prefers to get a full 8 hours of rest every day, they do not actually require any more than 2 hours.
Iron Will (Ex): Fharrices don't actually have the Iron Will feat, but for the purposes of qualifying for feats and prestige classes, they count as having it.
Languages: Common. Bonus Languages: Dvati, Illumian.
Level Adjustment: +0

Racial Feat

Variable Will
You exert your willpower in various ways.
Prerequisite: Fharrice
Benefit: You gain access to the other four benefits of willshaping, beyond the two you selected at character creation. You may activate them as normal.


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Okay, one or two more races (one with +Cha and -Int and another with no modifiers) and those will be the last for a while.

Allnightmask
2014-01-07, 03:12 AM
You're making races because you get ideas that others haven't explored and you do it well. These guys are pretty novel, I like the idea, but that construct feels like it doesn't scale fast enough to continue to help its maker.

I can understand the need to keep someone from having two viable characters just from racial selection, I guess, but might there be racial feats like your construct comes into being with 2 will invested in addition to what you add?

6thEdition
2014-01-07, 04:44 AM
This is a really good idea! My only suggestion would be to allow fharrice to summon more than one willstruct. Probably for every 5 points you put into a willstruct, another one appears. Then when you put another point into it, it affects both willstructs. When you put 10, a third one appears, and when you put another point, it affects all 3.

So if you had 14 untyped will, your first willstruct would have 20 Str and Dex, your second willstruct would have 15 Str and Dex, and your last one would have 10 Str and Dex.

I also think Body Link should actually help the Willstruct, since it is a Willstruct racial feature. Perhaps, the fharrice can opt to take full damage instead of the Willstruct?

Kazyan
2014-01-07, 01:50 PM
You're making races because you get ideas that others haven't explored and you do it well. These guys are pretty novel, I like the idea, but that construct feels like it doesn't scale fast enough to continue to help its maker.

I can understand the need to keep someone from having two viable characters just from racial selection, I guess, but might there be racial feats like your construct comes into being with 2 will invested in addition to what you add?

The big issue with the willstruct is that I want to keep it useful without being overpowering, and am not sure how to scale it. It doesn't help that I'm not used to creating monsters at appropriate CRs. For example, a Fharrice Druid with maxed Wisdom will have a +9 to Will saves at level 1, giving them a 4 HD willstruct. At level 20, they can use Owl's Insight and lots of wisdom-boosting stuff to get +32 untyped will, for a 16 HD willstruct (or if they're just a cleric, they'll have to settle for +27/13 HD). This doesn't account for more in-depth optimization.

A 9-investment willstruct will have +5 to hit for 1d6+2 damage, with DR 2/adamantine and minor flight at 35' move speed, and 42 HP. (Yikes; I gotta figure out what to do with their HP.)

A 32-investment willstruct will have +34 to hit for 3d6+14 damage, with DR 13/adamantine and full flight at 95' move speed, and 148 HP.

I suppose racial feats will be the way to keep this viable, and I need to calibrate when the construct increases its size so that their HP isn't whacked-out.


This is a really good idea! My only suggestion would be to allow fharrice to summon more than one willstruct. Probably for every 5 points you put into a willstruct, another one appears. Then when you put another point into it, it affects both willstructs. When you put 10, a third one appears, and when you put another point, it affects all 3.

So if you had 14 untyped will, your first willstruct would have 20 Str and Dex, your second willstruct would have 15 Str and Dex, and your last one would have 10 Str and Dex.

I also think Body Link should actually help the Willstruct, since it is a Willstruct racial feature. Perhaps, the fharrice can opt to take full damage instead of the Willstruct?

Now this is a good idea, but I'll probably scale it differently.

Regarding the Body Link, that will likely be incorporated into a racial feat. I'll think about this and come back to it.

Kazyan
2014-01-07, 04:18 PM
I changed the way the willstruct sizes scale, and added 3 racial feats, using 6thedition's and Allnightmask's ideas.

Debihuman
2014-01-09, 04:18 AM
The problem with summoned creatures is that they are far too easily dispatched by a dispel magic spell and they only last 1 hour before going back to where they were from.


Debby

Xyphan
2014-01-09, 06:36 AM
By far the easiest why to balance the willstruct would be an ECL bite. You could also go the much more complicated, but possibly more rewarding, is to adapt the bloodlines from the unearthed arcana to make the willstruct more powerful as the character progresses. You could even give the willstruct levels in a psionic class

Kazyan
2014-01-09, 11:15 AM
The problem with summoned creatures is that they are far too easily dispatched by a dispel magic spell and they only last 1 hour before going back to where they were from.


Debby

Well, yeah. I'm erring on the side of weak; the race already has +2 to a mental stat and Iron Will.


By far the easiest why to balance the willstruct would be an ECL bite. You could also go the much more complicated, but possibly more rewarding, is to adapt the bloodlines from the unearthed arcana to make the willstruct more powerful as the character progresses. You could even give the willstruct levels in a psionic class

I would prefer not to give the Fharrice an LA; they are intended as part of a set of 7 LA+0 races. However, granting some class abilities (maneuvers? SLAs?) could work.