Race Modification

[firruna]

Hello everyone,
Thats for taking the time to see if you can help me.
I am creating a custom setting. My goal is to modify a few races to make them better fit the world. The ones available to players, and so the only ones I need to change, are; Human, Halfling, Dwarves, and Gnomes.

Humans: I will be keeping the same, unless I need to buff/nerf them to make them balanced with the changes made to the others.

Halflings:I am putting them in the fair north of the plain. I want to say they have a natural camouflage, by being the same color as the snow around them. As well as saying they are not bothered by the colded. I'm thinking just going to say they get a +2 hide when in snowy areas, and that they can stand temperatures 2x as cold as humans.

Dwarves: I'm having have come around underground, and never really moved out from underground. Because of this I am thinking I will limit their class, weapon, tool, and language selection, but say that any tools/weapons/armor that they make have a non-magic enhancement bonus of +1. I am also thinking of giving them better dark vision, and light blindness. Not sure how to do this all without breaking them.

Gnomes: With the gnomes I'm building off their ability to speak to burrowing animals, and say that when they were hunted (by the humans) they hid with their friends. Because of this I am thinking of taking their talk to animals spell-like abilities, and letting them use it more often, I think that if I made it as often as they want, it might be OP, so if anyone has thoughts on this, that would be great, thanks. And/or give them a small buro speed through dirt, and other soft substances only.

Any ideas are welcome.

[JeminiZero]

Halflings:I am putting them in the fair north of the plain. I want to say they have a natural camouflage, by being the same color as the snow around them. As well as saying they are not bothered by the colded. I'm thinking just going to say they get a +2 hide when in snowy areas, and that they can stand temperatures 2x as cold as humans.

Take a look at Arctic Races (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/environmentalRacialVariants.htm). There are in fact stats for Arctic Halfling. Just replace the +2 to Swim with +2 to Hide.


Dwarves: I'm having have come around underground, and never really moved out from underground. Because of this I am thinking I will limit their class, weapon, tool, and language selection, but say that any tools/weapons/armor that they make have a non-magic enhancement bonus of +1. I am also thinking of giving them better dark vision, and light blindness. Not sure how to do this all without breaking them.
Here is the thing: Having a race able to make a specific kind of better gear, MAY* be better for the race as a whole, but not for the players using that race, UNLESS strict trade limits are enforced. E.g. Lets say Dwarves make better gear. But they also sell that gear, at slightly higher prices (since people are generally willing to pay more for better gear). That means that ANY race can acquire Dwarven gear, not just the Dwarf character**.

*I say "may", because unless you specifically make an exception to the Craft Rules, this better gear is going to cost more to make anyway (mundane gear always cost 1/3 its market price in raw materials). And because of the way Craft works, they don't even make more profit, since this better gear also takes longer to craft. (E.g. Lets say that normal gear costs 1 gp in raw materials and sells for 3 gp, a normal crafter can make 1 piece a week for a net profit of 2 gp per week. A dwarf crafter makes better gear costing 6 gp, but it costs 2 gp in raw materials. And for the same skill, he only makes 1 piece every 2 weeks, and for the same net profit of 2 gp per week.)

**Additionally, unless the Dwarf character invests in Craft, he is unlikely to benefit from any racial craft bonus. Yes, his fellow dwarves make better gear, but why would they sell it to this other dwarf for any cheaper, when the surface races are willing to pay more for it? And given how skill point short PCs are in general, its not easy to find space to invest in the Craft skill.


Gnomes: With the gnomes I'm building off their ability to speak to burrowing animals, and say that when they were hunted (by the humans) they hid with their friends. Because of this I am thinking of taking their talk to animals spell-like abilities, and letting them use it more often, I think that if I made it as often as they want, it might be OP, so if anyone has thoughts on this, that would be great, thanks. And/or give them a small buro speed through dirt, and other soft substances only.
Burrowing speed is really powerful, and would fundamentally change how the race as a whole operates. They would basically become non-mountainous dwarves. I would not give it to them. Speak with burrowing animals more often is probably fine, if they give up something equivalent in exchange.

[firruna]

Take a look at Arctic Races (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/environmentalRacialVariants.htm). There are in fact stats for Arctic Halfling. Just replace the +2 to Swim with +2 to Hide.

Thanks, I will look into that.





**Additionally, unless the Dwarf character invests in Craft, he is unlikely to benefit from any racial craft bonus. Yes, his fellow dwarves make better gear, but why would they sell it to this other dwarf for any cheaper, when the surface races are willing to pay more for it? And given how skill point short PCs are in general, its not easy to find space to invest in the Craft skill.

Alright, I guess I left out a few rather critical part of the world, one that directly relates to this, on that does not. The whole world is engaged in a large scale war. The humans are trying to enslave or kill all other races. Because of this the dwarves do not have any real trade with them, and until about a week before the campaign starts, haven't had trade open with the other races. The humans, have dwarven weapons, but only what they manage to recover for the battles, that they have mostly lost up until this point. The dwarves have had little enough trade with the other races they haven't, until recently had time to fully understand that everything they make is just better than what others have.

With that in mind, from what you said, I take it you think this would be rather far?



Burrowing speed is really powerful, and would fundamentally change how the race as a whole operates. They would basically become non-mountainous dwarves. I would not give it to them. Speak with burrowing animals more often is probably fine, if they give up something equivalent in exchange.

Alright, I will just give them speak to burrowing animals 5/per day. In exchange for their +2 racial bonus on saving throws against illusions.
As for burrowing, they will just have to live with only a base land speed of 20ft.