PF Creating New Races - Fun or Useful or Neither?

[unseenmage]

Does the Playground have any advice about what fun can be had with optimizing the Pathfinder Creating New Races material (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/other-rules/creating-new-races) for fun or brokenness? I'm asking both as a player and as a DM.

Any fun with SLAs or weird racial quirks? Can you make a race with more wealth or multiple bodies? An extra soul or mind or the ability to be on two planes at once?
Can one make a race with a built-in class ability? A race that is more than one creature type at once?

Does anyone have a list of the famously "fun" 3.x races remade for PF via this material?

Is this more Spore or more Origin of Species (ELH)?

[unseenmage]

What would the RP look like for the Dragon Compendium Dvati? Dragon Magazine's Magic-Blooded Spark? The Savage Species Feral Creature template? The Necropolitan?

Other famous racial faux pas that have more power than good sense?

[Spore]

You should realize that the RP values are kind of not balanced. +2 on a skill check is worth the same as +2 on a single attribute. Where's the logic behind that?

[unseenmage]

I'm looking through all of the level 2 spells that a) don't target a creature and b) don't deal damage that one could buy at 1xday and still be a 10 RP race. Adding the 3.x War Spell spell template from Dragon Magazine makes this a "better" option too.

And thanks for the heads up about the balance.


Seeing the sheer volume of material there is though makes me want to see a program that helps do this. Maybe even outputs random races even.

[stack]

Plant and dragon types cost the same. Look at what they give you. Yeah, balance isn't really Paizo's thing.

[Kudaku]

I think the race builder is a fun tool and I've used it several times to create custom races for a campaign. That said, I would never let my players loose on it without GM input and, if necessary, veto rights - it's very easy to make races that are much more powerful than the ones already published, even if you limit yourself to the standard race point budget.

The race builder has a lot in common with the "creating new magic items"-section. Both rule sets add valuable options to the game, but they should not be used without GM oversight.

[unseenmage]

As I am more familiar with 3.x than PF the following list of spells is not PF. Apologies to anyone this might irritate.

Spell must be level 0-2 (0&1 cost the same RP), cannot attack a creature, and cannot deal damage. Caster level equals character level too, which is nice.
For my purposes I also excluded spells that could be said to cause damage. For example a spell that makes your weapon into silver would be okay because the weapon wouldn't be able to deal additional damage dice but a spell that made your weapon bigger or gave it a +1 enhancement bonus would be disallowed. This also disallowed Summon spells.
Also disallowed spells that deal any kind of damage, be it subdual or even ability damage, or dealt that damage to the caster or the subject.

If I'm reading this right, a Standard Race can spend no more than 10 RP total and they can have up to 3 of these SLAs which cost 1 RP per spell level except for cantrips which cost 1 RP.
So the fun becomes finding three SLAs at 1x day that one can combine for shenanigans. I like War Spell-Blockade (CSc), Wood Shape (srd), and War Spell-Woodwisp Arrow (D309pg44, CoR) myself. :smallsmile: The durations make it less useful than it could be, still funny though.


Famous Spells
Acorn of Far Travel (web) (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fw/20040710a)
Guidance of the Avatar (web) (https://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/sb/sb20010504a)
*Identify (srd)
*Invisibility (srd)
Rope Trick (srd)
Summon Elysian Thrush (SC)
True Strike (srd)
Unseen Crafter (RoE)
Wings of Cover (RotD)

Other Spells of Note
*Blockade (CSc)
Bridge of Sound (SS)
Conjure Ice Object (Fr)
*Create Water (srd)
Dark Way (SC)
Dimension Leap (MoE)
Earth Lock (SC)
Elation (BoED)
*Floating Disk (srd)
Fog Cloud (srd)
Ghoul Glyph (SC)
Heroism (srd)
Knock (srd)
*Know Greatest Enemy (SC)
*Lay of the Land (SC)
*Mage Hand (srd)
Magecraft (ECS)
*Make Whole (srd)
*Obscuring Mist (srd)
Obscuring Snow (Fr)
Soften Earth and Stone (srd)
Spider Climb (srd)
*Spontaneous Search (SC)
Summon Elysian Thrush (SC)
True Strike (srd)
*Unseen Servant (srd)
Wall of Smoke (SC)
Web (srd)
Wind Wall (srd)
Wood Shape (srd)
*Woodwisp Arrow (CoR)
Zone of Truth (srd)


*War Spell spell template (Dragon 309 page 44) compatible.

[Anlashok]

Plant and dragon types cost the same. Look at what they give you. Yeah, balance isn't really Paizo's thing.

The dragon type also costs five times more than buying the immunities on their own does.

[Fax Celestis]

I'm fairly certain I read somewhere that you can remake the existing races with it and have points left over to get extra racial swag with.

And you know what they say about racial swag. #YOSRO

[Sayt]

Plant and dragon types cost the same. Look at what they give you. Yeah, balance isn't really Paizo's thing.

Amusingly, given that things you can build in the ARG only have class levels, and never RHD, this is actually skewed in favor of plants.

Plant traits:
Low-light vision.
Immunity to all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, morale effects, patterns, and phantasms).
Immunity to paralysis, poison, polymorph, sleep effects, and stunning.
Plants breathe and eat, but do not sleep.

Dragon traits:
Darkvision 60 feet and low-light vision.
Immunity to magic sleep effects and paralysis effects.

Dragons get d12 hit dice, full BAB and all good saves, but you don't have any RHD, so those things aren't relevant.

[stack]

Amusingly, given that things you can build in the ARG only have class levels, and never RHD, this is actually skewed in favor of plants.

Plant traits:
Low-light vision.
Immunity to all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, morale effects, patterns, and phantasms).
Immunity to paralysis, poison, polymorph, sleep effects, and stunning.
Plants breathe and eat, but do not sleep.

Dragon traits:
Darkvision 60 feet and low-light vision.
Immunity to magic sleep effects and paralysis effects.

Dragons get d12 hit dice, full BAB and all good saves, but you don't have any RHD, so those things aren't relevant.

All the plant immunities were precisely my point. Dragon type on a no RHD race is utterly terrible.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

I've dabbled with it a little. You can't be afraid to modify racial traits and add new ones; even Paizo seems to do this. Just come up with a reasonable RP cost for it.