Seeking help with gauging LA for homebrew race

[LazarusDarkeyes]

Homebrew race
Attempting to convert as faithfully as possible from a different source world
I'm utterly ignorant on how to evaluate if I should add racial HD or not
My very low-confidence ballpark is this would be a LA+5 or 6 race as listed below (hooray if you guys think less?)
Eagerly interested in what a more experienced community member might think
Thank you ahead of time.



Winged alien creatures artificially created by an ancient power, intrinsically infused w/ light, bred to war against magic



Seialese possess the following racial traits.



Effective Outsider: Seialese are effectively native outsiders. They do not get any abilities which usually specifically derive from being an outsider. Spells and affects which affect outsiders will affect them though.

-2 Strength, +10 Dexterity, +2 Constitution, +8 Intelligence, +8 Wisdom, +2 Charisma.

Medium size

land speed is 30 feet, [winged] fly speed is 120 (good)

+6 natural armor bonus.

Improved Low-light vision: Seialese can see four times as far as a human in starlight, moonlight, torchlight, and similar conditions of shadowy illumination. It retains the ability to distinguish color and detail under these conditions.

spell resistance equal to 16 + class levels -- special: the seialese have no ability to voluntary lower the spell resistance. This also explicitly is only effective against magic [if your group plays as though magic and psionics are effectively the same as far as what affects what, this is an exception that doesn't protect against psionics[

+4 racial bonus on Spot checks

Detect Magic: Seialese have a permanent detect magic effect on them. It is limited in that it can never sense further than "1st Round" details about any magic they detect. This ability is psionic in nature.

Telepathy: Seialese can communicate telepathically with any other creature within 20 feet that has a language. It is possible to address multiple creatures at once telepathically, although maintaining a telepathic conversation with more than one creature at a time is just as difficult as simultaneously speaking and listening to multiple people at the same time.

Naturally Psionic: Seialese gain 3 bonus power points at 1st level, regardless of whether they choose a psionic class. They also gain access to 1 innate power, Mend Light Wounds (this is effectively a cloned Cure Light Wounds, made psionic, costs 1 pp to cast, the healing is not due to positive or negative energy, manifester levels add instead of spellcaster level).

Lightborn: Seialese are immune to light-based blindness and dazzle effects, and are treated as one level higher when determining the effects of any light-based powers or effects they manifest (including psi-like and supernatural abilities).

Darkness Powerlessness: Seialese are powerless in complete darkness. A member of this race caught in darkness is staggered.

Weakening Darkness: Seialese who spend 5 minutes in complete darkness suffer 1 point of Constitution damage. The absolute *only* way for this to be restored is exposure to light. 1 minute of exposure to torchlight will restore 1 point of the damage. 1 round of exposure to anything brighter than torchlight will restore 1 point of the damage.

Magic Anathema: Seialese have a reduced caster level for all spells and spell-like abilities by 4

Abnormal Features: No shadow, no reflection. Seialese do not cast shadows or reflections.

Seialese only require half the food/water/sleep of a normal human

Seialese do not age naturally

Automatic Languages: Celestial

Favored class: Psychic Warrior

Level adjustment +???

[Debihuman]

I hate to say this, but as written, your race is ridiculously overpowered. Most people want to play at no more than LA +2. This works better as a monster than as a race.

Dex+4 is reasonable; Dex + 10 is not. Starting abilities should be a lot lower, i.e. +2 rather than +8. Most other abilities are too much for starting play.

You missed the things it gets from Type and it should have Psionic Subtpe as well. It is an Outsider. They do not need to eat or sleep.

LA is +1 for just flight, and with all else it can do you are looking at racial hit dice (at least 1 per special ability) and I guesstimate LA is close to +5 possibly higher.

Also, magic anethema doesn't make sense since you have no caster levels listed for spell-like abilities.

Debby

[noob]

Let us consider +6 to two stats is +1 LA(loth-touched)
having a +10 is comparable/better to two +6
The -2 to strength is infinitely negligible
I think the stats alone are already worth +3 at least.
+6 natural armor: I have seen templates worth more than 1 La who gave less I think it does one point of bonus LA at least
Sr against only magic is still worth nearly all his cost because arcane are generally higher tiered unless you use PTS erudite too so I think it is also worth at least +1 LA
flight of this high quality and the bunch of secondary powers you gave and outsider would at least be worth +2 LA
And finally the darkness debuff is pretty small considering there is tons of ways to create powerful light like Explosion of light or all your permanent torches.
A turn where the opponent is casting a shadow spell on you is a turn where your opponent is not using wail of the banshee or mordenkainen disjunction or time stop.
Because I think this race is unplayable at low level because of all the minimal LA it is worth.
so I think that the strict minimum LA is +6(from my point of view)
Also highly warn the player about the fact this race should probably not be playable because of all the curious effects on the game balance it have and that it is already dangerous to the game balance by the stats alone.(I think this probably should not be a playable race but it have some flavor as a BBEG)
Also think a little at the CR because doing something then asking its LA before guessing its CR or asking for the CR is really weird.

[Takewo]

I'm no good at assigning level adjustments, so forgive me if I abstain myself of saying anything to that respect.

Nonetheless, there are a few things about your race that strike me as, at least, curious.

First, the Type, what does it mean Effective Native Outsider? Wouldn't it be better to treat them just as Native Outsiders? They don't get a bunch of stuff that normal outsiders do, but are still somehow outsiders. To me, it seems that this is the flavour you are looking for.

Then, the fact that they have empowered low-light vision, but are helpless in complete darkness. Is that not kind of contradictory?

And last, the fact that it skips the rule that magic and psionics overlap and psionics still need to get past through magic resistance and magic still needs to get past through psionic resistance. Under what right does that creature overrule that? If psionics and magic create the same kind of effects and therefore resistance to one of them means resistance to both, how could any creature be resistant to one but not to the other? I mean, yeah, there is this specific beats general rule thing, but I can't see any reason to overrule that

[Solaris]

I would gauge it as unworkable as written.
Debbi's right. This sort of thing doesn't really work well as a player race like the humans and elves. You need to do up some racial HD in this, and should probably compare it with similar creatures (such as fiends and celestials) as well as a character class built with a standard race to determine its approximate level.

If you want to keep it as a race, not a monster, then you need to lower those numbers to make it playable. The 3.5E vampire is a good example of why this is necessary; big numbers and big LA make for an untenable character.
That goes double if that big LA doesn't come with a big Constitution bonus and sturdy damage reduction to help compensate for the lost hit points and saving throws.

SR is, in most circumstances, less valuable than WotC thinks. The drow are a good example of something over-LAed because of spell resistance (and if the casters are high-tier enough to be a momentous threat, they're high-tier enough to know ways around SR). In this case, because it's a psionic race with a favored class that does a lot of self-buffs and its SR explicitly does not affect psionics, this is a situation where SR is worth as much as WotC thinks it is.

Were I to work this, I would aim for around LA +1 or LA +2. I'd drop the ability boosts to maybe something like -2 Str, +4 Dex, +2 Int, +2 Wis. The flight should probably be reduced in speed and quality, and having it scale with level (a la raptoran) would be an excellent idea. You don't really need that natural armor bonus, and that's hardly thematic. D&D has the spell luminous armor that might be a good starting point, although I'd have it so that it scaled with the ambient illumination and capped out around +4 (with the -4 penalty to melee attack rolls for luminous armor coming online only in bright sunlight and within the radius of a daylight spell). Give it SR 11 + level, and you can keep that it only applies to magic (there's precedent in certain feats) so long as it remains impossible to suppress.

With the darkness powerlessness, you might want to define that a little better. There's a reading that can imply being in total darkness reduces the character to 0 hit points.

[LazarusDarkeyes]

First off, I am *VERY* appreciative of all input. I think I know a lot of 3.5 rules well, but making races is a place I'm very *weak*.

I'll try to address a few of these points to see if it provides some clarity.



I expect the race to be extremely powerful. For context, this would be for use in a game where the party is ~level 18. On top of that, most of the party are players who very much are NOT optimized and are arguably a bit underpowered in ability for their level. One party member wants to import this race from another world&system.

Psionic subtype - *nod*, got it!

The faithful conversion from the source material has the race eating/sleeping ~50% of a human. I was attempting to avoid the aspect of Outsider that made them not need any of that (as well as I didn't intend them to have Darkvision). I am ignorant on the distinctions between outsider vs. native outsider.

I'm ok to accept if the race needs racial HD added. I just have ZERO idea how to determine how many? Can it be a HD 1 race (akin to elf/human/etc.) and just have LA+6 on top of that? Do I need racial HD. I think I understand what it means to HAVE racial HD, but I'm not sure how to judge if a race should have one. Is it related to mass/size?? If converting from a different source, what evaluation should I be making to determine how many racial HD to add? Is it 1 HD per special ability?

The magic anathema will probably realistically never matter. It basically means it would be silly for this race to pursue magic spellcasting class levels or feats that grant spell-like abilities.

I am completely understand the 'weakening' of the SR is not a huge deal. I recognize the vulnerability to psionics is not a big deal. I did think that the inability to choose to drop it for friendly casters to heal/buff/teleport/etc. might be worth noting though.

*nod* on darkness debuff not being a huge deal. I do not expect that to be a major factor in judging LA. It's just another thing that is part of the conversion from original source.

Is the worry about the game balance not countered by a high LA? Might it be exposited more on that point? I'm sure I am missing something?

CR (I think) is not relevant? This is intended to be a race for a player in an (~18th level, low-optimization) game.

Type: This thread made me go read creature types a little closer. I think it might actually be a more faithful to the source material to call them aberrations instead (sans darkvision). I originally went w/ Outsider because it felt thematically the most appropriate. I'm unsure atm now.

"
Then, the fact that they have empowered low-light vision, but are helpless in complete darkness. Is that not kind of contradictory?
"
The nuance is they need at least some light to live, but they can utilize any minimal light to great effect.

Magic vs. Psionics - ok, I guess maybe I need a better conversion? The source material has a world where magic and psionics are distinct power sets. The race has magic resistance only (their race was created by a god to war against specific magic demons). I thought that not being resistant to psionics was a personal choice to gimp the race. Suggestions to better convert that? [Note: the GM of the intended campaign world has ruled that we are NOT using the optional rule in D&D to distinguish magic vs. psionics. If that is the case, maybe I will have to adapt for the sake of rules and remove both the part where the SR doesn't apply vs. psionics and the part where they are unable to choose to lower their SR for friendlies.]]

The natural armor is due to their skin actually being metalline in the source.

I'm open to reducing the SR to 11+level although I feel that might essentially make it completely irrelevant given the power level??

I'm not doubting about possibly needing to re-word the darkness bit, but I'm unsure how it needs to be re-worded. The essential intent is that without exposure to some light, they start to die, but re-exposure to light will undo that damage.



So, that all said, I'm still eager for anyone to further assist me in evaluating what a fair LA would be as well as any other critiques. At the moment, I'm running w/ noob's comment that it might be LA +6 or more.

Once more, sincere thanks ahead of time for any efforts!

[Takewo]

Magic vs. Psionics - ok, I guess maybe I need a better conversion? The source material has a world where magic and psionics are distinct power sets. The race has magic resistance only (their race was created by a god to war against specific magic demons). I thought that not being resistant to psionics was a personal choice to gimp the race. Suggestions to better convert that? [Note: the GM of the intended campaign world has ruled that we are NOT using the optional rule in D&D to distinguish magic vs. psionics. If that is the case, maybe I will have to adapt for the sake of rules and remove both the part where the SR doesn't apply vs. psionics and the part where they are unable to choose to lower their SR for friendlies.]]

Oh, turns out that you shouldn't worry about that. Solaris says that there are precedents of it in certain feats, so if the Wizards don't care about their own understanding about overlap between magic and psionics, neither should you.


The problem with such a huge LA wouldn't be that much about being above the other character's but about working differently. I'm no expert on that matter, but having a lot less hit points and your class features six levels behind the rest of the party seems to make your character need different encounter balancing and makes it extremely powerful in some areas and rather poor in some other aspects.

[Solaris]

The recommendation for reducing the SR was tied in with a number of other reductions aimed at lowering the LA. Really, the game does break down at high LA (even more so than it does at high levels) because racial abilities just don't do as much as class abilities. A monstrous character with a +6 level adjustment and twelve class levels is going to be doing less, and be less effective, than a character with eighteen class levels. It's not even about optimization - my group discovered this back when I was playing with a blaster wizard, dual-wielding paladin, healbot fighter/cleric, ranger/rogue/shadowdancer, and a cavalry charger fighter in the party. In a later group I had a player who ran a five-headed half-dragon hydra with +2 LA, and the best he could do for the most part was keep up. Sure, he mowed down monsters... but only about as well as the wizard's fireball, and only outperformed the barbarian for damage-dealing when the monsters clustered together.

For an effective SR, you want it to be about 10/11 + the caster level of an unoptimized caster you expect to be facing. For example, with a +2 LA you'd want something in the ballpark of ten to thirteen plus levels because that puts you where you'd want to be. The drow's SR of 11 + level comes from AD&D, where they had 50% magic resistance - and thus in 3E they have about a 50% chance of negating a spell affected by SR.
If you're still aiming at a +6 LA and want the SR to remain relevant, you might want to leave it around where it was.

You might also want to give them DR */adamantine or DR */magic and adamantine (5 or 10 should do it, scaling with level like the half-celestial) if they have a high natural armor for metallic skin.

As for the type, native outsiders (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Outsider_Type) need to eat, sleep, and breathe just like humanoids do.
They also have darkvision (and proficiency with simple and martial weapons), but if you don't want your race to have that just note it next to their creature type. I did the same with a monstrous humanoid I'd made a while back that didn't have darkvision.

If you're running into troubles determining where the RHD should be, examine similar creatures in the Monster Manual. I really do recommend lowering their racial capabilities, though, and giving them class levels to represent their being stronger than the average human if you intend them for player characters. Even at 18th level, the necessary difference in usefulness, competence, and overall power levels will leave the LA +6 character far behind the party.

[LazarusDarkeyes]

Started making a chart...

Would you think it a fair comparison to assess LA by comparing a level 20 human side-by-side w/ the race of the same level?

An Example:
side-by-side compare
level 20 human psychic warrior
vs.
level 14 seialese (1 RHD+5 LA) psychic warrior
vs.
level 13 seialese (1 RHD+6 LA) psychic warrior
vs.
level 12 seialese (1 RHD+7 LA) psychic warrior
vs.
level 13 seialese (2 RHD+5 LA) psychic warrior
vs.
level 12 seialese (2 RHD+6 LA) psychic warrior
vs.
level 11 seialese (2 RHD+7 LA) psychic warrior

and see which seems like the most honestly fair equalization, comparing abilities, traits, skills, powers, BAB, AC, movement, HP, saves?

[noob]

Faculties are far more useful than what you believe and since it is at high level(you can not use this kind of template before level 12) a psionic warrior with some better faculties have an advantage.
At this level balance becomes really weird it is not one level it is like 6 levels.(and faculties are not linear)

[LudicSavant]

Attempting to convert as faithfully as possible from a different source world

It would probably help people give you feedback on how to best realize the race mechanically if you offered details on the source fluff that you want to represent.



My very low-confidence ballpark is this would be a LA+5 or 6 race as listed below (hooray if you guys think less?) Large LA races are a headache, because the LA system is a messy mechanic. Generally speaking, the lower the LA, the less issues you'll have with playability.

As such, I would advise shooting for a lower LA if you can. Simply reducing the ability score bonuses, natural armor, flight quality, or spell resistance would go a long way towards making it on par with a more manageable LA.


For context, this would be for use in a game where the party is ~level 18.

It may be worth noting that if you're using the LA buyoff rules, LA+2 is "free" by around level 19 (potentially earlier) due to the "experience is a river" effect.



LA BUYOFF (LA+2, no racial hit dice)

(When human guy gets) to Level 1: You (LA+2 guy) don’t exist
to Level 2: You don’t exist. I’d say it sucks to be you, but nothing can be you, because you can’t be something that doesn’t exist.
to Level 3: Level 1 (3000XP)
to Level 4: Level 2 (6000XP)
to Level 5: Level 3 (10000XP)
to Level 6: Level 4 (15000XP)
to Level 7: Level 5 (21000XP)
to Level 8: Level 6 (21000 XP) (You just bought off part of your LA and are now ECL 7. The XP river starts to kick in)
to Level 9: Level 7 (30687.5XP)
to Level 10: Level 8 (41037.5XP)
to Level 11: Level 10 (45,450XP)
(You just bought off your LA again mid-way through here, and are now ECL 10. You actually manage to ding twice here, but you’re still a level behind your companions)
Note: By the time everyone else is level 11, you are 1 level behind instead of 2.
to Level 12: Level 11 (58,750XP)
to Level 13: Level 12 (72,775XP)
to Level 14: Level 13 (87,650XP)
to Level 15: Level 14 (102,887.5XP)
to Level 16: Level 15 (118,787.5XP)
to Level 17: Level 16 (135,275XP)
to Level 18: Level 17 (152,800XP)
to Level 19: Level 19 (171,362.5 XP)

LA +2 becomes “free” by level 19. You are only one level behind your companions by level 11.

Notes: If the XP rate is faster, or you’re typically facing encounters of higher CR than your own, or there are less PCs in the party, then you’ll tend to get more overflow due to XP coming in larger individual chunks, and you will catch up faster. If the XP rate is slower, or you’re typically facing encounters of lower CR than your own, or there are more PCs in the party, you’ll tend to get less overflow due to XP coming in smaller individual chunks, and you will catch up slower.

[LazarusDarkeyes]

It would probably help people give you feedback on how to best realize the race mechanically if you offered details on the source fluff that you want to represent.

If you really want...



GURPS (4th edition)

Seialese Racial Template (cost 296 character points):
ST-1 ===> Str-2
DX+5 ===> Dex+10
IQ+4 ===> Int+8, Wis+8
HT+1 ===> Con+2
Damage Resistance (Flexible) 3 ==> Natural Armor +6 (...maybe Natural Armor 3 would be better because of flexible. Or maybe damage resistance 6/bludgeoning would be a superior way to represent this?)
Enhanced Move (Air) 1 ===> fly 120'
Magic Resistance 5 ===> spell resistance X
Psionic Powers: any healing of 4 character point cost ===> mend minor wounds power
Psionic Powers: any non-healing of 12 character point cost ===> short range telepathy power
Damage Resistance 3 (Absorption, Limited: Lasers) ===> mostly ignored, N/A for D&D
Dependency: Light (Hourly Dose, missing ages 2 years) ===> aging is less relevant in D&D, so modified to the Con damage
Detect: Magic (Vague) ===> permanent detect magic, but weak only
Dislikes Darkness ===> fluff'ed it to 'ignore'
Flight: Winged ===> part of fly 120'
Flight at HT+1 ===> made fly maneuverability good...could be average though
Hard to Kill 2 ===> mostly ignored...Diehard feat might actually start to represent this though...
Less Sleep 2 ===> rounded to say 'they sleep half as much'
Night Vision 9 ===> Improved Low-Light Vision...this *might* even justify Improved Improved Low-Light Vision
Protected Sense: Vision ===> LIghtborn from original post
Reduced Consumption 1 ===> 'needs half as much food/water'
Talent: Psionic Healing 4 ===> rolled up w/ innate wend light wounds. Maybe should be better represented to say they manifest healing powers at +1-2 manifester levels?
Supernatural Feature (No Reflection) ===> flavor
Supernatural Feature (No Shadow) ===> flavor
Supernatural Feature (Golden Skin) ===> flavor
Temperature Tolerance 1 ===> ignored
Unaging ===> stated, but not too relevant to D&D
Unusual Biochemistry ===> ignored...maybe shouldn't be?
Acute Senses 2: Vision ===> Spot+4

[SkipSandwich]

I would say something like the following;

Saialese [Aberration][Light, Psionic]
Str - 4, Dex +4, Int +2 (net +2 to ability scores is generally considered balanced for a player race)

Fly Speed 40ft (30ft in Medium or Heavy armor, or while encumbered), Good manuverability

Light-Eater: The Saialese can gain all the nourisment they require from sunlight. A Saialese who spends at least 8 hours per day exposed to natural sunlight does does not need to eat or drink. This requirement is reduced to 2 hours if the Saialese is able to spend the entire time resting in a sunny area while wearing light or no clothing.

Saialese are immune to spells and effects with the [Light] descriptor, damaging [Light] spells and effects instead heal the Saialese for 1 hit point for every 2 points of damage they would deal. They take +50% damage from Negative Energy and [Dark/Shadow] descriptor effects.


Low Light Vision: Saialese can see x4 as far as typical human in conditions of low light and shadow, and retain the ability to distinguish color and detail under those conditions.

Keen Eyes: Saialese have a +4 Racial modifier to Spot checks

Naturally Psionic: Saialese have powerful minds and have a natural reserve of 2 power points.

Psi-Like Abilities: 1/day each Vigor and Thicken Skin, Manifester Level 1/2 hit dice.

Mage Hunter (Ps): Can use Detect Magic at-will as a psi-like ability, but they only gain the knowledge of 1 round of detection unless they expend their psionic focus and concentrate on a particular object or area. They have Spell Resistance equal to 14 + hit dice, this resistance applies ONLY to arcane spells and spell-like abilities, and not against divine spells or psionic powers, this is in exception to the normal magic-psionics transparency rules.

LA: +3?

[LazarusDarkeyes]

Twist:
If were considering converting this to add X Racial HD w/ LA +0, how many racial HD would you add?

[Debihuman]

You should probably write it out fully first. Then, it's easier to make changes. You haven't posted the race fully yet as far as I can tell.

[LazarusDarkeyes]

Native Outsider:
-does NOT have darkvision
-has need of sleep/food/water (Eats/sleeps/drinks 50% what a human needs)

Psionic subtype

-2 Strength, +10 Dexterity, +2 Constitution, +8 Intelligence, +8 Wisdom.

Medium size

land speed is 30 feet, [winged] fly speed is 120 (average)

Damage Resistance 6/bludgeoning

Improved Low-light vision: Seialese can see four times as far as a human in starlight, moonlight, torchlight, and similar conditions of shadowy illumination. It retains the ability to distinguish color and detail under these conditions.

spell resistance equal to 6 + HD -- special:
-the seialese have no ability to voluntary lower the spell resistance
-This resistance explicitly is only effective against magic and not psionics

+4 racial bonus on Spot checks

Detect Magic: Seialese have a permanent detect magic effect on them. It is limited in that it can never sense further than "1st Round" details about any magic they detect. This ability is psionic in nature.

Telepathy: Seialese can communicate telepathically with any other creature within 20 feet that has a language. It is possible to address multiple creatures at once telepathically, although maintaining a telepathic conversation with more than one creature at a time is just as difficult as simultaneously speaking and listening to multiple people at the same time.

Naturally Psionic: Seialese have X* bonus power points, regardless of whether they choose a psionic class. They also gain access to 1 innate power, Mend Light Wounds (this is effectively a cloned Cure Light Wounds, made psionic, costs 1 pp to cast, the healing is not due to positive or negative energy, manifester levels add instead of spellcaster level).
* When I figure out how many racial HD this race should have, I intend X = 50% what a psychic warrior would have (EX: if this race ends up being balanced w/ 16 racial HD, a 16th level psychic warrior has 79 power points, so this race would then have 39 racial power points)

Healing Talent: All seialese manifest Healing powers at +2 manifester levels

Diehard: all Seialese receive the Diehard feat even if they don't meet the prerequisites

Lightborn: Seialese are immune to light-based blindness and dazzle effects, and are treated as one level higher when determining the effects of any light-based powers or effects they manifest (including psi-like and supernatural abilities).

Light Absorption: Saialese are immune to damaging [Light] spells and effects. Those instead heal the Saialese for 1 hit point for every 2 points of damage they would deal.

Light Dependency: Seialese are powerless in complete darkness. A member of this race caught in darkness is staggered.

Weakening Darkness: Seialese who spend 5 minutes in complete darkness suffer 1 point of Constitution damage. The absolute *only* way for this to be restored is exposure to light. 1 minute of exposure to torchlight will restore 1 point of the damage. 1 round of exposure to anything brighter than torchlight will restore 1 point of the damage.

Magic Anathema: Seialese have a reduced caster level for all spells and spell-like abilities by 4

Abnormal Features: No shadow, no reflection. Seialese do not cast shadows or reflections.

Seialese only require half the food/water/sleep of a normal human

Seialese do not age naturally

Automatic Languages: Seialese

Favored class: Psychic Warrior

Level adjustment +0

Racial HD = <help!>

[Debihuman]

it should have 12 racial HD and its LA is +3 not LA +0.

What does this race look like? You have no description at all.


You're not gonna like this but this race is terrible frankly and nobody will ever want to play it and here's why:

How did you arrive at LA +0? Flight alone is LA +1 and Flight at 120 feet is LA+2 since this puts them almost as fast as many dragons. Flight should be no more than double land speed or in this case 60 feet. If you have ability modifiers that add to more than +4, it adds to LA and your ability modifiers add up to 28 and then you gave it a racial bonus to Spot checks on top of that!

Weakening Darkness is just awful. Lock it in dark room and it dies in less than 12 hours. Not a fan of Light Dependency either. Who wants to be staggered half the time? LA -1

List all your special abilities and put proper designations on them (Ex, Su, etc.).

Why does telepathy have a range of 20 feet? You could just talk to someone at 20 feet.

It speaks only one language that nobody else speaks? Really? Why not Common or Auran? There isn't really a good reason for these not to speak Common, Auran, and Saialese as racial languages since its gonna have a +8 to Int anyway.

Detect Magic: it's useless without a range or CL. And you hamstring it to be even more useless since all you can detect is magic aura which means if anyone in its party (including you) has a magic item, you'll detect magic all the time.

Spell resistance is only effective against spells. That is not unusual. See spell resistance. It's gonna suck when the cleric fails to heal them so I'm not a fan of them not being able to lower their resistance.

Naturally Psionic: These should have the same exact ability as Elans for bonus power points.

Improved Low-Light Vision should be Superior Low-Light Vision see Elan. Same ability as that.

Damage Resistance doesn't exist, it should be damage reduction.

Healing Talent (Ex): All seialese manifest Healing powers at +2 manifester levels

Diehard: all Seialese receive the Diehard feat even if they don't meet the prerequisites

Lightborn (Su): Seialese are immune to light-based blindness and dazzle effects, and are treated as one level higher when determining the effects of any light-based powers or effects they manifest (including psi-like and supernatural abilities).

Light Absorption (Su): Saialese are immune to damaging [Light] spells and effects. Those instead heal the Saialese for 1 hit point for every 2 points of damage they would deal.

Light Dependency (Ex): Seialese are powerless in complete darkness. A member of this race caught in darkness is staggered.

Weakening Darkness (Ex): Seialese suffer 1 point of Constitution damage for every 5 minutes they spend in total darkness. They only way for this damage to be healed is with exposure to light. 1 minute of exposure to torchlight will restore 1 point of the damage. 1 round of exposure to anything brighter than torchlight will restore 1 point of the damage.

Magic Anathema (Ex): Seialese have a reduced caster level for all spells and spell-like abilities by 4

Abnormal Features: Seialese do not cast shadows or reflections.

Seialese only require half the food/water/sleep of a normal human

Seialese do not age naturally [Do they age abnormally? Do they not age at all?]

Automatic Languages: Auran, Common, and Seialese

Favored class: Psychic Warrior



Debby

[LazarusDarkeyes]

Debihuman,

I strongly appreciate your input and time. I'll try to address your questions and comments.

I wanted LA+0. I'm willing to jack up the race's racial HD as is needed to make that balanced.
Added physical descriptions. Added a little bit of the racial background too.
I want to play it; I'm not trying to entice others. I just want to figure out how best to balance the most authentic translation into 3.5.
Am I in error that you could effectively reduce any race to LA+0 if you added enough racial HD to absorb that LA? (If you can, I still do not grasp a fair and balanced exchange rate).
Weakening Darkness is supposed to be very terrible. If they leave their world, it is of very high importance to them to ensure they always have a way to have a light source. It is common for them to have nyctophobia.
I think I got the special abilities designated correctly using this logic
-Ex - if put in an anti-magic field, would still work, somehow their biology can do this through 'physics/biology'
-Sp/Ps - you are casting these spells/powers, shut down by AMF, affected by SR
-Su - you're doing something magical, but its not a spell/power, shut down by AMF, ignores SR
The telepathy range is what they have. Yes, you can talk to someone if you'd like. Not supposed to be great.
I played around w/ the languages a little.
Detect Magic: added range, as far as I can tell, CL isn't relevant if you can only see at 1st round details, it isn't supposed to be super useful
Spell Resistance (from SRD)
"...Psionics-Magic Transparency...
Spell resistance is effective against powers, using the same mechanics. Likewise, power resistance is effective against spells, using the same mechanics as spell resistance. If a creature has one kind of resistance, it is assumed to have the other..."
For them, they get no protection vs. psionics.
In a culture where everyone is psionic and can cast mend light wounds, they were not supposed to be worried about needing magical healing. Yes it will be hard for allied [magic] casters to heal/buff them.
Changed low-light vision stuff
re-worded damage reduction
re-worded aging stuff





Seialese



Seialese typically stand just under 6.5 feet tall, yet weight much lighter than they look. A full adult might weight no more than 130 pounds. They have enormous leathery wings; while the wings biomechanically fold up and over the shoulders quite efficiently, when extended, the full wingspan is often about 4 times the actual height.

They have 3 parallel fleshy crests, which are really tendrils connected by fleshy webbing, running the top of their head toward the back. These begin 4-5 inches along the skull above the eyebrow and peak at around 6 inches above the back of the skull. From the back and top of the crests, the flesh ends in tendrils which split repeatedly forming a mane of hair. Seialese never grow hair elsewhere on their body.

The skin, hair, and eyes of the seialese are metallic golden in color. Roughly 1 in 10 are born silvery instead. Once in a generation there are extreme rare cases where an albino is born, appearing platinum white.

The seialese were created by an ancient, alien god with the intention of them being used as soldiers in a war against a race of magical demons who were the god's mortal enemies. That god created a world of pure, constant light for the seialese to grow and breed for a few centuries. Before they could populate and mature to a point of being useful to the god, some of demons managed to find the seialese's world, cut off the god from contacting the seialese, and prematurely initiated the war the god had eventually hoped for...



-2 Str, +10 Dex, +2 Con, +8 Int, +8 Wis

Native Outsider (Psionic)

Medium: As Medium creatures, seialese have no special bonuses or penalties due to their size.

Seialese base land speed is 30 feet.

Flight (Ex): Seialese fly speed is 120 feet (w/ average maneuverablity).

Damage Reduction 6/bludgeoning (Ex). Their skin is difficult to cut/stab, but it gives under blunt force.

Seialese (unlike most native outsiders) do not have darkvision and they do need food/water/sleep.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: A seialese is automatically proficient with the longsword, all simple weapons, light armor, and shields (not tower shields).
+4 racial bonus on Spot checks

Naturally Psionic: Seialese gain 2 bonus power points per HD. This benefit does not grant them the ability to manifest powers unless they gain that ability through another source, such as levels in a psionic class.

Mend Light Wounds (Ps): As a standard action, Seialese can use 1 power point to channel psionic energy to cures 1d8 points of damage +1 point per manifester (maximum +5). This is identical to cure light wounds in all other ways except it does not channel positive energy and cannot be used to cause damage.

Telepathy (Su): Seialese can communicate telepathically with any other creature within 20 feet that has a language. It is possible to address multiple creatures at once telepathically, although maintaining a telepathic conversation with more than one creature at a time is just as difficult as simultaneously speaking and listening to multiple people at the same time.

Superior Low-Light Vision (Ex): Seialese can see four times as far as a human in starlight, moonlight, torchlight, and similar conditions of shadowy illumination. It retains the ability to distinguish color and detail under these conditions.

Diehard: all Seialese receive the Diehard feat even if they don't meet the prerequisites

Spell resistance equal to 6 + HD -- special:
-the seialese have no ability to voluntary lower the spell resistance
-This resistance explicitly is only effective against magic and not psionics

Lightborn (Ex): Seialese are immune to light-based blindness and dazzle effects, and are treated as one level higher when determining the effects of any light-based powers or effects they manifest (including psi-like and supernatural abilities).

Detect Magic (Ex): Seialese have a permanent detect magic effect on their vision. Similiar to the spell, the range is 60'. It is limited in that it can never sense further than "1st Round" details about any magic they detect.

Healing Talent (Ex): All seialese manifest Healing powers at +2 manifester levels

Light Absorption (Ex): Saialese are immune to damaging [Light] spells and effects. Those instead heal the Saialese for 1 hit point for every 2 points of damage they would deal.

Light Dependency (Ex): Seialese are powerless in complete darkness. A member of this race caught in darkness is staggered.

Weakening Darkness (Ex): Seialese suffer 1 point of Constitution damage for every 5 minutes they spend in total darkness. They only way for this damage to be healed is with exposure to light. 1 minute of exposure to torchlight will restore 1 point of the damage. 1 round of exposure to anything brighter than torchlight will restore 1 point of the damage.

Magic Anathema (Ex): Seialese have a reduced caster level for all spells and spell-like abilities by 4

Abnormal Features: Seialese do not cast shadows or reflections.

Seialese only require half the food/water/sleep of a normal human

Seialese do not age by natural means. If aged by any other means (EX: magic), they have the lifespan of a human regarding affects of old age).

Automatic Language: Seialese

Bonus Languages: Abyssal, Common, Celestial, Infernal, and any other 'non-prime material plane' language.

Favored Class: Psychic Warrior

Level Adjustment: +0.

Racial HD = 12+ (however many are needed to equate this to LA+0) [help!]

[Debihuman]

Racial HD do not offset LA. Y0u can buy off LA but not with racial HD. Where did you get that idea? Racial HD adds to ECL not LA.
There is no way your race is LA +0.

Here's the math for you:

Abilities greater than +4 total is LA +1

SR is LA +1

Flight LA +1

DR is +1 LA

Immunity is +1 LA.

Extra speed for flight adds to LA, Telepathy adds to LA, mend wounds adds to LA +1 for those

Ability to detect magic at will is offset by weakening darkness. If you want to give them a phobia then add that separately. Phobias have rules.

Magic Anathema is LA -1

Effective immortality is worth +1 LA at least.

Bonus Feat not casting a shadow and able to live on half rations is LA +0as those do not add much.

Total: LA +6

Debby