Race Point Values

[Mehangel]

I understand that the Race Point value system is wacky and not balanced.

But what I want to know is, do the following races have their RP values listed anywhere?

Changeling, Gillmen, Kitsune, Merfolk, Nagaji, Samsarans, Strix and Wayang.

If they dont have their values published anywhere, has anyone posted suggested RP values for them?

If no-one has posted values, how would you rate their RP values?

[Ninjaxenomorph]

All of those were in the ARG, where the race point system was introduced. Paizo seems to have bailed on the system, though, since neither Inner Sea Races nor the Occult Bestiary has them. Disappointing, since if it was refined it would be a useful way to judge a race's balance. I can't actually find their RP values, so one could reverse-engineer the race features to get the total.

[Aldrakan]

You should be able to reverse-engineer fairly accurately - while they do have abilities that aren't covered most of them will be and you can generally find something that's pretty similar for ones that aren't.

I did work out gillmen for a hypothetical aquatic campaign, and the rp system does accurately reflect that they are pathetic. Here's what I had

Stat modifier standard (0)
Swim 30 (1)
Amphibious (2)
Enchantment resistance (1-2 rp, probably 1 - Elven Immunities is 2, but it also gives sleep immunity and doesn't have the aboleth drawback)
Water dependent (No particularly close analogue unfortunately, but probably -2. It's a weakness that could very easily kill you in certain circumstances; the closest comparison I could find is actually Sunlight Powerlessness, which staggers and stops you attacking in sunlight and is -2)

So that's gillmen at an estimated two RP. Poor things. (For the purposes of playability I gave them the human bonus feat for a start, still redesigning)

[Milo v3]

I'm always amazed how weak they made so many races in a book that listed a way to gauge the power of races.

[Aldrakan]

I'm always amazed how weak they made so many races in a book that listed a way to gauge the power of races.

Yeah, a lot of it also seems completely oblivious. For example we have the poor gillmen, who have a horrible weakness outside an aquatic campaign and nothing to compensate for it, and then we have the merfolk, who have a very strong set of abilities that's theoretically balanced by their terrible land speed, which is of course mostly irrelevant if you're underwater. Actually let's build a merfolk:

+2 to Strength, Con, and Dex. Well there's no way to give +2 to three stats with no drawback in the standard way, so the cheapest way to do that would I guess be Flexible for Str and Con and Advanced Dexterity for a total of (6)
Natural armor +2 (3)
Amphibious (2)
Swim 50 is Swim and Powerful Swimmer twice for (4)
Legless isn't on the list, but a +4 bonus against trip attempts is 2, let's be extremely generous and only increase that by one for making you entirely untrippable (3)
Low-light vision (1)
And 5 land speed, well Slow is -1 and drops it to 20, let's say you're taking it three times to reduce to 5 (-3)

So that's an estimated 16 rp.

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that there should not be a 14 rp swing between two player races, especially when most of that difference is abilities that are actually relevant a lot of the time. Those are from the same book! Was there no communication?

[Psyren]

And 5 land speed, well Slow is -1 and drops it to 20, let's say you're taking it three times to reduce to 5 (-3)

I don't think this should be a linear drawback, 5ft. land speed is extremely limiting in most campaigns. It offsets more of their advantage than a -3 would indicate.

[Zrak]

I don't know, I don't think -3 for a five foot movement speed is any more egregious than the officially established six point cost (the same as DR 10/magic) of the often irrelevant Ghorus Seed. I mean, it gives you the ability to gain a negative level for a couple weeks, then die, and then get somewhat better version of a specific kind of retraining. It's an extremely situational benefit that saves a pretty negligible amount of GP. It's not terrible, and I could even concede that it's better than other extremely narrow benefits like Fiendish Blood, but I don't think it's six times as good as those options.

In general, I think race points were a nice idea, but the values were wonky to the point that the system was unreliable at best and actively misleading at worst.

[Psyren]

I'm not defending the points system. I'm just saying that I think "-1 for 20ft, therefore -3 for 5ft" is specious logic. 5ft. move carries unique disadvantages in this game, such as not being able to 5ft. step, and requiring a full round action in difficult terrain or while encumbered.

[Aldrakan]

I'm not defending the points system. I'm just saying that I think "-1 for 20ft, therefore -3 for 5ft" is specious logic. 5ft. move carries unique disadvantages in this game, such as not being able to 5ft. step, and requiring a full round action in difficult terrain or while encumbered.

Yes it should be, but merfolk do have an alternate racial trait called Strongtail where they sacrifice 20 swim speed to up their land speed to 15, which removes the other drawbacks in exchange for two rp, so that's about how they're valuing it. Admittedly this still leaves them slightly worse than Slow (20 feet for -1 rp), so we could up the value of the drawback to 4 and leave them at 15 rp. But then, several things that grant flat-out immunity to anything cost 4 rp instead of 3 for legless, so I was factoring that in, in context. Maybe one point lower.

[Bluydee]

I dislike the race guide, mainly for just how uninspired they added Gnolls. They didn't even get scent, and they left them at a paltry 6 RP with nothing but darkvision and a natural armor bonus. Why? Did they not even think that the hyena-headed animal people needed to bite things?

[Psyren]

Yes it should be, but merfolk do have an alternate racial trait called Strongtail where they sacrifice 20 swim speed to up their land speed to 15, which removes the other drawbacks in exchange for two rp, so that's about how they're valuing it. Admittedly this still leaves them slightly worse than Slow (20 feet for -1 rp), so we could up the value of the drawback to 4 and leave them at 15 rp. But then, several things that grant flat-out immunity to anything cost 4 rp instead of 3 for legless, so I was factoring that in, in context. Maybe one point lower.

I'm aware of Strongtail but I'm not particularly interested in trying to come up with point values for all the alternate racials, including that one. Again, my only point was regarding the base move speed drawback.


I dislike the race guide, mainly for just how uninspired they added Gnolls. They didn't even get scent, and they left them at a paltry 6 RP with nothing but darkvision and a natural armor bonus. Why? Did they not even think that the hyena-headed animal people needed to bite things?

They don't have scent or a bite in 3.5 either, so that is likely what they were being guided by.

[Segev]

What a racist thread! Scoring people on their race. Shameful.

Sarcasm aside, I think the biggest sin of the whole race point system is that it's designed around the idea of average party level. A high-RP character in a low-RP party punishes the others by forcing the APL up, reducing overall EXP gains and increasing the challenges they face, while they get nothing out of it (and he has a slew of cool powers to use).

The RP system would have been a great way to help calculate a CR, if they'd tied them together. Even doing it poorly, it would be a starting point for a metric. As-is, the best use for it is to say "everybody can play any race with up to X RP." Even then, though, you're penalizing those who don't find a race that's right at that limit. It would be better if there were a way to convert excess RP to bonus EXP, levels, or GP, or feats, or something.

Maybe that's the key: give bonus feats as per the human racial trait to anybody who isn't playing a race with enough RP, to catch them up.

[Zrak]

I'm not defending the points system. I'm just saying that I think "-1 for 20ft, therefore -3 for 5ft" is specious logic. 5ft. move carries unique disadvantages in this game, such as not being able to 5ft. step, and requiring a full round action in difficult terrain or while encumbered.

Yeah, I was mostly just making the sort of facetious point that such scaling, while certainly specious, would be internally consistent. I would rate it much higher, too, but I also wouldn't be surprised if, in all seriousness, an official ruling called it a -3.


I'm aware of Strongtail but I'm not particularly interested in trying to come up with point values for all the alternate racials, including that one. Again, my only point was regarding the base move speed drawback.

I may be misunderstanding, but I think he's saying the strongtail trait is officially valued at two RP, not that he's coming up with that value. Since I don't see a value attached on the SRD, though, I may be misunderstanding.


The RP system would have been a great way to help calculate a CR, if they'd tied them together. Even doing it poorly, it would be a starting point for a metric. As-is, the best use for it is to say "everybody can play any race with up to X RP." Even then, though, you're penalizing those who don't find a race that's right at that limit. It would be better if there were a way to convert excess RP to bonus EXP, levels, or GP, or feats, or something.

Maybe that's the key: give bonus feats as per the human racial trait to anybody who isn't playing a race with enough RP, to catch them up.

I think this is mollified somewhat by the abject unreliability of the system; it would unfairly penalize those who don't find a race that's right at that limit if the RP were a better measure of consistent or even sporadic utility. If anything, I think the problem is worse in the other direction; a lot of games ban races over a certain RP threshold without regard for whether or not their RP have been spent on anything remotely useful. A good example of this is the svirfneblin, who have a buttload of RP but aren't really the best mechanical choice for any build; most of their bonuses are either available elsewhere in a better package (Goblins have better ability modifiers for most characters and +4 to stealth everywhere), hamstrung by other racial qualities (blindness/deafness would be great without a severe charisma penalty), pretty negligible improvements over other races' defensive abilities (+1 to saves over halfling), or situational advantages that can also be outright liabilities (spell resistance), and moreover aren't particularly synergistic. If anything, I'd give poor Svirfneblin a bonus feat to catch up to some of the lower RP options.

All this, however, exacerbates your point about RP and APL; if Alice decides to play a Svirfneblin, both Alice and Bob get less experience without either gaining any meaningful benefit to show for it.

[Draco_Lord]

I don't think this should be a linear drawback, 5ft. land speed is extremely limiting in most campaigns. It offsets more of their advantage than a -3 would indicate.

To be fair. It is a limit, up until a certain level. Or until you can give it some form of vehicle to overcome it. A wizard merfolk could take fly, thus giving it a way to avoid the speed limit.

[Segev]

Yeah, my point isn't that the rest of the system is good, but that this is just one more place that it's screwed up. The worst part being that it has potential, but they went entirely weird directions with it.

[Mehangel]

Okay so I went ahead and tried my hand at deconstucting the races I listed in the OP. I have their values listed below, and I would appreciate it if you add in your input if these are within range of their calculated RP values:

Humanoid (changling) 0RP
Size 0RP
Ability Scores 1RP
Languages 0RP
Natural AC 2RP
Hag-Heritage 2RP
Claws 2RP
Darkvision 2RP
Humanoid (aquatic) 0RP
Size 0RP
Ability Scores 0RP
Languages 0RP
Enchantment Resistance 1RP
Swim Speed 2RP
Water Dependency -3
Amphibious 2RP
Humanoid (shapechanger) 0RP
Size 0RP
Ability Scores 0RP
Languages 0RP
Agile 2RP
Change Shape 3RP
Kitsune Magic 2RP
Natural weapon 1RP
Low-light Vision 1RP
Humaoid(aquatic) 0RP
Size 0RP
Ability Scores 6RP
Languages 0RP
Natural AC 3RP
Legless 2RP
Slow Land Speed -2RP
Swim Speed 4RP
Low-light Vision 1RP
Amphibious 2RP
Humanoid (reptilian) 0RP
Size 0RP
Ability Scores 0RP
Languages 0RP
Natural AC 2RP
Resistant 2RP
Serpent Sense 2.5RP (rounded up)
Low-light Vision 1RP
Humanoid (samsaran) 0RP
Size 0RP
Ability Scores 1RP
Languages 1RP
Lifebound 2RP
Shards of the Past 4RP
Samsaran Magic 2RP
Low-light Vision 1RP
Humanoid (strix) 0RP
Size 0RP
Ability Scores -1RP;
Languages 0RP
Nocturnal 2RP
Suspicious 1RP
Flight 9.5RP (rounded up)
Hatred 1RP
Darkvision 2RP
Low-light Vision 1RP
Humanoid (wayang) 0RP
Size 0RP
Ability Scores 0RP
Languages 0RP
Shadow Resistance 1RP
Slow -1RP
Lurker 4RP
Shadowmagic 2RP
Darkvision 2RP
Light and Dark 1RP

Now I understand that some of these are not perfect, but without a complete list of race trait values, it is difficult. However, are these point values roughly accurate?

EDIT: Race Point Values listed above have been updated to reflect the recommended changes.

[Aldrakan]

What a racist thread! Scoring people on their race. Shameful.

Sarcasm aside, I think the biggest sin of the whole race point system is that it's designed around the idea of average party level. A high-RP character in a low-RP party punishes the others by forcing the APL up, reducing overall EXP gains and increasing the challenges they face, while they get nothing out of it (and he has a slew of cool powers to use).

The RP system would have been a great way to help calculate a CR, if they'd tied them together. Even doing it poorly, it would be a starting point for a metric. As-is, the best use for it is to say "everybody can play any race with up to X RP." Even then, though, you're penalizing those who don't find a race that's right at that limit. It would be better if there were a way to convert excess RP to bonus EXP, levels, or GP, or feats, or something.

Maybe that's the key: give bonus feats as per the human racial trait to anybody who isn't playing a race with enough RP, to catch them up.

Ultimately that would just be houseruling in an specific additional racial trait (Flexible Bonus Feat, 4 RP) for those races until their score is about even. Which isn't necessarily problem, although I don't think it's necessary to restrict it to that one. If you're redesigning anyway (and enjoy this kind of thing) just set a target RP range and give weaker races traits until they get there, you don't need to worry about your players abusing the system and can reevaluate the point cost. It's not hard to find other things that make sense for a race to have, either from the system, made up, or just adding alternate racial traits for free when there's no logical requirement for them to need to exchange it -
"My elven tribe has a long held grudge against orcs and dwarves. Therefore we lost access to our elven magic!"

Like yes those things could go together, but there's no particular reason you couldn't have both.

[Aldrakan]

Okay so I went ahead and tried my hand at deconstucting the races I listed in the OP. I have their values listed below, and I would appreciate it if you add in your input if these are within range of their calculated RP values:

Changeling (10RP)
Humanoid (changling) 0RP
Size 0RP
Ability Scores 1RP
Languages 1RP
Natural AC 2RP
Hag-Heritage 2RP
Claws 2RP
Darkvision 2RP


Languages is tricky - they know 1-2 languages to start and can choose from 8, while the normal is 1-2 languages and a choice of up to 7. Linguist costs 1 RP and lets them pick any languages they want, I don't know one extra language choice is worth bumping it up a point.
Hag-Heritage is weird. Most of them look more in the 1 RP range, and often not particularly good 1 RP abilities at that, while Hulking Changeling might be 2.
In the context of its other abilities you might count Heritage as 2 and languages as 0 or Heritage and languages both as 1, but either way I would probably drop it to 9 RP



Gillmen (3RP)
Humanoid (aquatic) 0RP
Size 0RP
Ability Scores 0RP
Languages 0RP
Enchantment Resistance 2RP
Swim Speed 2RP
Water Dependency -3
Amphibious 2RP


Oops, yeah Swim 30 costs 2. A trait that grants a +2 bonus against illusions only costs 1 RP and looks like the closest parallel, as elven enchantment resistance also grants Sleep immunity. So maybe 2 instead of 3.



Kitsune (8RP)
Humanoid (shapechanger) 0RP
Size 0RP
Ability Scores 0RP
Languages 0RP
Agile 1RP
Change Shape 3RP
Kitsune Magic 2RP
Natural weapon 1RP
Low-light Vision 1RP

A +2 racial bonus on skill checks is 2 RP.
Change shape is tricky - there's one trait that gives you a constant 1st level spell effect for 4 RP if you're an outsider, and another that gives you a constant 3rd level spell effect, +1 DC to earth spells and 1/day one 1st level spell, 3rd level spell, and sixth level spell with no prerequisites for 2 RP, so who the hell knows what that's supposed to cost?
9 RP, liable to fluctuate wildly based on what you think the spell-like abilities are worth.



Merfolk (16RP)
Humanoid(aquatic) 0RP
Size 0RP
Ability Scores 6RP
Languages 0RP
Natural AC 3RP
Legless 2RP
Swim Speed 2RP
Low-light Vision 1RP
Amphibious 2RP


Merfolk have a Swim of 50, it should cost another 2 RP to increase it to that with Powerful Swimmer, and it doesn't look like you gave them a penalty for their low land speed, however you want to deal with that. So 18 RP- 3? 4?



Nagaji (7RP)
Humanoid (reptilian) 0RP
Size 0RP
Ability Scores 0RP
Languages 0RP
Natural AC 2RP
Resistant 2RP
Serpent Sense 2RP
Low-light Vision 1RP

A +2 skill bonus is 2 RP and a +2 situational bonus is 1 RP in a some places while in others 2 situational bonuses are worth 1 RP, which leaves Serpent's Sense at like 2.5 RP. If only because Perception is one of the best skills maybe you could round up and leave them at 8 RP, but 7 is quite reasonable.



Samsarans (9RP)
Humanoid (samsaran) 0RP
Size 0RP
Ability Scores 1RP
Languages 1RP
Lifebound 2RP
Shards of Past 2RP
Samsaran Magic 2RP
Low-light Vision 1RP

Every Samsaran racial trait is in the guide for some reason, although they were clearly added after they created the race and make little sense for others: Shards of the Past is 4 RP, Samsaran Magic is 2 RP, Lifebound is 2 RP. 11 RP.



Strix (15RP)
Humanoid (strix) 0RP
Size 0RP
Ability Scores -1RP;
Languages 0RP
Nocturnal 2RP
Flight 10RP
Hatred 1RP
Darkvision 2RP
Low-light Vision 1RP


Following the flight progression Strix should actually have flight maneuverability [Good] at 60 speed, but otherwise that works.
They also have Suspicious (+2 saving throws against illusions), which costs 1 RP to bring them to 16 RP. Unless you want to discount them 1 for the lower flight speed - after all it costs 2 RP to increase Flight by 10 and maneuverability by one rank, and they're only getting half that.



Wayang (9RP)
Humanoid (wayang) 0RP
Size 0RP
Ability Scores 0RP
Languages 0RP
Shadow Resistance 2RP
Lurker 2RP
Shadowmagic 2RP
Darkvision 2RP
Light and Dark 1RP


Their languages are weird, better than standard by a greater margin than Changelings, but still not as good as Linguistics. There's nothing really borderline here so I'm going to stick with 0.
Shadow resistance should be 1 RP. There are fewer Shadow spells than illusion.
Being Small doesn't inherently reduce your movement speed (even though almost all of the Small races are slower), so they have Slow (-1 RP).
Lurker should be 4 RP, as it gives +2 skill bonuses to 2 skills.
So they still end up at 9 RP.

Within one or two points on all of them, and a lot of the differences are grey areas.

[Mehangel]

Thanks, I will be updating the race point values I had previously posted here in a bit.

[Zrak]

Change shape is tricky - there's one trait that gives you a constant 1st level spell effect for 4 RP if you're an outsider, and another that gives you a constant 3rd level spell effect, +1 DC to earth spells and 1/day one 1st level spell, 3rd level spell, and sixth level spell with no prerequisites for 2 RP, so who the hell knows what that's supposed to cost?

To be fair, they're not exactly the best spells of their level; Magic Stone is almost insultingly bad and the level 6 stone tell is probably less useful than level 2 alter self, overall. Constant nondetection is only really relevant if your GM is the kind who thinks it affects see invisibility and true seeing, but in that case it's ludicrously overpowered for certain builds. Stone shape really can be a game changer, though, and is broad enough you could probably use it for something actually useful every day.

[Kurald Galain]

I don't think this should be a linear drawback, 5ft. land speed is extremely limiting in most campaigns. It offsets more of their advantage than a -3 would indicate.

Depends. If you have access to Overland Flight, it's pretty much irrelevant what your original speed was. Of course, that requires a pretty high level campaign. However, around level 5 certain classes can reliably access Fly for each combat, and you then just require a cart or Tenser's Floating Disc to carry your companion around outside combat. Yes, that's silly, but it does work.

[Psyren]

Depends. If you have access to Overland Flight, it's pretty much irrelevant what your original speed was. Of course, that requires a pretty high level campaign. However, around level 5 certain classes can reliably access Fly for each combat, and you then just require a cart or Tenser's Floating Disc to carry your companion around outside combat. Yes, that's silly, but it does work.

Races aren't balanced around abilities like that though. You may as well say that racial flight is no advantage because people can access overland flight, and yet Strix still gets banned left and right because of the impact 3-dimensional combat has on the early game.

Every race matters less and less as you gain levels. But if a disadvantage is strong enough such that a member of that race who leaves their ideal environment is unlikely to survive to reach those levels, then that disadvantage should be appropriately reflected in the RP costing. Right now it's not, I agree.

[Kurald Galain]

Races aren't balanced around abilities like that though.
I agree.

But they probably should be, if point values are to have a solid meaning. Otherwise it's the classic trick of taking "flaws" or "drawbacks" for your character (negative feats, essentially) in such a way that they don't actually affect you. Have the wizard take a bonus feat in exchange for -4 on melee attacks, then never make any.

[Psyren]

I agree.

But they probably should be, if point values are to have a solid meaning. Otherwise it's the classic trick of taking "flaws" or "drawbacks" for your character (negative feats, essentially) in such a way that they don't actually affect you. Have the wizard take a bonus feat in exchange for -4 on melee attacks, then never make any.

And yet, from a verisimilitude standpoint, I'm okay with that. I'd expect a character who can barely move on land to be more interested in magical flight, or learning to be speedy like a monk (and conversely, repelled from a class like fighter that wouldn't help him do these things.) I don't see it as a "trick," rather it's a logical extension of the world they live in.

The GM still has the ability to make the drawback relevant. Maybe in one pivotal fight, an enemy spellcaster notices that the merfolk has to fly everywhere and dispels it, before escaping. Or they notice the wizard is horrible at melee attacks and so is unlikely to have any touch spells prepared.

In short, a drawback can still matter (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0906.html) even if just by causing you to devote build resources to overcoming it.