Planning on playing in a homebrew setting, is this "race" any good?

[SangoProduction]

I guess the idea behind the campaign is "Hamtaro", but that's my best guess. Anyway, the DM has made custom races. This is one of them.


bat- +1 Intelligence, +1 Charisma, –2 Constitution.
Humanoid (bat)
Medium: As Medium creatures, bats have no special bonuses or penalties due to their size.
bat base land and fly speed (average) is 30 feet.
Darkvision out to 120 feet.
Weapon Proficiency: A bat is automatically proficient with the hand crossbow, the rapier, and the short sword.
Spell-Like Abilities: Bat can use the following spell-like abilities once per day: dancing lights, darkness, faerie fire. Caster level equals the Bat’s class levels.
Light Blindness: Abrupt exposure to bright light (such as sunlight or a daylight spell) blinds Bat for 1 round. On subsequent rounds, they are dazzled as long as they remain in the affected area.
+2 racial bonus on Will saves against spells and spell-like abilities.
+2 racial bonus on Listen, Search, and Spot checks. A bat who merely passes within 5 feet of a secret or concealed door is entitled to a Search check to notice it as if she were actively looking for it.

The other races are basically refluffed core races. (My god, I keep typing "racists" when I want to say "races". The feminism is growing!) There's one caveat, the bat can't use their hands or feet for anything but flying, while flying. Is it still worth taking? Also, what are those goggles that shut down Light Blindness?

Clearly, it's workable, such as with psionics. Incarnum would probably be a bad choice because of the con, but I think that'd also work. Still spell technically works...ok, enough. we get it. I'm asking: is it worth not getting a feat and skill bonuses of the human to take this?

I mean, I can't imagine this is too incredibly high op, but still.

[Cerefel]

This race if actually very strong. It gains flight at level 1, fantastic darkvision, free SLAs, and even gets the elf ability to find secret doors. This is extremely powerful for a LA+0 race so I suggest either taking it down a few notches or giving it a starting ECL higher than 1

[martixy]

+1 abilities is horrible.
Either remove it, or make it +2.
SLA would be based off of HD, not class levels.

With the +2 to abilities and the SLAs, it's a good +1 LA race.
Without these things, it works as decent 0 LA.

P.S. The weapon proficiencies don't fit in either version.

[denthor]

Looks good as is.

If a monster game look at skulk

[ExLibrisMortis]

You can't be Humanoid (bat), normally. Bat is not an existing subtype, and it makes absolutely no sense to make it one. Instead, go with Monstrous Humanoid, like anthropromorphic animals.

In the same vein, you really shouldn't have +1 to ability scores. Always use even boosts.

If the flight-at-level-1 thing is a problem, make it scale like a raptoran's/dragonborn's. That will definitely make it LA +0, if it isn't already (it's still worse than human/azurin/strongheart halfling/water orc for various things, but flight is a good equalizer).

[Extra Anchovies]

@ the only-even-modifiers crowd: why though? Getting +2 to one stat is more powerful than +1 to two stats, but that doesn't mean the latter is always a bad idea. This race, for example, has some not-great ability modifiers and some strong racial abilities, which kinda balance each other out.

The things which stand out are the fly 30 ft (average) and the 120-ft darkvision. Given that they take a hit to Con and don't get +2 to any one stat, they'd be a fair-to-strong LA +0 as long as encounters are designed with the flight in mind. Cutting the darkvision to 60 feet might be good, and I think a 20 ft land speed and 40 ft fly speed would make sense for bat-people. They'd be a good pick with or without those changes, but it's not stronger than Human because of how valuable feats are.


I mean, I can't imagine this is too incredibly high op, but still.

Character options aren't "high op" or "low op" when considered on their own, because optimization is only possible when there's a goal to optimize towards. This race would be powerful in the early levels given the strategic advantages of flight and good darkvision, but by 6th-7th level constant flight and darkvision isn't all that special. So I'd put them at less optimal than Raptoran or Dragonborn for games which are expected to run for a while past 5th level, but more optimal in a low-level one-shot or short campaign.

[martixy]

@ the only-even-modifiers crowd: why though? Getting +2 to one stat is more powerful than +1 to two stats, but that doesn't mean the latter is always a bad idea. This race, for example, has some not-great ability modifiers and some strong racial abilities, which kinda balance each other out.

It is based on the principle of KISS - if it isn't going to be meaningfully or consistently impactful, it might as well not be there.
It's a basic game design principle a ming-boggling amount of people forget.
Minor numeric increases are just incredibly boring by default.
+1 in D&D, 1-2% increases of damage in your favourite looter - all symptoms of the same problem.

[ExLibrisMortis]

@ the only-even-modifiers crowd: why though? Getting +2 to one stat is more powerful than +1 to two stats, but that doesn't mean the latter is always a bad idea. This race, for example, has some not-great ability modifiers and some strong racial abilities, which kinda balance each other out.
In addition to what martixy said, +1s behave differently when added to uneven scores, compared to when they're added to even scores. It's considered undesirable by the game's designers, and this is one area where I completely agree with them. I feel like the choice of scale (e.g. 3-18 starting scores vs. 1-6 or 39-162) shouldn't affect what effects your race has on your modifiers. Even modifiers make sure they always straight-up add whole bonuses across various stats. It's somewhat easier to use, too, when adding a race's stats ad-hoc, or, especially, an acquired template's stats.

[Maxrim]

I agree with the +2 or +0 crowd, ExLibris went over it well.

About the bat subtype: there are no subtypes until they're introduced, so this does make sense. Monstrous Humanoid is more powerful than humanoid did to X Person effects, this should be a humanoid. As a humanoid, it needs a subtype, otherwise it can't be chosen as a Favored Enemy (or have Bane weapons against it).

I think some of the misc abilities (bonuses on saves, skills, SLAs) push this upward above what I'd expect at LA 0. I think it'd be balanced without the Int/Cha bonuses.

[The Viscount]

I think this is balanced enough for +0. Flight at level 1 is earlier than most races that grant it, but a painful Con penalty and inability to use hands while flying balance it for me.

The goggles you're asking about are Sundark Lenses, 10 gp and oh so worth it.

Could you explain or ask more about not being able to use hands or feet while flying. I get not being able to use hands, but why not feet? You can try to still have some hand use via a hand of glory for mage hand, or perhaps by binding the Girallon Arms to your totem chakra.

[SangoProduction]

I think this is balanced enough for +0. Flight at level 1 is earlier than most races that grant it, but a painful Con penalty and inability to use hands while flying balance it for me.

The goggles you're asking about are Sundark Lenses, 10 gp and oh so worth it.

Could you explain or ask more about not being able to use hands or feet while flying. I get not being able to use hands, but why not feet? You can try to still have some hand use via a hand of glory for mage hand, or perhaps by binding the Girallon Arms to your totem chakra.

Basically, the webbing or whatever that forms the wing binds between the arms and legs (and most of the hands for the matter). So, that's why. Not incredibly sure why you would need feet when you're flying (except for the landing, but then, you're not flying), but hey, I'm not the DM.

[Jarmen4u]

I think everyone is missing the point.

The OP isn't the DM who made the homebrew. He's not asking for critique on the race itself. He's a player asking if the race the DM made would be a good choice to play.

I think it looks pretty decent, for many of the reasons said above. And in my experience, DMs usually favor your character a bit more if you're playing a special homebrew class/race they invent.

[Eldariel]

Con-penalty is rough as ever but it's certainly playable. The uneven stat increases play out a bit strange but ultimately they're rather convenient in point-buy and if you choose to pull the age lever, they amount to two full mental stat bonuses (with two uneven mental stat bonuses, middle-age is probably a reasonable solution). Getting bonuses to multiple mental stats is a bit interesting; with the limitations in place, it's hard to make use of the classes that would naturally want both (Artificer, Bard) but of course, even a stock Psion, which is indeed probably the way to go thanks to powers not needing arcane babbling and handwaving, can benefit of Charisma in Metamorphic Transfer forms (as most save DCs are Charisma-based).

I'm not sure it's as good as Human: in a normal magic game with access to magic/items, flight actually isn't that important from the race. There's any number of ways to acquire superior forms of flight relatively cheap (Alter Self, Feathered Wings, Wildshape-type effects, Phantom Steed, etc.). Meanwhile, feats require a few levels heavier firepower to produce (Dark Chaos Shuffle, various magical location+proficiency+etc. feats), so I'd say Humans have the edge in that comparison. But then, Humans are borderline broken thanks to biased game creators (oh how I loathe thee). So it's a decent LA +0, but ultimately it has very real downsides (Light Blindness isn't trivial even with the Drow Goggles and Con-penalty is always a pain unless you go Necropolitan) and the upsides are probably not as high as those of the top tier: Strongheart Halfling/Whisper Gnome/Human+Variants (Azurin/Silverbrow/etc.)/Lesser Planetouched/Neraphim/Build Specifics (Elves/Warforged/Dwarves/Kobolds/etc. have certain race-restricted options that make them attractive for various builds). Nor the ridiculously broken Anthrobat/Jermlaine/etc.