How to homebrew an interesting race?

[MatrixStone93]

I'm DMing a game soon, I want to homebrew a race and make a town or city or ancient homeland full of them important to the plot. A "Save this town/country" kind of story. I like inhospitably cold worlds so I was thinking "Ice-type Elves but with a cooler name and maybe a different look".

How do I make the homebrew race in it interesting?

I'm thinking of making the race okay for players to play, too. So it can't be too strong, but not too weak either. Maybe LA+1 tier of power but with no LA, to attract players towards playing it.

[BWR]

The most important thing to do is ignore mechanics and focus on culture and history. Write up a broad history of the race, possibly since inception, write up a more detailed recent history (within one or two generations) and do a detailed look at culture. Form of government, relations with neighbors, social structure, religious concerns, clothes and fashion, diet, architecture, art, pets vs. food animals, etc.

You do this right and players won't care about the mechanics - just use some existing race with its own detailed flair and everything will be fine.

[Silvercrys]

Focusing on the culture is pretty important, yeah. Some players will be attracted to the race purely for the role-playing aspect.

If you want to make them strong but not overbearing, you can use the Arctic Elf traits from the SRD (swap the Con penalty to Strength, trade secret doors check and Search bonus for a bonus on Craft checks and Survival checks in Arctic environments, add Cold Endurance) then strip them of their bonus weapon proficiencies and give them a generic bonus feat like Humans normally get. They'll be stronger than Humans and regular Elves that way but not overly so, especially for Dex characters and spellcasters, and you'll get players/builds that really need the bonus feat to strongly consider your homebrew race over Human.

[OGDojo]

figure out what your race is going to be
hash out a basic idea of how you want it to look and what environment it will be in
use the Pathfinder "Advanced Races" book's race builder to figure out Stats
the race builder is based on "Points" a 20 point race is around the same point value as human and 30 is around a +2 LA
write down the abilities it gets from the race builder and their point cost
write down what it looks like in detail
Write down its society (How do its towns look, how kind they are, how they treat outsiders and such)
how does their race feel about adventuring (Do they love it? Hate it? does it depend on class?)
is there a central theme that they are based around? (Like banking, House building, City planning, inventing, or some other task/skill?)
how do they treat other races. (Do they hate them? love them? feel sorry for them? Look down upon them?)
are they created by a God? (Like Hecktor or Baccob?)


Here's a race i built that you can use as a template to help you.
Dobrahn (Otter-folk) (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?596294-New-Race-Dobrahn-(Otter-folk))

[Maat Mons]

I once brewed a race that carved their homes out of icebergs, and lived by fishing the surrounding frigid waters. Dunno if that has any appeal to you.

When making a race from an extreme environment, you should think about how the realities of that place would effect their culture. If they're from sufficiently cold regions, there won't be any trees. So that rules out any large-scale use of wood. You can't get a fire hot enough to work iron without charcoal, and making charcoal requires lots of wood, so it rules out large-scale use of steel too. Other metals might be feasible, depending on how much vegetation is available, and how thick and ice sheet they need to dig through to hit ground.

[MisterKaws]

There's an actual Snow Elf race in Frostburn.

[Clementx]

Consider the mechanical effects of their culture, and cultural effects of their mechanics. Use one to inform the other.

Darkvision instead of low-light? They live in ice caves and permafrost tunnels. Does their perception bonuses make them excellent hunters, or are they skittish prey of polar bears and remmoraz? How do they manage their Con penalty in an environment that requires constant Con/Fort saves to just exist? Does that change their favored class to Ranger and eek out a subsistence lifestyle? Or do they double down on arcane mastery of elemental energy to make a magindustrial civilization?