Why Play A Ghoran?

[Palanan]

I like the basic concept of an intelligent plant species, but the ghorans seem rather lackluster to me. Apart from the seed aspect, there isn't much that's especially planty about them, and their creation story strikes me as remarkably silly. (They're...former cantaloupes that learned to run away, or something.)

The one aspect of their biology that's both unique and mechanically relevant is their ability to regrow themselves from a seed, which resets their skill allocations. But I've never had a moment in a game where I suddenly wanted to reallocate all my character's skills.

Beyond this, their light dependency makes them especially unsuited for dungeoneering, and being delicious (mm, cantaloupe) puts them at further disadvantage. Compared with some of the more intriguing races from Pathfinder, like samsarans or vishkanya, they just feel very meh.

But I'm open to being convinced otherwise. Is there a compelling reason to play a ghoran?

.

[ngilop]

I like the basic concept of an intelligent plant species, but the ghorans seem rather lackluster to me. Apart from the seed aspect, there isn't much that's especially planty about them, and their creation story strikes me as remarkably silly. (They're...former cantaloupes that learned to run away, or something.)

The one aspect of their biology that's both unique and mechanically relevant is their ability to regrow themselves from a seed, which resets their skill allocations. But I've never had a moment in a game where I suddenly wanted to reallocate all my character's skills.

Beyond this, their light dependency makes them especially unsuited for dungeoneering, and being delicious (mm, cantaloupe) puts them at further disadvantage. Compared with some of the more intriguing races from Pathfinder, like samsarans or vishkanya, they just feel very meh.

But I'm open to being convinced otherwise. Is there a compelling reason to play a ghoran?

.

I mean... they are a plant. so they get those nice plant benefits.

[Thunder999]

I mean... they are a plant. so they get those nice plant benefits.

Except they don't, "Ghorans have the plant type but lack the immunities to mind-affecting, paralysis, poison, polymorph, sleep, and stunning effects that type usually has." That's almost everything the plant type normally gives, all they get is some low light vision.

Both of pathfinder's plant races gain none of the actual benefits of being a plant.

[Kurald Galain]

Mechanically they're quite decent. Constitution bonus, +2 natural armor, all knowledge skills, and either fascinate or dispel 1/d; frankly that's better than what most races get. Dungeoneering should be fine if it's no more than one day (which it usually isn't) or if somebody in the party can cast Daylight.

I agree they're a bit silly, though.

[Psyren]

Even without those immunities, the type still lets you be immune to things that target humanoids (e.g. Hold Person/Charm Person), or that target outsiders, constructs etc.

The seed ability is a lot stronger than you're giving it credit for. You can trade in a level and a few days to get rid of any debilitating condition imagineable - insane, cursed/geased, ability drained, permanently blinded/deafened/crippled/amputated, diseased/poisoned, drug addicted, tainted, dying etc. There is no time limit on this ability either, you hand the seed to a party member and they can bring you back at any point in the future. As written it works after you're dead too. It's more or less a self-only resurrection as an SLA with no material components that other people can cast on you, pretty good for a racial. Did I mention the level you traded in can then be restored?

As for needing to eat - yes, strictly speaking they do, but Goodberry as a 1/day SLA means they actually don't - nor does any party of up to 7 members traveling with them.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by ngilop
I mean... they are a plant. so they get those nice plant benefits.

Trouble is, as Thunder pointed out, they don’t actually get much from the plant type. It’s understandable to a point, since a whole pile of immunities might be a bit much…but still, very weak on the actual plantness.


Originally Posted by Kurald Galain
Dungeoneering should be fine if it's no more than one day (which it usually isn't) or if somebody in the party can cast Daylight.

I figured Daylight could be a fallback, but that raises the issue of spending party resources just because someone is a certain race. One spell slot per day isn’t that burdensome, but still.

Also, in one campaign we were stuck in Undermountain for who knows how long, without even realizing we were in Undermountain. As it happens, my druid had two of the “twiggies” which featured in one of the early 3.0 modules. They quickly expired, and if my druid had been a ghoran, he probably would have joined them.


Originally Posted by Psyren
The seed ability is a lot stronger than you're giving it credit for…. It's more or less a self-only resurrection as an SLA with no material components that other people can cast on you, pretty good for a racial.

Interesting, the seed is essentially a save point.

A lot of things can happen to that seed, though. I see your overall point, and I hadn’t considered that utility. But there are potentially a lot of ifs in between extruding and regrowing.

+2 natural armor is nice, though, especially at lower levels.

[Kurald Galain]

Also, in one campaign we were stuck in Undermountain for who knows how long, without even realizing we were in Undermountain.

I'm sure there are some specific campaigns where a specific race will not work.

But in most campaigns you're just not going to be stuck underground for a day or more, and then the daylight thing won't be an issue.

[Psyren]

The sunlight thing ceases to be much of a drawback when your group gets access to lesser restoration, which has no material component. I think a fungal variant that replaces the light dependency and loses the seed ability for something else would have been interesting though.

[lord_khaine]

I mean.. what is the LA of this thing? whats the drawbacks?
(and i dont count needing daylight as a drawback, more than a human has the drawback of needing food/water).

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Kurald Galain
But in most campaigns you're just not going to be stuck underground for a day or more….

Every campaign I’ve ever played in has featured long stretches deep underground. I’m sure there are plenty out there that haven’t, but whether that qualifies as “most” is an open question.


Originally Posted by Psyren
The sunlight thing ceases to be much of a drawback when your group gets access to lesser restoration, which has no material component.

In practice, I agree it’s probably not a huge deal past the lowest levels. But in principle it still rubs me the wrong way a little.

I just feel like the party shouldn’t have to routinely compensate for a drawback of one individual. Dwarves are often played as rough and cranky with bad Scottish accents, but no one expects the party cleric to keep casting Eagle’s Splendor on them every day.

I’m sure there are a zillion corner cases which give counterexamples, just a mild annoyance of mine.


Originally Posted by Psyren
I think a fungal variant that replaces the light dependency and loses the seed ability for something else would have been interesting though.

So much this.

[Psyren]

I just feel like the party shouldn’t have to routinely compensate for a drawback of one individual. Dwarves are often played as rough and cranky with bad Scottish accents, but no one expects the party cleric to keep casting Eagle’s Splendor on them every day.

The "party" doesn't have to do anything though; the Ghoran character can, if they know several days underground are going to be a thing, buy some LR potions or a wand using their own money. In-universe it's a very logical approach.


I mean.. what is the LA of this thing? whats the drawbacks?
(and i dont count needing daylight as a drawback, more than a human has the drawback of needing food/water).

It's only 19 RP, so +0 LA basically. (LA isn't really a thing in Pathfinder, but at a certain number of RP - I think 25+? - they advise imposing a comparable penalty to that, where the average party level is increased by 1. If you're playing something really powerful like a Drow Noble, this will put you a level or two behind everyone else.)

Stat adjustments are +2 Con, +2 Cha, -2 Int.

[Thunder999]

Pathfinder doesn't so much LA as suggest the GM raise the APL for CR purposes, basically just use stronger encounters because the players are stronger.

[Fizban]

As for needing to eat - yes, strictly speaking they do, but Goodberry as a 1/day SLA means they actually don't - nor does any party of up to 7 members traveling with them.
If you have access to freshly picked berries, which are not always available.

As for the race being lackluster- eh, a lot of gimmick races are pretty lackluster. Warforged sound really cool, until you realize you basically start with -1 feats due to the composite plating problem, which you're taking to get a truncated list of immunities. PF also has an ooze race that is essentially not an ooze. Raptoran sound cool, but all they get is the scaling glide/flight. Aventi are amphibious and that's it. Hellbred and Dragonborm get basically one ability of note, picked from their menu- and Dragonborn has a worse version of raptoran as one of those options while being masisvely pressured to take the impossible to gain in any other way variable breath weapon. Heck, basically every planetouched is quite boring once you think about it, just a minor 1/day SLA (only a few of which are any use), maybe some energy resist, slightly better than normal ability scores, and outsider type.

Human gives you more of your other options. Elf, Dwarf, Gnome, and Halfling have long lists of minor bonuses brought in from the Tolkien/etc origins. Most other races (in 3.5 anyway) either don't have much, or end up coming off as pretentious if they do have a similar list of little things because they're not a decades old high fantasy staple.

[Kurald Galain]

If you have access to freshly picked berries, which are not always available.
It says, "created berries bud from the ghoran’s own body".


Human gives you more of your other options. Elf, Dwarf, Gnome, and Halfling have long lists of minor bonuses brought in from the Tolkien/etc origins. Most other races (in 3.5 anyway) either don't have much, or end up coming off as pretentious if they do have a similar list of little things because they're not a decades old high fantasy staple.
But it's a fair point that generally speaking, races in 3E/PF don't really contribute more than a stat boost, and that in gameplay it is rarely noticeable (from the mechanics/abilities) what race somebody is.

[Fizban]

It says, "created berries bud from the ghoran’s own body".
I mean, Psyren mentioned it in the context of them not actually needing to eat and only as an SLA, so I assumed you actually needed the berries to cast it on. Sounds like this needs an anti-self-cannibalism clause.

[Psyren]

It says, "created berries bud from the ghoran’s own body".

Indeed.


I mean, Psyren mentioned it in the context of them not actually needing to eat and only as an SLA, so I assumed you actually needed the berries to cast it on. Sounds like this needs an anti-self-cannibalism clause.

What I meant was that they can cast Goodberry 1/day without needing berries to cast it on, and each daily cast can feed 2d4 party members, one of which can be themselves. And who cares if it's weird they can feed themselves this way, it's magic. Nobody bats an eye when Elans are feeding themselves with Repletion.

[Kurald Galain]

Nobody bats an eye when Elans are feeding themselves with Repletion.

:elan: Bats eye.

[Endarire]

Warforged are useful if done correctly.

I'm in a campaign now for Red Hand of Doom where, because my character is a Warforged, he was immune to fatigue, poison, stunning, sickening, and certain other maladies.

[Fizban]

And who cares if it's weird they can feed themselves this way, it's magic. Nobody bats an eye when Elans are feeding themselves with Repletion.
Because Elans aren't "feeding themselves," they're using a psionic ability that specifically lets them not need to eat, under the premise that psionics/magic/etc is infinitely generated or harvestable by a thinking mind. Growing food out of yourself is fine, phrasing it in terms of an existing spell is easy, but the form change to growing food of yourself inherently brings up the fact that a creature cannot eat itself to survive. The Regeneration ability lets you regrow limbs, but I'd bet the vast majority of people would in fact bat an eye if you said a Troll, which needs to eat, can get by just eating their own limbs. Again, if it was actually a standalone SLA it would be fine, but if they've specifically flavored it as feeding pieces of yourself to people, then you shouldn't be able to feed yourself to yourself (unless the ability very specifically says you can). The specifically supplied physical fluff trumps the original magic fluff.

Of course, the entry seems to present it as an SLA first- which is why they should have been more specific. The lack of a handful more words on an issue that's sure to come up eventually leads me to conclude no one actually thought about it. :smallannoyed:

[Psyren]

Growing food out of yourself is fine, phrasing it in terms of an existing spell is easy, but the form change to growing food of yourself inherently brings up the fact that a creature cannot eat itself to survive. The Regeneration ability lets you regrow limbs, but I'd bet the vast majority of people would in fact bat an eye if you said a Troll, which needs to eat, can get by just eating their own limbs.

A Ghoran's goodberry SLA is magic.
A Troll's regeneration is not.
Simple.

[Kurald Galain]

Growing food out of yourself is fine, phrasing it in terms of an existing spell is easy, but the form change to growing food of yourself inherently brings up the fact that a creature cannot eat itself to survive.

It's a fair point that (1) a setting or story gets more interesting if magic follows actual rules (e.g. Brandon Sanderson) instead of going "LOL it can do anyhting 'cuz its MAGIC!!1!"; and that (2) it is certainly the GM's job to override RAW at those points where RAW gets ridiculous.

So yes, I agree with you that a ghoran shouldn't be able to feed itself. Doesn't change the point that in most campaigns (that don't involve multi-day underground exploration) it's a fine and feasible race to play.

[Fizban]

So yes, I agree with you that a ghoran shouldn't be able to feed itself. Doesn't change the point that in most campaigns (that don't involve multi-day underground exploration) it's a fine and feasible race to play.
I believe my original point was that if it's kinda meh, well, so are most other races, so yeah we agree.

[Magelyte]

IMO, the main reason to play a ghoran is the seed ability. It can function as a contingent resurrection, allowing your character to go on suicide missions without needing to worry about being resurrected, as well as letting you remove negative conditions as long as you have 2d6 days to wait for your copy to grow. (The negative level you get for using seed applies to only the original ghoran, not the copy.)
The ability to swap around your skill ranks is also useful, and if you don’t think it’ll be very useful, you can take the alternate racial trait that let’s you reselect your combat feats instead.

The weaknesses ghoran has are also pretty minor, it’s trivial to get some sunlight each day unless you spend a lot of time underground or on a plane without it, and delicious gives you a penalty on escaping grapples from creatures with grab on their bite attacks, which probably won’t come up often.

(Although something to keep in mind if you’re going to use seed a lot is that each incarnation of a ghoran has a slightly different personality, which causes them to have trouble forming long lasting relationships with the longer lived races.)

[Kurald Galain]

I believe my original point was that if it's kinda meh, well, so are most other races, so yeah we agree.

That's why I wrote "fine and feasible" and not "ZOMG so great and pwoerful!" :smallamused: