[3.5] Krinth (race)

[Thurbane]

So, I've been looking at Krinth recently (CoR), and I have to say, I'm pleasantly surprised.


+2 Con, -2 Cha: good for pretty much any build that can dump Cha.
+1 bonus to Will saves, +1 on saves against "shadow" spells, +4 on saves vs. fear.
Cannot become shaken.
+2 situational bonus on Hide.
Darkvision 60 ft.

They also get 2 racial-specific feats: one to make their familiar incorporeal, and another that gives a situational +1 to attack and +1d6 damage on melee attacks.

Now, it's not groundbreaking or OP for LA +0 by any means, but they seem to be a fairly decent race.

I never hear them mentioned. Is it because they are setting specific, or is there something I'm missing? Or are they just too unermarkable to care about?

Cheers - T

[Edea]

Not 100% sure, but if I had to hazard a guess it's probably due to sharing the same mods as a Dwarf, which is one of the most supported races in the game. If they were +2 Int/-2 Cha they'd get a LOT more attention, IMO.

[Thurbane]

Not 100% sure, but if I had to hazard a guess it's probably due to sharing the same mods as a Dwarf, which is one of the most supported races in the game. If they were +2 Int/-2 Cha they'd get a LOT more attention, IMO.

That's an excellent point: sometimes its all about the ability mods, and which races do the same mods better.

[Zaq]

I had misremembered them as being LA +1 for some reason. Hmm.

The built-in bonuses are... fine, I guess? Nothing amazing, but functional. Immunity to shaken feels like it should have some kind of use, but I can't think of a good way to abuse it, and since it doesn't provide protection against the action-denying kinds of fear, it's basically just a conditional +2. I guess it could be worse, though.

The feats... the short description of Shadowform Familiar was slightly intriguing to me, but the "if it's ever separated from you by more than 30', it's slain" clause strikes me as problematic. Especially if it can't ride on your fleshy corporeal shoulder; hope you didn't need to make a double move away from your starting point. (A kind GM will handwave that away, but it's kind of a shackle by harsh RAW.) Also not great that you have to have the summon familiar class feature, meaning that Obtain Familiar isn't technically good enough to qualify (and neither is, like, Shadow Familiar, which would be so thematic it hurts). I love the concept but I feel like the execution is a bit punishing. (That said, since you've been interested in adepts lately, it does seem to work just fine with adepts.)

The other feat, well, maybe I'm showing my bias in that I've never played with a group who bothers to track lighting conditions 99% of the time unless we need a room to be in total darkness for some specific reason, but I guess it's not the absolute worst way to get some extra damage on a low-level character if you actually have shadowy lighting conditions around.

Overall, they seem adequate. Not embarrassing. Not especially compelling, though, and if you're dipping into "weird" races, I feel like there are many options that are just plain more interesting in general, which is likely why they don't get a lot of love. They're weird enough that you're clearly going outside the norm by playing one, but they're not interesting enough to be the cornerstone of a build.

I might spend some time mulling over Shadowform Familiar. That does feel like the linchpin of SOMETHING weird and fun and goofy. I'm just not sure what yet. I mean, I just entered the psion uncarnate round of Iron Chef, so you'd think I'd be aware of some kind of wacky stuff that being incorporeal gets you inherently, but since familiars don't get feats, it's harder to think of what they could qualify for...

[Troacctid]

I'm not sure why anyone would play a krinth when it seems clearly worse than just being a dwarf. Same stat mods, but the krinth has worse racial abilities? And dwarves even have stronger variants like deep dwarf, fireblood dwarf, and exiled dwarf? Yeah, I'll take dwarf.

[Falontani]

Isn't the shadowform familiar 30'/cl? That does get decently large, but at 210' at cl 7, dimension door will take you pretty far.

[Zaq]

Isn't the shadowform familiar 30'/cl? That does get decently large, but at 210' at cl 7, dimension door will take you pretty far.

You're right. I missed the "per caster level" part. It's still a bit of a shackle if it's not handwaved (at least to the extent of "it can ride on your shoulder and doesn't need to be tracked separately from you unless you intentionally separate"), but it's less bad than I gave it credit for at first glance.

Is there anything particularly interesting we can do with an incorporeal familiar? Perhaps if we can get an undead familiar (I just looked and, unless I'm overlooking critical text again like I literally just did in Shadowform, Stitched Flesh Familiar doesn't use the word "undead" to describe the familiar) that can make it a valid target for haunt shift, though I'm not sure if that's worthwhile in any way...

[Anthrowhale]

I'm not sure why anyone would play a krinth when it seems clearly worse than just being a dwarf. Same stat mods, but the krinth has worse racial abilities? And dwarves even have stronger variants like deep dwarf, fireblood dwarf, and exiled dwarf? Yeah, I'll take dwarf.

The 30' move could be a worthwhile advantage in some situations.

[Thurbane]

I think there's a few items that allow incorporeal creatures to interact with the material world. Would a Ghost Touch enchanted gauntlet work (assuming the familiar can wear a gauntlet)?

There are feat based solutions, so maybe get Psychic Reformation used on the familiar (which goes against my table restriction on psionics, but anyway)?

[Yogibear41]

Currently using a Krinth as a cohort for my CE Half-Demon Orc Warlock. Cool thing about Krinth's is while it isn't specifically written for RAW, they can have orcish, human, or dwarven descent, and also are descendants of Shadow demons. So from a roleplay perspective it fits in very nicely with my Demonic Orc. (My Krinth cohort is orcish of course) They are a good choice if you want to play what is sort of a half-orc with no Int Penalty. (live alot longer too) Also the area my character is in has natural occurring connections to the plane of shadow, so even more story connection :smallsmile: