Advanced Race Guide

[Gwin Thornspear]

Hi everybody, I am looking for a third party book that deals with getting races more involved in the game.

I have seen options such as Ancestry and Culture, but this seems more involved with separating your race from where you grew up, and I am looking for something more focused on taking a deep dive into race options and versatility. I am looking for stuff like racial feats, racial ability choices, and high level racial abilities. In short I want something that provides more options for the already existing races and will make your race options more important at high levels.

[diplomancer]

Just make races classes again.:smallcool::smallbiggrin:

[Rukelnikov]

Just make races classes again.:smallcool::smallbiggrin:

This isn't actually that bad, you could take the 3e Racial Paragons as inspiration and make 3 level classes for races. Otherwise give a free racial feat at lvl 5, thing is, not all races have racial feats, so you should make some up.

[Hurrashane]

This isn't actually that bad, you could take the 3e Racial Paragons as inspiration and make 3 level classes for races. Otherwise give a free racial feat at lvl 5, thing is, not all races have racial feats, so you should make some up.

Why only level 3? Gestalt that. Have a full 1-20 "class" that's based on a character's race which levels up along side their main class. Give them a subrace choice at 3rd, and a capstone at 20th (racial paragon or something).

Might not be so bad or over powered if it stuck to ribbon abilities and/or spells/spell like abilities that are situational.

[False God]

Why only level 3? Gestalt that. Have a full 1-20 "class" that's based on a character's race which levels up along side their main class. Give them a subrace choice at 3rd, and a capstone at 20th (racial paragon or something).

Might not be so bad or over powered if it stuck to ribbon abilities and/or spells/spell like abilities that are situational.

This is more or less how PF2 handles it.

5E doesn't really have anything that does this.

[diplomancer]

Why only level 3? Gestalt that. Have a full 1-20 "class" that's based on a character's race which levels up along side their main class. Give them a subrace choice at 3rd, and a capstone at 20th (racial paragon or something).

Might not be so bad or over powered if it stuck to ribbon abilities and/or spells/spell like abilities that are situational.

Still needs to be careful to avoid the meta "choose this race for this class"

[JackPhoenix]

Still needs to be careful to avoid the meta "choose this race for this class"

There's nothing wrong with that. Some combination of options will always be better at certain things than others, regardless of what those options are.

[Quietus]

I think we'll see some of this with OneD&D. They're standardizing levels for subclasses, which opens the doors to subclasses that can apply to more than one class. There is absolutely going to be a book at some point that comes out with the "dwarf" subclass, for when you want your character to be the dwarfiest dwarf who was ever under 5' tall. Dwarf fighter, dwarf subclass? Dwarf wizard, dwarf subclass? Both fully check out. You're just focusing more on your role as a member of your race and society, than on the specific skills that are normally associated with your class.

Whether they give a general "this is your enhanced race" subclass, or if we just see "dwarven defender", "Battlerager", etc, as the implementation, we'll have to wait and see. But I'll be floored if we don't see some implementation of that.

[Rukelnikov]

Why only level 3? Gestalt that. Have a full 1-20 "class" that's based on a character's race which levels up along side their main class. Give them a subrace choice at 3rd, and a capstone at 20th (racial paragon or something).

Might not be so bad or over powered if it stuck to ribbon abilities and/or spells/spell like abilities that are situational.

I'd suggested 3 level classes for starters because its much easier to make than a full on 20 level class, and also because gestalting didn't even cross my head, the OP didn't mention wanting to make characters twice as powerful or anything.


This is more or less how PF2 handles it.

5E doesn't really have anything that does this.

Yeah, PF2 gives you a racial feat at given intervals, that was my second suggestion :P

[sambojin]

Meh, 1dnd does elves and Goliaths a bit like this.

High elves: lvl1, get an arcane cantrip, can choose what one each day
Lvl3, have Detect Magic 1/lr. Can cast it from slots too. It's a ritual, so any level of spellcasting works for that.
Lvl5, have Misty Step 1/lr. Same above, off slots too.
(Drow and Wood elves are similar, but not as flexible on the lvl1 thing. But they still get lvl1 and lvl2 spells at lvl3/5).

Goliath: get a thingy at lvl1 (one is suspiciously similar to Misty Step, but PB/lr), lvl5 get Enlarge without the bonus damage (but not Reduce), 1/lr. Which seems kinda weak, even with +10' movement speed. The level 3 thing got changed to "constant anti-grapple advantage" and large-carry-size from lvl1 onwards. Some of it isn't "magic", some is, but none of it is "concentration" requiring (like the el-cheapo-Enlarge for instance).
Hill's Tumble is very underrated as well, for instance. Works with bows too. Can't imagine any character that just wants that, just proning whatever they want up to large size, PB/lr. Like every martial ever....

So there's threads of genius there. But we hardly know on whether it will carry to the warp and the weave of the characters we can make, in the actual 1DnD PHB. Classes squashed, races becoming species yet being stronger? Who TF knows what's going on in their beady little heads?


It's sort of like a 1/2-1/3rd'ish caster or martial gestalt until lvl5 in a way, with these races. For some things. A "what are they called now? I don't want to offend anyone ever. Racials? Species'als? Whatever" thingy you get, that's aside and on top of your class/ subclass/ multiclass. And background stat-ground.


(Meh, let me reflavour an old-Firbolg into a DnD campaign most days of the week as a "character thingy", but I do like where they're going with Elves and Goliaths in DnD1. I'm not a huge fan of "just represent it with a spell", but it does offer a lot of design space to work with, because spells in DnD do the cool things 😎)

[Hurrashane]

(Meh, let me reflavour an old-Firbolg into a DnD campaign most days of the week as a "character thingy", but I do like where they're going with Elves and Goliaths in DnD1. I'm not a huge fan of "just represent it with a spell", but it does offer a lot of design space to work with, because spells in DnD do the cool things 😎)

I think I'd like the species spells (or whatever we call them) would feel better if they didn't need at least M components. Feels a little weird that something they can naturally do requires like, a sprig of mistletoe or whatever. But I suppose that'd be an easy house rule fix to turn the spells into like, 3.x spell like abilities. I wonder if that'd break anything..?

[Lucas Yew]

I think I'd like the species spells (or whatever we call them) would feel better if they didn't need at least M components. Feels a little weird that something they can naturally do requires like, a sprig of mistletoe or whatever. But I suppose that'd be an easy house rule fix to turn the spells into like, 3.x spell like abilities. I wonder if that'd break anything..?

That's exactly what I always ask of Sorcerers' treatment of spell components in general (= "get rid of them, it makes no sense for them at all"), yet get shot down again and again all the time...

[Hurrashane]

That's exactly what I always ask of Sorcerers' treatment of spell components in general (= "get rid of them, it makes no sense for them at all"), yet get shot down again and again all the time...

I'm of the mind sorcerers shouldn't cast "spells" at all and instead be similar to Pathfinder's Kineticist. At will elemental (or different damage via subclass) damage with like, PB/LR ways to shape it (cone, sphere, etc) and various other magical tricks (like warlock invocations).

But that's getting off topic