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Kellus
2008-03-25, 09:50 PM
The Liula

http://images.elfwood.com/art/k/b/kbennett3/thoth.jpg

Liula are highly-skilled but short-lived wanderers. Superficially similar to a human, they are easily recognizable by their head, which resembles that of a bird. Liula essentially train themselves in life, possessing at birth all of the skills and talents they might need over a lifetime thanks to a collective memory that is shared between all liula. Highly self-sufficient, liula have no formal parents, as progenitors do not stay with eggs after they have laid them. Most liula hatch after about a year of incubation, at which point they are considered an adult in all senses.

Personality: Liula are very self-confident and sure of themselves. Although they rarely spend much time in the company of other liula, they tend to value many of the same qualities: self-relience and cleverness among them. A liula will rarely take the obvious approach to solving a problem, instead searching for a more unusual or roundabout way to go about the task.

Physical Description: Liula resemble humans, with the exception of their bird-shaped head with a sharp beak. Their hair is usually fairly dark, while their headfeathers are lighter shades of blue, green, or orange.

Relations: Liula get along well with most anybody. They're especially popular among adventurers or hunters who value the race's broad range of skills.

Alignment: Most liula tend towards law, as they share an orderly set of memories and skills with their kin. Of course, many liula are instead chaotic, vagabonds who wander aimlessly. Liula have no especial bearing on good or evil, counting both among their ranks.

Religion: Liula tend to either worship deities of knowledge, planning, trickery, or cunning, or to pay some amount of service to many different gods in the hopes of currying favour with all of them.

Adventurers: Adventuring liula have a lot going for them; they have no real weaknesses, and are amazingly adaptable. Moreso than almost any other race, they can enter a situation and quickly find the tools they need to thrive.

Liula Player Characters

Ability Score Adjustments: Strength +2, Intelligence +2
Size: Medium. Liula are technically medium creatures, and theoretically have no special bonuses or penalties due to their size. However, due to Versatile Build, liula rarely use Medium qualities and size modifiers.
Type: Monstrous Humanoid. As monstrous humanoids, liula are immune to spells and effects that specifically target humanoids.
Speed: Liula base land speed is 30ft.
Naturally Inspired: Liula have a natural pool of inspiration containing 1 point. This inspiration is restored to them at the beginning of every encounter. Liula who take levels in a class that grants additional inspiration may add this point to their class inspiration pool.
Wordly Mind: Due to their shared memories and experiences, liula may attempt any skill check untrained, even if it is normally a trained-only skill.
Natural Weapon: Liula have one natural weapon, a bite attack that deals 1d6 points of damage.
Talents: Liula begin play with 2 of the following 5 abilities.
Cunning Aim: By spending 1 point of inspiration as a free action, liula with this talent can use a ranged weapon to 1 range increment further than they normally can.
Cunning Opportunist: By spending 1 point of inspiration as a free action, liula with this talent can make one additional attack of opportunity than their normal limit before the beginning of their next turn.
Cunning Reach: By spending 1 point of inspiration as an immediate action, liula with this talent can increase their reach for one melee attack by 5ft.
Cunning Speed: By spending 1 point of inspiration as a free action, liula with this talent can increase their base land speed by 10ft. for 1 round.
Inspired Attack: By spending 1 point of inspiration as a swift action, liula with this talent can make a melee attack at their full base attack bonus. This extra attack does not stack with any other effect that grants additional attacks, such as a haste spell.
Versatile Build: The physical stature of liula lets them function in many ways as if they were one size category larger or smaller. Whenever a liula is subject to a size modifier or special size modifier for an opposed check (such as during grapple checks, bull rush attempts, Hide checks, and trip attempts), the liula is treated as either one size larger or one size larger, depending on which would be more advantageous to him. A liula is also considered to be one size larger or smaller when determining whether a creature’s special attacks based on size (such as improved grab or swallow whole) can affect him or when he is “squeezing” through a restrictive space. A liula can use weapons designed for a creature one size larger or one size smaller without penalty. However, his space and reach remain those of a creature his actual size. The benefits of this racial trait stack with the effects of powers, abilities, and spells that change the subject’s size category.
Automatic Languages: Common.
Bonus Languages: Any. Liula begin play knowing two additional bonus languages.
Favoured Class: Factotum. A multiclass liula’s factotum class does not count when determining whether he takes an experience point penalty for multiclassing.
Level Adjustment: +2

Liula height and weight are comparable to humans. Adult adventurers can be of any age, even newly-hatched, as liula already posess a basic grasp of the world when they hatch. Liula are considered middle aged at 20, old at 35, and venerable at 45. Their maximum age is equal to 45 + 2d10 years.

Liula Paragon

The liula are a reliable and versatile race of skillful wanderers. Those liula who become paragons of their species expand their ability to think on the fly and find a solution to even the most difficult problem.

Game Rule Information

Liula paragons have the following game statistics.

Alignment: Any.

Hit Die: d6.

Class Skills: All.

Skill Points at Each Level: 6 + Int modifier.

Table: The Liula Paragon
{table="head"]Level|BAB|Fort|Ref|Will|Special

1st|+0|+1|+1|+1|Expanded talent

2nd|+1|+1|+1|+1|Expanded talent, naturally inspired

3rd|+2|+2|+2|+2|Ability boost (Int +2), expanded talent

[/table]

Class Features

All of the following are class features of the liula paragon class.

Weapon and Armour Proficiency: Liula paragons are proficient with all simple and martial weapons, as well as with light armour. They are not proficient with shields of any kind.

Expanded Talent (Ex): At every level, a liula paragon may select an additional talent from his racial features, until he posesses all 5 of them at 3rd level.

Naturally Inspired (Ex): At 2nd level, a liula paragon’s pool of inspiration increases by 1.

Ability Boost (Ex): At 3rd level, a liula paragon’s Intelligence score increases by 2 points.

Kellus
2008-03-26, 08:29 AM
No comments?

DracoDei
2008-03-26, 09:46 AM
Between having no drawbacks, bonuses to two skills and versatile build I think most people would say this is a bit more than a LA +1 race... maybe +2...MAYBE even +3... dunno... have never seen play with something with any of the "build" traits...
Culture, more about personalities, and alignment tendencies would be nice... awesome picture thought...

Kellus
2008-03-26, 07:06 PM
Hm... I'll increase the LA to +2, although I remain unsure. Level Adjustment is stupid that way. :smallannoyed:

Some more fluff will be produced shortly, as well as a racial paragon class.