New traits

[Prezes]

I find them there: https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Traits...ut_Supplement)

And I am interested in few of them:

Fanatic - You gain a +2 species bonus to Wisdom, but incur a -2 penalty to Charisma.
Small frame - +2 Dexterity but you are considered size lower for carry weight
Gifted - You gain a +2 bonus to all ability scores, but you gain 1/2 the amount of skill points you are supposed to at level one and every level thereafter (to a minimum of 1).
Skilled - You gain double the amount of skill points whenever you level up, but you gain a feat at one level higher than you usually do.
Onehander - +2 to attacks with 1-handed weapons, -2 to attacks with 2-handed weapons.

Do you think that they are balanced?

[JNAProductions]

I find them there: https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Traits...ut_Supplement)

And I am interested in few of them:

Fanatic - You gain a +2 species bonus to Wisdom, but incur a -2 penalty to Charisma.
Small frame - +2 Dexterity but you are considered size lower for carry weight
Gifted - You gain a +2 bonus to all ability scores, but you gain 1/2 the amount of skill points you are supposed to at level one and every level thereafter (to a minimum of 1).
Skilled - You gain double the amount of skill points whenever you level up, but you gain a feat at one level higher than you usually do.
Onehander - +2 to attacks with 1-handed weapons, -2 to attacks with 2-handed weapons.

Do you think that they are balanced?

Fanatic might be okay? But you'd only take it on someone who wants Wisdom but not Charisma, so it's a freebie bonus.
Small Frame feels like it will almost never come up-how often have YOU had carrying weight come up in a meaningful fashion?
Gifted feels broken on either someone with no skill points (oh no, my 1 SP per level Fighter now gets... 1 SP per level) or tons (my Int 20 Beguiler goes from 11 SP to 6 SP-a meaningful decrease, but still enough for what I need).
Skilled is almost certainly not worth it-skills just aren't valuable enough. But I'm sure there's some shenanigans you can pull by getting feats a level late.
Onehander is probably fine. One-handed weapons are one of the worst styles, so a buff to them ain't bad.

[Prezes]

Fanatic might be okay? But you'd only take it on someone who wants Wisdom but not Charisma, so it's a freebie bonus.
Small Frame feels like it will almost never come up-how often have YOU had carrying weight come up in a meaningful fashion?
Gifted feels broken on either someone with no skill points (oh no, my 1 SP per level Fighter now gets... 1 SP per level) or tons (my Int 20 Beguiler goes from 11 SP to 6 SP-a meaningful decrease, but still enough for what I need).
Skilled is almost certainly not worth it-skills just aren't valuable enough. But I'm sure there's some shenanigans you can pull by getting feats a level late.
Onehander is probably fine. One-handed weapons are one of the worst styles, so a buff to them ain't bad.

Any idea how to balanced them more?

[Kurald Galain]

Do you think that they are balanced?

No, I think all of them overpowered, especially the third one.

[Lilapop]

Some of them might be relatively close to a fair trade, but the issue is that they are significantly bigger than the UA traits. That means somebody who specializes in one thing and does not care about the other anyway gets much more out of it than the variant rule intends. The majority of the traits in Unearthed Arcana are +1 to a single skill in exchange for -1 to two skills or -2 to a single one. Musclebound really needs to be considered an outlier. Your stuff meanwhile affects changes to the actual ability scores themselves, including saves, spells per day and DCs, any X to Y shenanigans you're pulling et cetera.

Drop onehander down to +1/-2, introduce some combos similar to musclebound, and ditch the others. That would still be on the strong end of the spectrum.

Or maybe stay away from that website. It is notorious for badly designed, badly edited and badly balanced homebrew content that is not immediately obvious as such to beginners, and for good reason.

[RedMage125]

I find them there: https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Traits...ut_Supplement)

And I am interested in few of them:

Fanatic - You gain a +2 species bonus to Wisdom, but incur a -2 penalty to Charisma.
Small frame - +2 Dexterity but you are considered size lower for carry weight
Gifted - You gain a +2 bonus to all ability scores, but you gain 1/2 the amount of skill points you are supposed to at level one and every level thereafter (to a minimum of 1).
Skilled - You gain double the amount of skill points whenever you level up, but you gain a feat at one level higher than you usually do.
Onehander - +2 to attacks with 1-handed weapons, -2 to attacks with 2-handed weapons.

Do you think that they are balanced?

I was thinking to myself...these remind me of the traits from Fallout 2. Then I followed the link and saw that it literally says they're from Fallout. Lol.

[Prezes]

Thanks for answers. They are helping

Anybody know when I can find more traits? Only one I find are on www.d20srd.org. Also they are on pfsrd20, but they are weird

[Inevitability]

Thanks for answers. They are helping

Anybody know when I can find more traits? Only one I find are on www.d20srd.org. Also they are on pfsrd20, but they are weird

Dragon Magazine #356 has some. Other than that, no idea.

[Prezes]

Thanks.

Ok, one more question. Bit off topic but I don't want to make new thread so quickly
Can I use that rules https://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/r...alVariants.htm to create more elemental race variants? For example: Fire Orc (+4 to STR, -2 to WIS and CHA, +0 TO INT, -2 to Saves against waterpowers) or Water elf (+2 to Dex, -0 to Con, -2 to Saves against fire powers)

[Inevitability]

Thanks.

Ok, one more question. Bit off topic but I don't want to make new thread so quickly
Can I use that rules https://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/r...alVariants.htm to create more elemental race variants? For example: Fire Orc (+4 to STR, -2 to WIS and CHA, +0 TO INT, -2 to Saves against waterpowers) or Water elf (+2 to Dex, -0 to Con, -2 to Saves against fire powers)

By RAW, no.

Personally, I'd be wary: water races in particular seem like they're just a free +2 constitution and swim speed with a pretty insignificant penalty vs fire spells to balance it out (especially because most fire spells just deal damage, and you have extra HP from the constitution boost). Letting players add that to whatever race they were already playing seems like a bad idea.

Also, I think you miscalculated fire orc stats, fire races get -2 charisma +2 intelligence, so a fire orc would have +4 STR, -2 WIS, -4 CHA.

[Prezes]

It's ambiguous, I'd personally suggest asking your DM. Also, I think you miscalculated fire orc stats, fire races get -2 charisma +2 intelligence, so a fire orc would have +4 STR, -2 WIS, -4 CHA.

Personally, I'd be wary: water races in particular seem like they're just a free +2 constitution and swim speed with a pretty insignificant penalty vs fire spells to balance it out (especially because most fire spells just deal damage, and you have extra HP from the constitution boost). Letting players add that to whatever race they were already playing seems like a bad idea.

Right, my bad

I thought about adding water race "template" to aasimar from Savage progression (LA +0, only +2 to Cha) or to elf

[JNAProductions]

They are all definitively OP in a 3.5 game. If I were to balance them I would do something like this:

Fanatic: When taking actions that directly serve a chosen cause gain a +1 to any ability modifier used when making a roll. All other actions take a -1 penalty (cannot bring the total modifier lower than -5).
Small Frame: Gain +2 to dexterity, but your base speed is reduced by 10 ft if your unmodified base speed is 30 or higher or 5 ft if 20 or lower.
Gifted: Gain +2 to two ability scores of your choice that will not bring your unmodified score above 18. Take a -2 penalty to the other 4 abilities.
Skilled: Gain a +2 bonus to any skill check you make, cross-class skills cost only 1 point, and you can make untrained checks for skills that require training. Your highest ability score (or any 2 of your choice if tied for highest) takes a -2 penalty.
One-hander: While wielding melee weapons in one hand you gain bonuses as if the effort to swing the weapons is one step higher. You only gain extra attacks from BAB at +6, +12, and +18.

I mean... I don't think OP is the right word.

A Fighter 7 with Gifted and One-Hander is hardly gonna be some game-ending threat, while a PHB-only Wizard 7 can be much more warping.

They're not balanced against existing traits-but if allowed, they'd be unlikely to break anything more than it already is.

[Maat Mons]

Personally, I'd be wary: water races in particular seem like they're just a free +2 constitution and swim speed with a pretty insignificant penalty vs fire spells to balance it out.

I feel that being unable to breathe air is usually going to be the most noteworthy drawback.

[Darg]

I mean... I don't think OP is the right word.

A Fighter 7 with Gifted and One-Hander is hardly gonna be some game-ending threat, while a PHB-only Wizard 7 can be much more warping.

They're not balanced against existing traits-but if allowed, they'd be unlikely to break anything more than it already is.

You're looking too macro. The point is you want to try to balance the benefit with the drawback. +2 to all ability scores is always a win over 1/2 skill points unless your DM likes to use skills as a hammer in 3.5 D&D.

That said, the traits on the linked page were for fallout so my opinion is actually void on the actual balance the traits were designed for.

I feel that being unable to breathe air is usually going to be the most noteworthy drawback.

That's an aquatic orc. They're talking about water orcs. Same book, but different concept. Environmental vs elemental racial variants.

[JNAProductions]

You're looking too macro. The point is you want to try to balance the benefit with the drawback. +2 to all ability scores is always a win over 1/2 skill points unless your DM likes to use skills as a hammer in 3.5 D&D.

That said, the traits on the linked page were for fallout so my opinion is actually void on the actual balance the traits were designed for.

Sure? Like I said, not balanced against existing traits.

But would you call a Fighter who gets 4 SP/Level base instead of 2 and, at level one, the bit of Warblade's Weapon Aptitude that lets them swap Weapon Focus and similar feats to new weapons overpowered?

I guess, what's your definition of OP here? Because "Stronger than existing options" doesn't seem like a good fit, when existing options range from PHB-only Monk to Planar Shepherds.

[Darg]

I guess, what's your definition of OP here? Because "Stronger than existing options" doesn't seem like a good fit, when existing options range from PHB-only Monk to Planar Shepherds.

I could give that monk +10 to all stats, would you think that the monk is OP compared to a planar shepherd? What about compared to a fighter now? Balance can only really happen in the context within it is placed. The game assumes the fighter is equal to the wizard. That's why you don't have traits granting +50 str for a pidly -1 hp. +50 str is not going to let a fighter out perform an optimized and perfectly played wizard, but it doesn't need to to be considered OP.

[JNAProductions]

I could give that monk +10 to all stats, would you think that the monk is OP compared to a planar shepherd? What about compared to a fighter now? Balance can only really happen in the context within it is placed. The game assumes the fighter is equal to the wizard. That's why you don't have traits granting +50 str for a pidly -1 hp. +50 str is not going to let a fighter out perform an optimized and perfectly played wizard, but it doesn't need to to be considered OP.

The game assumes the Fighter is equal to the Wizard, yes.
The game is also very, very wrong.

I agree that +50 Strength on a martial is OP, barring some immense cost-but these traits are not that. They're not balanced relative to the other traits, but they're not even close to game-warping like +50 Strength would be.

A Fighter or Wizard with half SP, +2 to all stats is generically better than one with full SP and no stat bonuses. But they're not better to a degree that would matter a ton. Whereas a Fighter that deals an extra 37 points of damage on every hit, with +25 to-hit over what's expected... That renders them massively better offensively than any similar PC, to the point where the threats would either be capable of surviving the Fighter, and anyone else can only tickle them; or they're appropriate to the rest of the party's offense, and the Fighter will obliterate them. (This is true to a certain level of optimization, but not all levels-a well built Ubercharger can, after all, paste just about anything that can take damage from them.)

[pabelfly]

I am not a fan of the homebrew given here, they're far too powerful compared to the traits in Unearthed Arcana. The drawbacks are typically very minor or irrelevant while there's a fair amount of power on offer. Unearthed Arcana, at best, was letting you remove a +1 from one save to put it on another save, or giving a +1 to one skill check and a -1 or -2 to another skill check, all of which is pretty minor.

I would consider the level of power that the UA traits do and try for a similar level, rather than use this.

[JNAProductions]

Do you roll for stats, Darg?
Because if you do, you could have one character who has Gifted without any drawbacks.

And if you don’t see the difference between +50 to a primary stat and +2 to a primary stat, secondary stat, and all tertiary stats… I don’t know what to tell you.
Magnitude matters. Toughness is bad, even at level one. Epic Toughness, if cheesed to take at level one, is plenty good, for a time.

Edit: This is a response to a now-deleted post, for anyone reading this. So if it seems like I’m responding to something not there… I am :P

[Darg]

Do you roll for stats, Darg?
Because if you do, you could have one character who has Gifted without any drawbacks.

How you don't see that as overpowered is simply beyond me. It's beyond the scope of what traits are meant for. Point buy would make that easier for you as you only need a -1 for several classes.

And if you don’t see the difference between +50 to a primary stat and +2 to a primary stat, secondary stat, and all tertiary stats… I don’t know what to tell you.
Magnitude matters. Toughness is bad, even at level one. Epic Toughness, if cheesed to take at level one, is plenty good, for a time.

Edit: This is a response to a now-deleted post, for anyone reading this. So if it seems like I’m responding to something not there… I am :P

Of course magnitude matters. Toughness is not bad at level 1. An elf wizard with 6 CON would be happy to have 5 hp instead of 2, or at level 3 when they have 10 hp instead of 4. Context and circumstances also matter.

[Kurald Galain]

Also they are on pfsrd20, but they are weird

That's because PF has different rules for traits.

Specifically, they give a minor bonus and that's it; whereas these traits from Fallout give a bonus stronger than most feats, and something that sounds like a drawback but on most characters actually isn't. I'm not convinced it's the former that are weird

[icefractal]

When I read the first trait specifically giving a species / racial bonus, I wondered if that meant it wouldn't stack with an existing one.

And I think with that proviso, Fanatic would be fine. At this point there are races that give bonuses to any possible stat, so +2 / -2 isn't beyond what a PC could get by other methods.

Small Frame would be fine with the same proviso and -2 Strength.
Gifted's just blatantly OP though, no hope for that.
Skilled is fine.
One Hander would be fine if it specified "when attacking with a single one-handed or light weapon"