Large Dwarf

[Rowanomicon]

I'm building this as a PC race.
I know it will have LA, but I'm not sure what.
I'm starting with the Jungle Dwarf variant and then making them large based on the Changes to Statistics by Size Table.
The one thing it doesn't say is how Speed is effected. I'm assuming +10 ft, please correct me if I'm wrong.

-+8 Strength, -2 Dexterity, +6 Constitution, -2 Charisma.

-Large: As Large creatures, large dwarves have -1 penalties to AC and Attack due to their size.

-Large Dwarf base land speed is 30 feet. However, large dwarves can move at this speed even when wearing medium or heavy armor or when carrying a medium or heavy load (unlike other creatures, whose speed is reduced in such situations).

-Low-Light Vision: A large dwarf can see twice as far as a human in starlight, moonlight, torchlight, and similar conditions of poor illumination. She retains the ability to distinguish color and detail under these conditions.

-+2 bonus on Heal, Intimidate, Knowledge (nature), and Survival checks

-Stability: A large dwarf gains a +4 bonus on ability checks made to resist being bull rushed or tripped when standing on the ground (but not when climbing, flying, riding, or otherwise not standing firmly on the ground).

-+2 racial bonus on saving throws against spells and spell-like effects.

-+2 racial bonus on saving throws against poison.

-Automatic Languages: Common and Dwarven. Bonus Languages: Giant, Gnome, Goblin, Orc, Terran, and Undercommon.

-LA: +2

[GimliFett]

I'd have to say LA+2 or +3. Total combat cruncher.

They still get the dodge v. giants? Hmm...

[Rowanomicon]

I figured that was more about training because of their hatred for giants, but maybe I should take that out.
Maybe I'll take the +1 attack vc orcs and goblin too.
I might also reduce the Str and Con bouses.

EDIT: some changes made. What do you think now?

[Kyroswolf]

Might I suggest dropping the

-+2 bonus on Spot checks: Large dwarves have keen eyesight.

and

-Weapon Familiarity: Large dwarves may treat dwarven waraxes and dwarven urgroshes as martial weapons, rather than exotic weapons.

The first because it doesn't fit what I personally see as a dwarf. The second because I would see them as developing their own weapons seperate from normally sized dwarves.

I can see the Low light rather than darkvision as large dwarves wouldn't fit underground as easily.

The changes might also help with your LA

[Mephisto]

So your proposal is "Giant dwarf with a hammer"?

I think it needs a better name than large dwarf (which is an oxymoron)

[Rowanomicon]

I dropped the spot and weapon familiarity.
The spot bonus was from the Jungle Dwarf variant.

I know "Large Dwarf" is an oxymoron, that's why I chose it for the name. I agree thought that it's not a good name for a race to be classed in game, but it works well enough out of character.

As to the hammer thing: I was actually going to play my large dwarf as an unarmed combatant, or perhaps with a short sword.

[EvilElitest]

I'm building this as a PC race.
I know it will have LA, but I'm not sure what.
I'm starting with the Jungle Dwarf variant and then making them large based on the Changes to Statistics by Size Table.
The one thing it doesn't say is how Speed is effected. I'm assuming +10 ft, please correct me if I'm wrong.

-+6 Strength, -2 Dexterity, +6 Constitution, -2 Charisma.

-Large: As Large creatures, large dwarves have -1 penalties to AC and Attack due to their size.

-Large Dwarf base land speed is 30 feet. However, large dwarves can move at this speed even when wearing medium or heavy armor or when carrying a medium or heavy load (unlike other creatures, whose speed is reduced in such situations).

-Low-Light Vision: A large dwarf can see twice as far as a human in starlight, moonlight, torchlight, and similar conditions of poor illumination. She retains the ability to distinguish color and detail under these conditions.

-+2 Natural Armor

-+2 bonus on Heal, Knowledge (nature), and Survival checks: Large dwarves know a great deal about what lives in the jungle, and are adept at finding it (or avoiding it, as the case may be).

-Stability: A large dwarf gains a +4 bonus on ability checks made to resist being bull rushed or tripped when standing on the ground (but not when climbing, flying, riding, or otherwise not standing firmly on the ground).

-+2 racial bonus on saving throws against poison.

-+2 racial bonus on saving throws against spells and spell-like effects.

-Automatic Languages: Common and Dwarven. Bonus Languages: Giant, Gnome, Goblin, Orc, Terran, and Undercommon.

-LA: ? (please suggest an LA)

Large dwarf? How does that work?
from,
EE

[Rowanomicon]

Well I know it's an oxymoron because outside the fantasy genre the word dwarf means small, but inside the fantasy genre the word dwarf refers to a specific race of beings.

So this is a larger sub-race of dwarf.

[JackMage666]

Unless it's a comedy campaign, an oxymoron name isn't a winning point.

It's either a +3 LA, or a 2 HD, +2 LA. Take your pick.

[Rowanomicon]

Racial HD are the single worst thing a PC race could have. They are simply not an option.
Besides who in their right mind would choose to lose 4 class levels rather than 3?
I'd like to get this to an LA+2 race.
If the Str and Con bonuses were both +4 would that be put it down to LA+2?
What if the natural armor were also reduced to +1?
What if I got rid of the bonus vs spells and spell like effects too?

I'm gonna get rid of the +2 vs poison.

[JackMage666]

Racial HD are the single worst thing a PC race could have. They are simply not an option.
Besides who in their right mind would choose to lose 4 class levels rather than 3?
I'd like to get this to an LA+2 race.
If the Str and Con bonuses were both +4 would that be put it down to LA+2?
What if the natural armor were also reduced to +1?
What if I got rid of the bonus vs spells and spell like effects too?

I'm gonna get rid of the +2 vs poison.

LA is worse than Racial HD. In an ECL 4 game, would you rather have 2 HD or 1 class level? Racial HD at least provide HP, Skills, Saves, and BAB. LA provides nothing.

If you eliminated natural armor, it would reduce LA to +2, though, probably.

[Rowanomicon]

So you figure if I left the abilities as is and left the +2 vs spells/spell-like abilities, but lost the natural armor then it's be LA+2.
If I kept the natural armor what would I have to lose to bring the LA down to +2? I figure the bonus vs spells/spell-like abilities doesn't really come into play. How much would I have to reduce the Str and Con bonuses?
Keeping in mind I'd rather keep an Str bonus than a Con bonus, but I need to keep the Con bonus as at least +2 (it is a dwarf after all) and probably +4 (it is large after all).

[JackMage666]

If the ability scores are unbalanced in favor of the PC, then it's +1 LA.

Large size makes +1 LA.

And Natural Armor (any) gets +1 LA.

Those are your main issues.

[Rowanomicon]

Right, so there's no way I'll bring the abilities down to a point where they're not over all better than average and the race is Large, so basically I have to lose the natural armor. Sounds fair.
I'll do some Editing and you can tell me what you think.

[AtomicKitKat]

If the ability scores are unbalanced in favor of the PC, then it's +1 LA.

Large size makes +1 LA.

And Natural Armor (any) gets +1 LA.

Those are your main issues.

I would say that last one needs tweaking. Natural Armour less than 3 is generally not going to break anything. It's about the difference between any 2 armours in the same weight category, or about the difference between 2 adjacent weights of armour.

[Rowanomicon]

Wait, so you don't think NA+2 is worth another LA?
Do you think that the race is LA+2 as it is now and plus NA+2?

[AtomicKitKat]

What justifies the skill bonuses? Intimidate sure, although the combination of size+Skill bonus more than counters Charisma. I just don't feel it for the other skill bonuses.

The bonus vs Spells and Spell-likes? Bear in mind here, a +2 save is the equivalent of a 1 level dip in any class with a good progression. Apart from Spells and Spell-like Abilities, you really only use saving throws against Poison, Disease, and certain other nasty stuff that is seldom encountered nearly as often as the former 2. +1 I could see. +2 may be a bit much. If you want the Natural Armour, I would probably suggest dropping this by/to +1.

[JackMage666]

The +2 Saves is only against Spells/Spell-Like abilities - Yeah, it still encompasses alot, but not everything.

[Rowanomicon]

The skills (except Intimidate which I added in because it fits) came from The Jungle Dwarf variant, basically in exchange for Stonecunning.

I left them in there because they add non-combat flavour and while this race is clearly going to very good at combat it's nice to not totally ignore everything else.

The bonus vs spells/spell-like abilities is just a train of dwarves. I'd like to keep it in there to keep this race clearly related to dwarves. I'm not adverse to reducing it to +1 though.

[AtomicKitKat]

The skills (except Intimidate which I added in because it fits) came from The Jungle Dwarf variant, basically in exchange for Stonecunning.

I left them in there because they add non-combat flavour and while this race is clearly going to very good at combat it's nice to not totally ignore everything else.

The bonus vs spells/spell-like abilities is just a train of dwarves. I'd like to keep it in there to keep this race clearly related to dwarves. I'm not adverse to reducing it to +1 though.

The main thing being that unless it lives in the same sorts of environments as the Jungle Dwarf, the fluff and crunch don't quite match up for the skills.

[Rowanomicon]

Well, yes I do plan for them live in a jungle/rainforest type environment.

[Kaelaroth]

Give 'em a nice Dwarvish name...

Khazrak?

[Machete]

Needs a big Intelligence penalty to be balanced.

[Rowanomicon]

Well I might give it -2 to Int, but I'm certainly not looking to build a race that is less intelligent than your average half-orc.

[Rowanomicon]

I hate bumping, but I'm doing it this once because I figure the race is finished and I'd like it to go through one more round of scrutiny before I put it into play.

PS: If for any reason you think any amount of natural Armor could be added in without raising the LA to +3 please say so.

[DracoDei]

If they are supposed to have anything of the skill with making things that there smaller cousins have I wouldn't recommend the intelligence penalty.

[Rowanomicon]

Yeah I opted to not impose and intelligence penalty.

[Logic]

I also have a subrace of Dwarves in my campaign, and the common translation of their name given to them by non-large sized dwarves is "Tallbrother."

The mechanics seem all right, but the STR bonus could stand to go down a little. Maybe to just +4.

As it is written, I could see it as a +3 LA.

[Rowanomicon]

I don't know, I mean if humans got Large sized they'd have +8 to Strength. It doesn't seem right for this race to be 4 points weaker than that...

In other words average strength for a Large humanoid is 18, so if a race was 14 on average then it's be like being a Medium race with 6 Strength.

I understand a give or take of +2 to even things out.
The Halfling for instant only has -2 Str while the difference between Small and Medium is 4 points. So Halflings actually have +2 Strength for a Small race.

So I can see the Strength bonus being reduced to +6 and/or the Con bonus being reduced to +4, but anything less would be shortchanging this race.

[Logic]

So I can see the Strength bonus being reduced to +6 and/or the Con bonus being reduced to +4, but anything less would be shortchanging this race.

Would you rather shortchange the race, or the player that wants to play this race?