Word to Mechanical Attribute, Wis and modified catfolk specific

[Reinboom]

Didn't want to continue hijacking Talya's thread.

This is ultimately in response to Tempest Fennac placing -2 Wisdom on a custom catfolk.

I see catfolk as either possessing short attention span, or being proud to the point of near-sightedness. Both of these account for negative wisdom.

No more pride than the standard attributed elf, or human even.
I do not see where 'short attention span' follows a D&D attribute. That is a fluff trait of which the actual stat has no mechanical influence over.
Wisdom:
Increases Spot (check)
Increases Listen (check)
Increases Sense Motive (-unsure how to define this by the cat terms, I would check it, however, that may be attributed more to paranoia-)
Increases Heal (-undefined-)
Increases Profession (Ok, the attention span thing can apply here, however, I would identify this as undefined)
Increases Survival (definite check)

Increases will saves (check)


--
I simply do not attribute D&D 'Wisdom' to 'Wisdom' of the real world.

[Project_Mayhem]

Give them a racial bonus to said skills then?

[Tengu]

Project_Mayhem has a good idea.

I do not see cats as having high will checks - all the ones I know are either extremely lazy or acting as if they had ADD (and sometimes it's the same cat in two different mood modes). Being lazy is not the same as having high will check.

Wisdom also is important for divine casters, and cats are anything but pious.

No more pride than the standard attributed elf, or human even.

I don't know the fluff for DND catfolk, but everywhere else the cat-people who are not animesque are always considering themselves superior almost (and sometimes crossing the line) to the point of racism.

[Reinboom]

Ah, perhaps I should have stated it would've been best to quickly read over the linked discussion.

My whole statement isn't that they are noted for these - but these are reasons why they should -not- have a negative to wisdom.

=edit=
Then perhaps they are not exceptional at it.
Why a negative, still?

[Tempest Fennac]

What would you give them as a negative stat? I was using that Rakasta design for ideas due to the fact that they are pretty similar to Catfolk, and I agreed with the idea that they would rush into things without thinking.

[Reinboom]

Strength, Constitution, Possibly Intelligence if your idea of catfolk is to be more feral (though, this is not my thought on them)

[Tempest Fennac]

I don't know about Str or Int (cats are pretty intelligent, and some yypes of cat are really strong). I didn't want Con penalties due to wanting them to have different racial stat modifcations to Elves (and, regarding Rakastas), it doesn't fit in with them being a warrior race.

[horseboy]

Isn't their preferred class Ranger? That's a wisdom requiring class. Did you change that as well? Why do they have to have a penalty? Why does said penalty have to be -2? If they must have penalties, then why not two -1's?

[Tengu]

It's an unwritten rule that racial stat bonuses are always even. You can go the different route but that'd be against everything Wizards have published.

LA+0 races should usually have their total stat bonuses amounting to 0.

[Tempest Fennac]

I wasn't thinking about favoured classes at the time. As said, I based the Wis penalty of a Rakasta 3.5 Edition update. Also, how many 3.5 Ed races have - or + 1 to any stats?

[SoD]

LA+0 races should usually have their total stat bonuses amounting to 0.

Not true, not really. Half orcs, orcs, goblins, kobold, verious subraces of every core race, mongrelfolk, the worforged. That's off the top of my head, I'm sure there's others.

However, they do have other points of interest, for example, the orcs +4 strength can be a huge bonus (especially with the chance for a level 1 orc barbarian to have 22 strength, 24 when raging.), or the mongrelfolks +4 constitution (more HP is a huge bonus for everyone!), or the warforged living construct traits. Weather these actually even the character up, however, is a different debate entirely.