Book sprites 3.5e (new race, PEACH)

[Heainnailo]

My friend and I came up with this new race, and were wondering what other people thought about it. So, without further ado:

Book Sprites

"If knowledge were power, those things would control the world." -Zaura "Truthseer" Caducas, Fortune teller

Book sprites are a type of fey that tend to congregate at any area with a great wealth of knowledge. Not only do they gather and study as many books as they can, they actually absorb the knowledge. Whole libraries have been ruined as hordes of Book Sprites gathered in them.

Personality: The personalities of Book Sprites vary widely. They take great pride in the knowledge they have gained from different sources, and so enjoy in talking in poems and riddles. This can make them seem like romantics, scholars, stuck-up nobles, or any other type of character you can have in a story. The main trait common among them all is that they enjoy small pranks and word games.

Appearance: Book Sprites stand at just over 4 ft. tall. They look undernourished and are extremely skinny, wieghing in at 50-60 lbs. Both males and females are the same height and weight. They have a set of dark brown cicada-like wings extending down from their shoulderblades, these can't be used for flight and are actually to keep the sprites firmly on the ground in dangerous weather. Their eyes can be brown or green and their hair ranges among many earthy colors.

Relations: They try to get along with all races in order to learn more about them. Most view Book Sprites with some suspicion however, as rumors of their tendency to mislead travelers have spread.

Alignment: Book Sprites tend to be uncaring about the successes or failures of others, yet because most have absorbed one or more law books, tend to know and follow the laws. Most are Lawful Neutral, but of the few that tend toward Good or Evil, more lean towards Good.

Book Sprite Lands: Books Sprites can be found anywhere and everywhere other races have stored books, scrolls, or any other type of record. This has led them to be viewed as pests almost as troublesome as Kobolds.

Religion: Book Sprites, as most would guess, almost uniformly worship Boccab, god of knowledge. But some to worship other dieties depending on where they live and some other factors.

Language: All book sprites know Sylvan and Common. Most usually learn many other languages in order to understand and absorb more.

Names: A Book Sprite will take names from any source, be it literature, a poem, a song, or any other place you can think of. They don't tend to differentiate between male and female names.

Adventurers: All Book Sprites adventure at some times in their lives, and almost always for the same reason, knowledge. They like to form parties with stronger people in order to counter their physical weakness.

Book Sprite Racial Traits:

• Fey type
• -2 STR, -2 CON, +2 INT: Book Sprites are physically weak, but their wide knowledge base gives them incredible intelligence
• Medium: As Medium creatures, Book Sprites have no special bonuses or penalties to their size.
• Automatic Languages: Common, Sylvan. Bonus Languages: Any (other than secret languages, such as Druidic).
• Knowledgeable: This ability is identical to the Bardic Knowledge ability. They make the check at his HD + his INT modifier.
• Absorbtion: A Book Sprite can absorb the contents of any paper as he reads it. If a sprite does this, he gains perfect recall of what was on that page, but all the writing on it diappears as if subject to an erase spell. This cannot be used to erase any of the Symbol spells, a Glyph of Warding,or Sepia Snake Sigil. A Book Sprite must understand the language of a document in order to absorb it. This can't be used to learn a new language.
• A Book Sprite does not need to eat or drink for survival. They actually draw nourishment from any knowledge they absorb.
• Book Sprite spellcasters that use a spellbook can use their absorbtion ability to memorize spells from their spellbooks. They can then prepare these spells from memory. Preparing spells in this manner takes twice as much time as normal. A sprite can with access to his spellbook can use it as a focus to prepare spells in the normal amount of time. A spellbook is still needed to learn new spells and this does not change the number of spells known or the number able to be prepared per day. This can not be used to learn spells directly from scrolls, they need to scribed scribed into the sprites spellbook first.
• +2 racial bonus on balance checks: The wings of a Book Sprite help them stay on their feet in harsh weather or hazardous terrain.
• LA +0
• Favored class: Wizard

I hope it's not too overpowered, I look forward to your criticisms.

[DracoDei]

Needs a favored class (Wizard or Bard), and the wings should give a racial bonus to saves against wind effects.

Lawful SOUNDS like they would trade for the books etc...

[Owrtho]

Why would they get a bonus for wind effects? If anything it seems like it should be a penalty...

Owrtho

[StormingMarcus]

Little wings may give a bonus to Jump checks, or to checks (Jump & Tumble) to avoid falling damage.

[DracoDei]

They have a set of dark brown cicada-like wings extending down from their shoulderblades, these can't be used for flight and are actually to keep the sprites firmly on the ground in dangerous weather.

Underlining mine. They fluffed it, I just said how to make the crunch match the fluff.

[-Baldur-]

Doesn't sound too bad, however the fact that "whole libraries have been ruined" sounds more like an evil act. If they were neutral, from a roleplay perspective, I can't see them wanting to destroy whole libraries. A swarm of these things could erase every book in the land within about 2 months if people actually let them go on their own way. But I can see libraries hiring bounty hunters to track down the evil sprites whom had lunch on a lifetime of knowledge. Maybe change their alignment, IMO, if not...ah well :-P

[Heainnailo]

@Dracodei: I added Wizard as favored class. As to the alignment, I wasn't that sure about it and felt that it should be closer to True Neutral. My friend explained the fluff for that in a way that was much more eloquent than mine and I'll try and update that.

@-Baldur-: I can see where you're coming from, but they don't do it from any malicious urges, it's just a side effect of them doing what comes naturally, absorbing knowledge.

I've also taken into consideration the save vs. wind effects. Also suggested was a bonus to Balance checks.

[Baron Corm]

-2 STR, -2 CON, +4 INT
LA +0

I think they are overpowered. I think that you could easily reduce it to +2 Intelligence. Intelligence does not represent a knowledge base, but an ability to acquire knowledge and retain it. Their knowledge base should be represented as a bonus to Knowledge skills, or the Bardic Knowledge thing you have.

[Human Paragon 3]

+4 INT with no LA seems overpowered to me. Especially with the ability to absorb spellbooks, there is little reason for a PC to make a wizard of any other race. They blow Gray Elves out of the water.

[Heainnailo]

I have reduced the INT bonus to +2. I kept both the STR and CON penalties though.

[Darth Stabber]

Agreeing with the 2 previous posts. Crazy good: my spellbook can't be messed with evar, +4 to int with no LA, oh and because I'm fey you have to wait until the big gun enchantments come out before i need worry about being charmed, held, or dominated, yay not humanoid. Broke.

They need like +1 LA and another good racial ability or cut the int bonus in half and give them either str or con back. Oh and the bardic knowledge is amazing dependant upon the GM.

Sorry about the ranting that was rude, It is an intesting thought, like the flavor, and won't take too much work to balance, think very carefully about the spellbook business, That is a wizard mitigation tool that dms like to have to put an end to Wizard extremeness (i've only done it once, but it brought the game back from okay let the wizard study for 15 minutes and we have the answer to all of lifes little problems.)

-Ninja'd

[Owrtho]

So, could they learn languages with that Absorbtion ability (such as by absorbing an x to y dictionary)?

Owrtho

[Heainnailo]

No they can't. I didn't think about that, but I'll clarify it.

[Heainnailo]

Clarified and expanded on a few points. Also added a +2 bonus on balance checks.