Comments | otherspaces: [D&D] Adding new character races

sim_james in otherspaces

[D&D] Adding new character races

Jul 11, 2005 16:30

As I was editing the D20 System Reference Document (taking out references to Greyhawk and replacing them with the Ghostwalk campaign setting), I had the opportunity to include some additional material. An example of this is the minotaur. Jyan loves minotaurs, and is likely to ask to play a minotaur at least once during any fantasy campaign. This ( Read more... )

campaigns, d&d

Comments 4

mhacdebhandia July 11 2005, 07:44:04 UTC

That works okay, but you could also consider the Savage Species-style "monster class".

mhacdebhandia July 11 2005, 07:44:42 UTC

Though your way lets minotaur spellcasters avoid the caster level hit. ;)

sim_james July 11 2005, 13:00:10 UTC

   Which was one of my objectives, actually. Jyan is the one who likes the minotaurs, but he also likes spellcasters a lot. The last time I played a D&D game he was running, there was a rule that every character had to be a spellcaster by 10th level.

I don’t think that minotaurs make good spellcasters - arcane spellcasters are at an obvious disadvantage, and the Charisma hit will hurt clerics a bit. Druid may be the better option. But at least you aren’t losing out on caster level and spell progression.

I’m not super-keen on the Savage Species approach, although I’m sure it’s reasonably balanced. And I’d rather not imply that everything is open as a player character race. No mind flayer PCs, thanks.   :P

mhacdebhandia July 11 2005, 13:31:29 UTC

The Savage Species approach has its problems. I think the ECL/LA system is the most dysfunctional part of Third Edition D&D.

In a hypothetical Fourth Edition I directed, all characters more powerful than the baseline would be written up as "monster classes" with a Hit Dice at every level and powers to make up for lack of class feats. Essentially, the Savage Species-style monster class has partial Hit Die advancement (you often find that monsters gain a Hit Die every two, three, or four levels as the class smooshes the Level Adjustment abilities into a single progression with the racial Hit Dice) - I would entirely rewrite all these monsters to eliminate the concept of "Level Adjustment".

Maybe make the average "monster" Hit Die 1d4 or something, to compensate for the fact that there would be more of them across the monster class compared to Savage Species.

Heck, I could do this now, but I'm lazy.