Post by Trailfoot on Jun 13, 2006 3:21:03 GMT -5
I've put a lot of time and effort over the past two weeks into what went from an effort at adding more detail and depth to Anthros's demihuman races to the long-needed 3.5 update of the Anthros setting.
You see, the documents you all looked at while creating your characters are deeply flawed things. There are serious balance problems (the Sylan and LeShay were distinctly better than the other Elf subraces, the Halfling subraces were all terrible, the Agan race was unplayable, and the background and racial feats had no sense of balance whatsoever). They were also... well, a mess. Detailed information was scarce at best, and they were organized exceptionally badly.
All of that is changing. Starting with my detailed writeup of the Elf race - including brand-new 3.5-compatible stats and new game concepts in their abilities - the Anthros setting is getting the revision it has long needed. Here's a few things that have struck me so far:
1. Dual-typed creatures are a concept that I'm actually amazed Wizards hasn't introduced yet, though a few of the things that they have released (such as the Living Construct subtype) have similiarities with dual-typed creatures. In fact, were the Warforged an Anthros race, they could be written up as Construct/Humanoid (Warforged) and end up very similar in the end to their Eberron stats.
2. Experience debt is something I expect to be using a lot as I go through the races. It's a less extreme balancing factor than level adjustment, since the cost of having it doesn't continually grow - a character with a level adjustment of +1 and one with an experience debt of 1000 have basically paid the same price at level 1, but at level 5 the level-adjusted character has the hit dice of a character with 5000 less experience than he has.
3. Cosmopolitan was - and still is - a really interesting feat. It opens up a lot of concepts, and makes prestige class builds far more versatile. I'm still tempted to give Celeis a new background feat, and make Cosmopolitan universally available... it's just that unique. I can't claim credit for it - it was in the Wheel of Time d20 book - but I will very gladly include it in Anthros. You'll also notice that it is the only background feat that recieved no edits whatsoever to its game effects. It didn't need them; it's a feat that has a load of potential as written.
4. All of the background feats now give access to abilities that are otherwise unattainable. Creating and balancing these abilities was both a difficult and a very rewarding task. I give Nephallim credit for the extra ability of the Seductive feat; I was having a really hard time with that one and he came to the rescue. My personal favorites: Luck of Heroes, Mercantile Background, Stealthy.
5. I still need to write rules for feats with the same name, since many of the background feats have the same name as feats from the Player's Handbook.
6. The racial feats are hard! I want them to be a half-step above the background feats in power, which is forcing many of them to be completely rewritten. Most of the background feats could get by with just an addition and maybe a minor edit; however, I'm not going to get by with that on the racial feats.
7. Expect all races to be increased to having two racial feats, because I'm a glutton for punishment.
You see, the documents you all looked at while creating your characters are deeply flawed things. There are serious balance problems (the Sylan and LeShay were distinctly better than the other Elf subraces, the Halfling subraces were all terrible, the Agan race was unplayable, and the background and racial feats had no sense of balance whatsoever). They were also... well, a mess. Detailed information was scarce at best, and they were organized exceptionally badly.
All of that is changing. Starting with my detailed writeup of the Elf race - including brand-new 3.5-compatible stats and new game concepts in their abilities - the Anthros setting is getting the revision it has long needed. Here's a few things that have struck me so far:
1. Dual-typed creatures are a concept that I'm actually amazed Wizards hasn't introduced yet, though a few of the things that they have released (such as the Living Construct subtype) have similiarities with dual-typed creatures. In fact, were the Warforged an Anthros race, they could be written up as Construct/Humanoid (Warforged) and end up very similar in the end to their Eberron stats.
2. Experience debt is something I expect to be using a lot as I go through the races. It's a less extreme balancing factor than level adjustment, since the cost of having it doesn't continually grow - a character with a level adjustment of +1 and one with an experience debt of 1000 have basically paid the same price at level 1, but at level 5 the level-adjusted character has the hit dice of a character with 5000 less experience than he has.
3. Cosmopolitan was - and still is - a really interesting feat. It opens up a lot of concepts, and makes prestige class builds far more versatile. I'm still tempted to give Celeis a new background feat, and make Cosmopolitan universally available... it's just that unique. I can't claim credit for it - it was in the Wheel of Time d20 book - but I will very gladly include it in Anthros. You'll also notice that it is the only background feat that recieved no edits whatsoever to its game effects. It didn't need them; it's a feat that has a load of potential as written.
4. All of the background feats now give access to abilities that are otherwise unattainable. Creating and balancing these abilities was both a difficult and a very rewarding task. I give Nephallim credit for the extra ability of the Seductive feat; I was having a really hard time with that one and he came to the rescue. My personal favorites: Luck of Heroes, Mercantile Background, Stealthy.
5. I still need to write rules for feats with the same name, since many of the background feats have the same name as feats from the Player's Handbook.
6. The racial feats are hard! I want them to be a half-step above the background feats in power, which is forcing many of them to be completely rewritten. Most of the background feats could get by with just an addition and maybe a minor edit; however, I'm not going to get by with that on the racial feats.
7. Expect all races to be increased to having two racial feats, because I'm a glutton for punishment.