How Should I Design New AEC Races?

[samwise7]

I got some ideas from AD&D's Unearthed Arcana as well.

[Blood axe]

Give THIS a try and see if you can massage it to what you want/need.

Pretty cool!

[samwise7]

I think the races that I made up might be a little more powerful than the standard AEC races so I'm going to have to either weaken them a bit, or put in some more flaws to balance them out.

[samwise7]

It looks like AD&D 2nd Edition's The Complete Book of Humanoids is going to be the biggest help for statting up my own AEC races. Good stuff in there.

[samwise7]

First draft of the Wolfen and Yeti AEC races.

Yeti
Appearance: 7’0″ tall, 300 lbs, red eyes, white fur, and white skin.
Demeanor: Yetis are always hungry and are known to think with their stomach. They are strong and hairy and love the outdoors.  They fear not the cold, but rather the heat.  Yetis are deathly afraid of fire in all its forms, and shun it whenever possible.  Yeti fur is very flammable. There is nothing more hideous and loud, than hearing the screams of a burning Yeti.  They can be violent at times, but not more so than any other race. They love revenge and savor it when it finally comes. Yetis and Fire Dwarves don’t get along.  If they are in the same party, they will most likely be at opposite ends of the marching order.  The Yeti character will also stay away from any campfires set up by any party members.
Stat Modifiers: +1 Str, -1 Int
Stat Minimum Requirements / Stat Maximums: Str 10/19, Dex 3/17, Con 10/18, Int 3/14, Wis 3/18, Cha 3/16
Available Classes & Level Limits: Cleric 8, Druid 14, Fighter 14, Ranger 10

Special Abilities:
Basic/simple weapons only, though they can be large weapons that they can wield in one hand.
Fists deal 1D6 + Str damage each.
Hide in Nature at 90% (like the Halfling).
Cold Resistance & Fire Susceptibility: Yetis take only 50% of the damage from cold, but they take 150% damage from fire.
Languages: Yeti & Common
Move Silently as a Thief of the same level.
Natural Armor: Yeti characters reduce their AC by 1.
Racial Hatred of Fire Dwarves & Fire Elementals: +1 to hit and damage vs. them.
Size: Large (Small creatures like Gnomes, Goblins, and Halflings, get +1 to hit you and they have +1 AC when you attack them).
Track prey by scent 30% of the time.


Wolfen
Appearance: 5’0″ tall, 140 lbs, yellow-brown eyes, gray-white fur, and white skin.
Demeanor: Wolfen are a wild race that love nature as deeply as the Elves, if not more. They are good friends with the Blood Elves and consider them brothers and sisters. They are cautious in urban areas and prefer the wilderness to the city. They complain constantly about smells that others can’t smell, and hate to be locked in confined spaces. They love the sky overhead and the smell of fresh snow especially when they are hunting. Wolfen tend to have very long names (roughly 5-10 words combined into a name) that describe some scent or time or place. Their names tell a story but they only tell it to very good friends. Most people just call all Wolfen “Wolf” or by their first word in their name. An example of a Wolfen name would be “Karpok Abban Savid Alt Dal Baga Zur Bae” [Across Isolation Adrift White Ice Between Dark Shadow].
Stat Modifiers: +1 Dex / -1 Int
Stat Minimum Requirements / Stat Maximums: Str 5/18, Dex 10/19, Con 6/18, Int 3/14, Wis 3/18, Cha 3/16
Available Classes & Level Limits: Assassin 14, Cleric 8, Druid 8, Fighter 10, Thieves 14, Ranger 12

Special Abilities:
Bite Attack: 1D6 + Str
Illusions & mind-affecting spells don't affect them.
Infravision 60'
Move Silently as the Thief (if not a Thief)
Quicker movement (150% of normal human movement).
Saving throws vs. cold and breath attacks get a +4 bonus.
Size: Medium
Surprised 1 on a 1D6, can surprise others 1-3 on a 1D6
Thief Skill Bonuses: Move Silently +15%, Hide In Shadows +10%, Pick Pockets -5%
Track Prey by Scent: 50% of the time


What do you guys think? Are they too beefy?

[samwise7]

I came up with the 4 races of humans too.

Black Human
Appearance:  6’6″ tall, 240 lbs, brown or purple eyes, black hair, and black skin.
Same as LL AEC Humans

Special Abilities:
Damage Reduction 1: The character takes 1 less damage from everything that hurts him or her.

Stat Bonus: +1 to any Stat (18 max).



Brown Human
Appearance:  5’0″ tall, 150 lbs, green eyes, black hair, and brown skin.
Same as LL AEC Humans

Special Abilities:
Advanced Martial Arts Training: If they are a Monk, treat them as having 1 more level than they actually have aka Monk Level + 1. In addition to this, you can ignore all prerequisites to become a Monk.

Surprised only on a 1 in 6 chance. If they become a Monk they are never surprised. Others are surprised on 1-3 on 1D6.

*All Brown Humans are born mute, but they know the sign language OmDu (Deadly Silence).



Gray Human
Appearance: 6’0″ tall, 180 lbs, gray eyes, silver gray hair, and pale gray skin.
Same as LL AEC Humans

Special Abilities:
Extra Languages: They know 1D6 additional languages.

Natural Riders: They learn to ride at an early age, and it is said they are the best riders in the world. They can fight from horseback without any penalties.



White Human
Appearance: 5’6″ tall, 160 lbs, blue eyes, blond or white hair, and white skin.
Same as LL AEC Humans

Special Abilities:
Frenzy 1/Day: While in the throes of a rage the character gains a +2 bonus to hit and damage. A rage lasts for a number of rounds equal to 1d6 + Constitution modifier; however the character can preemptively end a rage. While in a rage the character is immune to fear effects and Fear spells.

Saving Throws: They get a +4 bonus to Saving Throws vs. Cold.

[Urieal]

I'd play a black human every time.

Damage reduction.
Sign me up!

[samwise7]

Hehe, that might be too powerful then. Maybe 1D2 damage reduction or even just 1 off of the total. I'm really not all that great at this balancing act of racial traits.

[samwise7]

I think DR1 is probably what I'm going to go with then. It really helps to get feedback like this.

[samwise7]

I was getting frustrated with how to design the races so I started putting together a consistent system (or as close to one as I could devise) for trying to roughly balance out the races as much as I possibly could.

I started listing racial abilities and giving them costs of 10, 20, or 30 depending on how powerful I thought that they were. For stat requirements and stat limitations I gave a -5 point penalty for each required additional number above 3 (for requirements) and a -5 point penalty for each reduced number of a stat limitation. For example if a race lists 5/18 for Strength that would be a -10 penalty (4 & 5). A stat limitation of 3/16 would also have a -10 penalty. For those races that had a very low number of optional classes (like the Halfling) I gave a -30 penalty, then -20 for slightly more, and then -10 for races that have 6 or more classes available to them. Also, for every +1/-1 to stats I listed it as a +20 bonus. I think that's everything. I went through and looked at all of the AEC races and applied this process to them and I got a wide variety of point totals (-55 to 50) so I went with trying to make sure that each of my own races for my setting balances out at zero points. Another thing that I did was that for level limits I made sure that the levels averaged out to 10. So if a race had 5 available classes I had 50 points to mess with for what the level limits would be.

So I'm going to go through the races I made and revamp them... again. hehe.