On Fri, 14 Feb 2003, Green Knight wrote:
> Anyone ever consider assigning ALL humaniods a base hit dice, even if
> they have levels?
Yes, often and for quite a long time. I think the partial way it is done
now is a little weird. I also think that XP should be handled somewhat
differently in this case – I think a given number of XP should represent
the same amount of learning regardless of species. That is to say, a
human (base HD 0! should be 1) and a giant (base HD 10) who each gain
10,000 XP should be a Human 0(1)/Class 5 and Giant 10/Class 5, rather than
Human 0(1)/Class 5(4) and Giant 10/Class 1 (the way a +10 ECL would work).
This makes the problem of balancing characters of different races within a
single party worse, but it does make more absolute sense and makes it
easier to use a single table of population XP levels to describe
multi-species societies (such as, effectively, the goblins).
> Might also change humanoid base saves to poor, poor, poor, and they
> only get the hit points, but no BAB or save bonuses.
No, I think they should get it all – what a “mindwiped” creature of that
sort would have, just inherently from biology, without any training at all.
> If kept as one good, it might go along way to fixing the “cultural”
> save bonus that seems very much in fashion with BRCS.
I`d be sort of inclined to keep both, actually. All humans, whether
Anuirean, Vos, or whatever should have the same save bonuses in this
system because they are all the same species. Exactly which one is a bit
unclear, however; that is, dwarves should have good Fortitude saves and
elves should have good Reflex saves, but what should humans get?
> Another question is wheter or not humaniods should have HD at all.
> Perhaps the average orog is best depicted as a Warrior 3?
I think both is the way to go. Absent any training, an automaton
constructed to the exact physical specifications of a particular race will
have a certain set of characteristics – it is these which should go in
the race “base class” column. Anything which is learned (“software”, if
you will, as opposed to inherent racial “hardware”) then goes in the
character class column.
> It is also possible to match both systems.
>
> Human veteran soldier: Humanoid 1/Warrior 2 (BAB +2)
> Gnoll Elite: Humanoid 2/Warrior 3 (BAB +4)
> Orog Champion: Humanoid 3/Warrior 4 (BAB +6)
> Sidhe Knight: Fey 1/Sorcerer 1/Fighter 4 (BAB +4)
One obvious extension to this is to represent the young of a given race;
that is, an orog child would be a Humanoid 1, and an orog teenager a
Humanoid 2. This could also incorporate the idea of individuals growing
more powerful in their racial “class” over time; for example, one could
treat each year of life as some number of XP (say 10 for the Sidhelien
and 100 for the orogs) towards the racial class, and only give certain
abilities (like trackless step) at higher racial class levels.
Ryan Caveney
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