[Fisban42]

This is something iv been working on for a while off and on. I wanted to recreate the races from the Anime Dragon Ball Z for use in a D&D campaign. I think i have tuned it to a point where i want to share it and get some opinions. Now before i get 30 "It's overpowered" responses i want to clarify that i did that on purpose and the only balancing act i did was trying to keep the races balanced with each other. Anyways any comments or criticisms are greatly appreciated, let me know what you think.

Works restarted (See my post "Saiyan Race")

This post has been edited by Fisban42: 14 August 2007 - 03:24 PM

[Dthclaw]

Well, okay, couple things here.

First, I would suggest that you place your races as a text file attachment to a forum post as opposed to sending someone to a strange site asking you to download a file. You're quite simply not going to get anyone to do that (downloading) on a forum without it being a response to someone's requests.

Secondly, if you know that they are overpowered as character races, that indicates that you have a lot of system rebuilding ahead to account for the major power creep. Since I have not looked at your races (see point #1) I cannot say to what degree, but you're implying a need for a complete system build, which makes the comparison to D&D 3.5 largely moot.

Consider: if every character race had, effectively, the equivalent of a +5 or +10 LA worth of racial abilities out the door with the only balancing factor being that they are balanced against each other, what you effectively have is the ability for player characters (and NPC's from those races) to cream the rest of the setting's creatures with no effort. While this may be entertaining anime (not sure, don't follow anime much), it is most certainly not a fun RPG experience. Unless you completely remove all races and creatures aside from these races... which kinda further screws over any comparison.

I personally have attempted the "they're balanced against each other" approach. And speaking from personal experience, it doesn't work - and with the d20 system, it can't be made to work without point #2, which obliterates it from being 3.5E. I know that's probably not what you were hoping to hear, but look at Savage Species for acid tests. Keep things balanced within the existing system unless you're planning on a total rebuild of d20 - which is an extreme undertaking. If making these things into races is too difficult or painful (ie, ludicrously high LA), turn them into classes (or monster classes). If even that proves too difficult, you should probably re-examine whether the endeavor is worth the time and effort of trying to stay within anything resembling d20 rules.

[Fisban42]

Thanks for taking the time to reply, 1st off this site gave me repeated failures trying to upload the .doc as an attachment so i gave up and hosted it elsewhere :/ sorry for that, I'll try again sometime.

Just wondering how i would go about applying a correct LA onto a personally built race? Is there a correct way to do it, or just trial and error testing it against other creatures to find out?

With just the D&D3.5 players guide and the D&D3.5 monster manual you can make creatures with a LA of extreme proportions without overstepping the base rules. example in a campaign me and friends played just to screw off for a night (power outage) 1 of them created a half red dragon half Stone giant afflicted with Vampiracy. that's a +15 LA right there by the base rules presented in the monster manual, i figure if things like that can possibly exist by the rules of the base books then the races i created could as well, sure it would take some serious work on behalf of the GM to employ them but if you as a GM and the players both enjoy it then thats all that matters, it's just a game after all If nothing else works then i can at least just waste some time some night and allow them to make the super beings and duel lol.

Also i WAS actually planing to create all of my own monsters / spells / feats / classes, this is just a start ^^

This post has been edited by Fisban42: 31 July 2007 - 04:58 AM

[Dthclaw]

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Thanks for taking the time to reply, 1st off this site gave me repeated failures trying to upload the .doc as an attachment so i gave up and hosted it elsewhere :/ sorry for that, I'll try again sometime.

No problem. Your file may be too large to upload; check your document and see if its size is larger than the remaining upload limit you have for your account (1-2 MB total, if memory serves correctly). If it's simply a matter of the document being too big, do what you must to trim it down (which usually means removing any pictures in the case of a text document).

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Just wondering how i would go about applying a correct LA onto a personally built race? Is there a correct way to do it, or just trial and error testing it against other creatures to find out?

Savage Species presented what they refer to as an 'acid test' for judging roughly what a race's LA should be. Basically, what this test entails is taking a creature of the race and a normal creature (typically a Human, but if another existing race has a similar feel to the new race, use that one instead) with the same number of class levels and the resulting set of abilities. If the new race is clearly superior in total power, the new race's LA is too low. From there, start knocking off class levels for the new race (substituting a progressively larger LA) and check the comparison again. Continue this until there is no clear winner among the two - at this point, you've found what the race's LA should be.

If the LA is more than 5 or 6, this typically means that the race is excessively powerful, and should probably have a handful of racial HD in lieu of an even larger LA. How much is a difficult matter to judge, as all racial HD are not made equal, sadly.

If you get to the point where the race's racial HD + LA is more than 20, you need to basically scrap the race as written, because it's just not going to work.

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With just the D&D3.5 players guide and the D&D3.5 monster manual you can make creatures with a LA of extreme proportions without overstepping the base rules. example in a campaign me and friends played just to screw off for a night (power outage) 1 of them created a half red dragon half Stone giant afflicted with Vampiracy. that's a +15 LA right there by the base rules presented in the monster manual, i figure if things like that can possibly exist by the rules of the base books then the races i created could as well, sure it would take some serious work on behalf of the GM to employ them but if you as a GM and the players both enjoy it then thats all that matters, it's just a game after all If nothing else works then i can at least just waste some time some night and allow them to make the super beings and duel lol.

But, unfortunately, you seem to be forgetting one of the most major and crucial points about the LA and ECL system:

Racial HD count towards your total Effective Character Level.

The character above may have had a +15 LA, but there also would have been a number of racial HD (quite a few for stone giant, IIRC), which I am certain pushed this creature well into epic territory with numerous weaknesses that are so easily exploited it isn't even funny (well hello, Mr. Epic Cleric, would you like to destroy me outright with no saving throw as a standard action? What's that Mr. Sun? You'd also like to play?). And, again, remember that LA is there to serve as a balancing measure - yes you can have your monster of doom, but it can and should be balanced against normal creatures for making player characters.

As a one shot screw-around situation, yes, ignoring these stipulations and throwing the rules out the window may be fun. But if you're taking the time to finish your own variant system, you really do need to keep them in mind and work with them. I myself tried to rework the LA/ECL system when I was getting started in DM'ing, and it will invariably lead to an unqualified disaster - there simply is no better solution within the d20 framework.

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Also i WAS actually planing to create all of my own monsters / spells / feats / classes, this is just a start ^^

Then I would advise you to go into it with both eyes open and being fully aware of the complete ramifications of your efforts. d20 is a fickle system to balance, and throwing the baby out with the bathwater in tweaking it is a sure-fire way to create a whole heap of trouble

[Fisban42]

Well thank you for all your help, I'm gonna take a look at savage species and see if i can come up with something suitable for this, hopefully the races won't break a LA of 10 I might just have to rework the races themselves. Based on your past experiences it sounds like i don't even want to attempt to create my own system , it was just a pet project i started messing around with and i don't think i want to self destruct my brain trying to finish it
Note: if the attached file is to big does this site generally give an error message or does it simply load the page, not say anything, and disregard the file?

[Dthclaw]

Well, good luck.

Don't feel like you shouldn't try to build your own system just because I got burned screwing with the fundamental mechanics of d20. I intend to try again and build a parallel system from the ground up, so it's not exactly a statement that you shouldn't try, just be aware of the magnitude of what you're getting into.

As for dealing with files that are too big, I don't think it gives an error message trying to upload, usually it just looks like it did something but the space under 'File Attachments' will still be blank. I could be wrong, though, since I've not allowed it to become an issue in a long time. The text directly under the bolded File Attachments tells you how much Global Space you have left - this is the remaining upload capability you have with the site. If the file you're trying to load has a disk space size larger than that, you won't be able to attach the document.

[super sorcerer]

Acualy I also had expirience with balancing races with each other. If the opponents of the party are also balanced the same way (or otherwise thier CR is lowwered acordingly) it is still a fun game. Anyway if you think for a second about CR instead of ECL you can see that a half dragon dire weretiger storm giant is CR 20 although it is hard for me to think of a level 20 character that can match this creature effectively, remember that even if there could be monsterous creatures with epic ECL thier CR might still be much lower.
If the races are extremly powerfull then simply reduce all CR's of monsters by a curtain amount, just like you do with gestalt character which are more powerfull than most characters so there are rules how to reduce the CR of monsters (see unearthed arcana for information about gestalt characters or in 3.5SRD under variant class rules). If everyone are stronger by the same streangth (all character races and thier opponents) then the game is still ballanced.

[Dthclaw]

At first glance, yes, you would be correct.

However, you still run into the problem where many of the inherent flaws of the d20 system are greatly magnified in such a situation. What was once a minor abuse of the rules becomes a gaping hole. Besides, we're not talking about a gestalt situation here - we're talking about a character race, something that the system for gestalt rules do not come close to ever touching. The rules for reducing creature CR in a gestalt system is based on the fact that characters essentially level up approximately twice as much and have few - if any - weaknesses, not on the fact that a character has great innate powers stemming from their character race. This is a very important and very subtle distinction.

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Anyway if you think for a second about CR instead of ECL you can see that a half dragon dire weretiger storm giant is CR 20 although it is hard for me to think of a level 20 character that can match this creature effectively, remember that even if there could be monsterous creatures with epic ECL thier CR might still be much lower.

That's hardly relevant to the issue at hand, and you are once again comparing apples and oranges - please see any of the dozens of threads and hundreds (if not thousands) of responses concerning CR and ECL and why they are not identical or even remotely used in the same manner.

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although it is hard for me to think of a level 20 character that can match this creature effectively

Any party of 20th level characters would most certainly wipe the floors with the creature you describe. The possible methods of doing so are far too varied to list here, but suffice to say that even using strictly the PHB and DMG this being would be of little challenge to a sufficiently prepared group.

[Dthclaw]

I just went through the Classes&Races thread index and noticed this...

Fisban, for future reference, please remember that this is a forum. It is neither necessary nor polite to repeatedly post the same topic. It may take some time for someone to respond to your thread - minutes, hours, maybe even days. Repeating a topic multiple times in a short time frame does not garner any additional respones, and only serves to waste server space. I've gone ahead and deleted the redundant topics, but please keep this in mind. Just letting you know

[Fisban42]

Dthclaw, on Aug 1 2007, 02:32 PM, said:

I just went through the Classes&Races thread index and noticed this...

Fisban, for future reference, please remember that this is a forum. It is neither necessary nor polite to repeatedly post the same topic. It may take some time for someone to respond to your thread - minutes, hours, maybe even days. Repeating a topic multiple times in a short time frame does not garner any additional respones, and only serves to waste server space. I've gone ahead and deleted the redundant topics, but please keep this in mind. Just letting you know

Ummm... i was unaware i had done so... >.> it was a mistake on my behalf if i did, like i said i had more than a few problems attempting to post on this site :/ errors and dis-allowance of postings. If you have the power then please be my guest in removing anything i had previously posted, it is a closed topic for me i have a lot of work to do before i post anything else on here ... sorry...

[Dthclaw]

Like I said, it's not a problem. Just letting you know for the future