[WizardofOwls]

I am interested in creating a new race for my homebrew setting. I want them to be based on spiders. However I have never created a race for 3e or 3.5 e, so I could use some help in this. There is only one unchangable rule: I need them to be LA 0, so that I can use them as a base race.

I've been thinking about racial traits, and here are some ideas I have come up with, but as I said these are only ideas. Nothing is written in stone yet.

Spider Climb as spell (possibly either constant or limited uses per day)
Paralytic poison bite
4 arms (2nd set half strength)
Possible visual bonuses because of multiple eyes (bonuses spotting secret doors like elves or spotting illusions like gnomes)
Web as spell (limited uses per day)

I'd love to hear your thoughts/ideas on this.

[Dthclaw]

Hmm. My suggestions for the abilities you list there:

Dump spider climb. Just give them a climb speed instead. Not really a game-breaker ability (nice to have in some instances, but not nearly as advantageous as, say, a fly speed)

Make their poison a scaling thing (ie, it has an extremely weak effect for 1-4, stronger 5-8, more at 9-12, etc... look at the Half-Fiend/Celestial templates in the MM or SRD and the two flavors of Gith from EPH for an idea on what I mean). Remember that they will probably need a bite attack (for spiderfolk) to get any use of the ability... super-weak natural weapons are generally not worth any LA because they're so easily overshadowed in and of themselves.

Hell, I would just say they have four arms. It could get to be a headache trying to book-keep a half-strength stipulation on the extra set. Just remember to add to the description that they use Multi_____ instead of Two_____ and that they can use the extra equipment.

Why not just give them some form of All-Around Vision? A weakened form of it might work just fine.

Maybe just give them a web-variant? Something that takes them much longer to do, but can be done more often. I personally dislike X/day mechanics for racial abilities, but if you want to just give them web a certain number of times per day maybe use 1/2 level + Con mod for their number of uses.

This race should have probably one major disadvantage or two minor disadvantages to stay in line with other LA zero races. Maybe they can't swim or otherwise 'drown' really easily. Maybe they're vulnerable to fire (or, for a twist, cold). Maybe their ability score mods work out to a net penalty (more negatives than positives). Or something equally deterring to uber-munchkining.

[Elmorwen]

There's a race of spiderfolk called chitines in Forgotten Realms (I think they're in the Underdark book.) You may want to look into them, although I know for a fact that they've got an LA.

[WizardofOwls]

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. In my homebrew world, the world is shattered into sky islands called shards. The only way to get from shard to shard is via air ships called windriggers. My thought was that spiderfolk would make excellent windsailors with their natural climbing ability, and an extra set of hands would help them in working the rigging. I would love to use an official race, but right now I have limited resources as far as sourcebooks, and limited funds for buying them. So unless it's in one of the books I already have, or can be found on the internet, I have to homebrew it.