Building New Races

((the Dhamphir scions of Old Zahar))
Oh now THAT sounds interesting! Of course, I’d be happy to hear anything more about Old Zahar.
It occurs to me that instead of making a whole Half-Orc class, I can just make a “Tainted by Beastman Blood” proficiency, modeled after the “Elven Bloodline” proficiency, and get what I want RP-wise. Neat!
Now to brainstorm…

Zing!
“Beastmen’s Blood”
Sometime the past, the seed of the hideous Beastmen entered your family line. This corrupted blood has manifested in you, twisting your body but granting you some monstrous benefits. You receive a +1 bonus to reaction rolls with Beastmen, but suffer a -1 penalty with Humans and Demihumans. You also have infravision of 90 feet. Evidence of your tainted ancestry manifests in some physical characteristic (prominent canines, sallow skin, porcine nose, red eyes, excessive body hair, etc.)
Available to: Assassin, Fighter, Shaman, Thief (and probably Barbarian when that class is released).

luftmensch: I’d think twice before making 90’ infravision available for a single proficiency. It’s more powerful than the infravision that “full-blooded” orcs have, for one (60’). If you analogize that to the Elven racial powers for the analogous bloodline proficiency, it should be a partial form of one-third to one-half strength. I’d also expect it to be somewhat disruptive to the Thief and Assassin classes, as the corresponding benefit to them would be a bit out of proportion to other proficiencies.
Remember also that the playable demihumans in core ACKS have no infravision at all, so I’d suggest that having such a power implies a difference that would have farther-reaching effects than a -1 to reactions.

I have also been trying to come up with a proficiency, similar to Elven Bloodline, to allow for half-orcs in my campaign. I’m kind of struggling as to what benefit it ought to provide. I want half-orcs to count as beastmen when part of a military unit consisting entirely of beastmen and/or half-orcs, but that has little or no impact on a PC. I definitely don’t want a proficiency that grants infravision. I was considering a +1 bonus to melee damage, as “mighty” is the half-orc’s traditional schtick, but I think that would be too generous. I like your +1 reaction rolls with beastmen, -1 with everyone else" idea, but is that enough for a proficiency? It seems like it’s kind of a push. Maybe a couple of bonus hit points, to model half orcs being “tough”? Or what about giving them a bonus on the Mortal Wounds table to make them tough guys? Hmm…I kind of like that idea. Has anyone experimented with granting bonuses on the d6 roll on the Mortal Wounds table?
Orc Blood: Due to some unfortunate event, you have at least one orc ancestor within the previous six generations. Your tainted ancestry manifests in some physical characteristic (green skin, prominent cainines, bestial eyes with little or no whites visible, etc.). You suffer a -1 penalty on reaction rolls when dealing with humans and demihumans, but gain a +1 on reaction rolls when dealing with beastmen. You gain 1 additional hit point at first level and a +1 bonus on the d6 roll on the Mortal Wounds table. You count as a beastman when part of a military unit consisting entirely of beastmen and/or other people with this proficiency.
Available to: General.

I’ll admit that giving “Beastmen’s Blood” infravision doesn’t really “pop” for me either. It’s the only thing I could come up with, though, that made me think of “half-human monster that lives in the night.” Originally it was just going to be 60’, but I changed it to 90’ because that’s what goblins have. In retrospect, that may have been a mistake.
I not’t entirely sure that having the equivalent of an Infravision Spell with the Permanency ritual is too game breaking for Thieves and Assassins.
James: I really like the bonus to the Mortal Wounds roll idea. That’s inspired!

Alex -I’m really sorry (and a bit confused) to hear race building guidelines couldn’t be included. Do they not follow some internal math that can be shown like classes?
APM: No, not in the same way. The values in the class building system were reverse engineered from a large set of data (all the various classes). With the races the pool is much smaller. If you look at ACKS’s XP curves, you’ll see that dwarven vaultguards and elven spellswords have XP curves that mirror those of B/X dwarves and elves. From that starting point I reverse-engineered the costs for the elven and dwarven racial values of 0 and 3 respectively. It was then a case of estimating from there.
Because of the lack of data, doing a well-balanced race-building system would be harder than doing a class-building system. Race introduces an enormous number of variables. For instance, how to handle multiple HD creatures? Creatures capable of carrying other PCs as mounts (i.e. centaurs)? Races with special senses? Special movement capabilities?
I’m fairly confident I could develop a few extra races, space/time permitting, but I’m not confident space and time would permit to create a balanced and playable race construction set!

Ah well ok that makes sense. Maybe something for the DM’s guide… :wink:
I’d been thinking about ‘tougher’ races and I think you could do something similar to elves but instead of race points going to mage category they go towards hd. Possibly intetspersing it with some other benefit. I was thinking something like this for a dragonblooded race:
1=1pt in HD
2=1pt in HD & 1pt in mage
3= 2 pt in HD & 1 pt in mage
4 = 2 pt in both
or something. I’ll be tinkering around with it.

Given the setting, I’d suggest centaurs.
Given the heritage of the game, I’d suggest Lupins, Tortles and Rakasta (along with anything from the Creature Crucible line.)
Given the craziness of AD&D 1e, I’d like to see something like Githanki, but more tied to the Material Plane.
But no “drow” please.

‘But no “drow” please.’

  • check out the Dreadsword template for the Elven Spellsword

Thanks luftmensch! As for infravision, I don’t think it will break the game. I think it would be too good to pass up, though, which is usually a sign of a bad feat/proficiency/whatever. As someone who is prone to playing stealthy PCs (on those rare occasions when I’m not DM), infravision is the one ability I will do anything to get. The difference between “you can’t sneak at all in the dungeon because you need to carry a light source” to “go ahead, sneak all you want” is just too big to do otherwise. I think it’s better to leave that kind of power as something to be earned as you advance.
Angelfish: I heven’t thought of the Creature Crucible series for years! I wonder where my copy of Top Ballista ended up? Oh, and if we’re suggesting those, we should throw Orcs of Thar in there as well.

(( As for infravision, I don’t think it will break the game. I think it would be too good to pass up, though, which is usually a sign of a bad feat/proficiency/whatever.))
That… is a good point that I hadn’t considered. Probably because in my old AD&D games 80% of the PCs were elves and 10% of the remainder were dwarves. Come to think of it, I can only think of one PC we had throughout the 90’s without infravision.
Point conceded, sir! The Mortal Wounds bonus has more flavor anyway, and nice connotations of hidden troll-blood.

Sign me up for mystic non-tinkering gnomes. Ideally, illuminated masterminds controlling the world from behind the scenes.

{{Sign me up for mystic non-tinkering gnomes. Ideally, illuminated masterminds controlling the world from behind the scenes.))
Ha! That’s almost exactly how Knomes operate in a comedy-fantasy RPG I worked on called “Qerth.” Everyone thinks they’re lame, but really the run the world behind the scenes.

But seriously, a Gnome Trickster/Illusionist would be pretty sweet. Leave the tinkering to the Dwarves.

I would stand up for Goblins as your go-to “Are they people, are they monster?” race, rather than start interbreeding to get it. Knowing Players, that would just end in experimental sex and demand for rules to play their half-Orc-quarter-elf-quarter-quarter-fishman descendent.
And that’s a crazy place to go.
My second vote would be for Gnomes, giving them the trickster set. I.e. let the Gnome racial scale give extra thief skills.
One of the classes should probably be illusionist, bu I’m looking for them to live up to the “thieving gypsy” negative stereotype.

luftmensch, Undercrypt - are your Gnomes originally from Zurich by any chance?
In terms of which Races to add, is the fact that ACKS has already stated that a bunch of them are strictly cross-breeds from the Old Zaharan Days an issue?

It would also be interesting to see a race of Zaharan sorcerer-priests awaken from their slumber beneath the sands, not quite living and not quite dead, with six score years to wander before their dark bindings fail and they crumble to dust. (Or maybe that’s the Dhamphir that Tywyll mentioned.)
Or the woodwose, primitive hairy proto-humans of the ancient forests, with ties to nature - and darker powers - older than the elves.
You know what would be a really fun but not completely overpowered monster race to play? Doppelgänger.
James: Maaaaaaybe.

Lizardmen as a playable race gives me seductive visions of a 10,000 BC style campaign. That’s my pick.
Quasi.

Other cool possibilities:

  1. A “half-fiend”, such as a Cambion (after all, Merlin was said to have been a Cambion as was Caliban in Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”, and the term is not specifically a D&D one). Appearance could vary greatly, like the older version of the D&D tiefling.
  2. A “half-giant”. Basically, base it on a variety of myths such as the Nephilim, etc. Mythology is replate with tales of heroes of giant size (Ajax, Achilles, Orestes, et al.), the offspring of mortals and giants, etc.
    I could certainly get behind a dhampir (good possibilities), woodwose (nice idea!), or lizardman racial entry also.

We have a confirmed Lizardman racial addition in the Player’s Companion!