Is anyone familiar enough with PF spell changes to be able to say if being non-humanoid is as big an advantage as it was in 3.5? Given the number of psionic races with alternate types, I think being acquainted with the value of it under the PF ruleset would be wise to keep in mind.

(Sorry if this is kinda spammy; I'm just throwing out ideas/suggestions as they come.)

I suspect that most low level powers would still fail to affect them. Charm Person, for example, is still Charm Person, after all.

So, any further thoughts on how to deal with "Naturally Psionic" and "Psionic Nature?"

The idea I'm really liking is:
Naturally Psionic: Your character gains the Wild Talent feat. If your character takes levels in a Psionic class, he may replace the Wild Talent feat with Psionic Talent instead.
Psionic Nature: Whenever your character takes a level of his favored class, and that class is a Psionic class, he may choose to gain one additional power point instead of a hit point or skill point.

I'm tempted to make Psionic Nature work for any favored class, not just psionic ones, but there wouldn't be much point, really, unless you wanted to dip a bit in psionics and just build up a PP reserve, which could work alright, I guess...

I need to sit down with Andreas to go over the changes, but the two you outlined above are likely what we're going to go with for the overarcing rules.

I've been going through the document and updating it based upon feedback and conversion needs (skill consolidation, etc).

One thing I've noticed is the CMB / CMD for most special attacks may not be as good as folks think for Powerful Build - it's not the +4 bonus it was - medium to large is only a +1. That's a significant change from 3.5 and tones down the Powerful Build ability significantly from it's auto-+4 that it got in 3.5. In 3.5, the half-giant got an essential +5 to these opposed checks. In Pathfinder, it's essentially a +2 for CMB, +1 for CMD (since it's STR + DEX and he has a net negative Dex bonus).

I have to agree with Jaid - I'm not sure it needs to be overhauled too much. The physical nature of the ability mods may be what needs to be addressed, changing either the STR or CON bonus to WIS or CHA.

Additionally, to minimize concern about the Powerful Build ability and stacking - we could just make it a flat +1 bonus to CMB / CMD, rather than the size bonus, as that way, even with powers like Expansion, it doesn't scale.

I do like the idea of a WIS boost instead of CON for half-giants, though I could go either way, honestly. WIS would really help the classic half-giant psywar, which is nice, but they're not really going to be that bad off with an increase to CON either...

So, Andreas and I had a brief discussion about all this - in particular, bringing the psionic races more closely in-line with Pathfinder, along with the LA+1 races and abilities, and comparing them to other races.

I think, realistically, if we want to eliminate LA (which we do), and bring the abilities closer to the 2/2/2 design (which we mostly do), then there's no other option but to look at those races that HAD a level adjustment and take out some of their racial abilities and turn them into racial feats. Dromite +3 Nat Armor / Half-Giant Powerful Build / Duergar Immunities, I'm looking at you in particular.

So, the beta release of races (which isn't ready yet) will probably have these more extensive changes for play-testing and feedback. This will also allow backwards compatibility in that those races that get changed, for backwards compatibility, would simply have those feats and a level adjustment.

At this point, however, the following changes were made to all races:

Naturally Psionic: Race-name gain the Wild Talent feat as a bonus feat. If a race-name takes levels in a psionic class, he may replace the Wild Talent feat with Psionic Talent instead.

and

Psionic Aptitude: When a race-name takes a level in a favored class, he can choose to gain an additional power point instead of a hit point or skill point.

Jeremy.Smith wrote:

I've been going through the document and updating it based upon feedback and conversion needs (skill consolidation, etc). One thing I've noticed is the CMB / CMD for most special attacks may not be as good as folks think for Powerful Build - it's not the +4 bonus it was - medium to large is only a +1. That's a significant change from 3.5 and tones down the Powerful Build ability significantly from it's auto-+4 that it got in 3.5. In 3.5, the half-giant got an essential +5 to these opposed checks. In Pathfinder, it's essentially a +2 for CMB, +1 for CMD (since it's STR + DEX and he has a net negative Dex bonus). I have to agree with Jaid - I'm not sure it needs to be overhauled too much. The physical nature of the ability mods may be what needs to be addressed, changing either the STR or CON bonus to WIS or CHA.

You know, I hadn't even noticed that, and I never really ran into issues with Powerful Build in 3.5, so I definitely don't foresee powerful build needing to change with the numbers being smaller. Remember, some of the things that half-giants get an LA over are irrelevant in PF (namely, unbalanced ability scores, which according to WotC is supposed to be a near-automatic LA). In PF, they've also become humanoids, making them more vulnerable to some handy low-level spells. That said, one of the arguments against powerful build was the extra damage from larger weapons, so I'd drop the Str bonus and make it Con & Wis. This way, they get a little bit less free damage. And even with that, they are still missing the biggest advantage of Large size, that being reach (and reach being the real reason Large was an automatic LA in 3.x, if you read through Savage Species).

I think the dromite definitely needs to see a drop down to a +1 NA, but I think they'll be OK after that (the dromite being the one race I'm not bother by the strange ability score numbers, though they may need the boost up after dropping NA).

The duergar immunities probably need to be dropped to just save bonuses (+2, maybe +3). Their different ability scores and light sensitivity are drawbacks, but definitely not big enough ones for immunities with no LA (especially not a poison immunity).

I just wish the thri-kreen were OGC. They're my favorite race from the EPH.

The thing about powerful build is that it allows you to use large weapons...combine that with a two hander, power attack and a few other feats and you have a slightly broken build...

But then again... its NOT the PLAYERS job to balance things. Its the DMs. So it kind of goes both ways.

FYI, here's the racial feat for Powerful Build that I'm currently working on:

Powerful Stature [Racial]
Your physical form is more powerfully built than others of your kind.
Prerequisite: Half-giant
Benefit: You function in many ways as if one size category larger.
You gain a +1 bonus to your Combat Maneuver Bonus and your Combat Maneuver Defense. You are also able to wield weapons designed for a creature one size larger without penalty. However, your space and reach remain unchanged. The benefits of this feat stack with the effects of powers, abilities, and spells that change the subject’s size category.


What you get - +1 to CMD/CMB, weapon larger size.
What you lose - a feat

I'd be interesting in hearing feedback on the specific feat, rather than on the class feature, if anyone is so inclined.

you should also make this a level 1 only feat, as it doesn't make a lot of sense that you could develop this later in your life.

Eradarus wrote:

The thing about powerful build is that it allows you to use large weapons...combine that with a two hander, power attack and a few other feats and you have a slightly broken build... But then again... its NOT the PLAYERS job to balance things. Its the DMs. So it kind of goes both ways.

OK, at the absolute highest, it's an extra 3.5 damage on average, and that's with a greatsword - the difference isn't that big with anything else. At 1st level, yeah, that's nice, although Power Attacking with a 2Her has a pretty good chance of dropping the enemy no matter who's doing it. But once you start getting enchanted weapons and the real damage spells, it's completely irrelevant. Not worth an LA, and certainly not worth a feat.

On top of that, if you take that away, and the half-giant kinda sucks. Stomp isn't an overly useful ability (and only good 1/day w/ a crap manifester level), and while fire acclimated is nice, it certainly doesn't catch them up with anyone else.

There is no reason for Powerful Build to be pulled, especially with the reduction in size bonuses in PF. It's just not that big of a deal. Trust me, I've played in numerous games with it. The numbers just don't work out to matter that much.

Like I said, if you're worried about the damage, drop the Str bonus and make it Con/Wis bonuses. But don't get rid of powerful build, because then the half-giant becomes a whole lot worse. I never said it's not a good ability, it's just not the game-breaker it's being made out to be.

Hrm, you're right, Phil - without Powerful Build, the Half-giant really doesn't have anything aside from the stats - and we'd already started looking into converting one of the physical stats into a mental stat - Str -> Wis is the one that caused the least concern to me. Str / Wis seems to heavily play into the PsyWar, while Con/Wis is only modestly so.

RAW, the half-giant has no skill bonus, a once per day psi-like that is modest at best, +2 against fire-based effects, and low-light vision...

You make a good argument, sir. Which is the whole reason we're doing this project this way in the first place.

hmm, that's something else to consider Jeremy, the races in Pathfinder have skill bonuses, with Human being the only one that doesn't, which is offset by their extra skill point per level.

if the Half-Giant or any other psionic race currently doesn't posses such bonuses, that should be another thing added in to bring them more inline with the PF races.

Also, if you are giving any race several PLAs, which i think was mentioned earlier for the Elan, perhaps following the Gnome's example, you could also give them a +1 manifester level to a single discipline.

Thinking back to my brief impressions of Half-Giants from Dark Sun, I recall their personality switching and being somewhat inclined to go along with the crowd (not sure exactly how much this was written or if I sort of made stuff up). With that, I see the Half-Giant as a highly empathic race, sensitive to the thoughts and feeling of others around them.

I said it once, I'll say it again.

Powerful Build only gives a handful of +1 bonuses and the ability to use large weapons. It is not unbalanced.

And yes, the ability to use large weapons when coupled with some well chosen feats makes for a powerful melee combatant. I sure hope so... we're talking about a half-giant here.

Many people keep bringing up reach. I can live with this being the one exception to the benefits of Powerful Build. (In other words, take 10 ft reach out of Powerful Build and it should be fine.) And this makes more since anyway. Just because they get the numerical benefits of being large doesn't change the fact that they're still actually medium sized creatures(and only take up a five foot square).

As for dromites...

I really like the idea of lowering their natural armor bonus to +1 and making a racial feat that raises it to +3.

Consider my vote cast on that one.

ChrisGunter wrote:

Many people keep bringing up reach. I can live with this being the one exception to the benefits of Powerful Build. (In other words, take 10 ft reach out of Powerful Build and it should be fine.) And this makes more since anyway. Just because they get the numerical benefits of being large doesn't change the fact that they're still actually medium sized creatures(and only take up a five foot square).

I don't know if anyone else brought it up, but I brought up reach specifically because it's the one benefit of being Large that powerful build specifically doesn't grant to begin with, and it's the single biggest benefit of the Large size. So there would be no taking it out. Reach was never part of it.

A few specific observations:

1. Duergar and Xeph: given that these are inherently psionic creatures, wouldn't it be more appropriate for their racial bonuses to protect them against psionic powers and psi-like effects rather than spells and spell-like effects?

2. Duergar: shouldn't the stability bonus be to the character's Combat Maneuver Defense rather than for specific combat maneuvers (per the PFRPG, page 199)?

3. Duergar: given the Pathfinder Campaign Setting's emphasis on duergar primarily worshiping Droskar (see Gods & Magic, page 47, column 2), perhaps the classic dwarf "stone cunning" and bonuses to craft and appraise checks for stone and metal goods might be better left to dwarves; consider changing this to a comparable talent for toil: endurance as a bonus feat (replacing stone cunning) and a +2 bonus to knowledge (engineering) and disable device checks.

4. Elan. Since these "created" creatures are supposed to be slightly alien, is there a way to portray this other than their ability to shrug off harmful effects?

Perhaps dropping their -2 penalty to Charisma scores, and instead imposing 30' radius aura around the Elan in which a harsher -5 penalty to Charisma-based checks is applied against any creature that knows what a human thinks/acts/sounds like? Such a "wrongness-" or "weirdness field" could be suppressed by the Elan form one round with a concentration check (DC = 10 plus double the Elan's character level).

It seems wrong to deny Elan's a good fit with the Wilder class (which relies on Cha) when an "engineered humanoid" seems like it'd naturally be a touch unstable. If anything, I always thought that a well-done Elan becomes a psion, and a botched Elan would become a Wilder ...

5. Duergar and Half-Giant. Why is the Duergar's ML for their Psi-Like Abilities (PLA) equal to their Character Level, while the Half-Giant's ML is equal to half of their CL?

6. Half-Giant. Since the Duergar gets multiple PLAs, can the Half-Giant get distracting shout[/] to accompany [i]shout? The two powers seem to go together.

And two general observations:

7. Keep the Half Giant's powerful build feature as-written. It's not overpowering -- and it makes them highly-desirable, even if you don't plan a melee basher.

8. If you haven't seen it yet, check out the Pathfinder treatment that Kobold Quarterly did on the Maenad (issue 9, page 28). They did a fantastic job (no offense meant). Their combination of rage points (per the PFRPG beta barbarian) and power points was a very clever way to grow the outburst racial feature as the character improves.