Here it is - the Alpha release of the Psionic Races for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game.

What is included: 7 psionic races (the Ophiduan from Third Dawn are in here) with full mechanical write-ups.
What is not included: descriptive text / age / weight charts. Assume the age / weight will remain the same as in the XPH.

Can we assume the elan's max age will change?

The max age I have for the elan is "none" Sorry, I guess I should have noted that.

LOL. In this case, none is certainly different than N/A or unlimited, to be sure!

Hello,

First off, thank you for taking on this task so soon. I was wondering if I would have to try to Pathfinder-ize psionics myself (as a purely mental exercise).

Honestly, I'm more of a superhero fan than a fantasy fan, and what has always drawn me to psionics is its closer approximation to superpowers. No components for me, thank you. It's hard to approximate that with the basic fantasy rules because of the 3-feat, +2 effective spell level investment (i.e. Still Spell, Silent Spell, and Eschew Materials for "manifesting" 0-level spells at 5th level--the sorcerer is just "not quite there" for me with its full-round metamagic).

On to the constructive criticism.

1) I'm not sure how to react to the non-+2, +2, -2 racial ability adjustments that most proposed psionic races have. I know this isn't a requirement, but it would be nice to have it be a feature of fully written up PC races. This isn't a deal-breaker for me, as I don't really mind the Maenad racial ability adjustment (similar to half-races).
2) I noticed Xeph was misspelled in its entry.
3) Skills listed under old 3.5 names.
4) I would double-check the creature types in the Pathfinder ranger entry to make sure everything comes out right. I’m sure this will be explicit in the bestiary.
5) Duergar are related to dwarves, right? I’d check the Pathfinder dwarves for any additional abilities that you may want to add to the duergar. This goes for Pathfinder races thematically similar to the other psionic races.
6) Perhaps some “racial trait cost” could be associated with the power points and psi-like abilities. I’d check the Pathfinder gnome for this, as it’s the only current example of a race with a spell-like ability.

This is all I can come up with so far. Hope this helps.

Am I just missing the obvious? I'm looking all over for the alpha release of the psionic races and I can't seem to find it.

It's an attachment in the first post of the thread.

Okay, either I'm losing my mind or there was something wrong with my browser. I swear that zip file wasn't there the first time.

Anyway, here are some comments:

Overall: None of the races have a level adjustment, which I like. I've always felt that this was one of the weakest ideas in 3rd addition. Level adjusted races are usually weaker than that price of a level is worth (hobgoblins) or are still too powerful even with a level adjustment (half-dragons). Maybe when Pathfinders monster book comes out next month, we'll see the end of the LA altogether.

Second favored classes: Are they really necessary? These races are pretty well geared to playing psionic classes. A second favored class seems a big much. Perhaps, instead, they gain an extra power point in every level they take in a psionic class if it is their favored class? This would be instead of giving them a bonus power point at every character level. Why would getting a level in fighter or rogue enhance their psionic ability?

Dromites: Still listed as as having bonuses to Hide and Spot. These should now read Stealth and visually-based Perception checks. Judgment is misspelled under their ability score adjustments. Two minuses to ability scores is a pretty big pill for many players to take, but that may be justified because of the dromite's other benefits.

Duergar: Not seeing many major changes here. One thing I would like to see in Pathfinder psionics is an actual Invisibility power. Having one of the races with a psi-like ability that isn't an actual psionic power was a pretty lame move on WOTC's part.

Half-giants: Probably should express the powerful build trait in terms of the bonus it gives to their CMB and CMD.

Thanks for the heads-up on the skills - that's an error on my part.

Superkid - we didn't want to feel obligated to do 2/2/-2, since the Half-elves, half-orcs, and humans don't follow that paradigm. Some of the races have it - half-giant and Xeph, for example, but we didn't want to feel required to do it.

If, race by race, folks think one race needs a bump up or a bump down, feel free to point it out. For clarification - the dromite prior to this was a +1 LA, so we left the stats pretty much as-is and simply removed the LA.

Caught one thing right away - Giant isn't a type in Pathfinder - it's a subtype of humanoid. So half-giants should be humanoids with the giant subtype now.

I'm also somewhat concerned about the half-giant and powerful build. There's almost no reason not to opt for half-giant if one was playing a melee build such as fighter at this point - bonuses to two physical stats, a minor penalty to AC, and a serious upgrade in damage thanks to powerful build. I do believe that it was a somewhat fair trade for a +1 LA. Perhaps it should be a racial feat instead? At least then, the character would be trading out on a feat versus some other options.

hmm, i understand the reason behind not going with the +2/+2/-2, but the non-humans in PF all have them. the reason the Humans, Half-Elves, and Half Orcs only have +2 to one stat of your choice(which many see as very valueable) and no penatly, is to represent their flexabilty.

The Dromite's Compound Eyes needs to be a +2 to Preception checks and as of the final release of PF there is no more sub class, like Sight or Sound.

I'll go through the rest later, but i wanted to point these things out as both jumped out at me right away.

I'll admit I'm not obsessed over racial abilities panning out, assuming the races as a whole are balanced with the races in the PFRPG. The bonuses are nice and all, but it all depends on how they play out and whether or not they're really necessary.

well, i believe one of the major, if not the major reason for the changes to the ability scores was to play up the racial class roles. an Elf for example has +2 Dex, +2 Int and -2 Con, and one of their favored classes is Wizard. having a high score in both Dex and Int is important for a Wizard, and while before having a decent Con mattered a lot, now that the Wizard is d6 HD, it's not such a big deal. Also, the archtypical Wizard is seen as frail and weak.

While people may disagree with this line of thinking, it again goes back to something i've said a few times: we are trying to make this a PF offical-esque book and i think we need to follow the PF guidelines.

Perhaps that means revamping the psionic races entirely so that they have more defined rolls, societies, etc. Does the Dromite for example, really need the +3 Natural AC or the Energy Resistence? Could the Xeph be like a Psionic Elf: fast, dexterous and agile in a fight? etc, etc.

I think Lordmonkeysama makes an excellent point. At the end of the day, this project has to be Pathfinder as much as it has to be Dreamscarred. To do that, there are certain precedents that Pathfinder has set that need to remain consistent. This may mean that certain 'needed' changes need to be approached in different manners (as A_A and I have run into in other areas), but we have to adjust to that idea.

I haven't had time to look at this file yet, but the PF races do have some clear-cut precedents, and if DSP wants to try to become the official source of PF psionics, we need to follow as close as we can.

Actually, elves don't have wizard as a favored class. They have every class as a favored class. This is something I really don't like about the final rules and favored classes. Favored classes that aren't anything more than an incentive to single class defeat the entire purpose of the concept.

That said, I'm not 100% convinced that the races need a net +2 to their stats, one to a physical and one to a mental. I think it's a precedent to keep in mind, but I don't think it's vital. Especially since we're also trying to rearrange old LA+1 races to be the equivalent of old LA+0 races, something Paizo didn't have to do.

I think one thing to keep in mind is that WotC went a little nuts with LA, and one race's +1LA is not equivalent to another's. Between that and the overall increase in racial abilities in PF, some of the +1 races probably don't need much changes.

Disciple-of-Sakura wrote:

I'm also somewhat concerned about the half-giant and powerful build. There's almost no reason not to opt for half-giant if one was playing a melee build such as fighter at this point - bonuses to two physical stats, a minor penalty to AC, and a serious upgrade in damage thanks to powerful build. I do believe that it was a somewhat fair trade for a +1 LA. Perhaps it should be a racial feat instead? At least then, the character would be trading out on a feat versus some other options.

The problem with powerful build from 3.5 is that it means that you're considered a large creature what it is advantageous to be one, but a medium one what that is advantageous. Unlike, say the hobgoblins unbalanced stats or the water genasi's ability to create water, it's actually a fair trade for the +1 LA.

I think powerful build should be retired. Just give half-giants a bonus to CMB.

But, on the other hand, the idea of your race being just big enough to wield larger weapons without penalty is really nice. I rather like the ability as it stands, but it is definitely worth a +1 LA to meleers. Of course, I don't have a problem with LA, so long as it works more or less correctly.

Powerful Build either needs to be a feat, or the half-giant should probably be pared down in almost all other aspects or suffer a level adjustment.

And let's not get into "there's no LA in Pathfinder" when the main book recommends that certain races are more powerful, and if you allow them the "weaker" races should probably start at a higher level.

Disciple-of-Sakura wrote:

But, on the other hand, the idea of your race being just big enough to wield larger weapons without penalty is really nice. I rather like the ability as it stands, but it is definitely worth a +1 LA to meleers. Of course, I don't have a problem with LA, so long as it works more or less correctly.

But it's toonice. The problem with powerful build is that there's no downside to it. You're medium what that's a plus and large when that's a plus.

So, the options are:

1) Softening it a bit, which I favor.

2) Making it a feat, which every half-giant character will take at first level, but at least they're burning a feat slot for it.

3) Bringing back LA, which I don't like because WOTC never could be consistent or logical about. Comparing the 3.5 elf, blue, and hobgoblin, it makes no sense why two of them are LA+1 and the one in the PHB is not.

As for whether or not there's LA in Pathfinder, that's pretty much up to Paizo. I haven't seen anything definitive about it, so I'm hoping they're either chucking it or at minimum, fixing it so that it makes sense.