Master +0 LA Race List III Discussion Thread

[Von Krieger]

Just a note that the Primordial Giant template proves -4 Str, -2 Con, +4 Int, and +4 Cha. It's down as having -2 DEx instead of the -2 Con.

[Ithamar]

You need to add Shalarin from Monsters of Faerun, pg. 76.  They are a +0 LA Humanoid (Aquatic) race that gains a remarkable +4 STR, +4 DEX and +0 to everything else.  Not a single penalty to any of their ability scores.  They were given +0 LA in the web enhancement for the PGtF.  They also get darkvision 60'.  They only have a swim speed (40'), but getting them a land speed isn't exactly impossible.

[NiteCyper]

*Was looking for a templates handbook. Found Master Race List 3. "Gnome, Techno" "Dragon 320". Scowl. Off to add to scm handbook sub-races.* That makes 22 Gnome sub-races. You have 16. You're missing:

• Arcane (Dragon Magazine issue #291, page 34),
• Chaos (Races of Stone, pages 85-88),
• Fire (Planar Handbook, pages 125-126),
• Half (Races of Ansalon, pages 90-92 and 101-105),
• River (Dragon Magazine issue #291, page 34),
• Svirfneblin, and
• Wild (Races of Ansalon, pages 90-92 and 101-105)

(listed alphabetically for you). I never even thought to list alphabetically. I listed by relevance/grouping.

Gnomes under your sub-races post is missing Svirfneblin (Deep). Could you also give me feedback on the validity of the Sky Gnome sub-race as listed by Wikipedia in 3.5e terms?

As much as I'd like to stick with tradition, I think it's time to change the name.  How about “Master +0 LA Race List III?”

Rule of thumb: Number after name. Instead of 3e D&D, it's D&D 3e. Instead of I Alexander, it's Alexander I. Instead of III Master Race List, it's Master Race List III. Instead of +0 LA, it's LA +0 thus “Master LA +0 Race List III”. I also prefer to put the punctuation outside of the quotation. :þ

P.S. Could someone point me to a thread of templates? Actually, nevermind. I forgot why I was looking for one. I'll probably need one eventually when I remember.

P.P.S. Re: the post below me: Duly noted, Talore.

[Talore]

Nite, this is the LA+0 handbook. Svirfnelbin and such all have level adjustments, and therefore wouldn't be listed in this handbook. Also holy crap do Arcane Gnomes make good wizards...

[Garryl]

Unseelie Fey template says "-2 st" instead of "-2 str".

Would it be possible to get lists of races by what ability scores they boost? Or would that be asking too much?

Edit: Svirfneblin racial class just says "2 con", not "+2 con".

[Concerned Ninja Citizen]

P.S. Could someone point me to a thread of templates? Actually, nevermind. I forgot why I was looking for one. I'll probably need one eventually when I remember.

Master Template List. Not quite comprehensive but close.

[Maat Mons]

I was going to create a resource for people who like to choose races by appearance, but I changed my mind.  If anyone else wants to make something like that, here are the pictures I was going to use. 

[Ananse]

Oriental Adventures Greensnake (and Chameleon) Naga PC race is LA 0 and not on the list.

[Maat Mons]

Going by page 203 of Oriental Adventures, greensnake is +1 LA, and chameleon is +3 LA.  The 3.5 update in Dragon 318 agrees for greensnake but bumps chameleon down to +2 LA.  Is there another source?   

[Ananse]

There is another race. The Oriental Adventures - Rokugan - Campaign Setting on p. 26 describes a "PC" version of the Naga, specifically designed to avoid the LA held by the "monster manual" version given in the Supplement. Several of the Naga subspecies here have no LA.

This PC version was:
a) Not updated by the update which means, per the update's text, it is explicitly 3.5 legal.
b) Again, specifically described to be for player characters, in case players did not want to deal with LA.

The double-description treatment is bizarre, and how two Nagas built on the different systems would interact is anyone's guess, but there it is.

The lack of Naga on your list is problematic because the Naga are the only Large-sized, zero-LA race available in 3.5. That's. . . significant.

Also, they have a base speed of 40 ft., which is nice.

[Thurb@ne]

Might be worth noting that the Rokugan campaign setting book is 3rd party material...if that matters...

[nijineko]

Might be worth noting that the Rokugan campaign setting book is 3rd party material...if that matters...

all that matters is if wotc says it's official or not. everything else is moot.

[Nanshork]

Might be worth noting that the Rokugan campaign setting book is 3rd party material...if that matters...

all that matters is if wotc says it's official or not. everything else is moot.

Technically that's up to Maat since it is his handbook.

[nijineko]

Might be worth noting that the Rokugan campaign setting book is 3rd party material...if that matters...

all that matters is if wotc says it's official or not. everything else is moot.

Technically that's up to Maat since it is his handbook.

if it is a matter of maat deciding what will be in it, sure; but if it is a discussion of official, then wotc's word is the law. so if the handbook purports to be "all official content" that fits the delineating criteria then it must include everything in-criteria that wotc says is official, regardless of who wrote it, and regardless of maat's opinion (or yours, or mine) on what should be considered official.

[muktidata]

This is great but didn't help me - I'm looking for a way to compare races by SLA's. Any advice? I'm looking for LA 0 races with sweet SLA's.

[Arz]

Drow , Lesser Shyft, Lesser Feyri, Whisper Gnome, Desert Kobold, Deepwyrm Half-Drow, and Kalashtar.

[Maat Mons]

I've never actually set down a policy for what sources will be considered for the handbook.  Right now, I'm listing stuff from books published by Wizards of the Coast, books bearing the "official licensed product" seal, Dragon magazine, the Wizards of the coast website, and Athas.org.  All official content might be a good goal. 

I didn't want to list individual spell-like abilities for reasons of space.  Would it be helpful to note that a race has spell-like abilitis by writing "SLAs" in the notes section where appropriate?  Writing "PLAs" for psi-like abilities seems unclear.  Would "ΨLAs" be a good choice? 

[Maat Mons]

I've overhauled how I store the list and create the formatted post. 

I used to keep a spreadsheet that contained both the data and the formatting.  This was actually a big problem after I decided to divide the list into tables of 30 rows each so people wouldn't have to scroll so far to check the column heading.  Whenever I added a new race after that, I had to manually shift things around between the tables to keep each one at 30 rows.  Keeping the alternating colors between rows was also a bit of a hassle.  A minor annoyance was copying the data as text, then using find and replace to remove the tabs it created between columns. 

Now I just have the data in a spreadsheet, and I have a small program to read the data in and generate the formatted post.  It generates the individual tables automatically, and I can even specify whatever table length I want with a variable.  I've gone for 10 rows right now.  I've also got the various colors each as a single variable, so changing the look will be easy too.  I've got a grayscale color scheme now, but I'm open to suggestions from someone with some color sense. 

Now, there are a couple problems.  It only reads in a file in csv format.  Originally, I thought I'd just keep my data in that format, but Open Office doesn't like that.  Every time I open a csv file, it makes me pick which characters to interpret as column separators and text delimiters.  At one point, I picked wrong but didn't notice.  After I modified and saved it, the file was a mess and I had to revert to a slightly earlier version.  So right now I'm saving a copy in csv format each time I want to generate the post.  I see there are some APIs for reading in excel spreadsheets in java.  Is anyone familiar with those? 

Also, the code I wrote apparently can't recognize the letter Ψ.  I assume it's the character encoding.  I'm just using the defaults for file input and output streams.  If I use an existing API to read in a spreadsheet, that will hopefully recognize it.  Still, I'll have to adjust my file output.  Does anyone know anything about character encoding?  Right now I have to use find and replace to change ?LAs to ΨLAs after I generate the post. 

[awaken_D_M_golem]

Rule of thumb: Number after name. Instead of 3e D&D, it's D&D 3e. Instead of I Alexander, it's Alexander I. Instead of III Master Race List, it's Master Race List III. Instead of +0 LA, it's LA +0 thus “Master LA +0 Race List III”.

aDMg Bazillion, then.
 

[nijineko]

Rule of thumb: Number after name. Instead of 3e D&D, it's D&D 3e. Instead of I Alexander, it's Alexander I. Instead of III Master Race List, it's Master Race List III. Instead of +0 LA, it's LA +0 thus “Master LA +0 Race List III”.

aDMg Bazillion, then.
 

magic weapons can be an exception to that... unless you count the "+" as a word. ^^