I feel like you could use some input from other people so you can know I'm not being a crazy person. I'll see if I can grab a person or two.
Firstly, more input is always welcome. Secondly, we both you are, indeed, a crazy person
With the feats, I meant things like the Fox racial ability of "Spell Focus: Any illusion a Fox casts has a +2 to the DC to resist or overcome." Why not just say that the Fox gains Spell Focus: Illusion as a bonus feat?
Ah! Because Spell Focus (Illusion) is only +1 and I wanted them to be stackable. Burning Trickster, the PrC Fox Sorcerers should be super good at, also has the actual feat as a prereq, forcing them to have a +3 total. It seems I forgot to change the placeholder name. Exactly the kind of reason I appreciate having more eyes again, especially from start...
Feext and flavored lol
Boar Fighter 2 - this is definitely a case of "most melee boars will be fighters" rather than "most fighters will be boars". Strength bonus is one of the main early features of the Barbarian, why be a barbarian when you can get the strength bonus and all the fighter stuff at the same time? (I know that you overhauled both classes but I'm not motivated enough to go look at classes when we're still dealing with races )
Good, but when/if? you get around to classes, I'd definitely like to know if you still feel that choice is so definite.
Boar Ardent - I barely know anything about the ardent so I can't comment on the balance of this, I was just curious.
I don't know them super well either, so it might be really off
by the time the fox gains those class skills he'll either never put points into them or will have the make the hard decision to stop focusing on other skills so they can dump extra points into the new skills to max out ranks so they're not worthless.
Hm, the goal of turning them into class skills was to provide an option that they wouldn't be worthless, with only the spell's level as a bonus used untrained. Would maybe switching it to caster level and just dropping the class skill thing do it, perhaps? Kind of realizing now that even an 8 point range in the bonus from casting 1st vs 9th level spells isn't super impactful compared to skills invested if you chose to by the time you can cast the 9th level spells.
On Ferret Psionic Artificer, the Ectopic Form feat means that you're using the Complete Psionic nerf. I say bleh. That's not a balance nitpick, just bleh.
Though honestly didn't realize the feats necessitated the nerf lol
Crane: It's not the choice between the devotion feats. Let me put it this way, we just discussed Raven. Ravens get: minor skill bonuses, Knowledge bonuses, minor spell like abilities, and crafting bonuses. Cranes get: moderate skill bonuses, more skill bonuses, treat evil=chaos for spells, bonus feats, and a second save against mind affecting spells. Cranes get more useful racial features than any other race. Cranes need to be toned down.
Kind of surprised to hear that, honestly. AiGO and Lawful Defender were added specifically to boost up the Crane because others felt it was so weak with the specific combination of skills and abilities (since other than Zeal and Spot, they are all non-combat abilities), and without much comment on it never thought those two boosted it that far up.
Would knocking off one of those two, between AiGO and Lawful Defender, bring it in line? Or do you really think the main problem with them is the stat boosts? I wouldn't be upset about taking Cha down to +2. Or maybe dropping the dex so both boosts are mental?
When I review things I don't write about the stuff that I don't have an issue with.
Same here, just wanted to verify with how much there all is
Off the top of my head, why would I want to be a Fox Favored Soul when I could be a Crane? The stats are better, the racial abilities are way better. Tiger Paladin vs Crane? Crane.
Really? Even with the sub levels you'd take Crane over Fox for Favored Soul?
I know I'm harping on the crane, it's just the biggest offender to me.
Its also the only (non LA) one that clocks in at +6 total, with three +4 totals, Raven, Coyote, and Tiger. Two -2 totals are Boar and Ferret.
More than anything, this is making me reconsider having those two negatives (and go ahead and knock Crane down to +4 as well, though I'm still wondering about whether to drop Cha or Dex)
Hey, I'd forgotten about this.
Pretty sure everyone assumed I had too
This is the up-to-date link, right?
- Wolf are outliers with their +1 LA, although if I remember correctly they were the special snowflake ones.
Both correct
- Coyote is another oddity as the only non-wolf race to not have any stat penalties.
- Python seems strange to have favored class monk with its Wisdom penalty.
- Not a problem, just an oddity, that only one core class is missing among favored classes, the cleric, and only one non-core class shows up, the hexblade.
All deliberately odd, though hopefully the first two are also not problematic? But I think the choice for Python predates my changes to Monk even though the sub level abilities do not. Definitely something to adjust if Tiger Monk still beats out Python Monk in the reach AoO/grappler role its supposed to support, especially if going for Hybrid Master (which is why Hybrid Form neutralizes the Wis penalty
)
Looks like the stat table doesn't actually match up to the actual stat adjustments the descriptions give. Boar has +4 Con, -4 Wis, -2 Cha, not +4 Con, -2 Int/Wis/Cha. Haven't gone through them all yet.
How did I miss that... hmmm... I think I'll just go ahead and make it -2 Wis/-2 Cha. Which leaves Ferret as only -2 race, so let's get that fixed... Removing their Con penalty looks good.
Okay, with animal and hybrid forms, there are tons of stat adjustments flying around. Any chance you could provide a table summarizing all of it?
That's a good idea. I should do that. Probably won't be for a minute, but I definitely should do that. That is a great idea.
A quick peek at classes says you're using modified versions of every class. At this point you've gotten rid of pretty much every standard I'm familiar with that I could quickly compare things against. In order to evaluate the balance of anything in this context, I'd have to go through everything to get a sense of the actual context as a whole.
Yes, it has steadily grown massively huge.
In short, it's more work than I'm willing to put in. Sorry.
I completely understand
Honestly, I am legitimately grateful for any pair of eyes even for a moment and appreciate the post; little details like the discrepancy on the Boar stat adjustments get noticed that way.
OH! Wait! I just remembered why I have so many feat mimic abilities instead of granting them as bonus feats. I was being paranoid about Dark Chaos feat shuffling away racial traits. The concern does seem rather silly now though.