Racial lore feats

[RobbyPants]

Inspired by discussion in my choose your own ability penalty thread:

Okay, so the idea here is to make a feat for each race that accentuates something about the culture or their tactics on some way. Each gives two abilities and four SLAs (granted at odd levels 3 - 9). While it's a boost to casters, I'm hoping they will help non-casters more, at least in the lower levels. I haven't thought up any SLAs beyond 9th level, and I'm not sure if I want to, or if they should be separate feats, or what.


Dwarven Stone Lore

Prerequisite: dwarf, or spent several years immersed in dwarven culture.
Benefit: When tracking, you may treat stone surfaces as soft earth for purposes of calculating the DC.
  You gain a +4 racial bonus to AC and all saving throws against stone traps (such as dead falls or boulders) and all traps set in stone. If a successful save against the trap causes a reduced effect or half damage, you suffer no effect or damage on a successful save.
  As your character level increases, you gain the following spell-like abilities, each usable 1/day. The DC is 10 + 1/2 your character level + your Con mod.

• 3: Meld With Stone
• 5: Stone Tell
• 7: Stone Shape
• 9: Wall of Stone

Elven Wood Lore

Prerequisite: elf, or spent several years immersed in elven culture.
Benefit: Each round of movement, you may ignore a number of squares of difficult terrain equal to your character level.
  If you pass within five feet of a trap or snare in an out-door area, you may roll a Search check to notice it as if actively searching (the DM likely makes this roll in secret).
  As your character level increases, you gain the following spell-like abilities, each usable 1/day. The DC is 10 + 1/2 your character level + your Int/Wis/Cha mod (once this choice is made, it cannot be changed).

• 3: Entangle
• 5: Spike Growth
• 7: Diminish Plants/Plant Growth (while you know both of these, only one may be used each day)
• 9: Wall of Thorns

Gnome Illusion Lore

Prerequisite: gnome, or spent several years immersed in gnomish culture.
Benefit: If you fail a Will save to disbelieve an illusion, you may immediately make a second saving throw as a free action and use the higher of the two rolls. You may do this once per separate effect.
  When you cast an Illusion spell or otherwise create an illusionary effect, you may designate any number of creatures to receive a competence bonus to their Will save to disbelieve the illusion equal to your character level.
  As your character level increases, you gain the following spell-like abilities, each usable 1/day. The DC is 10 + 1/2 your character level + your Int/Wis/Cha mod (once this choice is made, it cannot be changed).

• 3: Mirror Image
• 5: Major Image
• 7: Illusionary Wall
• 9: True Seeing

Halfling Hearth Lore

Prerequisite: halfling, or spent several years immersed in halfing culture.
Benefit: You gain a +2 racial bonus to Diplomacy, Gather Information checks, and Sense Motive.
  Any potion you brew or drink has the Empower Spell metamagic feat applied to it. This does not affect the spell's level of the potion, and you or the caster does not need to have the Empower Spell feat.
  As your character level increases, you gain the following spell-like abilities, each usable 1/day. The DC is 10 + 1/2 your character level + your Int/Wis/Cha mod (once this choice is made, it cannot be changed).

• 3: Calm Emotions
• 5: Create Food and Water
• 7: Tongues
• 9: Heroe's Feast

Drow Arcane Lore

Prerequisite: drow, or spent several years immersed in drow culture.
Benefit: The range of your darkvision increases by 30 feet. If you do not have darkvision, you gain darkvision to a range of 30 feet.
  You are not slowed down, stuck, or otherwise impeded by webs, both mundane or magical. You may climb on webs with a speed equal to your base land speed and you may move through them as though they weren't there.
  As your character level increases, you gain the following spell-like abilities, each usable 1/day. The DC is 10 + 1/2 your character level + your Int/Wis/Cha mod (once this choice is made, it cannot be changed).

• 3: Levitate
• 5: Deep Slumber
• 7: Greater Invisibility
• 9: Passwall

Goblin Stealth Lore

Prerequisite: goblin, bugbear, hobgoblin, or spent several years immersed in goblin, bugbear, or hobgoblin culture.
Benefit: When you become visible after being affected by an invisibility effect for any reason, you have 20% concealment until the beginning of your next turn.
  If you detect an invisible creature or object non-visibly (such as through a Listen check, blind sense, or scent), you may make a Spot check with a +20 competence bonus to see it as a free action. The usual penalties for spotting invisible creatures apply to the roll.
  As your character level increases, you gain the following spell-like abilities, each usable 1/day. The DC is 10 + 1/2 your character level + your Int/Wis/Cha mod (once this choice is made, it cannot be changed).

• 3: Invisibility
• 5: Clairaudience/Clairvoyance
• 7: Greater Invisibility
• 9: Dimension Door

Kobold Trickery Lore

Prerequisite: kobold, or spent several years immersed in kobold culture.
Benefit: If you are carrying a light load and have not been enlarged beyond small size, you do not trigger any pressure plate-activated traps over which you walk.
  When you flank an opponent, you gain a +4 bonus to the attack roll instead of +2.
  As your character level increases, you gain the following spell-like abilities, each usable 1/day. The DC is 10 + 1/2 your character level + your Int/Wis/Cha mod (once this choice is made, it cannot be changed).

• 3: Shatter
• 5: Explosive Runes
• 7: Confusion
• 9: Persistent Image

Orc Survival Lore

Prerequisite: orc, half-orc, or spent several years immersed in orcish culture.
Benefit: You gain scent.
  You are constantly under the effect of Endure Elements as an extraordinary ability.
  You can survive an number of days equal to your Constitution modifier (to a minimum of 1) without food and water before you begin suffering adverse effects. After a period of not eating or drinking, you must consume a day's worth of food and/or water for each day missed.
  As your character level increases, you gain the following spell-like abilities, each usable 1/day. The DC is 10 + 1/2 your character level + your Con mod.

• 3: Protection from Arrows
• 5: Neutralize Poison/Remove Disease (while you know both of these, only one may be used each day)
• 7: Stoneskin
• 9: Death Ward

[Gazzien]

Drow should be "Levitate", not "Levetate", and you have a bullet where there should be a dash in the first paragraph, as well as the fact that it should be odd levels 3-9, not 3-7.

I like the idea, though~ Formatting stuff just stands out to me.

[RobbyPants]

Copy-paste-find-and-replace fail! Thanks. I'll fix those.

[RobbyPants]

Nothing, huh? My biggest two concerns are:

1) Are these too crazy? *

2) Do you have any suggestions for alternate abilities/do any of these look vastly better or worse?

The halfling one is the one I'm not sure is very good. I could try to come up with an entirely different concept for that feat.

* Do note that for power purposes, I'm balancing these against the skill feats and combat feats I created/revised.

[phaedrusxy]

The biggest determinant in how good/bad these are is:

1) What are the other feats in the game like? If this is going onto a core game, then these feats are absolutely "must haves", for almost everyone. If they're going into a F&K Tome game, they're cute but probably a bit underpowered.

2) I understand, but am not sure I like, the fact that the dwarven feat uses Con for DCs, but almost everyone else uses mental ability scores of their choice.

[veekie]

Seems to me that they might be better off as staggered racial traits that unlock with enough HD, sort of like Dragonborn and Raptorans.

[Nunkuruji]

The biggest determinant in how good/bad these are is:

1) What are the other feats in the game like? If this is going onto a core game, then these feats are absolutely "must haves", for almost everyone. If they're going into a F&K Tome game, they're cute but probably a bit underpowered.

2) I understand, but am not sure I like, the fact that the dwarven feat uses Con for DCs, but almost everyone else uses mental ability scores of their choice.

At a glance, some of the SLAs seem analogous to the racial dragonmark feat options.

[Gazzien]

Gnome gives a bonus "equal to your character."
Typo nitpicks, away~!

[RobbyPants]

1) What are the other feats in the game like? If this is going onto a core game, then these feats are absolutely "must haves", for almost everyone. If they're going into a F&K Tome game, they're cute but probably a bit underpowered. ;)of their choice.

I'm balancing these against the skill feats and combat feats I created/revised. The shorter answer is "the feats I made were in many ways inspired by Tome, but aren't as powerful as Tome feats. They are certainly better than core feats."

2) I understand, but am not sure I like, the fact that the dwarven feat uses Con for DCs, but almost everyone else uses mental ability scores of their choice.

Yeah, I thought about that. The odd thing is, between the dwarf and orc feats, the only one that offers a save that isn't harmless is Wall of Stone (for trapping). It probably wouldn't hurt to change it back to something mental.

Seems to me that they might be better off as staggered racial traits that unlock with enough HD, sort of like Dragonborn and Raptorans.

I don't have the books with those races, so I'm not sure exactly what you mean. Are you saying to not have these be feats?

At a glance, some of the SLAs seem analogous to the racial dragonmark feat options.

Is that an Eberon thing? I don't have the book with racial dragonmark feats. How do these compare? Are those feats any good?

Gnome gives a bonus "equal to your character."
Typo nitpicks, away~!

Thanks. Fixed!

[veekie]

Basically.
Raptorans start with basically just feather fall, but upgrade over the course of gaining levels to obtaining first, brief flight, then true flight. Dragonborn get the same with wings or breath. Racial abilities that simply awaken at later levels, keeping the race more significant than a footnote in the ability score spread.

[RobbyPants]

Basically.
Raptorans start with basically just feather fall, but upgrade over the course of gaining levels to obtaining first, brief flight, then true flight. Dragonborn get the same with wings or breath. Racial abilities that simply awaken at later levels, keeping the race more significant than a footnote in the ability score spread.

I was thinking of doing wings almost exactly like that for aasimar, tieflings, and half-dragons (I want to make a LA+0 template, eventually).

It is technically doable. It goes beyond the initial scope of what I was intending for races, but I could do it. If I did, I would strongly consider re-writing them all from scratch and would probably remove a lot of the fiddly little bonuses. The various racial weapon abilities might get re-written to be something like "You gain Martial Weapon Proficiency with three weapons", or something.


That being said, how do you feel about the scaling SLAs from that standpoint? Are they too much, should they be unlocked with a feat, or just built into some of the races if I end up beefing all of them up?

[veekie]

Hmm, they'd probably be best if the SLAs primarily stuck to utility stuff, especially niche tricks, avoiding direct combat relevant effects, or else synergy issues would pop up.