Hello all
Those around these boards a few years ago might remember my (epic, revolutionary, insightful, hyperbolic) campaign, Scions of Nathas. It was heavily non-canon and set in a much more high magic setting than Mythic Europe.
That game wrapped up at least a year ago. You can read the wiki here which is full of useful stuff for Ars players such as spells, magical items, NPCs, etc.
http://scionsofnathas.pbworks.com/w/page/15312850/FrontPage
Anyway, I've decided to write a sequel to that chronicle. And much like I did back then I'm come to these boards, cap in hand for advice and sage counsel.
One big difference I'm making this time round is that rather than playing normal boring humans, I'm giving the players a choice of four of the native races. These are Free Dwarves, Plains Elves, Wood Elves and Minotaurs. Plenty of fluff on them which I won't bore you all with (yet).
What I'm doing is assigning a certain number of advantages and disadvantages to each race to give them a very strong flavour and make them play very differently. I'm also trying to balance these advantages against each other as virtues with the aim that if one race turns out to be mechanically superior to another overall, that difference can be offset by making the more powerful race cost a virtue or two.
So far I've got this
Dwarves
+3 soak (can stack with Tough)
+1 stamina
+1 strength for the purposes of encumbrance only
Excellent low light vision
Aging rolls start at 50 and get a -1 modifier
+1 on any craft rolls for metal OR stone working (not both)
run at 2/3/ human speed
Agrophobia - social rolls are at -1 in areas with lots of open sky such as oceans or plains, merely being outside isn't sufficient, it has to be REALLY open.
Plains Elf
good low light vision
+2 perception, +2 dexterity, +2 quickness
+1 Ride, +1 animal handling - treat like puissant (with which it would stack) in that its applied for use, not experience
Claustrophobia - social rolls are at -1 in areas with tightly enclosed space such as in stone buildings or underground
Aging rolls start at 50 and get a -2 modifier and the unaging virtue
Wood Elf
good low light vision
+2 perception, +2 dexterity, +2 quickness
+1 Archery, +1 survival - treat like puissant (with which it would stack) in that its applied for use, not experience
Secretive- social rolls are at -1 with people they aren't familiar with
Aging rolls start at 50 and get a -2 modifier and the unaging virtue
Minotaurs
Strength +3, Stamina +2, Dexterity -1
Size +2
Natural weapons (Horns)
Animal ken virtue with associated skill at 1 for free
+1 on crafting rolls for wood working
Now, I've done a back of the fag packet calculation and they all come out about the same if you wanted to buy these advantages as virtues (broadly). I think the Dwarves might be a point or two lower than the others.
I've got some choices here. I can either bump the dwarves up by giving them some funky racial bonuses, or I can use the virtue system to grant Dwarven players 1 or 2 points of free virtues to make up for the fact they are playing a less powerful race. I could nerf the others down to the Dwarven level but I really like the Elves atm and the minotaurs really need the massive stats.
So queries
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I've pegged the Dwarves at costing 4 virtue points and the Elves and Minotaurs at 6. This isn't exact, theres a fair bit of "well I guess those three things work out at a virtue point or so".
Does this seem about right? -
if so, any ideas what I could do with the dwarves to bring them up to the 6 virtue equivalent level while keeping their flavour
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Does this system of using virtues to balance them seem to work? These will be free virtues so they will be a fair bit more potent than a starting ars character.
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I also have ideas for a mystery cult based class system. Wanna hear about it?