Applications - an alternative?
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I could see Lythari, Triton, and Thorns all probably being ECL 0.
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IMO, we could have plenty of subraces with ECL 0. But, should we not then add ECL +X for our current subraces? As it is, there is NO drawback from playing, say, an aasimar, beyond becoming a lot more powerful cleric or paladin.
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@o-louth I think 4th and 5th edition dnd tried to scale more races to a kind of 'ecl 0' while giving the option of leveling powers of the races with abilities you can take as you level... this was probably 4th edition I'm thinking of mostly... so it was partly flavour, but as you levelled, you would have alternate options added for the abilities you would normally get at higher levels, that you could take instead of say class abilities or something... so for instance I think dragon disciples/bloodline could get tougher skin, resistances, wings and flight, better breath weapons, and some things like this... but they were additional options you could 'opt' to take as you leveled, etc.
i think the way nwn is currently written, this kind of requires rewriting everything, so is probably not super feasible, but the whole idea of 'balancing' everything to 'start' at 'ecl 0' and then 'acquire' bonuses as you level... hmm no there were options for this in 3.5 as well, i remember playing a doppelganger that was ecl-4, and it was designed to gain its full base abilities by 4th level, so I was kind of running on one hit die being squishy while the rest of the party was getting tougher while I was waiting and hoping to finish my ecl's so i could gain more hp's... im not sure hd being gimped at low level is a good idea...
One way to implement things might be having a 'p-class' called 'racial class' which has many abilities, and based on your app, race, etc, you may be able to take levels of this racial class every so often, and choose different kinds of abilities with it. I'm suggesting a generic 'racial class' to save dm work, but the standard, but more difficult way to do it would have every racial class its own class. actually in some ways that would be easier, but like every race would have to then be created again new, whereas if you had 'racial class' as a generic thing, you could maybe set parameter to it, but leave some options to choose for the player as they level... or maybe as part of an app, the player would have to try to suggest/ choose a path/ earn in game... maybe these are levels that could be not lost so easily? but I don't know how some of this stuff works... but you could probably have a pool of special abilities and feats, or ones that already exist, be able to be chosen as part of a racial feats, like damage resistance (that can maybe increase over the time of the game) etc
instead of a racial class, it could be racial feats, as well... design 'feats' that can be taken to represent certain levels of a racial class/ecl and then the character sacrifices a general feat as they level to get certain abilities.
so in a way, a human template could maybe be used for say, any half-human, and they spend their first level human feat on the racial feat beginning progression... maybe the other feat could be too...
feats of 'mastering a bloodline' abilities might be able to be swapped for metamagic of like 'fighter' type feats...
ok i think i've put enough ideas in here.
sorry if they aren't all the best ideas; i'm good at creative thinking, but sometimes its not super fleshed out or whatever, logical, balanced, practical...
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@joekickass said in Applications - an alternative?:
The way apps are currently I only submit an app as a joke. The length of time you have to spend on them borders on silly, and - to be honest - most people's chances are pretty slim. All my experiences (including with former DMs who were making the app) is pretty negative, where we got a group of PCs and then sat around doing nothing for 2 weeks before the concept was dropped.
While asking for help with an app is kind of some players, it is still quite a weird system from the outside and should be much quicker/slicker than it is.
I hope you're not serious about sending in troll apps. That wastes the dm's time, and slows the process down for everyone else who did send serious apps. It literally aggravates the problem.
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Make subraces, standart factions appless and/or EiG by pcs or npcs recomendations only one level above. Example: retainers promoting bannerman, privates promoting deputees.
Apps only for things that are off the curve, like new scripted subraces, nobility concepts, extra powerful/flavorful villains or heroes.