Crux Design Notes: Races and Such

Races and Traits in Crux
Time for a bit of a design diary rather than just more ranting and rambling about Crux.  I don't do this often enough, but hell, it feels like maybe I should explain a few future plans before I get to them.  I want to include Tieflings, Dhampr and Skinwalkers in Crux, alongside Halflings and Humans.  And I want all of them to be appealing racial choices.  Androids are also in there.  Of these races, so far Humans and Halflings are on the low end of the race point scale.

So I'm going to start modding races.  I'm not going to go wholesale and redesign them.  I'm going to set a nice number as a goal for races.  So far, it seems like 17 to 18 might be the right amount of wiggle room for the various kinds of folk I'll have run around in Crux.

I'm going to use the race builder to alter each race to match the flavor of Crux closer.  This is perhaps the biggest mechanical crunch thing I have to do for Crux.  The setting is intended to support almost all archetypes and variants of most pathfinder classes.  If someone wants to play a particular kind of Oracle, I'll know enough of the basics to explain that.

The Aethamir are the exception to that.  They are a entirely new race.  I haven't even figured out mechanics for the Aether-Blooded.  Its one of those challenge sort of things I guess.

That said, I think raising the power of each race to a parity seems suiting for Crux.  I although I see the power difference in Tiefling and Human in a somewhat academic way, I want to give underlying support to humans to reflect some personal ideas on Humanity as well.

I suspect I might have to go on a 'archetypes are from X' spree at some time.  But for now, I think I'm going to start adding mechanics to each race, giving them traits and favored class bonuses to reflect Crux as a setting.  More to come later, etc.

Well, that's it to this little post: going to work on race mechanics soon.  Not much else to it.  I'm also going to try and write up more fiction to balance out all this RPG writing I've been doing.  I'm interested in revisiting Maralda and Lahm, and their adventure with 8511.  Oh, yes, and I'm going to get to Ith soon enough.