Topic: Customizing races for RMC...

[GoblynByte]

I'm wanting to apply some pretty "classic" abilities and bonuses to the races of RMC but I'm sort of at a loss of where to start.  Can anyone help me with some benchmarks?

For one thing, when applying skills that everyone of that race would be good at, should I add that as automatic ranks in the skill or a fixed bonus to the skill?  I'm having trouble figuring out what the difference would be other than the former would imply automatic training (negating the -25 for no ranks) while the latter would only really become effective if the player placed ranks in that skill.  Any thoughts?

[Dark Mistress]

I would say it depends on why the race has them. If for example you want elves to have stealth cause they are trained to hunt and to pass in the forest with out making a sound while still young. Then I say bonus skill ranks makes the most since.

Or if you think elves are naturally just more gifted at it but not all of them get taught it. Then i would say give them a flat bonus.

Or you could go a combo route, and do both with some skills. To me it really depends on why you are giving the race the skill and how you envision it.

Yes I realize this isn't a great deal of help

[GoblynByte]

No, no, that IS a big help.  I'm really just at a loss for what would be "appropriate" having never seen any examples of RM races.  I thought about using RMSS races, but since it uses the fixed adolecent skill ranks there is a difference in focus there.  I wouldn't want to give my RMC races ALL those ranks from the RMSS races, so which to use?

Anyway, what would be a pretty fair bonus or number of ranks, do you think?  I mean, if elves, for instance, were thought of as "naturally gifted trackers" would a +30 or 5 ranks be over the top?  What would be a suggested limit for bonuses without making them outragously powerful?

I'm thinking some of the features would be easy and pretty standard.  Elves would have night vision and dwarves have dark vision, for instance.

How could I represent a dwarven capacity for carrying heavier loads?  Maybe this would just be defaulted from their heavier weight in comparison to their height(?).

[Dark Mistress]

No it is not over the top, but the key thing to remember is to balance them over all. One of the things I use for my RMC games is the RMFRP talent cost list. This lets you build custom races with some wild abilities if you want while still staying reasonable balanced.

For example in RMFRP Character law a skill bonus of +30 is a 20 point talent.

So I tend to use that chart even in RMC. I give everyone a defualt of 50 points and then they have to buy their race package. Which can cost most of their points for a good race or give points back. Humans are the defualt race with 50 points. I also tend to only charge 80% of the cost of the bonus for a race bonuses. Why? because it is preset for them and techincally humans can buy the same bonuses only spend the point where they want.

I know that doesn't help a lot if your going to run a pure RMC, but my point was just to make them balanced. So if you didn't want to have talents and flaws cost list. i would just assign them a flaw of roughly equal value.

Or a way that fits in RMC is just deduct optional background points. Common men get 6 and I believe elves currently get 3. They have silent mover which adds +20 to the skill(if memory serves) so you could just deduct one of there optional points and just assign it.

It doesn't have to be 100% balanced, just don't go to unbalanced or you will end up with a lot of elves in your group and or people complaining they are to good.

I personally often make custom races to fit each campaign world I make using the RMFRP Character Law book. I am hoping ICE eventually does a Talent Law book or maybe a Races Book that includes a large section like that in it. But RMFRP book works just fine for me.

Hopefully this all makes sense, i just woke up sooo... it currently makes sense to me. But in a couple of hours I might come back and read this and have no clue what the hell I was talking about.

[Justin]

also, take a look at what they can eventually have. By the time you put 20 ranks into something(most likely a top-skilled person in the world) you have a +70 bonus. So a +20 is a little less than a 1/3 of that. Do you want elves to have 1/3 of a master's sneak at lvl 1? Yes/No, adjust accordingly.
If you want to just make it easier for them, maybe do -1/-2 to the cost.

[Warl]

one thing to note, if your going to even try to maintain balance, the you must either give something equivalent to all races OR take away background options for each one you give them, as this is part of what background options represent in RM2/RMC

[GoblynByte]

Thanks for all the advice!  I wonder, does Shadowworld have this sort of thing already done?  I thought maybe I could use it as a base from which I can reverse engineer it.  I think there is a PDF for sale in the store.