Backstory and general concepts

BASICS:

I am envisioning a far out fantasy\scifi custom world. It draws inspiration from many sources: Ancient Greek Mythology, Matt's Throne settings, GW2, Robert Zelazny, Flash Gordon, American Westerns, and many more.

We will use PF for ease of rules.

I expect that each character will also have a mount or companion, but that will be a separate mechanic from your actual class. It might work out to be sort of like the old 3.0 gestalt rules, in that you will choose a primary class for your character (all are open) and then everyone gets a bonus animal companion\mount per the cavalier\druid rules that scales with your level regardless of class.

In my mind these are to be used for exotic mounts, but that isn't a lock yet. Because of the way druid\cavalier mounts scale, I am looking at 7th level, since that is the point where all companion\mounts grow 1 size category, which allows for anything to be ridden as either a large or huge mount. I don't have the mechanics totally figured out yet, but there is time and I am open to feedback.

RACES:

races available would probably be something like:

1 undead race
1 construct race
1-2 beastial races (probably 1 large sized, 1 medium)
1-2 Tiny\small races
1 plant race

maybe some Outsider\Aberration races - this is a catch-all for other weird races like Vishkanya, Yuan-Ti, Thri-keen, etc

I think that would be lots of fun and really gets away from the same old fantasy, plenty of choices and NO elves\dwarves\gnomes\humans!

I will be using the Adv Race Guide and the Race builder rules for each race. The racial points (RPs) will have to be higher than normal (Core races are 8-11 RPs) to allow for Undead, Contructs, etc. All races will be balanced and use equal RPs. Some races may have free RPs to customize. For example, Plant costs less than Undead, so you may have free RPs to customize your plant-person into more of a Fungoid or more of a Shambler or more of a XYZ.

BACKSTORY OF THE WORLD (work in progress)

There will an ancient greek type flavor to the gods - they walk amongst the races and directly interact with them.  They are also NOT immortal.

The bestial races are ancient and have a long backstory with the other races as well.  The bestial race have already slain most their own gods long ago and make heavy use of  guns and cannons and machines of war.  (yes they can still be paladins and clerics, but socially they are sneered at as primitive-minded)

The bestial races committed genocide and purged their hated enemy, the humans, to reclaim their ancestral homelands.  The humans, realizing that they had lost and were on the brink of extinction, forsook their gods and sold their souls to the god of the dead, so they could extract vengeance on the bestial races.  Becoming Undead didn't quite work out as they planned, needless to say.  Humans are not inherently evil.  Most are really unhappy with being undead and in general they are seeking a means of salvation and a return to the ranks of the living.  Their gods aren't helping much, since they were abandoned and now have little power, enough for a few paladins and clerics though.

The Plant race are newcomers to the world.  They have literally just spawned within the last 50 years or so.  Many of the "First Born" (original generation) are still around and are like "paragons" of their race.  The Goddess Gaia herself is said to be leading them.

At least 1 of the smaller races have come up from the underground, chased above ground is more appropriate, I suppose.  They have a highly advanced form of crystal-mancy magic.  Culturally they are akin to something like Mayans - stargazers, mathematicians, pyramid builders, etc.  They have been above ground now for a few hundred years, enough to build new cities and adapt.  They use crystals and magic as a form of arcane technology.  They power their creations with crystals charged with magic.  They have strange devices (something Alan would create) and some forms of energy weapons and crystal powered droids.  

The Contstructs (like Warforged) were originally built by the humans to fight the bestials, but became sentient on their own and revolted when the humans sold their souls.  This observation caused great self-reflection by the Constructs.  They became highly spiritual beings and have found\created their own deities.

I am not sure about the other Tiny\small race or the Outsider\aberration race, but they may just be visitors from other planes, kind of a catch-all race.

please don't post here, so this thread can stay clean with just world\rules info

posts moved to "discussion" thread

Mounts will likely use a variation of the Race Builder Rules and RPs as well.  So size can be purchased as an upgrade for your mount, just as it can for your PC.  A mount that started as large, could upgrade to Huge, just as a medium PC can be upgraded to large via RPs.

Have a look here to get an idea of how RPs work.  

http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/advancedRaceGuide/raceBuilder.html

core mount info

http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/classes/druid.html#animal-companions-184

more AC options from the bestiary

http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/monsters/animalCompanions.html#animal-companions

Josh had a good question regarding "Weapon Familiarity"


-----Original Message-----
From: Joshua Whitney <jdwhitney10@gmail.com>
To: Chris Carbone <surebritestmbt@aol.com>
Sent: Sat, Feb 21, 2015 6:22 pm
Subject: Re: gaming questions

can you clarify how you would rule with this power?

Weapon Familiarity (1 RP): Prerequisites: None; Benefit: Choose up to two weapons, or one weapon and a racial weapon group. When choosing a racial weapon group, you must choose a group that includes the same name as one of your subtypes. Members of this race are proficient with those weapons. For the purposes of weapon familiarity, all bows are considered one weapon. Special: This trait can be taken up to two times. The second time it is taken, the race becomes proficient with another two weapons or one weapon and a racial weapon group.


GM says I am not going to create racial weapon groups for all the races.  you can take that power and just choose 2 weapons, I would say only 1 of them could be exotic, the other should be martial.  obviously dwarves and elves took this RP a second time, LOL

so you could call it a Nayasan curved blade, instead of elven curved blade. or Tauran waraxe instead of dwarven waraxe. they would (like everything else) just be re-skinned versions of existing weapons

seems fair for just 1 RP, that's > 1 feat