Dark Elf (Drow) Half Drow

[orsal]

what i was trying to simulate with the percentile roll is the likelihood that the char being rolled up has noble blood. this is a method that a friend of mine used to use for probabuility on some of the more outlandish charicters i tried to get to play. hed make me roll percentile to determine if my char by the luck ofthe graw somehow was one of the few and proud that could claim some oddity or another.

LEW has deliberately avoided randomness in character creation -- note that we use point-buy -- and I don't think it's warranted to change this policy just to enable what you are proposing. If you want to make it possible but not too common for a character to have a certain feature, institute a trade-off. For example, you could allow a half-drow character to take a supernatural ability in place of his first-level feat -- in effect create these as feats that can only be taken by half-drow characters and only at first level. (I'm not saying that would be balanced, just offering this as an example of how you could set this up.)

 

[spycat]

you could allow a half-drow character to take a supernatural ability in place of his first-level feat -- in effect create these as feats that can only be taken by half-drow characters and only at first level. (I'm not saying that would be balanced, just offering this as an example of how you could set this up.)

thats a great idea think ill do that

 

[nimisgod]

Orsal, El Jefe and Jvdn1 are right. The 15% chance for extra abilities are not just off-base for LEW, but also for the D&D 3.5 ruleset for Player Character races. Nothing in LEW PC generation is random, not the ability score generation, nor even the starting wealth of a PC.

The basic idea is that everybody starts out relatively equal.

Personally, I would tone down the power of the race. I think Jdvn1 has the right of it.

To build upon what these two gentlemen have said, these are my suggestions:

Make a base half-drow race. Then proceed to make an LA+1 half-drow race. The greater half-drow is presumably born and raised by the drow, a rarity given that they're usually NE.

To be honest, this project looks very difficult. Not only do you have to define the place of the half-drow in LEW, but you also have to define the drow (at least, in small part). After all, drow aren't as common as orcs.

And your work is a lot harder since you can't just cut and paste from official sources.

That said, one of the cities in LEW, Rivenblight, has some half-drow in it (about 1% of the population). If you could somehow work with the city's creator: Uriel, then you could probably get somewhere faster. There's a drow culture there so, it should be cinche to write up the half-drow culture and even the mechanics.

Then again, I haven't seen Uriel around lately and I'm loathe to tamper with another person's creation.

 

[spycat]

thanks for the imput im off to see what i can find
oh and by the by i made the changes that have been suggested thus far

 

[spycat]

ok ive made some changes and some additions to my proposal
whadaya think

 

[Rae ArdGaoth]

Some things I'd like to mention:

1) I think El Jefe was right when he said you need to split this proposal up. At least into two, one for the races, one for the deities, possibly 3 or even 4. The half-drow might not have enough history of their own to warrant an entire proposal, that's up to you, but I think the two deities could be embellished a bit more and each have their own proposal.

2) The whole background of the dark elves... I can't say for sure but it sounds like it's ripped verbatim from a book somewhere. First of all, I don't think we can use copyrighted material unless it's Open Game Content. Second, (I think someone mentioned this already) I think that the drow should have a different flavor in ENWorld. They don't have to be radically different, just, perhaps, the same difference as between dark chocolate and milk chocolate, if you catch my meaning. What I'm trying to say is, you can make the drow the epitome of evil, just do it your own way without copying someone else's stuff from another campaign like FR.

3) You proposed a darkness domain, but we already have an approved, LEW darkness domain, which can be found in the sticky thread "Heap of Approved Content" or here at the ENWorld Wikipedia:

Darkness Domain

4) You could probably clean up the first part of your proposal as well, make it a bit easier to read. Look at the SRD, see how the basic races are presented there, and model your proposal on that. Not only will it allow judges to better understand what it is you're actually proposing, it just looks better and shows that you're serious about your proposal, probably warranting more hope of a response. Oh, and run it through a spell checker, too. Just copy it into Word or something.

And that's all I have to say about that.

 

[nimisgod]

Re the Drow:

If the Noble Blood is to be a proposal for a feat, I don't like the idea of having them as Supernatural abilities. It's too powerful for my taste. Spell-like abilities will be fine.

Also, why do the drow develop the ability to sense alignment? And why would being of noble blood provide such powers?

Re: the Half-Drow

I think it is too powerful.

I don't believe that the Half-Elf is the paragon of a balanced race, but I think the Half-Drow you propose is the Half-Elf plus a hell of a lot more.

Here's how I would make a Half-Drow

as Half-elf except

• Darkvision 60'. This replaces the Half-elf's low-light vision ability.
• +2 racial bonus to Saves vs. Mind Affecting Effects. This replaces the Half-elf's bonus to Diplomacy and Gather Info

 

[spycat]

as to the sense alignment that was my attempt to put into game terms the section under nobility that states "For example, most drow nobles develop the ability to detect magic, levitate, or sense the nature of other beings through sheer force of will."

i did make some changes both to the format and to the content especially a pertains to the background info.
i thnk this is the appropriate place to propese the two deities as they are racially specific, apart from the drow i dont think they make much sense.
also thanks for pointing out the "darkness" domain wish ida saw that before i staid up all night thinking it up.

 

[Manzanita]

Darkvision is a powerful ability. Significantly better than low-light vision, in my experience. I would think it might be best to tone down the half drow vs. the half elf, perhaps eliminating the save bonuses.

Drow are interesting and I think this proposal overall, has merit.

 

[spycat]

ok i can see getting rid of the racial bonuses to save vs. spells and spell like abuilities that makes a 1/2 drowalmost too touched by the elf half. but i think the bonuses against enchantments should stay as drow are supposed to be a little tougher then your average elf and i think that should reflect in their mixed counterpart