Racial Traits

by **Charon** Tue Sep 05, 2017 7:31 pm

We put a long consideration to the matter and we believe that the best way to proceed to the creation era is a point-buy system for the races. As we already said, during the era of creation each god will have a stable income of Divine Power equal to 25 points. At this point you will be able to see what you can do with this amount. We set the default creature to 20 points and we called it humanoid. It can be the "human" from planet earth or you can name it the way you wish and colour it as you deem fashionable... it's a fantasy world after all. An other way is to use our point-buy system to modify the race's abilities, along with it's cost, further. The concept is simple, positive traits give you points and negative traits give you points back. We have no limit into the positive and negative traits may add to your race. The only limitation in this part, is that no race can go below 15 points or above 35 points.

Soon we are about to release templates for more complicated creatures than humanoids.

The link below is for a table with the traits you can dress your creations with. You will realise that the traits are generic in a way. This was intentional so you will give details to the race using your imagination. For example the trait fly obviously gives your race the ability to fly and that is my main concern as far as game mechanics go but it is up to you, on your description of your race, to tell us why and how.

Enjoy the list and I expect your questions.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1S0kJxOu3e--CRLLytCq5lZEVkUVQdlthBOZpaESHBt4/edit#gid=0

by Orabelle Tue Sep 05, 2017 8:39 pm

I love your work! If you wish help with the creation template it can be done via Google Form too.
(Pm me if you need any help)

by Guest Tue Sep 05, 2017 10:15 pm

How about :
Communicate with animals,
Poison-Disease resistance ,
Cursed ,
Water Dependency,
Tremorsense,
Thoughtsense,
Stench ,
Unnatural Aura,
See Aura,
Poison,
Lifesense,
Fast Healing,

by **Charon** Wed Sep 06, 2017 12:18 pm

Gousgounis wrote:How about :
Communicate with animals,
Poison-Disease resistance ,
Cursed ,
Water Dependency,
Tremorsense,
Thoughtsense,
Stench ,
Unnatural Aura,
See Aura,
Poison,
Lifesense,
Fast Healing,

I was expecting someone to take this step! Indeed, what about them? They are pretty names, some of them are impressive as well... for a Role Playing Game like Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder and Dark Sun! In a game where the action is among the creatures that take active use of this abilities. In Primal Chaos we want to focus on the actions, the affairs and the conflicts of the gods that rule over the world of mortals. The traits are a device from our part to put some mechanics in play an from your part to use your imagination in order to create the world of the mortals. As I already mentioned, traits are a little generic so every god could and should find his own way about how these traits work for his race.

Now let's see some examples:
The mostly abused Communicate with Animals. As a Game Master for about 13 years, I scarcely remember my players realise that communicating with animals is not as easy as it seems. No cat in the world could ever help you spot that guy wearing a blue sweater and a red baseball cap. Any way the ability seems magical in nature, so "Magic User" would do the trick in any case concerning abilities that could work accordingly.

Poison-Disease resistance: there are two equal traits, "Elemental Resistance" and "Resiliency" that represent such abilities and you should feel free to specify them.

Cursed: A very good flaw for a character!

Poison: couldn't it be a "Natural Weapon"?

Water Dependency: Isn't there an "Elemental Dependency" trait?

Tremorsense, Lifesense and See Aura: it really makes little difference when the traits are not directly "yours". A character in an RPG will experience these abilities in a different manner but in Primal Chaos we focus on what these things do. Tremorsense can perceive a presence by the vibrations on the ground. Lifesense is a way to perceive the presence of living creatures and See Aura means that you can see beyond the normal spectrum of vision. So, in actuality, we have a "Blindsight", a "Tracking" and a "Heightened sense" trait.

Fast-Healing: this is a d20 system ability to describe a lesser version of the Regenerate ability. However d20 system made these separate abilities because the focus of the game is the "damage" and the creatures "life points". We want to represent the general ability to heal fast and the "Regeneration" trait is exactly that it regenerates body tissue. If you feel that your race cannot regrow a limb you can specify that on the description of your race. If on the other hand you need a different trait, which might be cheaper to buy, because of an effect that does not influence the main theme of the game, it might be because you are number-crunching!

by Chloris Wed Sep 06, 2017 12:31 pm

The positive traits are really nice. It'd like more, but I'm mostly covered by them. I would really like to see more flaws though... just enough to balance with the number of positives.

On the Αnimal-Beasts domain you get to buy "Scent" cheaper. When you say "Scent" , do you mean it as part of Heightened Senses, Tracking, or either?

by **Charon** Wed Sep 06, 2017 12:58 pm

Boris wrote:On the Αnimal-Beasts domain you get to buy "Scent" cheaper. When you say "Scent" , do you mean it as part of Heightened Senses, Tracking, or either?

Corrections were made the trait with discount for the Animal-Beast domain is Tracking.

by **Charon** Wed Sep 06, 2017 1:11 pm

Boris wrote:The positive traits are really nice. It'd like more, but I'm mostly covered by them. I would really like to see more flaws though... just enough to balance with the number of positives.

There are 38 positive traits and 29 negatives. We believe that they are enough to cover most needs and more than enough to inspire you to build unique and distinct races.

If you think of something that cannot be covered by no means with the existing traits you can always post your ideas. There are no promises that you will see it on the list, mainly because we need to work the mechanics on the background.

by Orabelle Thu Sep 07, 2017 1:37 pm

- By choosing 'Physical Ability' , is it generic or we have to explain an extraordinary limb or part of
the body?
Same with the other generic abilities

- Also, sorry not to understand but what is the difference between magical affinity and magic user?
Magical affinity shows potential to magic?

by **Charon** Thu Sep 07, 2017 2:22 pm

Orabelle wrote:- By choosing 'Physical Ability' , is it generic or we have to explain an extraordinary limb or part of
the body?
Same with the other generic abilities

- Also, sorry not to understand but what is the difference between magical affinity and magic user?
Magical affinity shows potential to magic?

Physical Ability Aptitude or Deficit are traits about the physical condition and capabilities. The way you describe the above or below average condition is up to you - If you wish their left arm to be effectively stronger or weaker than the average creature of this size and template, it's valid.

Magical Affinity is a trait that will give your race an advantage to magic. The race will discover magic and it's use easier and with better efficiency. Magic User grants to the race the use of magic from the very beginning.

To us, in terms of game mechanics, most of the traits are generic to a certain degree. Fly is an ability of airborne transportation, the reason they fly is what we expect you to define when you bring a race to flesh.
As long as your description is within what the trait provides we have no objection to your creation!

by Orabelle Thu Sep 07, 2017 2:29 pm

Oh ok! Waiting then for the race con. template then to check how the system works. Ty Smile

by **Charon** Sun Sep 17, 2017 4:41 pm

In order to give more options, we added some more negative traits. Also the negative trait "Unskilled" was removed altogether.

In case you feel some trait should be on the list, I am open to suggestions for the upcoming week (The more races created, the more unfair it will be to release or change how traits work)

by **Charon** Fri Sep 22, 2017 11:57 am

We made a revision to Sunlight Powerlessness in order to make it more attractive. In actuality we recreated it under a different point of view and we added 3 more negative traits that work the same way. These traits are:

Sunlight Powerlessness, Sunlight Dependency, Moonlight Powerlessness and Moonlight Dependency.

These traits award your race 4 points and demand to be connected with a set of positive traits purchased worth 6 to 8 points. These positives function only in presence or absence of sunlight or moonlight, depending on the trait.

The only restrictions will be the habitat of the race and that each purchased positive trait can be linked with only one of the above negatives. You can purchase this traits more than once to have more sets. You can make interesting combinations. Races with different abilities between day and night.

No matter what, I would like to remind all of you that traits are to balance the game and give the appropriate inspiration and flavour. So do not see the negative traits just as a mechanism to reduce the cost or a loophole to add more positives.

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