3rd Party Highlights: Alternate Race Options (Little Red Goblin Games)

Welcome to 3rd-Party Highlights, where we bridge the gap between companies that aren’t just Paizo or Wizards of the Coast. If they can be found as Open Gaming Content, they’re fair game.

Today, we’re swinging back around to races with a look at some of the options created by Little Red Goblin Games.

Race is one of the most important choices a player can make during character creation. Unless you’re my human wizard who drank a potion that turned him into a half-orc, his archer friend who was reincarnated as a half-orc, or… Wow, we had a lot of people transformed into half-orcs. Hmm. Anyway, once you’ve decided on your character’s race, it’s highly improbable that you’re going to change it part way through the campaign.

Over its lifespan, The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game 1st edition introduced a lot of races that you could choose from. In the Advanced Race Guide, they even created a point system so that you could build races yourself.

Using that system as our starting point, let’s total up some of the races written by the team at Little Red. For abilities not already available, we’ll look at what’s similar and go from there.

Even without seeing the racial traits up front, the names of these awesome races invoke a feeling of what they are and how they work. This is true for all the races on that same page.

Of the races above, let’s tackle the two outliers, being angels and faun.

Angels are Good

At 16 RP, angels are an advanced race, similar to aasimar (15 RP) or fetchlings (17 RP). This doesn’t mean they’re overpowered by any means, just that they may have an ability to be aware of during early play. In this case, it’s flight. If, say, you were willing to let somebody play an angel, but you wanted to curb their ability to fly without constantly putting them in dungeons with low ceilings, you could offer to trade flight for vestigial wings, which is a 2-point standard attribute. Maybe the angel, not being native to the material plane, doesn’t quite understand the gravity, or if you’re feeling trope-y, maybe they need to earn their wings. They could select Gliding Wings as a feat, then have this feat as an option down the road.

Wingspan

Your wings have grown in, or you have mastered their use, allowing you to fly without hindrance.

Prerequisites: Gliding Wings, character level 7th, angel, vestigial wings racial trait.

Benefit: You gain a flight speed of 30 feet with average maneuverability.

In addition, angels have a roleplaying requirement that they remain good or their kin exile/kill them. If you were to make that a possibility in your game, it would be a -1 penalty, or -2 if the angels are a real threat and your character is actively neutral or evil.

A Race to Faun over

Fauns as mythological beings are a cool variation on satyrs that haven’t gotten as much traction. Rather than being part goat, they’re part deer, which can make for some really fun interactions. Little Red’s version of faun comes with keen senses, terrain stride, a situational skill bonus to Stealth checks, and a natural attack. They also have to roll twice and take the lower result when saving against fear (like a permanent misfortune hex).

All of the above adds up to making fauns a wonderful race to roleplay, but in case you’re looking to get a little more oomph compared to a half-orc (at 8 RP), you could potentially give them a bond to the land in a game where they might frequent the forest. Or maybe they gain Mobility as a bonus feat without meeting the prerequisites (they would still need to get Dodge to qualify for other feats). Both of these would total out to 5 additional RP, bringing the faun up to 9 total without stealing its flavor.

Noble Paths for Angels and Fauns

First introduced by Aaron Hollingsworth in The Book of Many Things Volume 2: Shattered Worlds, the concept behind noble paths is influence and power as an alternative reward to magic items and gold. To keep the rules easy to follow and utilize, they’re built on a chasis of a magic item that gets stronger the more you invest in it.

To begin pursuing a noble path, one must make a small sacrifice in the form of the Noble Path feat. This feat grants the character a class skill or other small boon defined by their race’s associated convergence and the ability to begin earning renown (represented as the value of the noble path in gold).

Noble Path

Prerequisite: Must have made some personal sacrifice or performed a selfless act of heroism.

Benefit: Choose a noble path related to your faction or race. You gain the 1st level benefit of that path’s convergence and can progress your renown as you gain levels.

Special: Appropriate traits or a proper backstory can be used to meet the prerequisite for this feat.

Once you have the feat, you’re ready to progress down your noble path, which involves either gaining renown (the reward mentioned above) or buying it (money = power and all that). Each tier of a noble path has a level requirement and a value in gold pieces that must be earned or paid to access it. Gamemasters utilizing these can count the cost of a given tier (plus all previous tiers if they had none to start) against the rewards they grant a party.

For angels, their noble path might see it slowly becoming an archangel as they gain renown.

Level Trait Renown Value (in gp)
1st Touch of good 1/day — (Noble Path Feat)
3rd Racial spellcasting 750 gp
6th Heightened ability 1,250 gp
9th Holy lance 1/day 2,000 gp
12th DR 5/evil 2,850 gp
15th Holy lance 2/day, touch of good 2/day 4,000 gp
18th Inherent ability +2 5,875 gp

Touch of Good (Su): Once per day, the angel can use the touch of good domain power as a cleric of their character level. They can use this ability twice per day at noble path level 15.

Racial Spellcasting (Sp): The angel chooses a number of 1st-level cleric spells equal to the higher of their Wisdom or Charisma modifier. They can cast spells from that list a total of 3 times per day, using their character level as their caster level.

Heightened Ability: The angel no longer suffers a penalty to one of the ability scores related to their order.

Holy Lance (Su): Once per day, the angel can use the holy lance domain power as a cleric of their character level. This can use this ability twice per day at noble path level 15.

Damage Reduction: The angel gains DR 5/evil.

Inherent Ability: The angel gets a +2 inherent bonus to one of the two ability scores related to their order.

For fauns, their noble path might put more emphasis on the fey heritage from which they normally abscond.

Level Trait Renown Value (in gp)
1st Fey heritage — (Noble Path Feat)
3rd Lucky 750 gp
6th Heightened Intelligence 1,250 gp
9th Nimble footing, stag form 1/day 2,000 gp
12th DR 5/cold iron 2,850 gp
15th Stag form 2/day, wary reaction 4,000 gp
18th Inherent ability +2 5,875 gp

Fey heritage (Su): The faun’s creature type changes to fey, and they gain low-light vision.

Lucky: The faun gains a +1 luck bonus on all saving throws.

Heightened Intelligence: The faun no longer suffers a penalty to their Intelligence score.

Stag Form (Su): The faun can assume the form of an emperor stag once per day. This functions as the druid’s wild shape feature, and fauns use their character level as their druid level to determine the duration. Regardless of their form, the faun retains the emperor stag’s nimble footing ability. At 15th level, the faun can use this ability twice per day to assume the form of a Large emperor stag, and regardless of their form, the faun retains the emperor stag’s wary reaction ability.

Damage Reduction: The faun gains DR 5/cold iron.

Inherent Ability: The faun gains a +2 inherent bonus to their choice of Dexterity or Charisma.

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About Kevin Glusing

Kevin Glusing is the Lead RPG Designer for Samurai Sheepdog and Owner/Lead Designer for Northwinter Press. He has been designing tabletop RPG content since 2003, and publishing content since 2010. RPG credits include Mystical: Kingdom of Monsters, The Book of Many Things, and several collaborative products with other companies including Rogue Genius Games, Total Party Kill Games, and EN World.

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