Friday, March 23, 2012

Cat Races for Pathfinder RPG

I've been looking at bringing the character races from the book Mythic Races over to Pathfinder lately. I've got no immediate need for them, but I've like many of the races in this book for a long time.

It was originally written for D&D 3.0, and my first pass on the idea a couple of years ago was that I could just adjust the CL (Character Level) for the different races to put them more on a par with Pathfinder. A more recent look, now that I've got more experience with Pathfinder, shows that this won't do. It still leaves the races, and their prestige classes, underpowered or poorly balanced for Pathfinder.

One nice thing is that a lot of the races that were CL+2/CL+3 before come in at something more like CL+1 or CL+0 now. That's nice because it makes them easier to start in a new campaign alongside the standard races.

But they pretty well all require a rewrite in order to make the ones I want to bring over fit the way I'd like (though going with minimalist conversion is certainly possible.) So I'm looking at stripping each one back to its basic idea, then rebuilding from there in a rewrite, possibly under a new name to avoid stepping on anyone's rights. The prestige classes will need an even bigger overhaul than the races themselves.

Using some of the existing PFRPG stuff that fits can reduce the overall work, too.

Trying Not to Reinvent the Wheel

But, I decided to see what else is already available before I knock myself out writing up new classes inspired by Mythic Races. Starting with the Artathi (a feline race with several specific types), I did a look at some cat races for PFRPG that are already out there. Here's what I found:

  • Agathions, not exactly cat people, but they can be.

  • Maftets, sphinx people.

  • Catfolk, brought into PFRPG thanks to the Bestiary.

  • Bah'it, scientist cats

  • Puuf, or should we say "Puuf in Boots"?

  • Pantorum, another anthropomorphic cat race of classic style.


If there are any out there you know of and like that I've missed (especially if you've played them or had them in a campaign), drop a comment!

Thanks.

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