Talk:Cattine (3.5e Race)

There's a reason why most LA 0 classes limit to +2/-2

I can tell you now that you're gonna run into problems with your +6 Dex, -2 Str, -4 Con. Also, I added your author box.

May I suggest, if you really want more than a +2, +4 Dex, -4 Str, -2 Con? -- Eiji-kun 02:13, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Picture

Is this about what you were going for? --Foxwarrior 02:36, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Updates - 08/16/2012

I have made some updates to some of the mechanics will be looking into how I might be able to adjust some of the paragraphs to read better.

For thier physical appearance, the character Merle from Escaflowne TV was the inspiration. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Krahazik (talk • contribs) at

Alright, let's take a look and discuss some things. See if we can make some progress here. For starters, I want this to be clear: Not liking an article doesn't mean we have anything against the author, it just means that the article isn't up to the quality standards we aim to uphold. Getting feedback is awesome and it will only (hopefully) make you a better author and game designer. That said, on with the show!

You picked subject matter that's been done before... a lot. This is gonna make you're job as an author a lot more difficult since anyone reading it has likely read at least one other catfolk race before. Sadly for me (because I like variety), I've probably read well over a dozen. They're that common, it's nuts. Anyways, this also gives you an opportunity to really do some awesome things. Research is key here. Find out what other catfolk races do and do something different. When designing a race, it's really all about filling a niche and filling it well. The less your race messes with the status quo of the world you toss it into, the easier, but at the same time, a race that does include world-altering flavor adds a new touch to the campaign. Just something to consider. About filling that niche, work on a concept that defines what the race contributes to the world at hand and keep in mind that no race is a "single-class" race, that is, every well-designed race (typically) has enough diversity to maintain a variety of lifestyles and roles to function properly. Let's look at the flavor.

Argh, that first sentence! Spelling error! furies Also, our subject is missing!

"A race of humanoid cats or furies who are more cat than human."

Your first sentence, and by extension, your first paragraph, set the tone for the rest of the article and what the reader is to expect. Now, writing isn't easy and I'm certainly not the best at it, but here are a few tips on the subject. Punctuation is your friend. Avoid using "being verbs" (is, was, are, being) when possible because they're boring. Sometimes you have to use them, and this is okay, especially when you're telling the reader what something is. Look, I just did. The problem with "being verbs" is that they aren't exciting, but they can be used for effect. Here's a revised first sentence:

The rarely-seen cattine are a race of small-sized anthropomorphic cats that worship the spirits of nature.

Really, the goal there was to get in enough information to inform the reader about what's coming up in the rest of the article. If this ends up being too much of a problem for your authoring skills, start by reading it out loud to yourself to find weird errors and then get a proofreader. Anyways, moving on. It's always good that whenever you explain a racial detail to explain why that's the case.

"Cattine are distrustful of any person who is not cattine."

Why is that the case? Probably because they once got hunted down to near extinction and thus make sure to teach their young to be on the edge around outsiders. Problem is, it doesn't say that. Make sure you give the reader the information they want instead of them asking questions.

Looks like we've got some specific regional information. That's fine, though I personally find it a bit off-putting when trying to introduce such races into a game that doesn't have those regions. So, you can have it, just make sure you explain why they might not be in that region anymore. While a user can always ignore flavor text, it's also useful as a selling point to get them interested in using the race.

Since this is getting really long already, I'm trying to skip through some stuff and just head on to the Racial Traits, since that's the core which determines their usability. A well-designed race should really provide at least these four things for a player: A) It doesn't cramp up the kind of character he wants to make, it only lends to it. B) It provides things that are useful for several kinds of characters. C) The things that it does provide scale well with usage at all levels of play. D) It gets things that are fun to use both inside and out of combat.

Let's start out with the ability score adjustments. Races don't get odd-numbered ability score adjustments. Why you ask? Well, they're abusable in point-buy system games. Also, even-numbered ability scores always provide a mechanical adjustment to the function of a character. Races have even-numbered modifiers because then we always notice them. It's like, the point of mechanical granularity dude. Recommendation: Go with -2 Str, +2 Dex. If you really think you want to cram in more racial traits to compensate for a -2 Con penalty, go for it, but it's not gonna make would-be players happy (and also is a discouragement to casters). Since they're small anyways, they probably will be avoiding Strength-based stuff as much as possible, so Strength is likely to just be a dump stat.

On to the other traits. 40 feet base land speed is pretty darn good. Having that instead of 30 is really gonna limit the number of other things we can have as bonuses. Low-light Vision is fine, but I can't help feeling they might benefit from Superior Low-light Vision. It's hardly a power boost and adds a bit of allure to playing the race, since it's less common.

That's a lot of +2 skill bonuses. My recommendation here is this: Make all those skills into "they're always class skills" skills. If they're really good at those skills, they'll have the opportunity to continue being good at those skills. Tack on a "they gain X amount of skill points per level (x4 at their first level) allot-able to only those skills" where X is a number you like. 4 is reasonable. With that, they're more likely to have ranks and more likely to succeed on the things they're racially good at throughout their careers, while at the same time, staying within the expected range of capability.

The +1 Reflex save thing is boring and only serves to add power where you'll want it for other places that actually do something fun. I recommend dumping it.

For Cat's Fall (notice how I added an apostrophe in there), don't ever use wording like "her or himself". Pick a single gender and go with it in your racial descriptions. For the ability itself, it's really clunky and something I wouldn't want to have to write in shorthand on my character sheet or continually have to look up. Something like "She takes half damage from falling" or "She ignores the first 30 feet of falling damage. When jumping down with a successful Jump check, she can extend that to the first 40 feet of falling damage." Bam, easy to remember.

So, we're at the bottom of the exciting stuff, and something is still missing from the race. Something fun and enticing that's usable for a lot of different characters, usable at a lot of levels and really speaks to the flavor of the race. Rough suggestion off the top of my head: Cat Flip: So like, she can wiggle and maneuver, allowing her to get up from a prone position as a swift action without provoking attacks of opportunity (useful perhaps, but not particularly fun since it's situational).

Getting to the end here, I gotta bring up a couple last things. The name "cattine", really, that's the best you could come up with? I know that sounds mean, and it does serve the purpose of saying "hey, we got a cat race here", but it just feels uninspired. Feel free to defend your choice. Also, reading the description, they don't sound like Merle from Escaflowne to me at all. Anyways, that was far too much text. Hope this provides some help though. --Ganteka Future 20:05, 16 August 2012 (UTC)