User:Ganteka Future/Harpy Revision

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Harpy Revision Racial Traits

  • +2 Dexterity, +2 Charisma, –2 Constitution
  • Monstrous Humanoid: Harpies pay the non-humanoid cost for their armor. They have wings in place of arms and their feet are clawed hands. They can wear magical rings and bracers on their feet and legs. Magical gloves and boots occupy the same slot.
  • Medium
  • Harpy base land speed is 30 feet. Her land speed drops by half if both of her clawed hands are occupied.
  • Low-Light Vision.
  • Darkvision 60 feet.
  • Clawed Hands: A harpy gains Improved Unarmed Strike as a bonus feat. A harpy may deal bludgeoning, piercing or slashing damage when attacking with their clawed hands.
  • Syrinx: A harpy receives a +2 racial bonus to Perform (Singing) checks. Perform (Singing) is always a class skill. A harpy may make a Perform (Singing) check in place of Diplomacy when dealing with other harpies.
  • Swoop In (Ex): A harpy deals double damage with her unarmed attacks when charging.
  • Glide: Harpies can make a DC 15 Fly check to fall safely from any height without taking falling damage, as if using feather fall. When falling safely, a harpy may make an additional DC 15 Fly check to glide as a Move action, moving 20 feet laterally for every 20 feet they fall. They can make Fly checks to turn while doing so.
  • Flight (Ex): At 5 HD the harpy gains a fly speed of 40 feet (poor maneuverability). She can use the run action while flying, provided she flies in a straight line.
  • Languages: Common, Sylvan
  • Favored Class: Whatever
  • LA 0
  • ECL 1

Alternate Racial Traits

  • Aerialist: A harpy with this racial trait receives a +4 racial bonus on Fly checks. This replaces Syrinx.
  • Bobbin' Along: A harpy receives a +2 racial bonus to Acrobatics checks. Acrobatics is always a class skill. A harpy is always treated as having a running start when jumping. This replaces Syrinx.
  • Humanoid Blooded: Choose a Humanoid racial subtype. These harpies can be targeted by spells and effects as if they had the Humanoid type and they gain the chosen racial subtype. They are still treated as members of their own type. They gain wing thumbs, which allows them to hold, but not wield or use, small objects with their wings. This replaces Darkvision.
  • Keen Eyed: A harpy receives a +2 racial bonus on Perception checks. Perception is always a class skill. They do not take the –1 penalty per 10 feet of distance on Perception for checks within 100 feet. This replaces Syrinx.
  • Seabird Bird: A harpy gains a +2 bonus on Swim checks. Swim is always a class skill. This replaces Swoop In.
  • Elaborate Plumage: A harpy gains a +2 racial bonus on saves to resist Fascination and Glamours and a +1 racial bonus on Intimidate checks. This replaces Swoop In.
  • Domestic: A harpy gains Skill Focus: Knowledge (Local). Knowledge (Local) is always a class skill. This replaces Clawed Hands (though they retain their hands) and Swoop In.

Cut Abilities & Ability Notes

  • (REWORKED) Gliding (Ex): Harpies can use their wings to glide at a speed of 40 feet (poor maneuverability). A harpy can still glide or fly while encumbered, but her speed is reduced. She descends 1 foot for every 5 feet of horizontal distance traveled. If a harpy becomes unconscious or helpless while in midair and begins falling, her wings unfurl and hold in their gliding position. The harpy descends in a fluttering spiral and takes only 1d6 falling damage, no matter the actual falling distance. NOTE: I looked up the Tengu's glide from Pathfinder and HOOBOY, it's um, kinda funny. You're falling at just under 7 miles per hour (the rate of feather fall), to glide at 1.7 miles per hour. That's less than half human walking speed. That's pathetic. There's also no action listed for this. I don't like it.
  • (REMOVED FEATURE) Skills: A harpy receives a +2 racial bonus to Acrobatics. They do not take the –1 penalty per 10 feet of distance on Perception checks for targets within 100 feet. A harpy is always treated as having a running start when jumping. NOTE: Most of these have been reworked into alternate racial traits.
  • (OLD VERSION) Swoop In (Ex): A harpy deals double damage (as if she were making a dive attack) with her feral strikes or unarmed attacks when charging. A harpy may swoop in without moving 10 feet before the attack, but takes a –2 penalty to her attack and AC (stacking with the penalties and bonuses from charging).
  • (CUT) Claws: A harpy possesses two light feral strike claw attacks that deal 1d6 piercing and slashing damage (with a 20/×2 critical). A harpy's claws can wield weapons and manipulate tools as hands. NOTE: Reworked above.
  • (CUT) Bird Affinity (Su): Harpies can communicate with birds and bird-like magical beasts as the speak with animals spell. They also gain the Wild Empathy ability with birds and bird-like magical beasts. NOTE: While the ability is interesting and flavorful, it simply serves as feature bloat.
  • (CUT) Flight (Ex): At 7 HD it increases by 20 feet. NOTE: This was in there, but I removed it, not sure on balance of it. The singular test character hasn't reached level 7 yet. The current 40 ft. (average) is still pretty decent.
  • (CUT) Captivating Song (Charm, Compulsion?) [Mind-Affecting, Sonic] (Su): As a standard action, a harpy can sing her captivating song. Creatures within a 100-foot spread must succeed on a Will save (DC 10 + 1/2 HD + Charisma modifier) or become captivated. A creature that saves is unaffected and resistant to her captivating song for 24 hours.

A captivated victim moves toward the harpy, taking the most direct route available. If the path leads into a dangerous area (through flame, off a cliff, or the like), that creature gets a second saving throw. Captivated creatures can take no actions other than to defend themselves and react as two steps friendlier toward her. A victim within 5 feet of the harpy stands and offers no resistance to listen to her singing. The effect continues for as long as the harpy sings and for 1 round thereafter. Any attack or obviously hostile action against a captivated victim breaks the effect on them. A bard’s countersong ability allows a captivated creature to attempt a new Will save.

She can sing her captivating song for a number of rounds per day equal to 1/2 her HD plus her Charisma bonus.

  • (NEW) Humanoid Blooded: You are targetable as a Humanoid by effects. This idea probably needs some revision, but could work here to keep things in better tone. Humanoids are required to have a racial subtype in 3.5e for things like Bane & rangers and whatnot, so not sure what to do about that. Could require picking a humanoid subtype, but that opens a slew of other concerns.

Author Notes

This is a revision of a revision of the variant harpy that I'd be tweaking for a long while and had in use on a single character. I'm cutting out the Captivating Song since I don't think in 5 years it ever really did make any difference in play and maybe came up all of once, serving only as feature bloat not something easily put on a character sheet anyway for how long it is. It was a weaker version of the SRD harpy ability anyhow. Probably better as a feat if anything.

Races with flight are inherently difficult to balance. I don't like the model raptoran-style flight. It's clunky and weird. Having scaling flight speed feels unnecessary to me on this case.

Bird Affinity is probably one that could be tossed into the scrap heap as well. It is interesting, but not particularly necessary, and a leftover from the older revision. Maybe something about identifying bird calls easily? That's like, a Knowledge (nature) sort of thing and could end up being use-impaired.

Harpies (lore-wise) are bits of the odd-ducks. They hunt people and eat them. They're alluring sirens. Their descriptions are all over the place. Sometimes they're hideous flying hags with batwings and arms, other times they're odd mixes of humanoid and bird or whatever. I hate that the SRD gives them clubs. Like, flying monsters that have clubs... okay, why no bow or sling or spear or something? They're defeated by readied actions to swing as they swoop in for a fly-by attack, which is fine at their CR since characters are unlikely to have multiple attacks anyway.