[Race] Mau (catfolk)

Some campaign specific detail here. The overall gist is that various animal-folk are 'blessed' of the gods they represent, and we're in Egypt. The prevalance of any given demihuman type is based upon the ascendancy of the god(s) in question.

 

Mau are feline demihumans, blessed by Bast. Due to their short stature, mau may never use two-handed swords or longbows. Mau must have a score of 9 or better in Dexterity and Wisdom.

Mau is evidently the ancient Egyptian word for cat; plus it sounds like meow, so.

Mau Value XP Cost
0 200
1 350
2 475
3 725
4 975

At Mau 0, all Mau gain:

  • Difficult to Spot: In the wild, Mau are able to fade into underbrush with a throw of 3+ on a 1d20. In dungeons, a Mau remaining motionless and quiet in cover can escape detection on a throw of 14+.
  • Catlike Reflexes: Mau gain a +1 to Surprise and Initiative rolls.
  • Willful & Cunning: Mau gain a +2 to all saving throws.
  • Infravision:The Mau gains infravision to a range of 30
  • Bast's Purr: The mau may choose one 1st level spell to be able to spellsing, and gains 2 spell points - and is able to sing that spell as a 1st level spellsinger. If the mau is a spellsinger by class, the points and spell are added to its normal allotment.

At Mau 1:

  • Fangs/Claws: he character gains a claw/claw/bite attack, dealing 1d2-1 points with their two claws, and 1d4-1 with their bite.
  • Wriggly: The mau is very flexible; and able to make a throw at 18+ each rounds to escape from bonds or slip between bars of a portcullis.
  • Bast's Blessing: The mau gains some of Bast's favor, and may turn undead at 1/2 its character level. Additionally, the Mau gains a +2 to saving throws versus effects caused by undead creatures. (The Brendan Frasier Memorial Rule)

At Mau 2:

  • Climb Walls: as a thief of the mau's level
  • Hear Noise: as a thief of the mau's level
  • Move Silently: as a thief of the mau's level

At Mau 3:

  • Fangs/Claws (2): The mau's claw attacks increase in damage to 1d3-1, and their bite to 1d6-1.
  • Bast's Fury: Gain righteous turning, adding the mau's Wisdom bonus to turning rolls.
  • Hide In Shadows: as a thief of the mau's level.  In practice, if one allows DtS and HiS to stack, it results in around a +4-ish to +7-ish bonus overall to the task depending on what level the thief is and what other bonuses are available
  • Backstab: as a thief of the mau's level.

At Mau 4:

  • Bast's Power: The mau gains the spellcasting ability of a cleric of half its level, with a divine repertoire of 5 spells per level. This stacks with Divine value from class build points - for example, a Mau Cleric built as HD 1, Fighting 1, Divine 2, Mau 4 would cast as if having a build of Divine 3, with the extra spells, increased repertoire, and more restrictive divine code. Turn Undead ability from Divine build points override that gained from Bast's Blessing - a Mau with a class that equates to Divine 2 will turn as their full class level.

 

Ok, thematically it looks awesome.

Technically some questions.

In the absence of a race builder I see you pricing it as class equivilant costs. First step look half way through this post:

http://www.autarch.co/forum/gnomish-infravision-0

Next - you give it thief powers but don’t give it thief levels, I feel you should be giving it thief levels at 2 and 3 but with recommendations for the power choices.

Divine at rank 4 is problematic in cost as divine does not scale. As it is you could get divine 3 for reduced cost (saving 250)

Instead you could go half turn at 1, full turn at 3, righteous turn at 4. Maybe giving a divine proficiency or two at 4 like divine health or divine blessing instead of just divine.

Just spitballing, without doing the maths it looks a little costly outside rank 0 but I love the style of it.

[quote="Chimera_Prime"]
OK, thematically, it looks awesome.
Technically some questions.

[/quote]

Oof. Thanks for the checkup. I'd posted this in response to something on the Discord and it'd been the first time I'd looked at it in a year or so - and the final version hadn't had the XP recalculated - I've fixed it in the main post. To break it down:

Mau 0: 5 powers @ 40, 200 XP
Mau 1: 4 powers @ 40, 200+160=350XP
Mau 2: 3 powers @ 40, 200+160+120=475XP
Mau 3: 6 powers @ 40, 200+160+120+240=725XP
Mau 4: Add Divine 1 @ 250 = 975XP


Hm. It should stack the same way the Nobiran value stacks? Some sample builds, erring on the side of minimum cost:

Thievery 1/Mau 4/Divine 3 == 250+975+1000 == 2225 > Max Level 8, Divine Value 4
Mau 3/Divine 4 == 725 + 2000 == 2725> Max Level 10, Divine Value 4
Thievery 2/Mau 4/Divine 2 == 400 + 975 + 500 == 1875 > Max Level 8, Divine Value 3
Mau 0/Divine 4 == 200+2000 == 2200 > Max Level 13, Divine Value 4
Thievery 1/Mau 0/Divine 3 == 200 + 200 + 1000 == 1400 > Max Level 13, Divine Value 3

Given the changes in Max Level, I think all those look generally like they work as intended?
 

 

 

Oh, please don't get me wrong about the technical stuff, trying to help. 

I really like the undead turning being in this given Bast and her role in guarding temples. The more I looked at it the more interested I was to see turning outside a divine caster, I hadn't thought of that before, I wonder if a more quirky thing would be to give it full turning, like half at 1, full at 2, righteous at 3 and contoll at 4. But little to no divine by default. It's just me being curious so please don't mind my view of it.

I thought the 150 for first level was fine, like the nobiran, I interpret the racial cost thingy to give a -1 power at level 0. I could be wrong.

Re the divine from nobiran can you see it? The bug/feature - you are correct the nobiran suffers from this too. I house rule it to say nobiran can't take divine outside the racial class in my home builds as per a previous discussion on the forums.  It's like this, divine 3 costs 250+250+500 or 1000, but your class at Mao4/divine 2 gets it for 250+250+250 or 750. So it's a really efficient way to get it in those terms. But.... It's not so bad in your case, as the cost is reduced by 40 when you give them half turning, when they gain divine 1 that cost becomes a sunk cost, it's lost. Divine and thief are problematic in racial builds... I personally try to avoid them or at least not stack the cost across class/racial.

Either way not a big cost or discount in an case, and if you never used the 4 it would never come up so.... please ignore me and post some classes :)