I am interested in creating a new race for my homebrew setting. I want them to be based on spiders. However I have never created a race for 3e or 3.5 e, so I could use some help in this. There is only one unchangable rule: I need them to be LA 0, so that I can use them as a base race.
I've been thinking about racial traits, and here are some ideas I have come up with, but as I said these are only ideas. Nothing is written in stone yet.
Spider Climb as spell (possibly either constant or limited uses per day)
Paralytic poison bite
4 arms (2nd set half strength)
Possible visual bonuses because of multiple eyes (bonuses spotting secret doors like elves or spotting illusions like gnomes)
Web as spell (limited uses per day)
I'd love to hear your thoughts/ideas on this.
Why not just give them a climb speed?
Multiple arms, poison, and a climb speed are all things which definitely require an LA, or a huge penalty to counteract.
Isn't web a second level spell? If so, that's definitely a potential LA right there.
I would imagine you'd have to look at thri-kreen (non-psionic version), for some basics.
You could make them small and give them a hefty STR penalty (despite spiderman having superhuman strength) to help make up for one of these things.
Instead of a climb speed, consider a +4 bonus to climb checks (+8 usually goes with having a climb speed).
There's no real reason a +1 LA race couldn't be used as a base race, they just would either get their powers slower (as in Savage Species), or not reach level 2 when everyone else does (price they pay for super powers). Of course, if you gave them everything you mentioned and no disadvantages, I'd say you're at about LA +2 to +3, right now.
You could also look at ettercaps for some inspiration.
I think PK's +4 bonus to climb checks is a good idea. Also give them access to the monster feats "Multidexterity" (I think that's what it's called?) and "Multi-handed Fighting." Stay away from granting them spells I think, or you risk a pretty high LA (as has been mentioned). One option would be to say they have "sticky fingers" (or some other suitably named ability), so it's harder to knock weapons out of their hands, and that's also where they get their bonus to climb. Perhaps give them a +4 bonus against being disarmed.
Hehe. Oh how I have come to despise LA...
I don't exactly know what you're looking for, so I'll just whip something up to use as a baseline for modification:
Neekaitee (Spiderfolk)
-2 Str, +2 Dex, -2 Cha
Small Size Monstrous Humanoid
Base Speed 20ft, Climb Speed 10ft
Darkvision 60ft
Light Blindness (As Drow)
+4 on Saving Throws vs. Poison
+8 to Climb (as part of the base speed)
-2 to Sense Motive, Bluff, Intimidate and Diplomacy with non Neekaitee.
Venom (Ex): Neekaitee secrete venom from their fangs, and while grappling, they add their poison to attacks. Alternatively, Neekaitee can milk their venom and apply it to a weapon. Milking one dose takes one minute and Neekaitee cannot produce more than 4 doses per hour (including with a direct bite). Neekaitee venom has the most unusual property of combusting when exposed to sunlight (no added damage), and thus cannot be applied to weaponry during the day. After one hour, venom becomes inert. Neekaitee venom deals 1d4 temporary strength damage and 1d8 secondary. The DC for this poison is 10 + Con modifier + 1/2 class level.
Four Arms (Ex): Neekaitee are blessed with four arms and feet with opposable digits, allowing them to hold items with any of their six limbs. While climbing, a Neekaitee skitters across a surface, and requires all limbs to be free. Boots cannot be worn while climbing. Unfortunately, the brain of the Neekaitee is not advanced enough to handle autonomous action with each limb, even while standing upright, and only two limbs may be used at any one time (except for basic tasks like holding an object). Multiweapon Fighting allows for autonomous use of all arms. The Neekaitee, while tough as nails, is a scrawny, emaciated creature, and the power of any one arm is quite pathetic. In combat, most Neekaitee wield a weapon using the two arms on a single side of their body, in this circumstance, no strength bonus applies. With the exception of light weapons, the Neekaitee's strength penalty drops to -4 when using only one hand.
Web (Ex): Neekaitee posses a set of spinnerets on the palm of each hand. With such organs, the Neekaitee is able to weave web like a small sized Monstrous Spider. Creating too much web can drain a Neekaitee of nutrients, and may double the amount of food they require if overused (DM discretion).
Thanks for the suggestions everyone. In my homebrew world, the world is shattered into sky islands called shards. The only way to get from shard to shard is via air ships called windriggers. My thought was that spiderfolk would make excellent windsailors with their natural climbing ability, and an extra set of hands would help them in working the rigging. I would love to use an official race, but right now I have limited resources as far as sourcebooks, and limited funds for buying them. So unless it's in one of the books I already have, or can be found on the internet, I have to homebrew it.
The Chitine also make an interesting option for modification. One of the more creative touches from that race is not to model the webspinning feature as a 'Web Spell', but rather as a subtler mechanic - webspinning for such creatures takes longer than it does for spiders, so the bottom line is that they never need to pay for ropes or simple cloth. They can, in leisure moments, produce such substances themselves and have a +4 racial bonus for using them (and in Use Rope in general.)
Combined with a healthy Climb and Jump bonus, and this will give them some of the mobility one expects from a spider-themed character race without overloading the LA.
Me, I go with the suggestion of K and Frank Trollman and don't even use LA. If I don't want a race in a campaign, I don't allow it. If I do, and the players do, we just play it. I know that's not to everyone's taste; just throwing that out there.
Personally, I wouldn't use LA. Rather, I use racial HD, which I find to balance things out much more nicely (as they tend to have decent HP, attack bonus etc compared to others of their effective level). You can then add their abilities as class features.
Personally, if I wanted an LA +0, no-HD spiderfolk race, I'd give them a +4 bonus on climb checks, an intelligence penalty (maybe, or charisma), the ability to cast a weak form of web maybe once or twice a day and an extremely mild poison, as well as darkvision.
Wow. Here I am providing a +0 LA spiderfolk race, and everyone is debating things... >_>
Yes, they need to be adapted to the setting (they were designed for caves) but really now! Can no one see my post?
I SEE IT, RAEL!
I just think it's a bit, uhm, overpowered for a non-HD/LA race. I hate LA too, but... I think you should give that some racial HD. *nods*
Raelifin, you are loved. And yes, that's a fine example of a spider-folk race. But for my money, one of the coolest kind of spiders are the jumping spiders - you know, the ones that are fast. Still, I wouldn't have thought of those 'behavioral' penalties. Makes perfect sense... hmm...
There we go! I don't mind if you think it's overpowered or needs tweaking, we can debate that.
Now, the main problem with racial HD is that they make the race thick 'n beefy. Orcs don't have any racial HD, so having spiderfolk with 2d8 base hp might be balanced, but it'll throw off the "emaciated spider" feel. Besides, WizardOfOwls wants to use them as ECL +0, I think, because that's what determines a "base race."
Deel: I agree that jumping spiders are cooler than web-spinners, but WoO wanted web-spinners.
Back to Doomclown: Overpowered? Eh? Want to debate that?[spoiler Debate-in-a-can]All races have pre-build preferences and predispositions toward certain classes. Halflings, for instance, make bad barbarians. When balancing a race, one must focus on min-max combos. In the case of my spider race, the major class is Rogue.
To compare it, we'll make a rundown of the abilities it gets. Feel free to develop your own list, or disagree with mine in any way. All bonuses and penalties are calculated for a rogue.
Neekaitee:
Stat changes: Minor Bonus. The +2 Dex is a rogue's best friend, but -2 Str and -2 Cha both hurt a rogue. Some might argue that the stats provide no bonus.
Small size: Major Bonus. The bonus to hide checks, added AC and attack all help a rogue, and the damage penalty is easily offset by sneak attack damage.
Base Speed 20ft: Minor penalty.
Base Climb Speed 10ft: Major Bonus. Rogues are the one's you get to climb walls 'n stuff, being able to do it automatically is very nice, even if it's not crazy fast or super useful in combat.
Darkvision: Minor Bonus. Unless you're running a human-centric campaign, darkvision is easy to come by and not all that useful. Roges do go solo an awful lot though, so it's a nice backup.
Light Blindness: Major Penalty. Most of the action a neekaitee will see will be in the dark, but one round of blindness can be very nasty if unexpected. -1 on all attacks during the day, as well as the sight penalty makes this an important downside.
+4 vs. Poison: Minor Bonus. It's useful.
+8 climb: No change. If there's a climb speed, this is a given and doesn't do much.
-2 on social checks: Minor penalty. You can't build a social rogue neekaitee. The cha penalty cements this. Bluff and sense motive will be missed for most rogues.
Venom: Minor Bonus. A neekaitee will never grapple. That would be horribly dumb. The ability to apply posion is useful though, even if daylight nixes it. Chances are that 1d4 Str won't win the battle though.
Multiple arms: No change. Honestly, I can't think of how to abuse the extra arms. A few feats and you can attack with 4 daggers, but that requires feats, and won't add much damage overall.
Web: Major bonus. Mostly for flexibility, I'll say that the web is really useful. At higher levels it's not going to be useful, but it still has a lot of potential.
So what does that leave? If we count a major bonus as +2 and a minor one +1, penalties being the negative versions of these, than the total "modifier" for the race is +6.
Now let's do halflings:
Stats: +1.5
Small Size: +2
Base Speed: -1
No Vision Power: -1 Even low-light would help.
+2 on Rogue Skills: +2
+1 on all saves: +1
+2 vs. Fear: +0
Attack bonuses with weak ranged weapons: +1
Total: 5.5
Note that it's debatable, but halflings are one of the weaker races, especially compared to Dwarves. So I think the neekaitee fit into the general spectum of balance.[/spoiler]
I would maybe give it +1HD, no more than that, but - well, web and poison are pretty nasty. On the other hand, I know what you mean about the light blindness. Light blindness, however, is relatively easy to counter, even at low levels - as compared to web. That poison, too, is pretty nasty, although its DC will generally be too low to be -very- effective against well-fortituded opponents.
You can have +1 LA, but not 1 Racial HD. Races that have 1 HD (e.g. Goblins) may swap it out for a class level. Only at two HD does it become mandatory.
At level 2 with a +2 con mod the poison is a 13 DC that deals 1d4 temporary strength. The secondary is very nasty, and could potentially leave someone incapacitated, but chances are 1d4 Str does next to nothing.
Let's say that the spider coats four daggers with the poison (and it's night or in a cave, so it can be used). They fight an average orc. The orc has a +3 fort save, so it needs a 10 or better to avoid the damage. On a failed save, which is half the time, the orc loses an average of 2.5 strength, also known as a -1 on attack and damage. If we say that all four daggers hit, the orc will lose an average of 5 strength in the first minute, dropping it to a 12 strength. Note that this is after getting hit by four separate attacks. If a dwarven barbarian hits with four attacks... well... he wouldn't need four attacks.
Opponents with a low fortitude save are another matter, because though they fail more often, strength damage usually has a lesser impact. The only really important thing to such a character is whether the poison drops their strength to 0, which is possible, though unlikely.
At higher levels the poison gets worse, as the DC gets easier to pass and the damage stays the same.
I personally hate LA races. I actually made a sort of spider like race a few months ago, though it didn't have most of the qualities you are looking for. Web, spider climb, and a poisonous bite will all throw you into LA, I'm afraid. I made my spider folk (called rastlauge) immune to web spells, as well as giving them a base climb speed and (for difficult climbing) a Climb check bonus. Something you may want to consider to balance out things to avoid LA would be a racial penalty (such as -2 to Listen checks or those to "behavioral" stuff as Rael used). While it doesn't solve everything, it can sometimes be useful.
I kind of like Rael's suggested Neekaitee; you may want to just use an altered version of his idea.
I wish I had more to say, but Raelifin seems to be very on top of this. If you need help with their culture, let me know- I can help with that!