Type or subtype for homebrew race?

I have an idea for a flesh and blood race created magically. I'm torn between living construct and aberration. I've only seen living construct applied to warforged or the equivalent. Aberration was used for the Elan (both 3.5 creations). Is there another type or subtype that could be used but would keep the LA at a 0? Living construct has a lot of benefits and aberration makes a creature immune to all spells with the "person" or "humanoid" descriptors (charm person, hold person, etc.)

Alternately how hard is it to build a type or subtype that would do the job?

I guess it really depends on what you envision as the details for your race. When you say "created magically", do you mean something along the line of growing living tissue and then animating it to life? Or do you mean something more along the lines of conjuring a living being directly out of magical energies? Or maybe something like combining Stone to Flesh with some kind of animating magic?

Half-Construct is also a possibility; a being with a construct endo-skeletal frame but living organs and other tissues, for instance. But, regarding the Aberration type, it is defined as applying to creatures with 1) Bizarre Anatomy, 2) Strange Abilities, 3) Alien Mindset, or 4) some combination of those factors. If you create a creature that pays respect to all normal biological factors, doesn't have any "strange abilities" that living creatures normally wouldn't possess, and has a mindset comparable to other sentient beings, then it wouldn't qualify as an Aberration.

So, here are your best options:

1) 3-D printed: Use Humanoid(Half-Construct). A constructed skeletal frame but with living organs and other tissues grown over top of it and vitalized by magic.

2) Formed from stone: Sculpt the form of the creature from stone then combine Stone to Flesh with Wish to make make it "a real boy". If it is generally Humanoid in shape, use Humanoid or Monstrous Humanoid the type as appropriate. If it is "weird", use Aberration instead.

3) Adult Birthed: Get your Genesis on and combine transmutation, conjuration, and maybe Wish to form a ready-to-go body out of the dust and dirt, transmute it into a fully-functional living body, pull Positive energy into it, and infuse it with a soul. Again, Humanoid, Monstrous Humanoid, or Aberration as appropriate.

It depends on the physical structure of the race, not their origins. There's tons of races and monsters that were artificially created but aren't constructs.

Kazaan, Cyrad, thanks a lot it gives me a great place to start.

Conceptually they are made physically fully formed via artifact cauldron. A living breathing creature that does not belong within the natural world. Their minds are initially childlike but develop relatively quickly. They have a very short lifespan.

I envision some small amount of DR or small percentage to avoid crits as their biology is less sophisticated than birthed creatures. They're created to defend relatively weak spellcasrers so a con buff or toughness bonus feat. Otherwise vision and physical capabilities are nothing special. I also envision a problem with relating to others a sort if wrongness about them plus an unfamiliarity with social graces/queues. They're all a single gender and cannot reproduce without the artifact. The wrongness aspect is what made me consider aberration as it was like the Elan charisma deficit and elan are aberrations.

Well, given that we have half-construct and half-undead subtypes, why not design one for half-aberration? Give some benefits of aberrations, but in a lesser form. Say, they get a +2 bonus to saves against effects that target Humanoids and a +4 bonus to AC against critical confirmation rolls? And they can qualify for rules elements as if they were aberrations; you can give them racial traits that require Aberration, but they are also vulnerable to Favored Enemy, Bane, etc.

Outside the box thinking. I like it. Thanks again. Off to work on the idea. I'll post what I come up with, maybe it will be helpful to someone else.

I have an idea for a flesh and blood race created magically. I'm torn between living construct and aberration. I've only seen living construct applied to warforged or the equivalent. Aberration was used for the Elan (both 3.5 creations). Is there another type or subtype that could be used but would keep the LA at a 0? Living construct has a lot of benefits and aberration makes a creature immune to all spells with the "person" or "humanoid" descriptors (charm person, hold person, etc.)

Alternately how hard is it to build a type or subtype that would do the job?

The Shabti are created magically and though they are in peak physical form they don't necessarily have anything else going on. so if you go with that idea you might give a couple of traits that make it not a human but keep the blank slate plan.

JosMartigan wrote:

I have an idea for a flesh and blood race created magically. I'm torn between living construct and aberration. I've only seen living construct applied to warforged or the equivalent. Aberration was used for the Elan (both 3.5 creations). Is there another type or subtype that could be used but would keep the LA at a 0? Living construct has a lot of benefits and aberration makes a creature immune to all spells with the "person" or "humanoid" descriptors (charm person, hold person, etc.)

Alternately how hard is it to build a type or subtype that would do the job?

The Shabti are created magically and though they are in peak physical form they don't necessarily have anything else going on. so if you go with that idea you might give a couple of traits that make it not a human but keep the blank slate plan.

OK great thanks I'll take a look at that.

Humanoid?

Humanoid?

They are man shaped and humanoid is an option but I was thinking there was something better as an option

Ciaran Barnes wrote:

Humanoid?

They are man shaped and humanoid is an option but I was thinking there was something better as an option

Again, biology (for lack of a better word) is more important than origin for determining types and subtypes.

• Aberrations are biological creatures that have very alien anatomy. They do still have organs - usually, even some of the same organs like brains, hearts, and stomachs - but the majority of their organs may be in different places, perform different actions, or are otherwise just drastically different from typical biological creatures.
  
• Animals, in short, are for (most of) the real world members of the kingdom Animalia that aren't human. Fictional creatures can go here, but they're typically going to be pretty similar to something you can find here on Earth. If it could conceivably exist on real world Earth if something had just evolved differently, it's probably an Animal. (However, also compare to Magical Beast and Vermin types.)
  
• Constructs are non-biological beings. While they may be made from organic matter (flesh golems for example), are generally animate, and may even be sentient and sapient, they are not - biologically speaking - alive. They are, in some way, built rather than born. If it's a Construct, it can't biologically reproduce, and probably can't grow.
  
• Dragons are a bit of an odd one, because if we're being scientific, pretty much anything that is a Dragon could probably be a Magical Beast (perhaps with a subtype Dragon), so we have to be a bit unscientific in describing them. Dragons are, well, dragons or dragon-like. But not everything that is dragon-like is necessarily a Dragon (see: dragonnes from 3e - possibly PF, but I can't remember), which just muddles things up more. Still, you probably won't have difficult deciding if something should be a Dragon.
  
• Fey are generally nature spirits of some sort or another. Seelie or Unseelie, if it's an otherworldly humanoid (roughly speaking) with an inherently magical nature, but still part of or even representative of the natural world, it's probably a Fey. Kind of like Dragons, these guys are kind of hard to come up with definite rules for, but are part of the public consciousness enough that it should be fairly intuitive to determine, anyway.
  
• Humanoids. Does it have two arms? Does it have two legs? Does it have a head? Does it have fairly standard organs in fairly standard locations? Does its silhouette pretty much look like a person (perhaps with somewhat odd proportions)? It's probably a Humanoid.
  
• Magical Beasts are essentially Animals with some inherent supernatural ability. While animal-like creatures that have spell-like or supernatural abilities obviously apply, if it's pretty much an Animal, but evolution almost certainly couldn't get there in the real world, it's probably a Magical Beast.
  
• Monstrous Humanoid is kind of the Magical Beast to Humanoid's Animal. Like Magical Beast, it's also pretty much what it says on the tin. If it's got a humanoid shape, but is decidedly monstrous, it's a Monstrous Humanoid. That said, some creatures categorized as Humanoids are arguably more monstrous than some creatures categorized as Monstrous Humanoids. So we can't really be any more definitive than that. Just use your judgment and needs to determine the edge cases.
  
• Oozes are generally amorphous, usually homogeneous blobs. For the most part, oozes tend to be pretty self-explanatory. But one of my favourite Oozes, Eberron's living spells, shows that Oozes aren't quite as simple as you might think at first. For the most part, if it's squishy (or gaseous), and a random fistful of it is pretty much the same as any other random fistful, it's gonna be an Ooze.
  
• Outsiders are supernatural denizens of other planes. Or sometimes from the Material Plane. Being a wide open category that can accept all sorts of things, what makes an Outsider an Outsider can vary widely. However, I (generally, with the biggest asterisk I stick here) find it a bit more useful to consider Fey as being the Material Plane's "Outisders", and if it comes from another plane, it's an Outsider. Unless it's a Construct or Aberration or something, but agh! This is getting complicated. Let's move on.
  
• Plants aren't just things that produce chlorophyll, because fungi also get put in this category in Pathfinder (since, statistically, a Fungus creature type would have pretty much all the same base stats as the Plant creature type). So if it's a plant or fungus, it's a Plant. Or we can just say if it has a cell wall, whether that wall's made from chitin or cellulose.
  
• Undead pretty much always used to be alive, stopped, and then - for one reason or another - didn't stay down. However, I think if a creature is characteristic of death or undeath, you can probably slap the Undead type on it (a reaper-type spirit, for example, might have more in common with Outsiders in terms of origin and habitat and all, but I would make Undead, even if it never lived to begin with). In some ways, Undead have a lot in common with Constructs, but with the flesh golem on one side, and necrocrafts on the other, it is kind of hard to definitively say where the dividing line is. Still, I'm inclined to say that flesh golems are more likely the exception.
  
• Vermin houses the various real world arthropods. If it has an exoskeleton, and evolution could conceivably get there (like with the Animal type), it's a Vermin.

The various subtypes are all pretty self-explanatory. Humanoids have to have a subtype, which is usually their own species. If it's got scales, it gets Reptilian, if it has gills it gets Aquatic, if it's Large or larger it's usually going to have Giant. For the rest, it's generally going to be the same as the creature's own name, however this isn't a hard and fast rule, and different Humanoids can share a subtype (for example, spriggans have the Gnome subtype).

Anyway, as for your specific race, I'd lean towards Humanoid, unless they have weird anatomy, in which case Aberration. If they have biological functions (eat, breathe, grow, etc.) then they aren't Constructs.

JosMartigan wrote:

Ciaran Barnes wrote:

Humanoid?

They are man shaped and humanoid is an option but I was thinking there was something better as an option

Again, biology (for lack of a better word) is more important than origin for determining types and subtypes.

Basically, the checklist goes something like this:

• Aberrations are biological creatures that have very alien anatomy. They do still have organs - usually, even some of the same organs like brains, hearts, and stomachs - but the majority of their organs may be in different places, perform different actions, or are otherwise just drastically different from typical biological creatures.
  
• Animals, in short, are for (most of) the real world members of the kingdom Animalia that aren't human. Fictional creatures can go here, but they're typically going to be pretty similar to something you can find here on Earth. If it could conceivably exist on real world Earth if something had just evolved differently, it's probably an Animal. (However, also compare to Magical Beast and Vermin types.)
  
• Constructs are non-biological beings. While they may be made from organic matter (flesh golems for example), are generally animate, and may even be sentient and sapient, they are not - biologically speaking - alive. They are, in some way, built rather than born. If it's a Construct, it can't biologically reproduce, and probably can't grow.
  
• Dragons are a bit of an odd one, because if we're being scientific, pretty much anything that is a Dragon could probably be a Magical Beast (perhaps with a subtype Dragon), so we have to be a bit unscientific in describing them. Dragons are, well, dragons or dragon-like. But not everything that is dragon-like is necessarily a Dragon (see: dragonnes from 3e - possibly PF, but I can't remember), which just muddles things up more. Still, you probably won't have difficult deciding if something should be a Dragon.
  
• Fey are generally nature spirits of some sort or another. Seelie or

...

I understand what you're saying, and I'm not trying to belittle the list you have worked up, but how do you explain Elan from the Psionics rules?

It's a fantasy game. You can explain anything however you want. Aliens from outer space is a fair way to describe aberrations. Not from a different plane, but originating in a place very distant from whichever planet your game takes on. Aliens.

I understand what you're saying, and I'm not trying to belittle the list you have worked up, but how do you explain Elan from the Psionics rules?

Honestly, I've never understood why they are categorized that way.

Types and sub-types are both collections of features common to that grouping. The big difference between Animals an Magical Beasts is how magic affects them. Special abilities, HD and the lot are fungible, its how they react to magic that matters.

Humanoids and monstrous humanoids both violate every minor difference (wings, extra limbs) and Darkvision is only the most common cross over. The effect of magic is what really sets them apart.

Remember to key it to your world in a way you feel comfortable. Fey in my game can't be hit with Banish and the like, but can be compelled to return to their Fey realm (we have 3), a major mechanical difference. A number of magical beasts are blatantly biological constructs (owlbears) created by...oops, Campaign secret! Depending, the creature could be dropped into one or more T/sT with complete confidence, but I run them as either magical beasts or Constructs, depending on who made them and when. The current Elves are the result of manipulation by one of the Ancient races by magic, breeding, DNA modification, etc. to a now lost race related to Fey, or so the hidden histories claim. They are common enough and lack truly odd abilities, qualifying as Humanoids of the Elf sub-Type. Enjoi are the remnants of failed experiments and count as Humanoids of the Fey sT but can upgrade to savage Elves. Their kin, the Ehinoi are very similar, but are pure Fey. Again, these are Campaign clarifications and meant only to guide your thoughts.

First figure out how magic is going to affect the race, then go looking at which T/sT fits best. As a poor example I used to disqualify for Shapechangers, is whether it is an 'alternate form (a Fey with a deer alt) or the Shapechange is modifiable by feats in the campaign. Doppelgangers, shifters and the like shapechange. Vampires have multiple alternate forms and are thus unaffected by shapechanger bane weapons.

As for magically created races, Raving Dork has a number if insights on the subject and his advice would be of use.

Oops.

The above is my reasoning on T/sT and not canon that I have found anywhere. My T/sT guidelines are far more dicey and Campaign specific than detailed above or within CORE, containing a host of half defined terms and concepts. Most are written down in some form, but I'd not venture a authoritarian treatise for fear of being revealed the moron I find myself being on occasion.

The last said, I see these forums as a place to improve both the game and our games. If I should get this into a more coherent text and can figure out how to Google.doc, I want to put it forth for PEACH. If not, I'll like as not post it in bits, philosophy and base reasoning first.

As I see it, the effect of Magic is the first determinant factor, followed by Favored Enemy/Bane. If I am wrong or to stupid with this, please point me to where I can find enlightenment.

Personally, I'm concerned with using magic or the like to determine these things since it's not a very... "organic" way of doing things. I think rules and mechanics should be informed by the fluff, not dictate to it, and putting things like the effects of magic and favoured enemies first strikes me as doing that. That said, I can't actually find fault with your reasoning, and magic does work rather consistently, so if that's what works for you, all the better.

JosMartigan wrote:

I understand what you're saying, and I'm not trying to belittle the list you have worked up, but how do you explain Elan from the Psionics rules?

Honestly, I've never understood why they are categorized that way.

Since Aberrations and psionic powers are pretty closely linked (at least in D&D, although this is also just a tendency, not a rule), I was inclined to think that was the reason, but then ...I forget the name, was it Xeph? I'm pretty sure are regular humanoids, and they actually have the stranger appearance of the two. That said, I never got particularly bogged down in sourcebooks' descriptions of races beyond that basics since I like coming up with my own, and adapting them to fit naturally into my own game worlds, and it's been a few years since I've cracked open my 3e books, so I'm working off of pretty old memory.

In Psionics Unleashed (3pp for Pathfinder), the Elan were changed from Aberration to Humanoid(Aberrant), so there's that.

Personally, ... better.

Alas, I agree with you in spirit, but am constrained by grimy mechanical issues. I have sought a original source document, but my search-fu is horrid.

If I get lucid for a day, I'll try to formalize my system, but I'm still working on a suitable response for the King to some upstart over in Normandy...

The actual rules do their best to skip over an actual definition: 'Each creature has one type, which broadly defines its abilities. Some creatures also have one or more subtypes. A creature cannot violate the rules of its subtype without a special ability or quality to explain the difference—templates can often change a creature's type drastically.' Or better put: 'we are so lost its scary'. The bestiaries are rife with exceptions.

And I hate your summary of Types above! A lot clearer than the chowder headed glop I'm trying to whip into shape all weekend.

Lawrence, I have one minor issue with your list. You state that humanoids have organs in "standard positions."

Does it have fairly standard organs in fairly standard locations?

If the anatomy of all humanoids are very similar, you wouldn't need multiple different Favoured Enemy effects for all of them. Also, in the original series of Star Trek, Spock often gets away without serious injury because his heart is not where a human heart is. I'm pretty sure Half-Vulcan as a race would still be humanoid.

Lawrence, I have one minor issue with your list. You state that humanoids have organs in "standard positions."

Lawrence Dubois wrote wrote:

Does it have fairly standard organs in fairly standard locations?

If the anatomy of all humanoids are very similar, you wouldn't need multiple different Favoured Enemy effects for all of them. Also, in the original series of Star Trek, Spock often gets away without serious injury because his heart is not where a human heart is. I'm pretty sure Half-Vulcan as a race would still be humanoid.

Ah, but had the attacker known to adjust for Vulcan physiology, Spock would have been in trouble.

The other side of your point could be that very knowledge: I know via my rudimentary biology 101 based FE that removing a wing from an ostrich is not the reason he can not fly, but my students have never seen a bird that cannot fly, rendering that aspect of their FE useless. The basic differences between humanoid races getting differing FE includes social (Bluff, Sense Motive), Knowledge and other factors (Perception, Survival), not merely anatomical geography.

In my game, this includes knowing cultures, such as the differing tribes. The Black Spears are unusual and distinctive goblins, focusing on trade and less on raiding. They will not protect trading partners, unless a deal is underway. Yes, players have used this knowledge in lifesaving ways on several occasions.

Lawrence, I have one minor issue with your list. You state that humanoids have organs in "standard positions."

Lawrence Dubois wrote wrote:

Does it have fairly standard organs in fairly standard locations?

If the anatomy of all humanoids are very similar, you wouldn't need multiple different Favoured Enemy effects for all of them. Also, in the original series of Star Trek, Spock often gets away without serious injury because his heart is not where a human heart is. I'm pretty sure Half-Vulcan as a race would still be humanoid.

Emphasis on "fairly" standard. Some deviation is certainly allowed, or else what would make them a different species? A Vulcan's heart is still roughly in the middle of its chest cavity, rather than, say, its skull, or its left buttock. You may not be entirely correct, but you can almost always guess the rough general location and properties of a Humanoid's organs. Compare with mind flayers. They've got a humanoid silhouette, but with that cephalapod head... Do they even have lungs, or do they have an open respiratory/circulatory system like many invertebrates (and fish)? Speaking of vertebra, are those truly bones under that skin, or are they cartilage? Or perhaps some even more bizarre organ system. Is their brain in their bulbous head like a humanoid, or is that where they keep their liver like an octopus? Etc.

On the other hand, this also suggests an answer to your first problem: that FE doesn't affect all Humanoids, and you have to pick a subtype. Honestly, I'm sure this is 90% just for game balance. There are a lot of Humanoid monsters (especially with the addition of giants), and just about any campaign, you're guaranteed to come across a few. But for that remaining 10%, it's not too difficult to come up with at least a few handwave-able explanations for why FE tactics might work on one race but not another. As Bwang said, FE applies to more than just combat, and cultural differences are guaranteed between subtypes. But even sticking to physiology and combat, dwarves probably have particularly large livers that grant them their racial bonus against poisons. They're stocky and sturdy, implying that - all other factors being equal - they can take a hit better than most other races, but a ranger with Humanoid (Dwarf) as their FE may know that that enlarged liver can be a weak point for them (note: this is all just speculation that I'm coming up with on the fly to explain this). Liver's still a liver, it's even in the exact same place, but someone with sufficient knowledge of dwarven anatomy can use that to their advantage while being unable to use those tactics to the same effect against other Humanoids. Likewise, elven ears may be more fragile due to their sensitivity and size/shape. Similarly, orcs' eyes, adjusted for darkness, may be better at picking out movement and patterns than colour and spatial resolution. A low-level ranger knows to use this to his advantage for camouflage (focus on keeping still and breaking up your outline over matching colour and position), while a higher level ranger may be clever enough to have developed a fighting style that uses smaller movements or thrusting to limit the usefulness of an orc's sight advantages and play to its weaknesses.

I actually wonder how rangers are (in-universe) able to take just (all) Aberrations, Animals, Magical Beasts, or other types that don't require a subtype. I mean how much does a chuul have in common with a gibbering mouther, or a darkmantle with a winter wolf?

The Sideromancer wrote:

Lawrence, I have one minor issue with your list. You state that humanoids have organs in "standard positions."

Lawrence Dubois wrote wrote:

Does it have fairly standard organs in fairly standard locations?

If the anatomy of all humanoids are very similar, you wouldn't need multiple different Favoured Enemy effects for all of them. Also, in the original series of Star Trek, Spock often gets away without serious injury because his heart is not where a human heart is. I'm pretty sure Half-Vulcan as a race would still be humanoid.

Emphasis on "fairly" standard. Some deviation is certainly allowed, or else what would make them a different species? A Vulcan's heart is still roughly in the middle of its chest cavity, rather than, say, its skull, or its left buttock. You may not be entirely correct, but you can almost always guess the rough general location and properties of a Humanoid's organs. Compare with mind flayers. They've got a humanoid silhouette, but with that cephalapod head... Do they even have lungs, or do they have an open respiratory/circulatory system like many invertebrates (and fish)? Speaking of vertebra, are those truly bones under that skin, or are they cartilage? Or perhaps some even more bizarre organ system. Is their brain in their bulbous head like a humanoid, or is that where they keep their liver like an octopus? Etc.

On the other hand, this also suggests an answer to your first problem: that FE doesn't affect all Humanoids, and you have to pick a subtype. Honestly, I'm sure this is 90% just for game balance. There are a lot of Humanoid monsters (especially with the addition of giants), and just about any campaign, you're guaranteed to come across a few. But for that remaining 10%, it's not too difficult to come up with at least a few handwave-able explanations for why FE tactics might work on one race but not another. As Bwang said, FE applies to more than just combat, and cultural differences are guaranteed between subtypes. But even...

While you've made your point, and I get it, Spock's heart isn't in the middle of his chest cavity (that would be his liver). Also, I remember Klingons having something like a redundant spine.

EDIT: minor grammar error on my part.

Lawrence, I have one minor issue with your list. You state that humanoids have organs in "standard positions."

Lawrence Dubois wrote wrote:

Does it have fairly standard organs in fairly standard locations?

If the anatomy of all humanoids are very similar, you wouldn't need multiple different Favoured Enemy effects for all of them. Also, in the original series of Star Trek, Spock often gets away without serious injury because his heart is not where a human heart is. I'm pretty sure Half-Vulcan as a race would still be humanoid.

I think by "standard organs in standard locations", he meant within the race itself, not compared to another race. Vulcans have hearts in a different spot compared to Humans, but all Vulcans are going to have their heart in about the same spot compared to one another, just as Humans do. But, for an aberration, its organs aren't necessarily in the same spot compared even to other members of their race. Or it might have organs that don't really have a humanoid counterpart, like a gloobak. Furthermore, aberrations "could" have normal anatomy compared to other humanoids, but be considered aberrations based on one of the other criteria, such as alien mindset. Their manner of thinking and forming ideas could be completely and entirely incomparable to our own.

ARG aside, most of Paizo's playable races are either some flavor of humanoid or outsider (native). Creatures that could have been other types tend to have subtypes and/or racial traits that give them some properties of the other type (e.g., the android's constructed subtype). Dhampirs, skinwalkers, and several Bestiary 5 races have established that it's okay for humanoids to have SLAs and similar weird abilities as long as they're basically human-shaped and don't have racial Hit Dice.

As Kazaan pointed out, Dreamscarred Press revised the elans to be humanoid (aberrant), and made a similar change to the dromites, which used to be monstrous humanoids. From what I've seen, it doesn't affect balance much and eliminates a lot of confusion when the party mage wants to cast enlarge person or similar.

Given all of that, you could probably make your vatborn race humanoid with some racial abilities to represent their in-betweenness. Something like the nagaji (another created race) save bonuses would be appropriate.