Shattered Kingdoms

Maybe good enough players just don't even bother with the races. What centaurs and griffons need are good players to play them.

Moving on:

Griffons - They need higher dex. If you are going to penalize them armor wise they should be dodging like cats on fire... wait.. they are... raise the dex.

Centaurs - Horses are not graceful in battle.. its charge and leap.. so high dex for them would not make much sense, but they should be able to have some type of leg protection as in skirting etc. Fire.... I see that inspiring fear in them more than damage, however it may be something for balancing. I suppose it relates to more of their flesh being unprotected by any type of armor. That would make sense.

All races need better players... be all you can be.

Horses have a natural, almost paralyzing fear of fire. I would assume that the vulnerability to fire is a play on that aspect of the centaur race.

As I said before, I find the vulnerability to fire and energy attacks, even their dexterity very rattional. What I would like to see though (and keep in mind that I don't even play a front-row class centaur) is some sort of leg-guard for them. In many graphic RPGs I have seen centaurs wearing some sort of greaves around their legs, or some sort of battle-skirt. Perhaps there could be some implemented in SKs as well?

Barding for horses was common and many graphical examples can be found. It was never strong enough to protect the legs against, say, a prepared defense targeted at the knees versus a charge , but it was more than just mildly effective in combat itself. The only reason I've ever been able to use to myself to justify the lack of armor slots on centaur legs and griffon limbs has been a play balance issue, but there really are more than enough other drawbacks to those races to make it fair to add some limb protection.

Centaur mercs with innate fletch would be.... really fun.

My personal thoughts are perhaps a +1 or +2 dex boost, and some sort of battle-skirt.



While we're at it, can we get rid of this particular response for kick? My centaur does not wear boots.

All that centaur need are +2 to dex, -1 to str, - 1 to wis and they're fine.

Giants need -2 to dex, +2 wis or +1 int +1 wis though, that's for damn sure.

Although I am not sure that it fits them RP-wise, mechanics-wise I find Grakus' proposal quite convinient. I should worry about this.

There's already been enough bitching to get the number of energy/flame type weapons in the game reduced, and it spawned a whole number of new damage types implemented by Dulrik, which is by far one of the better moves.

You don't want to worry about fire? Enchant your equipment. It saves lives, daily.

You've obviously never(accidentally or not) set a furry animal on fire.

I was playing with a lighter one day, and my cat jumped on my lap, her tail just barely brushed the flame, but that was all it took, poof, all that bushy fur went up like Hiroshima.

Luckily I got her put out before it got anything more than her tail, she had a patchy furred tail for a while though.

I can definately see centaurs burning well. But as already stated, even back when I played they're unprotected lower halves were a big source of problems for them.

I do notice however, when reading the help files, on all the racial weaknesses, it seems that humans are a bit out of line. Yes I understand they are human, and therefore have no weaknesses, and also no strengths, but when you look at the strength most non human races have, vs the weaknesses, the weaknesses seem to just completely overpower there strengths, making humans an even more desirable race to play than they already were with the +3 to prime attributes.

Centaurs: Weak against fire/energy, strong vs cold/acid.
-Great, a strength vs acid might be nice when facing a sorceror, until you realize that magic missiles is an energy attack, and actually does damage now from what I hear. How many cold spells are there in the game? 1? Cone of cold, that's all I can think of. How many fire/energy spells are there? To many to name. Magma spray/Flamestrike/Hellfire/Magic Missiles/Burning Hands/Energy Drain(?), etc... Point is, the cons, far out number the pros.

Giants: Resistant to poison/disease, enhanced damage, bash, throw boulder, weak vs lightning/mental.
-Resistances to poison/disease, a nice leveling ability, moreso than it's PK potential. Enhanced damage/bash innate are both superbly nice. Throw boulder, meh. Weakness vs lightning isn't that bad really, but the weakness vs mental attacks is huge. For one, giants are just to damn dumb to be effective casters. Warlocks especially, they can't even summon an elemental until their second age tick, common, cut them a bit of slack. And even as shamans, they can't hold spirit aura and sanctuary while in combat, it's awful. Which leaves 99% of the giant population on the mud as fighters. What always happens to the fighters in group PK? They get charmed, now your big giant [REDACTED] is wrecking your own team, way to go champ. Even so, giants are a lot closer to being balanced in the pro vs con department than centaurs are.

Elves: Strong vs charm, magic, weak vs iron, negative energies, poison, disease.
-Charm and magic resistance, very nice, especially the magic resistance. But the weakness against iron is simply ridiculous. It's IRON, probably the most common material in existence. Couple that with their innate ability to get raped by all things necromancer, and you've got one [REDACTED] up race.

I was going to type out and compare all the pros vs cons of each race, but it's dawning on me how much typing that would entail. So I'm just going to skip all that nonsense. You've gotten the point now anyways, deep elves, [REDACTED] by paladins, priests and color spray far harder than anything they get as a bonus, small races get raped by bludgeoning weapons, etc...

The point being, nearly all races, aside from humans, are far more screwed by their racial weaknesses, than they are helped by their racial strengths, I think cutting all the weaknesses in half, from what they are, for every race across the board, would put them a bit more in line with humans. The lack of racial strengths for humans, is really not a hinderance at all, considering a lot of them are balls anyways, far more impressive is the complete lack of racial weaknesses they have, which gives them the advantage.