Talk:Bondo (3.5e Race)

Foresight and LA

I think the continuous Foresight ability in itself deserves a level adjustment. However, the additional information source as well as the "never surprised/flatfooted" abilities make it hard to determine exactly what LA the bondo should get. I'm tentatively thinking +2 with the ability score penalties lopped off. I'm also thinking that making the augury and divination abilities spell-likes would do much to simplify some of the race's weirder mechanics and make the race more playable...as much as a race that has the DM telling him/her what to do all the time can be, anyway. Finfreeze 06:15, 23 October 2007 (MDT)

Updating the Bondo Race to be Playable

There have been some modifications to the wording of the race's abilities and such that should probably be reviewed. I personally think it's fine as a LA +0 race. The ability score modifiers sum up to 0 and refrain from ridiculous changes and the abilities don't seem game-breaking.

Dulled Senses makes sense and helps balance out the powerful foresight abilities of the Bondo.

Ease of Choice and Minor Sight of Prophets are just minor divination spells, Minor Sight of Prophets being limited to once a week with a huge drawback for a day.

Fate Now Seen is mostly just a flavor ability of the race for Role Playing purposes, or at least I don't see too many cases where it could be used as a powerful technique.

Perhaps the only truly controversial ability is Protective Glimpse because it offers a fair number of advantages. Never being caught flat-footed under most circumstances is pretty nice but the racial -2 Dexterity helps balance that out fairly. Not being caught up in a surprise round is limited to only being useful when an enemy would take action to harm them and thus cannot be depended on. And there aren't a ton of ways for Sneak Attacks to become useful in a campaign and anything that could Sneak Attack would probably notice it's a Bondo anyways and avoid attacking it first because it knows the dangers of doing so.

All in all, I feel it's a pretty balanced race and if it gets reduced in power may even need to be a negative LA race to help give people a reason to play it. I also ponder the thought of giving a race so empowered with foresight and diplomacy a +2 racial bonus to Bluff, Diplomacy, and/or Intimidate.

Uhnaneemoos 03:46, 10 May 2010 (MDT)

I like the underpinning concept of this race, but it is not balanced.

This race is absurdly over powered. A -2 to Perception based checks in no way compensates for the continuous benefits of a foresight spell. Beyond this the race's innate +2 to wisdom effectively offsets this penalty by 1. Lending a class immunity to surprise, the penalties of being flat-footed; while for some reason giving it a +2 bonus against sneak attacks (due to some divine clarity) while claiming their innate senses are dulled seems wholly contradictory.

If you want the race to have continuous foresight, up the level adjustment by at least 3. If you make this ability more irregular, say "whenever they're reduced to 0 hp, they gain foresight for 5 rounds" or "whenever they roll a natural 20 on their initiative check".

This brings me to the Racial Abilities. Think about the spell like abilities gnomes get: 3 0th level spells and 1 1st level spells. You're giving this race access to a 1st level spell and a 4th level spell. This is in no way the same.

In terms of racial abilities, you've made the race too strong as a spell casting cleric. By giving them +2 wis/cha you're pumping their ability to cast and turn; by giving them a -2 to strength and dex you're encouraging them to remain out of combat--given their bonuses that was their initial plan. You've made them easier to hit, but you haven't made them weaker. You might consider throwing in a -2 to con, or replacing the -2 strength with the -2 con; as a -2 con/dex makes them extra-vulnerable in combat.

Ideas for revision

From my basic reading of this race, I get the sense that you want to create a very "farsighted" race that has a focus on the divine/distant without recognizing what's in front of them. If you want them to be an EL0, take a look at the gnomes (I say this because they're giving innate magical abilities), model them off that race. If this race is in any way objectively better than a gnome, then it's probably an EL+1.

Consider reducing the attribute bonuses/penalties to +2/-2 rather than +2+2/-2-2. Give them a +2 Wisdom (they're insightful) but a -2 Dex (they're sluggish).

I would honestly suggest dropping the whole protective glimpse thing. It's far to powerful. This EXACT set(Foresight, Augury, Divination) of abilities are granted to PROPHETS in the DMG II, and they result in an EL of +4.

Rather than giving them access to the divination spell at first level, make it twice as accurate that they get meaningful results from all divination spells.

Tameriaen 6-6-10

Taking what you said into consideration I've realized (with comparisons to other races) that this was definitely a pretty powerful race. With the Prophets from DMG II already having been developed with those powers I decided to take the Bondo in a slightly new direction from the creator's original design. Take another look if you will.

The constant foresight has been moved as the part of the insane abilities of the Bondom and has thus been completely removed (essentially) from the Bondo race as well as the augury and divination spells as racial abilities.

Now the Bondo are adepts at using Divination magic, the race getting great bonuses when using Divination spells. They also receive an insight bonus to AC now since they are well practiced at evading damage rather than taking it.

Also, the attribute bonuses/penalties have been modified down to +2 Wisdom for their insight and -2 Constitution because of their frail bodies due to a lifetime of avoiding damage through foresight.

I removed Dulled Senses entirely due to its conflict with the Wisdom bonus.

The race seems much better made (thank you Tameriaen) but maybe a little lacking in various bonuses as I look at the Gnome (as you suggeested) but maybe because of the level of power the 2 abilities of the Bondo have it should remain that way. I don't know entirely.

Uhnaneemoos 17:33, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

I like the changes you made, this strikes me as a much more balanced race at this point. Two minor things:

One of the benefits of being a cleric is the ability to wear heavier armor. If these folks are really good at avoiding damage because of insight they might be less inclined to wear armor. Perhaps give them a +2 bonus to AC when they're wearing no armor (this would make them an interesting prospect for monks); maybe temper this when they're wearing light armor (+1) or maybe not; but it might get a little too good if they're wearing medium or heavy armor. Plus it makes sense if you're portraying them as a somewhat frail Race.

In the other direction, I think you can give them some degree of magical ability. I would suggest two possible directions. Give them a limited usage of the Augury spell, maybe once per day, or once per day per wisdom modifier. Otherwise, maybe you want to give them a benefit like that granted to the luck domain: 1/day reroll a saving throw, skill check, or attack; or 1/day they can negate a critical hit confirmed against them. I'd be inclined to do any one of these things, but customize your race as you see fit. It's not out of line to give the race the free usage of one ability that a first level character would have. Another possible option is that once per day (before rolling) they can add their wisdom modifier to the roll they are about to make. Craziest of all, maybe their insight lets them see ahead of the game; maybe this race can choose to use either their dex or wisdom mod for initiative rolls.

I would honestly suggest that you run a game with this race a few times, figure out if it works well one way or another; work with a PC and don't feel bad about altering the racial stats/abilities in game. I've always found that to be the most effective way to determine whether a race is over powered or underpowered. Beyond this, just figure out what you want this race to do, maybe you try it as a EL+0 and later as an EL+1 (with a few more abilities), but play around with it.

As for the sights of the prophets thing, work out what you think the level adjustment for that should be; it's a really fun thing for mid or higher level games. I ran one where everyone played a 8th level character, but there was one 4th level character that had prophecy: the game changed dramatically as everyone kind of moved in to protect her, and used her as a means of trap/ambush detection. The continuous foresight made my life as a DM difficult, but I was able to force the players in battle by directing attacks against her (it ended up tying up the cleric nicely nearly every time. If you feel like it's edging a little close to the prophecy thing, just reference it and suggest that the DM adjust what these particular powers should entail. Also, maybe you might suggest that this has been known to manifest itself later in life. Thus maybe a bondo doesn't get it immediately, but might choose to wake the quiescent potential in them at later levels. The book Unearthed Arcana had some interesting Bloodline and Racial Paragon levels which were all about activating powerful races as they level up. You might enjoy taking a look at that.

Tameriaen 6-14-10

Capitalizing

Just wondering, every time you mention the bondo or other race you capitalize it. However since it is a race, it is not a proper noun. I was just wondering if you would be alright if I changed this, or you could but I thought I'd save you the trouble. :)--Vrail 01:19, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks

Haha, woops. Forgot about that. Thanks for pointing it out. Feel free to go ahead and fix grammar mistakes or even add in some flair of your own to the wording. :D Uhnaneemoos

Fixed, I spent ten minutes sifting through everything, then I thought of just putting it on a word doc and using the replace word function. To bad I had already finished :P--Vrail 02:44, 11 May 2010 (UTC)