Talk:Neanderthal (3.5e Race)

Balance

The stat bonuses are really to high.

Strenght and Con outway's the penalty for Int and charisma. I would either recommend a third penalty to wisdom or to not give the bonus to constitution for balancing issues. You're already giving out the Diehard feat for free.

And note: Charisma isn't a measure of how good you look. Rather a score for how well you handle yourself amongst other people.

For example: you can look great. And still be unable to Lie, Cconvince or otherwise influence other people.--Damrus 23:22, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

I would change it to a +2 Con -2 Int -2 Cha and add a +1 to attack with primitive weapons.Because Fighters really don't feel penalties to Charisma and Intelligency.On second thought, +2 Con -2 Cha, bonus to attack with primitive weapons, no extra skillpoints, but bonuses to skills like Survival, fatigue or something like that would be much better, even withput that background is pretty good --Angel Black 17:47, 8 May 2011 (MDT)

Are you saying that for a ECL0 race or for a ECL1 race? Because I just realized I accidentally set ECL to 0 and just fixed it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 99.242.210.65 (talk • contribs) 16:12, 13 March 2010 (UTC). Please sign your posts.

I do agree that charisma is solely how good you are socially, and has nothing to do with how good you look. Thats why I always play 3.5e with the AD&D variant rule of comeliness. Otherwise, I do think the limited language selection and skill selection outweigh the benefits from an unbalanced ability bonus. However adding the diehard feat on top of that does seem like a little bit much. It's definitely not enough to give it a +1 LA, however it does put it at the high end of +0 and should be taken down slightly for balanced play. --Vrail 19:04, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Accuracy

You say that neanderthals have limited language abilities. However they actually could only make grunting noises at the time. The first peoples to have speach are the cro-magnons which allowed them to dominate the ancient world.

Also, you give them a -2 to intelligence and charisma. This was not the case. Neanderthals were the first species to develope social comunities, allowing for great advancement, so they should actually gain a bonus to charisma. Their brain size was also actually larger than homo sapiens (humans) so they should also have a bonus to intelligence. Neanderthals were kinda super-humans. They only died out because (as proven by recent findings) were very peaceful and the violent homo sapiens (us) killed them off. --Vrail 05:29, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Everything you just said is exactly the opposite of what is currently accepted and your idea's actually can be traced to speculative fiction about neanderthals. All of your "facts" are seriously outdated, the obvious example is the use of the word cro-magnon, who are just humans. Also Neanderthal had the same physical structures to produce vocalizations like a human though theoretically they may have less developed brain areas responsible for language, thus the physical ability to speak but perhaps not the same mental capacity. Larger brains do not mean more intelligent, the physical feature of a brain that has the most largest effect on determining intelligence is surface area and not volume. That is, the more folds and wrinkles a brain has the smarter. Neanderthal were no super human and had a flawed metabolism and gait, two issues which could be used to balance the neanderthal race in D&D. As such I would suggest the following changes:

25 foot base movement speed. While not the hunched apelike gait that fiction would have you believe, the hips of neanderthal gave them a more bouncing gait as opposed to a rolling one.

High Metabolism - Neanderthals require double the amount of food daily that a normal human does to maintain the same level of physical activity (In D&D 2 lbs of food as opposed to 1 lbs)

Illiterate - I would make Neanderthal Illiterate by default and can not learn to read or write with skill points. The ability to read was not present in even ancient humans at the time and evolved exclusively after humans became the only extant species of the homo genus.

Poor throwing - Neanderthal lacked the ability to throw an object with their arms like modern humans so receive a -4 penalty with throwing weapons. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.75.249.5 (talk • contribs) 01:20, 10 August 2010 (UTC). Please sign your posts.

I literally watched a show about this a few hours ago (Clash of the Cavemen, some History Channel documentary). Here's what's up:

• Cro-Magnon man (aka, humankind) was smarter and could talk.
• Neanderthals had larger brains, but there were inherently less technologically advanced, and we're likely much dumber (to put it scientifically). IP above me covered that point rather well.
• Neanderthals didn't have the right larynx (it was either higher or lower, I don't remember) to have a complex system of language, and couldn't make most vowel sounds we can, like the "o" in "boot" or the "a" in "dad".
• Neanderthals had short legs, and a weird pelvis, which made them poor distance, and speed, runners. They were shorter, and stockier, and designed for brutal melee combat, not running or jumping or other dexterity related things.
• I don't know that Neanderthals had a higher metabolism, but I do know that meat made up about 85% of their diet (compared to the average 20% of most humans).
• Poor throwing: they did had a different musculature system than modern man, because of this they were less able to throw things (like the spears that cro-magnon made had fabricated and used expertly).
• Social structures: While Neanderthals did live in tribes (of sorts), cro-magnon man tended to have much more complicated systems, and actually there are records of them trading with other tribes. This evidence does not exist for Neanderthals. The inability to speak a complex language likely prohibited them from complex social practices. Cro-magnon man (us humans) were the ones developing art, and paintings and whatnot. --Badger 22:30, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, it seems I have been proven wrong. :) All of my information was from previous knowledge, and I actually didn't do all of my research before hand, as you can tell. However it's good to know the correct information, being corrected is often better than being accepted (Ooh, I like that, I think I'll use that saying more often.). :) --Vrail 02:13, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

How about a language called Neanderthal Pidgin? It Combines aspecets of Dwarven, Giant, and Orc.--24.100.143.79 14:27, 7 February 2015 (MST)

Could there be a class that is a cross between a barbarian and ranger mostly just for neanderthals?--24.100.143.79 17:35, 4 March 2015 (MST)

Names

Could you expand the name list, PLEASE?!?!--Redrum 18:43, 10 August 2016 (MDT)