Faolyn
(she/her)
Good idea! I'm not entirely sure about the disadvantage when swimming. It's a good idea, but I haven't included any disadvantages in any other ancestry.To reflect their "Rockhide" ability and to differentiate them further from other species, I'd have the weight range be more like 180-220 lb, if not even higher.
Folks? Should each ancestry have a disadvantage in some way?
I honestly don't see a problem with them using it above ground.Add the words "when underground" to the bolded, to save a lot of headaches when players try to exploit this for outdoors use.
The drow and the Mystaran shadow elves have both entered the chat. And mythologically speaking, you have the dokkalfar and a couple of types of subterranean nymph in Greek myth.Caverns should not be on this list. Elves don't do underground like Dwarves and Gnomes etc. do.
That's one possibility, but it leads to a problem: what if the terrain you took as a background never comes up in game. I.e., you choose to be a Prairie Elf, but the game takes place entirely in forests and dungeons. For a lot of people, this would be a major disappointment, bordering on anger-inducing. I could see dialing it back a bit. I don't want these elves to be Better Than You.Overpowered. KttW should be tied to (and locked in to) the terrain type where the Elf has spent most of its life prior to adventuring, i.e. where it grew up.
Plus, it's connected to the bit about them being able to choose their sex, which comes from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything.
I disagree here. Random rolls can mean the difference between a character that is fun to play and and one that is completely worthless or boring.Not sure if this should even be here; if it's kept the cantrip should be random, not chosen.
When I've played Cypher System games, your starting cyphers are rolled randomly (at least that's what my GM does) and are almost always useless for me. I don't mean in terms of power level; I mean in terms of having nothing to do with my character's background or the idea I had for them. Imagine getting a magic item designed for loud, flashy, front-line fighters and you're playing a sneak-thief. Cyphers one-use items and easily replaceable because the whole game is about getting new ones, but because they were randomly rolled and didn't fit my characters, I had no use for them and thus was missing out on options. This would be worse if it were a cantrip you can't get rid of or swap out.
Again, this is something that would be very troublesome for a lot of players. Some people don't want to play certain sexes and many people don't want something as personal as their gender to be dictated by a die roll. One of my players is non-binary and really doesn't want to play any game that would force them to be a particular gender; the idea of it really upsets them.This should be for Orcs, not Elves. Also, the change should not be controllable - it happens a randomly-determined number of days after the last change (I'd say d100 + 50) UNLESS the creature is or becomes pregnant, in which case it must remain female at least until birth.
And honestly, it doesn't fit any aspect of orc I've heard about it.
Humans need something; they should be cool in their own right, not just be the base average.No. Both too meta and a bit overpowered. Lose this one.
This ties into the Mighty Thews. Even a scrawny 6-Strength orc who doesn't know what part of the sword to hold is stronger than a 6-Strength human. They can carry more and can sometimes hit a lot harder.The added crit die is fine; that can easily be explained by a lifetime of getting into fights.
It's a game rule, which means it already is completely optional, and, well, see above for random things and how they aren't useful. Plus, if you want to have a character who background says they escaped the Feywild or their parents were cultists or whose fly-by-night dad was actually an angel, it's nice to be able to reflect that in your stats.This entire piece should be fully optional; and for those that choose it, completely random in what you're tainted with and what it gives you (and what it gives shouldn't all be benefits or additional abilities - there should be potential drawbacks too!). Otherwise, if nothing else every Human played by a wise player will take it just for the darkvision.