The Mareltru

[Inertial_Fey]

The Mareltru are large turtle like people with a disposition towards knowledge.
The Mareltru look almost exactly like bipedal turtles, and often have bright colorful designs on the frount of their shells, many Mareltru wear clothing leaving this part of their body exposed to show off. Mareltru are very calm and peaceful and are very slow to anger, although some are known to talk far slower then nessessary.
Mareltru love art, theyre homes are decordated with many peices and even turn entire villages and cities into giant works of art.
The Mareltru republic is made up of a loose affilation of Mareltru cities that stay unified to protect their lands as well as to share knowledge.
Mareltru's main reason to adventure is to explore, many mareltru seen away from their land are often exploring the ruins of a former kingdom, Mareltru are also known commonly to travel to the Treen continent to research the ruins of Geotia, the lost magic empire.

Stats:

-+2 con +2 Int -2 dex -2 char Mareltru are tough and inquisative but are combersum and shy.
-Land speed 20 ft swim speed 30 ft
-Low light vision
-water vision: Mareltru can see as if using dark vision 90 feet while within water
-+2 bonus to knowledge history checks.
--natural armor +2
-Hold breath: A mareltru can can hold her breath a number of rounds equal to x8 their consitution bonus.
-Recede: when a Mareltru feels threatened they can recede into their own shell and a flab covers their head, this requires a full round action. While they are within their shell they receive 3/4 cover and are immune to criticals. however, while a mareltru recedes they loose use of their arms and legs, making it impossible to walk, swim, pick up objects or cast spells with somatic components they also fail all reflex saves and cannot use their eyes and cannot have a line of sight.
If a Mareltru is under the effects of fear and become paniced they have a 50% chance of receding.
Favorite class: wizard
-LA +0

[Sargon]

i still think x8 is weak!

but if you took there natural Armor down to a +2 you should be abel to take away the +1 LA.

there stats are even, nothing speical about there vision is deserveing of a LA, same with the skill bonuses, there weak hold breath is not going to beef the LA up, and recead hurts more then it helps.

let me expalin why recead hurts more then it helps i think, given while it is nice for if you are fighting combatants, cus they have that nice 3/4 cover, but all it would take is a mage that knows fireball to finish them off. cus they dont get a reflex save when they are in recead, and since they are wizards they wont have much HP eather.

the only thing that makes that LA +1 is there natural armor Bonus of +6, if that was like +2 they would be nice and firmly at a LA 0.

[Lord Kain]

Another thing Int has a much higher value then char. Only a few classes gain a great benfit from charisma but every one benfits from a higher Int score.

I agree with Sargon recede doesn't work execpt maybe of they cast fly on themself before hand. Birds find ways to crack open a turtle shell so an orc shouldn't have to much a problem.

con x8 is a lot to hold your breath with a con of 12 thats 96 rounds or about ten minutes before making any checks. I think its fine.

I'd actually say its about +1

[Sargon]

me and fey got in an argument about the hold breath thing.

you see in real life i found various sources that said that turtles can hold there breath from anywhere form 8 days to 6 months

the 8 days part, submerger in water, and the 6 months part. you know durning hibernation when they are at the bottom of a frozen lake.

i told him less then a day was pretty sad for a race that is inspired from creatures which can hold there breath for 6 months.

beavers by the way can hold there breath for 15 min, and the world record for humans is around 12 min 46 seconds.

that was tha nature of my disageement with there hold breath thing, but x8 is fine you know tis not TOO big a deal. but the beaver can hold its breath loger then the turlte race, i thought that was good to point out.

[Inertial_Fey]

In my book Int is only slightly better then Char.

Im keeping the hold breath thing how it is and casting fly on yourself when you recede is pointless cause' you still cant see where your going.
As for getting into the shell. I said there was a flap, Im gonna have it a str DC of about 22 or so to force it open to make a cu de grace but otherwise Im happy with that.

In the end my two things Im thinking about changing is giving them water breathing and bringing down their natural armor to +2

[magnus]

The only thing I am cusious about is why a race of turtles has less natural armor than even the small lizard folk? And why even have recede just give them more natural armor

[Sargon]

yeah they probbly want armor greater then the lizard folk.

there is anotehr turtle race that gievs the race a +8 natural armor if that helps the discussion.

[Sargon]

i would like to show you something with the maraltru, its not really a advice but it is a comparison.

the marltru that i have had a +4 natural armor.

if we compare the marltru with the elves (the traditional wizards) we find that the marltur beat them hands down.

here are the bonuses that the marltru gain toward there faveroit class.

they have a +2 int. all other bonuses to there stats only increase them as better wizards. wizards dont need cha at all, the +2 con bunus helps but the -2 dex hurts, but well get to that later.

the slow speed dosent hurt a wizard at all, wizards dont need to move.

as wizards, the marltru have a +4 natural armor class, which compleatly negates there -2 to dex. wizards dont need dex for anyother reason then ac, beacuse there reflex saves already suck.

hold breath manes nothing when you are on windships.

my issue with recead. when panicked creatures drop everything they are holding and flee. the marltru have a %50 chance to recead instead of run. so when they are no longer panicked, instead of being a ways away from combat they are right where they got panicked. all panicked effects as far as i have seen give a number of rounds. so basically the recead acctually gives the marltur a chance to ignor part of the effects of fear, other then makeing them more sespetual.

so the marltru get at least a +3 ac bonus (in the form of natural armor, minus the dex negative) and a higher intelegance. the elves get a good dex, and a low con. a few skill bonuses and weapon pros.

compared to elves marltur are easly the better choice for wizards. both of them as they are have no LA