Disclaimer: I really do no understand this whole "My Little Pony" thing that has kind of permeated the internet - especially adults being fans of it. So my responses are strictly from a balance / potential min-max perspective.
Understood. I don't really get it either. I did watch the first season because a number of customer and friends said I'd be impressed by it. In a way I am - it's rather refreshing in the ways it breaks the mold for "children's cartoons", much like the WB/Spielberg stuff did back in the early 90s.
Race: Looks perfectly fine, and is pretty close to what I would have given a medium size horse species (the obvious exceptions being Natural Elegance and Cutie Mark). Beast type makes total sense to me, and from the scene grabs and descriptions in this thread it doesn't seem like they do anything that a Drake (the gold standard for any beast race) wouldn't be able / allowed to do.
Thanks. The cutie mark is really important "in show" and I felt that need to be modeled in the conversion.
Feats: Cutie Mark Crusader: Why does this let them keep wounds as medium? I think it bumps the power level a little too high (without the wound penalty, Small is actually pretty big advantage), and it just doesn't make that much sense to me. I'd take it on almost every character of this species (which is my personal alarm bell).
I was going for "kids bounce, not break". That and the fact that when the character buys off the rep cost of their cutie mark that become an adult (or snotty teen, if you will) and become Medium in size and I thought that would keep the changes to a minimum. Tagged for review.
Sea Herd strikes me as a little too potent, but it's effect is hugely campaign dependant (so I'd be happy to let it go). The big problem is that with Lead it is functionally a full secondary movement, and a really high one at that.
Well, I watched the first half of the second season opener, and in that we see a stained glass window that states that there are only three kinds of ponies - Regular, Pegasus, and Unicorn. So I'm gonna move the sea herd stuff that over to a side bar, since they don't exist in the show, and this is a conversion of the show, after all. So as a GM Approval Needed sidebar I'll cover that concern the addition of these feats. I guess show creator Lauren Faust didn't have any seahorse pony toys when she was a girl (unlike my neighbor's little sister who chucked one at me and blacked my eye with it).
Sky Herd is like a 3.5pt feat (a little too good) - I say reduce the base to 30ft if you want to keep the size advantage, but personally I'd say remove that benefit entirely and keep the speed where it is (I can't see any reason why they should have the size benefit, to be honest). Again, this to me is a total go to feat - a single feat that gives you excellent flight is unseen in the basic rules (the next closest is 2 feats deep and costs an action die).
But.. but... the wings are so stubby! Ok, in the name of balance, I'll change it to normal winged flight.
Uni Herd: Not a problem with the feat, but I would change the wording so that it's a Natural Spell. It make it clear that no spellcasting roll is needed, or spell points spent, and more importantly - it gives you a caster level (which would be my first question about the feat). Unseen Servant is pretty mellow, so I have no problems with multiple casts, but given it's got a multiple hour duration 1/Scene is probably plenty. As a bonus, with Natural Spell: Unseen Servant, you could consider bumping Uni Herd. Maybe always count as having a doctor's bag - since Unicorns are depicted as excellent/natural healers in mythology.
Fixed the natural spell issue - back when I did these feats the first time, I obviously had a brain fart. As to the number of times, I like a multiple per scene mechanic. Both Twilight Sparkle and Rarity (the two main characters who are unicorns) have, at times, had a "cloud" of objects floating around them, indicating multiple uses of unseen servant to me. As to the doctor's bag, that's not, pardon the pun, the MLP;FiM unicorn's bag. They are the magic users, no the healers. I might go with always have a mage's pouch, but that steps of the
Magical Cutie Mark feat's... hoofs. (Sorry I had to!)
Uni Lead: Teleport I is a iffy without a caster level. Natural Spell solves that problem (as above). Also consider changing it to Dimension Door - it looks like it does closer to what you want and you might not need to reduce range (1000 ft could be too much though, given you only want the 250ft range). Also 1/Scene (from natural spell) is probably more balanced then AD/Session.
Done. Except the D-Door is once per species feat, not AD. I'm dropping the Gore II upgrade to pay for the multi-use. Is that a good trade off?
Celestial Royal (Class): Knowledge or Power is inspired. I'm gonna tuck that away in my bag of tricks for use later.
Woot! I'm happy that I made something steal-worthy. Thanks!
Royalty of All Herds, Regal Bearing, and Marked to Lead all look totally fine - no problems there at all.
That's good to hear. Royalty of All Herds is outright converted from the Transmech master class.
Ruler of the Celestial Herd is a cool ability, but I'd consider giving it a secondary benefit that means that it makes the scene it's used in Dramatic. Just so the player can use them when they want to / when they think it's important.
After the verbal drilling into my head about "making the scene Dramatic is bad" back in the Baron Expert Class discussions, I was gunshy about doing it here. I'll change it back to my first draft, though.
Hopefully any of that is of use to you, and again - just speaking as a powergamer, not as a fan of the show.
That's two of us. I am both proud and embarrassed by my work on this. But whatever, it's all good.
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