Originally Posted by
Grond
True, but this is quite an obnoxious place to put a racial disadvantage. Starting the fight against cat lord in melee range after giving him a free round of attacks is an awful place to be, kitty karma or no - and this is the reward ratlings would get for managing to maintain an annoying conduct for most of the game.
It's not the
only reward, though. It's intentionally balanced by the fact that ratlings would have the opportunity to get
both the ring of the master cat
and the benefits of the cat lord's corpse, namely Dexterity, speed and mana increases, without the drawback of dooming or alignment penalties. With greater risk comes greater reward.
But you make a fair point about the combat disadvantage. We could make it so that the cat lord simply turns hostile after the initial chat, initiating combat but not granting a free round of attacks.
As well, perhaps the cat lord might like to play with his food, batting the PC back a few spaces back or to the side with every hit, an effect similar to the PC jumping backward to avoid a falling door trap. This is the way cats really do attack rodents, and it would give the ratling PC more space and reduce the total number of incoming attacks considerably.
I'm really enjoying this discussion, btw. Thank you all for your input.
:)