[Shade Genkai]

Races in SL2, while distinct and noticeably different in reference to each other, have little that can mark personal distinction between individual members of each race. While this can be good to show solidarity in the setting itself and as there has been little to limit players from adding their own personal touches to their characters through their profiles and playing styles there is something that can be said for implementing a system for mechanical benefits to such personalization. Which is where this idea comes from.

Furthermore if implemented this could be a possible solution for many of the complaints that have been voiced about various races and their balancing issues. So without further adieu, here is the Racial Skill Ranks idea.

As can be determined from the name of the idea the main premise is to add ranks or a kind of gradation to the already present racial skills and passives as well as adding a few more passive or active skills to a few races so that they wouldn't be further imbalanced or pushed into being imbalanced by the idea. One of the greatest benefits of this idea though is that it promotes putting more focus on the ic benefits and detriments of picking a race not just for their mechanical benefits but for what it implies for the character itself as well by tying the two together even more firmly while at the same time not denying already existing character concepts and perhaps even rewarding those that stuck to their guns.

Mechanically speaking, the main premise of the idea is to give racial skills and passives the same 'ranks' that are available to class skills in order to boost their natural output or to give them additional effects the more they are focused on. Each skill/passive could be given the normal five(5)possible ranks and each character would have a pool of ten(10) or so points to use at their leisure. In keeping with the basic point of the idea this would be available upon creation (possibly accessible from the character window) so that each character would still have an equal starting point with the results of their build still being based upon the effort they put into it. Furthermore there could be the possibility of taking a point from certain skills to remove them from a character entirely and to offer an extra point to be put elsewhere(of course if this were to be implemented at all it would only be for certain skills to avoid ridiculous situations that would actually stop a character from even being identifiable as their race).

The most evident issue with this idea (aside from possible difficulty or tedium in coding) would be that not all races have enough racial skills and/or passives to make them able to properly benefit from this idea. The solution, of course, would be to either add extra skills/passives (which I have ideas for if the concept itself is found to be interesting/doable) or to give the races with fewer skills/passives either a higher rank cap, more points to put into their skills/passives, or both. Another possible, though less important, issue would be the resetting of these choices after they've been made. For a solution I'd recommend adding the ability to do so to the currently available Fruit of Fluidity for convenience in both coding and for the players if adding another fruit would be too much trouble.

Listed below are possibilities for how the idea can be made compatible with already existing skills/passives. (All already existing skills start at rank one with their natural effect.)

(For ease of viewing, or at least to lessen the length of this post, all of the examples can be found in the following link.)
https://pastebin.com/rFzHidMY