Batpony race!

Well, personally, I find echolocation fits better simply due to rule of cool (plus, it kinda gives the benefits of nightwatch on its own).

Nightwatch does fit the fact that ponies are vegetarians.

Hmm, would batponies with echolocation use it to hunt parasprites and similar small insects?   

And maybe the vegetarian versions with echolocation use it to hunt semi-sentient fruit/vegetable creatures (fruitbats, angry flora, and whatever that thing from the Applejack comic would be).

Few problems I have with this:

1. Bats are not blind. They actually see better than us during the night, and just as well as us during the day. The reason they use echolocation is to find their food (if they can't hear the flapping of the insects wings), or to navigate dark caves, and very dark nights like you could get in a forest. Other than that, it's more or less sight based flight both day and night.

2. Penalty for flying? Bats are actually great fliers, because they have to catch tiny insects and be very precise about it. They are more capable of turning of a dime to avoid obstacles than most birds are. So they are actually better fliers than birds. The reason you see them fluttering about, more so in a single area, is because they are either going after food that is there, or is getting a better sense of surroundings through echolocation, or using echolocation to find their prey if they are unable to hear the beating wings of insects.

Fun fact, bats could eat up to 600 insects in a single hour.

So if anything, Bat ponies are better than pegasi, since they can see at night, and pegasi can not.

In terms of flying, both shouldn't even be able to fly in the first place. Remove all magic from their world, and the wings of pegasi and bat ponies would both be too small to even support flight. Same goes for the dragons as well. Their wings are also too small to support their body, yet if a dragon's wings were any larger, they still wouldn't be able to fly because they would then no longer be able to flap their wings properly. Pegasi and bat ponies, any larger, and they wouldn't be able to flap the wings properly to gain flight.

so if anything, both Pegasi and Bat Ponies should receive a penalty for flight based skills. But because the world does have magic, their innate magical abilities, come into play, which allows their wings to generate more thrust to allow for flight.

Also, first appearance of bat ponies, they were able to pull a chariot and hover, while Luna was sitting in said chariot. So yeah, more reason why they would be on par with pegasi in terms of flight skills.


I do research into this stuff all the time. It also helps that I have a bat who has taken shelter in the hay barn on my property, and he (not sure if male or female, just using "he" so I'm not always saying "it") is sometimes up during the day. More or less becoming like the wild cats, where they are domesticated, but they aren't domesticated. Sometimes comes to say hello during the day, and is out hunting at night. Cats are actually afraid of the bat, and I'm not sure how that happened. But having that bat around, as allowed me to study his behavior more closely.

Hello there new guy. Well, this thread is very, very old, especially since Genetic Engineering was introduced (and the fact Racials and Utilities are going to be merged any minute now). Personally, I use the following racials for my batpony characters (containing the official racial abilities found here)...

Call Out (1) – At Will
You let out a loud call. Choose one:
A) Name any number of creatures that could recognize your voice. They hear your howl automatically and know how far away from them you are and in what direction.
B) Every creature within one to ten miles (your choice) hears the call and knows where you are in relation to them. You make make it clear whether or not your call is meant as a warning, distress call, etc.

Cutie Mark (2)
Characters of your race gain a cutie mark. Check with your DM if you want to use one of these for a non-traditional creature, like a Minotaur or Griffon.

Echolocation (2)
Characters of your race can “see” in areas wherever sound can travel, including magical darkness, as easily as a normal human could in broad daylight. They cannot, however, distinguish colors this way.

Flight School (3)
Characters of your race can fly with average maneuverability (you take -5 penalty to precision and brawn skills while flying).

This addresses both of your criticisms as well: The official version of Echolocation doesn't restrict eye-sight, and Flight School is the same as what pegasus ponies get (with the versions without penalties being accessible through utility talents for any race provided they meet the prerequisites). It doesn't include nightvision though, but you can get it with one of your utility talents or by sacrificing Cutie Mark for Naturally Skilled...

Paper Shadow wrote:...(and the fact Racials and Utilities are going to be merged any minute now)...

Technically they already have been, I'm just waiting for the revamped combat and destiny documents to come out before I make them the default links in the Link Collection thread.
(And don't worry, the old documents aren't going anywhere, they'll just be further down the post than the new stuff, or possibly inside a spoiler.)