# Excerpt: Racial Benefits



## Fallen Seraph (May 2, 2008)

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4ex/20080502a

Its up!


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## Henry (May 2, 2008)

That was quick!

My thoughts? I really like these: It's something I wish they'd done with 3E, rather than "front-loading" several of the races. Personally, I like Monte Cook's "Race Levels" better, but this is a great compromise. 

Reading that Bragon Breath part, I'll still never used to perfectly square breath weapons, though... :\


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## Acid_crash (May 2, 2008)

I like this article, makes up for the confusion that is the multiclassing article.

How they did racial feats and tied them into the themes of the races, way cool.  Another thumbs up from an already sold fan.


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## Boarstorm (May 2, 2008)

Most interesting aspect of this whole article?



			
				WotC preview said:
			
		

> Be sure to return Monday for a look at skill challenges!


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## gtJormungand (May 2, 2008)

With how they keep specifying that what are shown in this except are Heroic Tier racial feats, I wonder if there are going to be Paragon and Epic Tier racial feats as well.


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## NebtheNever (May 2, 2008)

I believe we saw paragon tier racial feats in the paragon path excerpt.


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## Thasmodious (May 2, 2008)

I like that you can be more dwarfy than other dwarves (e.g.) by taking more racial feats.  That's a nice touch and gives another dimension to character concepts.  You want to play a through and through -insert race-, you can mechanically represent that above and beyond other examples of your race.


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## Rex Blunder (May 2, 2008)

I like the fact that Group Insight is a half-elf racial feat, not a half-elf racial power. That way I can not take it.

Generally, separating the peripheral racial abilities into optional modules like this is a good design, I think. If you don't want to be a dwarf with an axe or hammer, you can trade that ability in for something you do want. (But I have a feeling most dwarven fighters will be using axes and hammers - +2 damage is pretty boss.)


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## Ipissimus (May 2, 2008)

Those damage bonus/proficiency feats for Dwarves and Eladrin look nice. And Humans look to be getting a few useful abilities. Tieflings not so much, but what's the bet they get wings and such?


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## That One Guy (May 2, 2008)

> Eladrin Soldier 	Eladrin 	+2 damage and proficiency with longswords and spears




I like that.


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## jaldaen (May 2, 2008)

I wonder if there are more heroic tier racial feats... I'm really like how these feats accentuate the feel of each race... humans are action heroes, dragonborn are Rocky with a breath weapon, and halfings... well everyone ignores them!


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## Fallen Seraph (May 2, 2008)

I like these too, since they can show with character concept how closely they tie into your character.

If you grew up with your culture it makes sense to pick more racial feats then someone who grew away.

I am tempted actually to house-rule that non-Physically Different racial feats can be used by any race. If that character grew up within that races society, so the Weapon Proficiency for example be a good one.


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## NebtheNever (May 2, 2008)

I'm thinking a Half-Elf Warlord with Group Insight might not be a bad idea. +3 initiative to everybody, plus a high charisma score.


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## Reaper Steve (May 2, 2008)

Re-paste for those of use behind a wall? (please!)


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## tombowings (May 2, 2008)

NebtheNever said:
			
		

> I thinking a Half-Elf Warlord with Group Insight might not be a bad idea. +3 initiative to everybody, plus a high charisma score.




I'm getting Eladrin warlord with a spear and teleportation.


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## WyzardWhately (May 2, 2008)

I dig the fact that there's a racial feat giving a bonus to overland movement.  Not so much because the feat is awesome, but because it confirms the existence of overland movement rules, and that they're significant enough to matter.  I approve of that.


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## jeffhartsell (May 2, 2008)

*Half-elf*

Looks like the half-elf can take human racial feats (check out the pre-gen).  Also, IIRC the ranger has the Prime Shot class feature, which the half-elf warlock also picked up. So, it looks like the half-elf can poach a CLASS FEATURE and a power.


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## Boarstorm (May 2, 2008)

Reaper Steve said:
			
		

> Re-paste for those of use behind a wall? (please!)




From a look at classes, we move on to races, and why they matter more than ever in 4th Edition. To answer that question, we turned to Rob Heinsoo:


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Original Design Intent
Before we began 4th Edition design, James Wyatt decided that he wanted a player character’s race to matter a lot more in 4E than it did in 3E. Andy Collins and I heard about James’ decision during our first week of brainstorming together. James said something like, “I won’t be happy with this design unless it gives me a reason to care about what race I am all through a character’s career. Not just something that happens at first level.” That sounded great to me and Andy. 

Our early designs put race on par with paragon paths and epic destinies as character elements that would be secondary to class for ten levels at a time. Race supplied features and powers from levels 1-10, paragon paths took over at levels 11-20, and epic destinies capped characters off at levels 21-30. 

One drawback of our original “race offers powers at levels 1-10” approach was that it made race abilities less significant at higher levels. Another drawback was that our classes were already plenty rich. We realized that we didn’t need race, path and destiny competing directly with the class-based power lists that were the heart of the design. 

4E Solution
So we settled on a hybrid approach. Each 4E race gets a small roster of abilities that make them stand out from other races. Each race gets a single unique power at first level that stays cool and useful over the character’s entire career. And each race has a unique selection of feats that flesh out the race’s advantages compared to other races. 

Styles of Racial Feats
There are at least three different styles of racial feats in the Players Handbook. 

Racial Power Related Feats: The logic for these feats is that you’re the only race in the game that can pull off a stunt that everyone else envies. Letting you choose feats that utilize your racial power makes you feel even better about your power. You’re opting to improve an already good power instead of choosing a feat that could shore up a weakness, so we aren’t shy about making racial feats a good deal. 

Take the Enlarged Dragon Breath feat for the dragonborn as an example.

Enlarged Dragon Breath [Dragonborn]
Prerequisites: Dragonborn, dragon breath racial power
Benefit: When you use your dragon breath power, you can choose to make it blast 5 instead of blast 3.

A dragonborn’s breath weapon isn’t going to be its most powerful attack, but it is one of the few minor action attacks in the game. Increasing the blast area from 9 squares to 25 squares? It’s a no-brainer for any weapon-using dragonborn who isn’t already capable of attacks that blast many enemies at once. Once you’ve played a dragonborn with 5-square breath, playing a dragonborn with a wee little 3-square blast won’t cut it. 

Flavorful Feats that Don’t Need to Clutter Basic Race Abilities: Some 3E races have laundry lists of abilities supplying situational benefits. In 4E, we have laundered those lists. Small situational benefits are great as feats that a player chooses because it suits their character concept, not as good as something that every player of a particular race has to keep track of. Here’s an example from the dwarf. 

Dodge Giants [Dwarf]
Prerequisite: Dwarf
Benefit: You gain a +1 bonus to AC and Reflex defense against the attacks of Large or larger foes.

3E dwarves all ended up having AC bonuses against giants. 4E cuts this advantage out of the standard dwarf package and rephrases the advantage as a feat that can help dwarves against all bigger creatures, not just the few bigger creatures that happen to be actual giants. 

Feats that Capture the Essence of a Race: Okay, I admit this last category is a bit broad. The perfect racial feat of this style supplies the race with a wonderful little feature that members of other races would love to have but don’t deserve. Sometimes we succeed perfectly, other times we get as close as we can. 

Any guesses about the hardest race? Which race was the hardest to peg with feats that felt distinct and appropriate? 

Other designers may have other answers, but I’d say it was humans. The problem is that you all know humans. You’ve got a pretty good sense of human capabilities, and even in a fantasy world with elves and dwarves and succubi, there are a lot of abilities that we could try to peg onto humans that would make you and most all your friends cock an eyebrow and hone your mockery skills. 

So we settled on the idea that humans, at least the PC humans we’re concerned with, are the action-hero race, winning against improbable odds and fighting to the last breath. Try the following feat as an example:

Action Surge [Human]
Prerequisite: Human
Benefit: You gain a +3 bonus to attack rolls you make during any action you gained by spending an action point.

That’s an example of an ability nearly any PC would like to have, but as a feat, it’s only available to humans. You think you’ve got a human finished off and they pull out some heroic stunt that saves the party. 

Full Circle
Enlarged Dragon Breath, Dodge Giants, and Action Surge have one point in common: all three are racial feats you can take in the heroic tier that will still be useful even when your character is 19th or 28th level. We made good on James’ original hope—your PC’s race always matters, and if you want to choose a number of racial feats, your PC’s race can matter a lot.
--Rob Heinsoo







Racial Traits
Each character race offers the following types of benefits.

Ability Scores: Your character race gives you a bonus to a particular ability score or two. Keep these bonuses in mind when you assign your ability scores.

Speed: Your speed is the number of squares you can normally move when you walk.

Vision: Most races, including humans, have normal vision. Some races have low-light vision; they see better in darkness than humans do.

Languages: You start off knowing how to speak, read, and write a few languages. All races speak Common, the language passed on by the last human empire, and some races let you choose a language.

Other Racial Traits: Other traits include bonuses to your skills, weapon training, and a handful of other traits that give you capabilities or bonuses that members of other races don’t have.

Racial Power: Several races give you access to a racial power, which is an extra power you gain at 1st level in addition to the powers your class gives you.

Racial Feats (Heroic Tier)

Name Prerequisites Benefit 
Action Surge Human +3 to attacks when you spend an action point 
Dodge Giants Dwarf +1 to AC and Reflex against attacks of Large or larger foes 
Dragonborn Frenzy Dragonborn +2 damage when bloodied 
Dragonborn Senses Dragonborn Low-light vision, +1 to Perception 
Dwarven Weapon Training Dwarf +2 damage and proficiency with axes and hammers 
Eladrin Soldier Eladrin +2 damage and proficiency with longswords and spears 
Elven Precision Elf +2 to reroll with elven accuracy 
Enlarged Dragon Breath Dragonborn, dragon breath racial power Dragon breath becomes blast 5 
Ferocious Rebuke Tiefling, infernal wrath racial power Push 1 square with infernal wrath 
Group Insight Half-Elf Grant allies +1 to Insight and initiative 
Halfling Agility Halfling, second chance racial power Attacker takes a –2 penalty with second chance reroll 
Human Perseverance Human +1 to saving throws 
Light Step Elf Add to overland speed of group, +1 to Acrobatics and Stealth 
Lost in the Crowd Halfling +2 to AC when adjacent to at least two larger enemies


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## Wisdom Penalty (May 2, 2008)

Reaper Steve said:
			
		

> Re-paste for those of use behind a wall? (please!)




Dangit. Too slow. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.


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## Boarstorm (May 2, 2008)

Sorry, Wis.  I ninja'd someone else last time, too.

Must be my hella-dex.


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## Ozdec (May 2, 2008)

Beaten to it


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## Shroomy (May 2, 2008)

jeffhartsell said:
			
		

> Looks like the half-elf can take human racial feats (check out the pre-gen).  Also, IIRC the ranger has the Prime Shot class feature, which the half-elf warlock also picked up. So, it looks like the half-elf can poach a CLASS FEATURE and a power.




Nice catch on the feats, but I don't see the prime shot class feature on the ranger's character sheet.  In any case, I'm glad that the half-elf, one of my favorite races back in the day, is getting a much needed power boost.


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## jackston2 (May 2, 2008)

Fallen Seraph said:
			
		

> I like these too, since they can show with character concept how closely they tie into your character.
> 
> If you grew up with your culture it makes sense to pick more racial feats then someone who grew away.
> 
> I am tempted actually to house-rule that non-Physically Different racial feats can be used by any race. If that character grew up within that races society, so the Weapon Proficiency for example be a good one.




Just make sure they only get to choose one culture (stacking the human action point feat and the axe damage feat for example).


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## HeinorNY (May 2, 2008)

Name Prerequisites  Benefit 

Action Surge Human  +3 to attacks when you spend an action point 

Dodge Giants Dwarf  +1 to AC and Reflex against attacks of Large or larger foes

Dragonborn Frenzy Dragonborn  +2 damage when bloodied 

Dragonborn Senses Dragonborn  Low-light vision, +1 to Perception 

Dwarven Weapon Training Dwarf  +2 damage and proficiency with axes and hammers 

Eladrin Soldier Eladrin  +2 damage and proficiency with longswords and spears 

Elven Precision  Elf  +2 to reroll with elven accuracy 

Enlarged Dragon Breath Dragonborn, dragon breath racial power  Dragon breath becomes blast 5 

Ferocious Rebuke Tiefling, infernal wrath racial power  Push 1 square with infernal wrath 

Group Insight  Half-Elf Grant allies +1 to Insight and initiative 

Halfling Agility  Halfling, second chance racial power  Attacker takes a –2 penalty with second chance reroll 

Human Perseverance Human  +1 to saving throws 

Light Step  Elf  Add to overland speed of group, +1 to Acrobatics and Stealth

Lost in the Crowd  Halfling  +2 to AC when adjacent to at least two larger enemies


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## Fallen Seraph (May 2, 2008)

Yeah, lol. I would be tempted though, if say... We ever played a Immortals game, to allow them to drop old racial feats for new ones as they forget about the old culture and embrace a new one.

Though, I wonder... The Human one, that is more physical related not cultural. Now, the never give-up nature could be considered cultural... Or does it have more to do with a Humans physical tenacity, shall have to think about that.


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## jaldaen (May 2, 2008)

I made a makeshift table to help visualize the Racial Feats (I don't know how to make a table with the forum codes... but if someone else does feel free to post it for me :

*Racial Feats (Heroic Tier)*

*Name*_________________*Prerequisites*______________________*Benefit* 
Action Surge____________Human___________________________+3 to attacks when you spend an action point
Dodge Giants____________Dwarf____________________________+1 to AC and Reflex against attacks of Large or larger foes
Dragonborn Frenzy_______Dragonborn________________________+2 damage when bloodied
Dragonborn Senses_______Dragonborn________________________Low-light vision, +1 to Perception
Dwarven Weapon Training_Dwarf_____________________________+2 damage and proficiency with axes and hammers
Eladrin Soldier___________Eladrin____________________________+2 damage and proficiency with longswords and spears
Elven Precision__________Elf________________________________+2 to reroll with elven accuracy
Enlarged Dragon Breath___Dragonborn, dragon breath racial power_Dragon breath becomes blast 5
Ferocious Rebuke________Tiefling, infernal wrath racial power_____Push 1 square with infernal wrath
Group Insight___________Half-Elf_____________________________Grant allies +1 to Insight and initiative
Halfling Agility___________Halfling, second chance racial power____Attacker takes a –2 penalty with second chance reroll
Human Perseverance_____Human_____________________________+1 to saving throws 
Light Step______________Elf________________________________Add to overland speed of group, +1 to Acrobatics and Stealth
Lost in the Crowd________Halfling____________________________+2 to AC when adjacent to at least two larger enemies


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## MaelStorm (May 2, 2008)

Anybody noticed this:







			
				Character Races said:
			
		

> Ability Scores: Your character race gives you a bonus to a particular ability score or two.



I'm under the impression Human won't get two +2 bonus to any abilities, but only one.


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## NebtheNever (May 2, 2008)

It does say or. Really, that sentence makes me wonder if there's a race other than Humans that will only get one +2.


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## MaelStorm (May 2, 2008)

NebtheNever said:
			
		

> It does say or. Really, that sentence makes me wonder if there's a race other than Humans that will only get one +2.



Maybe the Half-Elf too.


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## jeffhartsell (May 2, 2008)

Shroomy said:
			
		

> Nice catch on the feats, but I don't see the prime shot class feature on the ranger's character sheet.  In any case, I'm glad that the half-elf, one of my favorite races back in the day, is getting a much needed power boost.




Check out the JPG of the ranger from the PHB photo taken at GAMA. It looks like the Ranger has Prime Shot in the class feature list, but it is a bit blurry.


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## Moon-Lancer (May 2, 2008)

wow elves get cruddy feats  No bonus to damage with bows? I still am hopeing that their is a bonus of some sort with proficiency overlapping from race and class.


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## Ozdec (May 2, 2008)

I would seriously doubt this is a comprehensive list of Racial feats. Just a smattering of a few to cover the races and style of feats


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## Kzach (May 2, 2008)

Group Insight and Light Step are pure suck. Unless skills are massively improved in 4e for what they can do in combat, then these abilities are total fail. I see little reason to take these above other, far more powerful, feats.


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## Andor (May 2, 2008)

Fallen Seraph said:
			
		

> Yeah, lol. I would be tempted though, if say... We ever played a Immortals game, to allow them to drop old racial feats for new ones as they forget about the old culture and embrace a new one.
> 
> Though, I wonder... The Human one, that is more physical related not cultural. Now, the never give-up nature could be considered cultural... Or does it have more to do with a Humans physical tenacity, shall have to think about that.




Why try to pin it to culture or physique? It is the naute of humans to be tenacious just like it is the nature of rabbits to be fearful and it's in the nature of cats to pee on your sneakers.


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## Khaalis (May 2, 2008)

Ozdec said:
			
		

> I would seriously doubt this is a comprehensive list of Racial feats. Just a smattering of a few to cover the races and style of feats



Exactly. With the system they are describing I would expect to see at absolute minimum 3 racial feats per race in the Heroic Tier, but my gut says to expect more than that. Probably closer to 6-12 per race.


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## Falling Icicle (May 2, 2008)

My first impressions? Not good. It seems to me that what they did is say "hey, lets take a bunch of those little bonuses, like +1 dodge against giants, make them feats people have to purchase, and then pat ourselves on the back for making races "important" beyond 1st level!"


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## Scholar & Brutalman (May 2, 2008)

I think there are going to be more feats. As Mr Samedi pointed out at RPGNet:



> I think there'll be more feats on that list, unless it happens to be sheer coincidence that they stop at "L".


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## Saitou (May 2, 2008)

Ozdec said:
			
		

> I would seriously doubt this is a comprehensive list of Racial feats. Just a smattering of a few to cover the races and style of feats



This. It would seem silly not to give all races an equivalent number of feats, or at least have the selections of each race balanced against each otehr.


We're given a small taste and think it's the whole meal. There is more yet to come (not to mention Paragon and Epic tier feats...)


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## Ximenes088 (May 2, 2008)

Falling Icicle said:
			
		

> My first impressions? Not good. It seems to me that what they did is say "hey, lets take a bunch of those little bonuses, like +1 dodge against giants, make them feats people have to purchase, and then pat ourselves on the back for making races "important" beyond 1st level!"



Trebling your per-encounter, minor-action breath weapon's area of effect is a little bonus? +2 to hit and damage with weapons you're going to be using all the time? Sure, +1 AC/Reflex against Large opponents isn't as simple, but it's about another 5% mitigation against all AC and Reflex-aimed attacks, and a mitigation that can be expected to retain its value through the life of the PC, since defenses scale upward. Most of the bonii listed on the feats are not conditionally applied- they generally apply in all situations in which an action is relevant. That's the opposite of Dodge.


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## Fallen Seraph (May 2, 2008)

One thing I like specifically about one feat is:

_Lost in the Crowd - Halfling - +2 to AC when adjacent to at least two larger enemies_

When you combine this with:

_Underfoot - Halfling, trained in Acrobatics - Move through spaces of Large or larger creatures_

I could quite clearly see a Halfling running amok amongst a group of Large monsters.


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## cferejohn (May 2, 2008)

Ozdec said:
			
		

> I would seriously doubt this is a comprehensive list of Racial feats. Just a smattering of a few to cover the races and style of feats




In fact given that the list is alphabetical and ends at 'L' it's pretty certain that this is roughly half the list...


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## Fallen Seraph (May 2, 2008)

cferejohn said:
			
		

> In fact given that the list is alphabetical and ends at 'L' it's pretty certain that this is roughly half the list...



Of which this is only the Heroic Racial Feats. We already know there are Paragon Racial Feats, and probably will be Epic as well if it stays the same.


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## HeinorNY (May 2, 2008)

Fallen Seraph said:
			
		

> I could quite clearly see a Halfling running amok amongst a group of Large monsters.



Samwise Gamgee against the cave troll in the moria battle!


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## Falling Icicle (May 2, 2008)

Ximenes088 said:
			
		

> Trebling your per-encounter, minor-action breath weapon's area of effect is a little bonus? +2 to hit and damage with weapons you're going to be using all the time? Sure, +1 AC/Reflex against Large opponents isn't as simple, but it's about another 5% mitigation against all AC and Reflex-aimed attacks, and a mitigation that can be expected to retain its value through the life of the PC, since defenses scale upward. Most of the bonii listed on the feats are not conditionally applied- they generally apply in all situations in which an action is relevant. That's the opposite of Dodge.




It was the author of the article that described them as "small situational benefits."


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## Spatula (May 2, 2008)

Dragonborn are the new 2e elves, it seems.

Some of those are amazingly powerful (the breath weapon one in particular).  Some are pure crap.  How is a +1 AC vs large creatures not a fiddly easy-to-forget bonus like the 3e Dodge feat?  And how does that compare against adding *16* squares to a minor-action AE power?


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## ShockMeSane (May 2, 2008)

Spatula said:
			
		

> Dragonborn are the new 2e elves, it seems.
> 
> Some of those are amazingly powerful (the breath weapon one in particular).  Some are pure crap.  How is a +1 AC vs large creatures not a fiddly easy-to-forget bonus like the 3e Dodge feat?  And how does that compare against adding *16* squares to a minor-action AE power?




Well, the Dwarf ability obviously gets better as you level. The higher level you get, the greater the % of large+ size creatures. Seeing that AC is supposed to actually scale at the high levels appropriately now, I don't think a flat out 5% damage mitigation against half the stuff you fight is bad. The reason Dodge was so terrible was because you had to designate the target of it, and because AC scaled pointlessly in 3.x unless you made very specific builds for it.

That said, yes, Dragonborn are seeming really powerful at low levels. Daily/Actionpoint/Encounter/Breathweapon all in one round is crankypants Mcgee. I have a feeling for the breath weapon to stay viable later on it will require further investment of feats, and if you spend a feat to increase its damage at Paragon and Epic, and one at Heroic to increase its radius... well, that's 3 feats you didn't spend increasing your attack/damage bonus, crit range, multi-classing, whatever.

Of course, until those rules are in our hot little hands it's hard to say. But I mean, I can forsee plenty of situations where a 5% chance to dodge is going to save a TPK, just as I can see a bigger breath attack once per encounter doing so. Also, we know there are racial feats at paragon at the very least, and probably epic, so it's important to consider if a certain feat is in a line or not. I mean, 1 feat for 5% chance to dodge a large+ creature isnt going to save you too often, but if there is a paragon and epic version, a 15% chance is much more noticeable and could easily be worth 3 feats.


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## fuindordm (May 2, 2008)

Yeah, the dwarven dodge seems pretty lame. 

For one thing, it looks like it's a lot harder in 4e to push your AC close to your opponent's attack bonus.  At least in the level 1 demos, not even the minions had much trouble hitting the dwarf. Dropping your hit rate from 35% to 30% (for example) is a lot less interesting than dropping it from 10% to 5%.

For another thing, there's something odd about a dwarf getting a defense bonus against a giant's Fireball spell.

I'm astonished that they consider +2 damage with a weapon category suitable for a first-level feat (but I understand given the new HP scale), but hesitated to give a +2 to AC.

I would have written it "+2 to AC and reflex against melee attacks from opponents in a larger size category."


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## FadedC (May 2, 2008)

fuindordm said:
			
		

> Yeah, the dwarven dodge seems pretty lame.
> 
> For one thing, it looks like it's a lot harder in 4e to push your AC close to your opponent's attack bonus.  At least in the level 1 demos, not even the minions had much trouble hitting the dwarf. Dropping your hit rate from 35% to 30% (for example) is a lot less interesting than dropping it from 10% to 5%.
> 
> ...




+2 AC would be MUCH stronger then +2 damage....especially with more standardized armor classes. Going from 35% to be hit to 25% to be hit would be a huge reduction and much stronger then doing slightly more damage. Bonuses to armor class scale with your level. Bonuses to damage don't.


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## Mighty Veil (May 2, 2008)

Henry said:
			
		

> Personally, I like Monte Cook's "Race Levels" better,




Really? Race levels I felt were one of the worst 3.x/D20 rules made. How does an elf specialize in being an elf? You just are.


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## med stud (May 2, 2008)

This looks nice. I like humanity's niche in this, resiliant and dogheaded compared to the other races. Especially Action surge, that one might be very good.


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## Reaper Steve (May 2, 2008)

Thanks Boarstorm (and everyone else who tried but wasn't as fast!)


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## ShockMeSane (May 2, 2008)

med stud said:
			
		

> This looks nice. I like humanity's niche in this, resiliant and dogheaded compared to the other races. Especially Action surge, that one might be very good.




Yea, +3 to hit on your daily is pretty solid, seeing as I imagine that's largely what Action Points will be used for.


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## med stud (May 2, 2008)

ShockMeSane said:
			
		

> Yea, +3 to hit on your daily is pretty solid, seeing as I imagine that's largely what Action Points will be used for.



Not only that, you get +3 to the bonus action you get as well! Cast Acid arrow with +3, then use the extra standard action to cast Force orb at +3 as well. You could do some serious room sweeping with a human wizard


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## hennebeck (May 2, 2008)

> Some of those are amazingly powerful (the breath weapon one in particular). Some are pure crap. How is a +1 AC vs large creatures not a fiddly easy-to-forget bonus like the 3e Dodge feat? And how does that compare against adding 16 squares to a minor-action AE power?



I've been beaten to the explanation but I want to chime in.

In 3.x, all dwarves got the fiddly +1 to Giants.
In 4e, you choose to take it, which means it isn't fiddly, you conciously choose the feat (Fighters don't forget about Power Attack).
So, you know from level 1, that you are made to fight Larger things. Larger things being Dragons, Trolls, Umber Hulks. If you choose this, there is less chance you will miss it in combat. You will always go toe-to-toe with the Larger guys while your allies take out smaller minions and such.
I'm guessing with the re-tolling of 4e math, they must have a reason why they only get +1 to AC but +2 to attacks.


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## ShockMeSane (May 2, 2008)

med stud said:
			
		

> Not only that, you get +3 to the bonus action you get as well! Cast Acid arrow with +3, then use the extra standard action to cast Force orb at +3 as well. You could do some serious room sweeping with a human wizard




Unfortunately in the larger text it states -

Action Surge [Human]
Prerequisite: Human
Benefit: You gain a +3 bonus to attack rolls you make during any action you gained by spending an action point.

Sounds restricted to a single action to me. Still, +3 to hit on your most clutch attack isn't a bad deal.


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## Raduin711 (May 2, 2008)

Falling Icicle said:
			
		

> My first impressions? Not good. It seems to me that what they did is say "hey, lets take a bunch of those little bonuses, like +1 dodge against giants, make them feats people have to purchase, and then pat ourselves on the back for making races "important" beyond 1st level!"




Did you happen to catch the part about how that feat works on any creature size Large or bigger?  Definitely feat-worthy.


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## ShockMeSane (May 2, 2008)

hennebeck said:
			
		

> I'm guessing with the re-tolling of 4e math, they must have a reason why they only get +1 to AC but +2 to attacks.




This may have been a typo on your part, or maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see any Heroic Feats that grant a passive +2 to hit bonus. To damage, yea (maybe that was your point... but the relationship with damage and AC isn't as pertinent for what you are describing). In fact, not one of the feats listed grants a +hit bonus. This isn't to say that there aren't any, of course.

Nonetheless, I'll stand by my argument that having a +1 to AC and Reflex (dragon breath anyone?) from anything the size of an ogre+ is going to be a heck of a lot better when you don't variably have level 15 monsters with either a +15 to hit or a +36 like 3.x did. Is it the best feat of all time? Of course not, but I don't think its a pointless feat-trap/prereq that Dodge was.


----------



## Falling Icicle (May 2, 2008)

Raduin711 said:
			
		

> Did you happen to catch the part about how that feat works on any creature size Large or bigger?  Definitely feat-worthy.




Yes I caught that and I respectfully disagree. It's the new dodge.


----------



## Victim (May 2, 2008)

hennebeck said:
			
		

> I'm guessing with the re-tolling of 4e math, they must have a reason why they only get +1 to AC but +2 to attacks.




It probably has to with the much lower damage/HP ratio and the desire to make monsters useful across a wider range of levels.  More AC means weaker monsters become ineffectual faster.  And since characters are tougher in general, too much defense stacking has a multiplying effect.


----------



## Sammael (May 2, 2008)

So many situational modifiers...


----------



## ProfessorCirno (May 2, 2008)

Hmmm.  Some of these are (very obviously) more powerful then others.  But my primary worry is the "feel" for races making them TOO good for various classes.

One of my gripes with 3e was how some races almost PUNISHED you for making different classes, and not in obvious ways such as "Well, half orcs aren't that awesome at wizards," but by just making other classes so obscenely good at them.  Or races that were just bad at _everything_ (I'm looking at you half elves), not from lower stats, but from exclusion of higher ones.

Tiefling is starting to feel a bit too much like "Warlocks: the Race," and I have the (albeit possibly unfounded) worry that a, say, human warlock will be trailing far behind a tiefling one.


----------



## ShockMeSane (May 2, 2008)

Victim said:
			
		

> It probably has to with the much lower damage/HP ratio and the desire to make monsters useful across a wider range of levels.  More AC means weaker monsters become ineffectual faster.  And since characters are tougher in general, too much defense stacking has a multiplying effect.




This. Also, if you notice in the Paragon preview there was basically a +1 AC feat (with +1 to offset skillcheck penalty or something). Obviously from a balancing perspective WotC is valueing AC pretty significantly. But then, since everyone gets +1 AC every two levels, I suppose that makes it significantly easier to balance, i.e. +1 AC = 2 extra levels worth of AC. A Dwarf with the racial and the armor feat would effectively be 4 levels higher (fighting large+) defensively than someone who didn't take those feats. 

With the increased length (combat rounds wise) of battle in 4E, I predict AC bonuses will be significantly more useful.


----------



## Fallen Seraph (May 2, 2008)

ProfessorCirno said:
			
		

> Hmmm.  Some of these are (very obviously) more powerful then others.  But my primary worry is the "feel" for races making them TOO good for various classes.
> 
> One of my gripes with 3e was how some races almost PUNISHED you for making different classes, and not in obvious ways such as "Well, half orcs aren't that awesome at wizards," but by just making other classes so obscenely good at them.  Or races that were just bad at _everything_ (I'm looking at you half elves), not from lower stats, but from exclusion of higher ones.
> 
> Tiefling is starting to feel a bit too much like "Warlocks: the Race," and I have the (albeit possibly unfounded) worry that a, say, human warlock will be trailing far behind a tiefling one.



Well you figure you still have to pick these feats, so you can always choose instead another feat that works better for your class.


----------



## muffin_of_chaos (May 2, 2008)

Feats seem rather overemphasized for having only 3 by fifth level (albeit 5 if you're a Human Ranger it seems), considering the massive number of them to choose from it sounds like there'll be.  Unless I missed something and counted wrong.
I guess there'll be a lot of the more obviously powerful feats they'll do away with (Quick Draw comes to mind) so that you don't feel you're required to take some from the get-go.
And mayhap feat retraining will help out the feeling of being pigeonholed.  Or maybe it's just how it is.


----------



## ShockMeSane (May 2, 2008)

Sammael said:
			
		

> So many situational modifiers...




I do believe that this might be a legitimate concern, especially considering these are just situational modifiers you can get by level 10. OTOH, as another poster mentioned, when you pick a feat you tend to remember it much more easily than something passively acquired. Fighter's dont forget their cleaves or power attacks often.


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully (May 2, 2008)

ShockMeSane said:
			
		

> I do believe that this might be a legitimate concern, especially considering these are just situational modifiers you can get by level 10. OTOH, as another poster mentioned, when you pick a feat you tend to remember it much more easily than something passively acquired. Fighter's dont forget their cleaves or power attacks often.



Is definitely a legitmate concern. We know the problems from 3E. 

There are a few difference
Compare the Dwarf AC and Reflex Bonus to Dodge.
- Dodge granted you a +1 bonus to AC against one foe. You had to declare the foe on your turn. I think two factors caused the problems of this feat: The benefit was small, you had to conciously declare against who you would use it, and you had to remember it several minutes later, when the monster attacked you. 
- Dwarf AC and Reflex Bonus is as small as the Dodge bonus, but you only have one condition to look at: Is the attacker larger then me. That sounds a lot easier to do to me.

Marks are a little closer to Dodge in that regard. But the bonus is higher, and you do it automatically with your attack. You'll usually remember who you have attacked in the past.
There might also be a difference because the marker is always the one that stays close to the enemies - the Defender. A Rogue with Dodge used to tumble around a lot, and sometimes sneak attacked a different target then the one he dodged.


----------



## ShockMeSane (May 2, 2008)

ProfessorCirno said:
			
		

> Tiefling is starting to feel a bit too much like "Warlocks: the Race," and I have the (albeit possibly unfounded) worry that a, say, human warlock will be trailing far behind a tiefling one.




I'm not really sure how to respond to this. Tieflings get a +2 CHA, but it looks pretty likely that Humans can get a +2 in any stat they choose, so this isn't going to be hugely problematic. Bloodhunt is kind of nice, but really no nicer for a Warlock than any other class.

Which leads me to believe that you are pretty much basing your argument of Tiefling superiority on Infernal Wrath, which even at 30 CHA is what, a+1 to hit and a POSSIBLE +10 damage to one attack with a situational stipulation in one encounter. I mean, it certainly isn't so powerful that adding an extra push1 element to it is going to leave your Human counterpart in the dust. I'll admit the Fire Resist is situationally quite powerful, but it doesn't have any extra Warlock synergy that I've noticed.

But Humans get +1 to all defenses, an additional at-will power, an extra feat and an extra trained skill, the latter of which is probably a wash with the Tieflings +2 INT. They can also get Action Surge, which grants them +3 to hit on their most important attack, which I would argue is better than Infernal Wrath in any scenario.

I mean, I'm not trying to say the human is decisively better either, but I'm just not sure that the decision is even an easy one mechanically, let alone obvious.


----------



## Falling Icicle (May 2, 2008)

I find it interesting that Action Surge is a human feat. Tira, the half-elf warlock demo character has that feat. Unless something's changed, this means that half-elves can take human feats.


----------



## ShockMeSane (May 2, 2008)

Maybe they get to choose which race they are a Half-Elf with. Dragonborn-Elf ftw? heh.


----------



## Fallen Seraph (May 2, 2008)

Falling Icicle said:
			
		

> I find it interesting that Action Surge is a human feat. Tira, the half-elf warlock demo character has that feat. Unless something's changed, this means that half-elves can take human feats.



That would be quite neat actually, it could show how much more a Half-Elf or any half-breed takes after one parent or the other.


----------



## med stud (May 2, 2008)

ShockMeSane said:
			
		

> Unfortunately in the larger text it states -
> 
> Action Surge [Human]
> Prerequisite: Human
> ...



Oh, I didn't see that. But I agree, +3 to one attack is very nice as well.

On the situational modifiers: It looks like PCs will have many situational modifers. IME, players tend to remember what they can do to a much larger degree than DMs . I also think that all these modifiers are such an obvious potential problem that the designers must have looked very close at this. Often the broken aspects of a game are the things that look small from the start (like polymorph 3e; if the designers and playtesters don't use that spell to it's full potential, it can easily go under the radar). I think the broken aspects of 4e won't be anything that people think it will be now.


----------



## Khaalis (May 2, 2008)

The only issue I have with the information presented is that it makes me wonder if "Flavor" feats are going to be suboptimal choices over more 'class ability focused' feats, or if they will truly make all feats of roughly equal value in one situation or another.  I would hate to think that if someone wanted to play a fully archetypical elf or dwarf, having to gain somewhere from 3 to close to a half dozen or so feats (or more) to do so, that it would create a more "gimped" character than someone who goes after min/max oriented class power oriented feats. I really hope they managed to pull off the proposed "you can't accidentally gimp yourself" design.


----------



## essenbee (May 2, 2008)

This is good stuff; I really like they things they are doing with 4e character-development-wise.


----------



## Pinotage (May 2, 2008)

Sammael said:
			
		

> So many situational modifiers...




Yes, that's my only niggle as well. I'm all in favor of making race more worthwhile, but it seems the situational modifiers are all over the place. With elves running about and their racial abilities, and half-elves with feats that affect the whole party, and others it might just become too much. I hope I'm wrong.

Pinotage


----------



## Mathew_Freeman (May 2, 2008)

Given that we've also heard that Dragonborn can gain wings at higher levels, I've now got a all-Dragonborn party in my head, swooping in from on-high and unleashing breath weapons on their foes...

...whilst the players are no doubt singing _Ride of the Valyries_...

...dah DUM da da dah dah, DUM da da dah dah...


----------



## hong (May 2, 2008)

Okay, it looks like they weren't kidding about majorly toning down feats. This makes the multiclass power-swap thing better.


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully (May 2, 2008)

_I love the smell of bat guano in the morning..._


----------



## Voss (May 2, 2008)

Yeah, not a fan of the situational modifiers either. Since quite a few are auras as well, its a serious pain.  Given how clumsy this was in 3rd edition, I do not understand why they chose to inflict it on us again. 


I'm glad they didn't go with 'racial levels' though.  Those were incredibly badly done, especially since they took away from your class.

The action surge thing puzzles me.  Either it changed to a human feat slightly before or after the playtest, or the half-elf is really just a borrower of other people's stuff.


----------



## Derren (May 2, 2008)

Tallarn said:
			
		

> Given that we've also heard that Dragonborn can gain wings at higher levels, I've now got a all-Dragonborn party in my head, swooping in from on-high and unleashing breath weapons on their foes...




But that will break D&D because flying is such a ultra powerful ability and you can't expect that in a world with many flying monsters and spells which make you fly soldiers carry a ranged weapon!!!!!!


----------



## Nightchilde-2 (May 2, 2008)

Henry said:
			
		

> Reading that Bragon Breath part, I'll still never used to perfectly square breath weapons, though... :\




I'm not sure if anyone's brought this up before or not, but I had a "Eureka!" moment...

It's not that the breath weapon itself (dragonborn or dragon) is perfectly square.  It's that the critter is turning his head/body and breathing a continuous stream of (insert breath weapon here) all around him.

It's all in how you visualize it...


----------



## Derren (May 2, 2008)

Nightchilde-2 said:
			
		

> It's that the critter is turning his head/body and breathing a continuous stream of (insert breath weapon here) all around him.




That would result in a half circle and not in a square. Or at least it normally would but you can neverbe sure with 4Es Cuthulu geometry.


----------



## Deep Blue 9000 (May 2, 2008)

Nightchilde-2 said:
			
		

> I'm not sure if anyone's brought this up before or not, but I had a "Eureka!" moment...
> 
> It's not that the breath weapon itself (dragonborn or dragon) is perfectly square.  It's that the critter is turning his head/body and breathing a continuous stream of (insert breath weapon here) all around him.
> 
> It's all in how you visualize it...




That would still be a cone.


----------



## eleran (May 2, 2008)

Kzach said:
			
		

> Group Insight and Light Step are pure suck. Unless skills are massively improved in 4e for what they can do in combat, then these abilities are total fail. I see little reason to take these above other, far more powerful, feats.





Perhaps the idea is that it doesn't always have to be about the power.


----------



## eleran (May 2, 2008)

Falling Icicle said:
			
		

> My first impressions? Not good. It seems to me that what they did is say "hey, lets take a bunch of those little bonuses, like +1 dodge against giants, make them feats people have to purchase, and then pat ourselves on the back for making races "important" beyond 1st level!"





You're right of course, except that you're wrong.  No one HAS to purchase even one of these feats.


----------



## Just Another User (May 2, 2008)

Two things:

1) I hope characters will have a *LOT* of feats. Between "multiclassing", racial feats and who-know-what-else they seems to be used for many, many things in 4e.

2) I wondetr if racial feats can be retrained, too "yes, I knew how to enlarge my breath weapon, but I forgot how to do that after I learned wizardry". Talk about memory problems


----------



## Derren (May 2, 2008)

eleran said:
			
		

> You're right of course, except that you're wrong.  No one HAS to purchase even one of these feats.




Which doesn't change the core statement.
It looks like WotC made the race "more important" by removing all their boni and special abilities and made them purchaseable at a later level.
This doesn't make the race more important but instead only requires you to spend feats for something you got for free in 3E.


----------



## hong (May 2, 2008)

Derren said:
			
		

> But that will break D&D
> because flying
> is such a ultra powerful ability
> and you can't expect
> ...




It makes a special kind of sense as free verse.


----------



## eleran (May 2, 2008)

hong said:
			
		

> It makes a special kind of sense as free verse.





Sadly it is too verbose for haiku


----------



## eleran (May 2, 2008)

Derren said:
			
		

> Which doesn't change the core statement.
> It looks like WotC made the race "more important" by removing all their boni and special abilities and made them purchaseable at a later level.
> This doesn't make the race more important but instead only requires you to spend feats for something you got for free in 3E.





Except for the fact that that buttload of abilities each race (except Humans) got at first level happened whether you wanted them to or not.  This version is about the character concept.

Besides, why do you care?  You won't be playing 4e.


----------



## LowSpine (May 2, 2008)

We don't know how you purchase racial abilties yet. They might come from a different buying pool than class abilities in the same way paragon abilities are bought separately from class abilties. So you might not have to trade off class stuff for racial stuff.


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## Derren (May 2, 2008)

eleran said:
			
		

> Except for the fact that that buttload of abilities each race (except Humans) got at first level happened whether you wanted them to or not.  This version is about the character concept.
> 
> Besides, why do you care?  You won't be playing 4e.




Having to spend feats so that the PC is actually a member of the race he is hasn't really much to do with character concept.
"I play an halfling"
"Ok, what do they have for special abilities?"
"None so far"
"None? But then they are just short humans"
"Yes, isn't that great? To really be a halfling you have to purchase the extra abilities with feats. That makes race choice much more important than in 3E!)
"So the race is important only because of feat acces, but in the basic version the only difference is what ability scores they have? Yeah, right...."

Ok,ok. I guess this setup makes it easier to play "Race X raised by race Y" type characters as you don't have to take social "racial" abilities. But in the end this actually devalues the importance of race.


----------



## ThirdWizard (May 2, 2008)

ProfessorCirno said:
			
		

> Tiefling is starting to feel a bit too much like "Warlocks: the Race," and I have the (albeit possibly unfounded) worry that a, say, human warlock will be trailing far behind a tiefling one.




*Infernal Wrath*
*Tiefling Racial Power*
_You call upon your furious nature to improve your odds of harming your foe._
*Encounter*
*Minor Action Personal*
*Effect:* You can channel your fury to gain a +1 power bonus to your next attack roll against en enemy that hit you since your last turn. If your attack hits and deals damage, do an extra +1 damage.

___

That has nothing to do with Warlocks. In fact, its pretty awesome for anyone. And, adding push back to that is going to be gravy for most PCs as well!


----------



## hong (May 2, 2008)

Derren said:
			
		

> "Ok, what do they have for special abilities?"
> "None so far"




Tch.


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## ThirdWizard (May 2, 2008)

Derren said:
			
		

> Having to spend feats so that the PC is actually a member of the race he is hasn't really much to do with character concept.
> "I play an halfling"
> "Ok, what do they have for special abilities?"
> "None so far"
> ...




Somebody needs to read a bit about races. 

http://wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dramp/20071221


----------



## LowSpine (May 2, 2008)

eleran said:
			
		

> Except for the fact that that buttload of abilities each race (except Humans) got at first level happened whether you wanted them to or not.  This version is about the character concept.
> 
> Besides, why do you care?  You won't be playing 4e.




Is derren one of those people who hates 4E, has no intention of getting 4E and will never change his mind about it, but for some reason keeps coming on forums complaining about every single aspect of it? 

I don't know that he is, but that's what it sounds like.

If so, that really gets on my nerves. I can't stand musicals but you don't see me going on musical forums bugging everyone about how stupid they are. I have better things to do.

If not, well it doesn't apply then does it.


----------



## Klaus (May 2, 2008)

I wonder how this is explained:

"Light Step____Elf____*Add to overland speed of group*, +1 to Acrobatics and Stealth"


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully (May 2, 2008)

LowSpine said:
			
		

> Is derren one of those people who hates 4E, has no intention of getting 4E and will never change his mind about it, but for some reason keeps coming on forums complaining about every single aspect of it?
> 
> I don't know that he is, but that's what it sounds like.
> 
> ...



Yep. That seems to describes him. There is luckily a forum function to minimize the impact of such posters.

I remember the IMDB forums for Battlestar Galactica (the new series). I wonder if Derren posted there, too, and if so, if he was a fan of the new BSG or not, and if his nick-name relates to arachnoids...


----------



## Kwalish Kid (May 2, 2008)

ThirdWizard said:
			
		

> Somebody needs to read a bit about races.
> 
> http://wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dramp/20071221



Can somebody please report Darren's posts? He's simply being rude.

On matters of actual substance, I think it is worth noting that there are probably Paragon tier versions of many of these feats and that these Paragon tier feats may have no prerequisite aside from being in the Paragon tier. This means that the Heroic tier feats could be retrained to be more effective without spending another feat. Since it seems that one can only retrain one feat a level, this can only be done slowly, but it would be worth it.


----------



## Charwoman Gene (May 2, 2008)

---


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## Mirtek (May 2, 2008)

Klaus said:
			
		

> I wonder how this is explained:
> 
> "Light Step____Elf____*Add to overland speed of group*, +1 to Acrobatics and Stealth"



Dwarf: I WONT BE OUTRUN BY A STINKING ELF!!!!


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## duvsylva (May 2, 2008)

I think that this is the new aspect of 4E that i like the least.

I see everyone talking of "racial feats", complaining about a "+2" or so

They take the racial abilities in 3.5 and make some "delaying and taking feats"

I like lots of new 4E rules but this one is not better than before
It's just a feeling but i think they promise to increase the role of races but they fail with this sort of "racials feats"

i like 4E but not this "new" rules

(making new with old is a bad job IMHO )


----------



## Baka no Hentai (May 2, 2008)

ainatan said:
			
		

> Name Prerequisites  Benefit
> 
> Action Surge Human  +3 to attacks when you spend an action point
> 
> ...





Both crunchy and patriotic!


----------



## Xanaqui (May 2, 2008)

Deep Blue 9000 said:
			
		

> That would still be a cone.



Nope. Diagonals are always 1, which means that a square and a circle are pretty much the same thing.  So a cone in a world with 4e geometry would look like a square above the grid.

Which is why I prefer my diagonals to at least approximate sqrt(2); intuition breaks down quickly when you leave standard geometries.


----------



## Crosswind (May 2, 2008)

To whoever suggested "Tieflings:  The Warlock Race"...

May I simply point out the general outstandingness of Halflings:  The Artful Dodger Race?

Rogue path.  Artful dodger.  Most of your foes will be large, and, as you're a melee striker, you will usually be adjacent to 2 people.  Gleefully provoke AoOs with your bonus to charisma - your AC will probably be around 22 at first level (+4 dex, +2 leather, +4 cha, +2 Lost in the Crowd).

If you're a shadow assassin, everybody who misses you takes 4 damage.  Meanwhile, with Underfoot and your general immunity to AoOs, you are almost always guaranteed to flank.

Just thought that it's interesting that they're making the iconic builds (Dwarven Warrior.  Halfling Rogue.  Tiefling Warlock.) very, very powerful.  It sort of works for me  - it's a given that weird and sneaky builds that optimizers figure out will be powerful...but the simple, straightforward stuff should -also- be powerful.  Helps new people not fall behind because they don't know the tricks.

-Cross


----------



## Klaus (May 2, 2008)

Mirtek said:
			
		

> Dwarf: I WONT BE OUTRUN BY A STINKING ELF!!!!



 Only if it read:



> "Light Step____Elf____Add to overland speed of *dwarf allies*, +1 to Acrobatics and Stealth"


----------



## Mirtek (May 2, 2008)

Klaus said:
			
		

> Only if it read:



Of course the human, tiefling, dragonborn, whatever are yelling the same


----------



## Rechan (May 2, 2008)

I rather like the Half-elf insight. With the half-elf's aura for diplomacy, this is really making the Half-Elf the buffer (Read: Bard) race.


----------



## tecnowraith (May 2, 2008)

The only problem I have with this is that you waste feat slot. Yeah you get more feat every other level now but still its not all that is cracked up to be. Now you get to choose between a racial feats, class feats, weapon feats and general feats and that's a lot feats, which what mention 3x more than 3.5 and not enough feat slots to really customize a concept.


----------



## Mathew_Freeman (May 2, 2008)

duvsylva said:
			
		

> I think that this is the new aspect of 4E that i like the least.
> 
> I see everyone talking of "racial feats", complaining about a "+2" or so
> 
> ...




You get a bunch of abilities are part of your race - that's confirmed.

The racial feats are optional extras that you CAN take if you want to - you're not forced to take them if you don't want to, or if you see other feats that are more suitable.

It also means that not every PC of the same race will have the same abilities - again, helping to differentiate characters from one another.


----------



## Rechan (May 2, 2008)

I'm not really seeing Tieflings making awesome warlocks. 

1) The infernal wrath is when someone hits you in melee. Getting hit in melee is probably bad for warlocks, since their stuff is at range. It's better served in the hands of a melee class. 

Someone mentioned Infernal wrath dealing with charisma? Is that true? 

2) Tiefs get a +2 to Int and Cha. More than one class benefits from those boosts.

3) I think the fire resistance, and Bloodhunt, will both serve melee characters more than ranged. Melee guys will likely be getting the brunt of fire-based attacks, either from aura effects, breath weapons, etc. Plus, that +1 to hit can't hurt for melee.

So my opinion? Tiefs make _great war*lords* and paladins_. Both classes get benefits from high charisma (Alternatively, Int in the Warlord's case).


----------



## webrunner (May 2, 2008)

Baka no Hentai said:
			
		

> Both crunchy and patriotic!




_.. even in milk!_


----------



## Andor (May 2, 2008)

tecnowraith said:
			
		

> The only problem I have with this is that you waste feat slot. Yeah you get more feat every other level now but still its not all that is cracked up to be. Now you get to choose between a racial feats, class feats, weapon feats and general feats and that's a lot feats, which what mention 3x more than 3.5 and not enough feat slots to really customize a concept.




I'm not following you on this. How is a feat slot wasted? It's only wasted if you don't like what you spent it on, and even then you can retrain it next level....


----------



## Ingolf (May 2, 2008)

LowSpine said:
			
		

> Is derren one of those people who hates 4E, has no intention of getting 4E and will never change his mind about it, but for some reason keeps coming on forums complaining about every single aspect of it?




Got it in one.


----------



## Baka no Hentai (May 2, 2008)

One thing that they may do (and maybe it has been mentioned and I just missed it) is allow you to pick a racial feat at character creation free of charge. That seems logical to me, as in that way EVERY PC will exemplify at least one aspect that their race is known for.  (This dwarf may be good with axes, and this other dwarf may be good with fighting giants, but they've all got something.)

If it is not done this way, it will be one of my first house rules. In fact, if they do allow you one free racial, I may just bump it up to two.     (I like my PCs to be more on the powerful side, as it allows me to throw even deadlier stuff at them.)


----------



## Storminator (May 2, 2008)

tecnowraith said:
			
		

> The only problem I have with this is that you waste feat slot. Yeah you get more feat every other level now but still its not all that is cracked up to be. Now you get to choose between a racial feats, class feats, weapon feats and general feats and that's a lot feats, which what mention 3x more than 3.5 and not enough feat slots to really customize a concept.




That's not wasting a feat, that's spending it. You have a lot of good choices, and you can't have them all. You can't be a generalist, multi-classing, weapon specializing, exemplar of your race... what's the problem?

Just means you have to play more characters to play with all the toys.

PS


----------



## malraux (May 2, 2008)

tecnowraith said:
			
		

> The only problem I have with this is that you waste feat slot. Yeah you get more feat every other level now but still its not all that is cracked up to be. Now you get to choose between a racial feats, class feats, weapon feats and general feats and that's a lot feats, which what mention 3x more than 3.5 and not enough feat slots to really customize a concept.



I disagree.  This gives you the ability to create concepts based around your class, your race, or some other theme.  Certainly there should be some tough choices involved in character creation.  None of these strike me as particularly awful, and they seem to do a decent job of making the racial feats roughly orthogonal to your class, that is, while they racial feats will certainly help each race in its traditional role, they are also useful outside of that role as well.


----------



## Lizard (May 2, 2008)

Mighty Veil said:
			
		

> Really? Race levels I felt were one of the worst 3.x/D20 rules made. How does an elf specialize in being an elf? You just are.




Always made sense to me. You spend time honing and improving your natural gifts, instead of working on training in a profession. It seems logical to me that if everyone in a race can do X, some will be better at X than others. And fantasy fiction is full of "You must learn the ways of the Ancient Great Ones, who truly mastered the gifts the gods have given us" bullcrap.


----------



## Ulthwithian (May 2, 2008)

I find this is interesting.  I generally have a good head for remembering situational modifiers, so that wasn't something that bothered me so much in 3.5, much less 4E.

I'd like to see them all before commenting fully, but it's very interesting.  On a somewhat different note, for those of us who don't want to read Derren's quoted material, could people please not quote him even if responding to him?  Just a little 'To Derren' entry at the beginning of the post should work fine.


----------



## drothgery (May 2, 2008)

Klaus said:
			
		

> I wonder how this is explained:
> 
> "Light Step____Elf____*Add to overland speed of group*, +1 to Acrobatics and Stealth"




Knows better ways of trailblazing through wilderness, taking care of horses, making sure your feet don't get sore after hours of walking day after day, etc.


----------



## el-remmen (May 2, 2008)

Klaus said:
			
		

> I wonder how this is explained:
> 
> "Light Step____Elf____*Add to overland speed of group*, +1 to Acrobatics and Stealth"




I'd look at it as a natural affinity for picking the best routes, etc. . . I assume "overland" means greater distances when traveling, not tactical movement. . . so it makes sense to me.


*Unrelated question:*

This article game me the impression darkvision is gone. . . Has this been mentioned before?


P.S. Jeez, I hate the idea of dragonborn as a core race.  Talk about killing sense of wonder.


----------



## katahn (May 2, 2008)

re: Multiclassing

"Argh!  I have to waste feats to get these benefits!"

re: Racial Abilities

"Argh!  I have to waste feats to get these benefits!"

Some folks are...  well at least they're consistent right?

I thought the base race abilities were decent to begin with, so I don't really see the problem with letting people get more racial abilities as feats.  If nothing else, if a racial feat doesn't fit well with your choice of class, you aren't penalized by having your character balanced around an ability you'll never use and is no benefit.  You can choose to pick something that actually is useful.


----------



## GoodKingJayIII (May 2, 2008)

Some of these are _clearly_ better than others.

Enlarge Dragon Breath increases the aoe area by almost 200%.  How is that on par with, say, +1 to acrobatics/stealth and a bonus to overland speed?  I'm also not a huge fan to these little situational bonuses like Dodge Giants.  It's certainly less of a problem than Dodge from 3e, but it's basically the same issue:  the bonus is limited to specific situations, and in this case, it's possible one might even not fight Large or larger creatures.

Race, and which race is the best choice (mechanically vs. thematicly), is tough to balance.  This is the first preview that's left me luke warm.  I do like that they've chosen to go the feat route, however, because at least these can be retrained for something else.


----------



## Wulfram (May 2, 2008)

Klaus said:
			
		

> I wonder how this is explained:
> 
> "Light Step____Elf____*Add to overland speed of group*, +1 to Acrobatics and Stealth"




good pathfinding abilities, I guess.  The elf helps stop blundering humans from walking into trees, which tends to slow you down a bit.


----------



## Eridanis (May 2, 2008)

Stay on topic, please, folks...


----------



## Ingolf (May 2, 2008)

el-remmen said:
			
		

> This article game me the impression darkvision is gone. . . Has this been mentioned before?




It's gone as a PC ability and a lot less common as an NPC ability.


----------



## Jack99 (May 2, 2008)

el-remmen said:
			
		

> *Unrelated question:*
> 
> This article game me the impression darkvision is gone. . . Has this been mentioned before?
> 
> ...




It is no longer gone, but instead no longer a player race thing. Only races that live far underground will get darkvision, afaik. 

Lowlight presumably works as in 3.x, extending the range at which you can see, given some light.


----------



## Lizard (May 2, 2008)

eleran said:
			
		

> You're right of course, except that you're wrong.  No one HAS to purchase even one of these feats.




I think he meant "Have to purchase" in the sense of "if you want them".

And, yes, it is obvious 4e will have just as many fiddly bits to remember as 3e.

I consider this a saving grace, not a problem. I just wish they hadn't spent so much time telling us how stripped down and simplified the game would be, when it's clearly not so much. It turned me off early and it's hard to recover from that. (OTOH, the revelation that 4e isn't FUDGE is going to turn off some early supporters, and I get to do the schadenfreude dance.)


----------



## Mathew_Freeman (May 2, 2008)

GoodKingJayIII said:
			
		

> Some of these are _clearly_ better than others.
> 
> Enlarge Dragon Breath increases the aoe area by almost 200%.  How is that on par with, say, +1 to acrobatics/stealth and a bonus to overland speed?  I'm also not a huge fan to these little situational bonuses like Dodge Giants.  It's certainly less of a problem than Dodge from 3e, but it's basically the same issue:  the bonus is limited to specific situations, and in this case, it's possible one might even not fight Large or larger creatures.
> 
> Race, and which race is the best choice (mechanically vs. thematicly), is tough to balance.  This is the first preview that's left me luke warm.  I do like that they've chosen to go the feat route, however, because at least these can be retrained for something else.




But the Dragon Breath feat is an encounter power, I believe, as compared to a continuous power. We also don't know how much damage the Dragonborn Dragon Breath does, so even if it's spread over a wide area it may not be that effective.



			
				el-remmen said:
			
		

> P.S. Jeez, I hate the idea of dragonborn as a core race. Talk about killing sense of wonder.




Why does it kill your sense of wonder, exactly? Personally, I don't find Dragonborn any more remarkable than Eladrin who can teleport short distances on a daily basis.


----------



## Rechan (May 2, 2008)

GoodKingJayIII said:
			
		

> Some of these are _clearly_ better than others.
> 
> Enlarge Dragon Breath increases the aoe area by almost 200%.  How is that on par with, say, +1 to acrobatics/stealth and a bonus to overland speed?



We don't know how often the Dragonborn can use its breath. It might be a daily ability. So you get the AOE increased 200%... for a one shot deal. 

Meanwhile, the Dwarf gets that +1 to AC and Ref vs. large opponents - Every Time they attack him. That's every round. 

Also there comes a drawback of enlarging an AoE: The threat of catching your party in it. That was one of the most frustrating things for me, playing the 4e wizard in a demo: Many times, my party were adjacent to the enemy, so any effect that radiated outwards to adjacent foes (Acid Arrow, Force Orb, Scorching Burst) wasn't usable.


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## DerekSTheRed (May 2, 2008)

Lizard said:
			
		

> Always made sense to me. You spend time honing and improving your natural gifts, instead of working on training in a profession. It seems logical to me that if everyone in a race can do X, some will be better at X than others. And fantasy fiction is full of "You must learn the ways of the Ancient Great Ones, who truly mastered the gifts the gods have given us" bullcrap.




Racial Levels sucked for the same reasons multiclassing sucked.  It was pointless for casters.  What was the point of taking 3 to 5 levels of a racial class before starting a wizard?  Completely suboptimal for casters.  Now in 4E, every class gets the opportunity to pick up extra racial abilities.

Derek


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## Derren (May 2, 2008)

Rechan said:
			
		

> Also there comes a drawback of enlarging an AoE: The threat of catching your party in it. That was one of the most frustrating things for me, playing the 4e wizard in a demo: Many times, my party were adjacent to the enemy, so any effect that radiated outwards to adjacent foes (Acid Arrow, Force Orb, Scorching Burst) wasn't usable.




The Dragonborn can still use the smaller AOE breath.


----------



## Rechan (May 2, 2008)

Tallarn said:
			
		

> But the Dragon Breath feat is an encounter power, I believe, as compared to a continuous power. We also don't know how much damage the Dragonborn Dragon Breath does, so even if it's spread over a wide area it may not be that effective.



The paragon-tier feat for Dragonborn ups their breathweapon to d10s.

So it's gotta be smaller than d10.


----------



## Andor (May 2, 2008)

el-remmen said:
			
		

> P.S. Jeez, I hate the idea of dragonborn as a core race.  Talk about killing sense of wonder.




Nah. Wonder is all in perspective. Imagine a party made up of all dragonborn from some isolated tribe. At the edge of their range they meet an old hermit who warns them of what lies beyond their lands:

Hermit: "Beyond the waterfall of broken barrels the is a path that takes one outside our valley. Some say that at the end of that path the are a smooth skin pink people who are (brace yourselves) _naturally exothermic!_
Party: *gasp*


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## el-remmen (May 2, 2008)

Tallarn said:
			
		

> Why does it kill your sense of wonder, exactly? Personally, I don't find Dragonborn any more remarkable than Eladrin who can teleport short distances on a daily basis.




Ha! Don't like Eladrin or Teiflings either! 

Obviously, it is just personal taste, but there is a line of look/ability/origin beyond which, to me, are the great bizarre mysteries and threats of the world which are better off as the things characters run across and discover about than as something they have access (except perhaps as optional supplemental rules)


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## Ulthwithian (May 2, 2008)

Well, at least they give the Dragonborn the option.  Otherwise, the utility of a Blast 5 vs. Blast 3 could really be up in the air.  (Unless there's no friendly fire here....)

Another interesting feat is the +2 dmg when bloodied.  That can be anything from nigh-worthless (Dragonborn Rogue) to very good (Dragonborn Fighter).

I have a feeling that we haven't seen some of the 'good' racial feat options for some of the races yet.


----------



## Rechan (May 2, 2008)

el-remmen said:
			
		

> Obviously, it is just personal taste, but there is a line of look/ability/origin beyond which, to me, are the great bizarre mysteries and threats of the world which are better off as the things characters run across and discover about than as something they have access (except perhaps as optional supplemental rules)



It must be personal taste. Because I would much rather play in a world with _no_ humans/dwarves/elves/halflings/gnomes, that's JUST dragonborn/tieflings/tri-keen/warforged/shifters/anthropomorphic somethingorother. 

I'd rather be something entirely divorced from humanity and its demi-human derivatives. Because that, to me, is _fantasy_.


----------



## TerraDave (May 2, 2008)

*On the Quantity of Feats:* A 10th level charecter will have 6 feats. So, e.g., if a charecter feels compelled to use two on racial feats and two on multiclassing, two would remain (vs. the 3 that a 10th level 3E charecter would have). Given that some things feats use to do will be covered by powers and (at higher levels) rituals, this does not seem so bad. 

*On the quality of feats: * The feats we have seen may not be as good as the _best _ 3E feats, they are better then many of the feats that are actually in the books, and that your PC never bothered to take. 

*On these feats:* Not a bad approach. I was intrigued when they said race would matter over 10 levels...and clearly they decided to punt. But, given that this is not all of them, and that their are racial abilities in addition to these (and there are), it looks good.


----------



## Derren (May 2, 2008)

TerraDave said:
			
		

> *(vs. the 3 that a 10th level 3E charecter would have).*



*

4.
1st, 3rd, 6th, 9th level.*


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## Jer (May 2, 2008)

el-remmen said:
			
		

> *Unrelated question:*
> 
> This article game me the impression darkvision is gone. . . Has this been mentioned before?




It's been mentioned before that darkvision _for PCs_ is gone.  I believe it was mentioned in one of the podcasts that low-light vision was going to be the default for PC races.  I believe that there was some indication that monsters might still have darkvision, but it would be more rare.  Quite a few of the RPG stats from the Dungeons of Dread miniature set that Wizards has for download have "darkvision" listed in their "Senses" line (Death Knight, Young Red Dragon, Beholder, Oni, Vampire Spawn, etc.) so I'm thinking it's still in the game unless there was some last-minute change.


----------



## Mort_Q (May 2, 2008)

RE: Darkvision

Seeing as Dragonborn can buy low-light vision via a fear, perhaps Dwarves can buy darkvision via a feat?


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully (May 2, 2008)

katahn said:
			
		

> re: Multiclassing
> 
> "Argh!  I have to waste feats to get these benefits!"
> 
> ...



1) 4E will force people to make choices when creating their characters. "Do I want more Dragonborn abilities? Or Do I want to multiclass? Or do I want to improve my sword-fighting techniques?"

2) People are still mostly in the 3E mindset, where feats where basically only thing to diversify your characters abilities, and where they where rarer. Many of those feats where sometimes even required to do your "shtick" in 3E. Improved Trip and Improved Disarm for the "Martial Artist", Weapon focus/specialisation for the heavy hitter, Two-Weapon Fighting for non-Rangers, and so on.

I don't think anyone among us (who wasn't also a playtester) has really grasped how much the powers for each class change this. The powers are now one of your major customization option, and they are in addition to everything feats can do. 
(And if I say no one has grasped it yet, this includes me, and my prediction that it changes a lot compared to 3e might be wrong.  )


----------



## webrunner (May 2, 2008)

GoodKingJayIII said:
			
		

> Some of these are _clearly_ better than others.
> 
> Enlarge Dragon Breath increases the aoe area by almost 200%.  How is that on par with, say, +1 to acrobatics/stealth and a bonus to overland speed?  I'm also not a huge fan to these little situational bonuses like Dodge Giants.  It's certainly less of a problem than Dodge from 3e, but it's basically the same issue:  the bonus is limited to specific situations, and in this case, it's possible one might even not fight Large or larger creatures.
> 
> Race, and which race is the best choice (mechanically vs. thematicly), is tough to balance.  This is the first preview that's left me luke warm.  I do like that they've chosen to go the feat route, however, because at least these can be retrained for something else.




Dragon Breath is an interesting thing, because although it's a useful power (probably initially one of the better ones) it probably needs the feats at higher levels more than other racial powers.  The upside of playing a dragonborn is having this minor AOE for free, as well as a suite of powerful feats that increase it, but the downside is basically being forced to take those feats if you want your dragonborn's natural abilities to be reasonably helpful at higher levels.


On the "overland speed" bonus, do you think that means:
a) There's a certain % bonus in the amount of time it takes a party to get from one area to another (which is usually handwaved away anyway.. either it'll take a ridiculously long time, it'll take a long time, or you'll be there pretty quick.  Usually DMs don't count the hours on horseback) 
b) In combat, the number of squares you can move is increased (which is ridiculously good)
and/or
c) Increases the ability to cover ground in say, a skill challenge?


----------



## Nightchilde-2 (May 2, 2008)

TerraDave said:
			
		

> *On the quality of feats: * The feats we have seen may not be as good as the _best _ 3E feats, they are better then many of the feats that are actually in the books, and that your PC never bothered to take.




*coughcoughcoughEndurancecoughcoughcough*


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## hong (May 2, 2008)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
			
		

> 1) 4E will force people to make choices when creating their characters. "Do I want more Dragonborn abilities? Or Do I want to multiclass? Or do I want to improve my sword-fighting techniques?"
> 
> 2) People are still mostly in the 3E mindset, where feats where basically only thing to diversify your characters abilities, and where they where rarer. Many of those feats where sometimes even required to do your "shtick" in 3E. Improved Trip and Improved Disarm for the "Martial Artist", Weapon focus/specialisation for the heavy hitter, Two-Weapon Fighting for non-Rangers, and so on.
> 
> ...



 It reminds me of feats in the early days of 3E, actually. Back then, feats were just ways to make your character a bit more flexible or give you more options, rather than just more power. Hence +1 to hit with one weapon, +3 hit points, +2 to one skill, etc. Only over time did feats take on the power gain aspect. It'll be interesting to see if the same power inflation happens to 4E.


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## vagabundo (May 2, 2008)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
			
		

> I don't think anyone among us (who wasn't also a playtester) has really grasped how much the powers for each class change this. The powers are now one of your major customization option, and they are in addition to everything feats can do.
> (And if I say no one has grasped it yet, this includes me, and my prediction that it changes a lot compared to 3e might be wrong.  )




Out of the box, I believe there will be tons of customisation. Imagine two dwarvan fighters around 12th level standing in front of you, with a warhammer and shield, in heavy plate. One has investing all his feats in dwarvan racial traits and chosen a dwarvan paragon path, dwarvan defender(in the phb1 ??). He has also picked  completely different exploits from the other. 

The other guy has focused on picking good feats for his class powers, some extra skills and has multiclassed into a wizard. He has forgone a paragon path and decided to deepen his multiclass and taken more spells or customised the ones he has with feats.

They look the exact same, but they would play very very different. I'm sure they would also have some additional powers from magic items they have picked up, to compliment the way they fight and adventure.

In short, I like this.


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## Thyrwyn (May 2, 2008)

eleran said:
			
		

> (RE: Hong RE: Derren ):Sadly it is too verbose for haiku




The Dragonborn fly;
Worlds shatter;
Cherry blossoms fall - 
    Spring's gentle snow.


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## Evilhalfling (May 2, 2008)

"Light Step____Elf____Add to overland speed of group, +1 to Acrobatics and Stealth"

well I would probably take it, or give it to an NPC that traveled with the party.  But I find overland speed fairly important.  I think it would be better as a warlord class feature or strenghend into a warlord utility power.  As it would be very important for troop movement.
Hmm it actually gives elven merchants and advantage as well... 
really im all about the world building.


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## GoodKingJayIII (May 2, 2008)

In regards to my Dragon Breath comment, I believe it is an encounter or daily power, so obviously it's limited in its usefulness, vs. a bonus that is around all the time.  However, it's dealing damage in an area, which makes it a fantastic minion killer.  Even if damage does not scale well, it gives melee types the ability to dispatch minions (which are dangerous in large numbers) quickly.  In the combat part of the game, dealing damage and killing enemies is always the most useful thing one can do.  In 3e, the best feats were typically geared towards combat, and the ones that were considered bad (like Endurance) were not.  This can certainly have changed in 4e, but based on the feats we've seen I don't think so.



			
				webrunner said:
			
		

> On the "overland speed" bonus, do you think that means:
> a) There's a certain % bonus in the amount of time it takes a party to get from one area to another (which is usually handwaved away anyway.. either it'll take a ridiculously long time, it'll take a long time, or you'll be there pretty quick.  Usually DMs don't count the hours on horseback)
> b) In combat, the number of squares you can move is increased (which is ridiculously good)
> and/or
> c) Increases the ability to cover ground in say, a skill challenge?




It's vague at this point, certainly.  I suspect "overland speed" means "travel outside of combat," which is so subjective as to be nearly useless.  It certainly could be something else, though.


----------



## Nahat Anoj (May 2, 2008)

I really like the "action hero" theme for humans.  I think this dovetails nicely with R&C's mention that humans can really forge their own destinies.  It also gives them a dynamic, heroic quality.  A human Fighter is totally John McClane from Die Hard    .

Most of the feats seem really cool splendid.  I like how they accentuate the characteristics of the class - I bet in 4e we will have Dwarf Fighters who truly are little tanks, or Elf Rangers that are ultimate badasses with bows.

I also think Half-Elves will be able to take feats from the Human or Elf list.  Remember that picture of the human, half-elf, and elf eyes from the R&C art gallery?  It mentioned that half-elves can make a bloodline commitment to the elf ancestors - in so doing, their eyes become more slanted.  From a mechanics perspective, I be this means they'll be able to choose feats from humans and elves.  Also, I still wonder if Half-Elf also includes "Half-Eladrin."


----------



## beverson (May 2, 2008)

TerraDave said:
			
		

> *On the Quantity of Feats:* A 10th level charecter will have 6 feats. So, e.g., if a charecter feels compelled to use two on racial feats and two on multiclassing, two would remain (vs. the 3 that a 10th level 3E charecter would have). Given that some things feats use to do will be covered by powers and (at higher levels) rituals, this does not seem so bad.
> 
> *On the quality of feats: * The feats we have seen may not be as good as the _best _ 3E feats, they are better then many of the feats that are actually in the books, and that your PC never bothered to take.




This.  It does seem like a lot of people are still in the 3.x mindset regarding Feats, and these 2 points are key in clarifying the difference.  Well stated, IMHO.


----------



## Torchlyte (May 2, 2008)

I'm not impressed, but I'm not unimpressed... it's exactly what I was expecting and little more. I guess I'm just spoiled from getting so much multiclass crunch.

On the other hand, I have a friend who's looking at playing a berserker-type Dragonborn ranger in our first 4e campaign, and these feats encourage that particular concept so far.



			
				drothgery said:
			
		

> Knows better ways of trailblazing through wilderness, taking care of horses, *making sure your feet don't get sore after hours of walking day after day*, etc.




By wearing girly shoes?



			
				Derren said:
			
		

> 4.
> 1st, 3rd, 6th, 9th level.




Current 4e speculation puts feat advancement at 1st, 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th, 10th... 6 in total (7 if you're human).


----------



## Lizard (May 2, 2008)

Evilhalfling said:
			
		

> "Light Step____Elf____Add to overland speed of group, +1 to Acrobatics and Stealth"
> 
> well I would probably take it, or give it to an NPC that traveled with the party.  But I find overland speed fairly important.  I think it would be better as a warlord class feature or strenghend into a warlord utility power.  As it would be very important for troop movement.
> Hmm it actually gives elven merchants and advantage as well...
> really im all about the world building.




Yes, we're FINALLY getting worldbuilding crunch, as opposed to useless declarative fluff. From this, we can get an idea of elvish military tactics...they're good at long marches (allowing them to quickly move troops to the border, expanding how far they can exert control), and likely to field elite guerrilla units.


----------



## Torchlyte (May 2, 2008)

vagabundo said:
			
		

> ...Imagine two dwarvan fighters around 12th level standing in front of you, with a warhammer and shield, in heavy plate...
> They look the exact same, but they would play very very different.




Yeah, they _do_ all look the same, don't they?


----------



## katahn (May 2, 2008)

People are comparing feats, but not considering the fact that level 30 in 4e is equivilent to level 20 in 3e.  Whatever a character's level in 3e is, the 4e level is 150% (3/2) of it.  This means that 4e is getting feats even more quickly than 3e.

# 3e Feats = (3e level)/3 (round down) + 1 (+1 if human)
# 4e Feats = (4e level)/2 (round down) + 1 (+1 if human)

4e level = 3/2 * 3e level (level cap 30 vs. 20)

# 4e Feats = (3e level * 3/2 )/2 (round down) +1

3e level 1: 3e character has 1 feat, so does equivilent 4e character
3e level 2: 3e character has 1 feat, equivilent 4e character has 2:  (2*3/2)/2+1 = 3/2+1 = 1 + 1 = 2
3e level 10: 3e character has 4 feats, equivilent 4e character has 8

So feats, if 4e gets them every even level, are going to be coming a LOT faster.  This would seem to confirm the idea that individual 4e feats aren't going to be super-powered and that spending one feat is not even remotely as significant a resource allocation in 4e as it was in 3e.


----------



## drothgery (May 2, 2008)

Torchlyte said:
			
		

> By wearing girly shoes?




You'd think that, coming from an elf, but have you ever seen girly shoes that looked comfortable?


----------



## Torchlyte (May 2, 2008)

drothgery said:
			
		

> You'd think that, coming from an elf, but have you ever seen girly shoes that looked comfortable?




Hence my confusion.


----------



## Thornir Alekeg (May 2, 2008)

Regarding darkvision, I seem to remember reading very early on in 4e buzz that darkvision had been eliminated - it was too wonky that for a race that lived in the dark to have vision to a certain distance which then just shut off.  I believe the idea was that underground-dwelling creatures would have low-light vision and their societies would use things like phosphorscent lichens and stuff to provide light, or they would have other non-vision related senses such as blindsight.


----------



## I'm A Banana (May 2, 2008)

Lizard said:
			
		

> [The focus on simplicity] turned me off early and it's hard to recover from that. (OTOH, the revelation that 4e isn't FUDGE is going to turn off some early supporters, and I get to do the schadenfreude dance.)




I agree. Though I'm not sure WotC focused so much on it, as much as a handful of the more rabid fans did.

Some of 4e's biggest enemies are also its greatest supporters, after all.

"Hey, there's a 4e out!"
"OMG YES! It is so great! I love it with every part of my body! It makes things so much better and now my games don't suck any more like the sucktastic suckage of sucky 3e, which might've been awesome 8 years ago, but obviously sucks now!"
"...I didn't really have a problem with it."
"LOL, you're so dumb! Obviously 3e enjoyed the private parts of draft animals and kicked puppies for fun. 4e is going to be fast and give us ice cream whenever we play! Pick up 4e! I wanna DM a game!"
"Wow, kid...yeah...uhm....I'm gonna go play The World Ends With You instead. Later, dude. Enjoy your ice cream."


----------



## Kwalish Kid (May 2, 2008)

Torchlyte said:
			
		

> Yeah, they _do_ all look the same, don't they?



That's dwarfism!

Wait... that's not right...


----------



## Torchlyte (May 2, 2008)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> I agree. Though I'm not sure WotC focused so much on it, as much as a handful of the more rabid fans did.
> 
> Some of 4e's biggest enemies are also its greatest supporters, after all.
> 
> ...




Everyone had pet peeves about 3.x, and 4e apparently solves many of them. Heck, if WotC left all else the same and addressed the power/options imbalance between magical and mundane classes, it'd be something to celebrate. Why you feel the need to spout your elitism on this thread is beyond me.

How anyone with the name "Kamikaze Midget" can try to make others look immature is also beyond me.


----------



## Klaus (May 2, 2008)

Wulfram said:
			
		

> good pathfinding abilities, I guess.  The elf helps stop blundering humans from walking into trees, which tends to slow you down a bit.



 Only if it read:

""Trailblazer____Elf____Add to overland speed of group, +1 to Survival and Nature""


----------



## I'm A Banana (May 2, 2008)

To stay on topic, I do like the racial benefits we've seen so far. It really accomplishes the worthy goal of making a race valid throughout 30 levels. Part of how good it is will depend on what ELSE feats can get used for, and how many of them you actually get, but we know they're thinking about making all feats equally relevant, and they MIGHT be giving us more of them this time around, so both of those things lean toward optimism for me.


PS:


			
				Torchlyte said:
			
		

> Heck, if WotC left all else the same and addressed the power/options imbalance between magical and mundane classes, it'd be something to celebrate. Why you feel the need to spout your elitism on this thread is beyond me...How anyone with the name "Kamikaze Midget" can try to make others look immature is also beyond me.




...kinda illustrates my point there, man. Enjoy your ice cream.


----------



## Lackhand (May 2, 2008)

Kwalish Kid said:
			
		

> That's dwarfism!
> 
> Wait... that's not right...



No, it's specious.


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## drjones (May 2, 2008)

el-remmen said:
			
		

> P.S. Jeez, I hate the idea of dragonborn as a core race.  Talk about killing sense of wonder.



Of all the nit-pickey gripes I have seen about 4e this is the only one I can get behind.  I have never been a huge dragon nut and these as PCs just screams 'Totally f'ing awesome to the max!!' like they should be chugging mountain dew and jumping out of airplanes with sunglasses on.

Fortunately the fix is incredibly easy. 'Oh the dragon guys, yeah they live on another continent you have just heard stories about them.'  If a player really has a stiff for playing one it would have to be a drizzt kinda thing, the ONLY one with all the negative attention that can bring.


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## Dr. Confoundo (May 2, 2008)

Thyrwyn said:
			
		

> The Dragonborn fly;
> Worlds shatter;
> Cherry blossoms fall -
> Spring's gentle snow.




Doesn't quite scan correctly for a haiku. Try this instead:

Dragonborn can fly;
Make sure not to look upwards
When they fly above.


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## Torchlyte (May 2, 2008)

Lackhand said:
			
		

> No, it's specious.




spe·cious adjective 1 apparently good or right though lacking real merit; superficially pleasing or plausible: specious arguments 2 pleasing to the eye but deceptive

I think the word you're looking for is 'specist.'  



			
				Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> ...kinda illustrates my point there, man. Enjoy your ice cream.




I'm more of a lurker than a rabid fanboy, but don't let that stop you.

Edit:



> Doesn't quite scan correctly for a haiku. Try this instead:
> 
> Dragonborn can fly;
> Make sure not to look upwards
> When they fly past you.




You need to work the cliche cherry blossom reference back in.


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## shadowlance (May 2, 2008)

Does it bother anyone else that the halfling is shaping up to be one of the better "defender" choices?  

Dex bonus (we don't know this, but it seems a given)
Size bonus (is this going to be in?)
No Str penalty (none of the core races have stat penalties now right?)
Second Chance (force opponent to reroll a hit 1/encounter)
Lost in the crowd (more AC)
Nimble Reaction (more AC vs opp attacks)

That's a lot of AC boosts.  I don't have a problem with certain classes meshing up nicely with certain classes (or roles).  I think its a good thing in fact.  But the iconic halfling certainly isn't a paladin or a fighter.

Anyone care to tell me how wrong I am?  Or are we just at the "let's hope that's not how it is in the actual books" stage?


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## jelmore (May 2, 2008)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
			
		

> - Dodge granted you a +1 bonus to AC against one foe. You had to declare the foe on your turn. I think two factors caused the problems of this feat: The benefit was small, you had to conciously declare against who you would use it, and you had to remember it several minutes later, when the monster attacked you.




After looking at combat mechanics for 4E, I had an epiphany for rewriting Dodge in 3.5e:



> Dodge (General)
> Prerequisite: Dex 13
> Benefit:
> As an immediate action, you gain a +1 dodge bonus to AC against attacks made by a single opponent. This bonus lasts until the start of your next turn.
> ...




This way, it goes from being a semi-passive "oh crap, who did I assign my Dodge feat to?" to being... well, more dodge-y.


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## frankthedm (May 2, 2008)

fuindordm said:
			
		

> Yeah, the dwarven dodge seems pretty lame.
> 
> For one thing, it looks like it's a lot harder in 4e to push your AC close to your opponent's attack bonus.



It is impossible. Intentionally. The amount of Ac a player can get is VERY closely tied to the attack bonus appropriate foes. PCs _will _be hit, PC_ will _have to use healing surges. This is a big part of the reason Cover is only -2 to hit. 



> At least in the level 1 demos, not even the minions had much trouble hitting the dwarf. Dropping your hit rate from 35% to 30% (for example) is a lot less interesting than dropping it from 10% to 5%.



And they won't have trouble hitting the dwarf for a while either. If a character gets swarmed, very little will let him get a safe AC unless the foes are a good number of levels below the PC. IIRC Fighting Defensively is only +1 AC and Full Defense does not even show up in 4e.



> I'm astonished that they consider +2 damage with a weapon category suitable for a first-level feat (but I understand given the new HP scale), but hesitated to give a +2 to AC.



2 damage is worth far less in 4E than 3E now that kobolds swagger with 27 HP and minions are probably going to die on one hit anyhow. Now 2 AC means whole levels of foes become less of a threat because their _level mandated_ 'to hit' bonus is not enough to hit the PC.


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## katahn (May 2, 2008)

shadowlance said:
			
		

> Does it bother anyone else that the halfling is shaping up to be one of the better "defender" choices?
> 
> Dex bonus (we don't know this, but it seems a given)
> Size bonus (is this going to be in?)
> ...




Not so much really.  Dwarves seem more inclined to be the "best" defenderish race.  They can use second wind as a minor action, when pushed they move one less space, they also get combat bonuses against large size and bigger creatures.

Halfling racial bonuses are consistent with "nimble and not trying to be in the way".  "Lost in the Crowd" implies trying to run around underfoot to where larger creatures can't get a good swing at you.  Being a defender implies standing in something's way and not wanting it to go past you.  While it may not explicitly state it in the rules, I'd say the spirit of the rules implies that some of the halfling advantages wouldn't make sense as a defender.


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## Lizard (May 2, 2008)

shadowlance said:
			
		

> Does it bother anyone else that the halfling is shaping up to be one of the better "defender" choices?
> 
> Dex bonus (we don't know this, but it seems a given)
> Size bonus (is this going to be in?)
> ...




Well, the role of the Defender is to be "sticky", to keep enemies from attacking other people, and none of the halfling abilities really aid here. They don't increase damage or hinder a foe. Indeed, they're almost anti-sticky, because a foe will try to focus on the easier to hit enemies instead of the annoying, bouncing, halfling.

They do help as a low hit point, low armor striker, though, which is the traditional halfling role.


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## drjones (May 2, 2008)

edit: damn you internets!


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## Voss (May 2, 2008)

drjones said:
			
		

> Of all the nit-pickey gripes I have seen about 4e this is the only one I can get behind.  I have never been a huge dragon nut and these as PCs just screams 'Totally f'ing awesome to the max!!' like they should be chugging mountain dew and jumping out of airplanes with sunglasses on.
> 
> Fortunately the fix is incredibly easy. 'Oh the dragon guys, yeah they live on another continent you have just heard stories about them.'  If a player really has a stiff for playing one it would have to be a drizzt kinda thing, the ONLY one with all the negative attention that can bring.



I think just saying No is easier.

Alternately, (and this is what I plan to do with the tiefling): rip out all the fluff and description and use the mechanics (maybe slightly tweaked).  They're almost perfect for a group in my campaign- a group of humans that are withdrawn and isolated from the rest of the world, and have made numerous pacts with assorted nature spirits (mostly mountain, cold and wind spirits) in order to survive.  Tweak the fire to cold resistance and the mechanics are almost perfect, and they aren't a festering walking eyesore any more.

I may do that with the dragonborn, but I may just open the option for gobbos and hobbos instead. Which could work out well, since halflings are getting booted too, useless little wretches that they are.


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## shadowlance (May 2, 2008)

> Halfling racial bonuses are consistent with "nimble and not trying to be in the way". "Lost in the Crowd" implies trying to run around underfoot to where larger creatures can't get a good swing at you. Being a defender implies standing in something's way and not wanting it to go past you. While it may not explicitly state it in the rules, I'd say the spirit of the rules implies that some of the halfling advantages wouldn't make sense as a defender.




While Lost in the Crowd may imply what you say it does, the mechanic is that being adjacent to two or more medium or larger (since halflings are small) opponents grants +2 AC.  This is going to come up a LOT more often for a defender than, say, the dwarven AC bonus feat and is twice the bonus.  Spirit of the rules is all well and good...but there's nothing in the feat description which reinforces your interpretation of how it's supposed to work.

They may not be able to use a second wind as a minor action (as an example)...but how many attacks do they have to get missed by that would have hit the dwarf before that is academic?  

Hopefully enough of the other races will enjoy bonuses that outweigh all this extra AC that halflings can get.



> Well, the role of the Defender is to be "sticky", to keep enemies from attacking other people, and none of the halfling abilities really aid here. They don't increase damage or hinder a foe. Indeed, they're almost anti-sticky, because a foe will try to focus on the easier to hit enemies instead of the annoying, bouncing, halfling.




The defender's role seems to be two fold....make the monster attack you AND survive those attacks.  Not much point in making the monster attack you if you can't take the beating.  All of these abilities that improve AC increase the halfling's ability to handle being attacked.  The implication of the statment "They are almost anti-sticky" is that a good AC is a bad thing for a defender to have...that is clearly not the case.


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## Wormwood (May 2, 2008)

drjones said:
			
		

> If a player really has a stiff for playing one it would have to be a drizzt kinda thing, the ONLY one with all the negative attention that can bring.



Maybe I'm obtuse, but I'm usually _happy _ when a player is excited about the game. I never understood the impulse to shut that enthusiasm down in the interest of my own personal tastes.


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## katahn (May 2, 2008)

shadowlance said:
			
		

> While Lost in the Crowd may imply what you say it does, the mechanic is that being adjacent to two or more medium or larger (since halflings are small) opponents grants +2 AC.  This is going to come up a LOT more often for a defender than, say, the dwarven AC bonus feat and is twice the bonus.  Spirit of the rules is all well and good...but there's nothing in the feat description which reinforces your interpretation of how it's supposed to work.




I'll have to make a decision when I read the full fluff text on those halfling racial powers.  I'll admit my gut reaction is these powers are meant to reflect "I'm trying to avoid you" rather than "I'm good at dodging you".  The former is inconsistent with the defender's "you shall not pass".  I'm not 100% convinced it couldn't apply, my final determination will be when I examine that ability's fluff text against the comparable dwarven one since dwarves are much more iconically defenderish than halflings are I think.



> They may not be able to use a second wind as a minor action (as an example)...but how many attacks do they have to get missed by that would have hit the dwarf before that is academic?




That actually makes my point for me.  If dwarves are iconically more defenderish than halflings (who are more strikerish/thiefly) then it is counter to the spirit of that to say halfling racial powers make them better defenders (from the standpoint of standing up to enemy attacks).



> Hopefully enough of the other races will enjoy bonuses that outweigh all this extra AC that halflings can get.
> 
> The defender's role seems to be two fold....make the monster attack you AND survive those attacks.  Not much point in making the monster attack you if you can't take the beating.  All of these abilities that improve AC increase the halfling's ability to handle being attacked.  The implication of the statment "They are almost anti-sticky" is that a good AC is a bad thing for a defender to have...that is clearly not the case.




All AC bonuses are not created equal.  They're meant to reflect certain kinds of actios, effects, or skills in certain kinds of situations.  Halflings are about "I'm underfoot and quick and hard to hit" which is the antithesis I think of "you shall not pass" of a defender.  In other words, just because a race in certain situations can get +AC it does not mean that situation is in harmony with what defenders do.  Consider the example of paladins "marking and running" which was technically allowed in the rules but violated the spirit of what they were trying to model.


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## Lizard (May 2, 2008)

shadowlance said:
			
		

> The defender's role seems to be two fold....make the monster attack you AND survive those attacks.  Not much point in making the monster attack you if you can't take the beating.  All of these abilities that improve AC increase the halfling's ability to handle being attacked.  The implication of the statment "They are almost anti-sticky" is that a good AC is a bad thing for a defender to have...that is clearly not the case.




It's a bad thing to have if another, lower AC target, is around and the foe is intelligent. From what we've seen, a good chunk of fighter and paladin powers focus on making the decision to attack someone else bad -- either because it damages the target or exposes the target to additional attacks. If there's no penalty for NOT attacking the high-AC halfling...and there's other targets -- why risk wasting an attack that is more likely to miss? While there's obviously a lot of other factors, given that each PCs contribution to combat is roughly equal, from the enemy's perspective, taking out any one is as good as another, since the party is equally weakened by the death of any member. Thus, a focus, if possible, on the easiest targets. Defender powers are designed to counter this by making such a focus a more tactically challenging decision. The less 'tempting' a defender is, the more likely the tactical balance swings the other way.

At least, that's my interpretation. It may well be that halflings in 4e are very good as defenders, but my mind +AC without any +damage or special attacks spells 'striker' -- in close and protected mostly by not being hit.


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## DonAdam (May 2, 2008)

> 'Oh the dragon guys, yeah they live on another continent you have just heard stories about them.' If a player really has a stiff for playing one it would have to be a drizzt kinda thing, the ONLY one with all the negative attention that can bring.




Exactly. I don't mind the PC being something special, but I don't want inns looking like the Mos Eisley Cantina.


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## I'm A Banana (May 2, 2008)

katahn said:
			
		

> All AC bonuses are not created equal.




You two seem to be talking at cross-purposes.

The idea is: Do halflings make good Fighters and Paladins, based on their mechanics?

A high AC seems to indicate that they do.

The fluff isn't very key for this, the key is: can they function (surprisingly) well in a role that you really would think they wouldn't be very good for?

Isn't one of the pregens a halfling paladin?

Methinks halfling defenders will be a common choice in 4e...perhaps counter-intuitively.


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## katahn (May 2, 2008)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> You two seem to be talking at cross-purposes.
> 
> The idea is: Do halflings make good Fighters and Paladins, based on their mechanics?
> 
> ...




Yes, but what effect are the powers that give them that AC trying to represent?  Remember the original rules minus fluff supported the idea of a paladin using divine challenge on a target and then trying to keep away/run away from the thing they challenged.  The spirit of the paladin ability was supposed to be "Hey ugly, come here and hurt me" combined with them standing there waiting for said ugly to try it.  The "damage" was more them being dispirited and demoralized by the paladin's divine challenge than actual harming of their body, which didn't make sense if the paladin was running away.

Similarly, halfling AC bonuses are apparently predicated on "I'm underfoot, I'm quick and nimble, I'm trying to get out of your way" whereas a defender is "I'm in your face, I'm solid and you are not getting past me."  So just like a paladin can't "mark and run" it seems to me that the halfling AC bonuses are not in the spirit of a defender type.  At the very least, "Lost Underfoot" wouldn't be, the others I'll have to look at.

The fluff text of an ability is more than just a cute little description for game mechanics.  The fluff describes what the ability is supposed to represent and how it functions, the game mechanics are merely a best effort at modelling that fluff text in measurable form.  Basically, the implementation of the mechanics shouldn't be at odds with the fluff description.


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## Shado (May 2, 2008)

Rechan said:
			
		

> Also there comes a drawback of enlarging an AoE: The threat of catching your party in it. That was one of the most frustrating things for me, playing the 4e wizard in a demo: Many times, my party were adjacent to the enemy, so any effect that radiated outwards to adjacent foes (Acid Arrow, Force Orb, Scorching Burst) wasn't usable.




Force Orb is selective.

Enemy only. 

"_Secondary Target: Each *enemy* adjacent to the primary target._"

It's pretty sweet in a melee mosh pit.


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## Ulthwithian (May 2, 2008)

I think that halflings will make better Paladins than Fighters, for a couple reasons.

As pointed out above, halflings can have a generally high AC compared to most characters their level.  Let's say that the Halfling has an AC (base) 1 higher than most in his party.  If he is the defender, this sounds about right.  Now, he gets a +2 when 2 or more people larger than him are around him.  Okay, great, now his AC is 3 higher than most other people...

As someone suggested above, this defeats the purpose of marking inasmuch as there is still no disincentive to attack the Fighter instead of the 'squishy'.  The Fighter is still making it harder to hit his friends, but he's not taking the damage.

Now, the Paladin has a different marking technique.  Attack him or take damage.  This can be quite a bit better as an incentive to attack the Paladin rather than one of his friends.  Also, if they still choose to attack the Paladin's friends, the Paladin can use LoH to give them a 'free' Healing surge.

Also, I have a sneaking suspicion that Halflings, being Small, might actually get a few damage penalties somewhere along the line.  As such, the Paladin's ability to do radiant damage and their relative lack of reliance on their weapon vs. the Fighter should send Halflings in that direction.


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## I'm A Banana (May 2, 2008)

> Yes, but what effect are the powers that give them that AC trying to represent?




That doesn't really matter. What matters is: can you build a (surprisingly) effective halfling defender? Might they even be more effective than dwarven or human defenders?



> Basically, the implementation of the mechanics shouldn't be at odds with the fluff description.




Presumably, the halfling fluff has them being evasive and tricksy, slippery like a fish and reactive like a fly. Hard to pin down and swat.

If they can make very effective fighters and paladins, then their rules (AC bonus) will be at odds with their fluff (scurrying around), because a fighter or a paladin mostly wants to get attacked, while a slippery halfling mostly wants to get away from their attacker.

This might lead to some players going "Buh?" and 4e seeing a lot of halfling defenders, despite the fact that it is at odds with the halfling fluff.


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## Ulthwithian (May 2, 2008)

Wait, so being a Defender means you're not allowed to Dodge?  How odd.  I would hope that there's room in a game for a nimble, dodge-oriented Defender.  And if you want to know how he gets the enemy to focus on him, cf. Tasselhoff.


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## shadowlance (May 2, 2008)

> All AC bonuses are not created equal. They're meant to reflect certain kinds of actios, effects, or skills in certain kinds of situations. Halflings are about "I'm underfoot and quick and hard to hit" which is the antithesis I think of "you shall not pass" of a defender. In other words, just because a race in certain situations can get +AC it does not mean that situation is in harmony with what defenders do. Consider the example of paladins "marking and running" which was technically allowed in the rules but violated the spirit of what they were trying to model.




But how is being adjacent to two or more medium or larger opponents not in harmony with what defenders do?  Certainly it's in any defender's interests to try to stand next to multiple opponents.



> That actually makes my point for me. If dwarves are iconically more defenderish than halflings (who are more strikerish/thiefly) then it is counter to the spirit of that to say halfling racial powers make them better defenders (from the standpoint of standing up to enemy attacks).




Umm...you seem to be saying that halfling abilities aren't good for defenders simply because halflings aren't traditionally defenders.  My point was that the mechanical abilities that they are being given are clearly excellent for defenders and, as a result, they  will make great (the best?) defenders EVEN THOUGH traditionally that is not a role that the halfling excels at.  Further, this concerns me because I feel that the racial abilities should reinforce the roles that the race traditionally excels at (while still leaving people with the option of making suboptimal choices of race/class combo).  

Put another way...you should absolutely be able to make a halfling fighter but the dwarven fighter should be at least as good (imho better actually).  With the rules that we have seen thus far, they are turning those assumptions on their head....while leaving the fluff the same.  The fact that the fluff hasn't changed makes it seem like these changes are an unanticipated effect of the racial abilities that they have created.

I was hoping that someone could point out that I was wrong and show how the halfling abilities are mechanically inferior for a defender or how the dwarf (or human, or dragonborn) gets some key ability that invalidates the 4ish point AC advantage that the halfling enjoys.


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## Shado (May 2, 2008)

Derren said:
			
		

> 4.
> 1st, 3rd, 6th, 9th level.




That 3.x mind set.

4e, you gain a feat every even level and one at the start of each tier.  (1st, 11th and 21st)

Humans presumably still gain a bonus one at 1st.  (Along with a bonus At-Will)

Lastly, many old 3.x feats that were "good" are now re-imagined as powers.


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## Ulthwithian (May 2, 2008)

Argument #1: Races with a Con bonus have more Healing Surges and more HP, and the Dwarf can Second Wind as a minor action.  This is good for any character, but best for a Defender.

I believe your counter-argument to this is that the higher AC of the Halfling is another way to mitigate damage, yes?

Argument #2: (As stated above) A halfling fighter with an AC 4 higher than his compatriots offers monsters no incentive to attack him.  Even while marked, they can hit his friends easier than they can hit him.  Therefore, half the Defender schtick (having more HPs and more healing surges than the rest of the party) is lost if you play that kind of a Fighter.

Argument #3: Heavy Armor precludes your Dex bonus, IIRC.  As such, races with a Dex bonus (such as Halflings) do not benefit as much from heavy armor as races without a Dex bonus.


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## Torchlyte (May 2, 2008)

shadowlance said:
			
		

> But how is being adjacent to two or more medium or larger opponents not in harmony with what defenders do?  Certainly it's in any defender's interests to try to stand next to multiple opponents.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Higher AC is better in almost every role, although this is especially true of melee types. I would say the Halfling racials are excellent for a melee ranger or rogue as well, and so they won't necessarily be pressured towards defender roles.

As for what other classes have to compensate, you just have to look at how (1) Dwarves have better healing surge uses, (2) Dwarves have a Con bonus, (3) Dragonborn have a natural AC bonus, and (4) Dragonborn have a STR bonus. All of these would tend to put Dwarves and Dragonborn in melee roles as well. Humans just do whatever they want.


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## shadowlance (May 2, 2008)

> Argument #2: (As stated above) A halfling fighter with an AC 4 higher than his compatriots offers monsters no incentive to attack him. Even while marked, they can hit his friends easier than they can hit him. Therefore, half the Defender schtick (having more HPs and more healing surges than the rest of the party) is lost if you play that kind of a Fighter.
> 
> Argument #3: Heavy Armor precludes your Dex bonus, IIRC. As such, races with a Dex bonus (such as Halflings) do not benefit as much from heavy armor as races without a Dex bonus.




RE: #2, granting the bad guy a constant -2 to hit (since he keeps attacking other party members) is still a pretty nice bonus (though not as good as eating the attacks yourself).

RE: #3...that's good to hear.  I wasn't sure that they were keeping armor/max dex bonus mechanic.  That will help a lot (though the size bonus and feat bonus remain a factor)

These are excellent points and will hopefully be enough to make the halfling seem like a sub-optimal choice for the defender.  *crosses fingers*  



> I would say the Halfling racials are excellent for a melee ranger or rogue as well, and so they won't necessarily be pressured towards defender roles.




My concern is not so much that the halfling will be pressured to be a defender as it is that the defender will feel pressure to be a halfling.  It may sound like the same thing but it really isn't.  In my experience, most players choose class and then race, not race and then class.

Seems like maybe dwarves and dragonborn will make better (the best?) fighters and halflings will make better (the best?) paladins.  That would be better than my fear, but I'm hoping that there's something that I'm not seeing that hurts their paladin capabilities.

Have we heard yet what stat other than dex halflings will get?  I think Cha is probably most appropriate...but that would certainly ramp up their paladin qualifications substantially.

<---not actually a halfling hater.


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## katahn (May 2, 2008)

We're coming at this from two different angles I think, which is fine really.  Dodge and other dexterity-related forms of damage avoidance strike me as being at odds with how I'd perceive the iconic defender type.  The fact that heavy armor neutralizes dexterity bonuses to armor reinforces that and justifies the idea that feats that grant bonus armor on an avoidance- or dodge-basis would likewise suffer penalties for heavier armor.

In other words, if you're weighed down by heavy armor you really can't scamper and dart between a large-size enemy's legs.  If you aren't wearing heavy armor, you start with a much lower base armor class and it becomes a very good question as to whether or not your dexterity/dodge-type bonuses will make up the difference.

It's also a bad idea to assume a defender will "almost always" be up against large size creatures.  One of the demo modules involved fighting swarms of small-sized kobolds.


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## shadowlance (May 2, 2008)

> We're coming at this from two different angles I think, which is fine really. Dodge and other dexterity-related forms of damage avoidance strike me as being at odds with how I'd perceive the iconic defender type. The fact that heavy armor neutralizes dexterity bonuses to armor reinforces that and justifies the idea that feats that grant bonus armor on an avoidance- or dodge-basis would likewise suffer penalties for heavier armor.
> 
> In other words, if you're weighed down by heavy armor you really can't scamper and dart between a large-size enemy's legs. If you aren't wearing heavy armor, you start with a much lower base armor class and it becomes a very good question as to whether or not your dexterity/dodge-type bonuses will make up the difference.
> 
> It's also a bad idea to assume a defender will "almost always" be up against large size creatures. One of the demo modules involved fighting swarms of small-sized kobolds.




Well, for Lost in the Crowd, the creatures only have be be larger than the halfling.  Since the halfling is small, that means medium or larger.  It's probably NOT a bad idea to assume that the defender will "almost always" be up against medium size or larger creatures.  The occasional kobold/goblin swarm notwithstanding.

As for dodge style bonuses being clipped by heavy armor....while it's possible, that's not how it works in 3.x (aside from the dex bonus itself) and we haven't seen anything (that I know of) that indicates it will be true in 4e either.  Heck the pregen halfling paladin from DDxp has plate mail AND Lost in the Crowd.  But the fact that heavy armor will apparently still inhibit dex mod AC bonuses is a valid one that is certainly on point.


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## Spatula (May 2, 2008)

hennebeck said:
			
		

> In 3.x, all dwarves got the fiddly +1 to Giants.



+4 bonus, not +1.



			
				hennebeck said:
			
		

> In 4e, you choose to take it, which means it isn't fiddly, you conciously choose the feat (Fighters don't forget about Power Attack).



And in 3e, you chose to take Dodge, you consciously chose the feat.  It's a minor situational bonus, another thing to keep track of, another thing to forget about or slow down the game with.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (May 2, 2008)

Spatula said:
			
		

> +4 bonus, not +1.
> 
> And in 3e, you chose to take Dodge, you consciously chose the feat.  It's a minor situational bonus, another thing to keep track of, another thing to forget about or slow down the game with.



I think I already posted this, but there are differences:
The Dwarf bonus requries you to only check if the enemy is larger then you, and you know if you get the bonus. 

To get the bonus from Dodge, you need to select the target on your turn, do whatever stuff you do on your turn, wait till other characters act, and have to remember the dodge bonus when the enemy attacks. If it attacks at all that round, and isn't busy with someone else this round. 

That's also different to how a mark operates. To mark someone, you need to something a little more in line with what you already do - you have to hit him. In addition, the penalties caused by the mark apply in a lot more situations, especially in situations where he's not attacking you. (It's stll a bit more difficult then the Dwarfs "Giant Bonus")


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## I'm A Banana (May 3, 2008)

Yeah, the Dwarf feat isn't nearly as fiddly as Dodge, and is easily 1/4 as fiddly as marking.


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## JohnSnow (May 3, 2008)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> That doesn't really matter. What matters is: can you build a (surprisingly) effective halfling defender? Might they even be more effective than dwarven or human defenders?




I kinda doubt that. Dwarves have some pretty cool racial powers that synergize nicely with being a defender. For example, based on Kathra (the DDXP dwarf), all dwarves (I assume) get an ability called "Stand Your Ground." That lets them resist powers that push, pull, or slide you around the battlefield (like, say _Tide of Iron_). Offhand, that sounds like a pretty nice benefit for a fighter type.

Similarly, that dwarven resilience that lets them use Second Wind as a minor action is another handy power for Defenders. Top that off with the fact that dwarven weapons training seems to include a bonus to damage along with axe/hammer proficiency, and I think there's still plenty incentive to play dwarven fighters.

I'd guess some of the other Human feats will make humans as effective as dwarves. We know they get either an extra second wind or bonus healing surges or something. Again, a very useful benefit to a fighter character. The extra at-will power will give them more tactical options, and the bonus feat means they'll probably be able to pick up some very effective feats that enhance the fighter build more easily than a halfling can.

I seriously doubt halflings will be _more effective_ than human or dwarven defenders, but they might be able to be nearly _as effective_ (if slightly counterintuitive). Honestly, that's probably a good thing.




			
				Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Presumably, the halfling fluff has them being evasive and tricksy, slippery like a fish and reactive like a fly. Hard to pin down and swat.
> 
> If they can make very effective fighters and paladins, then their rules (AC bonus) will be at odds with their fluff (scurrying around), because a fighter or a paladin mostly wants to get attacked, while a slippery halfling mostly wants to get away from their attacker.
> 
> This might lead to some players going "Buh?" and 4e seeing a lot of halfling defenders, despite the fact that it is at odds with the halfling fluff.




Well, as long as they _also_ make effective strikers, it doesn't really matter if the halfling can benefit some by "playing against type."

Similarly, as long as the dwarven racial abilities make them effective as a defender or leader (their traditional roles), it's not so bad if dwarves also make excellent wizards. As a matter of fact, it's good if you can occasionally benefit by "playing against type." It'll encourage more variety and fewer cliché parties. And that's a good thing.

IMO, of course.


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## SlagMortar (May 3, 2008)

> Argument #2: (As stated above) A halfling fighter with an AC 4 higher than his compatriots offers monsters no incentive to attack him. Even while marked, they can hit his friends easier than they can hit him. Therefore, half the Defender schtick (having more HPs and more healing surges than the rest of the party) is lost if you play that kind of a Fighter.



Consider these two scenarios, one with a halfling fighter and one with a dwarven fighter:

Scenario 1:  A halfling fighter (with higher AC than the party, but not many more hit points or healing surges) and his friends are fighting a monster.  The monster can decide to attack the halfling who it is likely to miss or the monster can attack his squishy friends with a -2 penalty.  You are saying that in this case the monster will attack the halfling's friends because the monster is more likely to hit them.

Scenario 2:  A dwarf fighter (with similar AC to his party, but more hit points and healing surges) and his friends are fighting a monster.  The monster can decide to target the dwarf who will easily shrug off the attacks due to his high hit points, healing surges, and second wind or the monster can target the his squishy friends with -2 penalty.  You are saying in this case the monster will attack the dwarf instead of his friends because they can hit the dwarf.  However, if the dwarf has gobs and gobs of hit points (or potential hitpoints through the use of healing surges), then the monster's attacks that hit the dwarf are not really much more effective than the attacks that miss the halfling.  

A defender with lots of healing surges actually may provide more incentive to attack his friends who are capable of triggering a healing surge.  

Why does the monster care that the fighter is shrugging off its attacks due to lots of hit points or due high AC?  In either case it is going to take awhile to get rid of the defender.


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## Cadfan (May 3, 2008)

1. Halflings look to make ok paladins.  They can have high AC, and magic that punishes enemies who refuse to attack them.  This is a good defender-ish combination because it creates a sort of no-win situation for their foes.

2. Halflings look to make good rogues, too.  With a rogue they can have high AC, and high damage output.  This creates a situation where a foe might want to attack an allied defender instead of the halfling.

3. I don't know which is better.

4. The overland movement feat seems... dumb.  Now obviously we can't know for sure without seeing the full text, but... overland movement isn't that important.  And the skill bonuses are low.  I'm the sort of player who thinks taking Skill Training: Nature is a worthwhile decision so that your Elf Rogue can track, but... overland movement?  Really?  The feat is incredibly fluffy, very Tolkienesque, but that's not what I want feats for.  If one of my players took this feat, I'd feel obligated to warn him that I've never tracked overland movement rates, and never expect to do so in the future.  A feat like this should belong not in the PHB, but maybe in a book entitled "_Worthless Feats No Player Character Will Ever Use But Which Give Lizard Chills_."  Maybe they could release it as print on demand.  Oh well.  If it gave +1 square movement, I'd love it.  I _want _ to like this feat.  But I really don't.  I was being sarcastic earlier in this paragraph, but very seriously- if they want to make crappy feats that provide crunch for worldbuilders who need crunch, put them somewhere else.  Reserve the *Player's* Handbook for things that are *Player* relevant.

5. I like the dwarf AC bonus.  Its not tough to track.  Is my foe bigger than me?  Yes/no.  Really, its for the DM to track- I'll just make a note on my character entry for a dwarf with that feat.  Where it says "AC: 22," I'll add in parenthesis "23 v Large or Larger."

6. I've come to terms with the Elven Precision feat.  It enhances a per encounter ability.  Who knows, I may even take it.  I hate missing things.

7. My haiku contribution

dragonborn have boobs
dragonborn can also fly
flying draco-boob


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## Dinkeldog (May 3, 2008)

Dr. Confoundo said:
			
		

> Doesn't quite scan correctly for a haiku. Try this instead:
> 
> Dragonborn can fly;
> Make sure not to look upwards
> When they fly above.




Not haiku, but I like it.

Dragonborn, dragonborn in the sky
You go peepee in my eye
I'm no baby, I don't cry
I'm just glad that dragons don't...oh, crap weasels.


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## SlagMortar (May 3, 2008)

JohnSnow said:
			
		

> As a matter of fact, it's good if you can occasionally benefit by "playing against type." It'll encourage more variety and fewer cliché parties. And that's a good thing.



This is a really good point that I whole heartedly agree with.  The true ideal, in my opinion, is to have all races be equally viable in all roles, but to feel the differences in how the races fulfill those roles.  As long as the dwarf is as good as the best defender, I don't have any problem with the halfling being an equally good defender.  

For example, the dwarf fighter is standing out there holding his ground and taking a beating while methodically pushing back the enemy.  He takes a critical hit, but no big deal, he just uses his second wind and keeps right on going.  

The halfling fighter is dodging and weaving and isn't even hit in the first couple of rounds.  He takes a critical hit and another lucky shot and all of a sudden he's bloodied.  He might go another 4 rounds without being hit, or the enemy might get lucky again, who knows?

At the end of the fight, both the halfing and fighter end up at 40% of their hit points and have used up a similar fraction of their healing surges, but the fight felt different for the dwarf vs. the halfling.


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## DrSpunj (May 3, 2008)

Similar to others that have posted, I had problems with the racial levels, mostly conceptual. In hindsight I think it was because it was a "whole level package". While one PC spent the last month (game time) learning how to force the powers of magic to do more of their bidding, or better understanding the tenets of their deity, another PC instead...became more dwarfy. 

Racial feats I can work with much more easily. Someone earlier commented on cultural vs inherent (can't remember their exact terms). The cultural type traits are easily explained by focused training and whatnot.

The inherent traits, however, I conceptualize this way:
Just like some humans are double jointed or able to curl their tongue or whatever, many/most aren't/can't. I can mentally run with those who've taken a particular feat simply manifesting a trait that is found not uncommonly in that particular race. That trait just shows up in some individuals, may be stronger in some families or clans or regions or whatever, and can happily manifest easily at most any age or time (ie. character level).

I like that.


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## Immolate (May 3, 2008)

shadowlance said:
			
		

> Well, for Lost in the Crowd, the creatures only have be be larger than the halfling.  Since the halfling is small, that means medium or larger.  It's probably NOT a bad idea to assume that the defender will "almost always" be up against medium size or larger creatures.  The occasional kobold/goblin swarm notwithstanding.




Not being argumentative, but where is it written that a halfling is a small class creature? I don't know that it isn't written, but I haven't seen it. What I have seen is Races and Classes saying that halflings are now four feet tall, which is as tall as a dwarf, and somewhat argues against qualifying for small size. If they are medium like everyone else, that kind of nerfs a whole lot of racial advantage they would have as defenders, and makes them inferior to dwarves.


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## Rechan (May 3, 2008)

> Oh the dragon guys, yeah they live on another continent you have just heard stories about them.' If a player really has a stiff for playing one it would have to be a drizzt kinda thing, the ONLY one with all the negative attention that can bring.



Wow. That is incredibly offensive. 

For one thing, there are some people on the boards who ONLY play Race X. I'm certain you know the guy who will play a dwarf or an elf above all else. That has nothing to do with being "Oh look at me I'm so special" and everything to do with that race jivving with that player.

Two, some of us are _sick and tired_ of Elves dwarves halflings. I have had so much Tolkien I could throw up. I seriously would just start throwing cash at a setting that had NO humans or demi-humans. I would _adore_ getting as far away from Humanity as possible, because _I am a human every day of my life_. Give me a dragonborn, an undead, a tri-keen, a kenku, a warforged, a lizardfolk, a shifter, a changeling, a kobold, an anthropomorphic animal _any day_ and I will love that thing like it was my long lost brother.

Third, I find it _utterly ridiculous_ to say "Oh yeah, sitting down at a table and pretending to throw fireballs, make pacts with devils and dead gods, kill monsters, and explore strange and alien worlds is totally normal, but if you want to play a strange race, you've crossed a line and the only reason must be emo fanboyism or wanting to be special".

Fourth, considering the number of people who in 3e played half-dragons or Dragon Disciples, or in previous editions played saurials or lizardfolk, and the sales figures for _Dragon Magic_, _people like dragon/reptile races[/i. They are Popular. It has nothing to do with being special. The game is called Dungeons and *Dragons*, after all; they are intimately tied with the game.

Finally, Dragonborn apparently get a +2 to Str and Cha. This makes them real attractive paladins just from a stats POV._


----------



## Ondo (May 3, 2008)

Immolate said:
			
		

> Not being argumentative, but where is it written that a halfling is a small class creature?



It's listed on the character sheet of the Halfling Paladin from D&D XP.


----------



## AllisterH (May 3, 2008)

hong said:
			
		

> It reminds me of feats in the early days of 3E, actually. Back then, feats were just ways to make your character a bit more flexible or give you more options, rather than just more power. Hence +1 to hit with one weapon, +3 hit points, +2 to one skill, etc. Only over time did feats take on the power gain aspect. It'll be interesting to see if the same power inflation happens to 4E.




That's because designers realized that for fighters, FEATS had to be awe-inspiring as the spells themselves...

Technically, a feat should be worth more than a spell given how many spells the spellcasters have, yet there was never a feat that said "Get a spell of the appropriate level".

Hopefully, now that non-spellcasters actually have distinct powers, the impetus would be to create any wahoo feat as a power.

I think I got a handle on what makes a feat different than a power but I would like to see a clearer explanation in the DMG.


----------



## jaldaen (May 3, 2008)

AllisterH said:
			
		

> I think I got a handle on what makes a feat different than a power but I would like to see a clearer explanation in the DMG.




Care to share your idle thoughts?


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## Ten (May 3, 2008)

Wormwood said:
			
		

> Maybe I'm obtuse, but I'm usually _happy _ when a player is excited about the game. I never understood the impulse to shut that enthusiasm down in the interest of my own personal tastes.




This really cuts to the issue for me.  As someone who is a player, not a DM, I have grown sick and tired of DMs who act like us players are _serving_ them, like we are somehow enabling their own fantasy world, and we are beholden to their every wish.  Yeah, that's pretty cool for the DM, I will admit.  I have helped DMs past in creating worlds because it is fun.  But that really hurts us players.  We play the game to have fun.  We play the game to try new things and play a fantasy character.  Limiting our choices for the purpose of your own preconcieved notions is doing a disservice to us, and is even doing a disservice to you.  Are you implying that your mind is SO limited and boxed in you can't fit within the confines of society some dragonpeople or demonpeople?  Why do you insult your own creativity and vision in such a way?

And really, you just "don't like it"?  How do you think WE feel about getting our creative jusices flowing on a character concept and you say "No, not in my world".  Is our creative choices really so devalued in comparison to yours?  Are we your pawns in your intellectual masturbation, or do we have the right to have fun?


----------



## Bishmon (May 3, 2008)

Ten said:
			
		

> Why do you insult your own creativity and vision in such a way?



How does a DM insult his vision by precluding something that wasn't in his vision?

If a DM creates a world, ideally, he will create something interesting that he is enthusiastic about, hopefully making the game better for the players. For a lot of DMs, that's hard to do if they have to find a place for every bit of flavor that might strike the fancy of a random group of people.

That's not to say a DM shouldn't take into account his player's preferences. Like a lot of things in this world, it requires some amount of compromise. And that compromise is going to be nearly impossible to come by if a DM views his players as annoyances to his vision and/or his players view him as merely engaging in intellectual masturbation.


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## Lizard (May 3, 2008)

Ten said:
			
		

> And really, you just "don't like it"?  How do you think WE feel about getting our creative jusices flowing on a character concept and you say "No, not in my world".  Is our creative choices really so devalued in comparison to yours?  Are we your pawns in your intellectual masturbation, or do we have the right to have fun?




It goes both ways.

OT1H, if I say, "I want to run a game set in a pseudo-celtic world based on barbarian native tribes and an encroaching, corrupt, empire", I do NOT want to have a player say "I want to play a werewolf cyber ninja! And if you don't let me, you're treating my like a pawn in your intellectual masturbation, and that makes the pieces all sticky and gross!"

OTOH, if it's at all possible to fit a player's desires into a world, you should. My current world didn't have warforged. A player wanted to play one. I gave them a backstory and gods, and in so doing, filled out a huge chunk of the world's history in a way I probably never would have otherwise.

Gaming is a *cooperative* effort.


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## incantator (May 3, 2008)

Shado said:
			
		

> That 3.x mind set.
> 
> 4e, you gain a feat every even level and one at the start of each tier.  (1st, 11th and 21st)
> 
> ...




OK, lets look as the actual prerelease information.  From the Tier Excerpt:



> 5. Select Feats. You generally don’t have to worry about the level at which you gained a particular feat, since retraining allows you to have the feats you want at any given level. Do watch out for paragon and epic feats, though. For example, a 14th-level character can’t have more than seven paragon feats (those gained at 11th, 12th, and 14th level, as well as up to four retrained feats).




Notice the part about 7 feats, 3 from Paragon levels.  That means that a regular character will get 4 (5 for human) feats in its first 10 levels.  I don't know whether are at 1st, 3rd, 6th and 9th level, but I would give him the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise.  Please try not to ridicule another poster before you have all of the facts about the game.


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## DandD (May 3, 2008)

Lizard said:
			
		

> OTOH, if it's at all possible to fit a player's desires into a world, you should. My current world didn't have warforged. A player wanted to play one. I gave them a backstory and gods, and in so doing, filled out a huge chunk of the world's history in a way I probably never would have otherwise.
> 
> Gaming is a *cooperative* effort.



That's the only trueism in the D&D-game. Work it out together, and play it together. Have fun, together.


----------



## Ondo (May 3, 2008)

incantator said:
			
		

> Notice the part about 7 feats, 3 from Paragon levels.  That means that a regular character will get 4 (5 for human) feats in its first 10 levels.



No, it means that he will only be able to retrain 4 of his Heroic feats to Paragon by level 14 - the fact that this is an important restriction that needs to be remembered implies he had more than 4 feats in his first 10 levels.



			
				incantator said:
			
		

> Please try not to ridicule another poster before you have all of the facts about the game.



Also, don't ridicule when you're mis-interpreting the context - Shado accuses Derren of having a 3.x mindset, ignoring that he was correcting TerraDave's assertion that a *3rd edition* character would have 3 feats at 10th level.


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## jaldaen (May 3, 2008)

> 5. Select Feats. You generally don’t have to worry about the level at which you gained a particular feat, since retraining allows you to have the feats you want at any given level. Do watch out for paragon and epic feats, though. For example, a 14th-level character can’t have more than seven paragon feats (those gained at 11th, 12th, and 14th level, as well as up to four retrained feats).






			
				incantator said:
			
		

> Notice the part about 7 feats, 3 from Paragon levels.  That means that a regular character will get 4 (5 for human) feats in its first 10 levels.  I don't know whether are at 1st, 3rd, 6th and 9th level, but I would give him the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise.  Please try not to ridicule another poster before you have all of the facts about the game.




The idea is that you can only have 7 "paragon-level" feats at 14th-level. 3 from the 11th, 12th, and 14th level choices and 4 more from "retraining" your heroic level feats (the assumption is that you can only retrain one feat per level). 

That is how we can hold that a character gains 6 feats in the heroic tier (at 1st, 2nd, 4th, etc.). 

It seems I was ninja'd... oh well


----------



## Bishmon (May 3, 2008)

incantator said:
			
		

> OK, lets look as the actual prerelease information.  From the Tier Excerpt:
> 
> 
> 
> Notice the part about 7 feats, 3 from Paragon levels.  That means that a regular character will get 4 (5 for human) feats in its first 10 levels.  I don't know whether are at 1st, 3rd, 6th and 9th level, but I would give him the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise.  Please try not to ridicule another poster before you have all of the facts about the game.



It says seven _paragon_ feats. It lists those seven as three feats selected during the paragon tier , and *up to* four retrained feats selected during the heroic tier. 

The fact that is says 'up to' four retrained feats seems to strongly suggest that there's more than four potential feats to retrain from the heroic tier.


----------



## phil500 (May 3, 2008)

Ipissimus said:
			
		

> Those damage bonus/proficiency feats for Dwarves and Eladrin look nice.




i think they are a little too nice, compared to the others shown. esp for classes which dont have the prof.  thats 4 feats from 3.5 in one.

admittedly, im basing that on very little info.


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## ShockMeSane (May 3, 2008)

incantator said:
			
		

> OK, lets look as the actual prerelease information.  From the Tier Excerpt:
> 
> 
> 
> Notice the part about 7 feats, 3 from Paragon levels.  That means that a regular character will get 4 (5 for human) feats in its first 10 levels.  I don't know whether are at 1st, 3rd, 6th and 9th level, but I would give him the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise.  Please try not to ridicule another poster before you have all of the facts about the game.




Actually, you are making an assumption that I believe to be incorrect. You can only retrain 1 feat per level, hence why you can only have 7 Paragon Feats at level 14. Once you hit paragon tier at 11, and then 12, 13, 14 you retrain a heroic feat into a paragon feat. This does not necessarily make any implications whatsoever as to how many feats are available at heroic tier, except that there are obviously at LEAST 4. Of course, you could be 100% correct, but that excerpt certainly doesn't set anything in stone as far as heroic feat numbers go. I'm still guessing it'll be 6 (1,2,4,6,8,10), but time will tell.


----------



## ShockMeSane (May 3, 2008)

phil500 said:
			
		

> i think they are a little too nice, compared to the others shown. esp for classes which dont have the prof.  thats 4 feats from 3.5 in one.
> 
> admittedly, im basing that on very little info.




You have to take into consideration that characters are generally making only 1 attack per round in 4E. That alone makes +2 damage significantly less valuable, not even taking into account higher hp totals across the board.


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## Campbell (May 3, 2008)

Banning material you don't want to see in your game is cool by me. What isn't cool is allowing that material and then turning around and using the game world to make using that material a miserable experience for players.


----------



## Spatula (May 3, 2008)

Ten said:
			
		

> This really cuts to the issue for me.  As someone who is a player, not a DM, I have grown sick and tired of DMs who act like us players are _serving_ them, like we are somehow enabling their own fantasy world, and we are beholden to their every wish.  Yeah, that's pretty cool for the DM, I will admit.  I have helped DMs past in creating worlds because it is fun.  But that really hurts us players.  We play the game to have fun.  We play the game to try new things and play a fantasy character.  Limiting our choices for the purpose of your own preconcieved notions is doing a disservice to us, and is even doing a disservice to you.  Are you implying that your mind is SO limited and boxed in you can't fit within the confines of society some dragonpeople or demonpeople?  Why do you insult your own creativity and vision in such a way?
> 
> And really, you just "don't like it"?  How do you think WE feel about getting our creative jusices flowing on a character concept and you say "No, not in my world".  Is our creative choices really so devalued in comparison to yours?  Are we your pawns in your intellectual masturbation, or do we have the right to have fun?



A) It's a collaborative game.  If the players and the DM aren't on the same page or aren't willing to meet each other halfway, no one is going to have any fun.

B) DMing is work.  It's rewarding, but it's still a lot of effort running a game.  If you're not willing to DM, you're not really in a position to criticize IMO.  Go run your own game if you don't like it (with people who are on the same page as you, see point A).

C) Everyone has a point where their versimilitude snaps.  If you prefer "low-weirdness" then stuff like dragonborn goes past that point for you.  For others it's no big deal, but at some point they too will draw the line.  "What do you mean I can't play a space marine with power armor and rocket launcher, who crash landed on this backwater fantasy world when seperated from his company by evil space-elves?  Stop making me a pawn in your intellectual masturbation!!!"


----------



## Ahglock (May 3, 2008)

Not impressed not depressed.  My only thought is how will they balance the classes with 2 bonus stats vs the one.  Even if the one is floating its no where near as good as 2 +2s.

Lets say player X wants to be a mighty warrior, and wants to be big and strong.

I'll play a Human and put by floaty stat bonus into strength.

or

I'll play a dragonborn get +2 to strength and +2 to charisma or whatever.  

Dragonborn is at a clear advantage here, will the other racial benefits of the human make up for there lacking in the attribute department. ( I'm kind of curious if any races other abilites will stack up against the dragonborns.  A breath weapon is fairly slick, getting natural flight at higher levels is slick as well.)

This is especially true when the 2nd stat bonus is a kind of universal benefit stat.  Eladrin seem to be at a kind of suck point in that both of there +2 to stats are the reflex defense booster, but at least there are some skill benefits.  But lets say you are a Elf cleric, you get your fancy +2 wisdom, but also gain a +2 dex and who doensn't like a +1 to reflex saves.


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## Ondo (May 3, 2008)

Ahglock said:
			
		

> Not impressed not depressed.  My only thought is how will they balance the classes with 2 bonus stats vs the one.  Even if the one is floating its no where near as good as 2 +2s.



Based on the D&D XP pre-generated characters, it looks like Humans get +1 to all defenses.


----------



## MindWanderer (May 3, 2008)

Ahglock said:
			
		

> Not impressed not depressed.  My only thought is how will they balance the classes with 2 bonus stats vs the one.  Even if the one is floating its no where near as good as 2 +2s.
> 
> Lets say player X wants to be a mighty warrior, and wants to be big and strong.
> 
> ...



 Not necessarily.  Cha is a dump stat for fighters (Wis is more useful to them), so you have to decide whether the human's other bonuses--an extra feat, an extra skill, an extra at-will power (the _only_ way we know of to get one of those), and +1 to all defenses, are worth the stuff you get for being a dragonborn (breath weapon, Dragonborn Fury, Draconic Heritage, and +2 to two skills).

I think WotC realized exactly what you're getting at, which is why they gave humans a blanket +1 to all defenses.  Unless you really want the crazy Reflex defense of a halfing (+1 racial, +1 dex), a human remains a viable choice.


----------



## Torchlyte (May 3, 2008)

Spatula said:
			
		

> A) It's a collaborative game.  If the players and the DM aren't on the same page or aren't willing to meet each other halfway, no one is going to have any fun.
> 
> B) DMing is work.  It's rewarding, but it's still a lot of effort running a game.  If you're not willing to DM, you're not really in a position to criticize IMO.  Go run your own game if you don't like it (with people who are on the same page as you, see point A).
> 
> C) Everyone has a point where their versimilitude snaps.  If you prefer "low-weirdness" then stuff like dragonborn goes past that point for you.  For others it's no big deal, but at some point they too will draw the line.  "What do you mean I can't play a space marine with power armor and rocket launcher, who crash landed on this backwater fantasy world when seperated from his company by evil space-elves?  Stop making me a pawn in your intellectual masturbation!!!"




A) True enough, but sometimes as a DM you'll have a better time if players enjoy their options. This point isn't black and white.

B) Players have to please a DM to some extent, but the DM has to please players as well. I would say the DM has to try harder than the players to please the other party.

C) As long as crash-landed space marines aren't Core, this point is too far removed from the norm to be valid.

Personally, I think Dwarves are a dumb, cliche, single-character race. I've considered ruling them out of games, but then I decided that it wasn't worth it. If nobody wants to play a Dwarf then I'm being a hardass for no reason. On the other hand, if someone _does_ want to play a dwarf then I'm making them that much less happy to play the game. I think the tradeoff for this kind of restriction just isn't worth it unless the race clashes with something fundamental.



			
				MindWanderer said:
			
		

> Not necessarily.  Cha is a dump stat for fighters (Wis is more useful to them), so you have to decide whether the human's other bonuses--an extra feat, an extra skill, an extra at-will power (the _only_ way we know of to get one of those), and +1 to all defenses, are worth the stuff you get for being a dragonborn (breath weapon, Dragonborn Fury, Draconic Heritage, and +2 to two skills).
> 
> I think WotC realized exactly what you're getting at, which is why they gave humans a blanket +1 to all defenses.  Unless you really want the crazy Reflex defense of a halfing (+1 racial, +1 dex), a human remains a viable choice.




In a point buy system all the stat bonuses are useful, because I can use the points I would have spent putting CHA at 10 to raise STR or whatever. Honestly, I think humans are getting the shaft.


----------



## hong (May 3, 2008)

Ten said:
			
		

> And really, you just "don't like it"?  How do you think WE feel about getting our creative jusices flowing on a character concept and you say "No, not in my world".  Is our creative choices really so devalued in comparison to yours?  Are we your pawns in your intellectual masturbation, or do we have the right to have fun?




Yes.


----------



## drjones (May 3, 2008)

Rechan said:
			
		

> Wow. That is incredibly offensive.



Why on earth would the way I envision my gamewolrd be offensive?  You are expressing that you like this particular race but are tired of others and that is fine but you are _offended_ that I have different tastes?  Unless you are playing games with me I really cannot imagine why you would ever give a flip.


----------



## drjones (May 3, 2008)

Ten said:
			
		

> And really, you just "don't like it"?  How do you think WE feel about getting our creative jusices flowing on a character concept and you say "No, not in my world".  Is our creative choices really so devalued in comparison to yours?  Are we your pawns in your intellectual masturbation, or do we have the right to have fun?



Dude, no one is making you play with any DM, if you really are not having fun you should not be playing with them.  There is a big difference between a DM on a power trip who does not give a rip if you have fun and one who has a coherent idea for the gameworld they want to create and encourages players to get into it.  

But mostly I think the DM is also playing the game, they have just as much desire to have fun as the player  and are probably investing considerable time and effort into making the game fun for everyone.  Dosn't everyone who tries dnd act as a player and as a dm at some point?  If you really can't find someones game to get into that fits what you enjoy why can't you start your own?

I mean if I want to play a warforged in a Forgotten Realms Campaign and the DM points out that they are really an Eberron thing and he/she does not think it would be a good fit then they are some huge jerk for not letting me do whatever I want?  Get real.


----------



## Ten (May 3, 2008)

For all those who replied, excuse me, I am nerdraging, I am sure you can sympathize.  I have had more than a few bad DMs in the past, it is really frustrating to come into a game excited about playing, lets give a crazy example, a Tiefling and the DM says "I'm sorry, I don't personally like tieflings so it doesn't matter how you feel about them, they don't have any place in my game".  I know that following the logical progression of my arguments could lead to "lol spacemarine in forgotten realms", and for that I am sorry, but really, I did not seek to imply that the player be given cart blanche to do stupid crap.  

I DO agree that gaming needs to be cooperative, I simply decided to take it a bit further since these boards are pretty much 90% DMs.  It really just gets old hearing things like "I don't like X so my players can't play X in my games".  Perhaps because I extrapolate it to my own experiences with DMs.  And sadly, "Get another DM" simply isn't a very good answer.  I play with friends, and however good or bad they may or may not be at DMing, I can't exactly find another gaming group off the street.

Anyway, the crux of the issue to me is that blanket banning of a race or a class in a general fantasy world (In which neither are overpowered or RADICALLY out of sync) with no attempt to compromise is ridiculous.  It is the equivilent of the DM saying "As you are speaking to the king, a kobold dressed in finery approaches from the rea-" with the player suddenly breaking in "I'm sorry, but Kobolds don't exist in this world.  They don't fit in with my vision of how things are run.  I've spent hours and hours running through this campaign, working on the state of things.  Pick another race for this NPC".

DMing is a lot of one-sided propositions intrinsically, and I have just seen too many issues become one-sided that should have been compromised.


----------



## hong (May 3, 2008)

Ten said:
			
		

> For all those who replied, excuse me, I am nerdraging, I am sure you can sympathize.




No.


----------



## Sammael (May 3, 2008)

hong said:
			
		

> No.



Seconded (even if it makes me hong's bitch).


----------



## beverson (May 3, 2008)

ShockMeSane said:
			
		

> Actually, you are making an assumption that I believe to be incorrect. You can only retrain 1 feat per level, hence why you can only have 7 Paragon Feats at level 14. Once you hit paragon tier at 11, and then 12, 13, 14 you retrain a heroic feat into a paragon feat. This does not necessarily make any implications whatsoever as to how many feats are available at heroic tier, except that there are obviously at LEAST 4. Of course, you could be 100% correct, but that excerpt certainly doesn't set anything in stone as far as heroic feat numbers go. I'm still guessing it'll be 6 (1,2,4,6,8,10), but time will tell.




Not to mention the fact that we've heard a WotC employee blog stating that his 10th level playtest character had 6 feats, which is another strong indicator that the progression is 1,2,4,6,8,10.


----------



## katahn (May 3, 2008)

incantator said:
			
		

> OK, lets look as the actual prerelease information.  From the Tier Excerpt:
> 
> 
> 
> Notice the part about 7 feats, 3 from Paragon levels.  That means that a regular character will get 4 (5 for human) feats in its first 10 levels.  I don't know whether are at 1st, 3rd, 6th and 9th level, but I would give him the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise.  Please try not to ridicule another poster before you have all of the facts about the game.




That's seven paragon feats,  not seven feats period.  Three feats come from paragon levels, up to four others can be retrained into paragon feats, the rest presumably can be left at the heroic tier.


----------



## Ahglock (May 3, 2008)

MindWanderer said:
			
		

> Not necessarily.  Cha is a dump stat for fighters (Wis is more useful to them), so you have to decide whether the human's other bonuses--an extra feat, an extra skill, an extra at-will power (the _only_ way we know of to get one of those), and +1 to all defenses, are worth the stuff you get for being a dragonborn (breath weapon, Dragonborn Fury, Draconic Heritage, and +2 to two skills).
> 
> I think WotC realized exactly what you're getting at, which is why they gave humans a blanket +1 to all defenses.  Unless you really want the crazy Reflex defense of a halfing (+1 racial, +1 dex), a human remains a viable choice.




As pointed out in another reply to this in a point buy every bonus is useful even ones to dump stats.  Even if you want to dump chr to the 8 stat point rewrite my example to be a powerful rogue or powerful warlord instead of powerful fighter.  Now both +2str and +2 chr are non-dump stats for the class. 

 The human feats really don't look better than the demi-human feats, so it seems to me no matter what class you choose the best choice will always be not human.  I hope there is something more to this that I haven't seen yet, but when you have uneven bonuses it is hard to balance things.  Also going back to the dragonborn, bonuses like breath weapon are much harder to quantify than a +1 to AC so this race in particualr I will be looking at closely to see if it is balanced.


----------



## Cadfan (May 3, 2008)

In general, everyone agrees with the idea that a player's character concept, if reasonable, should be worked into the game, but that character concepts which do not plausibly fit into the campaign world should be disallowed.

The problem is the application of those ideas.  Everyone agrees with them, but some people have very, very different ideas about what is "reasonable."


----------



## Spatula (May 3, 2008)

Torchlyte said:
			
		

> A) True enough, but sometimes as a DM you'll have a better time if players enjoy their options. This point isn't black and white.



Um, that's why I said that both DM and player should be able to meet each other halfway?



			
				Torchlyte said:
			
		

> B) Players have to please a DM to some extent, but the DM has to please players as well. I would say the DM has to try harder than the players to please the other party.



As long as the DM is doing the bulk of the work in making the game possible, I disagree.  If someone doesn't like it, they can DM instead.  The DM sacrifices his or her free time to prepare for the game, players do not.



			
				Torchlyte said:
			
		

> C) As long as crash-landed space marines aren't Core, this point is too far removed from the norm to be valid.



Are you implying that your mind is SO limited and boxed in you can't fit within the confines of society some crash landed space marines or space elves? Why do you insult your own creativity and vision in such a way?

Ah, the tyranny of the published word.  What is acceptable in a fantasy game is not defined by what WotC publishes.  By your logic, dragonborn were not acceptable in 3e (since they weren't core, or didn't even exist for that matter), but they are in 4e?


----------



## MindWanderer (May 3, 2008)

Ahglock said:
			
		

> As pointed out in another reply to this in a point buy every bonus is useful even ones to dump stats.  Even if you want to dump chr to the 8 stat point rewrite my example to be a powerful rogue or powerful warlord instead of powerful fighter.  Now both +2str and +2 chr are non-dump stats for the class.



Wait--so because humans aren't at least as good as _every_ race at _every_ class, they're getting short-changed?  Sure, dragonborn is a natural choice for paladin or warlord, because they both need Str and Cha.  It's probably a decent choice for rogue, depending on how the various Brawny/Trickster powers are designed, because both Str and Cha are secondary for them (although I think +2 Dex vs. +2 Str and +2 Cha is a toss-up).  Similarly, halflings have a huge advantage in being Trickster rogues, elves in being Archery rangers, and so on.  And yes, if you're a power optimizer, those are going to be tempting choices, just like gray elf is an absurdly popular choice for wizards.

But because humans get a +1 to all defenses, the loss of a second +2 means that unless you're comparing them with a race that gets perfect synergy with the class in question, they're just as viable stat-wise.  Perhaps more so--for instance, an elf Trickster rogue gets a ton of mileage from the +2 Dex, but the +2 Wis is almost useless to them because their Cha is going to be higher.  Meanwhile, you're comparing the human's +1 Fort and Will, extra feat and skill, and extra at-will power to the elf's +1 speed, skill bonuses, bow proficiency, and Wild Step.  I think that's an even comparison at least.


----------



## Rechan (May 3, 2008)

drjones said:
			
		

> Why on earth would the way I envision my gamewolrd be offensive?



It has zero to do with your gameworld, and everything to do with you saying this:



> If a player really has a stiff for playing one it would have to be a drizzt kinda thing, the ONLY one with all the negative attention that can bring.



You are saying the only reason anyone would ever want to play Race X is because it "would have to be a drizzt kinda thing". 

Please explain how that has anything to do with your game world, and how it ISN'T a blanket statement about people who like any race you Don't?

Here's a simple answer: Someone would have a stiff for playing one *because it's in the freaking Core Rulebook*.


----------



## Piratecat (May 3, 2008)

Rechan said:
			
		

> Here's a simple answer: Someone would have a stiff for playing one *because it's in the freaking Core Rulebook*.



An excellent point. But just a preemptive reminder, gang - even if you don't agree with another poster, don't let the discussion turn to insults. Thanks.


----------



## Kordeth (May 3, 2008)

Rechan said:
			
		

> You are saying the only reason anyone would ever want to play Race X is because it "would have to be a drizzt kinda thing".
> 
> Please explain how that has anything to do with your game world, and how it ISN'T a blanket statement about people who like any race you Don't?
> 
> Here's a simple answer: Someone would have a stiff for playing one *because it's in the freaking Core Rulebook*.




Erm--pretty sure you're misunderstanding here. He's not saying "anyone who wants to play race X is indulging in Drizzt fanboy-wank and is badwrongfun," he's saying that "if a player wants to play a member of race X, I'd allow it, but *the character* would, like Drizzt, be the only one of his kind (e.g. the only heroic member of that race, or even the only one of his race known in the world period), with all the drawbacks that come along with that (e.g. people assuming he's a monster or villain, or reacting with fear and shock, or making it easier for enemies to track him because _everybody_ remembers the dragonman)."

Nothing about that implies a statement about people who like races he doesn't, blanket or otherwise, and in fact it seems like a perfectly valid compromise between a player who really wants to play race X and a DM who really doesn't want race X to be a major part of his campaign world.


----------



## Rechan (May 3, 2008)

Kordeth said:
			
		

> Erm--pretty sure you're misunderstanding here. He's not saying "anyone who wants to play race X is indulging in Drizzt fanboy-wank and is badwrongfun," he's saying that "if a player wants to play a member of race X, I'd allow it, but *the character* would, like Drizzt, be the only one of his kind (e.g. the only heroic member of that race, or even the only one of his race known in the world period), with all the drawbacks that come along with that (e.g. people assuming he's a monster or villain, or reacting with fear and shock, or making it easier for enemies to track him because _everybody_ remembers the dragonman)."



Oh. 

If that's what he means, then I apologize.


----------



## Spatula (May 4, 2008)

Rechan said:
			
		

> It has zero to do with your gameworld, and everything to do with you saying this:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Hm? He says "if someone wants to play one, it'll be like Drizzt, the only member of that race around, with all the negative attention that brings."  He's talking about his gameworld where dragonborn would be treated like drow are in most settings - as enemies of "civilized" folk.  How is that a blanket statement?


----------



## Falling Icicle (May 4, 2008)

Rechan said:
			
		

> Here's a simple answer: Someone would have a stiff for playing one *because it's in the freaking Core Rulebook*.




This is exactly why some people have been complaining about Tieflings and Dragonborn being in the PHB. Not everyone wants those kinds of exotic races to be typical player characters in their games, but since they're core races in the PHB, the DM is a dick if he doesn't allow them in his campaign.


----------



## Torchlyte (May 4, 2008)

Spatula said:
			
		

> Um, that's why I said that both DM and player should be able to meet each other halfway?




I wasn't disagreeing with you, merely reframing the statement?



			
				Spatula said:
			
		

> As long as the DM is doing the bulk of the work in making the game possible, I disagree.  If someone doesn't like it, they can DM instead.  The DM sacrifices his or her free time to prepare for the game, players do not.




The DM sacrifices a free time to prepare _for the players_. That's why we don't railroad.



			
				Spatula said:
			
		

> Are you implying that your mind is SO limited and boxed in you can't fit within the confines of society some crash landed space marines or space elves? Why do you insult your own creativity and vision in such a way?




No, I'm employing that you would have to be incredibly thick to think Dragonborn = Space Marines. Slippery slope arguments, and more specifically in this case, straw man arguments, are logical fallacies.



> Ah, the tyranny of the published word.  What is acceptable in a fantasy game is not defined by what WotC publishes.  By your logic, dragonborn were not acceptable in 3e (since they weren't core, or didn't even exist for that matter), but they are in 4e?




They existed in a splatbook.


----------



## Torchlyte (May 4, 2008)

Spatula said:
			
		

> Hm? He says "if someone wants to play one, it'll be like Drizzt, the only member of that race around, with all the negative attention that brings."  He's talking about his gameworld where dragonborn would be treated like drow are in most settings - as enemies of "civilized" folk.  How is that a blanket statement?




If this was the intent then Drizzt was a poor example because he is connected with a type of player that everyone thinks is lame.



			
				Falling Icicle said:
			
		

> This is exactly why some people have been complaining about Tieflings and Dragonborn being in the PHB. Not everyone wants those kinds of exotic races to be typical player characters in their games, but since they're core races in the PHB, the DM is a dick if he doesn't allow them in his campaign.




How much enjoyment do you get out of not having a particular race in your campaign? How much enjoyment does a player get from being able to play that particular race in your campaign?

Everyone has to make their own decisions on a case-by-case basis for what character concepts they want to allow. I'm just trying to point out that the DM should be making this decision only to maximize total player enjoyment. When the players enjoy themselves, the DM does too... at least, that's how it works for me.


----------



## Rechan (May 4, 2008)

Torchlyte said:
			
		

> If this was the intent then Drizzt was a poor example because he is connected with a type of player that everyone thinks is lame.
> 
> 
> 
> How much enjoyment do you get out of not having a particular race in your campaign? How much enjoyment does a player get from being able to play that particular race in your campaign?



It depends.

For instance, I get a hell of a lot of enjoyment when my campaign lacks Kender for instance.

Because the Kender are portrayed as, well, disruptive to adventures, plot, etc. The impression I've got is that some people who play them intentionally do so in order to screw people over. Steal their stuff, get the party in jail, etc etc. From the way I've seen people use it, it's a race made for the type of player that says "Hey, I'm going to do bad things and get away with it because my alignment is CN". 

I recognize many people like Kender and play them without intentional game disruption in mind. And even though Kinder may not equal Intentional bad behavior from players, saying "No Kender" nips the potential problem in the bud. 

The caveat here is that it depends upon the campaign. If it's mainly a joking, fun, traveling-con-men-and-pickpockets campaign, then kender fit right in. If however it's a much more serious, dark, or horror based, Kender _break_ the mood.


----------



## Rechan (May 4, 2008)

Falling Icicle said:
			
		

> but since they're core races in the PHB, the DM is a dick if he doesn't allow them in his campaign.



No, I don't see it that way.

Wondering "Why would anyone WANT to play them" gets the response "They're in the Core".

But a DM has a right to say 'X Y and Z aren't in this campaign, I don't care if they're core'. If You're running a primitive type campaign setting, where everyone are cavemen and tribal guys, a scholarly wizard just doesn't fit in. If you're running an anti-hero campaign, a Lawful Good paladin just isn't going to fit; he's going to have serious confliction to the point that nothing will get done. No barbarians in a socialite/intrigue campaign set in the upper echalons of a city. And so on. If it would disrupt the flow of the game and simply Not Fit at All, then yeah. Go for it. 

I mean, if the Psionics rules were out, and a DM wanted to say, "Hey. We're playing Dark Sun. Psionics, primitive, and some martial - that's the only power sources available," would anyone really _begrudge_ him? 

And the only reason why I do not say "No elves/dwarves/halflings in my game" is because they I think that'd alienate 80% of the available gamers around here. Otherwise I'd do it.

But putting aside my dislike of humans/demi-humans a second, if I looked at a player and said, "IN my campaign, elves are evil. Heart black as tar. They're feral, cruel, and steal babies in the night. So, playing an elf is not on the table, not in this campaign. Sorry," I feel I would be legitimate, despite the fact that they're in the Core. 

Hell, I would love to play a kobold. And I know I could do it well. But, I know that many, many people will not let them in the game. Therefore, I don't complain. Even if Kobolds were core, I would still respect a DM (even if I whined a little bit and tried to cajole him into it).


----------



## ProfessorCirno (May 4, 2008)

"Hey, can I play a tiefling in this game?"
"Naw, it's not really good for the setting."
"Oh, ok."

Jesus people.  It's not difficult.  I've had to turn down requests from players when I found their characters to be obnoxious or not fitting with the setting.  And get this, they don't freak out and fall to the floor sobbing.  I've had character requests turned down, and I just shrugged and said "ok" and made a different one.  And most of the time, looking back, they were right to refuse my character.

If someone wants to play with tieflings, then they will.  If they don't, then they won't.  I seriously doubt I'll run games using 4e's standard fluff, and my players will either go "Oh, ok" or leave.  And then inevitably I'll play a game where that DM is using standard 4e fluff, and I'll either say "Oh, ok" or I'll leave.

Well, or, more likely, I'll make my character a human supremecist who looks down on and spits on tieflings.  And if they don't like it, they can leave.  Or murder me in my sleep.  Which is just like those stinking, untrustworthy tieflings.

Edit:


			
				Rechan said:
			
		

> Hell, I would love to play a kobold. And I know I could do it well. But, I know that many, many people will not let them in the game.




These people have something horribly wrong with them.  Kobolds are always accepted at any of my games.  Kobolds are awesome.


----------



## Torchlyte (May 4, 2008)

> "Hey, can I play a tiefling in this game?"
> "Naw, it's not really good for the setting."
> "Oh, ok."




Not everyone puts up a big fuss when they don't get what they want. That doesn't mean it doesn't bother them. It may not, and that's fine... but that's only the case if they weren't particularly excited to play that character concept in the first place.



			
				Rechan said:
			
		

> I mean, if the Psionics rules were out, and a DM wanted to say, "Hey. We're playing Dark Sun. Psionics, primitive, and some martial - that's the only power sources available," would anyone really begrudge him?




True, but that's because the Dark Sun's negative flavor can have a net positive effect on the players. In other words, sometimes a player is happier with restrictions if it does indeed improve a campaign's flavor. This is in stark contrast to the "I'm the DM, it's my way or the highway" attitude that's been expressed on this thread up until now.



			
				Rechan said:
			
		

> The caveat here is that it depends upon the campaign. If it's mainly a joking, fun, traveling-con-men-and-pickpockets campaign, then kender fit right in. If however it's a much more serious, dark, or horror based, Kender break the mood.




On the other hand, a cool way to take that horror further is to screw with the happy-go-lucky race. Look at Dark Sun's halflings.


----------



## Rechan (May 4, 2008)

Torchlyte said:
			
		

> On the other hand, a cool way to take that horror further is to screw with the happy-go-lucky race. Look at Dark Sun's halflings.



Yet on the same token, the player has to go along with it. 

"What do you MEAN Kender are sadistic torturors who tie people up and taunt them while cutting them? I won't play that!" 

I doubt that would be fun for people who are big Kender fans.

I would feel the same way if a DM told me, "Sure, you can play a kobold. Because kobolds in my world are warm, fuzzy happy little gnome-like guys." That just takes the _fun_ out of being a nasty little paranoid napoleon-with-scales.


----------



## Wormwood (May 4, 2008)

Which is why I'm *thrilled* that 4e will come complete with an implied setting, so the players and myself can all start on the same page regarding the campaign world.

"Tieflings? Yeah, those guys come from Bael Turath and they fought against the Dragonborn a crapload of years ago. It's all there on page 14. Let's play."
*
Finally.*


----------



## ProfessorCirno (May 4, 2008)

Wormwood said:
			
		

> Which is why I'm *thrilled* that 4e will come complete with an implied setting, so the players and myself can all start on the same page regarding the campaign world.
> 
> "Tieflings? Yeah, those guys come from Bael Turath and they fought against the Dragonborn a crapload of years ago. It's all there on page 14. Let's play."
> *
> Finally.*




I humbly disagree.  By forcing a setting right form the start, it makes it more difficult to change settings or homebrew.  One of 3.x's strengths was the lack of forced setting that allowed DMs to be creative.


----------



## The Little Raven (May 4, 2008)

ProfessorCirno said:
			
		

> I humbly disagree.  By forcing a setting right form the start, it makes it more difficult to change settings or homebrew.




Sounds like a personal problem, to me.



> One of 3.x's strengths was the lack of forced setting that allowed DMs to be creative.




If I wanted to run 3.X straight, I was forced into a pseudo-Greyhawk setting off the bat. If having Moradin in the 3.X PHBs didn't prevent creativity, then how does having Moradin in the 4e PHB prevent creativity?


----------



## ProfessorCirno (May 4, 2008)

Mourn said:
			
		

> Sounds like a personal problem, to me.




I didn't say I wouldn't do it, just that it's more challenging.



> If I wanted to run 3.X straight, I was forced into a pseudo-Greyhawk setting off the bat. If having Moradin in the 3.X PHBs didn't prevent creativity, then how does having Moradin in the 4e PHB prevent creativity?




Because 4e seems to also have a lot of the mechanics rooted in the fluff, such as feat or ability names, to give a small example.


----------



## The Little Raven (May 4, 2008)

ProfessorCirno said:
			
		

> Because 4e seems to also have a lot of the mechanics rooted in the fluff, such as feat or ability names, to give a small example.




Well, if you're going to give a "small example," then provide actual examples, instead of vague assertions.


----------



## Saishu_Heiki (May 4, 2008)

ProfessorCirno said:
			
		

> I didn't say I wouldn't do it, just that it's more challenging.
> 
> 
> 
> Because 4e seems to also have a lot of the mechanics rooted in the fluff, such as feat or ability names, to give a small example.



If you are referring to Power of Amanator, what is preventing me from changing that to Power of Amaterasu in a wuxia setting, or Power of Amun-Ra in a egytian setting?

The names are infinitely malleable, the only reason to use that as a negative against 4e is because you are trying to convince yourself or others that 4e is bad.


----------



## Lizard (May 4, 2008)

Mourn said:
			
		

> If I wanted to run 3.X straight, I was forced into a pseudo-Greyhawk setting off the bat. If having Moradin in the 3.X PHBs didn't prevent creativity, then how does having Moradin in the 4e PHB prevent creativity?




2 pages of easily-ignored gods vs. fluff entwined with everything.

Greyhawk gods in 3e==bad.
4e "implied world" complete with names of past civilizations, details of racial relationships, spanking monkey style power names, and mountains of other space-wasting fluff=worse.

I am one of those foolish people who expect a new version to FIX problems, not add more.


----------



## Rechan (May 4, 2008)

You know. Aside from a Single Feat name (Golden Wyvern Adept) and the wizard implement article from what was it, November, we haven't seen hide nor hair of any indication of Setting Material in the classes.

"Crimson Edge" and "Iron Dragon Onslaught" setting fluff isn't.


----------



## Lizard (May 4, 2008)

Saishu_Heiki said:
			
		

> The names are infinitely malleable, the only reason to use that as a negative against 4e is because you are trying to convince yourself or others that 4e is bad.




The fact that it's easily fixed does not make it not bad.

If I cut my face while shaving, it takes a few seconds to damp up the blood and it doesn't really hurt much. This doesn't mean that it's not bad.

And if every single time I shave, I cut my face, I might just decide to switch razor brands.


----------



## ProfessorCirno (May 4, 2008)

First of all, calm the hell down.  I didn't say I disliked 4e, I didn't say I hated everything about the new game and wanted to make everyone miserable.  I said I didn't like the fluff and I'm worried it might be too intertwined with the mechanics.  Immidiately jumping on people like this doesn't do anything for your argument.

Secondly, changing feat names isn't hard, no, I recognize that.  My worry is that it's just a show of things to come.  As Lizard said, having all this stuff in the core manual is bad.  Make a book for the setting, don't make the setting a part of the base rules.


----------



## Cadfan (May 4, 2008)

ProfessorCirno said:
			
		

> "Hey, can I play a tiefling in this game?"
> "Naw, it's not really good for the setting."
> "Oh, ok."



No one has a problem with this when it is true.

The problems happen when its not true, but the DM says it anyways as a cover for just not liking tieflings.  Then you get into conflict, because the DM is implicitly saying "I think your character idea is lame/nerdy/immature/munchkin, and would prefer you pretend to be something mature and grown-up, like a short hairy fat man with alcohol abuse problems.  And I'm going to use my informal authority as the DM to force you to do it, too."


----------



## Saishu_Heiki (May 4, 2008)

ProfessorCirno said:
			
		

> First of all, calm the hell down.  I didn't say I disliked 4e, I didn't say I hated everything about the new game and wanted to make everyone miserable.  I said I didn't like the fluff and I'm worried it might be too intertwined with the mechanics.  Immidiately jumping on people like this doesn't do anything for your argument.
> 
> Secondly, changing feat names isn't hard, no, I recognize that.  My worry is that it's just a show of things to come.  As Lizard said, having all this stuff in the core manual is bad.  Make a book for the setting, don't make the setting a part of the base rules.



Second of all, stop ascribing a state of mind to me that is not backed up in my posts. Anyway, on to our regularly scheduled debate...

I can see where this treads into Oberoni's Fallacy territory, but I just don't see the problem as being so major as to require a major shift in either direction. Now if every feat, PP, and ED was tied to a setting or setting related feature it would be an issue because of the sheer amount of work required. The other extreme is everything is somewhat descriptive, but completely mundane. I don't feel feel this is good either. The balance we have seen so far (admittedly woefully incomplete) is workable for me.


----------



## The Little Raven (May 4, 2008)

Lizard said:
			
		

> 2 pages of easily-ignored gods vs. fluff entwined with everything.




Oh, like the "dwarves hate giants" and "dwarves hate orcs/goblinoids" fluff that turned into mechanics, so I had Greyhawk dwarf fluff entwined with my game? Or the "elves get trained with swords and bows" stuff which defines some characteristics of elven society for me (obviously of a martial bent if ALL elves are trained in weaponry)?

Yeah, that's easily ignored.



> 4e "implied world" complete with names of past civilizations, details of racial relationships, spanking monkey style power names, and mountains of other space-wasting fluff=worse.




Oh, you mean a game we can just sit down and play, instead of some fan-wankery world-building exercise that has to take place to provide a common point of reference?



> I am one of those foolish people who expect a new version to FIX problems, not add more.




Oh noes, they're actually reaching out to the majority of gamers that don't have much time to do that stuff, instead of the Doug Douglason Portals Into a Realm of Epic Gygaxian Fantasy DMs who spend weeks determining the economic structure of lands half-a-world away from their current campaigns.

One man's problem is another man's solution.


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## Falling Icicle (May 4, 2008)

Torchlyte said:
			
		

> Everyone has to make their own decisions on a case-by-case basis for what character concepts they want to allow. I'm just trying to point out that the DM should be making this decision only to maximize total player enjoyment. When the players enjoy themselves, the DM does too... at least, that's how it works for me.




I disagree. As another poster pointed out, would you allow space marines in your D&D game to "maximize total player enjoyment?" If a player insisted on playing such a character, I would ask them why they cant have any fun playing something that's available in the world.  If a player refuses to play anything other than a Dragonborn, I would posit that it's the player, not the DM that is being unreasonable.


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## ProfessorCirno (May 4, 2008)

Cadfan said:
			
		

> No one has a problem with this when it is true.
> 
> The problems happen when its not true, but the DM says it anyways as a cover for just not liking tieflings.  Then you get into conflict, because the DM is implicitly saying "I think your character idea is lame/nerdy/immature/munchkin, and would prefer you pretend to be something mature and grown-up, like a short hairy fat man with alcohol abuse problems.  And I'm going to use my informal authority as the DM to force you to do it, too."




At that point, you find a new DM, simple as that.

Here's the thing: the DM DOES have complete control over the setting.  That's why he's the DM.  That's his _job_.  A good DM isn't a dick about it, and a bad one you leave.



			
				Mourn said:
			
		

> Oh, you mean a game we can just sit down and play, instead of some fan-wankery world-building exercise that has to take place to provide a common point of reference?
> 
> 
> 
> ...





You're not so good at debate.

First of all, I would hesitate from calling all homebrew "fan-wankery world building exercises," as it is, at best, stupid and wrong.  Secondly, I'm sure some gamers DON'T have that much time, and there's nothing wrong with preset worlds (I'm a fan of quite a few, myself).  But I maintain that the CORE RULES shouldn't involve the fluff; instead, books for the actual campaign should have the fluff.  That way you can seamlessly shift from one setting to the other or to homebrew if you want.


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## Kordeth (May 4, 2008)

Rechan said:
			
		

> You know. Aside from a Single Feat name (Golden Wyvern Adept) and the wizard implement article from what was it, November, we haven't seen hide nor hair of any indication of Setting Material in the classes.




And in fact, a more recent post from...I _think_ WotC_Miko confirmed that the phrase "Golden Wyvern Adept" appears nowhere in the PHB, so even that's not an issue.

And really people, with the sole exception of being a proper noun, is "Tieflings originated in an ancient empire called Bael Turath" any more "built-in fluff" than "dwarves live in mountains and don't get on well with elves?" I think not.


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## Lizard (May 4, 2008)

Mourn said:
			
		

> Oh, like the "dwarves hate giants" and "dwarves hate orcs/goblinoids" fluff that turned into mechanics, so I had Greyhawk dwarf fluff entwined with my game? Or the "elves get trained with swords and bows" stuff which defines some characteristics of elven society for me (obviously of a martial bent if ALL elves are trained in weaponry)?
> 
> Yeah, that's easily ignored.




"Dwarves have +1 vs. giants" == a nice springboard for creativity. WHY? Do they train against large foes? Is it a gift from the gods? Do giants just have trouble hitting dwarves? It distinguishes dwarves mechanically without forcing anything into the world. Every DM can look at this and have it inspire him, or he can just say "Whatever, that's just how it is." and move on. He doesn't have to rip anything out, because there's nothing there.

"Dwarves have +1 vs giants because during the Great Wars of the First Aeon, the Giant Gods dids't smite the great dwarf city of Beirstine, and thence did the king of the dwarves, Drunkbeard the First, say unto the gods...."== straitjacket which must be purged before any real work can be done.

One gives a fact and says:"Create a reason!" The other slams a mess of assumptions into your face.





> Oh, you mean a game we can just sit down and play, instead of some fan-wankery world-building exercise that has to take place to provide a common point of reference?




How do you reconcile this with "Well, anyone who doesn't like the names can change them!"? Either we're all supposed to rip out the flavor text (losing the common reference point), or we're just supposed to suck it up. Pick one, please.

(And, likewise, why is it when I ask for just such a baseline for mechanics that matter -- see the succubus thread and it's many digressions -- I'm told "That's not how 4e does things!" A shared baseline of fluff and roll-your-own mechanics is about the OPPOSITE of good game design.




> Oh noes, they're actually reaching out to the majority of gamers that don't have much time to do that stuff, instead of the Doug Douglason Portals Into a Realm of Epic Gygaxian Fantasy DMs who spend weeks determining the economic structure of lands half-a-world away from their current campaigns.
> 
> One man's problem is another man's solution.




It takes five minutes to whip up some pseudo-Tolkien drivel about why elves hate dwarves and get on with the orc-bashin'. For Ghu's sake, I was making my first (crappy) D&D world about 6 hours after I played my first game and a month before I got the rules! It's not hard to sketch enough of a world to start playing in, and you can fill it out later. Hell, I did some of my best worldbuilding with the old Judge's Guild book of random names. ("Lessee, King (roll) Olaf the (roll) Troll (roll) burner. Olaf Trollburner. Hmm. OK, there was a big invasion of trolls, and Olaf summoned some wizards and fireballed 'em all, which burned out the forest of..(roll) Broken (roll) Crystal..." If you want to write the next great fantasy novel, it might take time. If you just want to hammer up the flimsy stage dressing needed for your first dungeon crawl, it's trivial. Really. It is. And the game books should show this and encourage it and get people creating again. The ability to create, or adventure in, a world which is truly your own is one of the things which sets roleplaying apart from MMORPGs, and it needs to be encouraged as the fun part of the game, not sneered at as a chore someone must be forced to do. You don't HAVE to build a world..you GET to build a world. What's cooler than that? Who doesn't want to be God?)


----------



## Lizard (May 4, 2008)

Kordeth said:
			
		

> And in fact, a more recent post from...I _think_ WotC_Miko confirmed that the phrase "Golden Wyvern Adept" appears nowhere in the PHB, so even that's not an issue.




And I can't help imagining this change was due to persistant whining. 



> And really people, with the sole exception of being a proper noun, is "Tieflings originated in an ancient empire called Bael Turath" any more "built-in fluff" than "dwarves live in mountains and don't get on well with elves?" I think not.




I think so.

How do you propose we resolve this conflict?

(I'd be happy with "Tieflings are the descendants of an ancient people which made a pact with dark forces." This leaves all the details up to the DM, while still defining the race and explaining its powers. You have a lot more freedom. Was it an empire or a small cult? Which dark forces? Are they still around? Gods or demons? Do they patronize the Tieflings or not? Etc, etc, etc. Good fluff should inspire creativity by getting the DM to ask questions of himself; bad fluff gives you all the answers. (Note this applies to core rules, not to setting books, obviously.))


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## Kordeth (May 4, 2008)

Lizard said:
			
		

> "Dwarves have +1 vs. giants" == a nice springboard for creativity. WHY? Do they train against large foes? Is it a gift from the gods? Do giants just have trouble hitting dwarves? It distinguishes dwarves mechanically without forcing anything into the world. Every DM can look at this and have it inspire him, or he can just say "Whatever, that's just how it is." and move on. He doesn't have to rip anything out, because there's nothing there.
> 
> "Dwarves have +1 vs giants because during the Great Wars of the First Aeon, the Giant Gods dids't smite the great dwarf city of Beirstine, and thence did the king of the dwarves, Drunkbeard the First, say unto the gods...."== straitjacket which must be purged before any real work can be done.




Have we seen _any_ 4E racial abilities that are described in this manner? Because all I've seen is "eladrin can teleport 5 squares once per encounter" or "dwarves are moved one less square when subject to a push, pull, or slide." Period. End of list. Once again, "tieflings come from Bael Turath" is _exactly_ as much fluff as "dwarves come from mountains," with one proper noun being the only difference. There's been absolutely no evidence of in-depth setting fluff as the basis for powers anywhere in what we've seen of 4E.




> How do you reconcile this with "Well, anyone who doesn't like the names can change them!"? Either we're all supposed to rip out the flavor text (losing the common reference point), or we're just supposed to suck it up. Pick one, please.




Umm....players who like/don't care about the core fluff can run right out of the box, players who don't can easily strip the fluff out? It's not like it's a binary situation here.



> The ability to create, or adventure in, a world which is truly your own is one of the things which sets roleplaying apart from MMORPGs, and it needs to be encouraged as the fun part of the game, not sneered at as a chore someone must be forced to do. You don't HAVE to build a world..you GET to build a world. What's cooler than that? Who doesn't want to be God?)




World building is awesome. World-building is fun. World-building is bloody time-consuming. Some folk have time to build a world, and that's awesome. Me, I work anywhere from 40-60 hours a week depending on how crunched we are, and I have other commitments outside that. If it's a choice between using my D&D prep time to flesh out the background of my campaign world or prep an actual adventure I can actually run for actual players--I'd rather use the core-book fluff and spend the time designing and building a kick-butt adventure. 

And really--has _anybody_ who has a problem with the core books including some light fluff actually met a player or DM who was utterly paralyzed in his world-building abilities by book-related fluff. Is there _a single_ world-builder out there incapable of saying "okay, forget the books, in my world stuff works like this?"


----------



## The Little Raven (May 4, 2008)

Lizard said:
			
		

> "Dwarves have +1 vs. giants" == a nice springboard for creativity. WHY? Do they train against large foes? Is it a gift from the gods? Do giants just have trouble hitting dwarves? It distinguishes dwarves mechanically without forcing anything into the world.




Have you actually read the entry? It explicitly tells you why they have it: *special training that dwarves undergo, during which they learn tricks that previous generations developed in their battles with giants*.



> One gives a fact and says:"Create a reason!" The other slams a mess of assumptions into your face.




Wrong, since learning "tricks that previous generations developed in their battles with giants" slams you with the assumption that dwarves have long fought giants in order to develop techniques that *every single dwarf* has.



> How do you reconcile this with "Well, anyone who doesn't like the names can change them!"?




I don't. World-builders (being "advanced" players) will build worlds, regardless of what any core material says. People who just want to play the game will be able to just use the core material as written. Nothing to reconcile.



> (And, likewise, why is it when I ask for just such a baseline for mechanics that matter -- see the succubus thread and it's many digressions -- I'm told "That's not how 4e does things!" A shared baseline of fluff and roll-your-own mechanics is about the OPPOSITE of good game design.




Don't ask me about things that happen in threads I don't read, because I won't give you an answer.



> What's cooler than that?




Being able to play a game without having to build a world because there's an implied setting that does the heavy lifting for me.


----------



## Spatula (May 4, 2008)

....and the implied setting debate rears its ugly head again.  There goes that thread.


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## muffin_of_chaos (May 4, 2008)

Seriously?  You people worry about an _implied setting_?  Seriously?
This is your problem?  That WotC gives you suggestions for the flavor text of your game, that you are under no compunction to accept whatsoever?
Good gravy.


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## ProfessorCirno (May 4, 2008)

muffin_of_chaos said:
			
		

> Seriously?  You people worry about an _implied setting_?  Seriously?
> This is your problem?  That WotC gives you suggestions for the flavor text of your game, that you are under no compunction to accept whatsoever?
> Good gravy.




The worry, albeit possibly unfounded, is that WotC will be TOO drawn into the fluff for the 4e setting, which will make transitioning into a different setting to be more difficult and irritable then neccisary.


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## Mouseferatu (May 4, 2008)

muffin_of_chaos said:
			
		

> Seriously?  You people worry about an _implied setting_?  Seriously?
> This is your problem?  That WotC gives you suggestions for the flavor text of your game, that you are under no compunction to accept whatsoever?
> Good gravy.




Yeah, this.

I'll repeat my standard mantra. An RPG book should seek to inspire the imagination as much as--if not more than--it seeks to convey the mechanical rules. If I pick up an RPG book and it _doesn't_ get my imagination rolling, if it doesn't inspire me to create a new character, envision a world or portion of a world, or contemplate a new campaign, that book has _failed_, no matter how solid the mechanics may be.

Even bad flavor is better than no flavor, since it can still spark better ideas. But mechanics on their own aren't inspiring. If I can't be bothered to _read_ the book, I certainly won't get around to using mechanics from it.

The day D&D becomes a pure textbook... Well, I'm not going to make any sweeping proclamations about when/if I'll ever stop playing it, but I'd certainly at least consider it.


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## muffin_of_chaos (May 4, 2008)

ProfessorCirno said:
			
		

> The worry, albeit possibly unfounded, is that WotC will be TOO drawn into the fluff for the 4e setting, which will make transitioning into a different setting to be more difficult and irritable then neccisary.



So it doesn't seem, to you, that 4E is much better about not being restrictive than 3.x was?
...Lack of alignment emphasis, targeted cultural racial abilities or racial class preferences...
I guess they do have some silly names for Powers, but...seems unrelated....


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## ProfessorCirno (May 4, 2008)

Mouseferatu said:
			
		

> Even bad flavor is better than no flavor, since it can still spark better ideas.




I cannot disagree with this more.

A common statement on various RP servers on just about every MMORPG in existance is "bad RP is better then no RP."  But the thing is, players aren't led to make their own ideas when they see bad fluff, they're just flat out turned off from it entirely.



			
				muffin_of_chaos said:
			
		

> So it doesn't seem, to you, that 4E is much better about not being restrictive than 3.x was?
> ...Lack of alignment emphasis, targeted cultural racial abilities or racial class preferences...
> I guess they do have some silly names for Powers, but...seems unrelated....




I'm not even going to touch alignment, first of all, as that's another (and very LARGE) can of worms.

I don't know if 4E will be more or less restrictive then 3.x is.  It doesn't matter if you like or hate the game, ALL of us are speculating, and none of us have any moral or cognitive high ground over one another simply through virtue of where we stand.  That said, my speculation is this: I don't want the game to be really entwined with the fluff.  It's for an admittedly selfish reason: I abhor the 4e fluff.

Will it be less restrictive?  I don't know.  Restrictions aren't always bad.  Players need choices, and lots of them, but choices are meaningless without consequences.  In fact, that's what a choice implies - that you're taking one thing while giving up something else.  But I digress.

In the end, I'd just personally rather perfer it - strongly at that - if the 4e mechanics had little to do with the fluff.  Instead, I'd like the mechanics to stand on their own, and for each setting to stand in its own, so that you can easily mingle the setting and mechanics, _irregardless_ of the setting.

Oh, and was I the only one that didn't like spells like Bigby's Wanking Hand and the like?  Not because of the spell itself, but because the characters and, indeed, most players, have no freaking clue who this "Bigby" fellow is, or why he had such a hand fetish.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (May 4, 2008)

ProfessorCirno said:
			
		

> I cannot disagree with this more.
> 
> A common statement on various RP servers on just about every MMORPG in existance is "bad RP is better then no RP."  But the thing is, players aren't led to make their own ideas when they see bad fluff, they're just flat out turned off from it entirely.
> 
> ...



I never liked the Vancian System. But spells like "Leomunds Secret Shelter", "Mordekainen's Magnificient Mension", "Mefl's Acid Arror", "Bigby's Grasphing Hand", those I liked. The mechanics showed an incredibly powerful (in the sense of scope and possibilities) magical system, and the names showed that it was all part of a bigger world. In my campaign, maybe there would eventually be a "Ridcullys Hunting Bolt" (not that I ever played a character with that name, but you'll get what I mean). 

Off course, when the names didn't fit, I could easily ignore them. That's why I am a fan of  fluff in the 4E Core Books, too. I didn't like the name "Golden Wyvern" (but mostly because I don't like the name Wyvern, either), but I still liked the idea that picking character abilities made the character also part of the implied setting. 

I like it, because when it comes to describing a character, I like the characters mechanical abilities reflect the concept of the character. If I say my character is a good liar, I'd like my character to have a mechanical way to represent it. 
Powers and Feats with fluff also support this. If my PC is supposed to be a graduate from the Unseen University, I might want to representing this with the Unseen University Graduate feat. (For easy fluff remove in settings without it, it might be better if the feat was called Unseen University Staff Mage feat instead).


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## Torchlyte (May 4, 2008)

Falling Icicle said:
			
		

> I disagree. As another poster pointed out, would you allow space marines in your D&D game to "maximize total player enjoyment?" If a player insisted on playing such a character, I would ask them why they cant have any fun playing something that's available in the world.  If a player refuses to play anything other than a Dragonborn, I would posit that it's the player, not the DM that is being unreasonable.




Absolutely... but then you'd be playing a sci fi rpg, wouldn't you? In most cases, there would be a net negative impact if one player decided to be a space marine because it would hurt everyone else's verisimilitude. Once again, people are drifting back into stupid straw men... don't tell Mourn he's a bad debater when you're throwing out logical fallacies left and right.



> No one has a problem with this when it is true.
> 
> The problems happen when its not true, but the DM says it anyways as a cover for just not liking tieflings. Then you get into conflict, because the DM is implicitly saying "I think your character idea is lame/nerdy/immature/munchkin, and would prefer you pretend to be something mature and grown-up, like a short hairy fat man with alcohol abuse problems. And I'm going to use my informal authority as the DM to force you to do it, too."




++


----------



## hong (May 4, 2008)

... so! Who else here is banning halflings?


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## abyssaldeath (May 4, 2008)

I don't see the problem with the fluff. When I played we never used the base campain setting. We always either used other printed campains or complete homebrew. As long as the DM tells all the players what setting the campain is in I don't see an issue.

DM: Hey, from now we aren't playing in Greyhawk. 

Player: Ok. So what are we playing.

DM: Purplehawk.

Player: Purplehawk?

DM: Yep, Purplehawk. I made it up myself.

Player: Obviously...... You're wierd.


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## Cadfan (May 4, 2008)

The thing about implied settings-

Its a really fine line.  But frankly, a game with an implied setting is almost always better than one without.

Why?

Because implied settings justify crunch that wouldn't otherwise exist.

Look at the Tome of Magic.  Sure, there were balance issues in it, but its almost universally loved for its flavor.  Take the Shadowcaster.  Its a spellcaster that has powers involving darkness, light, reflections, negative energy, counter-magic, cold, storms, and so on.  Why do all of those things fit so well together?  Because of an implied setting locale called the Plane of Shadow.  Or take the Binder.  Look at any random pact.  They contain abilities which, if considered in isolation, don't make sense together.  For example, mist, ranged touch attacks, and unlocking doors.  Why?  What does mist and unlocking doors have to do with each other?  Not much without the implied setting, but thanks to the extensive backstory on that particular vestige, they go together amazingly well.

So... I kind of put implied setting in three categories.

1. Unimportant.  This is of course the type that ENWorld cares about the most.  Stuff like the name of deities.  If you're going to have special abilities for priests who worship different types of gods, then you pretty much need a default name for that god.  The game would be kind of obnoxious if each god was labeled in the PHB as "Deity of Valor- check with your DM for this deity's name."  So a name gets slapped on.  Easiest thing in the world to change, and honestly doesn't matter if you don't change it.

2. Good.  This is fluff that ties together crunch in an interesting manner, but which doesn't clutter the game if you don't need it.  See Binder pacts for reference.  In 4e, this is stuff like the Eladrin connection to the Feywild.  It justifies Eladrin having teleportation tricks.  Teleportation tricks are cool, and this gives an explanation for why they belong to the Eladrin in particular, and thus the game is richer.  But if you don't want the Feywild in your game, just say "Look, we're not using the Feywild (or any other planes).  Eladrin can still teleport, all the magic stuff works, but there's no such place, ok?"  Its lightly tied in, so its easy to reap its benefits without any harms.

3. Fluff that is appropriate in other games, but not in D&D.  This would be your city maps, your kingdom names, that kind of thing.  Stuff that ties your game down to a specific world, instead of a generic world with a couple of specific attributes like we have now.  In certain other games this would be appropriate.  In Feng Shui, its a game of Hong Kong cinema, so a map of Hong Kong is appropriate.  The game would be lessened without it.  But a map of Waterdeep in the PHB just gets in the way of D&D's goal, which is to be a relatively generic, modifiable fantasy game.


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## jeffhartsell (May 4, 2008)

hong said:
			
		

> ... so! Who else here is banning halflings?




I am going to not think about not banning them never.


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## Lizard (May 4, 2008)

Mouseferatu said:
			
		

> Even bad flavor is better than no flavor, since it can still spark better ideas. But mechanics on their own aren't inspiring. If I can't be bothered to _read_ the book, I certainly won't get around to using mechanics from it.




I guess we differ here, as I tend to find mechanics inspiring. I'm going to guess you hated LBB Traveller and the Hero System...


----------



## abyssaldeath (May 4, 2008)

I look at it this way. DnD is the most well known and popular RPG. As such it is going to attract more new commers then any other RPG. I think because of this there needs to be a base setting for these people to work from. 

I would say most of us in this thread are veterans of PnP RPG's and as such the background fluff isn't nessasarily useful to us. Unfortunitly, we can't really look at this issue from our perspective when it comes to the core books for the reason I have given above. 

I'm not too worried about really. If only for this reason: WotC created campain worlds. With all the campains worlds they are planning would't they try and keep setting fluff in the core books as minimal as possible to ease the transition when changing to any of the other campain world?


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## Bishmon (May 4, 2008)

abyssaldeath said:
			
		

> I would say most of us in this thread are veterans of PnP RPG's and as such the background fluff isn't nessasarily useful to us. Unfortunitly, we can't really look at this issue from our perspective when it comes to the core books for the reason I have given above.



Are we paying for the books? Then of course we can look at this issue from our perspective.

WotC undoubtedly has to try and find a balance due to a number of factors, some of which you mentioned. But the necessity of a balance and the number of those factors doesn't somehow invalidate the perspectives of large chunks of people buying the books.


----------



## Xanaqui (May 4, 2008)

Falling Icicle said:
			
		

> I disagree. As another poster pointed out, would you allow space marines in your D&D game to "maximize total player enjoyment?"



Depends on the game. In some campaign worlds, yes - as long as the other players don't object. I'd warn them about equipment problems in advance, though. 







			
				Falling Icicle said:
			
		

> If a player insisted on playing such a character, I would ask them why they cant have any fun playing something that's available in the world.  If a player refuses to play anything other than a Dragonborn, I would posit that it's the player, not the DM that is being unreasonable.



To take an example from my present campaign, I banned Orcs as a race (not half-Orcs). This is primarily because they were all killed a while ago as part of the backstory. However, if a player were really dying to play an Orc, I'd work out with them some way that they were the sole surviving Orc, and warn them that the vast majority of humanoids will want to kill them on sight (thus they should have a good Disguise skill, or something like that).


----------



## Rechan (May 4, 2008)

Lizard said:
			
		

> I'm going to guess you hated LBB Traveller and the Hero System...



I don't know about the former, but the latter? GOD yes. It _was_ a textbook. A calculus textbook, to be precise. 

There's a reason that the HERO company sells things like Fantasy Hero and Ninja Hero, etc etc - because it's more inspiring than "Here's the mechanics. Do whatever."


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## Rechan (May 4, 2008)

Cadfan said:
			
		

> Because implied settings justify crunch that wouldn't otherwise exist.



On the flip side, look at Incarnum. The system is sound. However, the fluff, my GOD it's _atrocious_. And quite simply, no one uses that system. 

But then, I disliked Incarnum because it was so intimately tied to alignment.


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## drjones (May 4, 2008)

Rechan said:
			
		

> You are saying the only reason anyone would ever want to play Race X is because it "would have to be a drizzt kinda thing".
> 
> Please explain how that has anything to do with your game world, and how it ISN'T a blanket statement about people who like any race you Don't?
> 
> Here's a simple answer: Someone would have a stiff for playing one *because it's in the freaking Core Rulebook*.



Well you are reading this entirely wrong.  Such a character would be a 'drtizzt kind of thing' because there would be few if any dragonborn in my setting so when one walked into town the locals would be surprised as hell to see one and respond appropriately.  You know, like drittzt.  

That you felt like going berserk about your misinterpretation of my statement is entirely your prerogative I suppose.

Unfortunately the subject itself is so entirely boring.  Everyone I have ever played with since 1985 knew without any particular argument that the DM usually has an idea of how they want the world they are putting together to work and some give and take is required in character creation to fit into that world and make fun characters.  Apparently on the internets this is a crazy notion and worthy of hyper analyzationifying, who knew?


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## Lizard (May 4, 2008)

Rechan said:
			
		

> I don't know about the former, but the latter? GOD yes. It _was_ a textbook. A calculus textbook, to be precise.




You went to much easier calculus class than I did. If all I had to do to pass calculus was 5th grade arithmetic, I'd be a biologist by now.



> There's a reason that the HERO company sells things like Fantasy Hero and Ninja Hero, etc etc - because it's more inspiring than "Here's the mechanics. Do whatever."




Shrug. I buy them mostly for the new bits of crunch in them, like the detailed martial arts weapons (with all the rules to build them). 

I got started with Champions in 1982. Once I got over the initial hump of "The powers are game mechanics, not absolutes -- 'armor' can be a 'luck field' that causes you to take less damage", I pretty much made it my game of choice...


----------



## Rechan (May 4, 2008)

Mouseferatu said:
			
		

> Yeah, this.
> 
> I'll repeat my standard mantra. An RPG book should seek to inspire the imagination as much as--if not more than--it seeks to convey the mechanical rules. If I pick up an RPG book and it _doesn't_ get my imagination rolling, if it doesn't inspire me to create a new character, envision a world or portion of a world, or contemplate a new campaign, that book has _failed_, no matter how solid the mechanics may be.
> 
> Even bad flavor is better than no flavor, since it can still spark better ideas. But mechanics on their own aren't inspiring. If I can't be bothered to _read_ the book, I certainly won't get around to using mechanics from it.



You know, it's funny. Yesterday I went to a used bookstore and was thumbing through the Monsternomicon. It's an Iron Kingdoms monster book. And a lot of the monsters were pretty typical from a mechanical point of view - improved grab, minor spell-likes, yawn.

But what really made the book just _pop_ was that the information about the monster itself was told from the first-person perspective of a monster hunter/adventurer. He told anecdotes. As I was flipping through, I got irritated because I wanted the monster info without skimming the blather, but when I sat down to read the blather, it was _really good_ and it made the otherwise hum-drum monsters _really enticing_. Each monster _fit_.

In addition, most of the monsters had a section called "Legends & Lore" which was just common to rare things told about them. There was some real Gold in there, like "Trapperkin abhore a mother's love; if a mother or a pregnant woman hugs a trapperkin, it will wither and die." 

I even saw a monster entry and it made me say, "WHen I run a home brew game, _this will be in there_" because it just got my juices going. 

Meanwhile, I look at the MM and its scores of humanoids, and you have to work at making them interesting.


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## Rechan (May 4, 2008)

Lizard said:
			
		

> You went to much easier calculus class than I did. If all I had to do to pass calculus was 5th grade arithmetic, I'd be a biologist by now.



The math was hard to me. And a real stumbling block. 



> I got started with Champions in 1982. Once I got over the initial hump of "The powers are game mechanics, not absolutes -- 'armor' can be a 'luck field' that causes you to take less damage", I pretty much made it my game of choice...



I ran a Champions game for about six months. 

I actually like the open-endedness of Hero's powers, of how they COULD be anything. But, the presentation of the book, and the heavy duty requirements of just running it, making adversaries, and making characters really turned me off.


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## Rechan (May 4, 2008)

drjones said:
			
		

> That you felt like going berserk about your misinterpretation of my statement is entirely your prerogative I suppose.



Some pointed this out a page ago and I apologized for misinterpreting it.


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## abyssaldeath (May 4, 2008)

Bishmon said:
			
		

> Are we paying for the books? Then of course we can look at this issue from our perspective.
> 
> WotC undoubtedly has to try and find a balance due to a number of factors, some of which you mentioned. But the necessity of a balance and the number of those factors doesn't somehow invalidate the perspectives of large chunks of people buying the books.




Seems I left out a very important word from that sentence.  



> I would say most of us in this thread are veterans of PnP RPG's and as such the background fluff isn't nessasarily useful to us. Unfortunitly, we can't really look at this issue from our perspective *alone* when it comes to the core books for the reason I have given above.




We need to at least think about the needs of the new commers because without them our hobbie won't survive. That being said I wish that would refrain from naming powers, feats and anything that will be cross campain world abilites after things in the base setting. Who the hell is Tenser and why do I want to transform into him? 

Disclaimer: I know who Tenser is and what the spell does.


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## Jhaelen (May 4, 2008)

hong said:
			
		

> ... so! Who else here is banning halflings?



I think, I'm going to ban humans and half-elves, as well. Since I never liked elves, I'll also ban them and Eladrin. It goes without saying that abominations like the dragonborn and tieflings will never make an appearance in my game.


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## Ahglock (May 4, 2008)

muffin_of_chaos said:
			
		

> Seriously?  You people worry about an _implied setting_?  Seriously?
> This is your problem?  That WotC gives you suggestions for the flavor text of your game, that you are under no compunction to accept whatsoever?
> Good gravy.




It sort of depends on how much is there.  I am not really worried, but if there is so much that we could of had the Druid in the core book instead I am a bit irritated.  Mechanics without fluff usually bring much more inspiration to me than stuff with fluff.  Yes I do not have to use it but it feels like a straitjacket to me.


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## Ahglock (May 4, 2008)

MindWanderer said:
			
		

> Wait--so because humans aren't at least as good as _every_ race at _every_ class, they're getting short-changed?  Sure, dragonborn is a natural choice for paladin or warlord, because they both need Str and Cha.  It's probably a decent choice for rogue, depending on how the various Brawny/Trickster powers are designed, because both Str and Cha are secondary for them (although I think +2 Dex vs. +2 Str and +2 Cha is a toss-up).  Similarly, halflings have a huge advantage in being Trickster rogues, elves in being Archery rangers, and so on.  And yes, if you're a power optimizer, those are going to be tempting choices, just like gray elf is an absurdly popular choice for wizards.
> 
> But because humans get a +1 to all defenses, the loss of a second +2 means that unless you're comparing them with a race that gets perfect synergy with the class in question, they're just as viable stat-wise.  Perhaps more so--for instance, an elf Trickster rogue gets a ton of mileage from the +2 Dex, but the +2 Wis is almost useless to them because their Cha is going to be higher.  Meanwhile, you're comparing the human's +1 Fort and Will, extra feat and skill, and extra at-will power to the elf's +1 speed, skill bonuses, bow proficiency, and Wild Step.  I think that's an even comparison at least.




Wait because I am concerned that the choice in race might always be not human I think there could be a problem.  I really don't know yet, and neither do you since we have not seen everything.  But stats are a very powerful part of a game and having uneven ones makes it harder to balance.  They may have even gone the other direction and given humans to many perks to make up for it.  I do not know, but the issue is still the same the more different the benefits the harder it is to balance. When you have to come up with quirky benefits to help the human make up for lost attribute points it is harder to balance.


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## Andor (May 4, 2008)

AbyssalDeath said:
			
		

> We need to at least think about the needs of the new commers because without them our hobbie won't survive. That being said I wish that would refrain from naming powers, feats and anything that will be cross campain world abilites after things in the base setting. Who the hell is Tenser and why do I want to transform into him?
> 
> Disclaimer: I know who Tenser is and what the spell does.







			
				Cadfan said:
			
		

> So... I kind of put implied setting in three categories.
> 
> 1. *Unimportant.  This is of course the type that ENWorld cares about the most.*  Stuff like the name of deities.  If you're going to have special abilities for priests who worship different types of gods, then you pretty much need a default name for that god.  The game would be kind of obnoxious if each god was labeled in the PHB as "Deity of Valor- check with your DM for this deity's name."  So a name gets slapped on.  Easiest thing in the world to change, and honestly doesn't matter if you don't change it.




Cadfan speaks truth. :\


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## Lonely Tylenol (May 4, 2008)

Quick question:

If a power is blast 3, doesn't that encompass significantly more than 9 squares?  I may be reading the DDM rules wrongly, but I thought that a blast 1 hits 9 squares, blast 2 hits 16, and blast 3 hits 27 squares.  Have I missed a definition?  Perhaps in 4E it refers to the number of squares on a side?


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## Spatula (May 4, 2008)

Rechan said:
			
		

> You know, it's funny. Yesterday I went to a used bookstore and was thumbing through the Monsternomicon. It's an Iron Kingdoms monster book. And a lot of the monsters were pretty typical from a mechanical point of view - improved grab, minor spell-likes, yawn.
> 
> But what really made the book just _pop_ was that the information about the monster itself was told from the first-person perspective of a monster hunter/adventurer. He told anecdotes. As I was flipping through, I got irritated because I wanted the monster info without skimming the blather, but when I sat down to read the blather, it was _really good_ and it made the otherwise hum-drum monsters _really enticing_. Each monster _fit_.
> 
> ...



The funny thing is, some (if not most) of the ardent 4ers who argue for a strong implied setting (inspiring! easy to ignore if you like!) are also arguing for monsters that are nothing more than mechanics (monster fluff limits my creativity! it can't be ignored!).  And vice versa with the 4e nay-sayers: we don't want an implied setting, we want a toolbox!  ...and monsters that are full of implied setting-ness!

I think your example of the Monsternomicom (a book that was widely praised here when it came out) shows how story elements (fluff) can breathe life into tired numbers.  The problem is the quality of such is highly subjective and not everyone will like it.  I personally dislike just about every setting-change made in 4e that's been revealed to-date, aside from moving away from the Great Wheel and the introduction of a fey realm as a core element.  But that doesn't matter so much because the story elements are easy to ignore and change, and even stories that you don't like can give you new ideas for creating the stories that you _do_ like.

Since none of us can say authortatively the effects of a strong or weak implied setting on the players, it's all a bit pointless to argue about.  It will inspire!  It'll just get in the way!  Well, both are probably true for different people, but there's nothing that to be done about it now.  And if it inspires someone, it was probably worth it.  Besides, no book is going to be 100% tailored to your tastes.


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## Cadfan (May 4, 2008)

Spatula said:
			
		

> The funny thing is, some (if not most) of the ardent 4ers who argue for a strong implied setting (inspiring! easy to ignore if you like!) are also arguing for monsters that are nothing more than mechanics (monster fluff limits my creativity! it can't be ignored!).  And vice versa with the 4e nay-sayers: we don't want an implied setting, we want a toolbox!  ...and monsters that are full of implied setting-ness!



At least on the side of the 4e fans, I can say that this is not a contradiction.

Implied settings can be a good thing.  And to a certain extent, they are a necessary thing if you want your game to be anything other than a dry wasteland of generitude.  That's mostly where I am- feat names like Power of Amanautor are a necessary thing because its a ton better than "Power of the Sun Deity.  I mean, wait, that implies there IS a sun deity.  Uh... Solar Power?"

But you know what's a bad thing?  Crap in your rulebook that you cannot use.  That's why feats like the overland movement feat are lame.  That's why monsters don't need "cooking +15" in their statblock.  Crunch for fluff that isn't usable in game is a bad, bad thing.


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## frankthedm (May 4, 2008)

Dr. Awkward said:
			
		

> Quick question:
> 
> If a power is blast 3, doesn't that encompass significantly more than 9 squares?  I may be reading the DDM rules wrongly, but I thought that a blast 1 hits 9 squares, blast 2 hits 16, and blast 3 hits 27 squares.  Have I missed a definition?  Perhaps in 4E it refers to the number of squares on a side?



Burst and blasts are easy to mix up. Blasts are the replacement for cones. They are measured by how many squares across they are. They have to be touching the originator with at least one edge or coner.

Bursts are radius based. A Close burst radiates from the originater, like it was blowing up. Ranged bursts are a number of squares around a central targeted square.


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## Sojorn (May 4, 2008)

hong said:
			
		

> ... so! Who else here is banning halflings?



My last D&D DM (about 5 years ago) did.

Because they didn't play well with others. I think he was using the Dark Sun model for them.


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## Mouseferatu (May 4, 2008)

Lizard said:
			
		

> I guess we differ here, as I tend to find mechanics inspiring.




Guess so. I might find a mechanic inspiring in so far as "Hey, that could be a cool way to take my character," but not beyond that.

As I see it, the flavor--be it printed or coming from the DM or players--is mostly the imaginative/storytelling stuff. The mechanics are how you _implement_ the imaginative stuff.



> I'm going to guess you hated LBB Traveller and the Hero System...




Not familiar with the former, but merely skimming through the latter has convinced me that I wouldn't play it unless--_maybe_--it was the only option besides no RP at all.

But I also must admit, I don't really even _understand_ some of this argument. IME, it's no harder--literally _no_ harder--to change "implied setting" flavor than it is to add flavor that's just not there. So to me, a slightly heavier implied setting can _only_ be a good thing, as it provides material for beginners and/or those who want to use it, but it's no harder for world-builders to change "the Empire of Bael Turath" to "the Empire of Twenty-Three-Skiddoo" than it would be to add the name "Twenty-Three-Skiddoo" to a more generic "ancient tiefling empire."


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## Rechan (May 4, 2008)

Hey Ari. Question for you, assuming this isn't in violation of your NDA:

How much implied setting _is_ in the powers/feats? How much of it are the names that are Going to irritate people?

How much Fluff do the monsters get?


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## Majoru Oakheart (May 4, 2008)

ShockMeSane said:
			
		

> This. Also, if you notice in the Paragon preview there was basically a +1 AC feat (with +1 to offset skillcheck penalty or something). Obviously from a balancing perspective WotC is valueing AC pretty significantly. But then, since everyone gets +1 AC every two levels, I suppose that makes it significantly easier to balance, i.e. +1 AC = 2 extra levels worth of AC. A Dwarf with the racial and the armor feat would effectively be 4 levels higher (fighting large+) defensively than someone who didn't take those feats.



This exactly.  I haven't really been able to talk about this until now.  However, this is an example of the balance in 4e.  Small numbers make big differences.  A +1 to your AC is the equivalent of gaining 2 levels for purposes of defenses.  It seems really small in terms of the numbers that people are used to in 3e, but it is a big deal in 4e.


----------



## Mouseferatu (May 4, 2008)

Rechan said:
			
		

> Hey Ari. Question for you, assuming this isn't in violation of your NDA:




Well, I'll try to give personal impressions, rather than actual details. 



> How much implied setting _is_ in the powers/feats? How much of it are the names that are Going to irritate people?




Unless you consider some monster names to be "implied setting," I think there's very little in the powers. There's a tiny bit in the feats--which tend to follow racial tendencies, like "race X is good with weapon Y"--but that's very minor, and of course has precedence in every edition to date.

I think the implied setting is most obvious in the racial write-ups and, of course, the gods. But even then, I've seen almost nothing that couldn't easily be changed (though I admit, for me, there's little reason to, as I like most of the implied setting).



> How much Fluff do the monsters get?




Depends on the monster. Some only a tiny bit; some a great deal more.

Personally? I'd actually rather the monsters have _more_ flavor than they do. But that's just me.


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## Primal (May 4, 2008)

muffin_of_chaos said:
			
		

> So it doesn't seem, to you, that 4E is much better about not being restrictive than 3.x was?
> ...Lack of alignment emphasis, targeted cultural racial abilities or racial class preferences...
> I guess they do have some silly names for Powers, but...seems unrelated....




I don't know about you, but seems to me that 4E is far more restrictive than 3E has ever been.  And if we're talking about fluff, names matter, too -- I wouldn't implement any "Asian-themed/Oriental" stuff to my setting, for example. Nor could I see them working in, say, the Forgotten Realms. And look at how much people were upset about the Golden Wyverns and Emerald Frosts and Dragon-Tail Cuts. 

The biggest concern to me, as DM, is the continuity. If I was a beginning DM with "newbie" players, I don't think it would break anyone's Sense of Disbelief to tell them, for example,  that Fomorians are rulers of the Feywild. However, I can't do that for my players unless I come up with pretty good reasons how those primitive, mutated giants huddling in remote caves (and whom many PCs have battled and slain) have "evolved" into magical rulers of another plane.

As far as actual Racial Benefits go, the examples provided do not hint at any "setting-specific" fluff, so I'm okay with them. However, if there are powers like "Horns of Bael Turath" or "Legendary Stamina of Nerathians" in PHB, I'm going use a black marker. On every player's PHB.


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## abyssaldeath (May 4, 2008)

Dark Sun had halflings?


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## Mouseferatu (May 4, 2008)

abyssaldeath said:
			
		

> Dark Sun had halflings?




Coolest halflings ever.


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## Rechan (May 4, 2008)

Mouseferatu said:
			
		

> Personally? I'd actually rather the monsters have _more_ flavor than they do. But that's just me.



I miss the 2e MM. That thing was chocked FULL of info about the monster.


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## Rechan (May 4, 2008)

Primal said:
			
		

> The biggest concern to me, as DM, is the continuity. If I was a beginning DM with "newbie" players, I don't think it would break anyone's Sense of Disbelief to tell them, for example,  that Fomorians are rulers of the Feywild. However, I can't do that for my players unless I come up with pretty good reasons how those primitive, mutated giants huddling in remote caves (and whom many PCs have battled and slain) have "evolved" into magical rulers of another plane.



The same way that you'll have to explain how a Fighter now has abilities he can use instead of just 'swing sword'.


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## Majoru Oakheart (May 4, 2008)

shadowlance said:
			
		

> That's a lot of AC boosts.  I don't have a problem with certain classes meshing up nicely with certain classes (or roles).  I think its a good thing in fact.  But the iconic halfling certainly isn't a paladin or a fighter.
> 
> Anyone care to tell me how wrong I am?  Or are we just at the "let's hope that's not how it is in the actual books" stage?



They certainly do make decent fighters or paladins.  Just like all other races.  However, keep in mind that their dex bonus is almost entirely useless as a fighter or paladin since you don't get your dex bonus in heavy armor and their attacks are based off of strength.

Sure, you can get pluses to your AC, in exchange you might not hit as often or do as much damage as if you'd been a different race.  Net difference about equal.


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## Kunimatyu (May 4, 2008)

Primal said:
			
		

> The biggest concern to me, as DM, is the continuity. If I was a beginning DM with "newbie" players, I don't think it would break anyone's Sense of Disbelief to tell them, for example,  that Fomorians are rulers of the Feywild. However, I can't do that for my players unless I come up with pretty good reasons how those primitive, mutated giants huddling in remote caves.




1) Your players won't care.

2) If by some bizarre chance they do, just say that the Formorians they've seen on the Material Plane are simply poor exiles from the Feywild, ones who've lost many of the powers the Feywild Formorians have, because Formorians without the everpresent magic of the Feywild devolve into primitive, mutated giants huddling in remote caves.


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## DandD (May 4, 2008)

Kunimatyu said:
			
		

> 1) Your players won't care.
> 
> 2) If by some bizarre chance they do, just say that the Formorians they've seen on the Material Plane are simply poor exiles from the Feywild, ones who've lost many of the powers the Feywild Formorians have, because Formorians without the everpresent magic of the Feywild devolve into primitive, mutated giants huddling in remote caves.



 3) Simply continue your old campaign, after you've roughly updated your characters from 3.X to 4.0. 

4) Just tell them it's a new setting, and a new game. Some people can easily distinguish between Warhammer Fantasy Elves, The Dark Eye Elves, D&D Forgotten Realms Elves, D&D Dark Sun Elves, D&D Dragonlance Elves, Blizzard's WoW Elves, SquareEnix Final Fantasy XI Elvaan, Star Trek Vulcans, and whatever pointy-ear there is.


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## Mort_Q (May 4, 2008)

DandD said:
			
		

> Some people can easily distinguish between Warhammer Fantasy Elves, The Dark Eye Elves, D&D Forgotten Realms Elves, D&D Dark Sun Elves, D&D Dragonlance Elves, Blizzard's WoW Elves, SquareEnix Final Fantasy XI Elvaan, Star Trek Vulcans, and whatever pointy-ear there is.




Gnomes


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## Rechan (May 4, 2008)

DandD said:
			
		

> 3) Simply continue your old campaign, after you've roughly updated your characters from 3.X to 4.0.
> 
> 4) Just tell them it's a new setting, and a new game. Some people can easily distinguish between Warhammer Fantasy Elves, The Dark Eye Elves, D&D Forgotten Realms Elves, D&D Dark Sun Elves, D&D Dragonlance Elves, Blizzard's WoW Elves, SquareEnix Final Fantasy XI Elvaan, Star Trek Vulcans, and whatever pointy-ear there is.



5) Instead of Formorians, use something else.


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## Sammael (May 4, 2008)

Kunimatyu said:
			
		

> 1) Your players won't care.



Could you be any more presumptuous? 

I've been chewed out, in the past, by my players, for making much _smaller_ retcons than this one. Sure, your second statement makes a perfectly valid retcon. Of course, the original post implies that Feywild will be retconned into the setting, which is a much larger change - unless the campaign already had a similar plane (mine uses the Plane of Faerie).

I've found that my players, at least, _like_ continuity. I love it, and try to maintain a semblance of continuity between all my campaigns (regardless of which players participate in them), because sharing the world in such a manner opens up all kinds of adventure hooks and plots which I would have never thought of myself.


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## Immolate (May 4, 2008)

Gark and Nark, orc brutes, are part of a raiding party that is assaulting a merchant's caravan that the PC's are defending. Hodo Bigguns, a halfling fighter, is standing between them and the wizard and ranger, who are creating all kind of havok among the other orcs.

Gark: let's cut that half-pint down, then kill off the squishies!

Nark: uh... okay, why not.

They both set upon Hodo, but in the first round, neither can lay a sword on him.

Gark: bah, can't hit the slippery little eel. He keeps getting underfoot! He's got me marked though, so you go on ahead, and I'll catch up if I don't start hitting him soon.

Nark: uh... okay.

Nark runs around and starts laying the smack-down on Mandarb, the half-elf ranger.

Gark continues to battle Hodo, and notices that he's much easier to hit now, so contents himself with trading blows with the little fellow.

So... there is no good reason for two brutes to focus on the halfling defender, because the defender isn't a damage dealer, while the wizard and ranger are. Most opponents aren't so stupid that they can't figure out that the defender is using their numbers against them. Since the fighter is only really good at tying up one, the other has no good reason to stay, and plenty of good reasons to leave.

At that point, the Hodo Bigguns has only a slight advantage in AC against a dwarven defender, and none over a human, who has probably put his stat bonus into an attribute that counts for fighters in heavy armor. Further, the human has more feats to play with. The dwarf has a whole host of defender-friendly abilities to make up for the +1 AC that the halfling enjoys. 

The halfling will still make a good defender, but his advantages will only balance his natural weaknesses, rather than add to his strengths. His situational advantage will be big, but as my example demonstrates, it won't take long for opponents to figure it out, if they don't know about it going in.


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## The Little Raven (May 4, 2008)

Immolate said:
			
		

> Nark runs around and starts laying the smack-down on Mandarb, the half-elf ranger.




Nark would have provoked an attack of opportunity for movement from Hodo, and if Hodo was successful, he would have been unable to move and marked as well.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (May 4, 2008)

Spatula said:
			
		

> The funny thing is, some (if not most) of the ardent 4ers who argue for a strong implied setting (inspiring! easy to ignore if you like!) are also arguing for monsters that are nothing more than mechanics (monster fluff limits my creativity! it can't be ignored!).  And vice versa with the 4e nay-sayers: we don't want an implied setting, we want a toolbox!  ...and monsters that are full of implied setting-ness!





For one side, fluff without mechanics to represent them is meaningless. That means a monster must have all the rituals, spells and items it might use in its description. But this also means that a mechanic has fluff attached to it, and I don't care the fluff, I can't use the mechanic.

For another side, fluff without mechanics means that it can either be ignored or be used as an inspiration. A monster with a lot of mechanics just to fulfill some fluff aspects of the creature means the monster is hard to use, because you'll have to find out which of the abilities are really relevant if you want to use the monster or change its fluff. 



I think both sides generally agree that fluff that describes a character and what he does in his adventuring career should usually also be represented in mechanics. We're playing pretend, but we will only go so far. Some people extend this to other aspects, too, so sometimes they need mechanical elements for even more, profession (cook), underwater basketweaving, scarring or mental dispositions.


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## med stud (May 4, 2008)

Immolate said:
			
		

> So... there is no good reason for two brutes to focus on the halfling defender, because the defender isn't a damage dealer, while the wizard and ranger are. Most opponents aren't so stupid that they can't figure out that the defender is using their numbers against them. Since the fighter is only really good at tying up one, the other has no good reason to stay, and plenty of good reasons to leave.



This is wrong, defenders deal as much damage as controllers. They _are_ harder to kill, so there is a reason for monsters to bypass them. The problems with bypassing the defender is that the defender can follow, and in that case the monster is sandwiched between the defender and the strikers/controllers. That is one good reason not to run by the defender.


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## Wormwood (May 4, 2008)

Spatula said:
			
		

> The funny thing is, some (if not most) of the ardent 4ers who argue for a strong implied setting (inspiring! easy to ignore if you like!) are also arguing for monsters that are nothing more than mechanics .



I want a strong implied setting so I can play the game out of the box. I also want monster stat blocks to be simplified and focused on combat utility. 

There is no contradiction here.


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## Immolate (May 4, 2008)

> Nark would have provoked an attack of opportunity for movement from Hodo, and if Hodo was successful, he would have been unable to move and marked as well.




Which is a good reason for brutes, who know the mechanics of combat, to never engage a defender 2-to-1 if they can avoid it.



			
				med stud said:
			
		

> This is wrong, defenders deal as much damage as controllers. They _are_ harder to kill, so there is a reason for monsters to bypass them. The problems with bypassing the defender is that the defender can follow, and in that case the monster is sandwiched between the defender and the strikers/controllers. That is one good reason not to run by the defender.




It's hard to imagine a defender with  his one attack putting out as much damage as a controller with his AoE. This is one of those exercises, however, that defies mathematical conclusions, even with all the crunch available. I imagine that, over the course of a campaign, you could potentially put together enough empirical data to do a worthwhile analysis, but even then it would be biased toward the types of encounters that particular DM likes to design and how he plays his monsters. One of the DM's in our group is as AoE conscious when he's DM'ing as the players are, and works to avoid giving the AoE guys too many good opportunities.


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## DandD (May 5, 2008)

Nobody really knows for now if controllers will dish out more damage than defenders at higher level. But at lower levels, both classes do the same, the controller just happens to be able to target more than one enemy. 
Also, how is a brute going to know that the little wee-one is a player-character-defender, and not simply a normal halfling warrior? All the other halfling warriors weren't as tough as that one, after all. But that little weenie isn't a weenie, he's serious business... It just happens that he's controlled by a player at a gaming table, but these brutes can't know it, unless they have gamemaster-metaknowledge and strangely react accordingly. But that's also the point where a game stops being fun, as the gamemaster plays AGANST the other players, not with them to have fun together. Happens to a lot, unfortunately.


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## Immolate (May 5, 2008)

DandD said:
			
		

> Also, how is a brute going to know that the little wee-one is a player-character-defender, and not simply a normal halfling warrior? All the other halfling warriors weren't as tough as that one, after all. But that little weenie isn't a weenie, he's serious business... It just happens that he's controlled by a player at a gaming table, but these brutes can't know it, unless they have gamemaster-metaknowledge and strangely react accordingly. But that's also the point where a game stops being fun, as the gamemaster plays AGANST the other players, not with them to have fun together. Happens to a lot, unfortunately.




They won't know, at least at low level. At higher levels, gear will become a tell.

Still, what is the advantage to fighting two-on-one on a melee character when there are squishies who are unmolested and raining death on your allies? Most semi-intelligent melee monsters are going to engage the defender with one brute and send the others after the soft targets. A halfling warrior with another defender could work as a team and shift together to give the halfling his advantage, but that's not always possible for any number of reasons. I think that the bottom line is that we will have to see. If halfling warriors really are superior overall, that reality will percolate up until everyone knows it. It'll take time though.


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## Kwalish Kid (May 5, 2008)

Sammael said:
			
		

> Could you be any more presumptuous?
> 
> I've been chewed out, in the past, by my players, for making much _smaller_ retcons than this one. Sure, your second statement makes a perfectly valid retcon. Of course, the original post implies that Feywild will be retconned into the setting, which is a much larger change - unless the campaign already had a similar plane (mine uses the Plane of Faerie).
> 
> I've found that my players, at least, _like_ continuity. I love it, and try to maintain a semblance of continuity between all my campaigns (regardless of which players participate in them), because sharing the world in such a manner opens up all kinds of adventure hooks and plots which I would have never thought of myself.



Why the whinging then? Seriously, don't change your campaign world. Either use 4E with your old campaign world or don't use it at all.


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## DandD (May 5, 2008)

Immolate said:
			
		

> They won't know, at least at low level. At higher levels, gear will become a tell.



At higher level, gear will only tell you that these will be uber-heroes, and that you are chewing too much than you could ever bite. Especially if they have weird abilities with which they can cheat death for a short time, or fly around, which wizards might very well have if they're paragon level. 


> Still, what is the advantage to fighting two-on-one on a melee character when there are squishies who are unmolested and raining death on your allies?



The advantage of ganging up two on one is that you're going to finish him off twice as fast... normally. That tactic works in the real world too, after all. It just happens that in the action-driven D&D-game, that little halfling dude isn't your run-on-the-mill NPC halfling loser, he's a player-controlled halfling hero with player character classes, and both Gark and Nark are in for a surprise. Causality works against them, however, as they are controlled by the ominous being, the gamemaster, to provide an entertaining challenge to the friends of the gamemaster, who all happen to control the little band of merry heroes who Gark and Nark are attacking with their orc buddies. 
Gark and Nark will wonder why the little Halfling knows Sword-Fu. Or perhaps they'll die before thinking about that. 


> Most semi-intelligent melee monsters are going to engage the defender with one brute and send the others after the soft targets.



If they can pass him, and if they recognize that he's really tougher than they're bargaining for. I mean, the image we're talking about is of two brutish orcs, really tall, with muscles, who are afraid of a midget with a sword that might barely qualify as a dagger? 


> A halfling warrior with another defender could work as a team and shift together to give the halfling his advantage, but that's not always possible for any number of reasons. I think that the bottom line is that we will have to see. If halfling warriors really are superior overall, that reality will percolate up until everyone knows it. It'll take time though.



Heroic Halfling Warriors played by Billy are superior to Non-heroic Halfling Warriors from NPC-town, who live a modest NPC-life, until the gamemaster has use for them, where they either get mauled by horrible monsters for plot-reasons, or are NPC-hirelings... Or perhaps even NPC-enemies to the player characters. 

Don't forget, the Feat Excerpt says that not every member of a particular race has the abilities that the higher-level feats provide, nor do most members of said particular race even reach paragon level. Some aren't trained in these techniques and art. Being lost in a crowd for combat purposes might very well need expertise for that. And being good enough to qualify as a Player Character Fighter is another thing.  
It's like in D&D 3.X. More than 99% of all halfling combatents were level 1 Halfling warriors, at best. A very very few happen to have a superior class, like Fighter, Barbarian, Swordsage or whatever you want. But for most orcish raiders, nobody is really going to assume that Halfling Warriors are Fighters or so. They're either commoners with 1d4 hitpoints, or warriors with 1d8 hitpoints. And they stink. That's all. No problem for Gark and Nark. The same when the world is D&D 4th edition. Most halfling warriors die like minions, simply because that is so. 
And then there is Hodo Bigguns... The last Halfling they're trying to rob... It won't end well for Gark, Nark and friends.


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## Andor (May 5, 2008)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
			
		

> For one side, fluff without mechanics to represent them is meaningless. That means a monster must have all the rituals, spells and items it might use in its description. *But this also means that a mechanic has fluff attached to it, and I don't care the fluff, I can't use the mechanic.*




Or, you can change the fluff. All it takes is a pencil.


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## Rechan (May 5, 2008)

Andor said:
			
		

> Or, you can change the fluff. All it takes is a pencil.



But that's annoying, and it reminds you of the bad fluff every time you use it.


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## Torchlyte (May 5, 2008)

frankthedm said:
			
		

> Burst and blasts are easy to mix up. Blasts are the replacement for cones. They are measured by how many squares across they are. They have to be touching the originator with at least one edge or coner.
> 
> Bursts are radius based. A Close burst radiates from the originater, like it was blowing up. Ranged bursts are a number of squares around a central targeted square.




They should've just done:

1. Blast X - Ranged, X by X squares
2. Burst X - Non-ranged blast, X by X squares
3. Spin X - Everything within X squares of your character.

Meh?



			
				Spatula said:
			
		

> The funny thing is, some (if not most) of the ardent 4ers who argue for a strong implied setting (inspiring! easy to ignore if you like!) are also arguing for monsters that are nothing more than mechanics (monster fluff limits my creativity! it can't be ignored!).  And vice versa with the 4e nay-sayers: we don't want an implied setting, we want a toolbox!  ...and monsters that are full of implied setting-ness!




This came very close to being an excellent point, but in actuality it's that people didn't want monsters to have unnecessary mechanics getting in the way. They still wanted the fluff.



			
				Jhaelen said:
			
		

> I think, I'm going to ban humans and half-elves, as well. Since I never liked elves, I'll also ban them and Eladrin. It goes without saying that abominations like the dragonborn and tieflings will never make an appearance in my game.




All Dwarves? I'm glad I'm not one of your players.  



			
				jeffhartsell said:
			
		

> I am going to not think about not banning them never.




That many negatives is just wrong. It hurts my thinking thingy.



			
				Immolate said:
			
		

> Gark: bah, can't hit the slippery little eel. He keeps getting underfoot! *He's got me marked though*, so you go on ahead, and I'll catch up if I don't start hitting him soon.




With that being an explicit game mechanic now, I'd use a different word. Just something I noticed, not a real point or anything.


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## MindWanderer (May 5, 2008)

Torchlyte said:
			
		

> They should've just done:
> 
> 1. Blast X - Ranged, X by X squares
> 2. Burst X - Non-ranged blast, X by X squares
> 3. Spin X - Everything within X squares of your character.



The advantage of having "ranged bursts" be different from "close bursts" is that they fall into the unified mechanic that "ranged" attacks provoke OAs, but "close" attacks do not.  That's also why you have some things that are "one creature in close burst 10" because "range 10," while being otherwise identical, would provoke an OA.


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## Torchlyte (May 5, 2008)

MindWanderer said:
			
		

> The advantage of having "ranged bursts" be different from "close bursts" is that they fall into the unified mechanic that "ranged" attacks provoke OAs, but "close" attacks do not.  That's also why you have some things that are "one creature in close burst 10" because "range 10," while being otherwise identical, would provoke an OA.




So you could just say Bursts and Spins provoke OAs, while Blasts do not... unless I'm misunderstanding you.


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## Jhaelen (May 5, 2008)

Torchlyte said:
			
		

> All Dwarves? I'm glad I'm not one of your players.



Doh! I totally forgot about dwarves! 

Ah, well, since the joke's now ruined, I might as well post something more seriously:
In my current campaign I actually banned elves (because they're fey IMC - one of two major enemy factions) and discouraged playing halflings and gnomes (because of the arctic setting).
However, I've allowed about two dozen other races from various supplements that are a good match for the region and climate.

Once I've decided what setting and overarching storyline I want to use for my 4E campaign (if I ever happen to DM one...), I'll take a good look at everything that is available (PHBx & MMx) and pick whatever races fits best. Then I'll write a little introduction/overview to see if my potential players are actually interested in such a campaign.
This approach worked very well in 3E, so I guess, it'll work just as well in 4E.


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## Lurks-no-More (May 5, 2008)

Lizard said:
			
		

> I'm going to guess you hated LBB Traveller and the Hero System...



Never played Hero System, but I have no beef at all with GURPS.

I do hate LBB Traveller, though; it manages to have just enough setting hardcoded into the rules (the jump drive, prevalence of guns, tech assumptions, character careers) to make it a bother to make your own setting that doesn't end up as a variant of the OTU, but not enough to bring things life on their own. It's probably the most overrated RPG ever.


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