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I don't really have the FR background to properly understand all this, but I gotta say that while Drow are kinda cool, I never really liked Lolth. I always seemed to catch a whiff of Lawful Stupid whenever she and her fanatics entered the picture.

When you say "Lolth", you mean "a S&M spider-demon/demigod/whatever that the Drow worship, to be named later", right? There's a potential IP issue to be dealt with there.

Me, I think the Echidna angle is worth exploring as an alternative to Lolth. If Echidna is half-spider instead of half-snake, the job is 3/4 done. This line leapt off the wikipedia page at me: "Zeus allowed Echidna and her children to live as a challenge to future heroes." I mean, that pretty much says it all right there.

I am with covaithe on this one, never been keen on Lloth. However, I do love Graf's setup for the Drow's choice, etc., which I still think would be viable with a reflavored Echidna.

For the record I was working with the information in the wiki in my proposal and many of my premises were dictated by it. Below is the Drow entry...

Drow

Exiled by the Imperium a thousand years ago, the drow are among the most feared and mysterious races. They are accepted in cosmopolitan Daunton but not loved. Most dwell around (and receive implicit protection from) the Temple of Day and Night


I will work on a proposal that uses the following premises...

The Drow split from the Eladrin many thousands of years ago.

The Drow largely remained in the Feywild Underdark - though they had expansionist desires.

The Drow created the Formorians from Giants and used them to strike against the Imperium, leading to the rise of the current dynasty and the Empire's greatest heroes.

The Formorians betrayed the Drow and are now their enemies, keeping them in check to an extent.

Echidna the Spider is the goddess/demi-goddess of the Drow and a former concubine of Hadeys/Lauto.

We will be using Graf's choice of the Drow model.

Thoughts?

Halford said:

Echidna the Spider is the goddess/demi-goddess of the Drow and a former concubine of Hadeys/Lauto.

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What if the drider are a result of Echidna bearing children for Hadeys? (As well as all the giant spiders, spider-demons, etc.)

Drider don't seem very Hadeys, they seem like they are all Echidna/Lloth, maybe they were a gift to Echidna from Hadeys?

On a different note, a rules question. Should a Warlock's curse work with the automatic damage dealt by Armor of Agathys? I think the pertinent issue is does the damage count asw an attack? I'm marginally inclined to think that it does not, opinions appreciated.

And on the Swordmage, wow, why would anyone ever play a fighter or paladin - that class is wonderful! Which makes me wonder if it should be included, extremely powerful, though great fun. I am now running a Genasi Swordmage in a campaign, with a +2 adamantine longsword at 1st level no less - I commented on appropriate wealth a couple of times, but Monty wasn't interested, its hard to complain when you have shiny things. But despite the rest of the party being similarily well endowed with items my Swordmage stands out as both the top damage dealer and the character with the best defenses, I even have ranged and area powers. And as for the feat Escalating Assault (is that right, I don't have the book with me) well, umm, good grief, awesome!

Halford said:

And on the Swordmage, wow, why would anyone ever play a fighter or paladin - that class is wonderful! Which makes me wonder if it should be included, extremely powerful, though great fun. I am now running a Genasi Swordmage in a campaign, with a +2 adamantine longsword at 1st level no less - I commented on appropriate wealth a couple of times, but Monty wasn't interested, its hard to complain when you have shiny things. But despite the rest of the party being similarily well endowed with items my Swordmage stands out as both the top damage dealer and the character with the best defenses, I even have ranged and area powers. And as for the feat Escalating Assault (is that right, I don't have the book with me) well, umm, good grief, awesome!

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Whenever the whole "why would anyone play a fighter" thing comes up, I go sit in my corner, curl into a ball, and chant "at least it’s better than former editions, at least it’s better than former editions". Then I try to block out how other classes can target other defenses than AC even from first level, and make-believe that Sure Strike is a worthy power.

Sometimes when I start realizing the truth I mix up my chants with "Martial Power will even things out, Martial Power will even things out".

Halford said:

On a different note, a rules question. Should a Warlock's curse work with the automatic damage dealt by Armor of Agathys? I think the pertinent issue is does the damage count asw an attack? I'm marginally inclined to think that it does not, opinions appreciated.

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I've always played it that it counts as an attack. You still only get 1 curse damage added per round. LOL If it didn't, I'd have been completely useless in the last two fights since the dice roller doesn't want to roll double digits when I roll an attack.

covaithe said:

When you say "Lolth", you mean "a S&M spider-demon/demigod/whatever that the Drow worship, to be named later", right? There's a potential IP issue to be dealt with there.

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Yeah.
The fundamental problem with changing lolth is that it's very assumed.

People will come in, apply to play drow, get accepted without actually reading much, and then "reference lolth". (This is true of all choices of course).

The name has to go, of course, and a lot of the details can change, but people will really rp it a certain way anyway.

Halford said:

Drider don't seem very Hadeys, they seem like they are all Echidna/Lloth, maybe they were a gift to Echidna from Hadeys?

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I like the idea that she eats the souls of the disloyal and failed and makes them into monsters, mostly driders but also other things.

Halford said:

The Drow largely remained in the Feywild Underdark - though they had expansionist desires.

The Drow created the Formorians from Giants and used them to strike against the Imperium, leading to the rise of the current dynasty and the Empire's greatest heroes.

Click to expand...

I'm still not so grooving on the monolithic aspect.

Can we have this be one group of drow? I.e. Not "all drow are" but one group did, for example either of these guys...

Graf said:

• Over time the drow themselves wind up fragmenting. Lolth moves them off the elemental chaos and into various positions.
  • Some travel to her plane develop unique abilities > dark warlocks/infernalists, driders, drow-demon hybrids, drow/shades, etc
  • Some are sent to form "core communities" on material planes (or their equivalent); to grow in strength and number and allow her to to flourish as a real goddess with real worshipers. Their infamy increases her infamy

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...could be involved have done it.

[d]--[/d]

Practically... are we sure that we want to take formorians, a powerful and interesting race with its own history and backstory, and turn them into "they were made by the drow".

• Do we want to make the drow so powerful that the can create other races from scratch?
• How do they do that?
• Why can they do that?
• Formorians have nothing in common with drow in terms of flavor, so it doesn't make much sense to have them linked really...
• If they can make something like the formorians.... why don't they just flood the world with monsters?
• Doesn't it irriate the gods to have a bunch of mortals who can create life? Isn't that their proviance?

Prior to 4th edition drow were the "perfect everything". They were the best swordsmen, the best acranists, priests, best at sneaking, most evil, everyone was afraid of them, etc etc etc.
4e seems to be focused so far, on limiting them to sneaky dangerous elves.
Giving them some sort of superpower like "race creation" seems to pull them back in the 3e direction.

The formorian fluff, as written is pretty interesting. I guess I'm not sure that I'm keen to loose it...

To put it in another context (which, I guess, may or may not be clear).

The Eladrin who "run" the Imperium aren't the "only" eladrin. They're a weird offshoot that went native a really long time ago as the defacto rulers of a society of humans (and other races). They say they were "petitioned by humans" and/or "asked by the gods to help guide the humans".

But they're just one branch of Eladrin, sorta famous in certain parts of the world, but not famous (or even really know) in others. And many eladrin (including those on Allaria) hadn't met or heard about them.

There are lots of reasons for that, but the biggest one is just that the Eladrin from the Imperium don't fulfill all the fundamental assumptions people have about Eladrin from the PhB.

To a certain degree, I think that when we add new, unusual concepts, we should try to do it "peacemeal" (aka modular-ly).

Obviously, we need to write out the IP (lolth and the DnD pantheon) and we need to intigrate the new stuff (who is this new goddess, how is she connected to the pantheon we created) but I don't know that we need to say "the drow live in the feywild and created the formorians" when we can say "there are a bunch of drow who live in the feywild and who have an alliance with some formorians".

Same story, more flexibility.

Halford said:

And on the Swordmage, wow, why would anyone ever play a fighter or paladin - that class is wonderful! Which makes me wonder if it should be included, extremely powerful, though great fun. I am now running a Genasi Swordmage in a campaign, with a +2 adamantine longsword at 1st level no less - I commented on appropriate wealth a couple of times, but Monty wasn't interested, its hard to complain when you have shiny things. But despite the rest of the party being similarily well endowed with items my Swordmage stands out as both the top damage dealer and the character with the best defenses, I even have ranged and area powers. And as for the feat Escalating Assault (is that right, I don't have the book with me) well, umm, good grief, awesome!

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Playing one too. Are you a teleporter? I'm a teleporter (i.e. assault).

At face value it looks extremely good.

• No MAD (so you get your primary to 20 easy)
• Target non-AC
• Defender hit points and AC
• Large amount of potential mobility (as an assault type anyway)
• Control powers (at wills!)

My personal opinion is that the swordmage is supposed to help supplement the average party which is heavily oriented towards strikers.

They're striker-ie enough to get strikers to play them. But they offer defender and "control" type functions. In fact I think their at wills are at least equivalent to wizard control. (Lightning Lure is better multi-purpose control really than anything the wizard has)

Is there stuff "built in" that addresses it (i.e. lightning lure is ranged, while thunderwave is close)?


[d]--[/d]

Before, in 3.5, power level was -basically- DPS (or DPR -> damage per round).

In principle in 4e it's more complex. Right? I'm not sure...

So I think it's tricky to compare them to fighters. A fighter has +7~9 or so to hit vs AC. A swordmage, generally has +4~5 vs non AC.

But combat superiority makes a fighter is a much better defender.
The swordmage can mitigate damage (if they're Aegis of Warding) or increase the damage load on a marked target (with Aegis of Assault) but they can't "pin" someone.

Paladin is a much easier comparison. The Paladin Challenge does damage; the Aegis swordmage power allows them to teleport and do damage. The Aegis teleport requires you to use an immediate interrupt.

Paladin has single target vs. AC powers. Swordmage has a mixture.
The paladin has slightly better defenses (shield for ref, 20 AC without spending any points) but they have serious MAD.

The question is, how different is that from playing a suboptimal race/class combo? I'm playing an eladrin paladin (a more illfavored combination was probably never seen); but its not like I get some sort of "powerup" to help me.

Obviously, being below the curve is not the same as being above the curve (or having a class that redefines the curve).

[d]--[/d]

I think we need to think a lot about it.

Off the cuff I'm inclined to suggest something where people can play a swordmage but with 20~22 attribute points.

That'll make min-maxers crazy and but it won't bother people who have more interest in just playing a class with fun powers.

Graf said:

I like the idea that she eats the souls of the disloyal and failed and makes them into monsters, mostly driders but also other things.

Click to expand...

Which would presumably piss Hadeys off to no end. Those souls are his dammit. Which is possibly why she does it. Bad breakup?

Practically... are we sure that we want to take formorians, a powerful and interesting race with its own history and backstory, and turn them into "they were made by the drow".

Click to expand...

I agree, I think Fomorians are interesting enough that they should be distinct.