Action, Ancient, and Monstrous races.

Minigiant · May 16, 2009

In my homebrew game, the races are not balanced mentally and physically in the normal fashion. Big monstrous creatures have very high ability scores. Races that live for hundred of years (that don't do the whole "mature then age extremely slowly" thing) have additional skills. Other races are blessed and can spring into action to solve a problem.
I'll convert thses ideas for 4E

Monstrous Races:
Increase each racial ability score bonus to +4
Gain 10 additiona HP at the 1st, 11th, and 21st levels.

Ancient Races:
Gain one additonal trained skill.
Gain one additonal encounter class attack power from any class you are a member of.
Gain one additonal language known.

Action Races:
Start with 2 action points at the end of an extended rest.
Gain 2 action points when you reach a milestone.
May use up to two action points during an encounter.
Gain one additonal usage of a daily power from a magic item.

I would suggest
Monstrous Races: Dragonborm, Dwarf, Tiefling
Ancient Races: Elf, Eladrin,
Action Races: Halfling, Half Elf, Human

What do you think? Balanced?

fissionessence · May 16, 2009

Well they're obviously not balanced against the rest of 4E . . . but are they balanced against each other?

My first impulse is to say that the monstrous races are better, and I would have trouble turning down those ability score bonuses . . . but the extra encounter power and crazy doubling up of action points are pretty intense as well. I think overall they look balanced against each other. But, the best way to judge character option house rules is to watch and (in this case) see if all the players pick a race from the same category. If they don't, then just watch and make sure everyone's having the same amount of fun

My only qualm is dwarf seems like a better fit for 'ancient' :-\

~

Pale Jackal · May 16, 2009

I also think that the Monstrous Races might be a bit too good, though the extra encounter power ability is hard to quantify, since sometimes it's just an extra 1W damage, and sometimes it's battle-swinging. I think it depends on what level range you're looking at. +1 hit and +1 damage is big at Heroic tier, but at later tiers, that +1 hit and +1 damage becomes more like +1 hit, since the +1 damage becomes less significant. Not sure how much damage the +1 hit is worth, though, versus say an extra encounter power or extra standard action (via AP.)

keterys · May 17, 2009

Yeah, I'd say that +2 to two abilities and Toughnessx2 pretty much trumps the other stuff, so... would you want to decrease monstrous or increase the others?

Minigiant · May 17, 2009

Well lets look at one class at 1st level

A Tiefling wizard gets +1 to hit and damage and 10 extra HP.
An Elf wizard can use Icy Terrain then next turn Burning hands.
A halfling wizard can shoot 3 scorching blast in one turn.

Maybe lower Monsterous to 5 HP a tier.

In the original game, monstorus classes were for newer/lazier players. Action heroes broke the game when they let the monstrous and ancient hores win fights for them and save their action points to one turn KO the BBEG. Dwarves and elf would destroy goblin armies but the scrappy human would attack the dragon 7 times in the surprise round.

durinstorm · May 17, 2009

Minigiant said:
Well lets look at one class at 1st level

A Tiefling wizard gets +1 to hit and damage and 10 extra HP.
An Elf wizard can use Icy Terrain then next turn Burning hands.
A halfling wizard can shoot 3 scorching blast in one turn.

Assuming we are just looking at damage, and a base 50% to hit. Also assume that burst 1 powers hit 2 enemies and burning hands hits 3 enemies... After two rounds we have:

Tiefling wizard: 55% to hit, +5 damage (20 int) icy terrian (2), then scorching burst (2) = .55(4d6+20) = 18.7 damage
Elf: 50% +4 damage (18int), icy terrain (2), then burning hands (3) = .5(2d6+8+6d6+12) = 24 damage
Halfing: 50% +4 (18int), icy (2) and scorching burst (2), then scorching burst (2) and scorching burst (2) = .5(8d6+24) = 26 damage

This works out like this mostly because of the area powers. Single attacks will be less extreme. After round 2 it going to take the Tiefling about 3 rounds to catch up (a extra ~1 damage a target x 2 targets per round).

Standard actions are very very important. Extra encounter powers are often nice for damage, but more to give you more variety in your effects. (icy terrain to knock enemies prone and then chill strike to daze an elite or something). The +2 to stats and hp will make you better on defense, but I don't think you are going to outshine the others.

Like Minigiant said, the monstrous races are better at long, drawn out fights, but the others will be better in the beginning of a tough fight.

Pale Jackal · May 17, 2009

durinstorm said:
Assuming we are just looking at damage, and a base 50% to hit. Also assume that burst 1 powers hit 2 enemies and burning hands hits 3 enemies... After two rounds we have:

Tiefling wizard: 55% to hit, +5 damage (20 int) icy terrian (2), then scorching burst (2) = .55(4d6+20) = 18.7 damage
Elf: 50% +4 damage (18int), icy terrain (2), then burning hands (3) = .5(2d6+8+6d6+12) = 24 damage
Halfing: 50% +4 (18int), icy (2) and scorching burst (2), then scorching burst (2) and scorching burst (2) = .5(8d6+24) = 26 damage

I think your numbers are a bit misleading. If we're comparing straight up damage, why do the Eladrin and Halfling use Icy Terrain instead of Burning Hands, when you define Burning Hands as hitting more targets and does more damage in general?

Standard actions are very very important. Extra encounter powers are often nice for damage, but more to give you more variety in your effects. (icy terrain to knock enemies prone and then chill strike to daze an elite or something). The +2 to stats and hp will make you better on defense, but I don't think you are going to outshine the others.

Like Minigiant said, the monstrous races are better at long, drawn out fights, but the others will be better in the beginning of a tough fight.

This is a good point: I'm not sure about the Ancient Races, but the Action Races? Exploding with 3 actions at the start of a fight is nuts. That could easily prevent a significant amount of damage. Imagine going Daily - Encounter - Encounter. Yikes!!!

I take back what I said about Action Races not comparing well.

durinstorm · May 17, 2009

Pale Jackal said:
I think your numbers are a bit misleading. If we're comparing straight up damage, why do the Eladrin and Halfling use Icy Terrain instead of Burning Hands, when you define Burning Hands as hitting more targets and does more damage in general?

This is a good point: I'm not sure about the Ancient Races, but the Action Races? Exploding with 3 actions at the start of a fight is nuts. That could easily prevent a significant amount of damage. Imagine going Daily - Encounter - Encounter. Yikes!!!

I take back what I said about Action Races not comparing well.

Yeah, it's just one example. I was just putting numbers to Minigiant's to show how good the action points can be (assume that you need icy terrain to slow down the enemies first, and then you start doing damage). Even with just one action point and a less effective second encounter power it's still not until round 4 or so that the Monstrous races start being equal, and by then the higher damage of the others have probably reduced the damage input a lot.

Just trying to show that the action races are probably better than the other by a good amount. The ancient races are probably close, but could maybe use a boost to get up to the monstrous races level over the long run, but the action races are way above the others, even just using one action point per fight, IMHO.

eriktheguy · May 17, 2009

I think that the ancient races are a little underpowered compared to the others. You might want to give them an extra bonus such as 1feat/tier. The monstrous and action seemed balanced with respect to one another. I would suggest that the action races can use only 1 action point per turn, even if they use 2 in a combat.
Finally, humans get screwed over for the monstrous races. They only get an additional +2 to one stat where other monstrous races get an additional +2 to two stats. You could modify it so that humans get +4 to one stat and +2 to another.

Siberys · May 18, 2009

Humans aren't a monstrous race, tho. They are an action race, so no problem there.

I'd suggest either upping ancient or reducing the other two. An additional feat per tier sounds good to me.

I take it that this is an across the board PC power-up?