The Arms Race of Races

Ok I have now DMed or played 50+ hours total of pregened 4th ed. Having done so, I have seen countless times specific races totally kicking butt, saving the day or their lives, while others consistantly fall short. From that I have formed an opinion on the races and wanted to see if anyone felt it was off base (kind of looking for it to be with regards to the two "loser" races).

Top Tier and examples:
Dwarf: I have seen the reduce slide/push/pull by 1 save dwarves from bing thrown off bridges, lava, and pits many times. The second wind as a minor action has effectively given them 1.25% normal hit points and most players love it.

Halfling: Actually had a player say "I'd never thought the best paladin would a halfing with valiant strike and lost i nthe crowd" but it is. In the last adevnture I ran (it was long, 20 hours) over 11 encounters, I sw the halfing turn 6 criticals into misses and a few hits as well. With lost in the crowd, they are excellent front liners amazingly.

Eldarin: Yes it is just a teleport, but the number if times it has saved the life of the characters or gotten them (especially the bow ranger) into good shotting position is too innumerable to count.

Elf: Shift in difficult is awesome in my setting (snow and forests are common), the reroll with accuracy has saved more then a few dailies from missing. It has a ton of abilities and has changed to course of the game numberous times.

Midtier:
Human: Awesome options and extra stuff. With the +!1 to saving throws I have seen more then a few "pop-ups" from dyiung with a 19 (note: using the DDxp rule of natural 20 gives you a healing surge). The extra stuff they get is wonderful, but it is mid tier because the bonuses are generally not game changing for the character. Sure when they miss your reflex by one you can go "woot, I'm a human", but in general, it is not as porfound as the top tier races. That sad, I think humans need nothing else, they are extremely solid.

Dragonborn: Much as the humans, they abilities are excellent and thus far seem close enough not to need anything else. the minion cleaning ability of the breath weapon is great. Again just not generally as game changing as the top tier guys. It is still an excellent race and needs nothing else IMO.

Bottom Tier
For these two races, I have had players actually request mid game to change from them (the exception is the half-elf warlock pre-gen, who has both prime-shot and an encounter ability, making her more on par with the mid-tier guys).

Tiefling: At first glance it looks great. Like the stat boons, especially for wizard and warlord, but just does not measure up. The encounter power is the worst in the game (+1 to hit and damage against someone who hit you already) and the +1 against bloodied foes is useful and commonly used every battle, but just generally does not measure up to the other races. The fire resistance is so situational that only 2 times have I seen it matter (blazing skeletons hitting the tiefling pregen wizard). IMO, something needs to be given to them to bring them up to snuff of the other races, though it need not be too much. Have o suggestions at the moment.

Half-elf: I've been vocal on the board about this one, but in practice it seems to be pretty clear that the players, not just me, find this guy the bottom rung race. +1 to allies diplo and an at-will as an encounter is not even equal to a single multi-classing feat (look at the tiefling warlord pregen to confirm this). Most love the idea of a multi-classing half-elf but it is missing something. Note that this assumes the pregen warlock was a mistake and the half-elf does not get a class feature of choice as well. If it did, it would start to move into the mid tier. It just pays too much for its versatility.

Anyone else played a good bit with the same or different observations? Anyone houseruled the tiefling or half-elves yet?



See ya,
Ken

While I agree that the half-elf (or what we know about the half-elf) is not top tier, I'm not sure it's bottom (let alone THE bottom) either. What features does your grading take into account? Sure, the Diplomacy bonus isn't anything to write home about, but how useful that encounter power is will depend on the character build and what new at-will options we see in the PHB. Also, we know they have a +2 CHA; are you assuming that the other +2 is CON or player's choice? If it turns out to be the latter, I'd consider that a stroke in their favor. Also, we now know that they can take both human and elf feats (hopefully there's a choice for human and eladrin feats for half-eladrin; maybe worth a house rule if not); that may very well be a decent bonus, depending on the final racial feat list.

I will say that I think Tieflings make great warlords and paladins. I don't care what folk say; I like that infernal wrath. The damage is more than likely cha based. And you can take a feat to make it push.

Remember that the Half-elf bonus ability is only going to get better as time goes on, and more splat books come out, while the pre-chosen powers look very lacking, otherwise I don't have much to add.

Rechan said:

I will say that I think Tieflings make great warlords and paladins. I don't care what folk say; I like that infernal wrath. The damage is more than likely cha based. And you can take a feat to make it push.

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If by more than likely is, you mean is then yes.

If fact I think one the problems with the Half-elf and Tieflings abilities is as much to do with the fact that they relate to other stats and powers as opposed to just being flat abilities, thus meaning you're going to get more use out of them when you get to make up and optimize your own characters as opposed to pre-genned ones.

They say they worked hard to make the half-elf cool, and I can't imagine why they'd say it if it wasn't true. Which is why it was so eyebrow-raising that they removed its bonus ability from the KotS pregen for "space" reasons, given an already skeptical audience. Also, their recommended addition (supposedly removed for aforementioned space reasons) adds absolutely nothing to the character. I suspect we've just seen sub-optimal half-elf builds, with bonus powers chosen pretty much at random (with the exception of the warlock, who to all accounts was one of the more fun DDXP pregens to play).

As for tiefling - I can't say anything too nice about them. Will wait to see what other racial powers they might receive, but at the moment I can't see any reason at all to play one, ever, unless a fire element-heavy campaign was involved. And maybe not even then.

I think we need to take into account Racial Feats, ESPECIALLY with the Half-Elf, given that it can take both Elf and Human Racial Feats.

1. The tiefling's ability to hit back against a foe who just hit them is +1 attack, +cha damage. For reasons unknown, the pregen tieflings all have low charisma. I think this ability is a lot cooler if you're playing a character with better charisma, such as a Warlock or a charisma based Warlord. I also have been underwhelmed by the tiefling due to its stat bonuses both being mental stats, but I could be persuaded to change this evaluation after seeing it in the field a bit more. Imagine a tiefling paladin with an 18 charisma thanks to the +2. Getting +1 attack +4 damage isn't bad at all. Or a character who selects abilities that work better against bloodied foes (there's reason to believe that rangers, and possibly others, can do this), and uses Bloodhunt to help him abuse his bloodied enemies even further. So... I think the pregen tieflings have been obnoxious, but I think the race has potential.

2. It seems very likely that the half-elf gets +2 Cha +2 stat of his choice. Getting two stat bonuses, one of which is floating, is a pretty sweet bonus. I don't think the pregens have used this as well as they could. Furthermore, the ability to take an at will from another class and use it as a per encoutner ability is the sort of thing that will get better as more classes are released. So again, I think there's potential here.

3. You seem to rate poorly the races who's primary benefits are more subtle. I know that the elf and the eladrin get flashy abilities that are very noticeable and which, when used, can noticeably change the course of battle, but my personal preference is for abilities that slowly, subtly alter the course of the game in my favor. That means that races like Human are particularly nice for me. The +1 defenses is subtle, but it helps. Same with the bonus feat that can let you select +1 to saves. Or the bonus skill, which gives you a small but noticeable increase in the number of times you can say "Oh, I can do that" when something comes up out of combat. Or the +1 at will, which lets you add diversity to your attack choices, and makes you more likely to have the right tool for the job at any given moment. I can see why other people wouldn't find these exciting, but its the sort of thing I go for.

The dragonborn is similar, particulary with regards to his extra hit points when using a healing surge, or his attacking bonuses when bloodied. Simple, subtle, but always there in the background making his day go just a little better than otherwise. Won't ever break open an encounter like some of the flashier powers, but over the course of the entire day it adds up.

Fallen Seraph said:

I think we need to take into account Racial Feats, ESPECIALLY with the Half-Elf, given that it can take both Elf and Human Racial Feats.

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I really hope this isn't a factor. Racial feats should be an option to add a little flavor, not deliberately overpowered relative to normal feats to balance out a subpar race.

Cadfan said:

1. The tiefling's ability to hit back against a foe who just hit them is +1 attack, +cha damage. For reasons unknown, the pregen tieflings all have low charisma. I think this ability is a lot cooler if you're playing a character with better charisma, such as a Warlock or a charisma based Warlord. I also have been underwhelmed by the tiefling due to its stat bonuses both being mental stats, but I could be persuaded to change this evaluation after seeing it in the field a bit more. Imagine a tiefling paladin with an 18 charisma thanks to the +2. Getting +1 attack +4 damage isn't bad at all.

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+1 attack/+Cha damage is still inferior to rerolling a missed attack, especially when it's so conditional. Plus it kinda shoehorns tieflings into Charisma-centric classes, which is sorta lame. Most of the +2/+2 races can at least choose classes that emphasize either one of their two bonused stats.

I'm tempted to try to come up with a replacement for tieflings' racial power as well as for their appearance. :/

Gloombunny said:

I really hope this isn't a factor. Racial feats should be an option to add a little flavor, not deliberately overpowered relative to normal feats to balance out a subpar race.

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I don't think that the racial feats will be overpowered. So far, the racial feats that we've seen mostly add to things that the race already gets a bonus to; in some cases, they require a racial power. They have the potential to be exceptionally useful for the half-elf because they can add to things he doesn't already get a bump to. We'll have to see the feats to say how useful it really is, though.

Actually, there's another point about the half-elf that just occurred to me: as you level up, new powers become available, and players can swap out powers for new ones. Some of those powers will be at will. Shouldn't half-elves be able to replace their "at-will as encounter" powers as well? Actually, the class isn't specified; could they take at-wills of an appropriate level from prestige classes? It seems logical (and consistent with race flavor about adaptability) and should ensure that the ability will be useful at higher levels.