Forked Thread: Proposal: Minotaur Race from Dragon

[renau1g]

Forked from: New Discussion Thread

Well, I propose it!

A level 1 PC doing 2d8 damage at-will without even spending a feat for a superior weapon is just a bit much... Especially from the POV of a spell caster stuck with 1d6 or 1d8.

Beside, the increase in size yields wacky, counter intuitive results. A battleaxe goes from 1d10 to 1d12; +1 damage on average. A good deal. But A waraxe improves on the battle axe by 1d12 to 2d6; +0.5 (and you lose variability). A damn poor deal for a superior weapon, few would take it. But a bastard sword goes 1d10 to 1d12 while keeping a +1 to hit over the waraxe and so, behold, you'll see more minotaurs with bastard swords than with Waraxe, a much more minotaurish weapon! And a maul goes 2d6 to 2d8 ; +2 to damage. That's a great deal! Again, you are as a result much more likely to see a minotaur barbarian with a maul then a Great axe as a result.

It's just a complete mess.

The Dragon issue 364 gets rid of that while fleshing out the minotaur as a full PC race with an array of cool feat.

Per Mal's request, I thought I'd help out and formalize it.

 

[JoeNotCharles]

My proposal, for this and all similar situations where a rules change removes powers from a character, is to grandfather in existing characters:

- Any character approved with the old version of the ability before the new one was adopted will be allowed to keep the old version of the ability.
- If the ability is a power, feat, or anything else that's subject to retraining, they will switch to the new version at their next level up. If they don't like the new version, they can retrain for free. (ie. this retraining doesn't count towards the normal limit)

That second point doesn't apply to the minotaur ability, of course.

 

[Ozymandias79]

just some nitpicking, but isn't issue 364 already approved?
And the minotaur write-up is in dragon #369

 

[renau1g]

I don't actually have DDI, so I just forwarded the post, but do we have any minotaur characters yet? If so, I'd like to hear their thoughts on the change/proposal. I think if it's a potentially broken/overpowered ability (like this one seems to be) I don't think grandfathering should be allowed.

To use a 3.xe example, if a Radiant Servent of Pelor was approved, but it was discovered during play that it is/was quite overpowered, the PC should be required to re-jig their character, otherwise you're making the system unfair for newly created PC's.

If I made a new PC minotaur and was forced to abide by the new rules, but the other minotaurs running around had the oversized weapon ability I wouldn't be happy as it's giving one character a benefit over the other.

 

[Oni]

if you're to introduce something that changes an existing character may I suggest the following.

Any affected players are requested to change their characters voluntarily at the time the change is adopted, but it is not required. Be aware that it may affect a DM's character selection for participation in their adventures.

The changes must be affected in a character to be approved for level advancement.

Changes made to meet new requirements do not count toward the normal limitations of what may be changed at a level.

 

[Oni]

I don't actually have DDI, so I just forwarded the post, but do we have any minotaur characters yet? If so, I'd like to hear their thoughts on the change/proposal. I think if it's a potentially broken/overpowered ability (like this one seems to be) I don't think grandfathering should be allowed.

To use a 3.xe example, if a Radiant Servent of Pelor was approved, but it was discovered during play that it is/was quite overpowered, the PC should be required to re-jig their character, otherwise you're making the system unfair for newly created PC's.

If I made a new PC minotaur and was forced to abide by the new rules, but the other minotaurs running around had the oversized weapon ability I wouldn't be happy as it's giving one character a benefit over the other.

You raise an interesting point. If someone does not have access to DDI will the no longer be able to make/maintain a minot character should the change be adopted even though it was an option at the start? This issue will come up again as more and more MM races get PC write-ups.

 

[Lord Sessadore]

There are currently three approved minotaur characters: a cleric, a ranger, and a fighter.

The cleric is Halford's, and he hasn't been around since Christmas, unfortunately. The ranger was in my last adventure, run by Light Rail Coyote, but we haven't heard from him since it ended (about a month ago, I think). And the fighter ... I'm not sure if he even went to the tavern.

So it seems we're unlikely to hear their thoughts on the matter. I think there was some discussion on the matter a while ago when the warforged article was proposed, but I don't think it came to any sort of a conclusion, other than that there are people on both sides of the fence.

For myself, I'm not sure which way I like better. Forcing old minotaur PCs to remove oversized would be best for balance reasons, but it also likely removes a feature of the race that drew the player to it in the first place. I'd really rather not take a PC that a person is fond of and spent time with and mess with it in a way that makes the character unappealing to the player running it. One suggestion from that old discussion was that the grandfathered characters can't take any new feats or racial features from the new material - essentially, they'd be stuck with what minotaurs had when they made their character.

Hypothetically, if we were to force players to remove oversized, how would we do that? Would we revoke approval until they fixed it, then re-approve them?

 

[Lord Sessadore]

if you're to introduce something that changes an existing character may I suggest the following.

Any affected players are requested to change their characters voluntarily at the time the change is adopted, but it is not required. Be aware that it may affect a DM's character selection for participation in their adventures.

The changes must be affected in a character to be approved for level advancement.

Changes made to meet new requirements do not count toward the normal limitations of what may be changed at a level.

I like this, if we require that players must change to the new material. Of course, I think if the character is in an adventure the DM should be allowed to ask them to change before their next level up.

You raise an interesting point. If someone does not have access to DDI will the no longer be able to make/maintain a minot character should the change be adopted even though it was an option at the start? This issue will come up again as more and more MM races get PC write-ups.

Another interesting question: how do you get it approved when at least 2 of the judges don't have DDI access? (AFAIK covaithe doesn't, and I don't either.) But that is another factor we have to consider here ... though the Character Builder beta can give you the minotaur write up from Dragon. That's a really good way to 'cheat' for now, but I'm not sure how long that will stay viable. It also doesn't give you all the other juicy bits from the Dragon article (whatever they are).

 

[garyh]

I have DDI access, and the Judges can... coordinate for reviewing proposals. Although the only approved proposal so far (Drgon #364) was a free issue anyway.

I don't like new write-ups removing appealing parts of PC options (like the minotaur article did). It seems like a big downer when compared to articles that were purely expansions (warforged, gnolls).

I, however, will admit that I'm totally biased. My bugbear brutal rogue, Hrav, currently uses a large rapier, and I am loath to lose it. It's a big part of the appeal of bugbears, which don't have much else going for them besides being the only current Str/Dex race. Since WotC has stated they plan to remove Oversized as a PC option, I expect them to eventually do a bugbear article that removes Oversized from them, and if they give in return as poor a selection of new features as the minotaur recieved (I really, really think the new minotaur article didn't give much to the race), I'll be very disappointed. How L4W handles minotaurs will pretty much decide how bugbears will be handled.

 

[Oni]

I don't like new write-ups removing appealing parts of PC options (like the minotaur article did). It seems like a big downer when compared to articles that were purely expansions (warforged, gnolls).

Errata can essentially do the same thing (see changes to stealth, or more recently Veteran's armour or the like). While it is unfortunate it is part of balancing the game. The question is, is balance something that L4W is looking to uphold and to what extent? What is the stance on erratta, is that something that is going to be automatically adopted, or will each be reviewed and taken or rejected piecemeal.

The reason I bring this up, is that anytime you introduce something that changes how a mechanic works you're liable to affect someone, how should that be resolved?