Racial Powers: For those houseruling Weapon/Implement Expertise as 'free feats'

[babinro]

Well, from that point of view, I think he over-emphasized Constitution, and under-emphasized Strength-- unless he has Virtuous Strike or Melee Training, then he's running into problems on the Basic Attack front. Generally, for a Paladin, you either want to go Strength/Charisma for flexibility in powers and Divine Challenge supremacy, Charisma/Wisdom for defensive powers and secondary effects, or Strength/Wisdom for offensive powers and secondary effects.

That said, have him pick up Draconic Challenge. That'll make his Breath Weapon do a lot more than damage. Free Divine Sanction on all enemies, hit OR miss, will make that breath more interesting.

Wow, Honored Foe is SO GOOD.

He is all about the dragonborn feats and sanctions. We have an Artful dodger rogue that likes to provoke attacks from all the sanctioned/challenged people as often as possible so they work well together vs creatures targeting AC. In addition he'll take those few dragonborn items that power up the damage on breath, or recharge it.

The excessive surges have also come in handy because of the belt of sacrifice (I think that's the one). Give up two of your surges to pass one off to someone else <typically the rogue>.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Actually he didn´t spread his stats thin... he focussed too much on charisma (20 after racial)

the only thing he could have done to remedy this a bit would be putting his 13s in str and wis instead of con and wis.

But if he had done a better attribute distribution with breath in mind he would have most probably distributed his attributes like this

14/13/10/8/14/16 or something like this... and increase charisma, strength and maybe wisdom a bit

or if he really doesn´t like strength:

11/16/10/8/13/16 and increase constitution at every possibility to be really tanky

if he needs better nads and heavy blade opportunity (and shield specialization):

12/13/14/8/13/16 and increase whatever you like (probably strength or dex to keep your breath up a bit... (it won´t be as good as in the builds above)

 

[Mengu]

Hasn't been a problem with our dragonborns, but they are strength based. Maybe you could consider changing the tier bonus from +2/4/6 to +3/6/9. The Genasi Acid Surge power gives you precedent for this as it is also a racial multi target attack.

 

[Nifft]

What I do is:

1/ Ban the Expertise feats. All of them.

2/ Reduce the defenses (AC + F/R/W) of all critters based on the level of the PCs:
-1 at level 5
-2 at level 15
-3 at level 25

Now all non-weapon, non-implement attacks (like Bull Rush, Dragonborn breath, etc.) work just as well as weapon & implement attacks. I like this solution because it allows the players to use the Character Builder, and I typically tweak my critters anyway, so the extra step of changing four numbers is easy.

For new races like the Acid Genasi, I'd nerf the +3/+6/+9 back down to +2/+4/+6 (just like what Fire Genasi get).

Cheers, -- N

 

[Prestidigitalis]

With the most number of surges in the game, and more access to additional surges through feats than anyone else that isn't a Dwarf, Constitution isn't as needed for a Paladin.

Please pardon the tangent, but can you tell me which feats give Paladins (and only Paladins) extra surges?

 

[Mengu]

Please pardon the tangent, but can you tell me which feats give Paladins (and only Paladins) extra surges?

Guessing he's talking about Devoted Paladin.

 

[Prestidigitalis]

Guessing he's talking about Devoted Paladin.

Oh, cool. That's a nice feat, assuming you have enough Charisma for a decent bonus and enough Wisdom for a decent number of uses.