The Pixie is up!

[Xris Robin]

Holy crap you're right. The carrying capacity rules don't adjust for size. I guess we can assume that whatever magic keeps the pixie afloat also allows them to carry people hundreds of times their own weight.

Yes, but pixies can't fly unless carrying a normal load. So your pixie better have enough strength to carry an entire person without it being a heavy load or they have to walk and carry them.

I guess pixies have like, spider or ant strength going, but it doesn't work for the magic of flying.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Looks like another 4E adaptation of Arcana Evolved. Our AE campaign had two sprytes, one an unfettered (swashbuckling type) and the other an akashic/magister (played like a lore character).

It didn't matter what their names were. Because of all the trouble they got into, the rest of the group just called them "Frick and Frack".

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Obviously a pixie's 5 ft. reach represents the traditional flight combat technique pixie adventurers perfect, wherein they strafe past enemies then return to their starting position. It's all abstract. Also, magic.

Magic, the universal explanation!

And the 1-square elevation limit actually matches to most depictions I've seen of tiny fairies. They hover over things, but almost never fly high above things. It's not their schtick.

So my avant garde pixie PC can ignore the altitude limit if I so choose?

Something tells me my DM won't go for that. I'll stick with the universal explanation.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I love how a pixie can only fly 5' up, but there's no explanation why.

Ground Effect.

Seriously, though, the Pixie /can/ fly more than 5' up, he just falls if he ends his turn more than 5' up... So, while pixies can't routinely spend every battle with melee monsters flying out of reach, they /can/ get to any modestly elevated (30 or 60', more if it 'runs') terrain the DM provides...

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

Ground Effect.

Seriously, though, the Pixie /can/ fly more than 5' up, he just falls if he ends his turn more than 5' up... So, while pixies can't routinely spend every battle with melee monsters flying out of reach, they /can/ get to any modestly elevated (30 or 60', more if it 'runs') terrain the DM provides...

This is true, but it also raises some other points.

If the pixie character up on a 60' ledge gets dropped (monsters DO have ranged attacks, remember?), how is the party healer going to even get to them? How about when they get jumped by the equally-mobile lurker? No way for Mr. Defender to get in there and present a juicier target. How about when the enemy controller slides them off that ledge and they fail their save?

Flying out of range is a good tactic, sure, but it's not the best or only one. Sometimes, it's not even a good idea.

 

[Obryn]

Seriously, though, the Pixie /can/ fly more than 5' up, he just falls if he ends his turn more than 5' up... So, while pixies can't routinely spend every battle with melee monsters flying out of reach, they /can/ get to any modestly elevated (30 or 60', more if it 'runs') terrain the DM provides...

Yeah, but currently, so can eladrin, Thieves with Acrobatic Trick, and anyone with a good Athletics skill.

In play, I expect this to be much less of a deal than it's being made out to be.

Hell, I remember Earthdawn. Windlings had none of these restrictions!

-O

 

[I'm A Banana]

I was thinking "Aracna Evolved!", too! Pixies and witches!

The pixie looks mighty interesting. Not for all games, but for those who with more whimsy and a heavier fairy tale bent.

Well, flavor-wise, sure, but flavor-wise, an orc can have whimsy and a fairy-tale bent. It's good to see it, though I wish they didn't pretend like gnomes didn't already exist in the fluff, there, maybe differentiated them a little bit more (though I suppose they fill pretty similar places).

Mechanics-wise, it seems a little...kludgy. Nothing like taking some nine year old girl who is all pumped about playing a pixie knight and slamming her face-first into the brick wall that is D&D size rules, artificial altitude limits, opportunity attack weirdness, and "it's balanced and that's all the justification we need!" reasoning. Not insurmountable -- a fun concept can power through mechanics weirdness like a hot knife through butter -- but it would be really nice if I could play a pixie without having to interface with all those little brute-force fiddly bits.

Witch seems promising. You could easily use the Witch to mimic the Al-Qadim sha'ir (using your familiar/genie to change your daily spells). For that alone, I give it a thumb up!

I am surprised it's not a warlock. Given how closely warlock and witch are bound up in fantasy and terminology, it would seem the clear front-runner choice! It even references familiars as sort of pact-related!

Now everything arcane is a pact? Swordmages are just wizards with a "sword pact!" Mages and Wizards are just wizards with a "Book Pact"!

Depending on the kind of "Witch" archetype you're going for, some sort of arcane-and-primal Warlock seems just friggin' peachy. Another arcane controller might work fine, too, but I'm a little worried that as another wizard-spell-user, it won't have much to distinguish it from the other arcane controllers out there. Witch vs. Wizard|Druid(or even Shaman) Hybrid who picks Enchantment spells...difference?

Not that WotC seems to care too much about reinventing the wheel (how many different ways can you be a vampire?)...which I'm kind of in favor of! As long as the witch can do something unique and interesting, she probably earns her place in the class pantheon, at least as much as red-headed stepchildren like the Runepriest and the Seeker do. So far she doesn't look that unique or interesting.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

I really can't understand why they even went the route of tiny. They ended up having to waste a racial to make it where a pixie has to shrink items in order to use them as a small creature.

For feck sakes, they could have made the pixie on the low end of small and given the race a better racial ability. I would rather have the race be given an invisibility power.

The race could have been handled a lot better.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

Has anyone figured out how long it's going to take for a 30th level pixie, thats decked out in gear, to shrink all that gear back down after an extended rest?

 

[ForeverSlayer]

Couldn't a pixie rogue, whom it using the same space as his fellow PC, pretty much just say they are hiding in the clothes of their friend and gain CA pretty much all the time with a successful Stealth roll?