Design and Development: The Deva

[Lord Sessadore]

Well, they will make great Avengers (Wis and Int/Dex). That, combined with their elven accuracy-like racial ability, is enough to make me consider rolling up a deva avenger...

 

[Cadfan]

I'm a little confused as to why the deva flavor and optimization 'doesn't match?'

Because its not enough for people that a race with a shtick be good at their shtick. The race also has to be bad at things that are not its shtick. Unfortunately, with only six ability scores and with all races but one receiving +2 to two of them, there are only 15 possible combinations. There are already more than 15 classes, and each class uses at least two possible combinations of primary and secondary ability score. So overlap is inevitable.

 

[Dausuul]

To be honest, flavor/optimisation mismatch is all over the place.

Hmm. Going through the PHB races:

Dragonborn: Excellent paladins, perfect inspiring warlords, solid fighters. Good match.
Dwarf: Good clerics, tolerable fighters and paladins, good... infernal warlocks? Mediocre match.
Eladrin: Perfect wand wizards, very solid non-wand wizards, good rogues and archer rangers, decent tactical warlords. Good match.
Elf: Perfect archer rangers, solid clerics and rogues. Good match.
Half-Elf: Very good... warlocks. Solid paladins? Sucky match. Sucky race, for that matter.
Halfling: Perfect trickster rogues, good archer rangers, good feylocks, good... paladins? Good match, except for the paladin bit.
Human: Reasonably good at everything. Excellent match.
Tiefling: Very good wizards, decent warlords, good at every kind of warlock except infernal. Wizards and warlords make sense, but that last bit kind of ruins it.

So, out of eight races, there are three with serious optimization/flavor mismatches (dwarf, half-elf, and tiefling). Not too bad, but definite room for improvement.

 

[RickVigorous]

Hmm. Going through the PHB races:

Dragonborn: Excellent paladins, perfect inspiring warlords, solid fighters. Good match.
Dwarf: Good clerics, tolerable fighters and paladins, good... infernal warlocks? Mediocre match.
Eladrin: Perfect wand wizards, very solid non-wand wizards, good rogues and archer rangers, decent tactical warlords. Good match.
Elf: Perfect archer rangers, solid clerics and rogues. Good match.
Half-Elf: Very good... warlocks. Solid paladins? Sucky match. Sucky race, for that matter.
Halfling: Perfect trickster rogues, good archer rangers, good feylocks, good... paladins? Good match, except for the paladin bit.
Human: Reasonably good at everything. Excellent match.
Tiefling: Very good wizards, decent warlords, good at every kind of warlock except infernal. Wizards and warlords make sense, but that last bit kind of ruins it.

So, out of eight races, there are three with serious optimization/flavor mismatches (dwarf, half-elf, and tiefling). Not too bad, but definite room for improvement.

I'd beg to differ on the tiefling infernal warlock. Thanks to hellfire blood, tieflings make good infernal and star warlocks. There are a lot of fire and fear powers between those two pacts, and so with hellfire blood a starting Con 16/Int 16/Cha 16 is fine.

As for half-elves, they also make good bards and decent inspiring and bravura warlords, which is somewhat appropriate flavor-wise.

Finally, dwarves make very good defensive fighters focusing on Str/Con or Str/Wis. Dwarven pit fighters are very durable, and dwarven iron vanguards (ideally with craghammers and heavy shields) can be quite effective.

 

[Anguirus]

^ Is it more important to you that races match classes, rather than that races and classes individually make sense?

For example, dwarves are tough. Given. Infernal warlocks have to be tough. Maybe not a given, but it's fine with me. So...why should a dwarf be mechanically punished for playing against type and being a warlock? Maybe the dwarves have a cultural prohibition against being infernal warlocks because they are scarily good at it. (This, of course, overlooks the fact that Wisdom is useless for a warlock and so it's hardly a perfect fit anyway.)

BTW, the picture of the paladin in the PHB is a half-elf. They make at least as much "sense" as paladins as a dragonborn does. And what's wrong with halfing paladins?

I'm with Cadfan.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I always felt Tieflings were a good match for Bards (and they are in 4e, as cunning bards) as they were one of the only races that could become bards back in 2e.

 

[FireLance]

I'm a little confused as to why the deva flavor and optimization 'doesn't match?' They 'defend and inspire?' Alright, so with INT and WIS you've got the Swordmage as a Defender and either the Tactical or Resourceful Warlord as Leader. They're also the two most common rider stats, so they shore up secondary effects for the Fighter (especially the Pit Fighter), and to some extent the Ranger and Cleric as long as you're willing to have a clear dump stat somewhere else.

It's more like: devas get more benefit from their ability score bonuses by being orb wizards (who benefit from both high Intelligence and high Wisdom) instead of being swordmages and warlords (who don't benefit much from a high Wisdom), or being clerics and fighters (who don't benefit much from a high Intelligence). Of course, ability scores aren't the entire story. Racial feats can make the race excel at the specific classes they are associated with, flavor-wise, even if their racial modifiers to ability scores aren't a perfect match. This is what I'm hoping to see for the deva and the defender and leader classes.

 

[Spatula]

It does really seem like the Deva should have been +WIS & +CHA. That would have fit in a lot better with the divine classes than WIS & INT.

 

[TarionzCousin]

I'd even fold the illumians into the deva, and have each deva marked by a floating Supernal rune on their foreheads.

I agree.

What do they look like in PHB2 anyway?

 

[Lojaan]

I'm with RickVigorous. Tieflings make great infernalocks due to hellfire blood. There's more to what race makes a great class than matching stat boost to attack/support stat.

See also dwarves make great fighters due to 2nd wind being a minor action, and taking no speed penalty for heavy armor. As for the infernalock synergy, duergar anyone?

Halflings make... questionable paladins due to their speed being only 4 in heavy armor.

As for the deva (sorry - back on topic now), int/wis does seem an odd choice at first glance as neither of those stats seem to relate to protecting or inspiring, but they're perfect matches for both invoker and avenger and a good match for cleric.

I would have thought that wis/cha would have suited better, but considering their fluff, it fits better that they'd be invokers more than any other divine class (see the awesome rockband roadie analogy above), and at least this way there'll be less deva rogues & warlocks running around.