PH3 Playtest Race: Wilden

[I'm A Banana]

It seems you cannot approach this subject without edition-warring, though.

Which is weird, since 3e was the edition that gave us fiendish half-golem anthropormorphic squirrel wearbear bard/barbarian/psionicisits.

I think ronseur's point is more that 4e hasn't dodged the "seven different flavors of elf" problem. It's still there, though really, eladrin and drow and elves and half-elves are pretty mechanically distinct, even if they're conceptually kind of running together.

I'm well on record as liking weird races; I would've probably liked thri-kreen MORE, but that's probably just because they're weirder. my only wonderment comes from adding a lot of races in these PHB's. Races are of such limited usefulness that they should have no real excuse to be scraping the bottom of the barrel with them, like it kind of seems they're doing here. If a race isn't stellar, already equipped with a lot of cool character baggage, or so narrowly focused that only a handful of campaigns will ever use them, we don't need it. Use the pagespace on something else.

People who want only Tolkeinesque races kind of confuse me because, in that case, you already HAVE all the races you need/want. What else can they give you?

 

[Shroomy]

I'm well on record as liking weird races; I would've probably liked thri-kreen MORE, but that's probably just because they're weirder. my only wonderment comes from adding a lot of races in these PHB's. Races are of such limited usefulness that they should have no real excuse to be scraping the bottom of the barrel with them, like it kind of seems they're doing here. If a race isn't stellar, already equipped with a lot of cool character baggage, or so narrowly focused that only a handful of campaigns will ever use them, we don't need it. Use the pagespace on something else.

People who want only Tolkeinesque races kind of confuse me because, in that case, you already HAVE all the races you need/want. What else can they give you?

With the expansion of racial feats and now that racial PPs are becoming more and more prominent, I'm not sure if I would still characterize races as being of "limited usefulness." I also think you meant importance, since the abilities granted by your characer's race are useful, but in the first six months of 4e, once you've made your selection, they really didn't have much impact beyond that initial choice.

IMO, we're at the point in the edition where pretty much all of the classic D&D races have been covered except those associated with a particular power source (i.e. the traditional psionic and oriental adventure races). That leaves WoTC with the choice of releasing less races in future books or attempting to find something with traction (like the 4e version of the shadar-kai, IMO, I think they have "traction"). Personally, I think that this playtest was a trial balloon to gauge general interest in the non-traditional races (not just the wilden), especially those with roots in earlier editions. The reaction will guide them going forward.

 

[Piratecat]

Hmmm...

Let me take a stab at a plant-person design...

Honestly, that might make the difference for me.

 

[Jack99]

IMO, we're at the point in the edition where pretty much all of the classic D&D races have been covered except those associated with a particular power source (i.e. the traditional psionic and oriental adventure races). That leaves WoTC with the choice of releasing less races in future books or attempting to find something with traction (like the 4e version of the shadar-kai, IMO, I think they have "traction"). Personally, I think that this playtest was a trial balloon to gauge general interest in the non-traditional races (not just the wilden), especially those with roots in earlier editions. The reaction will guide them going forward.

I think you are quite right.

 

[I'm A Banana]

With the expansion of racial feats and now that racial PPs are becoming more and more prominent, I'm not sure if I would still characterize races as being of "limited usefulness." I also think you meant importance, since the abilities granted by your characer's race are useful, but in the first six months of 4e, once you've made your selection, they really didn't have much impact beyond that initial choice.

No, I meant "usefulness." Having a lot of different races has much faster diminishing returns for the game as a whole than having a lot of diffferent...almost anything else. At the table, you use maybe six PC races over the course of two years or so, possibly up to ten if you have a high rate of new players, or retiring or dead characters, or PC's who never use a race more than once or something. More races don't add much to the game -- they are not useful in the most literal sense of not being used very much in actual play.

In 3e, this was somewhat mitigated by NPC/PC transparency: the race was ALSO a kit to build NPC encounters with, in addition to being a resource for a player. But in 4e, there is no transparency, so the existence of this race doesn't really give you any NPC's -- just PC's. If your players aren't using it, it's effectively wasted page space, and even the most diverse group of players won't use more than a fistfull of races over, heck, the entire life of 4e.

New races are not very useful to the game (mostly due to their limited impact).

IMO, we're at the point in the edition where pretty much all of the classic D&D races have been covered except those associated with a particular power source (i.e. the traditional psionic and oriental adventure races). That leaves WoTC with the choice of releasing less races in future books or attempting to find something with traction (like the 4e version of the shadar-kai, IMO, I think they have "traction"). Personally, I think that this playtest was a trial balloon to gauge general interest in the non-traditional races (not just the wilden), especially those with roots in earlier editions. The reaction will guide them going forward.

Their playtests haven't been anything of THAT sort at all, from what I've seen. But laying that aside, releasing fewer races would probably be the smart thing to do, because you don't need very many races, even in 10 years of playing D&D. The races they do release in the future should be all killer: deep races, rather than a broad selection of many races. And they can have "monster manual" races that give DM's something when they also give PC's something.

 

[avin]

The plant race can go on to PHB3. I'm fine with it.

If you don't like the race just don't play it or don't allow it on your games.

More is better.

 

[Stogoe]

People always ask "Can you imagine this walking into a tavern looking for adventure?" as if it were a good thing to trot out that stupid, tired trope again and again and again and again and again for decades more.

Viva something non-traditional, for goodness' sake.

I completely agree. Not all of us are clamoring to replay LotR over and over and over.

If it were optional splat, sure. But it's as "core" as humans, and will be treated as such unless specifically banned.

I don't understand this mindest at all. Everything is optional, unless you're forced to play RPGA for some reason. If you and your group disagree about what's cool, that's a problem inside your group and not with the system.

 

[Klaus]

Honestly, that might make the difference for me.

Oh, you smooth you!



Time to think out loud. Let's look at the mechanics for the race:

- It's a +2 Con +2 Wis, Medium race. This suggests a sturdy, serene look, rather than a whimsical, flexible look. They even have an ability called Hardy Form, which seems to hammer down this notion. More like tree bark than leaves and vines.

- Bonuses to Nature and Stealth. Nature is a given. Stealth gives us something to work with. They're sturdy, but can hide pretty well. Camouflage? Or maybe they don't fidget and move like animals, but can remain motionless like plants? This may add "cautious" to the "sturdy, serene" description.

- The 3 encounter powers are very un-plant-like. Ancients can be worked in through the old memories of trees, but Destroyer and Hunter? I'm seeing this race as embodiments of more than just plant life, but of the whole of nature. Maybe an amalgam of these aspects gave birth to the race? These certainly won't be mini-treants...

Let's run down a list of possible things to add to the race to make them look distinct from other races:
- No nose? As plant-creatures, perhaps they breathe through their leaves?
- Less digits? Dragonborn already have the 3 fingers + thumb hand. Maybe 2 fingers + thumb, like Nightcrawler?
- Root-like feet? Must look at 4e Dryad to avoid making it too much like them.
- Large eyes? Lateral eyes (like a herbivore)?
- Knotty elbows and knees?
- Thorny protusions on shoulders and forearms?

Color palette:
- Green is so obvious, I'm rather wanting to downplay it.
- Brown is good for bark tones, but there are many trees with grayish/white trunks, like beech, birch or white oak. The latter seems specially significant, being associated with strength and endurance in several cultures. Plus two Subgeneri of oak are called Quercus and Cerris, which could be good starting points for a racial name (Quercuns? Cerritians?).
- Yellow and Red. Several plants have colorful leaves, sometimes even if differenet shades running through a single leaf. Hmm... Green and Red might make a good contrast...

Avoid making the race look like:
- Swamp Thing
- Man-Thing
- Poison Ivy
- 4e Dryad
- Treebeard's cousins, twice removed

 

[77IM]

What happened to Rule 0?

I don't understand this mindest at all. Everything is optional, unless you're forced to play RPGA for some reason. If you and your group disagree about what's cool, that's a problem inside your group and not with the system.

The rules create a set of shared expectations. People expect D&D to contain, for example, elves, encounter powers, and Erathis, because they spent $30 on a book that told them that was what to expect. Obviously the DM can ban things, but at the risk of alienating players -- and that's where the problem arises.

There used to be the idea of "core" rules -- things you could reasonably rely on, like the PHB races and classes and spells and such. DMs had to specifically ban these, or else you could expect to see them. Then there were "optional" rules -- variant races, classes, and splatbooks, that required the DM's permission. This is how they managed the shared expectations: core stuff was quintessentially D&D so you could probably count on it, and optional stuff might be available, but might not, so check with the DM.

4E has done away with this distinction. They are trying to position everything as core, which is the equivalent of saying, nothing is optional. The most blatant example of this is the chapter on character creation. You may recall from 3E that step 0 of creating a character was to check with the DM to see if he had any setting-specific do's and don't's. Looking through the 4E chapter on creating a character, it doesn't even mention the idea of consulting with the DM on anything other than alignment. (I'm not trying to start a 3E vs 4E edition war -- I'm just criticizing a particular WotC policy of 4E.)


I am all in favor of plant-people as an explicitly optional race. I guess my complaint is really not with the wilden but with the 4E "everything is core" policy, because it gives players an expectation that the DM might not want to fulfill. I'm not sure I want to figure out how to work wilden into my setting (it was hard enough squeezing goliaths and devas in there last month), but I also don't want to say "no" to the player who bought PHB3 and expects to play one. It's much easier to say "no" when the races is labeled as optional, because the player's expectations were not as strong.

-- 77IM

 

[Fallen Seraph]

I am all in favor of plant-people as an explicitly optional race. I guess my complaint is really not with the wilden but with the 4E "everything is core" policy, because it gives players an expectation that the DM might not want to fulfill. I'm not sure I want to figure out how to work wilden into my setting (it was hard enough squeezing goliaths and devas in there last month), but I also don't want to say "no" to the player who bought PHB3 and expects to play one. It's much easier to say "no" when the races is labeled as optional, because the player's expectations were not as strong.

See, I find that as a good thing, since then "core" isn't an excuse. It means that the player and DM have to both discuss what they wish out of the game, including stuff like what races there is, how they may be refluffed, etc.