A Concern About Wizard's Race Designs of Late

[Dr_Ruminahui]

I decided to make this two posts, to avoid making the above "massive wall of text" even more massive.

Personally, I don't see how having more options available is any hindrance to world design - especially so for campaigns that are already in progress. For such campaigns, really, its unlikely that you'll ever have to work new races in, as it only becomes an issue if in the event of a new player joining or if an existing player makes a new character (typically, but not always, as a result of their last character dieing). Even then, unless you have multiple new characters at one time (possible, but unlikely), you really only have to concern yourself with one race to intergrate - whatever new race it is the player wants to be (and they may not even want to be one of the newer races). And, on a one-off basis, working new races in shouldn't cause much harm to your world - both the "you are a rare being from over yonder" or the "you can, but its refluffed like this" approaches have been suggested by others above. Or, if you really dislike the race, you can just say "no".

If you are beginning a new campaign, it could be a bigger issue. However, even in such cases, any problems can be mittigated. For a campaign setting designed prior to character creation, simply tell your PCs ahead of time what biases certain races will face - and if they still choose one, work it in. Or, you can have character design happen first, then design the world around them.

So, as much as one might dislike the new races, I can't see them being a significant issue or problem for developing a cohessive world design - refluffing seems like it would do away with most problems that might arise, and where it doesn't (or if it isn't possible), then the "you're rare" card should handle the rest.

 

[Flipguarder]

While I agree with you Dr. Ruminahui, and have said stuff to that effect in other threads concerning "more options". My problem is with the Shardmind having inside their lore some significantly specific things about the cosmology that just ain't true in my universe. Sure I could just not allow them, sure I could just come up with some weird-ass excuse for why there are telepathic crystal people all over the damned place. But at the end of the day, its easier just to tell my players "no".

And here's the kicker: I don't like telling my players "no"

So while its not a huge issue, the trend is disconcerting to me.

 

[Rechan]

To contrast, Eladrin/Elves/Drow have built into THEIR racial history the split.

If you don't have the Feywild, then you're SOL for Eladrin.

It's easier to tell your players "No" to anything. You're willing to accommodate "Yes" for other things; why is this different?

Honestly, what I would do? Make the player come up with the explanation for the race. Put it in the player's hands. It's not just your world, it's the group's world. Make it the player's responsibility to come up with a reasonable way they are integrated.

 

[Flipguarder]

Because Drow, elves and eladrin make sense without the split.

sentient crystals full of psychic energy beg explanation far more than drow, elves and eladrin.

 

[Rechan]

Because Drow, elves and eladrin make sense without the split.

sentient crystals full of psychic energy beg explanation far more than drow, elves and eladrin.

Not by MUCH.

1) Far Realms Safeguard. Shardminds have no flesh, and have psychic resistance. Since most of your aberrations are either very vicious rippers of flesh (chuuls, foulspawn, carrion crawlers etc) or deal in psychic assault (illithids, aboleths), shardminds make a good natural defender against this.

Take the Wilden's "Reaction to the incursion of the Far Realms" and drop that on the Shardmind. Boom.

2) Look at the Warforged. Any explanation you could apply to the Warforged, you could apply to Shardminds. They can easily be literal constructs. In the Shardmind's case, it's easy to imagine them as constructs from a place where Psionic powers were more prevalent/powerful than mages. So a fallen empire/kingdom of Psions makes sense.

3) Like #2, but instead of being constructs in a sense, the shardmind is sort of a way to allow consciousness to exist beyond death. A psion (or anyone really) dies and shoots their consciousness into the sculpted crystallin body, allowing their mind to continue on. A lot like a psionic phylactry. Psions in 3e also had Psi-crystals; the Shardmind is easy to interpret as a much bigger, much more Powerful psi-crystal that the psion eased into.

4) Like #3, but instead of psions being housed inside of them, the shardminds are walking prisons. This comes into play in Eberron a lot - they could be prisons to hold fragments of powerful fiends or psionic entities, using the power of those entities while keeping them safely under wraps.

I pulled these off the top of my head in five minutes. I get the impression it's not a complaint about the fluff, or how it doesn't fit your world, but rather just a desire to not use them and thus a resistance to come up with anything.

 

[Flipguarder]

Not by MUCH.

1) Far Realms Safeguard. Shardminds have no flesh, and have psychic resistance. Since most of your aberrations are either very vicious rippers of flesh (chuuls, foulspawn, carrion crawlers etc) or deal in psychic assault (illithids, aboleths), shardminds make a good natural defender against this.

Take the Wilden's "Reaction to the incursion of the Far Realms" and drop that on the Shardmind. Boom.

2) Look at the Warforged. Any explanation you could apply to the Warforged, you could apply to Shardminds. They can easily be literal constructs. In the Shardmind's case, it's easy to imagine them as constructs from a place where Psionic powers were more prevalent/powerful than mages. So a fallen empire/kingdom of Psions makes sense.

3) Like #2, but instead of being constructs in a sense, the shardmind is sort of a way to allow consciousness to exist beyond death. A psion (or anyone really) dies and shoots their consciousness into the sculpted crystallin body, allowing their mind to continue on. A lot like a psionic phylactry. Psions in 3e also had Psi-crystals; the Shardmind is easy to interpret as a much bigger, much more Powerful psi-crystal that the psion eased into.

4) Like #3, but instead of psions being housed inside of them, the shardminds are walking prisons. This comes into play in Eberron a lot - they could be prisons to hold fragments of powerful fiends or psionic entities, using the power of those entities while keeping them safely under wraps.

I pulled these off the top of my head in five minutes. I get the impression it's not a complaint about the fluff, or how it doesn't fit your world, but rather just a desire to not use them and thus a resistance to come up with anything.

I won't go into the large amount of detail already created and expressed in my DM campaign setting, but none of your options work for me.
You can continue to think its just my own stubbornness and laziness that stops me from liking them, just understand that a world created in the beginning of 4e that has a significant amount of complexity could take issue with introducing telepathic sentient crystals.

Quite frankly its not even what they are that worries me, its that they couldn't have come with a more neutral reason for their existence.

And yes, I have pretty much the same exact issue with Warforged, except they exist in a certain setting so it makes sense for their lore to be tied to that setting.

 

[Incenjucar]

While I agree with you Dr. Ruminahui, and have said stuff to that effect in other threads concerning "more options". My problem is with the Shardmind having inside their lore some significantly specific things about the cosmology that just ain't true in my universe. Sure I could just not allow them, sure I could just come up with some weird-ass excuse for why there are telepathic crystal people all over the damned place. But at the end of the day, its easier just to tell my players "no".

And here's the kicker: I don't like telling my players "no"

So while its not a huge issue, the trend is disconcerting to me.

Every setting has a series of "Yes" and "No" statements in place, whether or not you're aware of them. Drow are not worshipped by dragons. Elves do not have feathers. Dwarves are not tree-hugging hippies. Humans are not blue turtle folk.

One more no isn't going to do you any damage, nor will someone else being able to say "yes" without having to create lists of racial features, feats, and paragon paths.

While I personally find the constant push to make the Far Realm a big deal (it's cute, but I don't find it especially compelling, nor am I huge on Lovecraft in general), it's so incredibly easy to reflavor psychic teleporter people who can have stuff grafted on to them that I dismiss it just as readily as I dismiss the Far Realm itself.

It's not a big deal.

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Well, to fair, a DM could make all elves have feathers, or make humans blue turtles.

And I guess that was part of my point - the DM (with player participation) can shape the various races. Don't like the background for shardmind (I don't either) - change it to something that fits.

In my campaign, I've tweeked most of the races, somewhat. Eladrin aren't fey, but are rather tolkeinesque high elves. Elves are more fey. Tieflings are half-demons. The PH2 & 3 races I haven't had to explain yet, as none of the players play them, but should they want to (or should I want one as an NPC), I'll be sure to define them in such a way that fits my campaign. Or if I can't, I simply won't allow them as a choice.

That said, I don't disagree with Flipguarder, either. If it doesn't fit, it doesn't fit, and the DM shouldn't have many reservations in simply not allowing it. Personally, I think there are many ways to reskin/refluff shardminds which might work - but ultimately, my opinion doesn't matter, and if Flip doesn't think they can fit in his game, they can't fit in his game.

Myself, I had similar reservations with the pacifist cleric. However, after thinking about it, I've come up with a compromise that is workable for me (when taking something down [minion, heavily damaged foe] the cleric has to do non-lethal damage - plus, importantly, has to roleplay the choice, so no more advocating genocide of the goblins) and the player who may go that route with his cleric. That said, I was fully ready to simply ban the feat, and would have if I hadn't found something that works.

 

[cdrcjsn]

Frankly, I'd put the onus of explaining how the race fits into the existing campaign world squarely on the player.

Unless the campaign is one where there are no strange creatures and where magic/psionics doesn't exist, I can't honestly fathom how something can't just be dropped into the campaign.

If nothing else, you can just strip all lore away and just use the mechanics. Leave its existence an enigma and make it a unique, one of a kind creature and you don't have to bother coming up with a society for it.

 

[bagger245]

I don't mind the new races but I would prefer if these races show up only during paragon tier. A shardmind hanging out in Fallcrest tavern still bugs me.