[ALLURIA PUBLISHING] Alluria Overhuals Products

Emberion

First Post
As many of you know, we are a new company to the 3rd party 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons electronic book scene. As a new company, we had limited resources and experience. Because of this, we made a few errors here and there. Despite this, we have been fairly successful. We have you and your patience with us to thank.

As we move forward, we have decided to reinvest out success back into our existing product, as well as future products. In this spirit, we hired three new talented people. First, Paul Klein was brought on as an additional editor to help with both grammatical issues and number checking. He has been working alongside us for some of the recent revisions, and has proved to be a valuable resource. Second, we hired Michael Lenahan as a 4th Edition Rules Consultant. We found Michael to be quite masterful at giving great advice on 4E game design, and is very good at working with a concept to make it better and more balanced. Last, but not least, Tim Adams is helping us give our product a more “4th edition design appeal.”

With our newly improved staff, we decided to do an overhaul of our existing product line. We started with the obitu. We finally eliminated the +4 dexterity bonus, as while it worked in playtesting, may be unbalanced in specific situations that were not covered in the playtesting. Many other rules were slightly revised as well to reflect both attention to game balance and continuity with 4e design concepts. You will also notice less purple and more 4E coloration. By popular demand, we now use 4E standard color shading for tables. The obitu revision is finished and can be uploaded immediately. This update is available to all customers at no additional cost. We are not raising the cost of our product, nor are we charging for these updates.

The other products (oakling, entobian, boggle, and mogogol) will be updated in the next few weeks, starting with the entobian in the next few days. I will announce the updates here (in this thread) as well, for those that do not recieve email updates.

At Alluria Publishing we are very committed to bringing the customer the best possible product. Please look for future products, coming soon. The first of which will be a new set of Remarkable Races: The Ancients Rediscovered. We will explore ancient and forgotten races that have recently come to light-- The Mahrogs; a race of goddess-favored cavemen, The Zif; Snail-things from eons passed, The Relluks; Living constructs from an age gone by, The Anumi; Pets who were gifted with human form, and The Taddol; two-headed PCs who are meant to be two characters in one!

Thank you,
 

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Excellent! Before you finish the others, here's some comments... I look forward to the future races! Are the Anumi going to be the "common anthromorph" race instead of a bunch of them?


ENTOBIANS

1. There's no manuverability rating listed after the fly speed for the Moscanite Metamorphosis. That's something that kind of needs to be known.

2. If one holds off until Epic Tier to Metamophose and creates a Matron, it says, "There are 20 possibilities!" Buuut.. I only count 10.

Larvite/Coleophite
Larvite/Farfalite
Larvite/Moscanite
Larvite/Eulite
Coleophite/Farfalite (Scarab traits)
Coleophite/Moscanite
Coleophite/Eulite
Farfalite/Moscanite (Dragonfly traits)
Farfalite/Eulite
Moscanite/Eulite

I think the 20-count is an error, but aside from that, it would be terrific to know just what the other 8 Matrons resemble. And wow.. if the artist happens to have any more drawings (even just rougher doodles) of such Matrons.. That would be fantastic. The Entobians are really awsome.

OAKLINGS

Decently cool, physicaly. It would be murder trying to decide between which Magic Mistletoes to host, though.. I mean.. wow.. One for each tier.. and there are four of them. And they all have terrific functionality and flavor.. and.. I guess I just object to the limit on magical berries, given that one is a level 1 utility, especialy.

I like the Glowberries a lot, but it would be tacticaly a waste to pick them over any of the other three.

I object to the evaluated power level of the Healer's Berries, too. I mean.. it's treated as a level 8 or level 18 magic item? At level 8, it cures 4 hp per day and at level 18 it cures 8 hp per day? Ummm.. that's nothing. That's way less than just a bonus healing surge, altogether.

I don't think EITHER the Healer's or Glowberries are above level 1 in power.. Nor do I think either is in any way strong enough to restrict them to one type per tier.... Honestly.

Waterberries aren't exactly that powerful a utility either.. Any given fire attack is going to wipe them out in one shot, so they're basicaly a daily defense.

Truthfully, I think I'd rather have seen the Magic Mistletoe as feats that just let Oaklings grow those particular berries.. They're not powerful enough to be overballancing in that fashion, even Brainwort, given that it takes a standard action to apply one to a weapon, and then another standard action (generaly) to use said weapon.

In any case, though, I can't really picture myself using one. They're physicaly very interesting, but their personalities seem horrid and/or unexciting to try to play.

Honestly, I think they'd be a terrific race if A) the Magic Mistletoe were feats instead of (in my opinion, over-rated) magic items, and B) they didn't have such restrictive, self-involved, and emotionless personalities.

BOGGLE

These guys seem hillarious and interesting. And they have wonderful toys. I have a few big questions with them, though.

1. The mechanical limbs entry says "components can be attached". Does that mean like Warforged style attached components? Can embeded components be used, too? Which ones are viable?

2. The Boggle weapons don't indicate whether they are Simble, Military, or Superior. It says they are "common to the boggle arsenal," but the Boggle doesn't have any Weapon Proficiency ractial feature regarding them. So.. What are they? Can Boggles automaticaly use them?

3. It mentions several times about the stuff they build, and the Arcane Craft feat even says you cannot use it with items you did not craft yourself. However, the article doesn't in any way address crafting rules for any of this stuff. Boggle Juice uses the Alchemy mechanics from Adventurer's Vault, but when it comes to anything else, what crafting rules are we intended to use?

4. I think Catastrophic Touch might be a bit broken.. It seems rather permanently destructive, which 4E powers don't seem to be, otherwise...

MOGOGOL

These guys are hillarious. And they've got purchasable pets! (Too bad they're all frogs..) I love the color options on the pets, but still.. frogs.. Given their names and curse, I unfortunately don't see one of these guys coming off as anything more than comedy relief. You know what I wish? I wish Boggles or Entobians had pets.

All in all, I don't think a Mogogol would be fun to play, but I think it would be a lot of fun to visit a village of them sometime.
 

All of these rules issues will be addressed in the upcoming edits for each race (coming soon!).

Since you asked of the anumi, I'll give another little tidbit; They can be derived from just about any animal. There will be a sneak peek of all the new races on our website in a few days. And the best thing is, with all our new people, these new products should have far less issues than our original product releases.

Thanks for the good reviews!
 

All of these rules issues will be addressed in the upcoming edits for each race (coming soon!).

Since you asked of the anumi, I'll give another little tidbit; They can be derived from just about any animal. There will be a sneak peek of all the new races on our website in a few days. And the best thing is, with all our new people, these new products should have far less issues than our original product releases.

Thanks for the good reviews!

No problem. I didn't want it to look like complaints... more of concerns to address before you overhaul them.

Thanks, and keep up the great work!


Chris
 

I recently purchased the Entobian and Obitu pdfs, and let me say, awesome. But I do have a few questions that could use some clarification.

Entobians:
Mid-legs: When it says 'you may move 1 square faster in difficult terrain' does this mean that the entobian effectively adds +1 to its movement when it first encounters difficult terrain on its move action?
Larvite Leviathan: Have the effects of being large size been stated for 4e? Does the entobian's reach increase as a result of the size increase?

Obitu:
Necrotic Resistance: Is there a reason it doesn't scale as 5+1/2 level similar to the energy resistance of other races?
Plagueborn: Is complete immunity to something too much?
Triple Jointed: As it is currently written it technically doesn't give any bonus to escaping a Grab since Athletics and Acrobatics are the relevant skills, rather than Reflex.
Quickstrike: Where it says 'you may make a melee attack' does it mean any melee attack (powers) or just a basic melee attack?
Obitu Infection: Are the specifics for how this disease is spread left up to DM discretion?

That's about it, look forward to more releases from Alluria :)
 

I recently purchased the Entobian and Obitu pdfs, and let me say, awesome. But I do have a few questions that could use some clarification.

Obitu:
Necrotic Resistance: Is there a reason it doesn't scale as 5+1/2 level similar to the energy resistance of other races?
Plagueborn: Is complete immunity to something too much?
Triple Jointed: As it is currently written it technically doesn't give any bonus to escaping a Grab since Athletics and Acrobatics are the relevant skills, rather than Reflex.
Quickstrike: Where it says 'you may make a melee attack' does it mean any melee attack (powers) or just a basic melee attack?
Obitu Infection: Are the specifics for how this disease is spread left up to DM discretion?

That's about it, look forward to more releases from Alluria :)

For the entobian, I encourage you to wait for the overhaul update which answers your question and addresses many other issues. It will likely be released late tonight.

as for the obitu:

Necrotic resistence: we prefer the 5/10/15 scale. In our independant playtesting it worked out better than the 5+1/2 level model. It also helps balance out the resistence/possible immunity to disease that obitu also get (as 5/10/15 is not as immediately powerful as 5 +1/2).

Plagueborn: Complete immunity would be too much if it was an energy type (such as necrotic). With disease, however, complete immunity is not much of a problem. In real life, diseases are fairly species specific, with a couple of exceptions, but few, if any, affect ALL lifeforms. Obitu, being a new and unique lifeform that itself originates from a disease that affects things that are normally immune to disease seems fairly logical that they would be highly resistant if not immune. That and the disease mechanic is not frequently encountered and fairly easy to counter.

Triple jointed: this refers to grab effects that can be avoided with a reflex check. The escaping part, I admit is a poor choice of words (and does not refer to the "Escape" manuever). The power aids just in avoiding a grab, not escaping one once you are grabbed. Though, it can't be used wrong, because, as you pointed out, it adds no bonus to escape once grabbed. The wording refers to escaping the grab attempt.

quickstrike: melee basic attack is implied

obitu infection: as described in the ecology section, the disease is bloodborne and "the undead must ingest the blood, be injected with it or be in contact with large amounts of it". In addition, it can be spread through feats such as Death Bane touch, which uses a slightly different mechanic than the disease itself, but has the same ultimate effect.

Thanks for your interest and I hope that I addressed your issues well enough.

Happy gaming!
 
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The entobian is now updated with the revised version. It address all of the concerns in this thread.

Thundershot: the is no maneuverability rating for flying in 4e. Like the berbalang or manticore, the moscanite simply has no descriptors (such as clumsy or hover).

Thanks!

Oh, and if you don't yet have the entobian, look for a discount offer in a seperate thread.
 

Page 48 of the DMG has the special descriptors for flying. I'm not crazy... I did see monsters with "clumsy" or "hover" in their files...

Unless I misread that and you just didn't want to use any special descriptors... right?
 

Page 48 of the DMG has the special descriptors for flying. I'm not crazy... I did see monsters with "clumsy" or "hover" in their files...

Unless I misread that and you just didn't want to use any special descriptors... right?

Yes, there are special descriptors for flying :) However, its not like the 3e maneuverability class, they are just descriptors that add to the flying rules. The moscanite flying ability has no descriptors; they are not clumsy flyers, nor can they hover. Other 4E flight descriptors include overland flight, altitude limit, and clumsy grounded.
 

The entobian is now updated with the revised version. It address all of the concerns in this thread.

Thanks, I've just read through the updated version.

The updated Mid-Leg Attack is a much better mechanic. It's a decent attack, but not unbalanced compared to simple weapons.

I'd have to say the new attack from Silk Spray is well out of line as a racial power. It should match an at-will power at most. This ability didn't need to be improved in the first place. The previous Silk Spin was fine with just the change to its duration, which I think is an improvement.
 

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