Bullywugs

[ourchair]

Yeah, 4e's philosophy is strongly against inherent racial penalties, as you can see by looking at every race created so far. The monster races are different, since they're meant to be fought, so that the PCs can figure out their weakness and exploit it.

I subscribe to this logic. Bullywug PCs should not have racial penalties just because the monster version of the race does, and you can easily differentiate the mechanical differences between the monster and the PC by saying well, "It's a HERO Bullywug, he's quite exceptional you know. I mean, for a Bullywug."

The DM would know any obvious weaknesses that the PCs had and would be able to exploit them easier, thus putting the PCs at an unfair disadvantage.

Though I can imagine such a scenario:

Wizard: I gave myself a weakness to ice so that I could gain better fire spells. No one will be able to stop me!

DM: Oh, what's that? Five encounters in a row with monsters that all do at-will ice damage? Whoops, you're dead.

Wizard: HEY!

LOL.

 

[ravenheart]

Yeah, it's Nature's Release. Basically, anyone who crits them can heal 4 or 5 hitpoints. It's supposed to represent the natural world's satisfaction at having the strange, alien frogmen thwacked.


Because PCs bullywugs are "reformed," I probably won't make it so that enemies benefit from critting bullywugs. Perhaps the ancestors of PC bullywugs made an agreement with the primal spirits or something. However, having something happen when they crit or when someone crits them might be cool. I might be tempted to make a feat out of it if we can't make a good racial ability out of it.

How about making it a feat that grants the attacker hitpoints equal to your healing surge value and you gain combat advantage against the creature until the end of the encounter? Call it something like "Nature's Deadly Release".

 

[Rachel]

For our "B-Team" adventurers (when the main campaign DM needs to take a break or when not everyone can make it)...

Oh crap that's me, I DM in those cases! Didn't know I was on the "B-Team"... Thanx alot.

lol

 

[Nahat Anoj]

Oh crap that's me, I DM in those cases! Didn't know I was on the "B-Team"... Thanx alot.

lol

If it's any consolation, some players have mentioned they like the simple, back to basics low level aspect of the game.

Back to bullywugs, I've had to set them aside for a while. But I was thinking of giving them a swim speed 4 instead of a swim check reroll. The advantage is that if a creature has a swim speed it doesn't require an Athletics check to swim, so it's more powerful. But swimming has hardly shown up in any of my games, so I'm not sure it would be all that powerful - swampwalk is a more powerful feature IMO.