D&D 4E Comparing 4e Races

[ThirdWizard]

I can attest that it is. In my playtest, through judicious use of this (combined with an unnaturally bad rolling streak on my part), the halfling was immune to damage. Also, I have to hand it to the player. His usage of it was in such a way that it annoyed me and caused me to make mistakes. I commended him for his manipulativeness.

That paladin was totally powergamed! High AC with lost in the crowd with second chance is killer. I also made the mistake of giving him +1 armor.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I got the hong into one of my threads! I've truly reached a milestone... where's my action point?

Given your average post frequency, it seems you spend it on this post.
Trust me, I am as disappointed as you are.

For the real topic. I' think I'll wait for some experience with the game before I try to judge it. At this point, I don't believe we have enough information to come to a reasonable conclusion.

 

[Amakar]

I find all the races to be quite interesting, all having their own play style.

Elves - The increased speed and enhanced shifting make for some awesome tactics. Also, I think elves are prone to herioc 'save the day' moments. When you absolutely /have/ to hit with that daily power... re-roll. An elf is more likely to rush in for the awesomely cool longshot plan, becuase A) they are faster and B) they can reroll.

Half-elf - Someone's gonna find expected synergy in borrowed powers. Something crazy.

Dwarf - The dwarf might actually be a little imbalanced, depending on what powers come out. If there are powers that work only while bloodied, or better while bloodied.. the dwarf will be able to abuse these... strike frist while bloodied, and then second wind yourself out of danger. Powers balanced against the tradeoff of being bloodied will be abusable by dwarves.


Halfling - The ability to force a reroll on an attack is huge with a character with low HP but a decent AC.

Teifling - I see interesting synergy with a wizard throwing area fire effects that can't overcome the Teifling's fire resistance.

Human - I am interested to see where they'll go.. in 3e they were your shortcuts to paragon paths and your way to sidestep appropriate levels for certain things.

Eladrin - Teleporting is going to be abusable.. withthe right tactics, potentially one of the most game breaking. In the ruins.. teleport to the top of that pillar and become a rain of arrowy death... and this at first level. Also, the teleport thign could invalidte climb skills and make Eladrin very interesting spies and thieves..

 

[NebtheNever]

I find all the races to be quite interesting, all having their own play style.
Human - I am interested to see where they'll go.. in 3e they were your shortcuts to paragon paths and your way to sidestep appropriate levels for certain things.

You probably mean prestige classes.

 

[FadedC]

The halfling, elf and dwarf all have powerful encounter changing abilities.

Humans have an extra at will power, which didn't seem as powerful until we learned you will only ever get 2 for your whole career. So this could be very powerful depending on your class (although the pregen cleric was clearly built around ranged damage and didn't benefit that much from the extra melee power).

Eladrin have a racial teleport, it's unclear if it's as encounter changing as the halfling elf and dwarf but it's still pretty cool and noticable.

This leaves tielfling, dragonborn and half elf who don't seem to have anything all that dramatic. Maybe the mutliclassing thing is stronger then I'm giving it credit, and the tiefling fire resistant could be pretty dramatic given the low damage values (but it's value depends on the campaign and how common fire is).

 

[Vael]

I'm not really sure it's as strong as people seem to think it is. Most at-will powers are going to be attacks, which means they're going to be standard actions. You can only take one standard action per round, so unless you're using an action point, you're only going to be able to use one of your at-wills each round, regardless of how many you have. It adds a little bit more versatility, bot not necessarily more power. An additional encounter or daily power would be a whole different story, though.

But versatility is power, in that you have the right power for the job. At-Will powers look to be the bread and butter for the bulk of a PCs adventuring career, given that they don't have a lot of encounter and dailies, and that combat takes more rounds to resolve, PCs will be using their at-wills from 1st to 30th. So having an extra choice seems quite impressive. We know 3 wizard at-wills already, and I'm quite enjoying puzzling over which 2 is the optimal choice. Is Ray of Frost's slow effect better than Magic Missile's superior range and damage? Do you need Scorching Burst's area of effect? This is with only knowing three powers, I can already see the attraction of playing a human and getting all three.

 

[Shroomy]

Here's an interesting power, the halfling's re-roll power is roughly equivalent to the wizard's displacement spell, which is what, a 16th level utility spell (the key difference is that the wizard can use it on another person).

 

[FabioMilitoPagliara]

But versatility is power, in that you have the right power for the job. At-Will powers look to be the bread and butter for the bulk of a PCs adventuring career, given that they don't have a lot of encounter and dailies, and that combat takes more rounds to resolve, PCs will be using their at-wills from 1st to 30th. So having an extra choice seems quite impressive. We know 3 wizard at-wills already, and I'm quite enjoying puzzling over which 2 is the optimal choice. Is Ray of Frost's slow effect better than Magic Missile's superior range and damage? Do you need Scorching Burst's area of effect? This is with only knowing three powers, I can already see the attraction of playing a human and getting all three.

exactly, while the various race have nice and even very powerfull powers (the reroll of the elf, the eladrint 'port, the halfling reroll) the idea of having one more trick up your sleeve is very tempting, until now I was more oriented toward an eladrin mage but now also the human one look very tempting

 

[jaldaen]

From the PHB photos just posted here we see the ranger gets +1 to Fortitude and Reflex, but not +1 to Will, which means for the pregen eladrin ranger to work out, the Eladrin must get a +1 to Will as well. This change will be made in PrRC v2.2.

Thanks I'll update the race write-up...

The +1 Will fits well with the fact that the eladrin only has a +2 History... I was wondering where the other skill bonus went... I think it went to the Will save instead.