Drow - good for anything?

[Seeten]

30 drow mooks firing crossbows may knock out a player, but this discussion, for a long while now, has been about Drow PC's, not drow mooks the DM sends after the party.

Rogue? Oh, yeah. And because rogues will generally get ground to paste in melee, but need all the Dex they can get, the Dex/Con tradeoff works more in the Rogue's favor than other classes. The drawback is they need to be within 30' for their Sneak Attack to work. But they can cast Darkness to give themselves concealment when they need it. Stay at range, Sneak Attack when you can, and act as the party's Scout (you will be very good at this) and Mechanic. Possibly face man as well, but without a handy magical ability to disguise yourself this could be hard. Buy a Hat of Disguise.

Rogue: +2 int gives more skills, and improves many important skills. +2 Dex is important for everything. +2 cha allows pumping cha and going face, lots of awesome face skills as rogue. -2 con hurts a lot, as does 2 less HD.

I dont deny they make ok rogues, but the HD and lack of con make them even more fragile than a normal rogue, who is pretty fragile to start. Further, using darkness gives your enemies concealment against you, too, so you can no longer sneak attack.

I disagree on the Fighter. They arent good as a fighter. They benefit from SR, but their abilities and scores are poor for a fighter. Their die type offsets their HD loss, but they are not good fighters, they will just survive longer. It surely isnt their worst class, but they dont add much benefit.

Also, I apologize to Darklone for the snark. =)

 

[Felix]

30 drow mooks firing crossbows may knock out a player, but this discussion, for a long while now, has been about Drow PC's, not drow mooks the DM sends after the party.

Oh, sure. If the archer was a PC, I'd have him take levels in Fighter or Ranger, stay 120' back, and pepper the enemy while the melee PCs were engaging. If someone happens to fail a DC 14 fort save, then that's a bonus, eh?

There is, of course, a danger.

When applying the poison, there is a 5% chance to poison yourself. Fortunately, this can be done when passing out for a few minutes isn't so bad.

Secondly, when attacking with a poisoned weapon, a natural 1 will force a DC 15 Ref save or be poisoned: so a 5% chance, DC 15 Ref, DC 14 Fort/DC 14 Fort. So you may pass out from your own poison.

The good Evil way to get around this is the Assassin PrC; a Drow Fighter(archer)/Rogue/Assassin could do very well. Jarlaxle, anyone?

Or you could just go Bard/Assassin and sing people to death.

Further, using darkness gives your enemies concealment against you, too, so you can no longer sneak attack.

Absolutely; you'd use Darkness at a pinch when you really needed to Hide.

 

[Seeten]

There are a lot of ifs, buts, and and ifs in this "Look how good these crossbows and poison are, and remember this drow crossbow fighter is doing 1d4 dmg with his hand crossbow, unless we are now using a completely different weapon, which ANYONE could be using.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Anything that discourages my players from playing dark elves is fine by me!

You do not need (unbalanced) rules as written to discourage players from choosing any given thing - as DM, you can simply allow, or disallow, anything at all. Or change things for your campaign's needs, as you like.

 

[IanB]

You do not need the rules as written to discourage players from choosing any given thing - as DM, you can simply allow, or disallow, anything at all. Or change things for your campaign's needs, as you like.

Oh, I'm quite aware of that. However, built-in mechanical disadvantages to some choices also tends to create a mix of character types that reflects the 'world as a whole' in my setting. Thus humans being a strong choice means a lot of humans; drow being a poor choice means few drow. I see this as a Good Thing.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Hrm. Well, fair enough. To each their own.

 

[Seeten]

This reasoning from IanB will lead to 4e drow being massively overpowered by WotC because Wizards know the majority of their players love drow, and they will want to keep them happy.

Be careful what you wish for, Ian

 

[Victim]

Hmm. I guess the iconic drow hand crossbow with its poison doesn't help to balance anything, right?

Hand crossbows are, for most characters, like shortbows but worse AND exotic. Plus all rogues have proficiency in the mini X bow anyway.

It's not like non-drow can't have Craft: Poison.

 

[Felon]

To be fair, the drow has commensurate benefits.

+1 DC for Wizard or Sorcerer spells.
+1 extra Spell/day for Wizards and Sorcerers.
+1 Skill point per HD
+1 AC
+1 Ref Save
+2 Will Save (v spells and SLA's)

I am not contending that the Drow is a better caster than a human, merely that the drow do get nice benefits associated with the admittedly painful drawbacks you continue to cite..

Actually, you're digging your own grave here.

+1 Skill point per HD for high Intelligence? Well, if it's a skill-centric character, like a rogue, ranger, scout, etc, then the drow is losing major skill points due to the +2 LA. A drow rogue will just break even at 18th level (16 levels of rogue, 2 of drow). Even a fighter loses out on 4 (plus whatever his unadjusted Int mod would be).

+1 Ref Save and +2 Will save? Level adjustments cause characters to lose saving throw mods as well.

Folks, level adjustments are extremely pernicious, and the designers just didn't do a good job of realizing that. The notion that a race should be charged a level adjustment simply because it has ability score bonuses that don't "zero out" is ridiculous. A hobgoblin fighter (+2 Dex, +2 Con, darkvision, little else) does not patently outclass a human or dwarven fighter, not even if it had +0 LA.

If you're a warrior, LAs cost you attack progression and hit points.
If you're a skill-user, LAs cost you a ton of skill points.
If you're a spellcaster, LAs cost you spell progression.
And here's the kicker: a +2 or +4 to an ability score really doesn't make up the difference. In most cases, it doesn't even cover the spread. Your 18 Int tiefling rogue is not more skilled than a 16 Int human or halfling rogue. Your 18 Con hobgoblin does not wind up with more HP than a 16 Con human. Not for a long, long time anyway.

The approach taken with the gith races was pretty promising. They don't get a bunch of abilities up front like most races. They gain them as they advance. If racial benefits and the resulting "shaft levels" were spread out rather than front-loaded, it wouldn't be so painful. But it seems that the option of playing a monstrous character is intended to be unappealing.

 

[wildstarsreach]

Actually, you're digging your own grave here.

+1 Skill point per HD for high Intelligence? Well, if it's a skill-centric character, like a rogue, ranger, scout, etc, then the drow is losing major skill points due to the +2 LA. A drow rogue will just break even at 18th level (16 levels of rogue, 2 of drow). Even a fighter loses out on 4 (plus whatever his unadjusted Int mod would be).

+1 Ref Save and +2 Will save? Level adjustments cause characters to lose saving throw mods as well.

Folks, level adjustments are extremely pernicious, and the designers just didn't do a good job of realizing that. The notion that a race should be charged a level adjustment simply because it has ability score bonuses that don't "zero out" is ridiculous. A hobgoblin fighter (+2 Dex, +2 Con, darkvision, little else) does not patently outclass a human or dwarven fighter, not even if it had +0 LA.

If you're a warrior, LAs cost you attack progression and hit points.
If you're a skill-user, LAs cost you a ton of skill points.
If you're a spellcaster, LAs cost you spell progression.
And here's the kicker: a +2 or +4 to an ability score really doesn't make up the difference. In most cases, it doesn't even cover the spread. Your 18 Int tiefling rogue is not more skilled than a 16 Int human or halfling rogue. Your 18 Con hobgoblin does not wind up with more HP than a 16 Con human. Not for a long, long time anyway.

The approach taken with the gith races was pretty promising. They don't get a bunch of abilities up front like most races. They gain them as they advance. If racial benefits and the resulting "shaft levels" were spread out rather than front-loaded, it wouldn't be so painful. But it seems that the option of playing a monstrous character is intended to be unappealing.

That is why I thinking that the unearthed arcana suggestion would fix in the long term of play the LA problem. Not short term.

My DM does have a method of character construction that does allow an LA +1 or +2 character to start at 1st level but the stats given are much lower. If we are playing a 28 or 32 point buy game, then they get elite array for LA+1, and standard array for LA+2. This does not allow you to optimize the way the point buy would. All in all, only one player too an LA+1. I considered taking a drow but chose otherwise.

This did allow full progression though, you traded LA for Stat points and flexibility.