Dwarves racial power?

[Micmonkey98]

I respect dwarves, not only as clerics, but as fighters and paladins and anything that needs to be tough. The only problem I see is that they don't have a racial Power. Most racial powers are great, like teleportation and rerolling an attack, be it yours or the enemies, but the dwarves don't even have one.

I was thinking of giving them one as a house rule, because the lack of a cool ability deters most players from using them. But, as i have never gotten a character to high levels, i dont know what would be especially OP or UP or if they dont need one at all. I would like to give them a defensive boost of sorts, like a temp bonus o AC, a bonus to Con, or better yet, temp hit points, say 3 + Con Mod. Any ideas?

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

As someone once eloquently said "Second Wind is the dwarf's racial power." So no, dwarves don't need a "real" racial power -- second winding as a minor is awesome enough.

This does create a problem for dwarven NPCs though, who don't have SW. Oddly, nobody ever complains about it.

 

[Herobizkit]

Dwarves can use Second Wind as a minor action instead of a standard action, resist forced movement, and can immediately save to avoid being knocked prone.

They also have excellent feat support.

Point is, Dwarves are a Warrior-race... and warrior-races get abilities that help them fight. So what if they can't teleport around the battlefield, or disappear into shadows, or fly? It's not what Dwarves do.

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

To chime up with the others, the ability to use second wind, get the bonuses to defences from that AND attack (without using an action point) may not be flashy, but IS quite powerful. Indeed, my most power-gamey player's first 2 4e characters have been dwarves, in large part because of how useful being able to "minor 2nd wind" is.

Indeed, with the new monster math having creatures often dealing a surge worth of damage on a hit, pretty much only dwarves who do use second wind.

IMHO, I think its an ability at least on par with the Eladrin's Fey Step... amd even more so in a party without much healing.

 

[tiornys]

I will simply add my voice to the others, and note that in their Essentials write-up, the ability to Second Wind as a minor action is in fact written up as a power instead of as a property.

t~

 

[Keenberg]

Dwarves can break Wind faster than anyone else, and for them, it feels GREAT!

 

[Micmonkey98]

I suppose that does make sense. I just realized how many times not having to take a break to surge has saved my bearded self. Resisting knockback is fun too, when everyone gets blown away and you can just run back in

 

[Micmonkey98]

And going hammer time with a cleric! Never gets old!

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Shoot-fire!

My Dwarven Starlock/Psion gets as much utility out of SW and movement resistance as the party's Dwarf Fighter...and Cleric*. And gets a good deal out of his Warhammer, too.

Dwarves don't really need much else.







* at one point, it looked like our group was going to strongly resemble Snow White and the 7 Dwarves- the first 4 PCs generated were the 3 mentioned above and a Human Frost Mage.

 

[Klaus]

I respect dwarves, not only as clerics, but as fighters and paladins and anything that needs to be tough. The only problem I see is that they don't have a racial Power. Most racial powers are great, like teleportation and rerolling an attack, be it yours or the enemies, but the dwarves don't even have one.

I was thinking of giving them one as a house rule, because the lack of a cool ability deters most players from using them. But, as i have never gotten a character to high levels, i dont know what would be especially OP or UP or if they dont need one at all. I would like to give them a defensive boost of sorts, like a temp bonus o AC, a bonus to Con, or better yet, temp hit points, say 3 + Con Mod. Any ideas?

To make it clearer that yes, dwarves *do* have a racial power, their "Second Wind as a minor action" ability was formatted as an Encounter Power in Essentials.