Excerpt: Racial Benefits

[katahn]

re: Multiclassing

"Argh! I have to waste feats to get these benefits!"

re: Racial Abilities

"Argh! I have to waste feats to get these benefits!"

Some folks are... well at least they're consistent right?

I thought the base race abilities were decent to begin with, so I don't really see the problem with letting people get more racial abilities as feats. If nothing else, if a racial feat doesn't fit well with your choice of class, you aren't penalized by having your character balanced around an ability you'll never use and is no benefit. You can choose to pick something that actually is useful.

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

Some of these are clearly better than others.

Enlarge Dragon Breath increases the aoe area by almost 200%. How is that on par with, say, +1 to acrobatics/stealth and a bonus to overland speed? I'm also not a huge fan to these little situational bonuses like Dodge Giants. It's certainly less of a problem than Dodge from 3e, but it's basically the same issue: the bonus is limited to specific situations, and in this case, it's possible one might even not fight Large or larger creatures.

Race, and which race is the best choice (mechanically vs. thematicly), is tough to balance. This is the first preview that's left me luke warm. I do like that they've chosen to go the feat route, however, because at least these can be retrained for something else.

 

[Wulfram]

I wonder how this is explained:

"Light Step____Elf____Add to overland speed of group, +1 to Acrobatics and Stealth"

good pathfinding abilities, I guess. The elf helps stop blundering humans from walking into trees, which tends to slow you down a bit.

 

[Eridanis]

Stay on topic, please, folks...

 

[Ingolf]

This article game me the impression darkvision is gone. . . Has this been mentioned before?

It's gone as a PC ability and a lot less common as an NPC ability.

 

[Jack99]

Unrelated question:

This article game me the impression darkvision is gone. . . Has this been mentioned before?


P.S. Jeez, I hate the idea of dragonborn as a core race. Talk about killing sense of wonder.

It is no longer gone, but instead no longer a player race thing. Only races that live far underground will get darkvision, afaik.

Lowlight presumably works as in 3.x, extending the range at which you can see, given some light.

 

[Lizard]

You're right of course, except that you're wrong. No one HAS to purchase even one of these feats.

I think he meant "Have to purchase" in the sense of "if you want them".

And, yes, it is obvious 4e will have just as many fiddly bits to remember as 3e.

I consider this a saving grace, not a problem. I just wish they hadn't spent so much time telling us how stripped down and simplified the game would be, when it's clearly not so much. It turned me off early and it's hard to recover from that. (OTOH, the revelation that 4e isn't FUDGE is going to turn off some early supporters, and I get to do the schadenfreude dance.)

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

Some of these are clearly better than others.

Enlarge Dragon Breath increases the aoe area by almost 200%. How is that on par with, say, +1 to acrobatics/stealth and a bonus to overland speed? I'm also not a huge fan to these little situational bonuses like Dodge Giants. It's certainly less of a problem than Dodge from 3e, but it's basically the same issue: the bonus is limited to specific situations, and in this case, it's possible one might even not fight Large or larger creatures.

Race, and which race is the best choice (mechanically vs. thematicly), is tough to balance. This is the first preview that's left me luke warm. I do like that they've chosen to go the feat route, however, because at least these can be retrained for something else.

But the Dragon Breath feat is an encounter power, I believe, as compared to a continuous power. We also don't know how much damage the Dragonborn Dragon Breath does, so even if it's spread over a wide area it may not be that effective.

P.S. Jeez, I hate the idea of dragonborn as a core race. Talk about killing sense of wonder.

Why does it kill your sense of wonder, exactly? Personally, I don't find Dragonborn any more remarkable than Eladrin who can teleport short distances on a daily basis.

 

[Rechan]

Some of these are clearly better than others.

Enlarge Dragon Breath increases the aoe area by almost 200%. How is that on par with, say, +1 to acrobatics/stealth and a bonus to overland speed?

We don't know how often the Dragonborn can use its breath. It might be a daily ability. So you get the AOE increased 200%... for a one shot deal.

Meanwhile, the Dwarf gets that +1 to AC and Ref vs. large opponents - Every Time they attack him. That's every round.

Also there comes a drawback of enlarging an AoE: The threat of catching your party in it. That was one of the most frustrating things for me, playing the 4e wizard in a demo: Many times, my party were adjacent to the enemy, so any effect that radiated outwards to adjacent foes (Acid Arrow, Force Orb, Scorching Burst) wasn't usable.

 

[DerekSTheRed]

Always made sense to me. You spend time honing and improving your natural gifts, instead of working on training in a profession. It seems logical to me that if everyone in a race can do X, some will be better at X than others. And fantasy fiction is full of "You must learn the ways of the Ancient Great Ones, who truly mastered the gifts the gods have given us" bullcrap.

Racial Levels sucked for the same reasons multiclassing sucked. It was pointless for casters. What was the point of taking 3 to 5 levels of a racial class before starting a wizard? Completely suboptimal for casters. Now in 4E, every class gets the opportunity to pick up extra racial abilities.

Derek