Excerpt: Racial Benefits

[Reaper Steve]

Thanks Boarstorm (and everyone else who tried but wasn't as fast!)

 

[ShockMeSane]

This looks nice. I like humanity's niche in this, resiliant and dogheaded compared to the other races. Especially Action surge, that one might be very good.

Yea, +3 to hit on your daily is pretty solid, seeing as I imagine that's largely what Action Points will be used for.

 

[med stud]

Yea, +3 to hit on your daily is pretty solid, seeing as I imagine that's largely what Action Points will be used for.

Not only that, you get +3 to the bonus action you get as well! Cast Acid arrow with +3, then use the extra standard action to cast Force orb at +3 as well. You could do some serious room sweeping with a human wizard

 

[hennebeck]

Some of those are amazingly powerful (the breath weapon one in particular). Some are pure crap. How is a +1 AC vs large creatures not a fiddly easy-to-forget bonus like the 3e Dodge feat? And how does that compare against adding 16 squares to a minor-action AE power?

I've been beaten to the explanation but I want to chime in.

In 3.x, all dwarves got the fiddly +1 to Giants.
In 4e, you choose to take it, which means it isn't fiddly, you conciously choose the feat (Fighters don't forget about Power Attack).
So, you know from level 1, that you are made to fight Larger things. Larger things being Dragons, Trolls, Umber Hulks. If you choose this, there is less chance you will miss it in combat. You will always go toe-to-toe with the Larger guys while your allies take out smaller minions and such.
I'm guessing with the re-tolling of 4e math, they must have a reason why they only get +1 to AC but +2 to attacks.

 

[ShockMeSane]

Not only that, you get +3 to the bonus action you get as well! Cast Acid arrow with +3, then use the extra standard action to cast Force orb at +3 as well. You could do some serious room sweeping with a human wizard

Unfortunately in the larger text it states -

Action Surge [Human]
Prerequisite: Human
Benefit: You gain a +3 bonus to attack rolls you make during any action you gained by spending an action point.

Sounds restricted to a single action to me. Still, +3 to hit on your most clutch attack isn't a bad deal.

 

[Raduin711]

My first impressions? Not good. It seems to me that what they did is say "hey, lets take a bunch of those little bonuses, like +1 dodge against giants, make them feats people have to purchase, and then pat ourselves on the back for making races "important" beyond 1st level!"

Did you happen to catch the part about how that feat works on any creature size Large or bigger? Definitely feat-worthy.

 

[ShockMeSane]

I'm guessing with the re-tolling of 4e math, they must have a reason why they only get +1 to AC but +2 to attacks.

This may have been a typo on your part, or maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see any Heroic Feats that grant a passive +2 to hit bonus. To damage, yea (maybe that was your point... but the relationship with damage and AC isn't as pertinent for what you are describing). In fact, not one of the feats listed grants a +hit bonus. This isn't to say that there aren't any, of course.

Nonetheless, I'll stand by my argument that having a +1 to AC and Reflex (dragon breath anyone?) from anything the size of an ogre+ is going to be a heck of a lot better when you don't variably have level 15 monsters with either a +15 to hit or a +36 like 3.x did. Is it the best feat of all time? Of course not, but I don't think its a pointless feat-trap/prereq that Dodge was.

 

[Falling Icicle]

Did you happen to catch the part about how that feat works on any creature size Large or bigger? Definitely feat-worthy.

Yes I caught that and I respectfully disagree. It's the new dodge.

 

[Victim]

I'm guessing with the re-tolling of 4e math, they must have a reason why they only get +1 to AC but +2 to attacks.

It probably has to with the much lower damage/HP ratio and the desire to make monsters useful across a wider range of levels. More AC means weaker monsters become ineffectual faster. And since characters are tougher in general, too much defense stacking has a multiplying effect.

 

[Sammael]

So many situational modifiers...