Gnome Variant

[Camelot]

Lightbringer_Gnome

The concept here comes from my homebrew world, in which gnomes were created by the god of light and hope. In the core D&D 4e world, lightbringer gnomes can be gnomes who don't hide because they don't want to get caught after playing a nasty prank, but rather they hide because they are pacifists who don't want to fight with the larger (literally) world.

The soothing touch power is a simple but kind of revolutionary idea; no current 4e race has a healing power, much less a surgeless healing power. I hope I didn't round too low to make up for the fact that it's additional surgeless healing.

Would you incorporate these gnomes into your campaign world? Do you think it's balanced?

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Fun idea, but I wouldn't allow soothing touch as-is.

 

[Camelot]

Fun idea, but I wouldn't allow soothing touch as-is.

Care to elaborate why not and how you'd change it?

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

I explained a little more in your blog; if it were a daily power or if it was a simple surge trigger (like a leader's power, but without the extras), I'd allow it.

 

[Mengu]

I actually think soothing touch is a little weak. I think it can be empowered a bit, and you can also address Tequila's concern.

Soothing Touch - Gnome Racial Utility
Your hand glows dimly, and a small wound on you or an ally mends itself as quickly as it appeared.
Encounter * Healing
Immediate Reaction - Melee touch
Trigger: You or an adjacent ally is hit
Target: Triggering target
Effect: The target regains 5 hit points.
- Level 11: 10 hit points.
- Level 21: 15 hit points.

This would bring it up to par with things like Half-orc Resilience, Goliath Stone's Endurance, Warforged Resolve, etc.

With this change, defensive touch goes to pot though. I'd change it to instead grant the target half level+3 temporary hit points. Or maybe make a saving throw.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

With this change, defensive touch goes to pot though. I'd change it to instead grant the target half level+3 temporary hit points. Or maybe make a saving throw.

I'd be down with temp hp and bonus saves.

It's just the surgeless encounter healing that would be broken in my game, [and a lot of DMs' games, unless I do things radically differently than most].

 

[Camelot]

Good suggestions, thanks. From the roleplaying side, I don't like the power to be a triggerd action. In fact, one of the scenes I imagined when I was coming up with how to put the idea into D&D was a gnome finding a wounded animal in the feywild. His hand glows and the animal pops back up and trots away.

As a triggered action, he'd need to be there when the creature got hurt. Most gnomes (maybe a helpful NPC) would hide during the battle though, and come out to heal when the fighting is done. A heroic gnome would of course be in the midst of the battle and mechanically your suggestion makes sense, but I'm going to stop and triple consider it because of the flavor.

 

[Mengu]

Well, these powers are for PC's not for NPC's. Your NPC gnomes can heal at-will if you want, that doesn't really matter too much.

You can think of immediate reaction as kind of like the 5 second rule, if the gnome gets to the wound in 5 seconds, it can be fixed, 6 seconds, and it's too late.

There is always a compromise to be made when balancing flavor and rules. So I certainly understand the dilemma. Minor action surgeless healing encounter power has already been diagnosed as a problem (see errata on Swordmage Utility 6 Unicorn's Touch that changes it from an encounter power to daily power).

I don't really know if it would be too good to change the power so it triggers second wind as a minor action, no bonus, no penalty (and you would definitely have to ditch any feats that let the gnome do it multiple times). I think it might be on par with the dwarf's second wind as a healing resource. But it still won't be useful on that injured bunny if that's what you're looking for, since bunnies don't have second wind.

 

[Camelot]

Well, these powers are for PC's not for NPC's. Your NPC gnomes can heal at-will if you want, that doesn't really matter too much.

You can think of immediate reaction as kind of like the 5 second rule, if the gnome gets to the wound in 5 seconds, it can be fixed, 6 seconds, and it's too late.

There is always a compromise to be made when balancing flavor and rules. So I certainly understand the dilemma. Minor action surgeless healing encounter power has already been diagnosed as a problem (see errata on Swordmage Utility 6 Unicorn's Touch that changes it from an encounter power to daily power).

I don't really know if it would be too good to change the power so it triggers second wind as a minor action, no bonus, no penalty (and you would definitely have to ditch any feats that let the gnome do it multiple times). I think it might be on par with the dwarf's second wind as a healing resource. But it still won't be useful on that injured bunny if that's what you're looking for, since bunnies don't have second wind.

Well, monsters do have healing surges according the MMs, but they can't activate them on their own. I'd say animals are the same.

Regardless, activating the second wind is a great idea to balance it with dwarves. But since it could be used on any PC instead of just yourself, as a minor action it is a bit more powerful. Would making it a move action make sense, or maybe even a standard action? Or would taking away the bonus to defenses would be better (maybe Defensive Touch could then reallow it)?

 

[Camelot]

What would you say to the following changes:

SOOTHING TOUCH
Change the text of the soothing touch power to the following:

Soothing Touch - Gnome Racial Utility
Your hand glows dimly, and a small wound on you or an ally mends itself with a touch.
Encounter
Standard Action - Melee touch
Target: You or one ally
Requirement: The target must be bloodied.
Effect: The target uses his or her second wind without taking an action. The target does not gain the defense bonus normally granted by second wind.

Granting surgeless hit points is always iffy, and powers that do grant hit points without healing surges should be daily powers or very weak in other areas. The only way outside of powers for a character to grant another hit points is by making a DC 10 Heal check as a standard action. Changing the power to a standard action and requiring the target to use his or her second wind makes this power a better option than making a Heal check (once during an encounter) and puts the power on par with other racial powers such as a dwarf's dwarven resilience.

EXPERT LIGHTBRINGER
Change the text of the benefit of the Expert Lightbringer feat to the following:

The target of your soothing touch power regains additional hit points equal to your Wisdom modifier.

With the change to soothing touch, Expert Lightbringer as it was became severely less useful, since you can now only use the power once on a target during a combat encounter. With this change, it makes the feat useful by giving it a solid bonus.

Defensive Touch should be able to stay as it is, since it grants the same bonus a second wind normally would grant for the same duration (one turn, since you use the power on your turn and it lasts until the start of your next turn).